A general overview of WW2 Tank development

Although WW1 set the foundation for tank development, it was WW2 that provided rapid innovation for much of the 20th century. Here is an overview of which of the Big 4 in WW2 had going in development and use.

 

Britain

The U.K. mostly stuck to the old WW1 doctrine of having 2 distinct classes of tank: Infantry tanks and Cruiser tanks.Infantry tanks were slow, but were heavily armored and armed, designed to open up holes in the enemy line. Meanwhile, Cruiser tanks were fast but lightly armored and often times lightly armed, their job was to replace cavalry and exploit any weaknesses opened up by the Infantry tanks. Aside from a few imports from the U.S., the U.K. had no actual scout tanks, most of their light tanks were built as Cruiser tanks.

Here are several examples of British tanks used during WW2 (more tanks can be found here: http://tanks.net/british-world-war-two-tanks/index.html):

Matilda II Infantry Tank

 

 Crusader, these were Cruiser tanks

Churchill Mk IV

 

Cromwell, this was a Cruiser tank

Germany

There isn’t much to say about Germany, aside from the fact that they saved some of their war-time resources by reusing their old Panzer I-III hulls as assault guns, tank destroyers, and self propelled guns. German innovation was extensive and effective–especially in the gun department–but the main thing that sunk them was that their new developments were often resource inefficient to construct and operate (with exception to the assault guns), this certainly did not help when Germany was blockaded. However, whatever they did build often performed very well, (with the exception of the Panther, more on that in a future post)

(More tanks here and on Wikipedia: http://tanks.net/german-world-war-two-tanks/index.html)

Because Germany produced so many tanks, here are just a couple of examples of German engineering:

A StuG III, StuG is short for Sturmgeschutz III, with the III denoting that the vehicle was built on the Panzer III hull.

Panzerkampfwagen IV Ausf. H or Panzer IV H, Ausf H is the variant of the Panzer IV, utilizing Schurzen skirts, a form of spaced armor that provides protection against High Explosive Rounds.

 

A Tiger I, the boogyman of the Allies, this particular Tiger numbered 131 is the last fully operational Tiger tank in the world.

USA

The United States were a bit behind when in the tank department, but when they entered the war they produced tanks in vast numbers that could reliably hit targets while on the move, and were equipped with dual use armaments. A lot of their tanks were issued to the Allies under Lend-Lease.

Be warned that there are a lot of myths surrounding U.S. tanks, will elaborate later.

(More tanks here and on Wikipedia: http://tanks.net/american-world-war-ii-tanks/index.html)

The U.S. was particularly specialized in light and medium tanks, such as these two little beauties.

M4A1 Sherman, equipped with the 76mm gun instead of the standard 75mm

M5A1 Stuart Light Tank

Soviet Union

Vastly underestimated by their German foes, the Soviet Union was a major player in tank warfare, their designs are crude, simple, yet effective…and could be produced in numbers rivaling U.S. Tank production. The Soviet Union’s tanks can easily be identified from which factory each individual tank came from due to small tiny variations in the tank’s construction.

(Other Soviet Tanks can be found here:http://tanks.net/soviet-union-world-war-two-tanks/index.html or on Wikipedia)

Here are 3 examples of Soviet tanks (we might talk about some of these later):

The Legendary T-34, this particular variant is from 1943 and has a hexagonal turret instead of the original, wearing the symbol of the Polish Tank Corps

KV-1 Heavy Tank, KV stands for Kliment Voroshilov, the defense commissar and one of the original 5 marshals of the Soviet Union

An IS-2M Heavy Tank, the IS tank series was named after Iosef Stalin, aka Josef Stalin

 

 

 

Sources used:

http://tanks.net/tank-history/tank-development-world-war-two.html

http://ww2-germanarmy.conceptbb.com/t119-sdkfz-161-panzerkampfwagen-iv

Images used from Wikipedia