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Super-heavy Tank
A super-heavy tank is any tank that is notably beyond the standard of the class heavy tank in either size or weight relative to contemporary vehicles. Programs have been initiated on several occasions with the aim of creating an extremely resilient vehicle for penetrating enemy formations without fear of being destroyed in combat; however, only a few examples were built, and there is little evidence of any super-heavy tank having seen combat. Examples were designed in the World War I, First and World War II, Second World Wars, along with a few during the Cold War. History First World War file:Flying Elephant - Bovington - 1.jpg, left, Model of the Flying Elephant design, projected to weigh 100 tons The first super-heavy tank was designed by the Russian naval engineer Mendeleev tank, Vasily Mendeleyev who worked on the project from 1911 to 1915. The tank was envisioned to be invulnerable to almost all contemporary threats but remained on paper due to its high construction c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
TOG II
The TOG 2, officially known as the Heavy Tank, TOG II, was a British super-heavy tank design produced during the early stages of World War II for a scenario where the battlefields of northern France and Belgium devolved into a morass of mud, trenches, and craters as had happened during World War I. When this did not happen, the tank was deemed unnecessary, and the project terminated. A development of the TOG I design, only a single prototype was built before its termination. History The second design to come out of the Special Vehicle Development Committee (nicknamed "The Old Gang" as it was made up of people who had worked on the original British tanks of the First World War) the TOG 2 was similar to the TOG 1 and kept many of its features. Instead of the track path arrangement of the TOG 1 which – like that of the First World War British tanks – ran up over the top of the hull and back down, the track path was lower on the return run and the doors were above the tracks ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panzer VIII Maus
''Panzerkampfwagen'' VIII ''Maus'' (English: 'mouse') was a German World War II super-heavy tank completed in July of 1944. As of 2025, it is the heaviest fully enclosed armored fighting vehicle ever built. Five were ordered, but only two hulls and one turret were completed; the turret being attached before the testing grounds were captured by the Soviet military. These two prototypes underwent trials in late 1944. The complete vehicle was long, wide and high. Weighing about 188 metric tons, the Maus's main armament was the Krupp-designed 128 mm KwK 44 L/55 gun, based on the 12.8 cm Pak 44 towed anti-tank gun also used in the casemate-type '' Jagdtiger'' tank destroyer, with a coaxial 75 mm KwK 44 L/36.5 gun. The 128 mm gun was powerful enough to destroy all Allied armored fighting vehicles in service at the time, with some at ranges exceeding . The principal problem in the design of the ''Maus'' was developing an engine and drivetrain powerful enough to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Composite Armour
Composite armour is a type of vehicle armour consisting of layers of different materials such as metals, plastics, ceramics or air. Most composite armours are lighter than their all-metal equivalent, but instead occupy a larger volume for the same resistance to penetration. It is possible to design composite armour stronger, lighter and less voluminous than traditional armour, but the cost is often prohibitively high, restricting its use to especially vulnerable parts of a vehicle. Its primary purpose is to help defeat high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) projectiles. HEAT had posed a serious threat to armoured vehicles since its introduction in World War II. Lightweight and small, HEAT projectiles could nevertheless penetrate hundreds of millimetres of the most resistant rolled homogeneous armour, steel armours. The capability of most materials for defeating HEAT follows the "density law", which states that the penetration of shaped charge jets is proportional to the square root of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rolled Homogeneous Armour
Rolled homogeneous armour (RHA) is a type of vehicle armour made of a single steel composition hot-rolled to improve its material characteristics, as opposed to layered or cemented armour. Its first common application was in tanks. After World War II, it began to fall out of use on main battle tanks and other armoured fighting vehicles intended to see front-line combat as new anti-tank weapon technologies were developed which were capable of relatively easily penetrating rolled homogeneous armour plating even of significant thickness. Today, the term is primarily used as a unit of measurement of the protection offered by armour on a vehicle (often composed of materials that may not actually contain steel, or even contain any metals) in equivalent ''millimetres of RHA'', referring to the thickness of RHA that would provide the same protection. Typically, modern composite armour can provide the same amount of protection with much thinner and lighter construction than its protective ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
M103 (heavy Tank)
The M103 heavy tank (officially designated 120mm gun combat tank M103, initially T43) was a heavy tank that served in the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps during the Cold War. Introduced in 1957, it served until 1974, by which time evolution of the concept of a main battle tank considered heavy tanks obsolete. Design and development In December 1950, the U.S. Army made blueprints for a heavy tank reference design. In January 1951, it awarded Chrysler a $99 million contract to produce the tank. Chrysler tasked Robert T. Keller, the son of Chrysler Board Chairman K.T. Keller, with overseeing its design, and construction at the company's new Newark, Delaware, Newark Assembly, tank plant. The first T43 pilot model was completed in November 1951. Officials said the tank would "out-slug any land-fighting machine ever built." Like the contemporary British Conqueror tank, Conqueror, the M103 was designed to counter Soviet Union, Soviet heavy tanks, such as the l ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Main Battle Tank
A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank or simply tank,Ogorkiewicz 2018 p222 is a tank that fills the role of armour-protected direct fire and maneuver in many modern armies. Cold War-era development of more powerful engines, better suspension systems and lighter composite armour allowed for the design of a tank that had the firepower of a super-heavy tank, the armour protection of a heavy tank, and the mobility of a light tank, in a package with the weight of a medium tank. The first ''designated'' MBT was the British Chieftain (tank), Chieftain tank, which during its development in the 1950s was re-designed as an MBT. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the MBT replaced almost all other types of tanks, leaving only some specialist roles to be filled by lighter designs or other types of armoured fighting vehicles. Main battle tanks are a key component of modern armies.Main battle tank#House1984, House (1984), ''Toward Combined Arms Warfare: A Surve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Conqueror (tank)
The FV 214 Conqueror, also known as tank, heavy No. 1, 120 mm gun, Conqueror was a British heavy tank of the post-World War II era. It was developed as a response to the Soviet IS-3 (tank), IS-3 heavy tank. The Conqueror's main armament, an L1 120 mm gun,Conqueror (tank)#Ford, World's Great Tanks, Ford, World's Great Tanks, p. 119 was larger than the Ordnance QF 20 pounder, 20-pounder (83.4 mm) gun carried by its peer, the Centurion tank, Centurion. The Conqueror's role was to provide long range anti-tank support for the Centurion. Nine Conquerors were issued for each regiment in Germany, usually grouped in three tank troops. In the British Army both the Conqueror and the Centurion were replaced by the Chieftain (tank), Chieftain. Background The Conqueror's origins trace back to the initiation of the A 45 program in 1944, for a heavy infantry tank to complement the A 41. This new design was to be based on that of the A 41, sharing as many co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Object 279
The Obiekt 279, or Object 279, (Объект 279) was a Soviet experimental heavy tank developed at the end of 1959. This special purpose tank was intended to fight on cross country terrain, inaccessible to conventional tanks, acting as a heavy breakthrough tank. It was planned as a tank of the Supreme Command Reserve. Design The tank was developed at the Kirov Plant in Leningrad by a group headed by engineer L. Troyanov. The work on the tank started in 1957, which was based on a heavy tank operational requirements developed in 1956, and a pre-production tank was completed at the end of 1959. This tank boasted increased cross-country capability; it featured forty seven-track running gear mounted on two longitudinal, rectangular hollow beams, which were also used as fuel tanks. The tank suspension was hydro-pneumatic with complex hydrotransformer (also known as torque converter) and three-speed planetary gearbox. The track adjuster was worm-type. The specific ground pressure o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panther Tank
The Panther tank, officially ''Panzerkampfwagen V Panther'' (abbreviated Pz.Kpfw. V) with Sonderkraftfahrzeug, ordnance inventory designation: ''Sd.Kfz.'' 171, is a German medium tank of World War II. It was used in most European theatre of World War II, European theatres of World War II from mid-1943 to the end of the war in May 1945. The Panther was intended to counter the Soviet T-34 medium tank and to replace the Panzer III and Panzer IV. Nevertheless, it served alongside the Panzer IV and the heavier Tiger I until the end of the war. While having essentially the same Maybach V12 petrol (690 hp) engine as the Tiger I, the Panther had better gun penetration, was lighter and faster, and could traverse rough terrain better than the Tiger I. The trade-off was weaker side armour, which made it vulnerable to flanking fire, and a weaker high explosive shell. The Panther proved to be effective in open country and long-range engagements. The Panther had excellent firepower, p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Panzer IV
The IV (Pz.Kpfw. IV), commonly known as the Panzer IV, is a German medium tank developed in the late 1930s and used extensively during the Second World War. Its ordnance inventory designation was Sd.Kfz. 161. The Panzer IV was the most numerous German tank and the second-most numerous German fully tracked armoured fighting vehicle of the Second World War; 8,553 Panzer IVs of all versions were built during World War II, only exceeded by the StuG III assault gun with 10,086 vehicles. Its chassis was also used as the base for many other fighting vehicles, including the assault gun, the self-propelled anti-tank gun, the and self-propelled anti-aircraft gun, and the self-propelled gun. The Panzer IV saw service in all combat theatres involving Germany and was the only German tank to remain in continuous production throughout the war. The Panzer IV was originally designed for infantry support, while the similar Panzer III was to fight armoured fighting vehicles. However, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tiger II
The Tiger II was a Nazi Germany, German heavy tank of the World War II, Second World War. The final official German designation was ''Panzerkampfwagen'' Tiger ''Ausf''. B, often shortened to Tiger B.Jentz and Doyle 1993, p. 16. The ordnance inventory designation was ''List of Sd.Kfz. designations, Sd.Kfz.'' 182. (''Sd.Kfz.'' 267 and 268 for command vehicles). It was also known informally as the ''Königstiger'' (German language, German for Bengal tiger, ). Contemporaneous Allied forces (World War II), Allied soldiers often called it the King Tiger or Royal Tiger. The Tiger II was the successor to the Tiger I, combining the latter's thick armour with the armour sloping used on the Panther tank, Panther medium tank. It was the costliest German tank to produce at the time. The tank weighed almost 70 tonnes and was protected by of armour to the front. It was armed with the long barrelled (71 calibres) 8.8 cm KwK 43 anti-tank cannon. The chassis was also the basis for the ''Jagdtiger ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
