Changes
Tank
,The years following WWI saw tank development stagnate, with most interest having faded with the memories of the war. However, this was short lived as the 1930s saw a resurgence in weapons R&D Every major country knew that the tank designs of WWI were woefully obsolete and began developing new tanks to meet the challenges of new warfare. Nazi Germany took the lead in the 1930s and developed a series of progressively better tanks. The earliest of these designs were proven woefully inadequate for the battlefield in terms of firepower, protection and mobility. Funtionally, the early models of the Panzer I (intended only as a training vehicle, but used in the Poland and France campaigns due to a shortage of operational tanks) were little better than the French tanks of WWI. The Wehrmacht High Command learned hard lessons that quickly led to substantial design improvements. The German military leadership developed a new kind of warfare that was perfectly suited to the strengths of the tank. German [[Blitzkrieg]] tactics were the first employment of Combined Arms strategy, exploiting the strengths of artillery, infantry, close air support and tanks carefully coordinated together proved devastatingly effective against every standing army and enabled the rapid conquest of [[France]] and the [[Low Countries]] in May-June 1940 and in 1941 helped Nazi Germany push all the way to the edge of [[Moscow]]. Ironically, the Wehrmacht employed a military philosophy originally devised by a [[British]] tactician, Major [[Basil Liddell-Hart]], but ignored by the [[British]] War Office. Tank warfare continued to be a crucial part of the conflict in [[North Africa]], and on the eastern front the [[Battle of Kursk]] in 1943.
Military doctrine on tank design and employment became stagnant in the West following the end of WWII, though designs continued to improve through the early years of the Cold War. The reigning Western philosophy on tank warfare relied on two distinct types to fill separate roles on the battlefield. The first type was a slower, heavy tank equipped with a general purpose main gun and machine-guns for supporting infantry. These were called "Infantry Tanks" by the British and simply "Tanks" by the US. Prime examples would be the British "Matilda I" or US M-4 "Sherman." The second type was fast, light armored tank that carried a powerful, armor-piercing main gun. These were referred to as "Cruiser Tanks" and "Tank Destroyers" by the British and US militaries respectively. The concept of two separate tank types eventually proved impractical for battlefield employment and was effectively already obsolete by the time Germany attacked the USSR in 1941. While both nations continued to produce light (e.g. Pz II Ausf L "Luchs" and BT-7M) and heavy (Pz VI Ausf B/E "Tiger" and JS-1/2/3) tanks until the end of the war, by 1943 both had effectively standardised on relatively mobile tanks with decent armour and an armament capable of destroying most enemy tanks at normal combat ranges; the main types were the Soviet T-34 and T-34/85, and on the German side the later models (Ausf F2 and better) of the Pz IV and then the Pz V "Panther." These designs were the basis of the post-war concept of the Main Battle Tank (MBT.)
The first MBTs to be described as such were developed in the early 1950s and were in widespread service by the early 1960s. The basic idea was that a tank with adequate protection, firepower and mobility could fulfil the roles of both infantry support and tank combat at once. The first generation of MBTs are generally regarded to be the British Centurion, the Soviet T-54 and the German Leopard I. The US Army's M47 Patton (a development of the M26 Pershing heavy infantry tank)was the first American tank designated as an MBT, and served in the Army (in its upgraded M48 and M60 variants) until 1997. Many upgraded M60 tanks are still in service around the world under a diverse range of flags including Egypt, Turkey, Israel and Taiwan to name a few. However the M47/48/60 series did not have particularly good mobility and rapidly became vulnerable to enemy anti-tank systems due to their high profile and simple armour, and most NATO nations regarded them as essentially old-style infantry tanks with a reasonable anti-tank armament. The general view in the British Army (who deployed the equally slow but better armed and armoured Chieftan in the 1960s) and German Bundeswehr is that the first true US Army MBT is the excellent [[M1 Abrams]].
