Why were tanks essential to wwII warfare?
Tanks in WWII played a huge role in the battles, fought mostly throughout France and Europe. One of these infamous bloody battles, was the battles in the Ardennes, otherwise known as the Battle of the Bulge. This chain of battles was named this because of how the allied forces bulged westward during this last-ditch attack by the Germans. Without the use of these tanks, the allies wouldn't have been able to hold key supply routes from the axis, and protect their own routes. For that reason, the allies were able to send in reinforcements, including even more tanks.
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Tanks were huge metal walls. Soldiers in WWII would be able to hide behind these behemoths, and avoid heavy machine gun fire, while advancing. This is actually depicted in the 2014 movie "Fury". To ensure that the tanks would be powerful, they were equipped with all terrain capabilities, in the form of tracks. They were also fitted with over 3 inches of solid iron and steel plating in the front. Unfortunately for the Americans, the main tank, the M4 Sherman (Right), had very little plating on the back and sides, so soldiers could be seen welding plates onto their tank, to increase protection. Without these improvements to the tanks, and their barbaric size, many more soldiers of both sides would have died. Sadly, both the Allies and the Axis had ways of taking out the tanks. The German's weapon of choice was typically the panzerschrek. The Allies, on the other hand, used the well-known bazooka.
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How did they do what they did?
Tanks were getting bigger and bigger guns. This capped out with the German Tiger 1 (Right). Tigers were equipped with 88mm cannons, and were often stocked with armor piercing and incendiary rounds, making the Tiger, the most dangerous, and feared tank on the battlefield. They were fitted with over 4 inches of steel plating in the front, 3 inches on the sides, and 3 inches on the back. The only way to take one of these tanks down, was to damage the turret and cannon beyond working order, or repeatedly firing upon the back, where the fuel tank and track motors were. Shermans (Above), were no match for their power. Tigers were powerful, and almost unstoppable. Seems like they would win the war for the Axis, right? Well, the tanks themselves were burning a lot of gas, and took a lot more time and money to produce. Allies, using the Sherman, were able to mass produce them, and made them light, which burned less fuel, allowing them to overwhelm the Tigers.
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Tanks also sported front-mounted .50 caliber Browning machine guns, (Far left), with thick glass slits, so that one member of the crew could act as a gunner, to keep large groups of Axis at bay, or to use against ground troops to conserve the larger caliber rounds. Often, these machine gun's ammo belts had a "tracer" round every 10 rounds. These gave the gunner a way to gauge where he was firing. They were also equipped with barrel-mounted machine guns, (Left) in much the same fashion. Different only in their positioning on the tank. Barrel mounted machine guns are mounted to the turret, and the front-mounted machine guns are pushed through a large metal ball in the front of the tank. In large groups, combined, these can be terrifying to the enemy side. (Bottom left)
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Edward R.
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