1916 debut
A type is born.
Darker cells mean a higher score for this topic on that metric.
Scale50
Intensity45
Duration78
Tech shift80
Political impact48
Cultural memory70
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Last reviewed Sources & creditsMedia creditsMethodology
Quick answers
Are the scores a ranking of nations or armies?
No. Scores are browsing aids inside an era-bounded atlas — not live league tables of countries.
Who "invented" it?
A British committee (Swinton, Tritton, Wilson and others) and parallel French work. There is no single Edison. The cover name came from industrial disguise.
Did tanks win the First World War?
They helped in 1918 combined arms. They did not win alone. Mechanical failure was common in 1916-17.
What is an MBT?
A Cold War idea that one "main" tank should replace light/medium/heavy splits. Centurion and T-54 are early exhibits.
Are tanks obsolete?
A headline since 1918, 1973, and the 2020s. History shows adaptation, not a funeral -- and this page will not umpire a current war.
How does Korea fit?
T-34s in 1950; then a ROK armour force and K1/K2 industry. See also the ROK military and Hanwha pages.
A century of staff argument about protected mobility.
A word -- tank -- that left the factory and entered politics ("tankie").
Lessons
FT layout
A century's silhouette.
1973 missile shock
A staff-college date.
Keep the cost as a range
not a war -- a system; human cost is in the wars that used it Tank is not improved by a fake precise integer.
Memory is national
US/UK/AU/CA rites and the memory of From the Somme to every later armoured front will not match. Name the difference when teaching Tank.
Unresolved
Census still a band
"not a war -- a system; human cost is in the wars that used it" remains a band. New archives refine Tank; they do not un-happen 1916-present (as a type).
Archives uneven
Files on Tank remain unevenly open across From the Somme to every later armoured front. Mikhail Koshkin's paper trail is not the same as Ernest Swinton's.
K2 Black Panther
ROK late type -- an industrial fact.
Teaching hours
English classroom hours on Tank still disagree with hours in From the Somme to every later armoured front. Is this a how-to? is often the gap.
Shifts
Invention
1916-18: Rhomboids to FT.
Industrial peak
1939-45: T-34, Sherman, Panther.
Questioned type
After 1991: Headlines vs inventories.
Afterlife of the name
Tank left institutions and stories that outlasted 1916-present (as a type). Ernest Swinton became a caption; From the Somme to every later armoured front kept the rubble or the letterhead.
Outlook
Scholarship
New archives will refine Tank (Early WWII, Late Cold War MBT) without un-happening 1916-present (as a type).
Memory handover
As witnesses die, museums and film carry Tank. J. F. C. Fuller and Heinz Guderian will keep being recast.
This atlas
Tank stays a historical file -- type history, not a live order of battle or a method.
Risk
type still in inventories
The tank as a historical type is ongoing. This page's risk is being misread as a manual -- it is not -- and hobby myth (Tigers) crowding 1916 and 1950.
Rheinmetall and Hanwha are the cousin industrial files.
The type will be declared dead again; read the date on the headline.