«Энциклопедия мирового вооружения»

Tank - armored fighting vehicle on tracks, usually with a gun armament as a major.

In the early stages of development of tank development is sometimes produced tanks exclusively by machine-gun armament, and after World War Two experiments were conducted to create a tank with a missile weapon. Known variants of tanks with flamethrower. There is no clear definition of the tank, as their concept varied in different times and had varied in different armies. Tanks of World War I may be unrecognizable at first glance like tanks (eg, Saint-Chamonix), or, for example, a number of specialists Swedish car Strv-103 is classified not as a tank, but as a tank destroyer. Some machines (eg, type 94), which in the Soviet literature referred to as «small tanks,» in Western literature called wedgies. Heavy Assault Tank Tortoise (A39), though called a tank, has a rotary turret, and therefore some experts refers to superheavy ACS.

The main difference between the tank from the other tracked combat vehicles with cannon armament is the ability to quickly shift the fire in a wide range of angles of elevation and horizontal angles. In most cases, this opportunity is realized through the installation of the gun in a rotating turret in the horizontal plane, although there are a few exceptions. Self-propelled artillery unit can be very similar to a tank structurally, but is designed to solve other problems: the destruction of enemy tanks from ambush or fire support to troops from a closed firing position, so it has some differences, especially it concerns the balance of the «firepower / protection.»

Separation of the armored forces in tanks and specialized combat vehicles is a need to highlight the last in a special unit in accordance with applicable military doctrine. For example during WWII in the U.S. Army doctrine existed vozlaganiya role against enemy tanks on the «tank destroyers» (M10 Wolverine, M18 Hellcat) - both were there fighting machines called structurally similar to a light or medium tank with an effective anti-tank weapons. In the Soviet literature as the same machines will be referred to anti-ACS.