Author(s): Philip Kaplan

Military

The past 86 years since 1917 have seen the tank develop from a primitive experimental weapon devised to break the deadlock of trench warfare on the Western Front into a fearsomely sophisticated machine designed to dominate the battlefield. Over the same period, tank crews have ceased to be a band of intrepid pioneers and have become an elite arm whose units now boast battle honours ranging from Alamein to Kursk and from Korea to the Sinai.