Anti-tank warfare

Anti-tank warfare originated from the need to develop technology and tactics to destroy tanks during World War I. Since the Allies deployed the first tanks in 1916, the German Empire developed the first anti-tank weapons. The first developed anti-tank weapon was a scaled-up bolt-action rifle, the Mauser 1918 T-Gewehr, that fired a 13.2 mm cartridge with a solid bullet that could penetrate the thin armor of tanks of the time and destroy the engine or ricochet inside, killing occupants. Because tanks represent an enemy's strong force projection on land, military strategists have incorporated anti-tank warfare into the doctrine of nearly every combat service since. The most predominant anti-tank weapons at the start of World War II in 1939 included the tank-mounted gun, anti-tank guns and anti-tank grenades used by the infantry, and ground-attack aircraft. Anti-tank warfare evolved rapidly during World War II, leading to the inclusion of infantry-portable weapons such as the Bazooka, anti-tank combat engineering, specialized anti-tank aircraft and self-propelled anti-tank guns (tank destroyers). Both the Soviet Red Army and the German Army developed methods of combating tank-led offensives, including deployment of static anti-tank weapons embedded in in-depth defensive positions, protected by anti-tank obstacles and minefields, and supported by mobile anti-tank reserves and by ground-attack aircraft. Through the Cold War, the United States, Soviet Union and other countries contemplated the possibility of nuclear warfare. While previous technology had developed to protect the crews of armored vehicles from projectiles and from explosive damage, now the possibility of radiation arose. In the NATO countries, little if any development took place on defining a doctrine of how to use armed forces without the use of tactical nuclear weapons. In the Soviet sphere of influence the legacy doctrine of operational maneuver was being theoretically examined to understand how a tank-led force could be used even with the threat of limited use of nuclear weapons on prospective European battlefields.

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