Tanks of the interwar period

This article discusses tanks of the interwar period.

World War I established the validity of the tank concept and between the two world wars, many nations needed to have tanks, but only a few had the industrial resources to design and build them. During and after World War I, Britain and France were the intellectual leaders in tank design, with other countries generally following and adopting their designs. This early lead would be gradually lost during the course of the 1930s to the Soviet Union and, to a lesser extent, Nazi Germany.

The final tank designs of 1918 showed a number of trends. The joint US and British Mark VIII tank was supposed to be a common heavy tank design for them and the French. The design should have overcome the limitations of the earlier British heavy tanks. The 34-foot-long (10 m), 37-ton armored vehicle was powered by a 300-hp (224 kW) V-12 engine and capable of 7 mph (11 km/h) cross-country. Although 100 were built, it was the much smaller Renault FT that set the pattern for almost all tanks that followed it; these tanks generally had lower track profiles and more compact hulls, and mounted their weapons in turrets.

Worldwide, many sizes of tank were considered, and much of the development effort went into light tanks that were useful primarily against infantry or for colonial police-type work. The worldwide economic difficulties of the 1920s and 1930s led to an increased emphasis on light tanks as they were much cheaper to produce than medium or heavy tanks. However, the Spanish Civil War showed that tank-versus-tank engagements and tank-versus-towed antitank gun engagements would now be a major consideration for the future of tank warfare. It became clear that tanks would need to be heavily armoured and carry larger guns. Tank shape, previously guided purely by considerations of obstacle clearance, now became a trade-off between a low profile, desirable for stealth, and weight savings.

In Britain, a great deal of study on the future of tank warfare was carried out, and there were some differences. Whilst both J.F.C. Fuller and Basil Liddell Hart foresaw a war where all arms, infantry, tanks and artillery, would be mechanised, Fuller's theories looked at all-arms formations with artillery, infantry and military engineers mounted on similar vehicles to keep pace with the tanks. He foresaw armies using heavy all-arms formations to break through opponents defences, allowing lighter, faster units to make rapid advances, thereby not allowing the enemy to re-establish any defences. Liddell Hart considered that armoured vehicles would carry their own supporting infantry, in much the same way as modern warships carry their own marine detachments; he also proposed using indirect attack, effectively going around any defences. During the 1930s the British Army established the Experimental Mechanized Force, to test these theories and look at the basic problems of managing, controlling and commanding all arms formations, including the use of aircraft. Many of the units involved in this force were posted to North Africa, where their experience played a major part in the British success in the East African Campaign and General Wavell's initial successes in the Western Desert campaign. The British used three classes of tank: the 'Infantry', for supporting the infantry; the 'Cruiser', for fast moving encounter battles and reconnaissance; and the light tank, for reconnaissance, escort and internal security.

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