User:Koakhtzvigad/Anti-tank warfare
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Anti-tank warfare was created by seeking technology and tactics to destroy tanks and their supporting infantry during the First World War. This focus remains at the core of its development for nearly a century. Because the tanks represent enemy's single greatest force projection capability, anti-tank warfare has been incorporated into the doctrine of every combat and combat support arm and service of national armed forces. Development of these doctrines did not mature before the Second World War largely due to uncertainty in the design, and use of the tanks which by then radically changed their design. The predominant anti-tank weapons at the start of the war were the tank-mounted and limbered anti-tank guns, and anti-tank grenades used by the infantry. Anti-tank warfare developed rapidly during the war, particularly on the Eastern Front, to include infantry and infantry support weapons, anti-tank combat engineering, towed anti-tank artillery, tank guns, ground-attack aircraft and self-propelled tank destroyers. During the war both the Red Army and the Wehrmacht developed complex combined-arms methods of combating tank-led tactical and operational offensives, including deployment of static anti-tank weapons in in-depth defensive positions, protected by anti-tank obstacles and minefields, and supported by mobile anti-tank reserves, while cooperating with ground attack aircraft.
With the transition of the Second World War to the Cold War, European countries with large tank fleets were facing the possibility that a nuclear device detonated over an area of tank concentration could significantly diminish national capability in one strike. While technology was developed to protect crews of armoured vehicles from the effects of collateral radiation, same could not be done for all their supporting arms and services on which tanks depend for continued operations. 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 manoeuver was being theoretically examined to understand how the tank-led force could be used even with the threat of limited use of nuclear weapons on the European battlefield. The solution arrived at was maneuver warfare while massively increasing the number of anti-tank weapons to defeat NATO tank forces as rapidly as possible. To achieve this, the Soviet military theorists (such as Vasily Sokolovsky realised that the anti-tank weapons had to assume an offensive (rather than the traditionally defensive role of the Great Patriotic War) by becoming more mobile. This lead to the Soviet development of guided anti-tank missiles, though similar design work was performed in Western Europe and the USA.
Although it was a the French missile that was first successfully used in anti-tank combat - by the Israelis during the Suez Crisis of 1956, the impact of Soviet anti-tank missile tactics was not evident until they were first used during the 1973 attack by the Egyptian and Syrian armies on Israel. The outcome suggested that although the missiles were a threat, they could be countered through combined arms tactics. The volume of fire delivered by the missiles further convinced NATO tank designers to continue their emphasis on increased tank armour, while Soviet designers retained their emphasis on mobility of tank-led forces. The utility of the light anti-tank weapons was however recognised by both sides of the Cold War, and led to further development of both shoulder-launched and man-portable weapons used by the infantry squad, while heavier missiles were mounted on dedicated missile tank-destroyers, including dedicated anti-tank helicopters, and even heavier guided anti-tank missiles launched from aircraft. Also being developed and deployed were new varieties of artillery munitions in the form of top-attack shells, and shells that were used to saturate areas with anti-armour bomblets, while helicopters could rapidly deliver air-scaterable anti-tank mines to create a barrier to a fast-moving tank-led force. Since the end of the Cold War in 1993, the only major new threat to tanks, and other vehicles, has come from the Improvised explosive devices used by insurgents following the start of the Global War on Terror. However, while the tank remains an important part of the national combat capability, anti-tank weapons and tactics continue development to defeat it, as was shown by the 2006 operation in Lebanon. Some anti-tank weapons have also been rediscovered in their Second World War role of infantryman’s ‘artillery’ used to defeat snipers or gain entry to structures. The anti-tank rifle has also returned in its new guise of the anti-materiel rifle.