page_title: Tank
section_title: Tactical mobility
hierarchical_section_title: Tank / Design / Mobility / Tactical mobility
caption_attribution_description: English: M1A1 Abrams practicing an offloading from amphibious craft.
context_page_description: A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle designed for front-line combat. Tanks have heavy firepower, strong armour, and good battlefield manoeuvrability provided by tracks and a powerful engine; usually their main armament is mounted in a turret. They are a mainstay of modern 20th and 21st century ground forces and a key part of combined arms combat.
  Modern tanks are versatile mobile land weapon system platforms that have a mounted large-calibre cannon called tank gun in a rotating gun turret supplemented by mounted machine guns or other weapons such as anti-tank guided missiles or rockets. They have heavy vehicle armour which provides protection for the crew, the vehicle's weapons and propulsion systems. The use of tracks rather than wheels provides operational mobility which allows the tank to move over rugged terrain and counter adverse conditions such as mud. These features enable the tank to perform well in a variety of intense combat situations, simultaneously both offensively and defensively. Fully integrating tanks into modern military forces spawned a new era of combat: armoured warfare.
context_section_description: Tank agility is a function of the weight of the tank due to its inertia while manoeuvring and its ground pressure, the power output of the installed power plant and the tank transmission and track design. In addition, rough terrain effectively limits the tank's speed through the stress it puts on the suspension and the crew. A breakthrough in this area was achieved during World War II when improved suspension systems were developed that allowed better cross-country performance and limited firing on the move. Systems like the earlier Christie or later torsion-bar suspension developed by Ferdinand Porsche dramatically improved the tank's cross-country performance and overall mobility.
  Tanks are highly mobile and able to travel over most types of terrain due to their continuous tracks and advanced suspension. The tracks disperse the weight of the vehicle over a large area, resulting in less ground pressure. A tank can travel at approximately 40 kilometres per hour (25 mph) across flat terrain and up to 70 kilometres per hour (43 mph) on roads, but due to the mechanical strain this places on the vehicle and the logistical strain on fuel delivery and tank maintenance, these must be considered "burst" speeds that invite mechanical failure of engine and transmission systems. Consequently, wheeled tank transporters and rail infrastructure is used wherever possible for long-distance tank transport. The limitations of long-range tank mobility can be viewed in sharp contrast to that of wheeled armoured fighting vehicles. The majority of blitzkrieg operations were conducted at the pedestrian pace of 5 kilometres per hour (3.1 mph), and that was only achieved on the roads of France.
  The tank's power plant supplies kinetic energy to move the tank, and electric power via a generator to components such as the turret rotation motors and the tank's electronic systems. The tank power plant has evolved from predominantly petrol and adapted large-displacement aeronautical or automotive engines during World Wars I and II, through diesel engines to advanced multi-fuel diesel engines, and powerful (per unit weight) but fuel-hungry gas turbines in the T-80 and M1 Abrams.
caption: M1 Abrams offloading from Landing Craft Air Cushioned vehicle.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "030212-N-5319A-002\rCentral Command Area Of Responsibility (Feb. 12, 2003)-- A Landing Craft Air Cushioned (LCAC) from USS Tarawa (LHA 1) Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) off-loads a M1-A1 Abrams Tank on a cement parking pad for future operations. USS Tarawa Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) uses LCAC and other conventional landing craft and helicopters to move Marine assault forces ashore. Tarawa is currently forward deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer's Mate 1st Class Brien Aho.  (RELEASED)", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "1904:01:27 06:29:22", "Image Artist": "PH1 Brien Aho", "Image ExifOffset": "732", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "868", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3751", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2000", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1312"}