Why I love Tanks

 

Tanks were always fascinating me since childhood. my father and I watched tanks all day long. he tells me stories about tanks, cricket, and the Indian Army. Even though my hobbies are cricket and chess, I love the army and I want to become a tank commander.

I watched hours and hours of tank footage .my personal favourite tank is T34. I know most of the things about tanks but, not everything, I know how they move, shoot and what are the things to be a commander and how hard it is .T34 remains in my heart and mind.

I went to a tank museum in Ahmednagar and from there, my tank story started. I was scared at the first time as I thought they might shoot me, then a while after I was loving tanks a lot and so I could write about them.

Tanks play an important role in my life by telling me some good things, “you never know what is next “as tank commanders don’t know what is behind something. tank commanders is a hard task because they never what is there hiding.

 

A)      Tanks of India

India had a lot of tanks in our history, these are some of them –

 

1)      Centurion- Centurion is a British origin tank and our first tank after independence. this tank was bought around our independence

2)      T54/T55 – A soviet Originated tank and was one of our first main battle tanks (MBT). It was first bought in 1949. we can see many of these around, I have seen them in Pune, and on alibag beach. In the name, the “T” stands for the tank and the “number” after that stands for the year its development was started

3)      T72 – Was inducted in 1972 from USSR, it was an upgraded version of T55 and is still in service of the army. T72 was the idea behind India’s first Indigenous tank Vijayant.

Vijayant means victories.

Capt. Viayanta Thapar’s name is given from him on this tank name by his father Colonel Thapar who was a tank commander.

 

4)      Arjun MK1 and MK2 – Arjun is our latest Indigenous MBT and the most advance. Arjun’s name is derived from Mahabharata who always had a focus on the target.

 

5)      T-90(Bhisma)- T90 is one of the most advanced tanks in the world ranking in the top 3. This state of art tank full of firepower was built by Russia and is a generation 4 tank.

 

B)      About Tanks in our History

 

“Tank” is a random name given by the British to hide a new advanced weapon of that time(World War I). The first tank in the world was a Mark 1 From the British, it was a big fat metal machine that would carry people across the trenches and some machine guns mounted on the sides.

If we try to translate ‘Tank’ in german on google it will translate it to ‘Panzer’ but it does not translate or mean a tank but it means ‘Armor’.

 

A tank is meant for ground combat. the tank is stronger than guns, as it has strong armor the bullets can’t go through the metal sheet.

It is strong and its main gun can destroy bunkers or hiding places where people can hide and attack. It can destroy enemy tanks and move inside the battleground at fast speeds.

The tanks are designed for strong armor and a turret gun ( the main armament is called a turret gun). this gun is refilled or smooth bore. I got to know this when I visited a fair from a shell factory in Pune where I even got to touch the armament.

Refilled gun the shell goes out in a rotating fashion like a bullet in the rifle and in a smooth bore it goes out like that.

 

I would take 2 famous tanks of WW2 as an example and tell about Axis and Allied forces.

 

Axis Forces- The countries which want to grow their land by war and destroy others who come to war with them –(Germany, Italy, Japan)

Allied Forces - The countries which were trying to stop the axis forces (Britain, France, USA, USSR)

 

Tiger-1 A strong tank made in and for Germany In WW2 .it was the best tank of the war with strong armor and a devastating turret gun that destroyed what came in its way .it destroyed allied tanks like a piece of cake, there were some tanks which were trouble for it but one good shot and it is done .there was a thing called sweet spot where the german would aim and hit ( a sweet spot is a spot where there is less armor).tiger tank was evolved from panzer 5, but there was tank storage and the main foe of the tiger 1 the tank was called T34 and it emerged in 1943 when Germany attacked USSR.

 

T34-The tank become the biggest foe of the strongest tank in the world at that time, it was a scary tank but not for T34.T34 with stronger armor and turret gun that would crush the german tanks. It destroyed a company of panzers singlehandedly ( company = collective noun. a company has 12-18 tanks ).

The mightly tiger tank which use to hunt tanks was then hunted to death by T34, as it was fast and more agile than other tanks, it was like a fast hunting machine against the german army.

The red army saw what it could do and it was added to the east and western frontlines.

(west front -Germany, east front – Japan).it is the deadliest tank to date.

 

That’s all my love for tanks they are not just machines but my emotions.

 

Thank you

 

Samarveer Shinde

6^th E

Bhukum Campus