The UK Invented The First Tanks. Now It May Retire Them For Good.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/sebastienroblin/2020/09/01/the-uk-invented-the-first-tanks-now-it-may-retire-them-for-good/#6e228ef23633
Over a century ago, as trench warfare imposed a seemingly perpetual blood-soaked stalemate in World War I, a commission in the United Kingdom made military history. It adapted technology from ‘Creeping Grip” treaded tractors imported from Chicago into armored war machines that could negotiate mud-soaked battlefields and trenches, seemingly impervious to bullets and shrapnel, and blast enemies with their own sponson-mounted cannons and machine guns.
These breakdown-prone, rhombus-shaped “land ships” are considered to be the world’s first tanks.
Today, the UK may make history again as an integrated review of defense and foreign policy mulls retiring the British Army’s fleet of Challenger 2 main battle tanks in favor of more funding for satellites and cyber-warfare. That could make the UK potentially the first major military power to give up on the main battle tank entirely.
The fate of the British Army’s armored fighting vehicles is linked to fundamental questions as to what role the UK should play in NATO and future military coalitions.
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