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[[quoteright:300:[[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rattesmall_7722.jpg]]]]
[-[[caption-width-right:300:Who cares if it'd [[RealityEnsues sink into the ground on everything but highways, couldn't be transported on any railway in existence, require dozens of recovery vehicles to tow it, suffer frequent breakdowns in the field and require specialised repair workshops to be constructed around it, need a complete maintenance overhaul every few kilometres, cost as much per-unit to produce and maintain as fifty regular tanks, and be disabled]] ([[NighInvulnerable though not destroyed outright]]) by regular weaponry? [[BiggerIsBetter It's huge, so it kicks ass.]][[note]]The Landkreuzer P-1000 Ratte, planned by the Nazis in WWII.[[/note]]]]-]
->"''Yea verily, though [[AsTheGoodBookSays I charge through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil,]] for I am driving a house-sized mass of '''[[PrecisionFStrike fuck you.]]'''''"
-->-- '''Anonymous [[CommandAndConquer Mammoth Tank]] crewman''', ''FanFic/TiberiumWars''
In large modern warfare engagements, infantry may as well be CannonFodder. You want something that can HoldTheLine. Something with a {{BFG}} and/or {{MoreDakka}}, crawler treads and (literal) tonnes of armor. You want a tank.
RealLife tanks have large cannons to take on other tanks and fortifications, and (usually) secondary weapons to deal with infantry or aircraft. In fiction and reality, other tanks may use anti-infantry or [[AntiAir anti-aircraft]] weapons instead of cannons. [[labelnote:***]]These do exist in RealLife, but they're not called tanks. To make the distinction even more difficult, many of these are based on existing tank chassis, so they look like tanks that have had their turrets swapped out. Cue [[TanksButNoTanks journalists and the general public calling them "tanks" anyway]].[[/labelnote]] The tank's size and mobility [[CarFu may also be used as a weapon]] to crush people, cars, and walls. The armor is thick enough to stop small arms fire, most of it in the front, with the weakest areas being the rear, bottom and top. Expect enemies to take advantage of this ForMassiveDamage.
Of course, the above paragraph refers to tanks around the size of today's main battle tanks. Sometimes that's not enough. [+[[BiggerIsBetter They need to be bigger!]] Big enough to crush the ''other tanks''! [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill And carry loads of weapons!]] [[MultiTrackDrifting While racing donuts around them!]] No, we're not compensating for anything!+]
Other armored fighting vehicles, like [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier armored personnel carriers]], self-propelled artillery and tank destroyers may be called tanks. [[TanksButNoTanks They're not. Don't be fooled!]] Likewise, don't listen to the [[CrazyAwesome deranged lunatics]] who keep wanting to [[WalkingTank put legs on them]]. [[ItWillNeverCatchOn Ridiculously impractical, that.]]
Related to CoolCar, CoolBike, CoolTrain, BaseOnWheels, and other vehicle/warfare tropes--this is basically CoolTank. Has nothing to do with {{Shorttank}}, which makes you say TankGoodness in a completely different way. Also has nothing to do with playing a damage-sponge character in an {{MMORPG}}, or with the oxygen storage unit strapped to the back of a SCUBA diver.
For armed tank-like vehicles, which have legs instead of good ol' treads, see WalkingTank. For ones which [[PowerFloats float]], see HoverTank. For ones that can travel underground, see DrillTank. When the military geniuses of the world finally realize there is no firepower like battleship firepower, one may witnesses the ultimate tanks: [[MilitaryMashupMachine Land Battleships.]] For when things in video games (such as people) act like tanks when they shouldn't, see {{Tank Controls}}. [[SapientTank Sapient Tanks]] can think for themselves.
When tanks are useless in media, see TanksForNothing. For inaccuracies with armoured vehicles, historical and otherwise, see TanksButNoTanks.
If you looked up Mechanized Infantry and expected to see a giant robot with a gun, try looking up RealRobot instead. For [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_locomotive tank engines]] like ThomasTheTankEngine, see CoolTrain.
[[folder:Anime and Manga]]
* Guntanks from ''Anime/MobileSuitGundam'' were the secret weapons of the earth forces, more or less, and bridged the gap between mobile suits and mobile armor. Guntank descendants also pop up in ''ZetaGundam'' (Guntank II), ''GundamUnicorn'' (Loto) and ''GundamF91'' (Guntank [=R44=]).
** Gundam also uses [[MilitaryMashupMachine Land Battleships]] in many continuities.
** Oh, and we can't forget the Magella Attack, a tank with a turret(Magella Top) that can detach and become a flying hovercraft.[[spoiler:that can only fly for less than 5 minutes and often find the Magella Bottom destroyed by enemy fire since it was unprotected and with minimal armament with its 3 barrel 30mm gatlings and crash for running out of fuel]]
*** Or wielded as an [[ArmorPiercingAttack anti-armor]] [[{{BFG}} cannon]] by a mobile suit.[[spoiler:what can you do with the ones that crashed other than this?]]
*** Zeon also rigged together wrecked Zakus and Magella Botton chassis to form the Zaku Tank. Sometimes just used as a construction machine, sometimes as an actual fighting vehicle.
** Don't forget the good'o Type 61, with its double 150/155mm cannons, got its own CrowningMomentOfAwesome in MS Igloo 2, King of Ground battles.
** Speaking of Igloo, the Hidolfr pretty much epitomizes the top quote from this page. Just one of these [[BiggerIsBetter 220 Metric ton]], super-heavy-armored, semi-transforming behemoths with a [[LightningBruiser top speed of 110km/hr]] is a match for about six Zakus ''and'' their artillery support.
** In the Alternate Universes, we have the Tragos (''GundamWing'', also a HoverTank), Daughtress Tank (''[[Anime/AfterWarGundamX Gundam X]]''), [=ZuOOT=]/[=GaZuOOT=] and, Linear Tank (with its hexagonal INNER barrel; railguns don't need rifling, after all), and in a sense, the [=BuCUE=] and [=LaGOWE=] (''GundamSEED'') and Union Realdo Hover Tank (''{{Gundam 00}}'').
*** The Earth Alliance's [=Zamza-Za=] Mobile Armor from ''GundamSEEDDestiny''. The [[SpiderTank Gells-Ghe (the half-spider/half strike dagger)]] and [[WalkingTank one of the Destroy's forms]] count as well.
* The minitank ''Bonaparte'' from Masamune Shirow's ''DominionTankPolice'' manga is a partial Aversion. The whole police force uses tanks and the Bonaparte is the smallest one, and has the lightest weaponry. But it pulls its share of the workload partially because of its small size (it can go places the others cannot), and because its driver is a little crazed.
** ''Bonaparte'' was made from the salvaged remains of a larger tank, Squad Leader Britain's Tank Special. It was the only tank on the force made from steel instead of bioplastic.
* In the "Cannon Fodder" segment of ''Memories'' there's an entire city that is effectively one gigantic tank. It sports many, many turrets of all sizes built into its structure and creeps slowly through the desert on treads. The biggest turrets have entire work-crews loading and firing automobile-sized shells but only get off a few shots per day. They appear to be at war with a similar city-tank, though it's never seen on screen.
* ''SouthernCross'' (a.k.a. the "Masters" arc of ''{{Robotech}}'') had the Spartas Hovertanks, which could [[TransformingMecha transform]] into HumongousMecha and Walking Tank modes.
* ''ThoseWhoHuntElves'' has a tank possessed by the spirit of a cat. Whole towns are devastated when it spots a mouse.
* ''PumpkinScissors'' has a number of tanks. Too bad [[spoiler: none of them can stand up to one guy and his handgun... ]]
* ''SpaceThunderKids'' shows that one can never have enough tanks. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voaK8wL3vz4 Now to destroy them to victory!]]
* ''Manga/DesertPunk'' features the massive tank Fire Dragon Kong. It was the most dangerous machine in the desert, but Desert Punk managed to beat it by shooting a rock structure down on it, then the Machine Gun Brothers shot it until they hit the gas tank and it exploded. Until then, it was pretty freaking deadly.
* During [[spoiler:Mustang's coup d'etat]] in ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'', one of the military men, while commenting on the opposition's fighting power, remarks that it's not like they have ''tanks''. [[TemptingFate Guess what shows up a few panels later.]]
** Earlier in the series, [[FourStarBadass Maj. General Armstrong]] used a tank to repel Sloth, driving it into a ''freight elevator'', then down a narrow corridor, nearly crushing the Elrics in the process.
* At the beginning of ''Manga/VenusWars'', Ishtar invades the Aphrodian capital, Io, using parachuting Superheavy tanks.
* ''FutureWar198X'' has an awesome (and fairly accurate) huge tank battles on the North German Plains.
* In later light novels of ''LightNovel/ZeroNoTsukaima'', Saito obtains a King Tiger II tank from second world war.
* In the ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'' manga, Skuld builds a tank for a [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill rubber band fight.]]
* ''TheThirdTheGirlWithTheBlueEye'' features Bogie, a cool tank designed for desert travel, with an onboard [[ArtificialIntelligence A.I.]] and MoreDakka than you can shake a stick at.
** ''And'' storage space for a PoweredArmor.
* ''{{Joshiraku}}'' may be a slice of life show about rakugo performers, but in the opening credits the main characters are shown riding on top of a [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_61 Type 61 tank.]]
* ''Anime/GirlsUndPanzer'' is all about high-school girls who drive tanks, in particular those made during WorldWarII. The school team consists of a Panzer IV, a Pz.38(t), M3 Lee, a [=StuG-III=], and [[TheAllegedCar Type 89 I-Go]]. Other schools have Churchills, Matildas, Shermans, Tigers, Panzer III, T-34/76, T-34-85, IS-2, KV-2, Elefant, [=JagdTiger=], Panther, and [[spoiler: Kuromorimine takes the cake with a goddamned Maus]]. There's a reason why it's popularly called ''[[FanNickname World of Tanks: The Anime]]''.
[[folder:Comic Books]]
* The vehicle that gives ''ComicBook/TankGirl'' her name.
* ''YTheLastMan''. After Alter's first attempt to seize the biohazard suite is foiled due to Russian sniper Natalya, the next time she shows up her AmazonBrigade is driving stolen M1 Abrams tanks.
* ''TankVixens'', although the tanks mostly served as a prop for weaponized {{Fanservice}}.
* The SilverAge [[TheDCU DC Universe's]] Haunted Tank. The first version involved a WorldWarII tank haunted by its commander's ancestor, [[TheAmericanCivilWar Confederate General J.E.B Stuart]], as penance for supporting slavery. This naturally causes occasional friction in the crew, since the tank's gunner is black. The Haunted Tank recently reappeared in a Vertigo series set in modern Iraq. The general's new descendant is this Abrams tank's commander, who is descended from Stuart and one of his slaves.
* The Batmobile in ''ComicBook/TheDarkKnightReturns''. Batman even comments that only something [[{{Superman}} not of this world]] could ever hope of damaging it.
* One of [[ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes Calvin's]] daydreams has him doodle a tank on his homework and blow up his school. His rampage ends when Miss Wormwood shows up, takes away his paper and gives him detention (in the doodle she's a giant monster that is strong enough to resist the tank's cannon fire).
* ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide'': ''{{Film/Psycho}} 3''; the panel shows Norman driving a tank through the bathroom door.
* In ''ComicBook/{{Preacher}}'', Herr Starrr uses the resources of The Grail to commandeer a US tank battalion as part of his operation to capture [[TheHero Jesse Custer]] and simultaneously fend off [[TheJuggernaut the Saint of Killers]]. While Starr definitely approves of the tanks, declaring that the mere sight of them gives him a hard on, they're just as helpless and ineffectual as anything else that tries to fight with the Saint.
* Considering the page quote, it should come as no surprise that badass tanks are common in ''Fanfic/TiberiumWars''. Tanks are depicted fairly realistically, with the interior of the tanks being cramped, noisy, and hot, and realistic tank tactics being used. The interior of the Mammoth Tanks are described as being more spacious, but still loud and uncomfortable.
* Despite the rise of Mecha and Engels, tanks are still viable and effective in ''FanFic/AeonEntelechyEvangelion'', and the tank crews joke about various disadvantages of the mecha and boast about the advantages of the tanks.
* ''[[Fanfic/TheNowakverse Under the Bridge]]'' has The Exterminator, a glue-shooting tank-like vehicle fashioned out of a 10" [[Series/DoctorWho Dalek]] toy. Its name is somewhat ironic, considering it was built and is operated by small rodents.
* In ''FanFic/WorldwarWarOfEquals'', The Race's landcruisers are not so tough facing 21st century tanks. While several models of tanks such as the Al-Khalid and the Leopard 2 work just fine against them, some tanks such as the Argentinian [=TAM=] tank requires an armor upgrade to fight them more equally.
* In ''Fanfic/PinkAlert3'', most Soviet Pony Republic Commanders place great emphasis on their many tough and highly capable armored fighting vehicles. While the Equestrian Alliance's tanks have all kinds of nifty special tricks and the Aquestrian Empire's amphibious mecha armies look plain awesome, in a traditional armoured slugging match the Soviets can be relied upon for coming out on top.
* In ''[[Film/{{Stalingrad2013}} Stalingrad]]'', the German unit assaulting the apartment building can't break the stubborn Russian defense--until a squad of panzers show up and start shelling the Russian position inside the building.
* ''StarWars'' has hovertanks as well as relatively real HumongousMecha.
** The ExpandedUniverse (and Episode 3) has the Juggernaut vehicle, which could be turned into a full-fledged tank just by replacing the wheels (all ten of them) with tracks. It's essentially a slab of metal with guns.
** The AT-TE of Episode 2 is designed very similarly to a tank despite technically being a mecha, with a low profile, multiple antipersonnel weapons, no real head, and a massively powerful swivel-mounted weapon on top. If you removed the legs and added treads, it would look like a tank. (The cockpit is transparent, but it's [[HandWave Transparisteel]].)
* Film/JamesBond himself commandeers one of these in the big chase in ''Film/GoldenEye''
** The third level from the LicensedGame ''[[VideoGame/GoldenEye1997 GoldenEye 007]]'', where you must find a plane in a runway and escape from the dam, also lets you shoot down the heavy machineguns with a tank. (there is also the level based on the movie's chase scene, but it's just a [[TimedMission timed level]], no chasing occurs)
* When the [[{{Thememobile}} Batmobile]] in ''Film/BatmanBegins'' was first revealed to the world, fan opinion was mixed. Then the movie came out. Gordon wants one.
--> "It's a black... tank."
** Definitely a ShoutOut to ''ComicBook/BatmanTheDarkKnightReturns''.
* ''TheBeastOfWar'' is about a Soviet tank in Afghanistan that becomes separated from the rest of the army. As the lone tank battles through mujahadeen guerrilla attacks, its crew slowly [[AHouseDivided tears itself apart]].
* The ''[[Series/ThePhilSilversShow Sgt. Bilko]]'' movie had a hover-tank which didn't work because firing the gun produced so much force that it couldn't be controlled. They faked it with some fireworks.
** Of course, the movie ends before the military figures out they've been duped. It's not clear why they can't be satisfied with a hover-APC, as it can simply fly over landmines and Czech hedgehogs.
* In ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheLastCrusade'', the Sultan of Hatay lends support to the Nazi Grail expedition by providing them with transportation including tanks. The film shows one modified WWI tank, a Mark VIII with a turret dropped on top with the RuleOfCool.
* The Landram was used in the PilotMovie of the original ''Series/{{Battlestar Galactica|Classic}}'' to save some humans from the Cylon rigged Casino on planet Carolon.
* ''Series/UltraSeven'' features the [[http://pulog1.exblog.jp/1424309/ Dinosaur Tank]] as an antagonist.
* Franchise/{{Rambo}} used one in ''RamboIII'' to play chicken with BigBad's gunship.
* ''KellysHeroes'' features some great tank action. The soldiers have on their side Oddball, a proto-hippie tank commander with three Shermans manned by gypsies. The Shermans provide the backbone of the group's offense along the way to the loot, which is guarded by German Tiger tanks. A big tank battle ensues, but ultimately the final Tiger [[spoiler:is just too much to handle, so the soldiers negotiate with the German tank commander to split the loot he's guarding.]]
* ''Film/TheATeam'' movie (as seen in the trailer) involves a battle between a tank and airplanes. The tank is is in midair, in the middle of parachuting down. And after they shoot down the aircraft, they fire the tank's cannons to adjust its course and allow for a safe landing. ''They are flying a tank!''
* In ''Film/{{Tank}}'', James Garner's character uses a WWII Sherman tank he'd bought and restored to break his son out of prison, then drives it to the Tennessee border to seek a fair trial for his son and others framed by a corrupt Georgia sheriff.
* The animated Korean film Animation/AachiAndSsipak starts out with a tank battle between police and a gang of mutants who drive small one-man tank, motorcycle, roller blade machines. Yeah, they're hard to describe and yes, the cartoon is [[WidgetSeries weird.]]
* ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'' has several examples. HYDRA's armored vehicles powered by [[MagicfromTechnology MAGIC!]] are everywhere, and stolen by Allied troops to even the playing field. Captain America himself highlights a primary flaw in [[UpToEleven size escalation]] when he takes out a comically-oversized three-story tank with the classic InsertGrenadeHere.
** Oddly enough, the massive tank that the Cap blows up is just about [[TanksButNoTanks the only tank that HYDRA is seen using]]: all the other armoured vehicles were either repainted M113 [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier APCs]] or a bulldozer mock-up.
* In the 1987 homage/parody ''Franchise/{{Dragnet}}'', Friday assaults the bad guys' headquarters with the police version of this; instead of a gun, the tank sports a battering ram with a smiley-face on it.
* In ''Film/GIJoeRetaliation'' Roadblock drives a tank-like dune buggy built by Coulton to battle some Cobra tanks.
* ''Sahara'' (the film with Creator/HumphreyBogart and the remake with James Belushi, ''not'' the Clive Cussler novel and its adaptation) has the protagonists using an M-3 Lee to escape from the Nazis overtaking the Allies' battle lines in Africa. It is one of the few advantages that the heroes have on the HoldTheLine LastStand that makes the bulk of the movie.
* ''Film/ShootEmUp''. With every freelance hitman in the city trying to kill the BadassAndBaby, Smith puts the baby and his LoveInterest inside an M24 Chaffee in a museum. "You'll be safe from gunfire and most explosives."
* ''Film/{{Fury 2014}}''. Is about an entire armored unit of Sherman Tanks. While that in itself may not sound all that spectacular, this does mark the film debut of an actual Tiger Tank. Not a mockup, not a CG render. A '''''Real''''' Tiger Tank. [[note]] The tank itself was donated by the Bovington Tank Museum, and is the ''only'' fully operational Tiger Tank in existance.[[/note]]
* HGWells laid out the concept of armored vehicles ("landships") in his 1904 short-story "The Land Ironclads", making this trope OlderThanTelevision, insofar literature is concerned. However, his vehicles differ from the overall concept in that they were more like a mix between [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier armored personnel carriers]] and [[BaseOnWheels Land Battleship]]s.
* The ''Literature/{{Bolo}}'' series in Creator/KeithLaumer's stories, especially the Continental Siege Units (the Mark XXXIII's were called Planetary Siege Units). Their firepower is usually given in megatons per second and have an AI far above human level in both intelligence and ethics. And don't even get started on the ''Planetary'' Siege Units that are deployed in independent brigades of 24 units each!
* DavidDrake's ''Literature/HammersSlammers'' stories feature the titular mercenary company, whose primary offensive arm are air-cushion {{Hover Tank}}s.
* The eponymous tracked BaseOnWheels in Michael Moorcock's ''The Land Leviathan''.
* ''Tramp In Armour'' by Colin Forbes features the crew of a British Matilda tank who get trapped behind enemy lines in the last days of the Battle of France, and their journey to Dunkirk in order to escape. An excellent representation of armored warfare. The Matilda's limitations are thoroughly explored, but thanks to the way her crew fight her, she remains a thoroughly awesome weapon.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' featured a steam tank of sorts in ''Discworld/SmallGods'' -- notably, because its existence was enough to shift the balance of power and change history, Lu Tze of the [[TimePolice History Monks]] sabotaged its construction.
* Creator/JohnRingo's ''Literature/LegacyOfTheAldenata'' features upgraded modern tanks by the bucketful, as well as totally new designs like the Tiger [=IIIs=] based on alien tech from ''Watch on the Rhine''.
* Averted in the {{Starfist}} military sci-fi series, thanks to the development of highly effective and extremely light man-portable anti-armor weapons making heavily armored vehicles obsolete. This actually drives the plot of one of the novels - a megalomaniac manages to conquer a world with tanks, which nobody has seen for literally centuries, and the anti-armor weapons are now museum pieces. The military is forced to use the museum pieces to manufacture new copies, and have to have history professors instruct the Marines in their use. They do put a permanent order to maintain the anti-armor capability as well. [[HollywoodTactics How precisely these weapons are supposed to be effective when you're engaging a combined arms force where the tanks are firing from multiple kilometers away is not addressed]].
* Creator/RobertAHeinlein's ''IfThisGoesOn --'' story has these. They are sort of "landships". His novel ''Literature/ThePuppetMasters'' has amphibious tanks or "mud turtles".
** To get an idea of the "landships", think of a WW2 battleship that goes overland like a tank!
* Literature/TheDraka Hond tank is the king of the battlefield in the Eurasian War, and the Draka produce them in Soviet Union-like numbers from their massive transcontinental empire.
* The ''Sovremenyy''. the Russian jaggernaut (ice cruiser) rumbling across the south polar plains in Swedish dieselpunk novel ''Iskriget''.
* FyodorBerezin is in love with this trope. As an example, the modern Soviet tanks from an alternate reality in his ''Red Stars'' duology (where the USSR dominates the world) are four-tracked monstrocities with huge cannons. This is explained by the fact that USSR struck first in WorldWarTwo, destroying ''Germany'''s military-industrial complex instead of the Soviet one, allowing factories to keep building heavier and heavier tanks, like KV-3, and KV-4 (for reference, the RealLife KV-2 was armed with a howitzer cannon and 5 of these obliterated over 20 German tanks in one battle).
* While this seems to be the case with the [[LizardFolk Race]] landcruisers in HarryTurtledove's ''{{Worldwar}}'' series, they're no more (and probably less) advanced than modern-day tanks. However, they're monsters in the books' WorldWarTwo setting, compared to what the human "empire and not-empires" can put out. The shells are laser-- [[InsistentTerminology sorry]], [[CallARabbitASmeerp skelkwank-guided]] and can punch through any human armor. As mentioned by several characters on both sides, had the Race arrived only a generation later (as some of them wanted), the humans would've wiped the floor with them.
** By the ''Colonization'' series, taking place 20 years later, the major "independent not-empires" have caught up and, in some cases, passed the Race's military technology. When the Reich invades the Race-controlled Poland, it's stated that the new German tanks are a 1-to-1 match for the Race's landcruisers, and the Germans actually know how to fight with tanks which was pointed out as the biggest weakness of the Race's tanks by Germans in the previous trilogy. To the Germans, they fought like Russians: "Their tanks are great but their tank ''skills'' are shit."
* ''WorldWarZ'': Averted at the Battle of Yonkers. Tanks do very little to kill the massive hoard of zombies that start flooding the bridge.
** It is mentioned that they are used again against human opponents who don't want to rejoin the United States.
* In the ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' series, they have largely been replaced by PoweredArmor, but they do turn up from time to time. One plotline in ''Shadow of Freedom'' revolves around a planetary government's PraetorianGuard using tanks to put down protests and riots, and the local [[LaResistance resistance movement's]] escalating efforts to counter them. The tanks prove to be vulnerable to dedicated Anti Armor weaponry, which the rebels have limited supplies of, [[spoiler: and a substantial number of them are destroyed when a truck bomb flattens a parking garage they were staged in to provide cover from the aforementioned anti armor weaponry.]]
* In ''Literature/Animorphs'', Marco and Tobias acquire a tank in book 51. They steal it off a train, drive it the wrong way down a freeway, and leave it parked on top of the remains of Vice Principal Chapman's house.
[[folder: Live Action TV]]
* One of Carter's few [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome Crowning Moments Of Awesome]] in ''HogansHeroes'' is when he infiltrates a German unit to recover confiscated TNT so they can blow up a bridge. However, rather than just getting the TNT and leaving, he requisitions and drives off with a German tank and they use ''that'' to blow the bridge.
* In series one of ''AshesToAshes'' Alex [[AwesomeButImpractical commandeers a hot pink gay pride tank so that she can total a car]].
* ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'': The original Megazord has a tank mode, although this is used sparingly. Titanus' attack mode is tank-like and was even branded as such in ''Series/KyoryuSentaiZyuranger''. The original [[MilitaryMashupMachine Ultrazord]] is also basically a tank, guaranteed to obliterate the MonsterOfTheWeek by rapid-fire shelling it to dust. The only being to survive a barrage fron Ultrazord was Lokar, and he was badly scarred when next he showed up.
* Pearly, from the SpaceAboveAndBeyond episode "Pearly". Who is most definitely NOT an APC, thank you very much.
* In ''Series/ChouSeiShinGransazer'', when the Japanese military decides to build their own HumongousMecha someone thought that its support vehicle should be a conventional tank- only a hundred times bigger.
* Ineffectual Marxist CitizenSmith gets his CrowningMomentOfAwesome when he gets a hold a [[TanksButNoTanks Scorpion AFV]] and uses it storm Westminster [[spoiler:: while the Government is on its Summer Holidays]].
* [[Series/TheWalkingDead Mitch Dolgen]] uses an old Patton tank against the prison [[spoiler: but it's destroyed during the fight.]]
* In one episode of ''Series/{{MASH}}'', after a commander of an army tank unit has to have a rather embarrassing problem treated at the 4077th ([[TheDiseaseThatShallNotBeNamed "carnal flu"]], as Hawkeye calls it), the camp is plagued by snipers, and Hawkeye "convinces" him to park one of his tanks in the center of the camp to scare the snipers away. (In return for "losing" the record or the treatment. It works, but later, Frank Burns tries to impress Margaret by telling him he can drive a tank, and then actually tries to. (Long story short, he ''can't''. Still, after he almost wrecks the camp, Hawkeye and BJ are able to "convince" Potter it was an accident in exchange for Frank providing a third signature on a document to bend the rules and let a soldier go home by ship instead of by plane, something they had been trying to do the whole episode.)
* The "Tank Chase" mode from ''[[Pinball/IndianaJonesThePinballAdventure Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure]]''.
* "Tank Multiball" in Creator/SegaPinball's ''Pinball/GoldenEye'', which also has a model tank on the play field.
* [[Creator/{{Zaccaria}} Mr. Game's]] ''Pinball/MacAttack'' has the Mac Mobile, a rocket-powered tank with two massive cannons on top. During gameplay, the player must move it into position to expose a ball lock for one of the game's {{Video Mode}}s.
[[folder: Tabletop Games]]
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill takes this Trope and makes sweet, sweet love to it]]. All races have access to some form of armoured death machine, with the exception of the Tyranids (who have a broad variety of armoured death ''biomechanoids'', but they all walk, crawl, hover, fly or slither rather than rolling). But it is the [[Characters/Warhammer40000ImperialGuard Imperial Guard]] who have access to the widest range of vehicles - from the ubiquitous Leman Russ main battle tank and Chimera armoured personnel carrier/infantry fighting vehicle to the Baneblade super-heavy tank (it [[http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Baneblade#Armament_and_Upgrades really does have]] [[MoreDakka eleven barrels of hell]][[labelnote:Explanation]] Baneblade battle cannon mounted in the turret, with a co-axial autocannon, Demolisher cannon mounted in the hull, two sponsons mounting twin-linked heavy bolters with two lascannons mounted on top of those, and a further twin-linked heavy bolter mounted in the hull[[/labelnote]].) Then there's the Shadowsword, which is basically a Baneblade chassis housing a [[WaveMotionGun Volcano cannon]] -- usually the main armament of [[HumongousMecha Titans the size of buildings]]. As for the other armies, the Space Marines and their Chaos counterparts (who can ''daemonically possess'' their tanks) have access to Predator tanks based on the Rhino APC along with the awesome [[MilitaryMashupMachine troop transport/battle tank]] that is the Land Raider, while the Eldar and Tau use highly maneuverable skimmer tanks, although they tend to take their personnel carriers and turn them into tanks by adding an appropriately powerful gun that removes the capacity to carry troops. The Orks? Well, they use cobbled-together battlewagons and looted Imperial vehicles that shouldn't even be able to ''move'', let alone fight in combat. The Necrons have the titanic Monolith, a horribly-beweaponed flying tomb that is ludicrously hard to kill.
** See also the [[http://warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14209 treadhead thread]].
*** A lot of the credit also has to go to [[http://forgeworld.co.uk Forge World]], which is apparently what happens when you give Warhammer 40K fans/World War II buffs a Games Workshop license and a load of resin. Even counting old discontinued designs, they're responsible for about half the tanks of the Imperial Guard, and up to 70% of the tanks for the Eldar and Tau.
** The Imperial Guard's Leman Russ has to be considered the most successful design of them all though, in terms of overall utility and practicality (Baneblades may be powerful, but are exceedingly rare and used sparingly) [[note]]What's even scarier is that during the Great Crusade era the Baneblade was the designated ''medium'' tank and the superheavy tanks were even ''bigger''. It wasn't uncommon to see entire battalions of the thing in numbers of 100+ at the time. Oh how the mighty have fallen...[[/note]] The vanilla Leman Russ is already an excellent vehicle that is powerful against infantry (even Space Marines) with a decent anti-vehicle punch, but it can be customized using a wide variety of variants. The long-barreled Vanquisher, for example, is an excellent tank killer, while the Exterminator mows through infantry like a scythe through wheat.
*** There are now at least 7 variants of the Leman Russ in the codex, as well as an equal number of artillery tanks, including one that has a ''nuke as its standard armament''.
*** There's a special tank commander, Knight Commander Pask, whose use and effect in battle is basically "put him in a Leman Russ of your choice, then use it to kill everything." In-universe, he's considered ''the'' best tank commander in the Imperial Guard, if now the entire Imperium. Must be something to do with the fact that he destroyed Chaos Warlord Titans and Ork Gargants one multiple occasions with the aforementioned Leman Russ tank.
** With the 5th ed. Imperial Guard Codex, the Guard now have Tank squads, meaning they can have up to eighteen tanks (compared to three for most armies)
*** Also meaning [[MemeticMutation Lord Castellan Creed can infiltrate them]]
** Many mid-sized tanks based on the humble but very reliable Rhino chassis, an APC based on a tractor template that can run on practically anything, from jet fuel to ''wood''.
*** [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO3MttgvHUY Rhinos! RHINOS!]]
** The Space Wolves used to get the Exterminator variant, in tribute to the face that the Leman Russ is named after their Primarch, [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment Leman Russ.]]
*** In addition, almost every single Space Marine (and Chaos Space Marine) army can take a ridiculous number of Land Raiders (due to them being Dedicated Transports). The Blood Angels and Deathwing are the biggest violators, the former capable of taking a whopping 17 Land Raiders (one for every choice on the list) while the latter is at a humbler 12. Blood Angels also take this trope UpToEleven and ''Airdrop'' every single tank into battle. If 17 adamantium boxes of death filled with supersoldiers isn't enough to make you shit your pants, imagine them raining from the skies like bird poop.
** Another Rhino variant, the Exorcist Tank used by the [[AmazonBrigade Sisters of Battle]] has a single weapon that fires a random number of missiles per turn, [[MacrossMissileMassacre going up to six at once]]. Any one of these missiles can destroy any tank in a standard game, and all six at once can utterly decimate elite infantry squads. [[CaptainObvious It's quite the popular choice for that army.]]
** One Tau tactic relied on using their antigrav transports as a protector from incoming fire; the enemy couldn't charge them without going through the tank first, but the Fire Warriors could "pewpewpew" their targets with impunity.
*** The infamous Fish of Fury and its variant the Double Fish of Fury.
** The Dark Eldar are pretty much the only race to avert this trope. Big heavy tanks aren't that useful for lightning raids.
* Even ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}} Fantasy'' gets a slice of the action with the [[SteamPunk Steam Tanks]].
* ''{{Twilight 2000}}'' lets you come out of character creation with your squad having an M1 or a Challenger II (mentioned above); unfortunately in the context of the game this is likely to prove AwesomeButImpractical.
* The TabletopGame/{{OGRE}} in Steve Jackson Games' wargame of the same name is a computer-controlled mobile fortress with a size measured in ''acres''. It was heavily influenced by the first {{Literature/Bolo}} book, which came out in 1976, one year before ''Ogre''.
** The main and secondary guns of an Ogre fire SATNUC rounds. That's [=SATuration NUclear Cluster=]; a round splits into submunitions over the target, each of which takes a split second to ''aim,'' and then detonate, producing a ''shaped charge'' of nuclear plasma.
** The Biphase Carbide armor of the Ogre is several ''meters'' thick. It cannot be breached ''even by nuclear weapons''. The only hope a defense force might have of stopping one is to destroy its exposed tractor-treads -- and even ''these'' require nukes to put a dent in them. Of course, good luck getting your forces in close enough to ''do'' damage to its treads; the Ogre's arsenal can vaporize a whole tank battalion without even blinking.
* Another miniatures game: [[http://www.BrigadeModels.co.uk Brigade Models]] makes a game called ''Land Ironclads'', which takes ground combat to a WorldWarOne as forseen by HGWells and friends. They explore a world where tank combat did as these futurists expected, and followed the same model as their [[SpaceIsAnOcean present-day naval combat]], with scout tanks, cruiser tanks, and dreadnought-tanks.
* The ''TabletopGame/YuGiOh'' card game has a few tanks, such as [[http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Oni_Tank_T-34 Oni Tank T-34]]
* While ''BattleTech'' unabashedly assigns the 'king of the battlefield' role to its HumongousMecha, conventional combat vehicles are still very much in evidence and frequently use the very same engines, armor, and weapons that [=BattleMechs=] do. Well-designed tanks in particular (available in hover, tracked, and occasionally wheeled, though the last seriously suffers in terms of terrain restrictions) can readily match 'Mechs of comparable weight in terms of firepower; the 'Mechs' primary advantages are superior terrain handling and toughness (due mainly to having more hit locations to soak up damage and even being able to lose some and still walk off the battlefield), not arbitrarily bigger and better guns. Tanks, meanwhile, are canonically cheaper and easier to produce...
** Epitomized by the Demolisher series of tanks. Massive tanks ranging from 80 to 100 tons carrying [[MoreDakka dual Autocannon-20s]], some of the largest ballistic weapons in the game, and with enough armor to weather assaults. In the canon, it was specifically designed to hunt and kill [=BattleMechs=], which it could do readily--few units, even in the assault weight class like the Demolisher, can carry two AC/20s, and even fewer can shake off a hit from just one of those cannons.
* In ''Weird War Two'', a dice and paper WWII RPG which basically mixes myth, horror, and WWII, there are demonically possessed Nazi tanks from hell. There are also super haunted ghost tank hunters for the allies. These tanks can have special abilities and Special Ammo. Tanks in this game are downright deadly to anyone not sporting big guns or lots of infantry with AT weapons. So having a tank on your side is TankGoodness.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Paranoia}}'' has the Mark IV Warbot, designed by R&D in hopes of replacing the ''entire Armed Forces''. While NighInvulnerable to conventional firepower, it can be disabled by attacking its bot brain [[spoiler: (including an overzealous scrubot with a steel scrub brush, and an inferiority complex due to a barometer falling off)]], or flat-out destroyed by [[StarWars firing into a thermal exhaust port]]. At one point, another Alpha Complex captures one and renames it the [=OGREbot=] (a ShoutOut to the Steve Jackson game).
* The Tank form in ''{{Mekton}}'' gets you a 2pt bonus to your armour and lets you appoint either the 'head' or the 'torso' to have a 360 degree arc of fire as the turret. Of course, you can also build a mecha that [[TransformingMecha turns INTO a tank]], thereby getting HumongousMecha and TankGoodness bonuses at the same time.
* ''{{Rifts}}'' first introduced tanks to the game in the ''Traix and the NGR'' {{sourcebook}}, and has pretty much made a point in outfitting nearly every country on the planet since with outrageous tanks to go along with their PoweredArmor and HumongousMecha. The standout examples include the Karthum-Terek, a massive tank with guns capable of harming starships and enough redundancy built in that it literally has to be blown to pieces in order to destroy it, and the Neo-Abrams, which manages to combine both realistic practicality (by real-world standards, no less!) and [[GameBreaker overwhelming munchkinism in the same package]].
* DystopianWars has a large number of War Machines. For scale, a Small Tank base is the size of a Modern Tank. A Land Ship in game is so large they can mount Saint Paul's Catherdral on its chassis.
[[folder:Theme Parks]]
* One ride at Ride/ActionPark was the aptly-named "Tank Ride", where visitors would ride around in giant tank and shoot each others' weak points, stopping them for 15 seconds. It was also known for being the worst place to be an employee, since the riders would [[ComedicSociopathy shoot them with no mercy]] when they had to get in the area.
[[folder:Video Games]]
* The mostly-forgotten [=RTS=] ''7th Legion'' had several tank variations, including three that were mostly identical except each successive iteration added another main cannon to the turret.
* The A-gear, or [[ReportingNames Anima Mortar]], of ''AceOnline'' is a ''flying'' hovertank.
* ActOfWar RTS brings all kind of cool tanks including RealLife the T-80 and Abrams, along with the more exotic stealth tank Akula and the S.P.I.N.N.E.R, a drone vehicle also capable to convert into an AA platform or a suicide bomb drone factory.
* Laughably subverted by the Blitztank from ''VideoGame/AkatsukiBlitzkampf''. With its baby-blue color scheme, cheesy skull ornamentation and tiny mounted cannon that tragically resembles a micropenis, Blitztank is pretty much ridiculed by the entire fanbase. Really, we're talking about a tank that can be ''beaten up''; of course it's going to be lame.
* ''VideoGame/ArmoredCore'' would be the ultimate TankGoodness poster child: most games offer the tank legs. Very slow, but usually very heavily armored, has very low energy drain, has built-in boosters, so it actually saves the main body weight, and carry loads like nothing else. With that in mind, most kinds of tanks can fulfill requirements of MoreDakka, MacrossMissileMassacre, [[NukeEm Tactical Nukes]], or all of the above, ''with StoneWall defenses''. ThereIsNoKillLikeAnOverkill is guaranteed. And then, starting from PS2 Armored Core titles, you have the option of having Overboost, and later additional boosters. At that point, tanks can finally achieve MultiTrackDrifting, made even more possible by mounting the best generators. And even with all that, most players don't really consider it, since [[RuleOfCool Gundamlike bipedal robots are just cooler.]]
** Also, ''Armored Core 4'' has regular modern tanks. [[TanksForNothing They might as well be plushies for all the good they do.]]
*** Armored Core 4 and for Answer allows tank legs to store oversized backup weapons, like, oh, another set of Chain Guns. Or Bazookas. ''Or damn near anything else in the game''. Unfortunately, in a game where only speed matters (at least in for Answer), using tanks are usually a good way to get yourself killed.
*** Armored Core V has given this trope a hefty nod with its opening cinematic which shows a tank AC [[DeathFromAbove dropped from a transport chopper]]. It tank then promptly gets shot by a real tank, ''shrugs off the attack and runs the regular tank over''. In a gameplay perspective, tanks are the only weapons that can carry Ready Position weapons (heavy folding weapons that require other AC types to kneel first) and fire them at the same time, while moving. To make matters even better, there are your regular, ultra-heavy MightyGlacier defense tank builds, and the LightningBruiser light tank builds, which strips your regular heavy tank of any defense, marches into battle with high-maneuver tank tracks, and use exclusively [[MoreDakka autocannons]], which enables them to actually ''pursue'' nimbler enemies, subverting the hell out of the "slow but deadly up close" tank image.
* In ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood'', one part of the story requires Ezio to retrieve a tank built from Leonardo da Vinci's plans as well as burn the plans so the Borgias cannot build more. The tank is a steam-powered bloated wooden barrel with a dozen cannons sticking out in all directions. You can fire only one at a time, though. Also, the cannons appear to be breech-loaded. The entire beast can be operated by three people, which is pretty impressive.
* BattleCity for the NES. SteelReign for PS1.
* The ''[[VideoGame/{{Battlefield}} Battlefield 2]]'' mod ''ProjectReality'' gives the player no less than ''eight'' different playable tanks, ranging from the rustbucket T62 & T72 all the way up to the cutting edge, hell on treads [=M1A2=] Abrams and Challenger 2.
* How you youngsters ignored a pioneer video game like ''BattleTanx'' is a mystery. It had the honorable [[JackOfAllStats M1A1 Abrams]], the hulking Goliath Tank that was commonly attached on a rail in front of bases, a tiny wheeled tank able to dart about at high speeds and blast at the enemy's rear with heavy machine guns, a tank that exclusively spammed missiles, a tank built around a [[GatlingGood chaingun]], a tank with a gyroscopic cockpit and jets that allowed it to DoABarrelRoll and sidestep incoming fire, a hovering tank, and an Abrams variant with two cannons.
** The sequel included such gems as a tank outfitted with [[KillItWithFire a flamethrower,]] guns that shot green lightning, a tank whose sole weapon was a laser cannon, a tank with a trainload of armor on the front (and virtually none on the sides or back), and an UPGRADED Goliath with two machine guns on the side.
* The 1980 CoinOp game ''VideoGame/{{BattleZone|1980}}'' had you driving a tank against other tanks in a first person view.. The [[YanksWithTanks US Army]] expressed enough interest that it was the first basis for electronic simulators.
** For the 1998 Activision ''VideoGame/{{BattleZone|1998}}'', these are hovering tanks thanks to [[AppliedPhlebotinum Bio-Metal]]
* SOPHIA THE 3rd. NORA MA-01 from ''VideoGame/BlasterMaster'', a 4-wheel tank that has destructive blaster cannon, three sub-weapons, and is capable of jumping, hovering, swimming, and climbing wall/celling when it's fully customized.
* The most popular early online game after ''NetTrek'' was a {{Macintosh}} title by the name of ''VideoGame/{{Bolo}}''. Gameplay consisted of a fight over stationary bases that could refuel ammo and armor, destructible automatic pillboxes that could be rebuilt anywhere on the map, and your tank's ability to almost completely alter the terrain of a map thanks to a construction worker that could stockpile building materials in your tank.
* The Rock Crusher from ''BrutalLegend'' has a spiked roller and about six mortar cannons. It also has a stage on the top. You can double team with it to summon a BFS that couldn't possibly be used by any other mortal than a Titan from the heavens to smite your foes.
* Every ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' game contains tanks at some point. ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty 2'' lets you play as the crew of one.
** To clarify: Your Soviet character in ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' gets transferred temporarily into tanks, while in ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: United Offensive'' and ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty 2'' you briefly play as a dedicated tank commander separate from the infantry soldiers you usually play as.
** ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty 4: ModernWarfare'' may not have tanks in the traditional sense, but you do get several opportunities to blow them up with Javelin missiles.
** War Pig, from the levels "The Bog" and "War Pig". They even get a GunshipRescue ...well, Tank Rescue moment.
*** Which saves the day by shooting another tank ''[[CrowningMomentOfAwesome through a building]]''
*** Only topped by a scene in ''Modern Warfare 3'' where you get a GunshipRescue from a tank ''driving'' through a building to squash some bad guys that had you pinned down. The same mission also had a memorable moment earlier when the characters [[OhCrap realized]] that [[RealityEnsues parking garages aren't designed to support the weight of 70 ton tanks.]]
* ''[[ChoroQ Combat Choro Q series]]'' is all about tanks, ''[[SentientVehicle living tanks]]'', fighting each other out in the wars.
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' series, at least in the first one, armor units, that is, tanks, were by far the best ground units, with an attack strength of 10, a defense strength of 5, and a movement rate of 3 (10/5/3). The only other ground units that were at all comparable were artillery (12/2/2) and mechanized infantry (6/6/3). Only under very rare circumstances was it ever worth trading 3 defense points and 1 movement point for 2 additional attack points, or giving up four additional attack points for 1 extra defense point. As a general rule, tanks were the dominant weapon on the Civ 1 battlefield, at least late in the game.
** In somewhat of an inversion, sometimes [[VideoGame/{{Civilization}} Spearman beats Tank]].
* A very early example was the simple, 4-bit graphics of the tanks games in ''Combat'' for the Atari 2600.
* ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' is probably the RTS franchise with the most tanks ''ever'' created -- tanks with [[{{BFG}} guns]], tanks with [[MacrossMissileMassacre missiles]], tanks with [[MagneticWeapons guns]], tanks with {{lightning gun}}s, [[RuleOfThree tanks with guns]] that can [[MilitaryMashupMachine build]] [[MoreDakka more guns]], [[BaseOnWheels tanks with guns that build more tanks with guns]] -- [[InvisibilityCloak you]] [[TeleportersAndTransporters name]] [[MindControl it]], [[FrickinLaserBeams it]] [[FireBreathingWeapon has]] [[MakeMeWannaShout it]]! If it doesn't, a list of {{Game Mod}}s as long as your arm will fit it in, anyway. The use of tanks so deliberately ingrained into player minds because they're cheap, lethal and durable that infantry can become obsolete quickly in a typical arms race, to the point that an early {{Zerg rush}} with low-tier tanks is actually a valid tactic. If you're going to duke it out there, you might as well take a tank with you, because nine times out of ten, the fight will have one. It's even a custom for every ''Command And Conquer'' story to incorporate newly-discovered technology onto a tank. For measure of how much ''Command and Conquer'' loves its tanks, its ''de facto'' poster boy is... a [[http://cnc.wikia.com/wiki/Mammoth_tank Mammoth Tank]].
* As a WorldWarII game, ''CompanyOfHeroes'' quite naturally features a goodly array of armor, tanks and otherwise. For the Germans, the Panther and the Tiger are, respectively, the [[InfinityMinusOneSword Infinity Minus One]] and {{Infinity Plus One Sword}}s. In a very nice piece of detail for an RTS, tanks have strong armor to the front and weaker armor to the sides and rear, meaning that flanking and ambush tactics are vital for defeating them, especially since anything short of dedicated anti-tank weapons it useless against them. Additionally, send them forward without infantry support against a half-decent opponent, and they ''will'' get chewed up.
** By far the strongest tank is the Tiger Ace, changed in later patches to the King Tiger. Other tanks are paper compared to it, though it's still not invincible, extremely slow, and needs to support. Another super tank was added in the expansion used by the Panzer Elite faction called the Jagpanther. Unlike the other big tanks, this a specialized tank killer, capable of even beating the King Tiger in a head to head fight, but it doesn't have machine guns like the King Tiger.
** A neat (and necessary) feature in the game is the ability of the tanks to drive backwards. After all, you don't want to turn your weakest armor towards the enemy when retreating.
* ''DarkReign'' has three HUGE ones: the Tachyon Tank for the Imperium (hovering plasma-cannons with self destructs), the Triple-Rail Hover Tank for the Freedom Guard (which was enormous and orange), and the Shockwave for same (which took TankGoodness to new extremes: it self-destructed, causing a shockwave (hence the name) the width of the screen to travel one screen-length, destroying nearly ANYTHING in the way. Also, it had a shark-face on it).
** Probably the most terrifying tank, though, was the Freedom Guard's Tank Hunter. It wasn't that big, but it was designed to take out anything, including the above three, within mere moments.
** The basic Plasma Tank (Imperium) and Skirmish Tank (Freedom Guard) had ''full AA capability''-- two of the very few instances of a RTS 'bread-and-butter' vehicle that could protect themselves against aircraft. The Plasma Tank was amphibious too (the standard for Imperium vehicles). To compensate the Freedom Guard had the Phase Tank, which could burrow underground and pop up to roast enemies with its distinctive laser blasts.
* In ''DestroyAllHumans'', tanks show up when the Alert level had reached all the way up to Military. [[MightyGlacier They're slow, but they're tough, hits hard]], and [[MindOverMatter Psychokinesis]] is useless against them untill you buy the second upgrade. Time to bring out the [[StuffBlowingUp Ion Detonators]].
* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestHeroesRocketSlime'': How do you make TheGoomba kick total ass? By giving it control over a magical tank and making smarmy references to the last game in the series. And it works!
* ''DuneII'' included the Harkonnen Devastator Tank, a nuclear-powered super-heavy tank equipped with two fixed heavy cannons and a self-destruct switch. Though it was changed to a humongous mecha in the follow-up game, Emperor.
* The ''[[{{Earth2150}} Earth]]'' trilogy with similar, but tighter and more unique FactionCalculus design mechanics than ''VideoGame/{{Warzone 2100}}''. Tanks are most prevalent in the ''2150'' episode, especially because there's no footsoldiers around to play with. Commonly fielded by the [[TheEmpire Eurasian Dynasty]] in flavors of ground-only and [[MilitaryMashupMachine amphibious]], although the [[TheFederation United Civilized States]] and the [[TheRepublic Lunar Corporation]] aren't paricularly above using tanks. The UCS has a certain token makeshift [[MightyGlacier lumbering tracked-vehicle-turned-tank that's good for dishing out as much damage it can take]], while the LC has many designs of [[HoverTank the hover kind]] - including the [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Charon]], the only unit in the game with four weapon slots.
* ''EndOfNations'' has a plethora of massive tanks with heavy firepower and armor, most of them coming from the [[LaResistance Liberation Front]] and the [[TheEmpire Order of Nations]].
* Lance of the ''EpicBattleFantasy'' series has a tank called the Valkyrie. It's a fully-fledged WWII supertank with several different types of turrets. In fact, the scan data for it says that it didn't get finished in time for WWII.
* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout Tactics|BrotherhoodOfSteel}}'' eventually gave the player access to a tank. Contrary to the trope name, most players probably never made use of it since there were very few things (and even less ammo) to actually use it on, but it was still satisfying as hell to use at least once.
** It also has a crew of five which makes it a fine way to transport between missions except for the sixth member of the squad who tends to get run over a lot.
* ''GearsOfWar 2'' introduces the Centaur. Being a Light Tank, it can't take much punishment, but damn if it isn't a speedy little thing. The gun packs a decent punch, too.
* The Rhino tank of ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto''. Many players never bothered with the plot, but simply used the cheat to summon a tank and rampaged about the town. (with the 'Civilians Have Weapons' and 'Riot' codes on, HilarityEnsues.)
** Especially funny as the regular police try using spike strips to stop the tank. [[SarcasmMode Yeah, that'll work.]]
** ''GTA San Andreas'' is even greater fun, at least on the PC, as the mouse aiming on vehicles makes it easy to even shoot pursuing police helicopters out of the sky.
* ''VideoGame/GraviteamTactics'' features many tanks and their variants that were used on the Eastern Front in early 1943. The Cold War campaigns feature the Soviet T-55A, South African Olifant, and the British Chieftain tanks, among others.
* The ''GroundControl'' series has a number of cool tanks, ranging from light to heavy. In the first game, the [[MegaCorp Crayven Corporation]] has a private army using traditional wheeled and treaded vehicles collectively known as terradynes armed with ballistic weapons. Their Grizzly terradynes are large, slow, and double-barreled. The [[TheOrder Order of the New Dawn]] utilizes much mroe high-tech equipment. For example, all their vehicles [[HoverTank hover]] and are thus called hoverdynes. They're armed with energy weapons. The heavy Volans hoverdynes are armed with powerful energy cannons and are an even match for the Grizzlies (the latter have less firepower and maneuverability but heavier armor). The sequel takes place several centuries later with different galactic powers but nearly same equipment. The [[TheEmpire Terran Empire]] uses old Order tech but makes a few additions, so hoverdynes share a battlefield with {{Walking Tank}}s. The [[TheAlliance Northern Star Alliance]] uses abandoned Crayven equipment, while making some modifications. For example, the new heavy terradynes are able to rotate their side armor forward to provide cover for any unit behind them.
* Appears in both ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'' and ''VideoGame/GoldenEyeWii'', as per the original movie.
* The Scorpion Tank from ''Franchise/{{Halo}}''. "66 tons of HE-spewin', ceramic-titanium armored, dee-vine intervention!" Comes with 90mm or (novels only) 105mm main gun.
** In ''VideoGame/HaloWars'', the super upgrade for Scorpion Tanks turns them into a Mammoth Tank expy called the Grizzly, featuring the double barrelled turret and quadruple treads. Dedicated anti-vehicle counters and aircraft tend to at best break even with them.
*** The campaign also has the M-145D Mobile Artillery Assault Platform, AKA "Rhino". It's based on the Scorpion chassis, but is armed with a plasma howitzer. And yes, it can destroy a Scarab with half-a-dozen shots. Too bad you can't build them in skirmishes.
** There's also the Covenant Type-26 Assault Gun Carriage, known to laymen as the "Wraith". A big chubby blue thing with front armor over a foot thick (made of a polymer that human scientists previously thought was impossible), and instead of firing shells out of a barreled gun it launches huge "mortars" of superheated plasma capable (in the novels) of pretty much flash-vaporizing any poor sap that gets hit by it... and everyone within about 10 ft. of the poor sap as well. And as tanks go, it turns on a dime.
* In ''VisualNovel/HatofulBoyfriend'', the [[HowTheCharacterStoleChristmas Christmas Thieves]] somehow have a ''tank'' which they hop into for their heist. It can stand up to the fists and [[ImprovisedWeapon uprooted mailboxes]] wielded by the main character - not actually a small feat, since she seems to have SuperStrength - and is stopped only briefly by an anti materiel rifle.
* ''HeavyWeapon'' is a tongue-in-cheek ground-based {{Shmup}} from Pop Cap Games. The player character drives an atomic powered supertank against the forces of the evil Reds in 1986.
* In ''VideoGame/ImmortalSouls'', the [[TheKnightsTemplar Templars]] have a giant holy tank that's adorned with their emblem and fires lasers and missiles. It's ''just'' as over the top as it sounds.
* The ''VideoGame/ImperiumGalactica'' series has various types (wheeled, treaded, [[HoverTank hovering]]) as the main vehicles used in planetary battles.
* ''Iron Tank'', a relatively obscure NES game by SNK, had the player blast his way through forests, towns, fortresses, and the like battling tanks of all kinds, running infantry over, and mixing tank shells (don't ask how that works) for devastating effect. The tank's driver was apparently Ralf from ''IkariWarriors''.
** Iron Tank was the sequel to an arcade game called TNK III, that featured Ralf. ''Ikari Warriors'' was basically a MorePopularSpinoff.
* In ''[[JakAndDaxter Jak II: Renegade]]'', the [[XtremeKoolLetterz Krimzon Guard]] defend their Fortress with a "Security Tank". This does exactly as much collateral damage to the area as it sounds like it should, possibly explaining why you never face another one. The War Factory in ''Jak III'' is defended by mobile AA tanks (or perhaps AA trains) that move on paths around the place trying to shoot your gunship.
* In ''MakaiKingdom'', starting with the boss of Episode 3, characters will be seen driving around in tanks, mechs, and other such vehicles of destruction. Soldier, engineer and professor units can get the most mileage out of them, and get major stat bonuses when riding one (the vehicle gains up to 50% to all stats depending on the driver's TEC stat). The downside is that the vehicle itself that gains experience from defeating enemies, and not the rider unless the driver has a certain skill.
* ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'' example: an early boss (the second, if I recall correctly) was the Dragon Tank. Three guesses as to what it looks like.
* ''VideoGame/MassEffect1'' has the M-35 Mako, a futuristic IFV designed for exploring and combating military threats on distant planets. It has firepower and durability only matched by the most powerful on-foot equipment in the game (and you get it much earlier), ridiculous off-road ability, complete protection from [[NegativeSpaceWedgie planetary hazards]], and of course makes exploring the game's more open areas much faster. And to clarify "ridiculous off-road ability": it can drive up near-vertical slopes, and if it goes off the edge of a massive cliff, it will suffer ''at worst'' minor damage to the right front wheel. (Yes, the right front wheel. Not the left front wheel. Not any of the other wheels or any of the other parts of the tank. Just ''that wheel''.) It's so durable that, when you visit [[spoiler:the ''Normandy'' SR-1's crash site]] in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', you find the Mako ''completely intact''. [[LampshadeHanging Stuck in the level geometry]], but still intact.
** Keep in mind, the standard operating procedure for planetary deployment seems to be to have Shepard drive the Mako out of the cargo-bay, while the ''Normandy'' is travelling at hundreds of miles an hour, several hundred feet in the air, then wait to the absolutely ''last'' possible second to kick in the landing jets. Even with the mass-effect core reducing its mass, the landing jets ''and'' the shock absorbers, it ''still'' lands with the force of a brick.
* ''MechCommander'' and its sequel had tanks again ranging from 'barely a threat' to 'that thing just blew off everything below my kneecaps.'
* Many of the ''Videogame/MechWarrior'' games have had tanks as enemies. The level of threat inherent to these enemies has ranged from '[[CannonFodder minute threat]]' to 'kill it now or pay for it later.' In the former category, 2's occasional vehicular enemies and most of 3's ground vehicles. 4 allowed pilots to stomp on vehicles for easy kills, but in turn many of the tanks available can now dish out a serious case of hurt, including the Quad Panzer, the Myrmidon, and the aforementioned Demolisher. One mission in 4:Mercs actually has you facing a massive tank swarm fit to put the fear of God into Assault 'Mech pilots, in case you thought killing vehicles was an easy no-brainer.
** In ''[=MechWarrior=] Living Legends'', players can pilot a variety of tanks in multiplayer to great effect. Every assault mech player fears seeing a [[GatlingGood twin rotary autocannon]] Demolisher tank rounding the corner, or a [[BeamSpam Morrigu]] popping up over a hill. It also features [[ZergRush numerous cheap tanks for glorious charges]], such as the [[LethalJokeCharacter hilarious Harasser hovercraft]] which carries enough [[FireBreathingWeapon flamers]] to [[OverHeating melt enemies to death]], or the Chevalier, [[MultiTrackDrifting which can drift]] beneath the weapon arcs of enemy battlemechs [[PersonalSpaceInvader or just hump their legs]] while holding down the trigger.
* ''MedalOfHonor: Allied Assault'' lets you drive a ''King'' Tiger tank. Yea verily, it is ''[[BestLevelEver awesome]].''
** The first game in the franchise is the only one that doesn't have you fighting at least one tank. Well, it ''did'' have a Tiger tank, in the town square during the second mission, but it was essentially a set-piece and was never a threat. Though the preview for the game showed the cannon moving, the tank just sat still the whole time.
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', Vulcan Raven uses a tank during his first boss fight. The Metal Gears themselves have been described as giant walking tanks.
** ''Snake Eater'' has the Shagohod, a [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot rocket-propelled nuclear-capable tank]].
* Pretty much the entirety of the ''MetalMax''/''MetalSaga'' games. [[NoExportForYou Not that most non-Japanese gamers would know about them]] (or at least, not without certain [[KeepCirculatingTheTapes sources]])
* The ''MetalSlug'' series has the cutest tanks in fictional history, with a distinct resemblance to the one from DominionTankPolice.
* There's a brief scene in ''VideoGame/{{MOTHER}}'' where the main cast gets to rent a tank, drive it across ShiftingSandLand, and blast an otherwise [[HopelessBossFight undefeatable]] HumongousMecha into smithereens. Why, you ask? [[RuleOfCool Well, why not]]?
* The ''NintendoWars'' series, especially ''AdvanceWars'', has a few of these. ''Black Hole Rising'' introduced the Black Hole Neo-Tank, a giant cannon surrounded by a spherical hull that drove on four wheels. ''Dual Strike'' then one-upped that with the Green Earth Mega Tank, a three-story tall tank with ''five cannons'' (one turret with three and two smaller ones). The Mega Tank makes a reappearance in ''Days Of Ruin/Dark Conflict'' (renamed the War Tank in the American version) -- in both cases the Mega Tank is the only land unit that comes in a unit of one, and that one tank will still wipe the floor with units of other tanks.
** Unfortunately, because of high cost and, for the Mega Tank, low speed, ammunition and fuel, both units [[AwesomeButImpractical aren't worth using]] unless you're already winning or defending a very small area. The normal Tank, however, is probably the best all-around land unit - fast, armored, relatively cheap, enough firepower to destroy or cripple all other land units (except the bigger tanks).
** ''VideoGame/BattalionWars'' takes it a step further with the Battlestation, a small Land Battleship.
* ''OperationFlashpoint'' features tanks heavily. As the infantry character in the campaign, you soon learn you have a lot to fear from enemy tanks, especially after a whole platoon of them chases you out of a town you'd only just managed to take, mowing down many of your allies in the process. Later, you take control of a different character who is a rookie tank commander, and he soon gets command of an [=M1A1=] Abrams tank (the strongest vehicle in the game, by far).
** Tanks also play a big role in the ''Resistance'' expansion pack, the poorly-equipped guerillas the player leads have no tanks to start with, so one mission involves stealing a bunch of enemy tanks while they're being serviced at a remote depot. A couple of missions later you make full use of them when you lead a huge tank force (more than a dozen vehicles) in a pitched battle with a larger force of Russian tanks.
* The Turret Shadows in ''VideoGame/{{Persona3}}'' and ''VideoGame/{{Persona 4}}'' are ''sentient tanks''. The Chariot and Justice Shadows are also combined into a tank form, but can split apart into independent turret and hull forms.
* {{Planetside}} and its sequel Planetside 2. Even with the lack of variety, a tank in the middle of a firefight is a good thing. A few tanks is better. Two entire platoons loaded to the gills with tracked vehicles duking it out, complete with support crews and the occasional air support? Awesome.
** In Planetside 2, each of the three factions has their own impressive Main Battle Tank. The Terran Republic [[http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120930204023/planetside2/images/0/07/Vehicle_Prowler.gif Prowler]] features [[MoreDakka two barrels]], the [[LightningBruiser fastest movement]], and an optional co-axial 30mm minigun. The New Conglomerate [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120930203943/planetside2/images/2/23/Vehicle_Vanguard.gif Vanguard]] is the most [[MightyGlacier heavily armored]], can raise a shield to make it temporarily invulnerable, and has a [[{{BFG}} 150mm 'Titan' main gun.]] Finally, the Vanu Sovereignty's [[http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120930204039/planetside2/images/a/a3/Vehicle_Magrider.gif Magrider]] hovers above the ground, can activate a speed boost powerful enough to let it drive up cliff faces, and can mount a Plasma Cannon and a Heavy Rail Beam.
* ''VideoGame/{{Prototype}}'' has the Thermobaric Tank, armed with two small cannons on its turret and a main gun that fires a missile with a huge explosion. Blackwatch calls for it after their standard [=APCs=] and tanks fail to breach some particularly tough hives, and it one-shots all the hives in its way. Unfortunately, you only get it for the one mission, and while there are two more in the game world as part of events, they are despawned the second you destroy a military base or hive, or even if you walk a few feet from it after taking it from the event spot.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Psychonauts}}'', the BigBad plans to take over the world via [[spoiler:tanks controlled by psychic brains, which are extracted from young children]]. Normal tank not good enough for you? How about a tank that can telekinetically fling things and shield itself with the environment and mess with the heads of its foes as they try to fight back? All this in addition to the giant gun.
* A tank was one of the various equipable weapons available during the second half of ''SaGa2'' (Final Fantasy Legend II in the west), and had the distinction or allowing one to guard against physical attacks while also attacking in the same turn. The Japanese versions named it the less generic Leopard 2.
* Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron had a 40 ft. invincible (sort of) purple Nazi tank in World War I! Of course, that game doesn't care about real life anyway..
* The Siege Tank from ''{{Starcraft}}''. In competitive play, it makes up the backbone of about 4/5ths of viable Terran strategies. Most range of any unit in the game, check. Most single attack damage of any unit (other than one that costs money to use), check. It transforms into [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-propelled_howitzer self-propelled artillery]], check.
** They get even better in the sequel with MORE range, MORE firepower (against most units) and an even cooler transform.
** ''VideoGame/StarcraftIIWingsOfLiberty'''s campaign has giant tanks as well, which you can get as mercenaries.
* The Landmaster from ''VideoGame/StarFox''. It has jet boosters for the sake of allowing it to jump over obstacles that would impede an ordinary tank, and can also roll to move to the side quickly.
** In ''SuperSmashBrosBrawl'', The Landmaster is available as a Final Smash for all three of the Star Fox characters, though it functions somewhat differently for each of them. It'll hog almost the entirety of a smaller level, frequently forcing the opposition to jump over or on top of it to avoid getting rammed or shot by it, but being in such a position can instead allow you to send them flying with a barrel roll, or more amusingly, simply carry them off the top of the screen using its jets for an instant KO.
* ''Star Wars: Empire at War'' gives the Rebels 3 tanks, a hovering light tank, a tracked heavy tank, and a tracked mobile artillery piece. The Empire also gets tanks, the tracked TIE Crawler and the hovering 2-M. The expansions adds in teh Juggernaut A6 for the Empire, and the new Zann Consortium gets w tanks of its own: The tracked Canderous assault tank and MZ-8 Mobile Pulse Cannon.
* ''StarWars: Galactic Battlegrounds'' features hovertanks. For [[RuleOfCool some reason]], a Rebel hovertank can be upgraded (if the game settings are right) to a heavy version which stops hovering and runs on tracks.
* ''Steel Beasts'' is a tank simulator that has painstakingly accurate depictions of various tanks from around the world. It originally focused on the American [=M1A1=] Abrams and Leopard [=2A4=], but has expanded to include other NATO and Warsaw Pact tanks including the Challenger 2, T72, and newer versions of the Abrams and Leopard 2. The development staff included real-life tank crews, and the simulator is so realistic that come countries even use specialized versions to train their own tankers.
* Steel Panthers, the venerable hidden hex strategy game, wasn't so named because it contained furry cats in cages.
* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3''. Bowser's army had tanks, [[BambooTechnology made of wood]].
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'' has Bowser's Jr's Boomsday Machine, which is a cross between a huge tank and a castle. It shoots homing electricity, electrifies itself, sucks in the surroundings and has a giant firebar spinning around it about halfway its side. It's about 50+ feet tall and found as the boss in the Boom Bunker level.
** ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DWorld'' features tanks that look very similar to the ones from ''Super Mario Bros. 3'', but made with a more haphazard mix of materials.
* Used in droves in ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'' where anything with treads that is Tier 2 or above qualifies. The UEF Pillar heavy tank follows the relatively normal two-barrel turret model, the Cybran Rhino mounts a heavy laser chaingun, and the Aeon Obsidian just mounts one huge cannon. Anti-infantry weapons are not a concern because infantry are too small a scale to exist in this game, and even the heavy tanks are small compared to later units, which usually become either towering mechs are Land Battleships. The UEF Fatboy probably stands out even then-sure, it's a king MilitaryMashupMachine, but it's the only one with tank-style treads. That can crush buildings.
** Also in its SpiritualPredecessor, ''TotalAnnihilation'', a good quarter to a third of the units are tanks. While not as impressive as ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'''s loadout, being ten years older, they're nonetheless quite nice.
* All of the units in [[VideoGame/{{SWINE}} S.W.I.N.E.]] are either tanks, or some sort of vehicle - the game is utterly deprived of infantry.
* Gabe had to blow up a Soviet tank in ''SyphonFilter 3''.
* ''Taz-Mania'''s Francis X. Bushman had a "tree trunk tank".
* The arcade game ''Tokyo Wars'' was essentially about all-out tank brawls in various urban settings with the player(s) driving. It is as awesome as it sounds.
* In the 2nd ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' game, ''Story of Eastern Wonderland'', Rika pilots a tank for her boss fight. This is a fairly big deal, considering that the rest of the world appears centuries behind technology-wise.
** She returns as the [[BonusBoss Extra stage boss]] where she pilots a [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot flying eye tank]].
* ''TwistedMetal'''s Minion drove a tank, which tends to be the most durable vehicle in the game (not counting unusable bosses), and extremely fast. As such he's usually only playable through cheat codes.
* The Leviathan, found on some maps in ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament2004''. [[MightyGlacier Damn slow]], so chances are the match is over before you reached the enemies, but if you do, he's practically unstoppable.
** The Goliath tank is also very respectable. It maneuvers like a greased brick but has a substantial amount of hit points and a ''very'' lethal main cannon.
* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'':
** The first game has Welkin's Edelweiss, passed down to him from his war hero of a father. Many Imperial generals will show up with a custom tank as well. One of the main "Boss" fights in the game is against an enemy tank the size of a large building. So much so, that the player has to move his characters onto the enemy tank to take out power cores, before the players anti-tank and actual tanks will stand a chance against it.
** Also, near the end of the game, the Empire fields a tank so huge, that it can ''run over entire villages''.
** ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesII'' gives you a fully customizable tank, as all classes get a tank, and you even get to name it. Different kinds of tank and [=APC=] chassis, choice from three turret types, various armor, shoulder and back parts and decal and sticker options.
** ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChroniclesIII'' uses the same mechanic as ''II'', but further refines it and adds more customization options, as well as making the heavy tank easier to move around.
* Politank-Z from ''VideoGame/WakuWaku7'', which is a bizarre amalgamation of tank and HumongousMecha that walks on two legs but has treads for feet anyway. It has the slowest, but one of the most powerful super moves, and can ''turn into a helicopter'' if necessary. To top it all off, it's actually a police vehicle, piloted by the chief of police.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'' has SteamPunk tanks -- [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame all dwarf-built]], of course.
** Of course, ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' had them before, yet another bone of contention between their respective fans.
*** They started out as Steam Tanks (a Warhammer unit) before being rapidly renamed "Siege engines" in ''Frozen Throne''.
*** ''Warcraft'' started out as a ''Warhammer'' game before the deal with Creator/GamesWorkshop fell through. Then it was rapidly spun off into its own 'verse.
** ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' gives us player-controlled siege tanks, and the first boss of Ulduar, the Flame Leviathan.
* WargameEuropeanEscalation brings a vast array of tanks from both NATO and PACT units developed during the ColdWar, and most tanks come with their variants so, for example, you will find 5 variants of the T-55, from the basic T-55 to the ATGM armed, well armoured T-55 AMV-1, another example for NATO, the Leopard 1A tree brings from the 1A1 to the 1A5, each one stating consecutively better stats like speed, armoure, AP capabilities, inbuilt machine gun, etc.
** The real TankGoodness comes when you unlock and deploy the MBTs into the game, from the incredibly well armoured and armed bust slow Challenger to the fast and manouverable yet fragile AMX-32 you have all kind of high tier tanks to further expand your tactical possibilities.
** And then you get even more tanks with Wargame: Airland Battle, featuring nothing less than 12 nations and their respective array of tanks, also, the new armor stats system has made most MBTs far more resistant to ATGM weaponry.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}: DawnOfWar''. Yes, tanks are powerful, but enemies such as Fire Dragons, Wraithlords, Sanctioned Psykers, Heavy Destroyers, and more, are so good at destroying them that tanks become more of a fire support vehicle, to aid your infantry than the damage sponges they are presented as in many other games.
** Except the Baneblade. Which has 11 weapons, each acting idependently, tons of hit points and the most powerful cannons in the game. Unless you bring your entire army/superunits, changes are it's going to wipe your base out.
* ''VideoGame/{{Warzone 2100}}'': The vast majority of the units in this game are [[DesignItYourselfEquipment modular, customised tanks]] of some description.
* In ''VideoGame/WingCommander IV'', one of the missions in the Circe mission series puts you in the position of halting an offensive by [[FrickinLaserBeams laser]]-armed {{hovertank}}s. For the most part, though, they serve as not much more than cannon fodder for your guns (in real life, ground attack aircraft are tanks' WeaksauceWeakness, so this is justified).
* ''Videogame/WorldInConflict'' has quite a number of tanks, exactly 3 per faction: the Soviets, NATO, and USA
** The Soviets have the T-80U as their Heavy Tank, T-62A as the Medium, and the PT-76 as their Light. NATO has the Leopard 2A4, Chieftain, and Scorpion, while USA has the [=M1A1=], [=M60A3=], and M551, all taking on identical roles.
* ''WorldOfTanks'' in spades. the tanks in the game stretch from the interwar period through WorldWar2 and into the postwar period, including tanks that existed only as prototypes or only on paper. But they've made the tanks as close to real life as possible without becoming a sim game. There are Light, Medium, and Heavy Tanks, Tank Destroyers, and Self-Propelled Guns. All from (as of Patch 8.11) the [[YanksWithTanks USA]], [[RedsWithRockets USSR]], [[GaulsWithGrenades France]], [[NazisWithGnarlyWeapons Germany]], [[BritsWithBattleships Britain]], [[ChineseWithChopperSupport China]], and [[KatanasOfTheRisingSun Japan]].
* The Heavy Weapons Platforms in ''VideoGame/{{X-COM}}''. You can buy ordinary ones that can fire powerful armor-piercing rounds or launch explosive rockets at the start of the game, but you can later develop tanks that shoot laser beams. And then there are the {{Hover Tank}}s.... The sequel takes them underwater.
** The game doesn't specify if they're remote-controlled or automated. Creator/VladimirVasilyev's novelization goes with the former. In fact, in the book, the tank controllers stay in the transport plane during missions, as the signal is too weak to penetrate the force field thrown up by the [=UFOs=]. Another Russian novel, inspired by the game (but taking place a century later), has the crippled general in charge of the task force pilot the tank using a VR helmet.
** Apocalypse adds a fearsome looking AFV with huge tracks, massive armour and mighty cannon that is made totally useless by unaccountably being unable to leave the road and getting destroyed if it hits a pot hole.
** ''X-COM's'' Main/SpiritualSuccessor, ''VideoGame/{{Xenonauts}}'' feature more realistic (albeit very light) tanks and scouting vehicles. Their efficiency is somewhat disputable.
* In ''VideoGame/HyruleTotalWar'' the Zuna employ mobile ''[[http://hyruletotalwar.wikia.com/wiki/Zuna_Ziggurat Ziggurats]]''; they serve as safe moving platforms for crossbowmen.
* Prevalent in ''VideoGame/{{Vietcong}}'', such as [[spoiler:[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90AQ6klV_Aw the NVA in the last level]] of the first game and]] the Americans in the second game. Earlier in the first game, air recon picks up what appears to be a couple of VC tanks. [[spoiler:Turns out they're actually just rusted French armored cars]].
-->'''Nhut''': Look trung-si! [[spoiler:Tanks will no shoot. This old French tank, me know it.]]
-->'''Hornster''': [[spoiler:So ''this'' is what a VC tank platoon looks like?]]
** You can also drive tanks in some of the second game's multiplayer maps.
* [[Creator/MidwayGames Bally/Midway's]] ''{{VideoGame/TRON}}'' has a Tank mission as one of its four minigames where you drive a tank around a maze shooting at other tanks (and in some levels, Recognizers).
* ''Creator/{{Dynamix}}'''s old HumongousMecha simulator ''VideoGame/{{Starsiege}}'' had pilotable tanks in its game. Interestingly for a game where the focus was on giant walking death machines, the tanks were still able to pose quite a considerable threat in spite of the lack of DeflectorShields, which the [[AMechByAnyOtherName HERCs]] were able to mount. Tanks are often faster and easier to circle-strafe with, and usually carry heavier armor and larger weapons to make up for their lack of shields. Several of them are also tailor-made for [[RammingAlwaysWorks ramming enemies]], which is a good way to bring down a HERC (and much less damaging to the tanks).
* The Swedish PowerMetal band Music/{{Sabaton}}, given their fondness for singing about militaria in general and WorldWarTwo in particular, naturally feature this trope ''quite heavily'' throughout their oeuvre. Special props to "Panzerkampf" (about the Battle of Kursk), "Panzer Battalion" (about the 2003 invasion of Iraq), and "Ghost Division" (about UsefulNotes/ErwinRommel's "ghost" tank division)."
-->''Armored tanks of mass destruction''\\
''Killers in the east''\\
''Rats who dares to stand before us''\\
''Feel our guns go live''
--->''Death in the shape of a panzer battalion!''
* The anthem of the [[NazisWithGnarlyWeapons WWII German tank korps]], ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awehbFe3P3U Panzerlied]]'', which is so good the tune and lyrics have been adapted by the Chilean, Italian, and even ''French'' militaries, and (unofficially), by [[WeAreNotTheWehrmacht modern German Army]]. Famously featured in ''Film/BattleOfTheBulge.''
-->''If it storms or snows, or the sun smiles on us,''\\
''The day burning hot, or the icy cold of night.''\\
''Dusty are our faces, but happy is our mind, yes, our mind.''\\
''Then roar our tanks in the storm's wind.''
* The Soviet tank forces had several fight songs that all sound pretty awesome and glorify their vehicles: "Three Tankmen" and "March of the Soviet Tankists" are the most famous. (Badly) translated from Russian:
-->''With their fire, and their strong steeling,\\
The tanks will win future battlefields,\\
We'll be ordered into battle by Comrade Stalin\\
And the Grand Marshal will be our leader.''
* The earliest song to feature tanks is the British WWI propaganda song "The Tanks that Broke the Ranks Out in Picardy", written after the first operational use of tanks at Cambrai:
-->''And the tanks went on, and they strolled along with an independent air,\\
And their guns began to blare, and the Huns began to swear,\\
For they pulled the trees up by the roots, and they made the Huns look like galoots,\\
Did the tanks that broke the ranks out in Picardy!''
* ''[[{{Franchise/Kirby}} Kirby]]'' can transform into a tank in both ''VideoGame/KirbysEpicYarn'' and ''VideoGame/KirbyAndTheRainbowCurse''.
* ''[[Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent Stand Still, Stay Silent]]'' gives us the slightly downplayed Danish tanks viewed while our RagtagBunchOfMisfits pauses to get their last members and their final tool-up before hitting the Silent World. They're not the biggest examples of Tank Goodness you'll meet on this page, but they're designed to be robust enough to go out and kill Trolls and Giants strong enough to rip their way through solid steel -- as demonstrated when an armoured, Swedish train hit very ''big'' trouble. As a result, they have to be chunkier than your average tank.
[[folder:Web Original]]
* ''AssociatedSpace'' has an opening scene involving "Mobile Siege Fortresses", gigantic hovertanks the size and shape of ancient Egyptian pyramids. Which Fatebane sabotages for comic effect.
--> Fatebane: Pyramids don't roll.
* TheOnion: The sadly axed [[http://www.theonion.com/content/video/obama_axes_pentagon_plan_to_build Dragon Tank]].
* ShadowhunterPeril has Veronica, who can [[BagOfHolding telescope a tank out of her purse.]] She uses it for the most [[MundaneUtility mundane tasks,]] such as transportation down the street, or [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill killing a single demon.]] There are times when it comes in handy, though. Like the FinalBattle.
* Sheila of ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' ''is'' a tank, in addition to being a major character.
-->'''Church''': Why would I surrender to you?
-->'''Grif''': We outnumber you.
-->'''Church''': Bullshit, dude, I got a tank! People with tanks are never outnumbered!
* In the ''Literature/TheSalvationWar'', tanks turn out to be HIGHLY effective against the [[MugglesDoitBetter demon hordes]]. Not only do the main gun blast through demonic flesh like tissue paper, but many demons are crushed under the tank treads and just the sight of the "[[ColdIron iron chariots]]" made one demon army route.
[[folder:Western Animation]]
* [[{{Transformers}} Decepticons]], while they started out as being primarily aerial combatants (to contrast with the ground-pounding Autobots), like to take tank alt-forms when they're on the ground. Megatron himself has taken particularly awesome ones, in "Generation 2" and ''Armada''.
** Warpath, Brawl, Guzzle, Quake, and others also had tank altmodes. [=RiD=]!Armorhide also has a tank alt mode. The triple-changer Blitzwing usually has a tank as one of his alt modes.
** Megatron's toy has a [[http://www.tfw2005.com/transformers-news/attachment.php?do=fullview&attachmentid=9923 tank form]] in the upcoming sequel to the LiveActionAdaptation, but the movie itself, rather than make him a [=jet/tank=] triple-changer was was theorized by some fans, made him a [=jet/tank=] ''hybrid''--i.e., a ''flying tank''.
* ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' has {{Steampunk}} tanks, with [[PlayingWithFire Firebenders]] instead of turrets, or rather ''Firebenders inside their turrets''.
** Also [[spoiler: crawler tanks used against the Fire Nation.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SwatKats'' has several cool tanks, including the infamous Metallikat Express - a high-speed hovertank loaded to the brim with weaponry and missiles.
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''. Bart drove one when he got addicted to ADD meds. Mr Burns used one to lay siege to the Simpson home when he found out that Mona Simpson was back in town.
* ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''. Peter bought Meg a tank instead of a car. Brian and Stewie used it to destroy Superstore USA.
* In ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', Harley Quinn ended up being chased by one driven by General Vreeland after accidentally kidnapping his daughter Veronica.
-->''(While driving away)''\\
'''Veronica''': Wait-what are you doing? That's my father.\\
'''Harley Quinn''': No, that's your father, IN A TANK!
* ReBoot had two games where the User character was a tank. Unfortunately one of the games crashed and a dinosaur game was loaded on top of the crashed game, merging the games. The result was a User character that was a [[NinjaZombiePirateRobot t-rex with a tank turret for a head]].
* Panthro's DynamicEntry in ''[[WesternAnimation/{{Thundercats 2011}} ThunderCats (2011)]]'' involves GunshipRescue by surprise tank attack.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/YoungJustice'' episode "Bereft", the Bialyan Army uses tanks effectively against the Team and manage to get them on the run until Superboy arrives.
[[folder:Real Life]]
* There's a good case for TruthInTelevision with this trope. Even though a single tank may not be a rampaging fortress of badassery in itself without combined arms support, it doesn't mean that they're not cool. The [[YanksWithTanks M1A2 Abrams]], [[WeAreNotTheWehrmacht Leopard 2A6]], [[BritsWithBattleships Challenger 2]], [[IsraelisWithInfraredMissiles Merkava Mk.4]], [[RussiansWithRustingRockets T-90]],[[ChineseWithChopperSupport Type-99]], [[UsefulNotes/PakistanisWithPanters Khalid]], [[GaulsWithGrenades Leclerc]] and several others are all examples of RealLife tanks that are pretty damn cool and fairly badass. Plus, they don't suffer from the CripplingOverspecialization of fictional tanks (though most of them fall somewhere separate of the others in terms of speed, armour, firepower, and cost (the hidden factor!), ensuring [[CosmeticallyDifferentSides no two nation's tanks are exactly alike]]). Most of them also have the neat feature of being totally modular - swapping the entire engine, suspension, armor plates, etc is easier and faster than actually repairing the components.
* The Israeli Merkava is the most versatile tank of the lot. Not only is it big, bad and extremely powerful, it has been designed first and foremost with crew survivability in mind. Also, its gun/Fire control system allow it to shoot attacking helicopters out of the sky, fire air bursting munitions and launch laser guided missiles. in addition to these features, it can also carry [[AwesomePersonnelCarrier troops into battle]],allowing the tank to double as an APC, Mobile command center and even a Medevac platform. Can one possibly ask more of a tank?
** As of 2010, the Merkavas are being outfitted with [[http://defense-update.com/products/t/trophy.htm 'Trophy' Active Protection Systems]] - point defense mini-turrets designed to shoot down enemy rockets, missiles and shells before they hit, saving the tank's armor a lot of trouble, and to an extent countering the threat that infantry with [=RPG=]s and missiles present to modern tanks. The Americans and Germans have been working on their own versions, Quick Kill and AMAP-ADS, and the Russians already have a similar system, 'Arena' installed on their tanks.
** To save heavily on logistics, much of Israel's modern armored vehicle platforms just use the Merkava with the tank turret swapped out for something else.
** As a by the way the word "Merkava" means chariot. As that is in a way what a tank is, a "horseless chariot", it makes sense.
** Unfortunately for Israel, ambulance vehicles claiming protection under [[UsefulNotes/TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar the Geneva conventions]] aren't allowed to be armed, meaning that they have to choose between being protected by their medical status, and being protected by, well, being in a main battle tank. Also unfortunate is that the Merkava has to choose between either carrying troops or carrying ammunition. AwesomeButImpractical perhaps?
*** Most of the people that Israel would be likely to fight do not have a [[Main/ShootTheMedicFirst history of respecting]] the [[UsefulNotes/TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar protection afforded medical vehicles]], so it may not make much of a difference.
** Israel is designing a new main battle tank, with possible weapon systems to replace the main gun including an EMP cannon or a laser cannon. Estimated finish date is 2020.
* The somewhat older gas-turbine-powered [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-80 T-80]], though in a peripheral role in service due to the fragmentation of industry with the Soviet breakup, is still famed for its nickname as the "flying tank"--capable of accelerating fast enough to jump off ramps and even [[http://i422.photobucket.com/albums/pp306/stormwulfen/t-80ufiringinmidair.jpg fire its main gun in midair]] at demonstrations to this day.
** The T-80U, the top variant of the T-80 tank, was, during its time, the Soviet Union's answer to the best the west offered. With Explosive Reactive Armor panels covering most of the tank's frontal armor, the T-80U was an exceptionally tough target to kill, and a fast moving one at that. Its 1G46 fire control system was not as good as those on the western tanks, but was still able to get the job done, able to fire APFSDS rounds at a range equal to M1A1s and Leopards, albeit with slightly less accuracy.
* The newer [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-90 T-90]], which is a major "upgrade" (if you can call the all-new engine, transmission, turret, armor, gun, and control system an "upgrade") of the T-72, could give bursts of speed around 90 kph (though seriously overloading its engine and transmission, its designed speed is about 70 kph) pretty much on ''every terrain'', leading to quite a spectacular leaps that earned it the nickname of ''Flying Tank'' as well, and it can execute a literal MultiTrackDrifting while shooting at a target. The diesel engine is somewhat less powerful than gas turbine variants, but it has the benefit of far superior range and much lower fuel consumption.
** The still-more upgraded T-90MS introduce an entirely new turret with integrated ammo bins in the bustle and radically improved protection (and digital FCS and new autoloader). The Army decided not to order it, as they're developing a radically new MBT, but was very pleased with the turret design and will probably use it to upgrade the existing inventory of T-90s and T-72s.
* The aforementioned [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenger_2 British Challenger 2]] was demonstrated to be a very CoolTank indeed on an episode of ''TopGear''--you'd expect Jeremy Clarkson in a Land Rover Sport to run circles around the tank. [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wKfpPrRVIo Not so.]] In fact, he underestimates the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wKfpPrRVIo&t=5m42s Challengers versatility.]]
** Of course, Jeremy did make the mistake of trying to outmaneuver the Challenger 2 on broken, muddy ground and steep inclines--their home turf, in fact, in the very field that the tankers practice in. It was there he proved that tires are for speed (which his LR Sport has quite well, if on a well paved road), tracks are for rough terrain. As he puts it "Oh no, I seem to have brought Puff Daddy's car to [[http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/somme.htm The Somme.]] This is where I've had it. You can't drive a car, even as one as good as this, over this kind of surface fast. And you can with a tank." The tank crew also feels free to use some of their other abilities, such as neutralizing his speed advantage by blinding him with obscurant smoke -- not a problem to a tank that can avoid large trees with infrared vision and roll over smaller obstacles, but plenty of problems to an unaided driver of a car that doesn't dare hit anything - and the fact that trying to put the pedal to the metal results in a huge dust trail that gives the tankers an easy target to chase. They catch up to him when he tries to drive in a straight line, presenting a predictable target. They're also good sports in that they never say "You know, we don't really have to use the 120mm main cannon to destroy a civilian SUV...man the [[MoreDakka machine gun.]]"
*** It also demonstrates the skill of the British tankers, in that, despite Jeremy being in a car with a lot of "viewing ports" and essentially 360 degree vision, they still managed to hide from him. I repeat: a 63 ton MBT managed to jump a man in a vehicle designed to have high visibility.
** The Dorchester/Chobham II armour, oft considered among the front runners for "toughest tank armour in the world." It certainly has an almost untarnished combat record to prove it. In Iraq, one [=CR2=] returned to the British operating base with the remains of 70+ detonated [=RPG=]s all over it after 24 hours in the field. It was described as looking like an evil, 62.7 tonne hedgehog. Another, after getting stuck in a ditch, spent four hours under sustained [=RPG=] fire (14 impacts reported), and survived a hit to the top of the turret (usually a weakspot on a tank) from a modern MILAN ATGW missile. The damage? A few broken sight units and periscopes. [=REME=] (the British tank mechanics) repaired it 8 hours (after rescue) and had it in service the next day. Simon Dunstan also describes an incident of one taking an Iraqi tank shot at near point blank range with the crew not even realising they were hit. To sum up, this is a ''seriously hard tank''.
** The only 'Chally' to ever be destroyed was in a blue-on-blue accident. The Hi-Explosive round from another Challenger 2 detonated in the turret after being deflected by an open crew hatch. The shell unfortunately killed two crew members who were outside the tank at the time, throwing them from the vehicle and left hot shards setting a fire inside it. Eventually, this fire reached and detonated the ammunition in the turret bins. (Hard to put out a fire in the middle of a warzone in time when half the crew is gone and the others injured) Despite the resulting explosion, the hull, aside from fire damage, was for the most part fine.
** There were only two instances of their fighting compartments breached, by probably-Syrian [[http://world.guns.ru/grenade/gl04-e.htm RPG-29]] Vampirs for the first and a colossal IED for the second. Still, given that the RPG-29 is one of the most modern anti-tank weapons in the world, some injury isn't that bad, even if it is a black-mark on their aura of invulnerability. The RPG-29 had been placed almost like an IED, firing at unarmoured belly. The detonation set off the ERA on the lower front plate from shards hitting it too. Even then, the British only lost three toes. (The driver even drove the basically undamaged tank home) Since then, the British had placed Dorchester armour on the lower front and the belly, a material that ''has'' stopped RPG-29s in the past. It is an oft cited myth that it "penetrated the frontal armour" of the Challenger, but this has been oft disproven. The second incident involving the IED strike, of course, was rather similar. Once again, the tank was essentially undamaged barring an injured crew member who still serves in the British Army to this day.
** Don't forget [[SpotOfTea the brew-up]], people. The Chally: a virtually impenetrable, go-anywhere tortoise with teeth that can calmly boil water for a decent cuppa (or, you know: heat up a meal) when you've got five or ten minutes to spare when not under direct fire. That's pretty cool. And, can find you friends in strange places willing to hog your ability to make their meal breaks more interesting. It's a British tank: not being able to make tea for a break any time, anywhere? Inconceivable! Arguably the strongest-armoured, best-armed, fastest, heaviest, manoeuvrable and well-engineered kettle you'll ever meet. Until the next version rolls up, that is.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams M1 Abrams]] is also no slouch. It's powered by a literal jet engine and can go so fast, that ''its treads will actually tear off'' if you remove the engine governor. The Abrams can also demolish most other tanks and is incredibly resilient with its depleted-uranium reinforced Chobham armor. In both Gulf Wars, not a single M1 Abrams was knocked out by an enemy tank. The majority of damaged/destroyed Abrams resulted from accidents, ambushes with anti-tank weaponry, friendly fire, and scuttling. They're so resilient, that even American weaponry has a hard time destroying them.
** The Abrams is ridiculously hard to permanently put down even by the full firepower of OTHER Abrams shooting at them. At best, you get temporary knockouts; one [=M1A1=] took a hit directly in the rear from an Iraqi T-72 in the first Gulf War. The crew survived with minor injuries, the assailing tank was quickly destroyed, and the stricken Abrams was quickly recovered and repaired. There's also a story of an Abrams that got bogged down and four T-72s decided to rush it. None of their shots penetrated. The Abrams killed two of them, shot the third as it was running away, and the forth hid behind a sand berm. The Abrams, using the thermal imaging camera, was able to see the hot exhaust rising and shot through the sand berm, killing the final T-72. When other tanks came, it was decided to abandon and destroy the Abrams rather than have to get up specialized equipment to pull it out(The other tanks couldn't). The other tanks tried to kill the now-abandoned Abrams but couldn't. One round exploded the ammunition magazine but the blowout panels directed to force of the explosion upwards. Eventually, a tractor came and pulled it out. The turret was sent back the the US for examination and the tank got a new one and was back in action pretty soon.
** The Abrams also drinks fuel. As in, 20 gallons per mile. No, not miles per gallon. It consumes about 20 gallons of fuel for every mile it travels. Without a steady supply of tanker trucks keeping it topped up, they quickly become very expensive, hard to kill ''bunkers''. Jet Engines are fuel hogs, after all. There's a reason everybody else uses Diesel Engines: you give up performance but get a massive increase in combat range. Still, almost all tanks have maximum speeds around 40-45mph: It's the Abrams which is almost unique in being able to exceed this with the governor disabled.
*** Not quite true with regards to the Abrams' governor. The same trick was possible with M60 Patton as well. It might have been true with all US tanks with engine governors.
*** The one thing that the YanksWithTanks are [[InternetBackdraft uncontroversially]] best at is [[EasyLogistics logistics]]. No other country can ship supplies from point A to point B faster or more reliably than the US (in fact, ironically, this emphasis on logistics is actually partly why the Abrams is such a fuel hog. All US vehicles are designed to run on JP-8 fuel, which is jet fuel), which means that the Abrams can and do meet most of its fuel requirements. After all, there are thousands of Abrams deployed all over the world, and there has only been one instance where an Abrams ran out of fuel in the field. Plus, the Abrams is multi-fuel capable, so it's perfectly able to run on everything from gasoline to moonshine (though not as reliably), which means it can make use of captured enemy fuel supplies.
** Some of the Advantages of the jet turbine include making the M1 Abrams the tank version of an ExtremeOmnivore, put anything that a sane man could consider fuel such as ''kerosene'' and it'll work, albeit at the cost of reduced power and efficiency (but hell, that's far better than not being able to run at all!)
** It's also [[StealthyColossus reallly quiet]] compared to the loud as hell diesels in most tanks.
** One downside of the gas turbine engine is that the enormous heat being dumped by it makes it impossible for infantry to sit on the tank or work as close support. Future variants of the Abrams, optimized for more of an urban combat environment, may use the same diesel engine as on the Leopard 2.
* The French came up with the AMX-56 Leclerc, starting full-scale production in 1993. It uses a steel inner-shell overlaid with ceramics, titanium, and ERA blocks. Designed from the beginning with active protection in mind, the Leclerc is one of the fastest tanks in the world, as well as one of the lightest. It also incorporates an autoloader which, unlike Russian equivalents, is [[MundaneUtility actually faster at loading shells than an extra crewman.]] Though it has yet to be tested in combat, its predecessor, the 1960-vintage AMX 30 still destroyed more advanced Iraqi tanks during the First Gulf War, and the same people make the AMX-56...
* Then there is the also aforementioned [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_2 Leopard 2]], which is a sibling of the M1 Abrams; both tanks were developed out of the original joint American-German project Kampfpanzer/Main Battle Tank 70 (which became too expensive). For a tank it's absurdly fast (capaple of driving 120 kph on road). The only drawback is, that it is nearly uncontrollable and only drives in a straight line; add the most powerful main gun of any tank to that, though, and you are ready.
** Most Leopard 2s used the same 120mm L/44 gun as the M1A1/2[[note]]Which is actually the other way around. All M1A1 use the Rheinmeltall 120mm L/44, which is ddesignated M256 in the U.S. armed forces.[[/note]], though the new Leopard 2A6's have the more powerful L/55 version which is shared with the South Korean K2 Black Panther.
** The Bundeswehr is currently testing the Leopard 2 A7+/A7 PSO. A tank build for MOUT operations. It has (again) the Rheinmetall 120mm L/44 installed. It also got a remotely controlled weapon station, a dozer blade and a 360° protection for the turret and programmable HE munitions. The tank is a supplement to the normal Leoard 2 forces of the Bundeswehr and not meant to replace the A6 and earlier variants.
** WordOfGod has it that, if you get a skilled technician to tinker with the engine, you can boost the engines 1500PS to 1800PS, or exceed 2100PS at the expense of killing the engine before the fuel runs out. It was apparently tested once, where it reached the aforementioned 120kph on paved roads, and a whopping 80kph on mud.
** It is still unclear how good the Leopard 2 would fare in a real combat with tank against tank, since it has never been in one. If the regular exercises are any indicator at all the Leopard 2 is at least on par, if not better. However it is imperative to note that comparisons are fishy at best since the Leopard 2 has a totally different modus operandi than say the Challenger II, which is also reflected it it's design. From an armour standpoint it is by far the weakest armoured tank of the modern tanks, however it packs the most punch (disregarding Soviet ATGMs fired from tank cannons), beating the Challenger IIs rifled gun (as tested by the British army in the Challenger Lethality Improvement Programme (CLIP)) and being the fastest of the western tanks. The doctrine of the German army is to quickly drive up to the enemy, fire a few rounds and then get the hell out. In training, experienced Leopard 2 crews hit around 95% of the target while standing and only 3% less accurate while moving. There are even (forbidden) techniques of getting out three rounds in about five to seven seconds, which includes one round in the cannon, one in the hands of the loader and the other on the foot of the loader. After the first round is fired the loader rams the second in and pushes the third up with his foot, after that he can quickly ram down the third one. Much faster than any auto loader on the Russian T-90 series. To put is simple: This tank is fast and packs a hell of a punch.
** It is however to note that the combat performance out of a strict tank versus tank environment has been very good so far. The Canadian army uses Leopard 2 a few years in Afghanistan and they are very pleased with it. At one time a Leopard 2 A6M [[http://milnewstbay.pbworks.com/f/ThankYouToDEU-CP-Canoe-052039Dec07.pdf drove onto an IED]] and the crew surviving with minor injuries, the tank was repaired and put back into action. Denmark had almost the same experience in January 2008, where a Leopard 2 drove onto an IED and lost one of it's tracks. The tank could crawl back into bas on it's own and was repaired quickly (the crew was unharmed). the only reported combat casualty on a Leopard 2 was a IED ambush in mid 2008, where a Leopard 2 A5DK drove onto an IED and the driver was killed, this however was due to the fact that that Leopard 2 was not upgraded with a mine protection, as now almost all Leopard 2 have.
** A fact that furthermore makes the Leopard highly moveable is it's engine which is the engine itself and the transmission in one big block. You simply loosen the screws that hold the block, lift it out and put a new one back in. The Bergepanzer Büffel, which is equipped with the same engine and has the same chassis than the Leopard 2 can even lift out his own engine (yes you heard right, it is the only vehicle to be able to do that) and put it into the Leopard 2. The Büffel can also tow the Leopard out of harms way without the crew leaving the tank (if the towing equipment was prepared beforehand).
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBT-70 MBT-70]] was the [[SuperPrototype prototype]] for the M1 Abrams, ultimately rejected as [[AwesomeButImpractical too expensive]] at a per unit cost of $5 million a pop in the 1970's. To put that in perspective the [=M1A1=], is one of the most expensive tanks in the world today, and it costs $5 million now, $5 million in the 1970's would be about $26 million now.
** To put it more into perspective the last batch of F-4 Phantoms built in the 70s cost about 3 million a piece.
** The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expeditionary_tank Expeditionary Tank]] that was developed in Parallel wasn't too bad either.
* More TruthInTelevision: In a recent episode of Series/MythBusters, the cast addressed the idea that the friction between pages of two interleaved phone directories is impossible to overcome. They tested this one first with two people trying to pull it apart... then ten people... then two cars... and, instead of going with trucks or other large civilian vehicles, invoked The RuleOfCool and rented a couple of M551 Sheridan light tanks (which, yes, finally did manage to separate the books... effortlessly).
** Point-of-fact, the pages were completely torn out of their respective bindings, but not many of them were actually separated from each other.
** Actually, while one of the tanks used in the episode was a Sheridan, the first to start moving was not a tank at all, but an M113 armored personnel carrier fitted with a tank turret. [[RuleofCool I guess it classifies]].
* Modern [=MBTs=] have large diesel or turbine engines that can give between 1000 and 1500 hp on average. The ''biggest'' Detroit Diesel truck engine (still in the prototype stage) is just 600 hp. That's more than double increase in the power, and then there's the matter of traction as well. Tanks grip the ground with the whole surface of the track, while trucks has only the points of contact -- the rather smallish areas where the tire contacts with the ground, greatly increasing the possibility of slippage. And, last but not least, tanks are friggin' ''HEAVY'' -- just upward of 40 tons for the modern ones, while only biggest 18- or 22-wheelers can be this heavy when fully laden. This also leads to slippage in such tests. In short, tanks make ''much'' better tugs than any wheeled vehicle.
** Heavy tanks may be, but those tracks distribute the load well, so the M1A1 has only twice the ground pressure of a man ''standing still'' (the ground pressure goes up when walking).
* Early heavy tanks designed and built toward the end of WWI era and some years later -- RealLife examples of "Games Workshop tank".
** French [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/Char2C_Berry.jpg Char 2C]], outclassing and outweighing any other tank of its time, it was armed with a primary 75mm gun and 4 sponson mounted machine guns. Only, this tank was not produced before early 20ies, and even then would have been grossly inadequate for a WWI battlefield (think "political meddling"). As for WWII... Let's just say that given its size, it had great psychological value, so French command made sure to keep it out of harm's way, because even a small cannon would have pierced its WWI-era armor. Of course, this allowed the Germans to capture them and show them in Berlin as "supertanks", even though both armies knew what was the truth. Oh, irony...
** The Char B1 was pretty good: in one battle, one was lured into an ambush by a bunch of Panzer [=IIIs=] and [=IVs=], and flattened them (destroyed 13), and still managed to drive home afterwards (it was hit 140 times, but took no serious damage).
*** The 2C was equally used by the French in propaganda movies. B1-bis' advantage was that only Flak 88 used as Pak could destroy it; so was T-34 in 1941. Hence the German Blitzkrieg doctrine of not fighting tanks with tanks, but to retreat and lure enemy tanks into a trap by "Pak-Fronts" proved sensible. Only when they had to, in later war pretty much all the time, did the Germans use tanks against tanks.
** Red Army has [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-35 T-35]] (built in 1933-1939) with five turrets, mounting a total of three cannons and six machine guns. Wiith 7-11 crewmen [[http://www.wwiivehicles.com/ussr/tanks-heavy/t-35.asp depending on the model]]. Even more of a Lego-machine, since first it got its four side-turrets from BT-2, later replaced with combination of BT-5 (slightly modded) and T-37 turrets.
*** And proved, like its predecessor, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_A1E1_Independent Vickers A1E1]], to be a flop. If you look on the list of how they were lost, most were to various malfunctions due to the combination of complicated machine and USSR tech/craftsmanship.
* [[http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=210 KV-2]], which mounted a [[{{BFG}} 152mm howitzer]] (largest caliber weapon ''ever'' fitted on a production tank), but was virtually immobile and couldn't traverse its turret unless it was on perfectly level ground. Its intended role was an ''assault gun'', i.e. self-propelled bunker-buster, better compared with the German Jagdpanzers or [=StuG=]s. As such neither did it need much mobility, nor lack of ease of use would be all that detrimental for it. Of course, these lumbering behemots performed well enough [[UsefulNotes/FinnsWithFearsomeForests slowly chewing through Mannerheim's concrete]], in highly mobile warfare of the summer campaign of 41 they acted more as mobile fortifications -- unable to hit anything that doesn't stand and wait for it, but armored heavier than [[http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=313 KV-1]] that were able to [[http://books.google.com/books?id=5EA5LrwmP2UC&pg=PA36 survive over a hundred cannon hits]] and beat lighter tanks by ''[[RammingAlwaysWorks ramming]]''. [[http://books.google.com/books?id=5EA5LrwmP2UC&pg=PA18 One well-placed KV-2 was enough to stop a division]]: tanks and anti-tank cannons failed to penetrate its armour, so Germans stuck until they brought in 88-mm anti-air guns. 105-mm howitzers were able to only to blow off tracks off these monsters, but not destroy them. KV's worst enemy were the Stukas (bombs were more practical against heavy armored but slow tanks) and Red Army's own logistical troubles. Still, the scheme was good enough to reuse production lines, upgrading both assault gun and tank branches, and later turn KV series into [[http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=191 IS]] series.
** The KV2's biggest flaw was that it could only be used on the flat. The top-heavy turret not only made it problematical on slopes, if tipped too far from the horizontal, its sheer weight displaced in one direction caused it to jam solid in its bearings, making it impossible to traverse.
** Talking about IS tanks ( '''I'''ossif '''S'''talin, by the way), don't forget the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IS-2 IS-2]], a heavy, breakthrough tank developed to counter the German Panthers & Tigers whose main armament was a [[MoreDakka 122mm gun]].
** Although the Soviets won the war by mass-producing the awesome-in-its-own-way T-34 and [=KVs=], they were also prone to CrazyAwesome experiments, such as the unmanned, remote-controlled [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletank Teletank]] and the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_A-40 Antonov A-40]] ''[[RuleOfCool flying tank]]'' or strapping a pair of 245-mm rocket rails on top of [[GlassCannon BT-5 light tank]] (reappeared in more sane variant as side rockets on KV-1, but cancelled due to low accuracy).
** One battle in 1941 involved 5 KV-2's ambushing a German tank column. The Soviet tank commander made sure to utilize the KV-2's strengths by trapping the entire column on a narrow road going through a swamp by blowing up the leading and trailing German tanks. Any Panzer that tried to go off-road found itself bogged down and just as trapped. The camouflaged KV-2's rolled out one at a time, fired, and rolled back into cover, making sure the Germans had no idea where they were. By the end of the shooting gallery, sorry, battle, the Germans lost 43 tanks with no casualties on the Soviet side. The Soviet commander's crew counted the hits on their tank - there were over 200 with no penetrations.
** The Finnish army captured two intact KV-I tanks in the Continuation War, which were quickly put into action against their former owners. They stood the battle quite well - they were always employed as the "spearhead" tanks. ''They both still exist in driveable condition'' and were used in making the film ''Tali-Ihantala 1944''. This must be a unique situation in war movies where not only actual vehicles are used in the movie, but also the actual individual tanks which have taken part in the RealLife actions the film depict.
* ''Even more'' TruthInTelevision, as far as the coolness aspect is concerned. Any [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-heavy_tank Superheavy]] tank would count even if most of them don't work. They make the list based on sheer principle.
** During WorldWarTwo ThoseWackyNazis developed the Panzerkampfwagen VIII ''Maus'', a 188 ton superheavy tank (it means 'mouse' -- who says the Germans [[FluffyTheTerrible don't have a sense of humor]]) with a 128mm ''and'' a 75mm coaxial gun. Two were built, and both were pressed into combat against the Soviets in the last days of the war. Both were scuttled by their crews to prevent the Soviets from capturing them. Unfortunately for them, one crew destroyed their turret and the other their hull, so the Soviets stuck the working turret on the working hull and put it in a museum.
*** Incidentally, on the drawing board was the Landkreuzer P-1000 ''[[IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming Ratte]]'' , theoretically 1000 metric tons (in practice it would have been twice that) with [[MoreDakka two 280mm naval guns, a 128mm antitank gun, eight 20mm anti-aircraft guns and two 15mm heavy machine guns!]] And topping it all was the P-1500 Monster, which would have the [[BiggerIsBetter 800mm Dora artillery piece]] with its railroad running gear replaced with about eight sets of tracks. With two 150mm howitzers and multiple machine guns for backup. Both these tanks are in fact even larger than the Baneblade from Imperial Armour, which is comparably tiny (at only 250 tons). If the Maus was impractical, such behemoths would be virtually useless; they would've likewise been easy targets for allied bombers mistaking them to be buildings. [[StupidJetpackHitler Hitler]] ''was'' a badass for curbstomping fiction ''before'' it even came up with its own, wasn't he?
*** As ludicrously impractical as these concepts were (Hitler's own top tank general, Heinz Guderian, dismissed the notion as a ridiculous fantasy), they were in fact technically ''possible''; certain civil vehicles were in fact as big (or even bigger), such as the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawler-transporter NASA Crawler-Transporters]] and the insanely huge [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagger_288 Bagger 288]] coal excavator (roughly the same size as ''the RMS Titanic''). This proves that tank sizes could certainly be increased to this extent, but would be militarily worthless.
** Americans meanwhile tried [[http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=331 T28 Super Heavy Tank / Gun Motor Carriage T95]], redesignated back and forth due to lack of turret. 95-ton monstrosity with 8 mph top speed and 4 sets of tracks for different soils wasn't much more usable than the rest, but at least got to move on its own -- there are two prototypes.
** The author of the book ''My Tank Is Fight!'', which specifically looks into the various super projects of World War II and puts forth hypothetical scenarios involving their deployments, mentioned that were the Rattes or Monsters to be built they would likely have to be built in ''naval shipyards'' (and be subject to the same allied bombing raids as the other ships). They would be devastating, sure...for the first encounter, after which they would likely be bombed out of existence from the air. Even as heavily-armored as they were planned to be, a single 500 pound bomb was all it would take to pierce that armor. That's not counting even narrower list of accessible terrains and inability to cross most contemporary bridges. AwesomeButImpractical.
** Somewhere in between is [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obyekt_279 Obyekt 279]] ("Object 279"), a Soviet prototype heavy tank with a maximum armor of 305mm and a 130mm cannon. It is designed to withstand a [[MnogoNukes nuclear attack]], and it seems that it doesn't fail its purpose. '''Two pairs''' of tracks and 1000 horsepower to move 60 tons allowed it to be a tank and not a self-propelled bunker -- velocity on a road is claimed to be 55 km/h and [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okTc-87-XvU you can see]] how it plows through snow and swamp. Canceled, like most projects of its time not related to either nuclear missiles, space race or overdue upgrade of production capabilities.
*** Speaking of the heavy Objects, there's some more that should be noted. The 279 would probably have been a logistic & maintenance nightmare with its overly complex chassis, but another project of that time - the 277 - is also notable. The main drawback of Heavy Tanks (low mobility) would not have really applied to it; it wasn't too heavy (a lot of modern MBTs have more weight than its 55 tons); its power-to-weight ratio would have actually been better than most medium/MB tanks of its time (about 18 HP/ton), and its ground pressure was on par with the MBTs. It would have had a 130mm rifled gun with mechanized loading (same as the 279) and its armor, while less than that of the 279, would have been thicker than that of the medium/MB tanks. The project (as part of the whole heavy tank development program) was killed by Khrushchev himself, who believed that dedicated missile tanks were the future. [[EpicFail They were not.]]
*** For reference, Khrushchev was a firm believer in missile superiority over armor. He fought any proposal for large armored ships, calling them floating targets for missiles.
* Speaking of the failed German superheavy tanks from World War II, there's also what was without a doubt Nazi Germany's [[LightningBruiser scariest war machine]] -- if not its most reliable -- the [=PzKpfw=] VI, otherwise known as the Tiger. Yes, its design suffered from being overengineered, lacking sloped armour and being costly to produce, but it's arguably the most iconic armoured vehicle to ever have existed, with its thick armour and [[{{BFG}} enormous 88mm cannon]]. Allied forces suffered "Tiger terror" for a reason, and recommended tactics for Sherman tanks -- at least before stuff like the Firefly came about -- was to outnumber it ''five'' to one, and it was still generally accepted that four of those were likely to be destroyed. [[WeHaveReserves Since there were many more Shermans than Tigers, though...]] (Specifically, ''25'' Shermans for every Tiger I, II, or Jagdtiger.)
** Or the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_II Tiger II (aka King Tiger)]], a [[UptoEleven Tiger tank in steroids]] with an even more powerful gun and sloped armor. However, mechanical problems were quite common and few were built as they appeared in the last year of the war.
** Awesome as the King Tiger was, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jagdtiger Jagdtiger]] tank destroyer had even more armour (a freakish ''quarter of a metre thick'' in places - ten inches, all but a hairsbreadth) and an [[BiggerIsBetter even bigger]] 128mm gun that could trash any enemy tank from two miles away. Fortunately, few were built and mechanical problems were common (along with fuel and equipment shortages). And mobility issues, since a lot of bridges couldn't actually take its 70+ ton weight.
*** They usually were [[MightyGlacier simply driven in ambush to wait oncoming enemies, picking them one by one]]. And then reversing away, shooting all the time should things get too hot.
** Tiger? See also the Panzer V Panthers. The US Army Armor Officers Basic course used to (might still) require an essay on the Panther vs the T-34/85, which was quite comparable. They were close enough that picking either one was acceptable, as long as you gave good reasons and covered the pros and cons of each. A battle between a Panther and a T-34/85 would most likely be decided by the quality of the crews -- terrain and surprise being equal.
*** Shermans upgunned with 76mm (American) and Ordnance QF 17-pounder (British) guns didn't do too badly either, and in fact Sherman Fireflies (armed with 17-pounder guns) could penetrate Panther turrets at a decent range and were almost a match for Tiger 1s.
** Panthers actually ''were'' tanks in the blitzkrieg tradition. That is they were made to be heavy cavalry without horses. Tigers were anti-tank guns on tracks.
*** Tigers were anti-aircraft guns on tracks. It's just they realized that their 88mm FLAK gun was really good at destroying armored vehicles but was difficult to deploy, so they decided to build a tank around it.
*** In the hands of skilled drivers, Tigers did actually have good mobility on rough terrain on par with the Panzer IV, contrary to popular belief.
** One fact that is often left out is that the Panther had huge flaws, like its secondary gear shift and complicated intersected wheels for example. It was poorly constructed and held together for a whopping 150km, before needing a maintenance overhaul. The turret had a weak motorisation that left the crew with hand cranking it while tilted, and the intersected wheels made changing the inner row a pain, since you had to remove 3 wheels to change one. The motor and tracks also didn't hold together that much, needing to be swapped every 1000 and 500km respectively. That said, the good did outweigh the bad by a huge degree, and in combat the design's merits were proved beyond a doubt. Despite this, the [[BoringButPractical Panzer IV]] remained the workhorse of the German Army until the end.
*** ''Some'' of these problems were corrected in later variants, but more than half of the Panthers lost in Normandy were due to the weak final drive that caused the Panther to break down after just 150km of use (or less than half of its gas tank). The Germans simply made the mistake of making the tank too heavy (45 tons, or the same weight as the original specifications for the Tiger heavy tank) for the technology of the time.
*** Panthers represent an interesting case. In terms of size and design parameters, Panthers belong with immediate post-war medium/main battle tanks such as Centurion, M-46, or T-54, all of which were designed with the recognition that the relatively small World War II mediums could not be satisfactorily equipped with sufficiently heavy armor, armament, and other equipment. They were all physically bigger and much heavier than World War 2 mediums such as Shermans or T-34s (40-50 tons rather than 25-30 tons), but were designed to operate as medium tanks rather than as specialist vehicles that the heavies were. While Panthers were armed and armored to be superior to the contemporary mediums, it was not enough to stand up to tanks in their own class--which, to be fair, didn't exist just yet. Consequently, they were better (but not dramatically) than most of their adversaries, but quite inferior to the more appropriate counterparts that showed up just a few years later (US M-26, the tank that M-46 would be developed from, was starting to show up on the battlefield by early 1945. The Centurion was about to enter mass production when the war in Europe ended. The Soviets were starting to field T-44, from which T-54 would be developed from, by the end of the war as well. Each one of these outclassed the Panther, by considerable margin in some respects.). Speaking of which....
* The British Centurion deserves some votes as the best tank of its era. It was designed on the same premise as the Panther, the recognition that the World War II era medium tank was too small to accommodate the kinds of armor, weapons, and other equipment needed for a future war. Originally designated as a 45-ton "heavy cruiser" tank, it was better armed (originally with the 17 pounder (basically, the equivalent of the long 75mm of the Panther), then the 20-pounder (equivalent to the long 88mm of the Tiger II), and eventually the revolutionary 105mm L7), better armored, fairly fast, and utterly reliable. It was good enough to be remain in service as a frontline tank for 30 plus years and in supporting roles (modified as engineer vehicles or heavy armored personnel carriers) for 30 years or more and counting. Not bad for what is essentially a late World War II tank.
* Statistically, the best "tank" of the German army was actually the Panzer III, which then transitioned to become the Stug III assault gun. All types of Tigers are claimed (but not verified) to have killed 10,000 Allied tanks. The Stugs alone claim to have killed twice that number by ''1944''.
* On the other side of the scale, you have the French Leclerc, one of the fastest main battle tanks in the world. And ''the'' fastest one when firing; while other tanks have to slow down to shoot, it can pummel you with twelve 120mm rounds a minute (it has the fastest autoloader of any main battle tank too) while running at 50km/h.
** The Leclerc also deals with the poor fuel efficiency of jet engines by using a hybrid diesel/gas turbine setup. The main engine is a mostly conventional diesel, but instead of the usual supercharger it's got a small gas turbine.
* The British Churchill AVRE mounted a 290mm spigot mortar, designed for breaching fortifications. The projectile weighed 40lbs, and was known as a "flying dustbin." That wasn't the only modification it received either.
* Sturmtiger, anyone? The thing was build on the Tiger's chassis. Although smaller, stockier, more armored and armed with a repurposed and modified large naval rocket launcher, the 380 mm Raketen-Werfer RW61 L/5.4. It had a crane at the back to help loading the enormous shells.
* What happens when you take an already crawler-tracked bulldozer, weld a few tons of steel to it, seal it up and go nuts? The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvin_Heemeyer Killdozer]].
** Done over right by the IDF's [[http://www.israeli-weapons.com/weapons/vehicles/engineer_vehicles/bulldozers/d9_d10.html 'Doobi']] armored Caterpillar D9 bulldozer.
* Leonardo Da Vinci actually designed a tank. It was [[ClockPunk built out of wood, was powered by hand cranks]], and had [[MoreDakka multiple cannons pointing all around the tank.]] [[http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/doing-davinci-tank-test.html One TV show was even able to build a functioning replica.]]
** They had to modify the design; as originally drawn, the wheels would counter-rotate and result in it going nowhere, as well as cannons having to stick through the wheels themselves. It was mentioned on the show that Da Vinci would occasionally do this sort of boobytrapping in case someone picked up his notes.
** This design is used in ''VideoGame/AssassinsCreedBrotherhood'' as one actually built by Leonardo for Cesare Borgia. It was actually pretty fast, although only firing one cannon at a time. The mission involves destroying all prototypes and the original plans. It can be assumed that Leonardo then made a second set of plans deliberately flawed.
* The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34 T-34]], the tank that broke the Nazi armies. It was built in 1940, and its appearance completely shocked the Third Reich, who did not think the Russians could design good tanks. The T-34 was cheap, fast, reliable, tough and very powerful. Its 76mm gun outclassed the 37mm and 50mm guns of early Panzers, whose shots would simply bounce off the T-34's sloped armor. The 1943 upgrade of an 85-millimeter gun allowed them to deal with upgunned Panzer IV variants, Panthers and Tigers. Although not the first tank ever to have sloping armor, it was the first to use it so well in its design that it became an obvious factor to its battlefield survivability, thus prompting the Germans to come up with what eventually was the Panther. Consequently, sloped armor became a standard feature on pretty much every tank post-WW2.
** While the Russians have had a reputation for poor build quality, the T-34's armor quality was consistently excellent and the much-vaunted German armor had highly inconsistent quality (verified by both Soviet and American tests on Panther tanks as well as by a prewar Russian test on a Panzer III tank). The consistently good armor quality on the T-34 was a factor in keeping the sloped frontal plate and allowing it to bounce shots - the Germans, with their hard but often brittle armor, decided against copying the T-34's armor until they devised the Panther with its less sloped but far thicker frontal armor.
** Unlike most other tanks, the T-34 was also built to operate well in winter conditions - its diesel engine could start easily and keep running in such freezing conditions (diesel fuel had a lower freezing point than petrol which the German tanks ran on) and cold even nullified defects in radiators that earlier tanks suffered from in summer, and its wider tracks were like snowshoes, allowing it to race across ground that German tanks couldn't hope to cross (the German tanks had narrower tracks meaning they bogged down in mud and snow, and outfitting them with "snowshoes" just didn't work).
** Being cheap also goes well with the fact that it was relatively easy to manufacture them by the numbers. Crew compartments were crude, sure, but all that time saved furnishing for comfort could result in more tanks being made and sent straight away to push back the Germans at Leningrad and towards Berlin. The Russians learnt that a tank that could not be pushed out and sent to the front lines was as good as no tank at all, especially when the front lines were less than a dozen miles from the factory where the vehicles were being built.
*** All wasn't rosy for the T-34, though. Initial T-34 designs came with a turret that was too small to allow for more than two people to operate(a common failure of many early-war tank designs, with French tanks having only one horribly overworked man in the turret), and were often built without radio equipment (another drawback of many early war designs). Both of these factors severely hindered the combat effectiveness of T-34 units and made them difficult to command. Hard-pressed factory workers also often pushed out half-finished T-34s with no gunsights and shoddily-built machinery that would literally fall apart after running for a few dozen miles. This understandably happened in factories that were at the verge of being run over by the Germans or which had to be shifted thousands of miles in a matter of days, although according to reports the best T-34s by far were from Factory No.183 (based in Kharkov pre-invasion, and the factory that first developed the T-34) and the worst were from Factory No.112.
*** Early T-34s could barely accommodate two men in its turret, leaving them cramped internally. The T-34S, which was under testing when Operation Barbarossa began, would have rectified this, but these new developments were hurriedly abandoned due to the necessity of cranking out as many tanks as possible before factories were overrun. The late T-34s armed with modified 85mm anti-aircraft gun managed to enlarge the turret but the turret design, like the Panther's, had shot traps that could make it vulnerable against guns that would otherwise fail to penetrate it. Armor protection, high for 1941, was inadequate against the guns of Panthers and Tigers, although it was still effective against smaller weapons at long ranges.
*** While simple to manufacture, T-34 was not exactly "cheap." Its engine was largely made of aluminum(the design began as a project to fit lightweight diesels to long-range bombers), which USSR was very short of until the later stages of World War II. The heavy use of aluminum is one of the factors caused the Germans to decide that T-34 cannot be economically copied.
** To quote creator of this tank, M.I. Koshkin: "Even a fool can invent something complicated". And this tank was simple.
** The Military Channel show ''Top Tens'' episode on tanks ranked the T-34 as number one, ahead of M1 Abrams. One of the main ranking categories were production numbers and historical impact. The M1 Abrams, while arguably the best modern tank, has not yet made significant historical impact. Also, they're very high-tech and expensive, meaning there aren't very many of them made. The T-34 is the second most produced tank in history(after the T-54/55) and was crucial in turning the tide of a world war. It is basically, the AK-47 of tanks.
*** "Aren't very many" being a relative term. There are roughly 9,000 Abrams rolling around the world today which is much more than any other entry in its generation. The reason why such a respectable number is considered small? Over 84,000 T-35's rolled off the assembly lines. [[CaptainObvious That is a lot of tanks.]]
* The [[http://www.kubinka.ru/newindex.php?id=3〈=2 Kubinka Tank Museum]] near Moscow has got tanks of just about all degrees of awesome in one place. Including the five-turret T-35, including Obyekt 279, and including a 188-ton Maus formed from the hull from the turretless first prototype mated to the turret from the second prototype.
* The humble M4 Sherman has a poor reputation nowadays due to its performance during the Second World War, when it was forced to fight Panthers and Tigers with an inferior gun and ZergRush tactics. However, that all changed when the Israelis got their hands on some Shermans and gave it the love it deserved. Their first major kitbash, the M50 Sherman, ironically replaced the original 75mm gun with a more powerful French 75mm gun derived from the German ''Panther'''s Kwk 42. Another kitbash, the M51, did away with the 75mm altogether and opted for a 105mm gun. Both types saw extensive action during the many Arab-Israeli Wars, facing tanks that were far superior to any Tiger or Panther. The Israeli Shermans, along with other more modern Western contemporary designs, consistently beat the crap out of these newer tanks.
** Just like when inferior German tanks faced superior Soviet ones, or were far outnumbered; one suspects that crew and general army quality has something to do with this. The fact that Soviet export models were greatly inferior to the original models used by the Soviet military is also a factor.
** The most massively ironic factor? Syria fielded, among more modern Soviet export tanks, surplus ''[=Panzer IVs=]''.
** The Sherman, despite being outgunned and out-armored by the Panther and Tiger, did have some real advantages. It was the very first tank to have a (vertically) stabilized main gun, which helped make firing after moving easier since the elevation didn't have to be adjusted after stopping. It also was quite agile for a medium tank of its era and relatively compact, allowing it to go places a Panther or especially a [[MightyGlacier Tiger]] could never dream of. In an era where most tanks made use of a hand crank that would allow for a full 360 degree turret rotation in one minute, the Sherman had an electrical system that could do the same in as little as ''fifteen seconds''. And finally, it was probably the most reliable tank of World War II, with some Shermans managing to make it through the entire Western Europe campaign with no more than a single major overhaul.
** There's also the fact that Tigers and Panthers were exceedingly rare, with around 1,500 Tiger [=Is=], 500 Tiger II's and 7,500 Panther tanks being made. The US built almost ''[[ZergRush fifty thousand]]'' Shermans. Shermans did reasonably well against the more common Panzer III and [=IVs=] since they were closer to its weight class than the heavier Tiger and Panther. Plus, the Sherman was never intended to fight other tanks head on due to the US Army's belief in the "tank destroyer doctrine", which delayed much needed upgrades. However, once the upgrades were implemented Shermans became far more effective against German armor.
** The Sherman actually performed very well historically with the US Army, and its failures are much exaggerated by many modern "history" shows that only did very basic research (the oft-quoted "It takes five Shermans to kill a Tiger / Panther" for instance was largely a myth.). They actually won the majority of the major tank vs tank battles, even when ''outnumbered'' by the Germans. The textbook case is the Battle of Arracourt wherein the US Army lost only 30 Shermans while destroying over 90 German tanks, mostly the vaunted Panthers - despite being outnumbered and lacking air support for most of the battle. Moreover, the US Armored ''Divisions'' were far superior to their German equivalents, because the US Army paid careful attention to supporting their tankers with mechanized infantry and artillery units. Somewhere between one third to one half of a US Armored Division's strength was actually mech infantry or artillery, while the equivalent German formations were lucky to have some infantry (often marching on foot and getting left behind) to support them.
*** Better tactics and training can make up for a lot of deficiencies in tanks--and the Sherman was not too far behind the tanks of 1940s or even 50s, with appropriate upgrades. During conflicts in Middle East and in South Asia, Israeli and Indian Shermans made mincemeat of Jordanian and Pakistani M-48s on several occasions.
** Well before the Israelis created their Super Shermans, the British upgraded the Sherman to carry the enormous and powerful 17-pounder anti-tank gun, having decided that the US Army's tank destroyer doctrine was complete horseshit. The resulting tank, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Firefly Sherman Firefly]], was rightly feared by German tank crews and Fireflies became priority targets to the extent that the Firefly's main gun was often camouflaged to [[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f8/Sherman_Firefly_9-08-2008_15-05-43.JPG resemble the Sherman's original 75mm gun]]. Famously, it was likely a Firefly that did in German tank ace Michael Wittmann's Tiger.
** The 75mm gun-armed Sherman, although not as powerful as the 76mm variant, was able to penetrate Tigers from flank and frontal shots during Soviet testing. Also, it fired a superior high explosive shell than the 76mm variant (making it much more effective against enemy infantry). The "Sherman Jumbo" assault variant had additional armor but retained the 75mm gun.
** The US also eventually got their own Sherman variants that performed better against German armor, such as the Sherman Jumbo and Easy Eight, which had significantly more armor and were commonly fitted with the more powerful 76mm cannon. To put it in perspective, Jumbos had almost as much frontal armor as a Tiger I.
** The main problem with the Sherman was that since it was so simple and successful at the start of its career, the powers that be saw no reason to do any serious planning to replace it. Shermans at El Alamein in late 1942 were regarded with mild fear by the Axis due to the massive increase in firepower and armour compared to what they were used to facing. By Normandy in 1944, when faced by what was effectively the same tank, the Germans had moved ahead with equipment and now refered to Shermans as Tommy Cookers (more due to lousy ammunition storage practices than any fault of the tank itself, and remedied with "wet" storage).
* Some credit has to be given to the Medium Tank M3, built by the Americans but primarily fielded by the British, who chose to dub the tanks "General Lee" (with the original American-designed turrets) and "General Grant" (with a newer British-designed turret, which was enlarged to fit a radio set). In addition to starting the American tradition of [[ThemeNaming naming armored vehicles for generals]] (Sherman, Pershing, Patton, Sheridan, Bradley, Abrams, etc.), the M3 also carried an unusual armament mix of a light high velocity gun in the turret paired with a heavy low velocity gun in the main body of the tank. Pulled from service with the arrival of the Sherman, many Grants and Lees were retooled into various unusual vehicles, including one version that used a high-intensity turret-mounted spotlight to [[BlindedByTheLight blind German defensive positions]] during night battles.
** The M3 Lee was also sent to the Red Army. While the Russians were not happy with the high profile, the poor hull shape, inadequate armor and the need for gasoline fuel (as opposed to Diesel), they liked the high explosive capacity of the weapon, and the spacious crew compartment allowed them to function as heavy Armored Personnel Carriers in summer, carrying ten troops armed with submachineguns.
** A word on gasoline engines: One of the (many) myths that gets passed around regarding the inferiority of American tanks mentions that they burned gasoline rather than diesel fuel, making them far more likely to catch fire in combat. While it is true that many American tanks (including the Lees and Shermans) burned gasoline, it is also true that most German and British tanks did as well. For various reasons, including the state of the art of engine design at the time, only the Soviets were big into diesel-engined tanks. Gasoline-engined Lend-Lease tanks probably presented more of a logistics problem than a safety problem for them.
* The Slovakian's have a Version of the T-72 that has a pair of 20MM Anti-air guns [[http://www.army-technology.com/projects/t72/t726.html attached to the side of the turret.]]
* The very first tank battle took place at Villers-Bretonneaux in 1918. It involved a battle between 10 tanks on the British side (1 male Mark IV, 2 female Mark [=IVs=], 7 Whippets)[[note]]:In WorldWarI British parlance, a "female" tank was one armed solely with machine guns, while a "male" tank had cannons as its main armament[[/note]] and 3 German [=A7V=] Sturmpanzerwagens. None of them were very good tanks, yet the battle looked awesome, with both sides accquiting themselves quite well: the Germans lost their lead tank, [[ICallItVera Nixie]] (whose crew later stole her back), but knocked out 4 Whippets and forced the female Mark [=IVs=] to retreat, while the British and their Australian allies ultimately won the battle.
* British Infantry Tank II Matilda. Before late 1941 it completely outclassed anything the Germans and Italians could throw in, and the only weapon which had chances to destroy it was the [[CoolGun 88 mm anti-aircraft gun]]. It gained the nickname ''Queen of the Desert'' during the Operation Compass in 1940. Obsolete at West by 1942, the surviving Matildas were shipped to Far East - where it proved superior against anything the Japanese had. The Australians dubbed Matilda as ''Queen of the Jungle''. One of the more whimsical modifications was to equip Matilda with Hedgehog ''depth charge'' launcher. [No, it was not used against submarines, but Japanese bunkers.]
** The Matilda II has this distinction: it is the only British tank of WW2 that was in continual front-line service from September 1939 to August 1945.
* The Matilda's "companion", the Valentine, was no slouch. Although not nearly as heavily armored as the Matilda, it was still a small, well-protected and versatile tank that could fit a variety of roles. The diesel versions of the Valentine were very reliable, had superb fording and terrain-crossing capabilities, far better off-road speed than one would expect, and excellent fuel economy.