The story of the battlefield in the 20th century was dominated by a handful of developments. Foremost of these was the introduction and refinement of tanks. In Tank Warfare, prominent military historian Jeremy Black offers a comprehensive global account of the history of tanks and armored warfare in the 20th and 21st centuries. First introduced onto the battlefield during the World War I, tanks represented the reconciliation of firepower and mobility and immediately seized the imagination of commanders and commentators concerned about the constraints of ordinary infantry. The developments of technology and tactics in the interwar years were realized in the German blitzkrieg in World War II and beyond. Yet the account of armor on the battlefield is a tale of limitations and defeats as well as of potential and achievements. Tank Warfare examines the traditional narrative of armored warfare while at the same time challenging it, and Black suggests that tanks were no "silver bullet" on the battlefield. Instead, their success was based on their inclusion in the general mix of weaponry available to commanders and the context in which they were used.
Table of Contents:
Preface
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1. The Start
2. The 1920s
3. The 1930s
4. The Second World War, I: Axis Advances
5. The Second World War, II: The Allies Attack
6. The Early Cold War, 1945–1967
7. The Late Cold War, 1968–1990
8. Since 1990
9. The Future
Conclusions
Selected Further Reading
Index
About the Author :
Jeremy Black is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Exeter and a Senior Fellow both of Policy Exchange and of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He is the author of many books, including A History of Britain: 1945 to Brexit, War and Technology, and Warfare in the Western World, 1882-1975. Black is a recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize from the Society for Military History.
Review :
"Tank Warfare by Jeremy Black is an in-depth, analytical study of the tank as a weapon of war. While there have been many books on armored warfare before, not one has this scope or critical analysis. This book will be of interest to general readers as well as military historians."—Glyn Harper, author of The Battle for North Africa
"Black is a master of taking a complex subject with a long history and condensing a broad spectrum of evidence and analysis into a well-organized, well-written monograph that is insightful and informative. Tank Warfare is just such a book!"—Dennis Showalter, author of Armor and Blood: The Battle of Kursk, The Turning Point of World War II
"Tank Warfare is a tour de force of the history of armored combat from the Battle of Cambrai till Syria. In scope and brevity, this book surpasses all other available works on tank warfare. Through his lucid prose, Black, not only provides an incisive account of the great tank battles fought by the panzers and Israeli Defense Force but also engages with the existing debates in the field. As this monograph shows, the value of tank in war depends not only on the state of art technology but also on non-material factors like command, tactical concepts, training and doctrine. The author persuasively argues that though tanks will remain relevant to armies in the near future, their combat effectiveness is somewhat decreasing due to the nature of future battlefield and weapons. Tank Warfare's exciting prose and intricate analysis will not only attract the general readers but will also be of great help to the specialists."—Kaushik Roy, Guru Nanak Chair Professor, Department of History, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India
"This superb book tells the story of tank warfare since its inception. In his sweeping account, Jeremy Black covers all aspects of the tank and all conflicts in which it has been involved, displaying a rare knowledge and integrating that knowledge into a coherent whole that few are capable of. Black covers both the tank's limitations and defeats as well as its strengths and successes. He shows that its effectiveness depended on context. It was not the silver bullet of its proponents like Fuller and Liddell Hart: it was important but only as part of a mix of weaponry. This book is a tour de force and strongly recommended."—Dr John Peaty FRGS FRHistS
"Jeremy Black succeeds in steering the reader through the entire history of the tank, traversing a remarkable range of wars, campaigns, machines and technical developments. Beginning with the origins of the tank, he manages to take the narrative through all the major conflicts, and from one side of the globe to another, including the world after 1990, bringing the story right up to the present day. He takes a skeptical view of the future of the tank, one which will certainly spark controversy. I can think of no short history of the tank which covers so much ground so succinctly. It provides an excellent overview of the subject."—Alaric Searle, author of Armoured Warfare: A Military, Political and Global History, Professor of Modern European History, University of Salford, UK
"Jeremy Black is quite simply one of the very best historians we have and in this new book he brings a clarity borne from deep knowledge to one of the most interesting battlefield weapons ever to have been developed. Perceptive, authoritative and highly convincing, he both dispels myths and brings new analysis to this facet of modern warfare."—James Holland, FRHistS, author of Normandy '44: D-Day and the Battle for France.
"An account of armor is a tale of limitations and defeats, as well as potential and achievements. Jeremy Black's Tank Warfare is a fascinating history of the tank and its use in battles from the First World War to the present day, with an extra peek into the future."—Ahron Bregman, King's College London, author of The Spy Who Fell to Earth.
