Anti-tank Warfare - Cold War

Cold War

In the Cold War era, HEAT became an almost universal choice outside of artillery and tank units. The British had developed the High explosive squash head (HESH) warhead as a weapon for attacking fortifications during the war, and found it surprisingly effective against tanks. Although these systems allowed infantry to take on even the largest tanks, and, like HEAT, its effectiveness was independent of range, infantry typically operated at short range. A major influence in anti-tank warfare came with the development and evolution of anti-tank guided missiles (ATGW) that could be fired by infantry operators, from ground vehicles and by aircraft. Increasing use of combined arms tactics allowed the attacking infantry to suppress the anti-tank crews effectively, meaning that they could typically get off only one or two shots before being countered or forced to move.

Read more about this topic:  Anti-tank Warfare

Famous quotes containing the words cold war, cold and/or war:

    The Cold War isn’t thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn’t sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.
    Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)

    The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
    What instruments we have agree
    The day of his death was a dark cold day.
    —W.H. (Wystan Hugh)

    The funny part of it all is that relatively few people seem to go crazy, relatively few even a little crazy or even a little weird, relatively few, and those few because they have nothing to do that is to say they have nothing to do or they do not do anything that has anything to do with the war only with food and cold and little things like that.
    Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)