The Best Tanks

On Sep­tem­ber 15, 1916, dur­ing the Bat­tle of the Somme, 49 British tanks hit the Ger­man troops dur­ing the bat­tle. At that time, many of these new mil­i­tary units broke down, but about one-third passed through the Neu­tral Zone and put the Ger­man troops to flight. Since that day, the tank has become an impor­tant part of the arma­ment in the mil­i­tary of many devel­oped coun­tries. From the fields of West­ern Europe, to the Russ­ian steppe, tanks have become an inte­gral part of weapons. The biggest tank bat­tles of the past 50 years are strik­ing in their scale.

As with any oth­er mil­i­tary weapon, from that day in Sep­tem­ber, dur­ing the First World War, an arms race began in terms of build­ing tanks. The devel­op­ers went beyond the tech­nol­o­gy in an attempt to achieve the high­est rat­ing in three char­ac­ter­is­tics: mobil­i­ty, pro­tec­tion and fire­pow­er. To cre­ate the fastest, most pow­er­ful and best tank, you need a huge amount of mon­ey. Tank armor has gone through dras­tic changes over the years, from steel plates to a com­pos­ite mate­r­i­al made up of steel, plas­tics, ceram­ics and oth­er secret mate­ri­als. Engines have improved in pow­er and reli­a­bil­i­ty, from a sim­ple World War I trac­tor unit to a tur­bine-pow­ered diesel engine with over 1,000 hp. With. Tank guns have become larg­er and more accu­rate, and the range of pro­jec­tiles has changed, from con­ven­tion­al bombs to guid­ed mis­siles. High-class com­put­ers and optics, advanced loca­tion sys­tems and pro­tec­tive devices began to be intro­duced. All this makes today’s tanks very dan­ger­ous and very expen­sive. Your atten­tion is pre­sent­ed to the 10 best tanks, which, for obvi­ous rea­sons, are also the most expen­sive.

Tank ZTZ-99 (China) – $2.6 million

The ZTZ-99 was intro­duced to the Chi­nese army in 2001. Like pre­vi­ous Chi­nese tanks, the ZTZ-99 bor­rowed most ele­ments from Sovi­et-era designs, shar­ing sim­i­lar­i­ties with the Sovi­et T‑72 and using a 125mm main gun. Cor­ner weld­ed tur­ret and 1500 hp diesel engine. With. reflect West­ern influ­ence, which also left its mark on the lat­est Chi­nese tank. Chi­nese design­ers have also fit­ted this vehi­cle with a laser defense sys­tem that warns of incom­ing mis­siles and a host of oth­er advanced sys­tems. A spe­cial armor pack­age was devel­oped, includ­ing explo­sives. It is designed to pro­tect the crew of this 58-ton tank.

T‑90AM (Russia) – $4.25 million

Dur­ing the Cold War, the Sovi­et Union built two types of tanks: a cheap mass-pro­duced ver­sion suit­able for export (T‑62, T‑72) and an expen­sive high-end ver­sion (T‑64, T‑80). In recent years, this pol­i­cy proved too expen­sive, so the deci­sion was made to focus on one type of tank. The result was the T‑90. There are var­i­ous mod­els of this tank with cheap­er T‑90s being export­ed to oth­er coun­tries. A more advanced mod­el (and almost twice as expen­sive) T‑90AM is cur­rent­ly enter­ing ser­vice with the Russ­ian army. This tank is a devel­op­ment of the T‑72 with a new­er 125 mm gun, a new 1230 hp engine. With. and advanced pro­tec­tion and armor sys­tems. The T‑90AM has the lat­est equip­ment and advanced armor effec­tive against West­ern weapons. Like the T‑72, the T‑90 has a crew of three and uses an auto­mat­ic loader for the main weapon.

Merkava IV (Israel) – $6.0 million

Until the 1960s and 1970s, the Israel Defense Forces used exclu­sive­ly West­ern tanks, after which they decid­ed to design and build their own. The result was the Merka­va series. The cur­rent ver­sion today is the Merka­va IV armed with a 120mm main gun. The Merka­va IV tank is built with defense as the num­ber one pri­or­i­ty. The armor is a com­bi­na­tion of steel and ceram­ic of a mod­u­lar type, which allows for the rapid removal and replace­ment of dam­aged parts. The engine is placed at the front, adding extra pro­tec­tion to the team. This armor is capa­ble of with­stand­ing most anti-tank weapons. The active defense sys­tem sig­nif­i­cant­ly increas­es the like­li­hood of detect­ing and elim­i­nat­ing incom­ing ene­my mis­siles.

Arjun Mk II (India) – $6.0 million

The Arjun first entered ser­vice with the Indi­an Army in 2004. The lat­est ver­sion, the 55-ton Arjun II tank, has been test­ed in the past two years and is now enter­ing ser­vice. This lat­est Indi­an tank has many mod­ern fea­tures based on the lat­est Russ­ian and West­ern designs. A 120 mm main weapon is used, accept­ing both con­ven­tion­al ammu­ni­tion and guid­ed mis­siles. The armor is pro­vid­ed with mod­u­lar com­po­nents, with steel and ceram­ic mate­r­i­al. Defense equip­ment includes laser defense sys­tems, infrared jam­mers, and a vari­ety of oth­er sys­tems capa­ble of coun­ter­ing incom­ing guid­ed anti-tank mis­siles. Arjun MK II has the best pro­tec­tion, nav­i­ga­tion equip­ment and optics to help a team of four in the oper­a­tion of the machine.

Leopard 2A6 (Germany) – $6.79 million

The old­est tank on this list, the Leop­ard 2 first entered ser­vice in 1979. Since then, it has gone through many upgrades and the 2A6 is the one in use today. Like most West­ern tanks, the Leop­ard 2A6 uses a 120mm main gun with extreme­ly accu­rate rounds. The 63-ton Leop­ard uses an advanced armor pack­age that is made up of steel, ceram­ic, tung­sten and plas­tics. Armor is strongest on the front of the tur­ret, hull and sides. The engine is a 1500 hp diesel. with., allow­ing the tank to gain a very decent speed. As with most West­ern tanks, ammu­ni­tion is stored in a sep­a­rate com­part­ment to pre­vent the cat­a­stroph­ic effects of an ammu­ni­tion explo­sion. One of the most suc­cess­ful designs, Leop­ard 2 is used by sev­er­al coun­tries. Mod­i­fi­ca­tion 2A6 is cur­rent­ly used by Ger­many, Cana­da, Fin­land, Greece and Por­tu­gal. The new­er 2A7+ is cur­rent­ly being test­ed and is priced at around $12 mil­lion per unit.

M1A2 SEP (USA) — $8.5 million

Of all the tanks on this list, the Abrams M1 is the most bat­tle-test­ed. In 1991 and 2003, Abrams proved to be supe­ri­or to any Sovi­et tank of that era that the Iraqis had. In fact, the biggest threat to Abrams comes not from ene­my tanks, but from insur­gent anti-tank sys­tems that hit weak spots in the armor. Abrams’ lat­est ver­sion is the M1A2 SEP. This mod­el weighs more than 69 tons, and most of the weight is armor made from a com­bi­na­tion of ura­ni­um and graphite. Abrams is armed with a 120mm weapon that, with the help of advanced elec­tron­ics and optics, can fire with a high lev­el of accu­ra­cy. The Abrams tank can be upgrad­ed with the Tank Urban Sur­vival Kit (TUSK) for urban war­fare.

Challenger 2 (GBK) – $8.6 million

The Chal­lenger 2 is con­sid­ered one of the most reli­able and best pro­tect­ed tanks in the world and has been in ser­vice since 1998. The tank par­tic­i­pat­ed in the bat­tles in Bosnia, Koso­vo and Iraq, where, togeth­er with the M1 Abrams, it showed itself at a very high lev­el. The tank is equipped with the lat­est form of Chob­ham armor, the com­po­si­tion of which is clas­si­fied. The pro­tec­tion is com­ple­ment­ed by addi­tion­al groups of reac­tive armor on the sides and front, as well as slats at the back. The 69-ton mon­ster is equipped with a 1200 hp engine. with., which makes it one of the least maneu­ver­able on this list. But the armor and accu­ra­cy of the 120 mm gun more than make up for this short­com­ing.

K2 Black Panther (South Korea) – $8.8 million

The lat­est South Kore­an tank, the K2 Black Pan­ther is one of the most mod­ern and best tanks in the world. He’s nev­er been in com­bat before, so it’s hard to gauge his abil­i­ties, but on paper, the tech­ni­cal require­ments are impres­sive. K2 com­bines all the best fea­tures of West­ern and Russ­ian projects. Like the Leop­ard, the K2 uses a 120mm gun and a 1500hp diesel engine. With. Armor is a clas­si­fied com­pos­ite mate­r­i­al with addi­tion­al mod­u­lar rein­force­ment. Spe­cial pro­tec­tion allows you to detect approach­ing anti-tank mis­siles and dis­ori­ent them by deploy­ing a pro­tec­tive smoke screen. Like the T‑90 and Merka­va, the K2 is equipped with an active pro­tec­tion sys­tem, a three-man crew, with auto­mat­ic weapon load­ing.

Type 10 (Japan) – $9.4 million

The Type 10 is the lat­est Japan­ese tank, enter­ing ser­vice in 2012. Weigh­ing only 48 tons, the Type 10 is high­ly maneu­ver­able, with a top speed of over 70 km/h. The tank has a 120 mm smooth­bore weapon that is com­pat­i­ble with both Japan­ese and NATO pro­jec­tiles. Armor pro­tec­tion is mod­u­lar and uses a com­plex mix­ture of hard­ened steel and ceram­ics. Com­pared to oth­er tanks on this list, the Type 10 is weak­er than oth­ers, but very resis­tant to portable anti-tank weapons like RPGs. Like Russ­ian tanks, the Type 10 seats three crew mem­bers and uses an autoloader instead of a fourth crew mem­ber. The warn­ing sys­tem and smoke dis­pensers pro­vide pas­sive pro­tec­tion against any approach­ing guid­ed anti-tank mis­siles.

AMX-56 Leclerc (France) – $12.6 million

This is the main fight­ing vehi­cle of France and is cur­rent­ly the most expen­sive tank in the world, as well as one of the best tanks. The cost of the AMX-56 Leclerc is not known for cer­tain and may vary depend­ing on the con­fig­u­ra­tion and source. Crit­ics of the French gov­ern­ment say each Leclerc cost France $23 mil­lion or more. The com­pa­nies that build and improve these tanks give a more con­ser­v­a­tive fig­ure of $12.6 mil­lion. Leclerc entered ser­vice in 1992 after 15 years of devel­op­ment and test­ing. It uses mod­u­lar armor that can be removed and quick­ly replaced. Armor is a com­bi­na­tion of steel, ceram­ic and Kevlar. The pro­tec­tion on the roof of the tow­er and on the sides is very thick, and addi­tion­al sys­tems guar­an­tee via­bil­i­ty. Leclerc uses a 120 mm smooth­bore gun and a 1500 hp engine. With. The autoloader allows the tank to fire 12 rounds per minute. Advanced optics and com­put­er sys­tems make Leclerc, one of the best tanks in the world, the most expen­sive.