The first tanks to carry the name "Medium" appeared in the First World War with the British
Medium Mark A Whippet. It was smaller, lighter and faster than the
British heavy tanks of the time and only carried machine guns. The medium tank doctrine came into use in the
interwar period. Its existence outlasted the
super-heavy tank and the
heavy tank and gradually transitioned into the
main battle tank. Medium tanks of the
interwar period included the British
Vickers Medium Mark II and the Soviet multi-turreted
T-28. In the period leading up to World War II, the British stopped using the term Medium for their tanks as the new philosophy of '
Cruiser tank' and '
Infantry tank' which defined tanks by role rather than size came into use. medium tank proved to be an adaptable design which was progressively upgraded during the Second World War with extra armour and better guns fitted There were medium tanks that focused on anti-infantry capabilities (such as in World War II: the initial short-barrel gun
Panzer IV, and the initial 75 mm gun
M4 Sherman), and medium tanks which were more focused on the anti-tank role, mounting high-velocity
tank guns. The French cavalry tanks (
Chars de Cavalerie) such as the
SOMUA S35 focused on speed in addition to power and protection of the other designs. They were similar to what other countries called medium tanks. When Soviet tank designers were preparing a successor to the
BT tank series, they sought to combine its mobility with improved armor and the firepower of a 76mm gun that, at the time, was more typical of heavier tanks. The result was the
T-34 medium tank, an overall well-balanced design which proved essential at slowing and eventually blunting the initial German advance during
Operation Barbarossa. The lessons of
Blitzkrieg, first employed by the Germans and eventually adopted by other nations, found their best expression in formations of mutually-supporting medium tanks and
motorised infantry. The traditional view of infantry and cavalry tank roles was rendered obsolete. from World War II, the workhorse of U.S. armoured forces Both the
Soviet Union and the
United States benefited from their industrial capacity to manufacture a well-balanced medium tank in very large numbers — around 57,000
T-34 and 49,234
M4 Sherman tanks were built during the war.
Cold War medium tank in the
Korean War. During and after World War II, the roles of light tanks were gradually taken over by less-expensive armoured cars and specialised reconnaissance vehicles. Heavy tanks, having shown their limitations in combat, experienced a limited post-war arms race of progressively more heavily armed and armoured designs. With the rise of more sophisticated anti-tank missile weapons, to which heavy tanks had demonstrated high vulnerability, these too were eventually phased out. With advances in technology, aspects such as mobility, armour and weaponry pushed the medium tank to form the core of a country's armoured fighting capability, eventually merging into the
main battle tank. Simpler and more economical
self-propelled guns, and later
anti-tank guided missiles, came to fulfill some fire-support and anti-tank roles, thus shifting the tactical approach how tanks were used. Although the term "medium tank" classification has largely fallen out of use after World War II, the term is informally used to describe some
first and second-generation main battle tanks which fall between 20 and 50 tons, such as the
Leopard 1 and
T-72 each of which weigh around 40 short tons, while third and subsequent generations have increased markedly in weight and have included some of the heaviest main battle tanks such as the
M1 Abrams which is over 60 short tons. In the 1990s the "medium" main battle tanks still proved useful, such as the Canadian Leopard 1 tanks deployed to Kosovo in 1999 which were much better suited to the poor roads and soft ground than the French armoured cars there, but were still able to move along narrow streets and over lighter bridge classifications than the much heavier M1 Abrams tanks used by the Americans. ==Role==