Armoured Vehicles

Military personnel often refer to armoured vehicles as AFV’s, which means armoured, fighting vehicle. Most of these are designed for use in rugged terrain. There are several different types of armoured vehicles classified according to their intended purpose.

The tank is one kind of armoured vehicle, which also has categories according to use. Heavy tanks are large machines containing heavy armour and crews of up to eleven people. Then there are medium and light tanks designed to assist the infantry in fighting on the ground. Many of the lightly armoured tanks are used in reconnaissance or information gathering missions. The main role of tank destroyers is to take out the heavy artillery of the enemy. These are large and cumbersome machines and are less flexible than the smaller tanks. They are used to provide cover for infantry in defensive and withdrawal capacities. The tankette is a small armoured vehicle with a crew of only one or two. These armoured vehicles were in use for the early part of the Second World War, but have since become obsolete.

Armoured personnel carriers are deigned to carry infantry. They usually only have one machine gun because they are not intended to take part in heavy fighting. Their job is one of transportation only. Some of these vehicles have wheels, others have tracks and some have both. Although large tanks were used for this purpose in World War 1, during the Second World War, large trucks were armoured and used for this type of transport. The Infantry Mobility Vehicle is the modern method of transporting troops. It is similar to an armoured car, except it can carry more people.

An Infantry Fighting Vehicle is an armoured vehicle that is also used to transport troops, but the difference is that troops can fight from the inside of this vehicle. They are heavily armoured with a large autocannon and sometimes AGTM’s. Most of these vehicles have tracks, but there are some with wheels.

Self-propelled artillery also falls into the category of armoured vehicles. These machines can move on their own and are heavily armoured. They can keep up with the rest of the artillery because they are mounted on tracks or have wheeled chassis. They can be relocated very quickly and do need to be in a protected area to deliver firepower.