The Germans had scheduled the attack around Kursk in May but delayed the operation so they could to bring new, more powerful weapons. This conflict turned the tide on the eastern front. The largest tank battle in history, the Battle of Kursk, involved an estimated 10,613 tanks - 3,253 German tanks and 7,360 Soviet Union tanks. In the Persian Gulf War in 1991, coalition forces expelled Iraq from Kuwait with overwhelming tank firepower that left Iraqi tanks smoldering hulks in the desert. Though outnumbered, Israel prevailed over the Syrians on the Golan Heights and the Egyptians in the Sinai desert during the Yom Kippur War in 1973 because of better tactics and superior equipment.

Great tank battles have taken place in more recent times. Given the flat landscape of the Russian steppes, there is plenty of room for tanks to maneuver.

There are seven massive tank battles on the list between the Soviet Union and Germany. Germany won virtually all the confrontations, even though it was outnumbered almost every time, sometimes by as much as 10 to 1. The four biggest tank battles took place during World War II, and the top three were between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. ( See, these are the 20 longest wars in history.) Theirs were among the most fearsome armored vehicles in World War II, first for their rapid advance and later, for their massive giant tanks with enormous firepower like the Tiger and Panther that outgunned the Allies’ tanks. The Nazis, thanks in no small part to the genius of famed tank general Erwin Rommel were quick to employ the tank in concentration of numbers to punch through an enemy’s defenses and avoid the stalemate of the First World War. Because tank counts can be inconsistent across sources, we tried to use the same source where possible. Military battles were ranked based on the total number of tanks facing off among all belligerents at any one time during the course of the fighting. reviewed data from Tony Jaques’ 2006 military encyclopedia “ Dictionary of Battles and Sieges: A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity through the Twenty-first Century” and other sources. To determine the largest tank battle in history, 24/7 Wall St. The contributions of Leopard 2 and Abrams tanks from Ukraine’s western allies is expected to play a major role in that country’s ability to fight off Russian invaders.

But of course tanks were around before that time and continue to be used in combat today. Most historians agree that there was no time on earth when the tank was more important for the outcome of combat than in World War II.

Greatest tank battles season 4