Tanks and games about them

Tanks and games about them

Tanks and games about them

Warfare often finds its way into games, and games in turn find their way back to warfare. This symbiosis is a fascinating subject, a tell-tale reflection in our culture, and a glimpse of our primitive side.

The art of warfare has been with us across the years, and each battle improved upon the technology of the last. The most cunning generals implemented the clever technology of inventors in order to gain themselves the best advantage possible during their campaigns.

Though not always the case, often a chief concern was to maximize damage to an enemy while reducing friendly casualties to an absolute minimum. War has always been important driving factor in new technology over the years, just as war itself has evolved over time as well. Mobile combat has changed and adapted, from primitive origins it has developed into a sophisticated new form of warfare. The first mobile units were simple chariots that served as a mobile platform upon which to deploy an archer. Such units could often decimate poorly organized foot soldiers. War however progressed and chariots fell out of favor. Leonardo Da Vinci may have been the first to design the first tank, but like so many of his sketchbook ponderings, his design was too impractical for the day and never built.

It wasn't until the modern world, with the advent of engines capable of doing far more work than horses, that wheeled vehicles became a practical tool in warfare. Trucks and cars could transport troops, but similar armored vehicles could protect them far better. Mounting a weapon on such a vehicle would increase its defensive capability. It doesn't take a great leap of the imagination to see how such vehicles were soon re-purposed to play a greater role in the battle. Generals found that having highly mobile weapons platforms boosted troop survivability and increased attack capability to the maximum.

Tanks definitively changed the face of warfare. Commanders could create new tactics, and utilize these metal beasts to terrorize the enemy. They could take on different terrain, the large tracks capable of taking the tanks across even the worst surfaces. Better still they were highly mobile and able to advance much faster than ground troops. This made the front lines of warfare much more fluid and dynamic. These metal beasts also protected the soldiers from enemy fire. In open terrain the comfort of the crew enabled them to cover large distances and still be fresh for battle. Soon the computer age dawned, and tanks were fitted with processors and automated systems to take a load off the crew, and also to speed up target acquisition. It may surprise you to learn that it takes more lines of code to run a tank than it does to run an aircraft! In the digital age, tanks became formidable opponents; often able to destroy targets from beyond the horizon.

So those who enjoy these formidable devices will probably also enjoy playing tank games on-line. Nowadays we are blessed with a myriad of choices. In the past this wasn't the case, with tank games few, but those that existed made a big impact. The 1980 game Battlezone, released by Atari is one that many people would recognize. Its wire-frame vector graphics were highly innovative at the time, and the game was popular. When it was originally created it was a full blown arcade machine, and interestingly one was developed specifically for the military who used it for training purposes. So having come full circle, tanks inspired gaming and gaming went on to provide a means to train new tank drivers and gunners.

Since then tanks have appeared in numerous genres, from the side on games where players would take turns to adjust the angle and power of their shots in order to blow their opponent to kingdom come to full blown 3D titles, tank games have given tank lovers the opportunity to man their favorite vehicle and fend off the enemy. While gamers play games with tanks in them, so too does the military run all kinds of simulations for both training purposes and evaluating different scenarios. Gaming and tanks are not intertwined, both different parts of the same thing. So knowing this, the least we can do is enjoy it by finding and playing good tank games!

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