Interwar

United Kingdom · Light

A private-venture export light tank whose leaf-spring suspension and layout influenced armour design worldwide.

Gun47 mm QF 3-pdr (Type B) or twin MG (Type A)

Soviet Union · Light

A licensed Vickers design turned into the most numerous tank in the world during the 1930s.

Gun45 mm 20-K

Germany · Light

A machine-gun-armed training tank that nonetheless spearheaded Germany's first blitzkrieg campaigns.

Gunnone

France · Heavy

The best-protected tank of 1940, crippled by a one-man turret and a commander who had to do everything at once.

Gun75 mm ABS SA 35 hull gun and 47 mm SA 35 in turret

United Kingdom · Medium

The tank that taught Britain mobile warfare during the 1920s experiments.

Gun3-pdr (47 mm)

France · Light

Well-armoured French infantry tank crippled by a two-man crew and a weak gun.

Gun37 mm SA18 (later SA38)

Soviet Union · Light

Christie-suspension cavalry tank, ancestor of the T-34.

Gun45 mm 20-K

Germany · Light

Stopgap light tank that formed the backbone of the early blitzkrieg divisions.

Gun20 mm KwK 30 or 38 autocannon

Italy · Light

Tiny Italian machine-gun tankette built in huge numbers and outclassed everywhere.

GunNone

Soviet Union · Medium

Three-turreted Soviet medium tank of the multi-turret era.

Gun76.2 mm KT-28, later L-10

United Kingdom / United States · Heavy

The "International" - the largest rhomboid tank ever built, finished too late for the war it was designed to win.

GunTwo 6-pdr guns in side sponsons

United Kingdom · Medium

The world's first genuinely mass-produced tank with a fully rotating turret and sprung suspension.

Gun3-pdr (47 mm) QF gun

United Kingdom · Light

Britain's standard light tank in 1940 - fast, cheap, reliable and hopelessly outgunned.

Gun-

United Kingdom · Light

The two-man machine-gun carrier whose licences seeded tank industries from Italy to Poland to Japan.

Gun-

Soviet Union · Light

The Soviet tankette built in thousands, then turned into tractors, trainers and airborne experiments.

Gun-

Soviet Union · Heavy

The five-turret land battleship of the Red Square parades - unmanageable in war, unforgettable on film.

Gun76.2 mm KT-28 plus two 45 mm guns

Soviet Union · Light

The world's first mass-produced amphibious tank, swimming on a propeller and a pair of pontoon floats.

Gun-

Soviet Union · Light

The first Soviet Christie convertible - wheels for roads, tracks for country, and speed nobody else had.

Gun37 mm B-3 gun (some machine-gun only)

Soviet Union · Light

The BT that got a real gun, fought in Spain, and outran everything at Khalkhin Gol.

Gun45 mm 20-K gun

Germany · Light

A Panzer I name on an 80 mm-armoured infantry-assault machine - the heaviest two-man tank ever fielded.

Gun-

France · Medium

De Gaulle's tank - the infantry medium that equipped his 4th Armoured Division in 1940.

Gun47 mm SA34, later SA35

France · Light

The French cavalry light tank so well armoured the Germans kept using it for five more years.

Gun37 mm SA18, later SA38

Japan · Medium

Japan's first domestically produced tank, and one of the first anywhere to use a diesel engine.

Gun57 mm Type 90 gun

Poland · Light

Poland's first mass-produced armoured vehicle, a turretless tankette developed from the British Carden-Loyd Mk VI and intended for reconnaissance rather than combat.

GunNone (7.92 mm Hotchkiss wz.25 machine gun)

Poland · Light

The improved production tankette of the Polish army, and in its rare 20 mm autocannon form the only Polish tracked vehicle of 1939 that could reliably kill a German tank.

Gun7.92 mm Hotchkiss wz.25 machine gun; 20 mm FK-A wz.38 autocannon on around 24 rebuilt vehicles

United Kingdom / Poland · Light

The British export light tank Poland bought in 1931, studied intensively and then redesigned into the 7TP. Thirty-eight served in Polish units until 1939.

Gun47 mm Vickers QQF in single-turret vehicles; twin 7.92 mm machine guns in the two-turret version

Poland · Light

Prototype only. A fast Polish light reconnaissance tank meant to replace the tankettes, cancelled by the outbreak of war with a single vehicle built.

Gun20 mm wz.38 FK-A autocannon

Poland · Light

Prototype only. A Polish convertible wheel-and-track cruiser tank built on Christie principles, tested in 1938 and abandoned in favour of a pure tracked design.

Gun37 mm Bofors wz.37

Poland · Medium

Never completed. The tracked successor to the 10TP, still unfinished on the drawing boards and assembly floor when Germany invaded in September 1939.

Gun37 mm Bofors wz.37 (planned)

United Kingdom · Medium

A fast, well-laid-out three-turret medium of 1930 that cost too much to buy, but whose layout influenced tanks worldwide.

Gun1 x 3-pdr (47 mm)

United Kingdom · Light

The step in the British light tank line that fixed the suspension and set the pattern for the Mk III to Mk VI.

GunNone

United Kingdom · Medium

The first British cruiser tank: a 2-pdr gun in a power-traversed turret on armour thin enough to be dangerous.

Gun1 x QF 2-pdr

United Kingdom · Medium

The A9 rebuilt as an infantry tank with thicker armour, ending up too slow for a cruiser and too thin for the infantry role.

Gun1 x QF 2-pdr

United Kingdom · Medium

The tank that brought Christie suspension to Britain and began the line that ended with the Cromwell and Comet.

Gun1 x QF 2-pdr

Soviet Union · Light

The first tank designed and built in the Soviet Union, derived from the Renault FT and produced in the hundreds.

Gun1 x 37 mm Hotchkiss-PS

Soviet Union · Medium

The first tank built at Kharkov: an unsuccessful multi-turret medium whose factory went on to build the T-34.

Gun1 x 45 mm

Soviet Union · Light

A widened, better-swimming development of the T-37A amphibious scout tank, built in over a thousand examples.

GunNone

France · Light

A welded, diesel-powered French infantry tank with well-sloped armour, held back by a short 37 mm gun and a one-man turret.

Gun1 x 37 mm SA18

Japan · Light

Japan first mass-produced armoured vehicle, a cavalry combat car that opened Japanese tank production.

GunNone

United States · Medium

Walter Christie convertible high-speed tank - the design the Soviet BT series and British cruisers were built from.

Gun1 x 37 mm

Soviet Union · Medium

Prototype only. The first Soviet-designed medium tank, a two-tier multi-turret machine that never left trials but fixed the layout the T-24 inherited.

Gun45 mm

Soviet Union · Light

A convertible wheel-and-track development of the T-26, abandoned because it cost as much as a medium tank.

Gun45 mm 20K

Soviet Union · Medium

Prototype only. A wheel-cum-track version of the T-28 multi-turret medium, tested and rejected as too fragile.

Gun76.2 mm KT or L-10

Soviet Union · Heavy

Prototype only. A twin-turret heavy built as a shorter successor to the T-35 and blooded in Finland.

Gun76.2 mm L-11 in the main turret, 45 mm in the forward turret

Soviet Union · Heavy

Prototype only. The rival twin-turret heavy to the SMK, likewise tested in Finland and likewise beaten by the KV.

Gun76.2 mm L-11 in the main turret, 45 mm in the forward turret

United Kingdom · Medium

Philip Johnson's fast, long-hulled cruiser tank, built to exploit a breakthrough that the armistice made unnecessary.

GunOne 6-pdr or machine guns

United Kingdom · Heavy

The one-off British multi-turret heavy that inspired a generation of foreign designs it never fought alongside.

Gun47 mm 3-pdr in main turret

Japan · Light

Japan's ammunition-carrying tankette, pressed into scouting and infantry support across China and the Pacific.

Gun6.5 mm or 7.7 mm machine gun