The first British tank, the Mark I of World War I, was introduced to break through the German defensive lines of trenches and barbed wire. The heavy tank concept originated in World War I and coexisted with light and medium tanks until the end of the Cold War with the introduction of the main battle tank. Heavy tanks tend to have excellent protection compared to their lighter cousins. As a result they tend to be either underpowered and comparatively slow, or have engine and drive train problems from overworking their engines. Heavy tanks feature very heavy armour and weapons relative to lighter tanks, though they tend to push onboard power generators to the limits. The German Tiger I, for example, had similar speed and better terrain-handling characteristics when compared to the significantly lighter Panzer IV medium tank, albeit at the cost of low reliability and only 1,355 were produced compared to 8,800 Panzer IV and 58,000 Soviet T-34 and 40,000 American M4 Sherman medium tanks. ![]() But the greatest drawback is cost which translates into production, resulting in short supplies. ![]() Although it is often assumed that heavy tanks suffered inferior mobility to mediums, this was not always the case, as many of the more sophisticated heavy tank designs featured advanced suspension and transmission precisely to counteract this drawback. Heavy tanks achieved their greatest successes both fighting other, lighter tanks, and destroying fortifications with their very large guns. The line was drawn by each country's army according to its needs very frequently the threshold was based on the weight sustainable by the country's most common bridges or by railroad loading limits. There was not a consistent line distinguishing heavy and medium tanks.
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