Tank Aces & Commanders
Guderian, Patton, Wittmann, Lavrinenko, Kahalani — the generals, tank aces and designers who commanded the steel. [48 commanders]
48 commanders
Pioneers & WWIJean-Baptiste Estienne
'Father of the tanks' — created the French armoured arm
Pioneers & WWIJ. Walter Christie
Christie suspension — the DNA of the BT tanks and the T-34
Pioneers & WWIErnest Swinton
Championed the first tank — the Mark I at the Somme, 1916
Pioneers & WWIJ. F. C. Fuller
Planned Cambrai 1917 — the first massed tank attack in history
Pioneers & WWIHugh Elles
Led the Tank Corps into Cambrai from the front, in a tank named Hilda
Pioneers & WWIPercy Hobart
'Hobart's Funnies' — the specialist tanks that cracked the D-Day beaches
Pioneers & WWIMikhail Tukhachevsky
Deep Battle doctrine — the Red Army's armoured blueprint
Pioneers & WWIBasil Liddell Hart
Theorist of the 'expanding torrent' — the prophet of armoured warfare
Pioneers & WWIMikhail Koshkin
Designed the T-34 — and drove the prototypes to Moscow to prove it
WWIIGeorge S. Patton
Third Army's charge across France — 'Old Blood and Guts'
WWIIHermann Hoth
4th Panzer Army — the drive on Stalingrad and the southern pincer at Kursk
WWIIJohn S. Wood
4th Armored's 'P' Wood — the American Rommel
WWIIBernard Montgomery
El Alamein — the set-piece armoured victory that turned the desert war
WWIIHeinz Guderian
'Achtung – Panzer!' — the architect of Blitzkrieg
WWIICharles de Gaulle
Armoured-warfare theorist who led the 4th Armoured at Montcornet, 1940
WWIIErwin Rommel
The Desert Fox — the Ghost Division and the Afrika Korps
WWIIStanisław Maczek
1st Polish Armoured — sealed the Falaise Gap at Mont Ormel
WWIIHermann Balck
The Chir River battles — master of the mobile defence
WWIIHyazinth Graf Strachwitz
The 'Panzer Count' — Grossdeutschland's armoured spearhead
WWIIErnest N. Harmon
Commanded both the 1st and 2nd Armored — 'Hell on Wheels'
WWIIPavel Rybalko
3rd Guards Tank Army — Kiev, Berlin and Prague
WWIIHasso von Manteuffel
5th Panzer Army in the Bulge — the Wehrmacht's small, fierce panzer general
WWIIFranz Bäke
The dentist whose heavy panzer regiment claimed 500 tanks in the Balabanovka pocket
WWIIMaurice Rose
3rd Armored 'Spearhead' — the highest-ranking American killed in Europe
WWIIMikhail Katukov
Mtsensk 1941 — the first commander to stop Guderian
WWIIPavel Rotmistrov
Prokhorovka — 5th Guards Tank Army at Kursk
WWIIPhilippe Leclerc
2e DB — liberated Paris and Strasbourg
WWIIMariya Oktyabrskaya
Bought her own T-34 'Fighting Girlfriend' — Hero of the Soviet Union
WWIIZinoviy Kolobanov
22 German tanks in one KV-1 engagement at Voyskovitsy
WWIICreighton Abrams
37th Tank Battalion to Bastogne — the M1 carries his name
WWIIDmitry Lavrinenko
52 kills in two and a half months — the top Allied tank ace
WWIIMichael Wittmann
Villers-Bocage — the most famous Tiger ace of the war
WWIIErnst Barkmann
'Barkmann's Corner' — one Panther against an American column
WWIILafayette G. Pool
258 enemy vehicles — the top American tank ace, in a Sherman named In the Mood
WWIISydney Radley-Walters
18 kills in a Sherman — the top Commonwealth tank ace
WWIIKurt Knispel
168 confirmed kills — the highest-scoring tank ace of all time
WWIIAleksandra Samusenko
The only woman to command a T-34 tank battalion in the war
WWIIOtto Carius
150+ kills in Tigers — Malinava, 1944
Cold War & ModernAlexander Morozov
Designed the T-54 and T-64 — the shape of the Soviet tank
Cold War & ModernIsrael Tal
Father of the Merkava — armour doctrine of the Six-Day War
Cold War & ModernDonn A. Starry
AirLand Battle doctrine — shaped the Abrams generation
Cold War & ModernAvraham Adan
162nd Armoured Division — Sinai 1973
Cold War & ModernAriel Sharon
Crossed the Suez Canal with his armoured division, 1973
Cold War & ModernHanut Singh
Battle of Basantar 1971 — the Poona Horse held the line
Cold War & ModernFrederick M. Franks Jr.
VII Corps' left hook — the biggest tank battle since WWII
Cold War & ModernAvigdor Kahalani
Valley of Tears 1973 — held the Golan with a handful of Centurions
Cold War & ModernZvika Greengold
'Zvika Force' — one Centurion, 20+ kills in a single night
Cold War & ModernH. R. McMaster
73 Easting — Eagle Troop's 23-minute tank battle