An M3 Grant tank leads a column of armored vehicles during maneuvers at Fort Knox, Kentucky, in June 1942. The Grant was a stopgap design with a sponson mounted 75mm gun.

armored fighting vehicle

M3 Grant/Lee Tank: The Armored Stopgap

By David H. Lippman

Standing 10 feet tall, equipped with both a 75mm and 37mm, an impressive mass of steel and rivets, the Grant and Lee M3 tank seemed like the definitive answer to Hitler’s raging panzer tanks. Read more

armored fighting vehicle

The Red Army’s T-34 Tank: The Eastern Front and Beyond

By Blaine Taylor

In 1942, careworn Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler lamented to his military intimates at his Wolf’s Lair headquarters near Rastenburg in East Prussia, “If I had known that there were so many of them, I would have had second thoughts about invading!” Read more

Armored fighting vehicles gain prominence in World War II’s fight for North Africa.

armored fighting vehicle

Armor vs. Armor in the Desert

by Eric Niderost

The North African campaign has been aptly described as a “tactician’s paradise and quartermaster’s hell.” The contested area was large, stretching some 1,400 miles from Tripoli in the west to Alexandria in the east, a vast expanse of waterless desert wastes. Read more