Tanks first appeared in World War I as a means of providing a survivable maneuver option on the deadly battlefields of the Great War. The question before us now is whether the tank is the modern equivalent of the battleship or the horse.

And the weapon needs to be retired, perhaps to a nice stud farm where it can recall the glories of the past. In the case of the horse cavalry, the role has ended. The naval gunfire mission persisted, however, albeit from smaller vessels. Navy battleships were in active service until 1990, when the costs to maintain them clearly outweighed their utility. In the case of the battleship, the platform may change, but not the function. What is the point to these anecdotes? There are two. Marshall used his executive-order authority, given after Pearl Harbor, to get rid of all the horses in the Army - and Herr. Herr was an obstacle to modernizing the Army with tanks, insisting that he would accept no increase in armor at the expense of horse-cavalry strength. The horse, however, was a different kind of problem for the Army. Navy was able to accommodate both the battleship and aircraft carrier in World War II, although the battleship mostly was relied upon to provide fire support, rather than crossing the T against an enemy battleline.

U.s. army tank modern abrams