Sri Lankan 4th ARMOURED REGIMENT - Foreign Military Studies ...

II. Field Marshall BernardMontgommery’s epic tank battles of ElAlamein in North Africa turned the warin favor of Allied Forces during WorldWar II. They defeated Field MarshallErwin Rommels’ “Afrika Korps” anddented Nazi Germany’s southern flank.American General George S. Patton’stank – led U.S. Third Army raced acrossFrance to reach the heart of NaziGermany despite a last ditch counterattack by SS Panzer Divisions in theArdennes famously known as the “Battleof the Bulge.” In August 1968 the worldwatched with shock and horror as Soviettanks rolled into the Czechoslovakcapital Prague, ending the country’sdesperate quest for reform andindependence from the Soviet Union.Tanks of Communist Chinas’ PeoplesLiberation Army rolled into Beijing’sTiananmen Square in 1989 to crush apro – democracy student uprising. In1990, the world saw Iraqi tanks of theelite Republican Guard rolling intoKuwait city to occupy a sovereign state.In March 2003, U.S. tanks rolledinto Baghdad during “Operation IraqiFreedom” to overthrow SaddamHussein’s Ba’athist regime. Morerecently, in September 2006, Thailand’sarmy took power with tanks rolling tooccupy key positions in the capital,Bangkok, and in August 2008, Russiantanks rolled through breakaway SouthOssetia in to Georgia. Each of theseevents has contributed to the mystic andmyth of tanks and how a small numberof them at the right place and time canhave strategic level implications farbeyond the expectations of inventors ofthe machine. Tanks are instruments ofpower, and coercion. They have aprofound influence on internal andexternal politics of a nation. Oncediplomacy fails and war is employed as11