Tanks are not created to fight tanks. They have a different task, and it is concluded (depending on the class of the car) either in rapid advancement behind enemy lines to cover defensive areas, or in direct hacking of enemy fortifications. In the first case, light tanks are used, in the second - medium and heavy.
The greatest tank battles in the history of this kind of troops took place in the 20th century, during the Second World War. Each of these battles was the result of the erroneous actions of the General Staffs, which necessitated the adoption of emergency measures to prevent a breakthrough of the front. However, such situations arose repeatedly in the last century.
If we evaluate the greatest tank battles by the number of military vehicles that took part in them, then in such super-battles several historical episodes can be considered, in which hundreds of armored vehicles fought simultaneously.
The small North African village of El Alamein became world famous due to the fact that in 1944 in the desert not far from it, six hundred German and Italian tanks met with the British, the number of which was 1,200 vehicles.
There were other great tank battles on the Western Front and in Africa, but they are far from the scale of the Kursk operation, which as a whole was a giant oncoming battle, when each side tried to break the enemy’s defenses, breaking it down and launching a decisive attack.
In the same year, a large-scale American counter-offensive in the Ardennes was a response to the Germans' attempt to defeat the allied expeditionary force in Europe by moving SS tank divisions at it.
The real picture of this great battle is different from the one with which the Soviet cinema viewer is familiar with the film “Liberation”. The advantages of the “thirty-fours” in maneuverability were partially offset by the fact that the Germans, when possible, realized the main plus of the “royal tigers” and “panthers” that had recently appeared, that is, a large range of aimed fire ”. Like many other great tank battles, Prokhorovka did not become a place of final triumph for either side, each of which suffered heavy losses. Hundreds of cars were burned, the victims of the Germans were less substantial, but they became fatal for the Wehrmacht due to the lesser ability to reproduce destroyed equipment.
In the second half of the 20th century, the greatest tank battles also took place, in which the armored vehicles taking part on both sides were numbered in four-digit numbers. In the "Doomsday War", the steel fist of Syria fell on the position of the Israeli army. This happened in early October 1973. The Arab troops had a seven-fold advantage, their vehicles were equipped with night vision devices, which gave obvious advantages during the battles in the dark, but they did not succeed.
Modern anti-tank weapons, including ATGMs, mines, shaped-charge shells, attack aircraft, and much more, made tanks extremely vulnerable. Despite this, the production and continuous improvement of armored vehicles continues, because there are simply no other ways to occupy the territory. Tactical methods of using machines are changing, which are increasingly less likely to attack “on the forehead”. We have not heard about the oncoming battles for a long time, and, apparently, the greatest tank battles will remain on the pages of textbooks on military history.