E-Books →Fighting Vehicles Armoured Personnel Carriers & Infantry Fighting Vehicles

Compared to the tank, the armoured personnel carrier (APC) and the infantry fighting vehicle (IFV) have had a brief history. During the Great War a few visionaries had the notion of using armoured vehicles to transport soldiers around the battlefield and the first tanks were able to carry a few infantrymen, But it was not until the 1930s that the writings of armoured warfare prophets Fuller and Liddell Hart led to the first dedicated 'battlefield taxis'. Both men forecast that future armoured warfare would involve not just tanks but specialised armoured vehicles to transport the support arms upon which the tanks would depend and with whom they would co-operate. The infantry needed something better than their leg-power or roadbound trucks to maintain contact with the mobile armoured spearheads that Liddell Hart and Fuller foresaw.