History Main / TanksForNothing

* ''VideoGame/{{Dangan}}'', an obscure old shooter from the [=PS1=], have tanks which initially appears to fulfill the GiantMook-type enemy role, being large enough to take up an entire section of the arena, until you actually starts fighting them. Just whip out your smallest gun and fire away, and the tanks somehow blows up in less than ten shots.

* ''VideoGame/ShadowGuardian'' have the Alexandria shootout, where the hero Jason is ambushed by a tank... which he took out in ''five'' seconds by shooting a fuse-box atop a nearby lamppost, which lands on the tank and disables it. After a brief shootout against enemy mooks, the tank reactivates to continue attacking Jason, only for Jason to grab a rocket launcher from a slain mook and destroy it in ''one'' shot.

** The last case is more of a subversion, though, since Major General Armstrong commanded her men to remove the fuses from the rounds to limit the damage done to the facilities where the battle was held. Besides, the tanks ''were'' still useful even when they couldn't actually harm Sloth, because they were able to push him around and outside where he froze solid.

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': The Imperial Guard being the most "normal" and vehicle-heavy of all armies, they tend to suffer a WorfEffect in many an army codex. One unfortunate tank was seen to stop firing after being hit with a Tau railgun even though there were only two holes in the tank's sides... and the crew having been ''liquefied and sucked out'' by the hypervelocity round's passage.

* Tanks in ''VideoGame/IntoTheBreach'' occasionally appear as part of {{Protection Mission}}s. As in, your {{Humongous Mecha}}s are the ones protecting them from the enemy {{Kaiju}}s. One hit is enough to destroy them. They aren't completely useless, as you can control them and use their cannons to damage and push units at close range.

*** A case in point is the liberation of Odessa, where the Feds had only ~30 [=MSes=] (including the ''White Base'' complement) compared to the Zeon's 100+, but had their lines packed to the brim with the [[TankGoodness good ol' M-61s]] and artillery, of which they had more than three times against the Zeon's numbers.[[note]]With the Zeon's tanks being an utter crap of the ''[[AwesomeButImpractical Wunderwaffe]]'' extraction to boot[[/note]] M'Quve's lines started to collapse after barely a single barrage, and they've managed to evacuate someone only due to the nuclear mines, installed by the fleeing spacenoids, bogging down the Feds advance somewhat.

** In ''Film/{{Transformers}}'', the Transformers' destructive power is first shown when Blackout singlehandedly attacks a US military base in Qatar, deploying a SphereOfDestruction and an EnergyWeapon that send tanks flying.

* In ''Film/{{Transformers}}'', the Transformers' destructive power is first shown when Blackout singlehandedly attacks a US military base in Qatar, deploying a SphereOfDestruction and an EnergyWeapon that send tanks flying.

What this works out to on the field is tanks fighting while or inbetween speeding along with other vehicles, and tanks fighting while crawling alongside infantry on foot. Despite their higher costs, even NATO tanks are very vulnerable to (handheld) anti-tank weaponry in the latter role. Indeed, despite what we said about 'being nigh-invulnerable against ill-equipped opponents' urban warfare tends to expose the weak top- and rear-armor of tanks to potentially lethal attacks and ambushes by infantry at short ranges. Good tank commanders always know how to balance the need to avoid losses and their need to accomplish their immediate objectives - losses are inevitable, but they will never be ''[[HollywoodTactics wasted]]''.

* ''VideoGame/{{Dangan}}'', an obscure old shooter from the [=PS1=], have tanks which initially appears to fulfil the GiantMook-type enemy role, being large enough to take up an entire section of the arena, until you actually starts fighting them. Just whip out your smallest gun and fire away, and the tanks somehow blows up in less than ten shots.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'': In "Robot", a tank is rolled out in an attempt to stop the eponymous robot, but is quickly destroyed by it instead.

* In ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds1953'', the Martian weapons are able to cut through tanks like butter. By the point where they finally appear in the film, they're only being used to buy time for survivors to escape before the [[TripodTerror Tripods]] can get to them.

* ''LightNovel/FullMetalPanic'' is a good example of some more "realistic" mecha shows that shows tanks as useless, but mecha as nigh-unstoppable (especially after they cheat with the [[spoiler:Lambda Driver]]). Justified early on, as the first major fight in the series features top-of-the-line mecha against explicitly obsolete Cold War era tanks, but later played straight.

* Franchise/{{Gundam}}: Depending on the series, this can swing one way or the other. In more "realistic" shows like ''Anime/MobileSuitGundamThe08thMSTeam'' this is averted, while more fantastical series' played it straight. Justified a bit more in some of the more fantastical versions like ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundamWing Gundam Wing]]'', where each mech is practically an army unto itself.

* ''LightNovel/MuvLuvAlternativeTotalEclipse'': Tanks are probably effective against weakly armored Soldier and Laser-type BETA, but we mostly only see them fail hilariously against Destroyer-types, which amount to sauropod-sized rhinoceroses with even thicker frontal armor than the tank. Tanks are mostly just used to lure BETA into killing zones for the [[HumongousMecha TSFs]].

* {{Subverted|Trope}} in ''Anime/{{Patlabor}}''. Humanoid Labors go down pretty quickly in the face of tanks simply by being undergunned and fragile. In the second movie, Ōtah becomes upset over his labor's armament (an anti-labor shotgun) in anticipation that he will face tanks; the mechanic replies that he should shoot with both eyes closed.

* In ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds,'' the Martian weapons are able to cut through tanks like butter. By the point where they finally appear in the film, they're only being used to buy time for survivors to escape before the [[TripodTerror Tripods]] can get to them.

* ''Literature/{{Worldwar}}'': Justified for human tanks during the initial tetralogy, as the Race's level of military tech is roughly equivalent to TheFifties or TheSixties (and they strike during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII). On the flipside, their own "landcruisers" are very difficult to destroy due to their better armor and millennia of perfecting all this tech. Even Germans manage to destroy a few of them by using better tactics and the terrain to their advantage (e.g. hitting a Race landcruiser in the poorly armored bottom as its crossing a hilltop), while also losing most (if not all) tanks involved in those fights. Shoulder-launched [=RPGs=] also work, but not against the heavy frontal armor. By the follow-up trilogy, however, taking place nearly two decades later, German tanks have reached a one-to-one parity with their Race counterparts in terms of survivability and firepower, as well as through the use of superior tactics. The tanks of the other major free powers are likely not far behind. It can be assumed that, by ''Homeward Bound'', most of which takes place in 2031 (i.e. nearly 90 years after the first novel), human military technology has surpassed that of the Race by a wide margin. [[spoiler:This is signified by the arrival of the American FTL starship ''Commodore Perry'' into the orbit of Home, the Race's homeworld].]

Even in more [[RealRobotGenre "realistically" based]] HumongousMecha shows, the mecha can destroy tanks with ease despite being larger targets and not having any heavier weapons or armor than battle tanks. In fact, these reasons are why most militaries consider the idea of HumongousMecha to be impractical to begin with. This can be {{justified|Trope}} if there is an extreme technological gap between the combatants. Usually, conventional tanks would have about the same problems with ''any'' ImpossiblyGracefulGiant war machine as they do with their old nemesis the ground attack aircraft, but in a practical situation the technology enabling that grace would be applied to the ''tanks'' first. Tanks could be said to be the RedShirt counterpart to the MechaMooks of the enemies.

* In the [[AfterTheEnd post-apocalyptic future]] of ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'', it's rare to have working vehicles, and even rarer to have working combat vehicles. A fully functional and fully armed tank is next to unheard of in the setting and would make its owner a bandit leader unto themselves. One such tank appears once in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_ZeD40Rg8A the anime.]] [[StuffBlowingUp But only once.]]

* {{Downplayed|Trope}} and [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zagged]] in ''Manga/StrikeWitches''. In a setting where Magical girls in the 1940's using magic-tech to fight supernatural aliens that regenerate and shoot laser beams: conventional tanks in the series various stories are faced with a complicated situation. In the series its shown that simple Neuroi infantry and conventional Neuroi armor are able to be engaged and destroyed with reasonable, relatively even footing by the various tanks of the time period, barring the use of large wave tactics, and even than, while difficult, victory could still not be completely insurmountable, even factoring in considerable casualties at worst. However, it's also shown that larger and more powerful Neuroi can completely destroy conventional tanks with ease, and even conventional, mid-sized air and ground units that make use of beam weapons can cut through the armor of M4 Sherman's, Tiger I's and Panzer IV's like a hot knife through butter. And supposing that what small umber of weaker Neuroi infantry that make use of [[DeathOfAThousandCuts weaker beam weapons could feasibly melt the armor of such tanks giving a short amount of time]][[CruelAndUnusualDeath .... which would likely not be a desirable fate]] [[NightmareFuel for the poor crew's of such tanks to endure]]. Ultimately, while not utterly useless against Neuroi by any Stretch of the imagination, they are still facing a foe with comparably better weapons and more resilient attrition rates by at least a few steps, not even factoring the distinct nuances of Neuroi warfare.

* Subverted in ''Fanfic/OperationForgingSteel'', a White Fang Paladin mech managed to get a drop on an American Paladin Tank and launched its first attack with the mech's main cannon.... to no effect. The Paladin Tank then returned fire and destroyed the Paladin mech in one-shot.

* Subverted in ''Anime/{{Patlabor}}''. Humanoid Labors go down pretty quickly in the face of tanks simply by being undergunned and fragile.
** In the second movie, Ōtah becomes upset over his labor's armament (an anti-labor shotgun) in anticipation that he will face tanks. The mechanic replies that he should shoot with both eyes closed.
* ''Anime/PumpkinScissors'' has lots of tanks. Too bad they can't stand up to [[spoiler:one guy and his handgun]].
** [[spoiler:correction: one gargantuan SuperSoldier that's been conditioned to ignore pain, and his ''13mm, armor-piercing'' '''HandCannon'''.]]
* [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] and [[ZigZaggingTrope zig-zagged]] in ''Manga/StrikeWitches''. In a setting where Magical girls in the 1940's using magic-tech to fight supernatural aliens that regenerate and shoot laser beams: conventional tanks in the series various stories are faced with a complicated situation. In the series its shown that simple Neuroi infantry and conventional Neuroi armor are able to be engaged and destroyed with reasonable, relatively even footing by the various tanks of the time period, barring the use of large wave tactics, and even than, while difficult, victory could still not be completely insurmountable, even factoring in considerable casualties at worst. However, it's also shown that larger and more powerful Neuroi can completely destroy conventional tanks with ease, and even conventional, mid-sized air and ground units that make use of beam weapons can cut through the armor of M4 Sherman's, Tiger I's and Panzer IV's like a hot knife through butter. And supposing that what small umber of weaker Neuroi infantry that make use of [[DeathOfAThousandCuts weaker beam weapons could feasibly melt the armor of such tanks giving a short amount of time]][[CruelAndUnusualDeath .... which would likely not be a desirable fate]] [[NightmareFuel for the poor crew's of such tanks to endure]]. Ultimately, while not utterly useless against Neuroi by any Stretch of the imagination, they are still facing a foe with comparably better weapons and more resilient attrition rates by at least a few steps, not even factoring the distinct nuances of Neuroi warfare.

Administrivia/NoRealLifeExamplesPlease These are already covered in the Military Ground Vehicles section of [[TheAllegedCar The Alleged Car's]] [[TheAllegedCar/RealLifeOtherVehicles page for real life examples of non-car vehicles]], so go there if you wish to add one of these.

[[noreallife]]

* Played straight in ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'', when Wallflower manages to handle three tanks at once with her force field. Discussed Trope later on, as she does the math to determine how much force she just handled... and realizes it was WAY more then she should have. Subverted in a later story, where tanks are amongst the ground forces that TPK Team Kimba.

* ''VideoGame/{{Dangan}}'', an obscure old shooter from the [PS1=], have tanks which initially appears to fulfil the GiantMook-type enemy role, being large enough to take up an entire section of the arena, until you actually starts fighting them. Just whip out your smallest gun and fire away, and the tanks somehow blows up in less than ten shots.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', the Pigmask army deploys some tanks to break into Osohe Castle, which works out fine. They later use the same tanks to chase down your party, only to have one get destroyed by them (Having a TomboyPrincess with PsychicPowers and a mighty old man packing explosives helped there), while another is crushed like a tin can by a [[TRexpy Drago]]. The drivers of the remainder decide they've seen enough at that point and bail out.

* This is given a strange justification in the ''Videogame/MechWarrior'' series and its source Tabletop Game. Tanks are among the ''lighter'' mainstays of most militaries, with Battlemechs and even ''Aerospace Fighters'' mounting heavier armor and weapons (e.g. between a 100 ton tank, a 100 ton Assault Battlemech and a 100 ton heavy Aerospace Fighter the tank will typically have less armor and fewer weapons). Granted, the latter are practically tanks themselves, just with legs or fusion jets.
** In ''[=MechWarrior=] 4'', tanks are absolute joke enemies - the die in a couple hits from almost any weapon, and while some of them have powerful weapons, [[ArtificialStupidity they almost never fire them]]. The trope is [[TankGoodness thankfully averted]] in ''[=MechWarrior=] Living Legends'', where heavy tanks like the [[MightyGlacier Demolisher]] can rip any battlemech to pieces with glee, and light tanks can drive ([[MultiTrackDrifting or drift]]) in circles around the more sluggish mechs.
** Averted with a vengeance in ''VideoGame/{{BattleTech}}''. Lighter vehicles might not pose much of a threat, but heavier tanks can, and if you ignore them, ''will'' cause you massive damage. Be extremely scared if you end up near a Demolisher or SRM Carrier.
** But also justified as well. If a mech launches a melee attack on a tank (translation, attempts to step on it), the tank is nearly always destroyed if the attack hit. Tanks take 2x damage from melee attacks and only have one internal spot, so destruction is nearly always assured.

* In the first ''VideoGame/RuneFactory'' game, the main opponent [[spoiler:the Sechs Empire]] sends an armored battle tank to defeat the player. By this point, your character is strong enough to defeat the tank easily, at which point the opponent says "Maybe it was a manufacturing defect." At the climax, the opponent sends dozens of tanks to destroy your town. Then [[spoiler:the huge Dragon causes plants to grow and defeat the tanks by clogging them]]

* In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration'', [[AscendedFanboy Ryusei]] thinks this is the case since he lives in a world where giant robots exist. He gets outmaneuvered and shot down by tanks during his very first training session, teaching him a [[ThisIsReality very important lesson]]
** [[GameplayAndStorySegregation Of course AFTER that, they're pretty much just there for flavor.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'', the Pigmask army deploys some tanks to break into Osohe Castle, which works out fine. They later use the same tanks to chase down your party, only to have one get destroyed by them (Having a TomboyPrincess with PsychicPowers and a mighty old man packing explosives helped there), while another is crushed like a tin can by a [[TRexpy Drago]]. The drivers of the remainder decide they've seen enough at that point and bail out.
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' series, it's surprisingly common for [[RockBeatsLaser bronze-age spearmen to take down modern tanks]] due to quirks in the combat system. Each successive game tweaked the combat mechanics in an attempt to make this less common, but it still happens often enough for "Spearman beats Tank" to become [[MemeticMutation a long-running meme.]]
* In ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerTiberianSun'', the [[OneWorldOrder GDI]] Titan walker is tougher, more powerful, and has a greater range than its [[YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters Nod]] counterpart the Tick tank, whose main advantage (besides its greater speed) is the ability to literally dig in and turn into a static turret, trading mobility for survivability. It's also cheaper, allowing Nod commander to make more of them. To be fair, though, Nod tactics have always favored hit-and-run type attacks and non-traditional weapons.
* The army tanks in ''VideoGame/WarOfTheMonsters'' are always seen being destroyed easily, and the ones in game only deal chip damage to your health. Somewhat subverted with the missile tanks, as they deal considerably more damage and the player should take note of their presence.
* Unless you're spectacularly bad at designing your mechs in ''VideoGame/{{Chromehounds}}'' individual tanks are just funny little speed bumps. A squad of them just makes for some sad fireworks.
* In ''VisualNovel/MarcoAndTheGalaxyDragon'', the Mayor of Gold Cord rolls up in a tank to rescue Tera Isezaki from being executed by the Galaxy Auction representatives. It doesn’t go well.
* Tanks in ''VideoGame/IntoTheBreach'' occasionally appear as part of {{Protection Mission}}s. As in, your {{Humongous Mecha}}s are the ones protecting them from the enemy {{Kaiju}}s. One hit is enough to destroy them. They aren't completely useless, as you can control them and use their cannons to damage and push units at close range.

* ''WesternAnimation/SymBionicTitan'' plays this very straight. [[GeneralRipper General Steel's]] usual response to any threat is to throw tanks at it. This never works, of course. [[spoiler: Steel himself gets wise to this and has a HumongousMecha of his own built, the "Hammer" that enjoys initial success against the Kaiju being sent to Earth, only to end up being destroyed just before the Titan gets upgraded in the SeriesFinale.]]
* ''WesternAnimation/SwatKats'': The Enforcer Peacekeepers' only purpose is to get stomped by the MonsterOfTheWeek so the heroes can save the day.
** In "Metal Urgency," Pumadyne designs an experimental tank for them called the Behemoth. It seems impressive, since it is protected by a force field and (for whatever reason) all of its armaments are said to be thought-controlled. But after being stolen by Hard Drive, it's taken on a rampage so brief it never even leaves the facility where it had just been built before the SWAT Kats manage to take it out by frying its electrical systems, which results in the thought controls becoming disabled. And apparently there is no backup conventional control for it because once Hard Drive loses the ability to operate it with his mind, the million dollar prototype promptly drives itself into a wall and crashes uselessly.

* In ''WesternAnimation/AvatarTheLastAirbender'' the finale features a scene [[spoiler:during the taking of Ba Sing Se where pretty much every one of the Order of the White Lotus has fun beating the crap out of Fire nation]] tanks.
** This is a pretty justified example considering [[spoiler: the White Lotus benders are some of the best in the world and the firebenders off the group are getting a boost from Sozin's Comet and are much better than the firebenders that are acting as the tanks' "cannons"]]. It's also zigzagged throughout the series since the tanks' introduction: talented benders can defeat them with fair ease, but they're still part of the reason why the Fire Nation is making great strides in their war to conquer the Earth Kingdom as the latter is still using foot soldiers and mounted infantry.

* In ''Film/TheWarOfTheWorlds,'' the Martian weapons are able to cut through tanks like butter. By the point where they finally appear in the film, they're only being used to buy time for survivors to escape before the [[TripodTerror Tripods]] can get to them.
* In the 2003 ''Film/{{Hulk}}'' movie, the Hulk is attacked by a squad of 4 tanks. He throws the first one like a hammer, rips the second one's turret out, then proceeds to beat the crap out of the third one with that same turret, and finally disables the fourth by bending the cannon muzzle to aim at the gunner. It is awesome to behold.
* [[OneManArmy Booker]]'s DynamicEntry in ''Film/TheExpendables2''. Given that he's played by Creator/ChuckNorris, he probably blew up the T72 [[MemeticBadass by scowling at it]].

* It is openly stated in ''Literature/StarshipTroopers'' that tanks are useless against [[PoweredArmor Mobile Infantry]]; too small and agile to hit with heavy ordnance, too heavily armored to give a right damn about anything other than heavy ordnance, and they all carry the kind of havoc that can eat a tank.

* In ''Literature/WorldWarZ'', the tanks present at the Battle of Yonkers were nearly useless. They primarily used anti-tank rounds which were woefully ineffective, since nobody thought to bring enough anti-personnel rounds to make a difference. Using the tanks to run over the zombies supposedly wouldn't work because the zombie guts would clog up their treads, which any real-life tanker would point out is extremely unlikely, as most tanks can function just fine with much worse things (i.e. ''full-sized trees'') stuck in the treads. Mostly this is just another instance of HollywoodTactics present throughout the book.
* In Creator/AndreyLivadny's ''Literature/TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' series, standard treaded or wheeled vehicles are considered vastly inferior to HumongousMecha/[[RealRobotGenre Real Robot]]s. The first time this is proven true is at the very start of the [[TheWarOfEarthlyAggression First Galactic War]], when the [[TheEmpire Earth Alliance]] fleet attempts to invade Dabog, its own LostColony. However, since Dabog has a bit of a {{Deathworld}} feel to it, the early colonists had to struggle and innovate in order to beat the environment and terraform the planet. Specifically, the big threat are giant dinosaur-like lizards and swamps that make traditional vehicles useless. Instead, they studied the lizards' leg joints and based their walker vehicles on them. They proved superior to the Alliance invasion forces due to their maneuverability and ability to cross any terrain, even when piloted by farmers. After the Alliance fleet nuked Dabog (because they actually managed to fight off the invading troops), it learned its lesson and replaced most of its treaded/wheeled tanks with HumongousMecha based on Dabogan designs. The [[LaResistance Free Colonies]] followed suit. Centuries later, Combat Planetary Machines (i.e. traditional vehicles) are only useful as troop transports, if that.
* In the ''Literature/HammersSlammers'' universe tanks were made obsolete by improvements in anti-tank weaponry. Then advanced computers and satellite observation and rapid-firing energy weapons made missiles harder to get through. And fusion power enabled {{Hover Tank}}s with heavy iridium armor.
* Subverted in ''Literature/{{GATE}}'', where the JSDF sends their oldest active tanks, Type 74, [[AlternateUniverse through the titular Gate]], vaguely expecting something like this, and instead finding that even these obsolete tanks effortlessly [[CurbstompBattle curbstomped]] their vaguely Roman/High Medieval-level opponents.
* Played with in the ''Literature/AxisOfTime'' trilogy. The small number of [=M1A4=] Abrams tanks brought by the "uptimers" (this particular modification is geared towards urban warfare and antipersonnel operations) make short work of Japanese and German forces, when they're deployed. On the other hand, German tank columns are bombed to hell and back on D-Day, thanks to all the Allied bombers being directed by the AI aboard the HMS ''Trident'', allowing them to drop bombs exactly where intended.

* When the heroes of ''Literature/{{Victoria}}'' rebel against the US Government, the restored Tsar (yes, that's a thing) gives them... 100 WWII surplus T-34s. This is perfect, the heroes say, because the T-34 is super-reliable (hah!) and the purpose of tanks isn't to fight head on but to raid the enemy's supply chain and rear areas. However, no tanks on any side are ever mentioned as making a difference in the war.

* Subverted in ''TabletopGame/HeavyGear''. The titular mecha are much smaller and lighter than battle tanks with considerably less firepower and armour, complementing battle tanks by being utilized in terrain impassable to large armoured vehicles or where the expense of battle tanks isn't merited. The invading CEF, who initially didn't have Gears, made extensive use of hover-tanks and did very well for themselves.