Anti-tank guided missile in the context of "Tank (military)"

Combat arms (or fighting arms in non-American parlance) are troops within national armed forces who participate in direct tactical ground combat. In general, they are units that carry or employ weapons, such as infantry, cavalry, and artillery units. The use of multiple combat arms in mutually supporting ways is known as combined arms. In some armies, notably the British Army and Canadian Army, artillery and combat engineer units are categorized as combat support, while in others, such as the U.S. Army, they are considered part of the combat arms. Armored troops constitute a combat arm in name, although many have histories derived from cavalry units.

Artillery is included as a combat arm primarily based on the history of employing cannons in close combat, and later in the anti-tank role until the advent of anti-tank guided missiles. The inclusion of special forces in some armed forces as a separate combat arm is often doctrinal because the troops of special forces units are essentially specialized infantry, often with historical links to ordinary light infantry units.

A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; their main armament is often mounted within a turret. They are a mainstay of modern 20th and 21st century ground forces and a key part of combined arms combat.

Modern tanks are versatile mobile land weapons platforms whose main armament is a large-calibre tank gun mounted in a rotating gun turret, supplemented by machine guns or other ranged weapons such as anti-tank guided missiles or rocket launchers. They have heavy vehicle armour which provides protection for the crew, the vehicle's munition storage, fuel tank and propulsion systems. The use of tracks rather than wheels provides improved operational mobility which allows the tank to overcome rugged terrain and adverse conditions such as mud and ice/snow better than wheeled vehicles, and thus be more flexibly positioned at advantageous locations on the battlefield. These features enable the tank to perform in a variety of intense combat situations, simultaneously both offensively (with direct fire from their powerful main gun) and defensively (as fire support and defilade for friendly troops due to the near invulnerability to common infantry small arms and good resistance against heavier weapons, although anti-tank weapons used in 2022, some of them man-portable, have demonstrated the ability to destroy older generations of tanks with single shots), all while maintaining the mobility needed to exploit changing tactical situations. Fully integrating tanks into modern military forces spawned a new era of combat called armoured warfare.

An infantry fighting vehicle (IFV), also known as a mechanized infantry combat vehicle (MICV), is a type of armoured fighting vehicle, light tank, and armoured personnel carrier used to carry infantry into battle and provide direct-fire support. The 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe defines an infantry fighting vehicle as "an armoured combat vehicle which is designed and equipped primarily to transport a combat infantry squad, and which is armed with an integral or organic cannon of at least 20 millimeters calibre and sometimes an antitank missile launcher". IFVs often serve both as the principal weapons system and as the mode of transport for a mechanized infantry unit.

Infantry fighting vehicles are distinct from general armored personnel carriers (APCs), which are transport vehicles armed only for self-defense and not specifically engineered to fight on their own. IFVs are designed to be more mobile than tanks and are equipped with a rapid-firing autocannon or a large conventional gun; they may include side ports for infantrymen to fire their personal weapons while on board.

Slat armor (or slat armour in British English), also known as bar armor, cage armor, and standoff armor, is a type of vehicle armor designed to protect against high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) attacks, as used by anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs).

An unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), also known as a combat drone, fighter drone or battlefield UAV, is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that carries aircraft ordnance such as air-to-surface missiles, anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), and/or aerial bombs on hardpoints or within weapons bay, allowing it to perform tactical attacks known as drone strikes. UCAVs are used for intelligence, surveillance, target acquisition and reconnaissance, attacking high-value targets and prolonged loitering before needing to return to base, unlike kamikaze drones, which are single-use drones made for physically ramming into a target and exploding on impact; or surveillance drones, which are unarmed drones used only for aerial reconnaissance and gathering intelligence.

Aircraft of this type have no onboard human pilot, but are usually under real-time remote control by human operators, with varying levels of automation. As the operator runs the vehicle from a remote terminal via radio control, equipment necessary to support an on-board human pilot is not needed, resulting in a lower weight and a smaller size than a manned aircraft for the same payload. Many countries have operational domestic UCAVs, and many more have imported fighter drones or are in the process of developing them.

A surface-to-surface missile (SSM) is a missile designed to be launched from the ground or the sea and strike targets on land or at sea. They may be fired from hand-held or vehicle mounted devices, from fixed installations, or from a ship. They are often powered by a rocket engine or sometimes fired by an explosive charge, since the launching platform is typically stationary or moving slowly. They usually have fins and/or wings for lift and stability, although hyper-velocity or short-ranged missiles may use body lift or fly a ballistic trajectory. The first operational surface-to-surface missile was the V-1 flying bomb, which was powered by a pulsejet engine.

Contemporary surface-to-surface missiles are usually guided. An unguided surface-to-surface missile is usually referred to as a rocket (for example, an RPG-7 or M72 LAW is an anti-tank rocket), whereas a BGM-71 TOW or AT-2 Swatter is an anti-tank guided missile.

The 100 mm gun-launcher 2A70 (GRAU designation: 2А70) is a model of low-pressure rifled cannons designed in the Soviet Union by the KBP Instrument Design Bureau. Integrated into Bakhcha-U and Sinitsa turret modules, the gun equips the BMD-4, BMP-3, and BTR-90M infantry fighting vehicles. It is capable of launching the high-explosive fragmentation (HE-FRAG) 3OF32 and 3OF70 projectiles, as well as the 9M117 Bastion gun-launched anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) and related systems.

China produces a similar gun used on the ZBD-04 IFV, using technologies licensed from Russia in 1996. The VN20 has a version with a 100-mm gun.