Telling them apart for beginners

Tanks, self-propelled guns and APCs perform very different roles, and confusing them can render what you are writing misleading or unintelligible. For example, see the use of the word “tanks” in the third paragraph of this story here – click here for BBC News Online story - when in fact there were very unlikely to have been tanks anywhere near, and if there were it would have implied a very different approach to the situation.

Telling APCs and IFVs from tanks is fairly straightforward, but SPGs and tanks can confuse beginners. Apart from the general shape of the hull and lower profile of a tank, some telltales are:

This is a tank

This is a self-propelled gun

The drawings above are not to scale. Still in doubt? Call it an armoured vehicle and you can’t go wrong.