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93-582: The USMC had retired the ABV as of 2023. These tracked combat vehicles were specifically designed to clear pathways for troops and other vehicles through minefields and along roadside bombs and improvised explosive devices . The 72-ton, 40-foot-long (12 m) vehicles are based on the M1 Abrams with a 1,500 horsepower engine, but fitted with only a . 50 cal machine gun and a front-mounted 15-foot-wide (4.6 m) plow, supported by metallic skis that glide on

186-565: A West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was generally speaking Common Brittonic —the insular variety of Continental Celtic , which was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages ( Welsh , Cornish , Cumbric ) cohabited alongside English into

279-433: A diesel engine ; modern technology, including the use of turbo-charging , helps to overcome the lower power-to-weight ratio of diesel engines compared to petrol. Gas turbine (turboshaft) engines offer a very high power-to-weight ratio and were starting to find favour in the late 20th century – however, they offer very poor fuel consumption and as such some armies are switching from gas turbines back to diesel engines (i.e.

372-447: A main battle tank will normally be designed to take hits from other tank guns and anti-tank missiles , whilst light reconnaissance vehicles are often only armoured "just in case". Whilst heavier armour provides better protection, it makes vehicles less mobile (for a given engine power), limits its air-transportability, increases cost, uses more fuel and may limit the places it can go – for example, many bridges may be unable to support

465-494: A turret or cupola. The greater the recoil of the weapon on an AFV, the larger the turret ring needs to be. A larger turret ring necessitates a larger vehicle. To avoid listing to the side, turrets on amphibious vehicles are usually located at the centre of the vehicle. Grenade launchers provide a versatile launch platform for a plethora of munitions including, smoke , phosphorus, tear gas , illumination, anti-personnel, infrared and radar-jamming rounds. Turret stabilization

558-726: A British Army engineer. They were very popular with smaller countries. Some saw some combat (with limited success) in World War II. However, the vulnerability of their light armour eventually caused the concept to be abandoned. However, the German Army uses a modern design of air-transportable armoured weapons carriers, the Wiesel AWC , which resembles the concept of a tankette. The term "super-heavy tank" has been used to describe armoured fighting vehicles of extreme size, generally over 75 tonnes. Programs have been initiated on several occasions with

651-747: A Vickers QF-1 "Pom-Pom" gun of 40 mm. The Germans fielded the Sd.Kfz. 10/4 and 6/2, cargo halftracks mounting single 20 mm or 37 mm AA guns (respectively) by the start of the war. Rocket launchers such as the Soviet Katyusha originated in the late 1930s. The Wehrmacht fielded self-propelled rocket artillery in World War II – the Panzerwerfer and Wurfrahmen 40 equipped half-track armoured fighting vehicles. Many modern multiple rocket launchers are self propelled by either truck or tank chassis. The level of armour protection between AFVs varies greatly –

744-549: A century as Received Pronunciation (RP). However, due to language evolution and changing social trends, some linguists argue that RP is losing prestige or has been replaced by another accent, one that the linguist Geoff Lindsey for instance calls Standard Southern British English. Others suggest that more regionally-oriented standard accents are emerging in England. Even in Scotland and Northern Ireland, RP exerts little influence in

837-501: A greater movement, normally [əʊ], [əʉ] or [əɨ]. Dropping a morphological grammatical number , in collective nouns , is stronger in British English than North American English. This is to treat them as plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people. The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment: Police are investigating

930-435: A highly mobile and protected fighting unit has been around for centuries; from Hannibal 's war elephants to Leonardo 's contraptions , military strategists endeavoured to maximize the mobility and survivability of their soldiers. Armoured fighting vehicles were not possible until internal combustion engines of sufficient power became available at the start of the 20th century. Modern armoured fighting vehicles represent

1023-406: A lesser class or social status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence. Another contribution to the standardisation of British English was the introduction of the printing press to England in the mid-15th century. In doing so, William Caxton enabled a common language and spelling to be dispersed among the entirety of England at a much faster rate. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of

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1116-648: A process called T-glottalisation . National media, being based in London, have seen the glottal stop spreading more widely than it once was in word endings, not being heard as "no [ʔ] " and bottle of water being heard as "bo [ʔ] le of wa [ʔ] er". It is still stigmatised when used at the beginning and central positions, such as later , while often has all but regained /t/ . Other consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p , as in pa [ʔ] er and k as in ba [ʔ] er. In most areas of England and Wales, outside

1209-511: A regional accent or dialect. However, about 2% of Britons speak with an accent called Received Pronunciation (also called "the King's English", "Oxford English" and " BBC English" ), that is essentially region-less. It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern period. It is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners. In

1302-467: A tank being first deployed as a medium tank, but in later years relegated to light tank roles. Tanks were also classified by roles that were independent of size, such as cavalry tank , cruiser tank , fast tank , infantry tank , "assault" tank, or "breakthrough" tank. Military theorists initially tended to assign tanks to traditional military infantry, cavalry, and artillery roles, but later developed more specialized roles unique to tanks. In modern use,

1395-414: A tank chassis. During World War II, most major military powers developed self-propelled artillery vehicles. These had guns mounted on a tracked chassis (often that of an obsolete or superseded tank) and provided an armoured superstructure to protect the gun and its crew. The first British design, "Bishop" , carried the 25 pdr gun-howitzer in an extemporised mounting on a tank chassis that severely limited

1488-446: A very large movable siege tower, the helepolis , as early as 340 BC, and Greek forces used such structures in the Siege of Rhodes (305 BC). The idea of a protected fighting vehicle has been known since antiquity. Frequently cited is Leonardo da Vinci 's 15th-century sketch of a mobile, protected gun-platform ; the drawings show a conical, wooden shelter with apertures for cannons around

1581-488: A wide variety of both ground targets and air targets. Despite significant advances in anti-tank warfare , it still remains the most versatile and fearsome land-based weapon-systems of the 21st-century, valued for its shock action and high survivability . A tankette is a tracked armed and armoured vehicle resembling a small "ultra-light tank" or "super-light tank" roughly the size of a car, mainly intended for light infantry support or scouting . Tankettes were introduced in

1674-616: Is a tank fulfilling the role of a main battle tank, but using only anti-tank surface-to-surface missiles for main armament. Several nations have experimented with prototypes, notably the Soviet Union during the tenure of Nikita Khrushchev (projects Object 167, Object 137Ml, Object 155Ml, Object 287, Object 775), A flame tank is an otherwise-standard tank equipped with a flamethrower , most commonly used to supplement combined arms attacks against fortifications , confined spaces, or other obstacles. The type only reached significant use in

1767-725: Is also due to London-centric influences. Examples of R-dropping are car and sugar , where the R is not pronounced. British dialects differ on the extent of diphthongisation of long vowels, with southern varieties extensively turning them into diphthongs, and with northern dialects normally preserving many of them. As a comparison, North American varieties could be said to be in-between. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are usually preserved, and in several areas also /oː/ and /eː/, as in go and say (unlike other varieties of English, that change them to [oʊ] and [eɪ] respectively). Some areas go as far as not diphthongising medieval /iː/ and /uː/, that give rise to modern /aɪ/ and /aʊ/; that is, for example, in

1860-430: Is an important capability because it enables firing on the move and prevents crew fatigue. Modern AFVs have primarily used either petrol (gasoline) or diesel piston engines. More recently, gas turbines have been used. Most early AFVs used petrol engines , as they offer a good power-to-weight ratio . However, they fell out of favour during World War II due to the flammability of the fuel. Most current AFVs are powered by

1953-426: Is distinguished by its high level of firepower, mobility and armour protection relative to other vehicles of its era. It can cross comparatively rough terrain at high speeds, but its heavy dependency on fuel, maintenance, and ammunition makes it logistically demanding. It has the heaviest armour of any AFVs on the battlefield, and carries a powerful precision-guided munition weapon systems that may be able to engage

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2046-769: Is included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times newspaper, the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press . The Oxford University Press guidelines were originally drafted as a single broadsheet page by Horace Henry Hart, and were at the time (1893) the first guide of their type in English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first as Hart's Rules , and in 2002 as part of The Oxford Manual of Style . Comparable in authority and stature to The Chicago Manual of Style for published American English ,

2139-530: The Chambers Dictionary , and the Collins Dictionary record actual usage rather than attempting to prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other varieties of English, and neologisms are frequent. For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the ninth century, the form of language spoken in London and

2232-637: The East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the law, government, literature and education in Britain. The standardisation of British English is thought to be from both dialect levelling and a thought of social superiority. Speaking in the Standard dialect created class distinctions; those who did not speak the standard English would be considered of

2325-558: The English language in England , or, more broadly, to the collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English , Welsh English , and Northern Irish English . Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with]

2418-749: The Hussite Wars . These heavy wagons were given protective sides with firing slits; their heavy firepower came from either a cannon or from a force of hand-gunners and crossbowmen , supported by light cavalry and infantry using pikes and flails . Heavy arquebuses mounted on wagons were called arquebus à croc . These carried a ball of about 3.5 ounces (100 g). By the end of World War II , most modern armies had vehicles to carry infantry, artillery and anti-aircraft weaponry . Most modern AFVs are superficially similar in design to their World War II counterparts, but with significantly better armour, weapons, engines, electronics, and suspension. The increase in

2511-595: The MOWAG Piranha , originally designed as an APC, has been adapted to fill numerous roles such as a mortar carrier , infantry fighting vehicle, and assault gun. Armoured fighting vehicles began to appear in use in World War I with the armoured car, the tank, the self-propelled gun, and the personnel carrier seeing use. By World War II, armies had large numbers of AFVs, together with other vehicles to carry troops this permitted highly mobile manoeuvre warfare . The concept of

2604-484: The Royal Spanish Academy with Spanish. Standard British English differs notably in certain vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation features from standard American English and certain other standard English varieties around the world. British and American spelling also differ in minor ways. The accent, or pronunciation system, of standard British English, based in southeastern England, has been known for over

2697-744: The Russian Marines with the PT-76 , the British Army with the Scimitar , and the Chinese Army with the Type 63 . Modern main battle tanks or "universal tanks" incorporate recent advances in automotive, artillery, armour, and electronic technology to combine the best characteristics of the historic medium and heavy tanks into a single, all-around type. They are also the most expensive to mass-produce. A main battle tank

2790-486: The Scots language or Scottish Gaelic ). Each group includes a range of dialects, some markedly different from others. The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. Around the middle of the 15th century, there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were almost 500 ways to spell the word though . Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950),

2883-476: The Second World War (1939–1945). The armoured personnel carrier, designed to transport infantry troops to the frontline, emerged towards the end of World War I. During the first actions with tanks , it had become clear that close contact with infantry was essential in order to secure ground won by the tanks. Troops on foot were vulnerable to enemy fire, but they could not be transported in the tank because of

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2976-574: The Second World War , during which the United States, Soviet Union , Germany , Italy , Japan and the United Kingdom (including members of the British Commonwealth ) all produced flamethrower-equipped tanks. Usually, the flame projector replaced one of the tank's machineguns, however, some flame projectors replaced the tank's main gun. Fuel for the flame weapon was generally carried inside

3069-560: The University of Leeds has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a grant to Leeds to study British regional dialects. The team are sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC , in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout

3162-601: The West Country and other near-by counties of the UK, the consonant R is not pronounced if not followed by a vowel, lengthening the preceding vowel instead. This phenomenon is known as non-rhoticity . In these same areas, a tendency exists to insert an R between a word ending in a vowel and a next word beginning with a vowel. This is called the intrusive R . It could be understood as a merger, in that words that once ended in an R and words that did not are no longer treated differently. This

3255-603: The 21st century. RP, while long established as the standard English accent around the globe due to the spread of the British Empire , is distinct from the standard English pronunciation in some parts of the world; most prominently, RP notably contrasts with standard North American accents. In the 21st century, dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary , the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ,

3348-516: The 2ID to clear the heavily mined Korean Demilitarized Zone , believed to contain tens of thousands to millions of mines. A previous deployment of MRAP mine-resistant vehicles to South Korea caused North Korea to accuse their presence as vehicles that would cross the DMZ for an attack of the country; the MRAPs were later withdrawn due to their unsuitability for the terrain. North Korea has not publicly responded to

3441-731: The ABVs' arrival on the peninsula. In 2019, the USMC's Force Design 2030 decision to divest of its Armor component included the ABV. This divestment transferred the majority their ABV inventory to the Army. This action resulted in the US Army being the sole branch of the US Military with under-armor mechanical breach capability. As of 2023, the USMC had divested the ABV. In April 2021 the US Department of State approved

3534-816: The English Language (1755) was a large step in the English-language spelling reform , where the purification of language focused on standardising both speech and spelling. By the early 20th century, British authors had produced numerous books intended as guides to English grammar and usage, a few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers . Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication

3627-644: The Germanic schwein ) is the animal in the field bred by the occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French porc ) is the animal at the table eaten by the occupying Normans. Another example is the Anglo-Saxon cu meaning cow, and the French bœuf meaning beef. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English;

3720-891: The Oxford Manual is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English that writers can turn to in the absence of specific guidance from their publishing house. British English is the basis of, and very similar to, Commonwealth English . Commonwealth English is English as spoken and written in the Commonwealth countries , though often with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Australia , Malta , New Zealand , Nigeria , and South Africa . It also includes South Asian English used in South Asia, in English varieties in Southeast Asia , and in parts of Africa. Canadian English

3813-505: The Russian T-80 used a gas turbine engine, whereas the later T-90 does not). The US M1 Abrams is a notable example of a gas turbine powered tank. Notable armoured fighting vehicles extending from post-World War I to today. The tank is an all terrain AFV incorporating artillery which is designed to fill almost all battlefield roles and to engage enemy forces by the use of direct fire in

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3906-701: The South East, there are significantly different accents; the Cockney accent spoken by some East Londoners is strikingly different from Received Pronunciation (RP). Cockney rhyming slang can be (and was initially intended to be) difficult for outsiders to understand, although the extent of its use is often somewhat exaggerated. Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors. Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. Immigrants to

3999-462: The U.S. Marines were said to have plans to field a total of 52 by 2012, of which about 34 have already had been produced. The U.S. Army was said to have ordered 187. By August 2013, six ABVs were brought to the Korean Peninsula to be used by the 2nd Infantry Division (2ID) to provide the capability for deliberate and in-stride breaching of mine fields and complex obstacles. The ABVs would allow

4092-537: The UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country and particularly to London. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 125 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. Notably Multicultural London English , a sociolect that emerged in the late 20th century spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London . Since

4185-564: The United Kingdom , as well as within the countries themselves. The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England (which is itself broadly grouped into Southern English , West Country , East and West Midlands English and Northern English ), Northern Irish English (in Northern Ireland), Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language ), and Scottish English (not to be confused with

4278-458: The West Scottish accent. Phonological features characteristic of British English revolve around the pronunciation of the letter R, as well as the dental plosive T and some diphthongs specific to this dialect. Once regarded as a Cockney feature, in a number of forms of spoken British English, /t/ has become commonly realised as a glottal stop [ʔ] when it is in the intervocalic position, in

4371-410: The adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within the United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English . The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken and so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to

4464-587: The aim of creating an invincible siegeworks / breakthrough vehicle for penetrating enemy formations and fortifications without fear of being destroyed in combat. Examples were designed in World War I and World War II (such as the Panzer VIII Maus ), along with a few in the Cold War . However, few working prototypes were built and there is no clear evidence any of these vehicles saw combat, as their immense size would have made most designs impractical. A missile tank

4557-481: The award of the grant in 2007, Leeds University stated: that they were "very pleased"—and indeed, "well chuffed"—at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Black Country , or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink". Most people in Britain speak with

4650-400: The battlefield. The classifications are not absolute; two countries may classify the same vehicle differently, and the criteria change over time. For example, relatively lightly armed armoured personnel carriers were largely superseded by infantry fighting vehicles with much heavier armament in a similar role. Successful designs are often adapted to a wide variety of applications. For example,

4743-703: The best-known infantry tanks was the Matilda II of World War II. Other examples include the French R-35 , the British Valentine , and the British Churchill . British English British English (abbreviations: BrE , en-GB , and BE ) is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . More narrowly, it can refer specifically to

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4836-409: The bottom of the hull. Weaponry varies by a very wide degree between AFVs – lighter vehicles for infantry carrying, reconnaissance or specialist roles may have only a autocannon or machine gun (or no armament at all), whereas heavy self-propelled artillery will carry howitzers , mortars or rocket launchers. These weapons may be mounted on a pintle , affixed directly to the vehicle or placed in

4929-478: The capacity of transport aircraft makes possible and practicable the transport of AFVs by air. Many armies are replacing some or all of their traditional heavy vehicles with lighter airmobile versions, often with wheels instead of tracks. The first modern AFVs were armed cars, dating back virtually to the invention of the motor car . The British inventor F. R. Simms designed and built the Motor Scout in 1898. It

5022-622: The circumference. The machine was to be mounted on four wheels which would be turned by the crew through a system of hand cranks and cage (or "lantern") gears . Leonardo claimed: "I will build armoured wagons which will be safe and invulnerable to enemy attacks. There will be no obstacle which it cannot overcome." Modern replicas have demonstrated that the human crew would have been able to move it over only short distances. Hussite forces in Bohemia developed war wagons – medieval horse-drawn wagons that doubled as wagon forts – around 1420 during

5115-613: The country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where it was reported. "Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio". When discussing

5208-663: The desert outside Sistani to test Taliban defenses on the eve of Operation Moshtarak when closing off the enemy's escape route. On February 13, 2010, on the first day of the operation, breachers of the US Marines 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion succeeded in digging and blasting "safety lanes" through the numerous minefields laid by the Taliban around Marjah. According to a report in December 2009, there were then five ABVs in Afghanistan, and

5301-468: The dirt and armed with nearly 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg) of explosives. They are equipped with linear demolition charge system (LDCS): rockets carrying C-4 explosives up to 100–150 yards forward, detonating hidden explosives at a safe distance, so that troops and vehicles can pass through safely. In the 1990s, the U.S. Army decided it could not afford to continue developing complicated, maintenance-heavy vehicles for this purpose. The Grizzly program

5394-572: The first Self-propelled artillery , was fielded in 1917. It was based on the first tank, the British Mark I , and carried a heavy field-gun. The next major advance was the Birch gun (1925), developed for the British motorised warfare experimental brigade (the Experimental Mechanized Force ). This mounted a field gun, capable of the usual artillery trajectories and even anti-aircraft use, on

5487-438: The frontal assault role. Though several configurations have been tried, particularly in the early experimental "golden days" of tank development, a standard, mature design configuration has since emerged to a generally accepted pattern. This features a main tank gun or artillery gun , mounted in a fully rotating turret atop a tracked automotive hull, with various additional secondary weapon systems throughout. Philosophically,

5580-520: The gun's performance. It was replaced by the more effective Sexton . The Germans built many lightly armoured self-propelled anti-tank guns using captured French equipment (for example Marder I ), their own obsolete light tank chassis ( Marder II ), or ex-Czech chassis ( Marder III ). These led to better-protected tank destroyers, built on a medium-tank chassis such as the Jagdpanzer IV or the Jagdpanther . The Self-propelled anti-aircraft weapon debuted in WWI. The German 88  mm anti-aircraft gun

5673-400: The heavy tank has fallen out of favour, being supplanted by more heavily armed and armoured descendant of the medium tanks – the universal main battle tank . The light tank has, in many armies, lost favour to cheaper, faster, lighter armoured cars ; however, light tanks (or similar vehicles with other names) are still in service with a number of forces as reconnaissance vehicles , most notably

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5766-404: The idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation, and one that is used for the point or the verb. Standard English in the United Kingdom, as in other English-speaking nations, is widely enforced in schools and by social norms for formal contexts but not by any singular authority; for instance, there is no institution equivalent to the Académie française with French or

5859-448: The individual vehicle too, depending on the role of the vehicle and the likely direction of attack. For example, a main battle tank will usually have the heaviest armour on the hull front and the turret, lighter armour on the sides of the hull and the thinnest armour on the top and bottom of the tank. Other vehicles – such as the MRAP family – may be primarily armoured against the threat from IEDs and so will have heavy, sloped armour on

5952-403: The intense heat and noxious atmosphere. In 1917, Lieutenant G. J. Rackham was ordered to design an armoured vehicle that could fight and carry troops or supplies. The Mark IX tank was built by Armstrong, Whitworth & Co. , although just three vehicles had been finished at the time of the Armistice in November 1918, and only 34 were built in total. Different tank classifications emerged in

6045-544: The interwar period. The tankette was conceived as a mobile, two-man model, mainly intended for reconnaissance. In 1925, Sir John Carden and Vivian Loyd produced the first such design to be adopted – the Carden Loyd tankette . Tankettes saw use in the Royal Italian Army during the Italian invasion of Ethiopia (1935–1936), the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), and almost everywhere Italian soldiers fought during World War II . The Imperial Japanese Army used tankettes for jungle warfare . The British Gun Carrier Mark I ,

6138-403: The last southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath or grass (i.e. barth or grarss ). Conversely crass or plastic use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of Corby , five miles (8 km) north, one can find Corbyite which, unlike the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by

6231-408: The later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary . Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of

6324-401: The mass internal migration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and given its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian . It is

6417-412: The mid-1920s as a reconnaissance vehicle and a mobile machine gun position They were one or two-man vehicles armed with a machine gun. Colloquially it may also simply mean a "small tank". Tankettes were designed and built by several nations between the 1920s and 1940s following the British Carden Loyd tankette which was a successful implementation of "one man tank" ideas from Giffard Le Quesne Martel ,

6510-408: The modern period, but due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages , influence on English was notably limited . However, the degree of influence remains debated, and it has recently been argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial innovations noted between English and the other West Germanic languages. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting

6603-410: The morning of December 3, 2009, for the first time breachers were used in combat, when Marines pushed into the Taliban stronghold Nawzad during Operation Cobra's Anger in Helmand province, on their way to another Taliban stronghold Marjah , 380 miles (610 kilometers) southwest of Kabul , that was to be assaulted in February 2010. On February 11, 2010, two breachers fired explosive line charges in

6696-507: The muddy, pocked terrain and slit trenches of the Battle of the Somme . The tank eventually proved highly successful and, as technology improved, it became a weapon that could cross large distances at much higher speeds than supporting infantry and artillery . The need to provide the units that would fight alongside the tank led to the development of a wide range of specialised AFVs, especially during

6789-484: The opposing force who can often hear and even feel their arrival. Tanks were classified either by size or by role. Classification by relative size was common, as this also tended to influence the tanks' role. Over time, tanks tended to be designed with heavier armour and weapons, increasing the weight of all tanks, so these classifications are relative to the average for the nation's tanks for any given period. An older tank design might be reclassified over time, such as

6882-527: The realization of an ancient concept – that of providing troops with mobile protection and firepower. Armies have deployed war machines and cavalries with rudimentary armour in battle for millennia. Use of these animals and engineering designs sought to achieve a balance between the conflicting paradoxical needs of mobility, firepower and protection. Siege engines , such as battering rams and siege towers , would often be armoured in order to protect their crews from enemy action. Polyidus of Thessaly developed

6975-565: The sale of 29 M1150s to Australia, where they will be operated by the Australian Army . In November 2023 an ABV was shown in Ukraine during a ceremony to commemorate Ukraine's Day of Rocket Forces and Artillery and Engineering Troops Day . On February 22, 2024 an M1150 was lost in combat for the first time in Avdiivka, Ukraine. On 3 March, another M1150 was visually confirmed lost in combat near

7068-401: The spoken language. Globally, countries that are former British colonies or members of the Commonwealth tend to follow British English, as is the case for English used by European Union institutions. In China, both British English and American English are taught. The UK government actively teaches and promotes English around the world and operates in over 200 countries . English is

7161-439: The tank is, by its very nature, an offensive weapon. Being a protective encasement with at least one gun position, it is essentially a pillbox or small fortress (though these are static fortifications of a purely defensive nature) that can move toward the enemy – hence its offensive utility. Psychologically, the tank is a force multiplier that has a positive morale effect on the infantry it accompanies. It also instills fear in

7254-597: The tank, although a few designs mounted the fuel externally, such as the armoured trailer used on the Churchill Crocodile . Flame tanks have been superseded by thermobaric weapons such as the Russian TOS-1 . The idea for this tank was developed during World War I by British and French. The infantry tank was designed to work in concert with infantry in the assault, moving mostly at a walking pace, and carrying heavy armour to survive defensive fire. Its main purpose

7347-587: The theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn. A football team can be treated likewise: Arsenal have lost just one of 20 home Premier League matches against Manchester City. This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For example, Jane Austen , a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of Pride and Prejudice , published in 1813: All

7440-403: The traditional accent of Newcastle upon Tyne , 'out' will sound as 'oot', and in parts of Scotland and North-West England, 'my' will be pronounced as 'me'. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are diphthongised to [ɪi] and [ʊu] respectively (or, more technically, [ʏʉ], with a raised tongue), so that ee and oo in feed and food are pronounced with a movement. The diphthong [oʊ] is also pronounced with

7533-733: The varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon , eventually came to dominate. The original Old English was then influenced by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who settled in parts of Britain in the eighth and ninth centuries; the second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman . These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it

7626-631: The village of Berdychi, Avdiivka. Armoured fighting vehicle An armoured fighting vehicle ( British English ) or armored fighting vehicle ( American English ) ( AFV ) is an armed combat vehicle protected by armour , generally combining operational mobility with offensive and defensive capabilities. AFVs can be wheeled or tracked . Examples of AFVs are tanks , armoured cars , assault guns , self-propelled artilleries , infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), and armoured personnel carriers (APC). Armoured fighting vehicles are classified according to their characteristics and intended role on

7719-475: The weight of a main battle tank. A trend toward composite armour is taking the place of steel – composites are stronger for a given weight, allowing the tank to be lighter for the same protection as steel armour, or better protected for the same weight. Armour is being supplemented with active protection systems on a number of vehicles, allowing the AFV to protect itself from incoming projectiles. The level of protection also usually varies considerably throughout

7812-402: The word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within a range of blurring and ambiguity". Variations exist in formal (both written and spoken) English in the United Kingdom. For example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland, north-east England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and occasionally Yorkshire , whereas

7905-560: The world are good and agreeable in your eyes. However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence. Some dialects of British English use negative concords, also known as double negatives . Rather than changing a word or using a positive, words like nobody, not, nothing, and never would be used in the same sentence. While this does not occur in Standard English, it does occur in non-standard dialects. The double negation follows

7998-531: Was cancelled in 2001, and the prototype developed never made it to the production lines. The Marine Corps however persisted and funded its own development and testing. The main body of the final model of the ABV is built on the General Dynamics chassis that is used for the M1A1 Abrams main battle tank. Pearson Engineering of the UK provided the specially designed plow and the other mine-clearing accessories. In

8091-442: Was equipped with a Hotchkiss machine gun , and with 7 mm armour for the gunner. Armoured cars were first used in large numbers on both sides during World War I as scouting vehicles. In 1903, H. G. Wells published the short story " The Land Ironclads ," positing indomitable war machines that would bring a new age of land warfare, the way steam-powered ironclad warships had ended the age of sail . Wells's literary vision

8184-422: Was never a truly mixed language in the strictest sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication). The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more it is from Anglo-Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it contains Latin and French influences, e.g. swine (like

8277-591: Was powered by a four-cylinder 3.3-litre 16 hp Cannstatt Daimler engine giving it a maximum speed of around 9 miles per hour (14 kilometres per hour). The armament, consisting of two Maxim guns, was carried in two turrets with 360° traverse. Another early armoured car of the period was the French Charron, Girardot et Voigt 1902 , presented at the Salon de l'Automobile et du cycle in Brussels , on 8 March 1902. The vehicle

8370-629: Was realized in 1916, when, amidst the pyrrhic standstill of the Great War , the British Landship Committee deployed revolutionary armoured vehicles to break the stalemate. The tank was envisioned as an armoured machine that could cross ground under fire from machine guns and reply with its own mounted machine guns and naval artillery . These first British tanks of World War I moved on caterpillar tracks that had substantially lower ground pressure than wheeled vehicles, enabling them to pass

8463-578: Was the first armed, petrol-engine powered vehicle ever built. It consisted of a De Dion-Bouton quadracycle with a Maxim machine gun mounted on the front bar. An iron shield offered some protection for the driver from the front, but it lacked all-around protective armour. The armoured car was the first modern fully armoured fighting vehicle. The first of these was the Simms's Motor War Car , also designed by Simms and built by Vickers, Sons & Maxim in 1899. The vehicle had Vickers armour 6 mm thick and

8556-499: Was to suppress enemy fire, crush obstacles such as barbed-wire entanglements, and protect the infantry on their advance into and through enemy lines by giving mobile overwatch and cover . The French Renault FT was the first iteration of this concept. The British and French retained the concept between the wars and into the Second World War era. Because infantry tanks did not need to be fast, they could carry heavy armour. One of

8649-599: Was truck-mounted and used to great effect against British tanks, and the British QF 3-inch 20 cwt was mounted on trucks for use on the Western Front . Although the Birch gun was a general purpose artillery piece on an armoured tracked chassis, it was capable of elevation for anti-aircraft use. Vickers Armstrong developed one of the first SPAAGs based on the chassis of the Mk.E 6-ton light tank/ Dragon Medium Mark IV tractor , mounting

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