It seems to me that in the interwar period there were a lot of tanks designed with the idea that they would stay with groups of infantry, providing direct fire support while being a lot more durable than a field gun. My understanding is that this was generally abandoned in favour of faster tanks which operated somewhat independently of infantry. But to my very limited knowledge, the infantry tank seems to make sense. What were the theory’s disadvantages? (Or is my understanding flawed?)
Well, I’m no expert, but I know Germany had these MASSIVE tanks (Tigers) during WW2, and the UK/US response was the Sherman tank, these small and fast little suckers, who technically couldn’t take them out, so they modified some of them in-field by replacing the turret and changing a few things inside to create the Sherman Firefly, which were these badass tank-killers. Suffice it to say, they made a lot of Shermans…