Join or Sign In
Sign in to customize your TV listings
By joining TV Guide, you agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy.
4 Episodes 2017 - 2017
Episode 1
September 1914. For two months, tens of thousands of European soldiers had been dying every day in the trenches. Hoping to end this carnage, France and England each built up a fleet of tanks. They believed they had discovered the weapon that would win them the war. In vain. Germany destroyed them all. On November 20, 1917, British tanks finally broke through the German front at Cambrai. Thus, a new chapter in the history of warfare was written: the age of the tank. How did Louis Renault manage to design the first true tank in history? What did the first tank drivers really feel when they arrived on the battlefields? Through logbooks and letters from the front, this offers a true immersion into the daily lives of tank engineers and soldiers.
Episode 2
November 1918. Europe is emerging from the horrors of war. In Kazan, in Tatar Russia, Germans and Russians are developing a formidable new weapon: a fast tank equipped with state-of-the-art communication systems. The German high command is preparing its revenge, and the tank could well be the decisive weapon. While the technological alliance between the Russians and Germans doesn't last, the prototypes are already well advanced. Hitler is impatient, and on September 1, 1939, German tanks roll off the assembly lines and invade Poland. Where does the myth of the invincibility of the German Panzer come from? How did the Soviets manage to defeat the Germans, even as they marched on Moscow? Through previously unseen testimonies from World War II veterans, this offers a true immersion into the daily lives of tank engineers and drivers.
Episode 3
On June 25, 1950, North Korean tanks invaded South Korea. In Europe, they crushed the popular uprisings sweeping through the Warsaw Pact member states. The United States sent its armored divisions to Western Europe. The two blocs faced each other and also supplied arms to the rest of the world. When the Arab countries attacked Israel in the Yom Kippur War, the opposing tanks clashed on a new battlefield. And it was here that one of the deadliest tank battles in history took place. As the arms race between Russia and the United States threatened the world order, a lone man in Tiananmen Square forever altered the fate of tanks. Could a driver who had given his life for his country turn his weapon against his own people? How did Israeli armored vehicles, despite being outnumbered, manage to repel the Arab armies in 1973?
Episode 4
In August 1990, Saddam Hussein ordered his T-72 tanks to invade Kuwait. Leading a coalition of 29 countries, the United States responded by launching the largest tank deployment since the end of World War II, spearheaded by its M1 Abrams. It was the last tank battle in history. In the streets of Grozny, the tanks became a death trap for thousands of young Russian soldiers, who discovered with horror their extreme vulnerability to the fury of the Chechen separatists. The American M1 tanks, considered invincible, were not spared either: from Baghdad to Fallujah, they were destroyed by men armed with rocket launchers. So who wants to destroy the tank? In May 2015, the Western world was stunned. In Red Square, in front of Vladimir Putin, a new tank, still at the prototype stage, parades by, which no one expected: the T14 Armata, a true jewel of technology and a super-powerful weapon of war.