Disastrous Fun with Tanks
Over the recent Winter Break, I began replaying World of Tanks, specifically World of Tanks: Blitz. I’ve never been one to play MMOs or even pay-to-play MMOs, such as World of Tanks. I usually grow bored, waste what little resources I have, and leave frustrated with the outcomes of the game I’m playing.
World of Tanks is different, though. While it is still dominated by the micro-transaction, pay-to-play model, it has kept my interest over the years. One thing going for it is its unique-ish take: You play different kinds of tanks (or heavily armed vehicles) and try to destroy other players, who are also driving around in tanks and other such vehicles, looking to blow stuff up.
Tanks, for whatever reason, share a special place in my crowded mental real estate with Spaghetti Western gunslingers, human-hunting robots, and starfighters doing dog fights in the vastness of the void. Tanks have played a prominent role in war movies, action films, and even in those toys I was given as a child. Tanks are cool!
However, I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge how problematic this is. The Ukrainians have fought off hundreds of these menacing machines—and offered many of us via YouTube a look at how beautiful modern anti-tank weaponry can be in the face of multimillion-dollar war machines.
Tanks, for me, symbolize two things: The machinations of technological might and something so powerful and menacing yet cool and intricate in its inner workings. Tanks were first introduced on the battlefields of the First Great War. They later became crucial during the Second World War, with the largest tank battle taking place in Eastern Europe, close to today’s Russo-Ukraine War. To Ukrainians (and even to Russians), tanks have kept their status as menacing machines of war, albeit ones struggling to keep up with modern anti-tank weaponry.
World of Tanks straddles a fine line between glorifying tank battles and encouraging players to think deeply about their flaws and their strengths. Upon playing Blitz for the first time, I noticed that players had to be tactically aware of how to ambush and fire the right munitions and shots to knock out their opponents—real-world considerations, too. When playing World of Tanks, the standard edition, I noticed tanks aren’t the end-all weapons platforms popular media would have us believe. In the first minute of engaging some heavy tanks, I was made painfully aware of how easily tanks can become smoldering husks, littering the battlefield, as reminders to others to watch out for incoming rounds.
World of Tanks, while entertaining, is full of surprising lessons on the flaws of tanks on the battlefield, along with reminders concerning their highly technical nature. You are constantly working to improve your tank’s deadliness, accuracy, and survivability. In the end, even these only offer so much. It comes down to the crews, who are struggling to keep their machines of war running and themselves alive to fight another battle.
I am reminded of two movies offering diametrically opposing versions of tanks on the battlefields of World War Two: Kelly’s Heroes and Fury. Kelly’s Heroes, while mostly jovial, offers some moments of serious dread concerning tank battles, but these moments are fleeting. Fury, while far from perfect, offers a different picture: Tanks are imperfect machines of war that are only successful when crewed by the most dangerous weapons of all: People.
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