Wiktionary
alt. 1 The primary tank of a country or armed forces. 2 (context military English) A tank with a good balance of firepower, cross-country mobility, and armoured protection, and therefore capable of carrying out the roles of breakthrough, exploitation and infantry support. n. 1 The primary tank of a country or armed forces. 2 (context military English) A tank with a good balance of firepower, cross-country mobility, and armoured protection, and therefore capable of carrying out the roles of breakthrough, exploitation and infantry support.
Wikipedia
A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank, is a tank that fills the armor-protected direct fire and maneuver role of many modern armies. They were originally conceived to replace the light, medium, heavy and super-heavy tanks. Development was spurred in the Cold War with the development of lightweight composite armour. They are still supplemented in some armies with light tanks. Not all armored, tracked military vehicles are tanks and are designed for other battlefield roles.
Today, main battle tanks are considered a key component of modern armies. Modern MBTs seldom operate alone, as they are organized into armoured units which involve the support of infantry, who may accompany the MBTs in infantry fighting vehicles. They are also often supported by surveillance or ground-attack aircraft.
Usage examples of "main battle tank".
Not even a Mark XIX Main Battle Tank could withstand that kind of a collision!
Right now the biggest problem we have is that none of you understands what a main battle tank is, what it can do, or how to kill one.
The Russians were in there, surveying the ridges with powerful field glasses, and he hoped that they could not make out the squat, ominous profile of the main battle tank.
Along with a unit of the assault force and an army driver, he was sitting inside the army's latest and most expensive main battle tank.
They could also fire an armor piercing shell that would collanderize anything but a main battle tank.
Those poor bastards in the command center were dead from the moment that some murderous twit had decided to use a main battle tank, armed with a rail gun, to stand guard over an office full of men and women wearing nothing but street clothes.
But they were made so well for their mission that they could not be mistaken for anything other than what they were, either a real Ml main battle tank, and hence friendly, or a decoy, and thus not really useful in a training exercise, all in all a case of battlefield technology being too good for a training ex.
Zuwayy had been told that she was a woman of many talents: She could pilot a jet airliner, drive a main battle tank, fire a rifle, and argue both common and Shari'a law in any courtroom in the world in four languages.
Its warhead was powerful enough to penetrate the frontal armor of a main battle tank, and should have gutted a lightly-armed vehicle like the Ml 13.
He had twelve M2 Bradley fighting vehicles, each armed with a 25mm chain gun firing depleted uranium rounds capable of penetrating a main battle tank’.