🛡️ Build a Tank

Every tank starts in the workshop

Build a Tank is a gentle building game for young tank fans. You start in a busy workshop with an empty space marked out on the floor, and you put a cartoon tank together one part at a time. Each step shows a row of big picture buttons, so even children who can't read yet can choose by looking, and every part drops into place with a clunk and a shower of sparkles. A smiling commander pops out of the hatch as soon as the turret is on.

There are five steps. First the hull, the tank's armoured body, in a light, medium or heavy size. Then the tracks: narrow tracks, wide tracks, or tracks hidden behind armoured side skirts. Then the turret, the part on top that turns round and holds the gun: round, boxy or low. Then the biggest choice of all, the kind of tank, which decides what job it will do. And finally a coat of paint: olive green, desert sand, snow white, forest camouflage, navy grey or party purple.

Six kinds of tank, six jobs

Most people picture a tank with a big gun, but real armies use lots of different types of tank, each with its own special job. Build a Tank lets children meet six of them. A battle tank is the classic kind, with a big gun in its turret. A tank destroyer has an extra-long gun for hitting things a long way off. A bridge layer carries a folding bridge on its back and swings it out over ditches and streams so that other vehicles can cross. A recovery tank has a crane and a hook for pulling stuck and broken-down vehicles free. A flail tank has a spinning drum of chains in front that beats the ground to clear mines. And a dozer tank has a bulldozer blade on the front for pushing rocks and rubble out of the way.

Mix and match as much as you like: a purple bridge layer on wide tracks, or a snow-white flail tank with a low turret, are both allowed. The picture on each button shows exactly what the tank will look like before you choose it.

The test range

When your tank is finished, press Test drive and it rolls out onto a sunny test range. The tank drives itself and pulls up at each of the three stops, so there is no steering to worry about. At every stop the big button lights up and tells you the job. A battle tank fires at a round target board and knocks it flat. A tank destroyer hits a target right at the far end of the range. A bridge layer swings its bridge up and over the front and lays it across a muddy ditch, drives across, then picks it up again. A recovery tank lowers its hook and lifts an army truck out of a mud puddle. A flail tank needs the button held down: its chain drum spins and the tank creeps forward, popping the toy practice mines in a burst of confetti. And a dozer tank shoves two rocks off the road, one push at a time.

Nobody gets hurt on the test range. The targets are painted boards, the practice mines are toys that pop like party poppers, and the truck in the mud is just very glad to be rescued. After three jobs the test drive is done and you earn a sticker for that kind of tank.

Learning about tanks

Every part comes with a short, simple fact that a grown-up can read aloud: what the hull is for, why tanks have tracks instead of wheels, why the turret turns all the way round, and what each kind of tank does. Tracks, for example, spread the tank's great weight over a big area so that it doesn't sink into soft ground, the same way that snowshoes stop you sinking into snow. Wide tracks spread it even more, which is why tanks built for snow and mud have them. Side skirts are thin armour plates that protect the wheels.

It's a playful first introduction to how big machines are put together and to the names of their parts. Choosing a hull also teaches a simple idea about trade-offs: a light tank is quick but has thin armour, a heavy tank has thick armour but is slow and hungry for fuel, and a medium tank sits in between. Children love to spot the same shapes in museum photos and picture books afterwards.

Real tanks and their jobs

The first tanks rolled onto the battlefield in 1916, during the First World War, and the idea of special-purpose tanks followed soon after. During the Second World War engineers built a whole family of unusual tanks to help armies cross difficult ground: tanks carrying bridges, tanks with flails and ploughs for clearing mines, tanks with bulldozer blades, and armoured recovery vehicles to tow damaged tanks back for repair. Modern armies still use all of these. A recovery vehicle today is often built on the same hull as the battle tanks it looks after, so that it can follow them anywhere.

Camouflage paint has a job too. A tank painted to match its surroundings is much harder to see from far away, so armies paint their tanks green for fields and forests, sandy yellow for deserts and white for snowy winters, often with blotches of darker colours to break up the shape. Party purple, of course, is only for the test range.

Made for little hands

Every button is large and spaced well apart for small fingers on tablets and phones, and the whole game also works with a mouse or a keyboard: the Tab key moves between the buttons and Space or Enter presses them. On the test range, Space or Enter does the job too. There is a sound button to turn the effects off, and the game remembers your stickers on your own device.

Tips for grown-ups

Build a tank together and talk about each choice: which tracks would be best for a snowy mountain, or which kind of tank could help a truck that has got stuck. On the test range, ask your child what they think will happen before they press the button. It's also a lovely way to start a conversation about how engineers solve problems: when the road is blocked by a ditch, somebody had the idea of a tank that carries its own bridge.

Younger children often want to build the same tank again and again, and that's fine: repetition is how little ones learn. Older children can try to build all six kinds to fill the sticker book, or invent a story about where each tank is going next.

Free and safe for kids

Build a Tank is free to play in the browser on computers, Chromebooks, tablets and phones, with no download, no account, no chat and nothing to buy. There are no adverts inside the game. Grown-ups can read more on the Parents & Safety page.

More tank games

Ready for more? Drive a wind-up toy tank round the kitchen table in Toy Tanks Tabletop, roll and hop through candy hills with googly-eyed Tanky in Cartoon Tank Adventure, or cross the trenches in the very first kind of tank in Landship WW1. Every tank game is on the Tank Games page, and there are more builders like Build a Truck too.

Frequently asked questions