BEST TANK IN THE WORLD

But they were mid war tanks and being replaced by the mighty Maus. Now there's maneuverability sacriced for armour. Pillboxes are cheaper to build. (and they don't break down)

If the war had gone on the the newer generation of allied tanks would have outclassed the mid war German tanks and the Germans nothing to compare. Then Germany would be remebered as the c\ountry that had bad tanks and the allies as the countries that had good ones. It was just that the war ended when it did German tanks have such a good reputation.

P.S. nice to see someone so knowledgable about tanks on this forum.

 

Edited by Paul

Actually I'd take a Jagdpather over a II anyday. There's a good argument that german tankbreakers and mobile artillery are what they should really be remebered for and the tanks shuffled descreetly under the carpet.

As far as I know the Panther II never got built. The Centurion was deployed a couple of months before VE day but never saw combat.

Personally I'm not sure the Tiger II was a good design, it took ages to build, was resourse heavy, complex and drank petrol. Germany had little petrol and little capacity to move petrol under allied air blanket, how many Tigers became pillboxes? What Germany needed at that stage was a T-34/85 or 100. Cheap, quick to build, simple and could build 5 or 6 for every Tiger.

Germany had an infantry and cavalry tank concept to begin with, The III was originally planned as a cavalry tank and IV an infantry. It never worked out because the III quickly got outclassed so was abandoned. The Russians kept the concept to the end of the war, the KV and t-35 were both cavalry. The British had it too, Matilda, sherman and Churchill infantry, Comet, firefly and Crusader cavalry. Only country that didn't have cavalry and infantry tanks was US. Shermans were infantry tanks, US had doctrine of infantry tanks only. M-26 was quickly sidelined by Patton and Eisenhower who both disliked cavalry tanks.

Not having a turret has advantages, weakest part gone must now hit front hull to kill, weight gone so heavier better gun and armour, can still move gun a bit, low profile so difficult to see.  disadvatages must turn whole tank instead of turret..... Advantages outway disadvantages and great for defence.

Originally posted by AFV Master Not all of the tanks the Abrams have fought were OBSOLETE. T-72's are far from obsolete. They have 125mm cannons and have extremely thick armour that have extreme resistantce to most kinds of shells. They are also one of the quicker tanks, but not as quick as the Abrams. The only tanks that could be comparable to the Abrams would be the Challenger Two and The Leopard Two A6

Then again, Russian armour piercing fin stabilized discarding sabots have not been top notch; in fact, they have always increased mass at a loss of velocity.  There's a certain point where mass is important, but sometimes velocity is more important.  In fact, the wider, larger penetrator used by the Russians has less penetration power than the American Silver Bullet - not just because the latter is made out of denser material, but because it's a better round period.  So although the T-72 within itself might have been a good tank; it was obsolete in tank to tank warfare, especially when you consider that they were in the hands of bad Iraqi tank crews.

I just saw on Discovery channel a list:
1 Leopard - Germany now
2 Abrams - USA now
3 T 34 - USSR WW2
4 Israel tank now
5 Swedish tank now
6. T 72 - USSR cold war
7. Panther - Germany (WW2)

8,9,10 and the names of Israel and Swedish tanks I don't remember

The Israeli tank they were probably referring to is the Merkava IV; it's more of a glorified APC/IFV than anything else.  The engine in the front increases room for troop transport, but if a CE or KE round actually penetrated the frontal armour [depending on what fired it] the tank would have a greater chance of combustion than would a tank with the engine in the rear.

Well the British are thinking about changing their barrels to smoothbore.  Rifled barrels have horrible accuracy when it comes to launching APFSDS rounds, which are the primary weapons of most tanks these days.  Other than that, a smoothbore isn't that bad when lobbing HE shells, and has a longer life span without replacing the rifling of the barrel.
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We are no longer thinking about it, it's going to happen, the decision has been made. By "politicians". Scumbag Blair and his equally scumbag government are allowing the closure of the UK's ammunition factories so we are being forced to adopt "smoothbore" tank guns to ensure we can import ammunition for our tanks.

 

The "sliding band" APFSDS round adopted by the British (which by the way took out an iraqi tank at a range in excess of 4000M) is highly accurate  not horribly accurate, and the smoothbore gun is"totally useless" when it comes to non anti armour ammunition.

It is true that the smoothbore gun is longer lasting than it's rifled barrel cousin.

 

The HESH round is now useless against modern armour, I dont argue that fact but do you remember the TV pictures in the last gulf war of a CR2 destroying an Iraqi TV mast using HESH?  An M1 would have been there till doomsday trying to do that!!.

I am a former British army tank commander and so I have "some" knowledge about tanks. The British tank crews do not want to lose their precious rifled barrels.

 

The British tank "bible" says that tanks have 3 roles

1. To destroy enemy armour (note armour is spelt correctly, not armor ughh!!)

2. to support the infantry

3. To exploit shock action

With smoothbore guns only no1 can be really achieved, ok if you have abundant Artillary, mortar, helicopter and close air support,  but in battle the only guarantee is that your plan will not survive the first shot fired.

 

The USA depends on technology and overpowering might to destroy the enemy, It failed in Vietnam and one day when all this support is missing it's smoothbore gun tanks will fail again

 

Long  live HESH

Edited by aghart

Vietname is a poor example; no main battle tank ordnance from either side saw action in Vietnam [as in, no MBTs from today saw action in Vietnam].  An HE round fired from a smoothbore isn't that horrible, within all rights.  The rifledbore may be better for HESH, but in terms of jack of all trades the smoothbore is pretty good, and it has the added plus of accurately firing APFSDS.  The Challenger II's Dorchester armour is superior to that of the Abrams in all respects [the C. II also recently had an appliqu�>> ERA upgrade I believe].

But it will become rather irrelevent by 2011-2017 with the advent of the electro-thermal chemical gun and the exchange of the M1A2 from a 120mm smoothbore to a 120mm ETC.  Understandably, I really don't support the British change to smoothbore because there's no point; they're most likely going to be forced to purchase their guns of Rhinemetal for the ETCs anyhow in the next five to eleven years.

The Tiger II, I would say..

Originally posted by aghart The best tank in the world is one that has the best crew!  and a decent boiling vessel.

And air supremacy....

And attack helicopters to cripple(destroy) the enemy armoured forces ....

And no enemy infantry with LAW's around ...

So, the best tank job could be done by a bunch of BMP's? Really ....why are we still buiding tanks?