Witzkatz wrote: Pretty sure he means a 90° angle between incoming shell and the face of the armor plating, so 90° would be vertical in that sense.
Oh right, is that what he means? Is he saying it isn't as thick as it seems on paper, because it isn't sloped liked other designs like the T-34? I did not get that, thanks for explaining. That said, the statement is true (the Churchill didn't have sloped armour), but it is misleading - it was still a lot of armour. Not enough armour to stop the long 75mm of the Panther or the 88mm of the Tiger, but that's a reality true of every tank on both sides that chased heavier armour in the late stages of the war - there wasn't a plausible amount of armour you could mount on a reasonably mobile design that would make the tank immune to the latest generation of AT guns.
And I agree, as far as I know the 75mm Churchill version carried HE shells, a job that was done with the hull-mounted howitzer in earlier variants.
The MkVII carried HE rounds. The whole reason to move to the 75mm gun was to give the tank more effectiveness against infantry.
I genuinely have no clue where you get the claim the Churchill lacked a HE shell from. I think you might be confused with earlier versions of the Churchill that carried 2pdr and 6pdr guns that had limited use against infantry and fortified positions. But the uparmoured MkVII being discussed here had a 75mm gun, of either UK or US design, which had an excellent HE round, far better than you'd see on any German tank through the war.
40mm HE would be almost absolutely useless (if there was any). 57mm HE - not enough power as the 76mm was minimal enough to destroy field defenses and kill infantry. 75mm gun Churchill was ok, but that's still a bad design, as it can be done with lighter and cheaper chassis. While in game there are many faked tanks, specifilaccy Churchill's armour is close to real one and it's still has many vulnerably spots.
About Churchill VII - yes, it's finally real 152mm front armour and good enough gun but... at infantry speed. This means not only slow movement, but also an increased threat of getting stuck. And for war ending gun still wasn't impressive in comparison to other tanks. Churchill can be called good only as the completion of the WW1 design, but it lagged behind the surrounding reality. Like Soviet multiturret tanks or Italian "heavy" tanks.
What I always found suprising about the Churchill is its size when you see it directly next to other heavy tanks. It's a comparably small silhouette compared to a Tiger, or even just a Panther. I guess that probably meant rather cramped conditions in the crew compartment, but being an overall comparably small target in addition to strong frontal and side armour is at least something positive for the Churchill.
A lot of British WW2 designs had the entire crew compartment down between the tracks, allowing the overall profile to be quite low.
The downside of this was that the maximum size of the turret ring was constrained by the width of UK railways. This led to UK tanks being undergunned in comparison with continental tanks of similar tonnage.
The Tiger in comparison was too wide to be transported by rail. It was designed to remove the outer road wheels and fit narrow tracks to get it onto a railway wagon. This if course took time and engineering resources, and made the tank less manoeuvrable until its fighting tracks were restored.
I think the Tiger was also so heavy that - in one of the frequent cases where something in the overworked gearbox or the engine broke - it couldn't be towed with most of the usual Wehrmacht towing vehicles, and the only thing being able to tow a Tiger was another Tiger, which must've been quite a tense situation with the drivetrain of the towing Tiger now doing even MORE work - and the prospect of TWO broken-down Tigers in the very near future...
(I'm really bad at picking an absolute favourite tank, but for some reason for me the M5 Stuart comes to mind. I'm fond of light, fast tanks, especially ones full of machine guns in addition to some main gun that can be used to at least disable the bigger, enemy vehicles...)
I think it took three Famo (sdkfz.9) to pull a Tiger. Some madmen have modelled this.
Another good tank story. When my grandfather finished training on Vickers MkII Medium they drove them off the harbour side into the sea to make a barrier to shipping. Somewhere in Africa there’s a man made reef of Vickers tanks rusting away.
Some time after this he had to deliver vehicles to the front and upon arriving was immediately pulled into an offensive to drive back a German attack. Great, but they weren’t carrying ammunition as they were supposed to be delivering vehicles not going into combat. In the end they had to participate in an ‘counter attack’ on German positions effectively unarmed, simply to make up the numbers. Which worked as the Germans withdrew under the weight of numbers of British vehicles. At one point charging the enemy a huge bang caused my grandfathers tank to leap in the air - ‘direct hit, they can’t stop us boys!’ shouted the commander inspiring the men. Afterwards he was forced to admit the blast that rocked the whole tank came from a shell, artillery or an 88, that had landed yards away. A direct hit and I certainly wouldn’t be here today writing this.
Witzkatz wrote: I think the Tiger was also so heavy that - in one of the frequent cases where something in the overworked gearbox or the engine broke - it couldn't be towed with most of the usual Wehrmacht towing vehicles,
That's actually a misrreprsentation. While there were guidelines against towing a tiger with a tiger, the usual recovery was done with two standard Famo half tracks.
Ah, thanks for that info. Picture makes it quite clear. I heard the Tiger-Tiger-Towing story a few times, but I guess stories can circulate quite widely on the internet without necessarily being fully true, as usual.
Witzkatz wrote: I think the Tiger was also so heavy that - in one of the frequent cases where something in the overworked gearbox or the engine broke - it couldn't be towed with most of the usual Wehrmacht towing vehicles, and the only thing being able to tow a Tiger was another Tiger, which must've been quite a tense situation with the drivetrain of the towing Tiger now doing even MORE work - and the prospect of TWO broken-down Tigers in the very near future...
(I'm really bad at picking an absolute favourite tank, but for some reason for me the M5 Stuart comes to mind. I'm fond of light, fast tanks, especially ones full of machine guns in addition to some main gun that can be used to at least disable the bigger, enemy vehicles...)
There was a twilight zone episode where a Stuart went back in time to Little Bighorn. Very cool
Witzkatz wrote: I think the Tiger was also so heavy that - in one of the frequent cases where something in the overworked gearbox or the engine broke - it couldn't be towed with most of the usual Wehrmacht towing vehicles,
That's actually a misrreprsentation. While there were guidelines against towing a tiger with a tiger, the usual recovery was done with two standard Famo half tracks.
Thusly.
Oh they used those to tow heavy artillery too, they had a pretty hefty tow capacity. That looks about right. Though late war they rarely had capacity to recover a tiger due to losing ground.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I think it took three Famo (sdkfz.9) to pull a Tiger. Some madmen have modelled this.
Another good tank story. When my grandfather finished training on Vickers MkII Medium they drove them off the harbour side into the sea to make a barrier to shipping. Somewhere in Africa there’s a man made reef of Vickers tanks rusting away.
Some time after this he had to deliver vehicles to the front and upon arriving was immediately pulled into an offensive to drive back a German attack. Great, but they weren’t carrying ammunition as they were supposed to be delivering vehicles not going into combat. In the end they had to participate in an ‘counter attack’ on German positions effectively unarmed, simply to make up the numbers. Which worked as the Germans withdrew under the weight of numbers of British vehicles. At one point charging the enemy a huge bang caused my grandfathers tank to leap in the air - ‘direct hit, they can’t stop us boys!’ shouted the commander inspiring the men. Afterwards he was forced to admit the blast that rocked the whole tank came from a shell, artillery or an 88, that had landed yards away. A direct hit and I certainly wouldn’t be here today writing this.
My grandfather also was a tank driver in the western desert. He had a Valentine. The crew had a tortoise for their mascot.
SOP was to load as much ammo as possible, overflowing the storage bins and stacking it up on the floor, and fire as quickly as they could.
My grandfather was a tanker, too, on the Wehrmacht side. I know pretty much nothing about his life or his actions during the war, though - he survived, but died a few years later of a then-untreatable vascular disease. I did some minor research and I'm assuming he commandeered a Panzer IV at first and later his (presumed) division was stocked with Panthers, mostly operating on the Eastern Front. Not sure if I'd actually be keen to hear war stories from him if I had had the chance, given that he was decidedly on the wrong side of this war.
More on topic, armored cars are also fair game in this thread, right? In a similar vein to the M5 Stuart, I like the German Sd.Kfz. 234 Puma quite a bit, an eight-wheeled fast reconaissance vehicle. Quite the streamlined look to it, and a reasonable gun on top of it, too.
Witzkatz wrote: My grandfather was a tanker, too, on the Wehrmacht side. I know pretty much nothing about his life or his actions during the war, though - he survived, but died a few years later of a then-untreatable vascular disease. I did some minor research and I'm assuming he commandeered a Panzer IV at first and later his (presumed) division was stocked with Panthers, mostly operating on the Eastern Front. Not sure if I'd actually be keen to hear war stories from him if I had had the chance, given that he was decidedly on the wrong side of this war.
More on topic, armored cars are also fair game in this thread, right? In a similar vein to the M5 Stuart, I like the German Sd.Kfz. 234 Puma quite a bit, an eight-wheeled fast reconaissance vehicle. Quite the streamlined look to it, and a reasonable gun on top of it, too.
wrong side yes, but i mean both sides did some pretty nasty things to each others and Brittish tankers, US, and Soviet probbly had there fair share of nasty momments as German armour crews.
Alot of the soliders, where just that, soldiers conscripted like any other nation.
the only ones with the reputations for evil and war crimes make up a small proportion.
Veterans of the war have met from oposite sides and become good freinds, in the end they where forced to fight those wars, and in the end, there both men, both bleed the same, both just wore diffrent uniforms under a diffrent flag.
If armoured cars are fair game, I nominate the Škoda Želva: Is that a military vehicle or a driving art deco exhibit Take special note of the little flag the Czechs attached to it...
I was given a model of that for Christmas. Peculiar vehicle, both ends are identical, it doesn’t have a ‘rear’ as it can go in both directions equally. The seats face opposite directions inside.
Howard A Treesong wrote: I was given a model of that for Christmas. Peculiar vehicle, both ends are identical, it doesn’t have a ‘rear’ as it can go in both directions equally. The seats face opposite directions inside.
Iron_Captain wrote: If armoured cars are fair game, I nominate the Škoda Želva:
Is that a military vehicle or a driving art deco exhibit Take special note of the little flag the Czechs attached to it...
An image that might be more helpful to those who've never seen one to get a better idea of the thing.
I will point out that those of you occasionally referring to Russian armor tests may want to take them with a grain of salt, some of them used what I can only describe as 'Questionable Methodology' such as parking the firing tank 20 yards from the target and firing repeatedly at the same location on the tank. Many of these tests were done for propaganda value over actual information gathering.
Freakazoitt wrote: I was wondering too before, but that's in the literature they write about the vertical arrangement of plates
That is weird. Can you give the exact quote. I think they probably meant what Witzkatz suggested- it was referring to the Churchill's armour being almost 90', so not getting any of the benefit of sloping like later designs.
40mm HE would be almost absolutely useless (if there was any). 57mm HE - not enough power as the 76mm was minimal enough to destroy field defenses and kill infantry. 75mm gun Churchill was ok, but that's still a bad design, as it can be done with lighter and cheaper chassis.
Yeah, read what I'm saying. The early Churchill with 2 and 6pdr guns had poor HE (the original had a hull mounted howitzer for that role, but it wasn't much use). But the tank being talked about here was the Mk VII, with 152mm armour and a 75mm gun. The HE round for that gun was about as good a HE round as you got on an all-purpose gun in the war, the only better HE was on specialist howitzer mounted tanks.
You are right that the 75mm AP round was underwhelming. It wasn't terrible, but it certainly wasn't that good, certainly not for the weight. This isn't a 'yay Churchill! boo Churchill!' thing, that you seem to be trying to turn it in to. What is actually is is you making some mistaken statements about the Churchill Mk VII, confusing it with earlier versions, and me correcting those mistakes.
About Churchill VII - yes, it's finally real 152mm front armour and good enough gun but... at infantry speed. This means not only slow movement, but also an increased threat of getting stuck. And for war ending gun still wasn't impressive in comparison to other tanks. Churchill can be called good only as the completion of the WW1 design, but it lagged behind the surrounding reality. Like Soviet multiturret tanks or Italian "heavy" tanks.
Uh, the one stand out feature of the Churchill is that it didn't get stuck. Forget speed, the Churchill was stupidly long and had high tracks - it was basically designed as the tank that wouldn't get stuck.
But yes, the later uparmoured version was slow, and the added weight made it less reliable. However, saying it lagged behind the surrounding reality so that it should rank alongside abject failures like the Soviet multi-turret tanks is exaggeration to the point of silliness. Due to poor understanding of the place of tanks in modern war at the start of fighting, and the rush of new designs during the war, WW2 was full of genuinely awful tank designs. The Churchill was nowhere near the worst designs of the war. It wasn't even among the worst UK designs (that'd probably be the Matilda I or the Covenator). It had drawbacks, particularly that small turret ring, but it had excellent cross terrain performance, and a surprising amount of versatility for funny tank variants, making it a curious and ultimately more or less okay design.
They did. The Churchill Mk VIII was the howitzer variant, it had a 25pdr gun.
But nobody ever talks about tank, because the AVRE existed. What's the fun in talking about Churchill variants with entirely sensible, effective howitzers, when there was a Churchill with a 40 pound spigot mortar?
Howard A Treesong wrote: I was given a model of that for Christmas. Peculiar vehicle, both ends are identical, it doesn’t have a ‘rear’ as it can go in both directions equally. The seats face opposite directions inside.
Many WW2 armoured cars were built that way, the idea being that being recon vehicles they would often have to back quickly at the sight of trouble, and their turn radius was generally abysmal (and a recipe for getting stuck off road as well). They also had multiple reverse gears for this precise reason, although not totally symmetrical.
The Italian AB41, German Sdkfz 234 and 231, and probably others had this feature.
They did. The Churchill Mk VIII was the howitzer variant, it had a 25pdr gun.
But nobody ever talks about tank, because the AVRE existed. What's the fun in talking about Churchill variants with entirely sensible, effective howitzers, when there was a Churchill with a 40 pound spigot mortar?
Why talk about that when there's the Toad?!? Nothing says loving like dozens of chains beating infantrymen to death in a bloody haze of gore.
I have nightmares of this thing chasing me down tunnels at work.
Yeah, read what I'm saying. The early Churchill with 2 and 6pdr guns had poor HE (the original had a hull mounted howitzer for that role, but it wasn't much use). But the tank being talked about here was the Mk VII, with 152mm armour and a 75mm gun. The HE round for that gun was about as good a HE round as you got on an all-purpose gun in the war, the only better HE was on specialist howitzer mounted tanks.
I forgot about hull gun. Yeah, if tank has weapon against both trenches and tanks - it's adequate armament. But if it's a heavy tank with 40mm gun it's just freaky. Mk.VII 75mm gun - just "normal" gun. Not something late war heavy tanks usually had.
You are right that the 75mm AP round was underwhelming. It wasn't terrible, but it certainly wasn't that good, certainly not for the weight. This isn't a 'yay Churchill! boo Churchill!' thing, that you seem to be trying to turn it in to. What is actually is is you making some mistaken statements about the Churchill Mk VII, confusing it with earlier versions, and me correcting those mistakes.
But yes, the later uparmoured version was slow, and the added weight made it less reliable. However, saying it lagged behind the surrounding reality so that it should rank alongside abject failures like the Soviet multi-turret tanks is exaggeration to the point of silliness. Due to poor understanding of the place of tanks in modern war at the start of fighting, and the rush of new designs during the war, WW2 was full of genuinely awful tank designs. The Churchill was nowhere near the worst designs of the war. It wasn't even among the worst UK designs (that'd probably be the Matilda I or the Covenator). It had drawbacks, particularly that small turret ring, but it had excellent cross terrain performance, and a surprising amount of versatility for funny tank variants, making it a curious and ultimately more or less okay design.
Churchill's concept was too archaic from beginning and supporting it's development was wasting resources. There were much more effictive projects like a Comet, for example. Comet - was a modern tank that could move and maneuver at normal speed, could break through the defenses and without problems destroy both the Panther and the Tiger. And Churchill is a product of old-fashioned minds that were prepared for WW1 with rows of spiny wires, ditches, chains of attacking infantry with bayonettes and trenches with static machine-gun positions.
Uh, the one stand out feature of the Churchill is that it didn't get stuck. Forget speed, the Churchill was stupidly long and had high tracks - it was basically designed as the tank that wouldn't get stuck.
It did stuck. Despite long tracks it wasn't able to safely climb obstackles as that tracks were falling apart. The Soviet Churchills were known for falling apart suspension on the move, losing wheels, tracks, attachments and springs. And he showed a tendency to get stuck in the mud. And again, the mud break the suspension.
They did. The Churchill Mk VIII was the howitzer variant, it had a 25pdr gun.
But nobody ever talks about tank, because the AVRE existed. What's the fun in talking about Churchill variants with entirely sensible, effective howitzers, when there was a Churchill with a 40 pound spigot mortar?
it was cruder and not always safest weapon to use but it worked!
And yes Churchill was not always fasted but was easily adapted to many logistical roles, and a sturdy and reliable platform for deploying auxiliary auxuilary gear.
They did. The Churchill Mk VIII was the howitzer variant, it had a 25pdr gun.
But nobody ever talks about tank, because the AVRE existed. What's the fun in talking about Churchill variants with entirely sensible, effective howitzers, when there was a Churchill with a 40 pound spigot mortar?
it was cruder and not always safest weapon to use but it worked!
And yes Churchill was not always fasted but was easily adapted to many logistical roles, and a sturdy and reliable platform for deploying auxiliary auxuilary gear.
I will have to look that up!
Interesting. There were recommendations bandied about to shift to a mix if 76s and 105s in a similar fashion to the Firefly mix.
They did. The Churchill Mk VIII was the howitzer variant, it had a 25pdr gun.
But nobody ever talks about tank, because the AVRE existed. What's the fun in talking about Churchill variants with entirely sensible, effective howitzers, when there was a Churchill with a 40 pound spigot mortar?
it was cruder and not always safest weapon to use but it worked!
And yes Churchill was not always fasted but was easily adapted to many logistical roles, and a sturdy and reliable platform for deploying auxiliary auxuilary gear.
I will have to look that up!
Interesting. There were recommendations bandied about to shift to a mix if 76s and 105s in a similar fashion to the Firefly mix.
they where among the assult machines we build for D Day in UK, the US prefered there own Sherman variants and UK used more Churchills as assult and logistical barrier crossing machines.
many however saw later use as the designs worked and found many other uses oiutside the beaches.
its long design, terrain abilities and decent armour made Churchill a good tank for beach assult.
we learnt from Dieppe and brought large mats to lay as roads over softer sand so they did nto bogged down, others hauling wood to fill anti tank ditches and streams, some brought bridges later on and more.
the allied armies where alot better prepared to face the Atlantic wall the second time,
Freakazoitt wrote: I forgot about hull gun. Yeah, if tank has weapon against both trenches and tanks - it's adequate armament. But if it's a heavy tank with 40mm gun it's just freaky. Mk.VII 75mm gun - just "normal" gun. Not something late war heavy tanks usually had.
What are you on about? The Churchill is lacking as a late war heavy tank in the same way that my Mazda 6 is lacking the key features of a combine harvester. It's technically true, but completely meaningless. The Churchill isn't a late war design. It rolled out in 1941. It was a design at the very start of the mid-war period. It carried on through the war, getting up armoured and upgunned, but it was always limited by its early design elements.
Churchill's concept was too archaic from beginning and supporting it's development was wasting resources. There were much more effictive projects like a Comet, for example. Comet - was a modern tank that could move and maneuver at normal speed, could break through the defenses and without problems destroy both the Panther and the Tiger.
Yeah, the Comet was a superior design that could carry the superior 77mm HV. It was also a 1945 design. You're comparing a modded 1941 design to a brand new 1945 design, and finding the 1945 design to be the superior tank. Funny that.
It did stuck. Despite long tracks it wasn't able to safely climb obstackles as that tracks were falling apart. The Soviet Churchills were known for falling apart suspension on the move, losing wheels, tracks, attachments and springs. And he showed a tendency to get stuck in the mud. And again, the mud break the suspension.
People love using Russian reports as some kind of guide to... something. But according to the Russians the Spitfire was a dud. Of course the Russians got older models, generally with manuals in English or with no manuals at all... but more than that they simply had no idea of the tactics needed to get the best out of the plane.
When you take a bit of gear and drop it in to another war machine with minimal training or co-ordination, gak happens. Of course the Russians wouldn't have liked the Churchill. It was an infantry tank, built to provide rolling support fire to advancing infantry. Russians wanted their tanks to go go go, smash the enemy position open and then drive like mad for deep operations. So given a tank built for a totally different doctrine, the Russians are going to rev those Churchills and break them in all kinds of ways.
But meanwhile, in the role the Churchill was meant for, as an infantry tank providing direct fire support, they were noted as being the most capable tank for crossing difficult ground. There are literal war records of commanders saying 'we crossed this ground in Churchill tanks and no other tank could manage that crossing'. And when the Australian Army looked for the best tank to suit their needs in jugle warfare, the Churchill was deemed the best tank for the region. This is not something that happens with designs with mobility issues. Your claim is simply wrong.
Annoying thing is, it starts to sound like I'm coming off as some kind of Churchill fan boy. I'm not. It's just that when someone keeps making wrong and often just weird complaints, then I end up trying to correct each of them, which means I keep listing good things about the Churchill. But don't get me wrong, it wasn't a great tank. It was an okay tank.
Future War Cultist wrote: I have a soft spot for the M3 Lee/Grant. Even though it’s a weird compromise of a thing and a dead end in tank design.
I believe the Russian crews who used the Lee/Grant termed it "a coffin for seven comrades."
I am disappointed to see that the claims Russian crews liked the otherwise underwhelming Matilda because it had a built-in kettle for making tea, might well be apocryphal.
Future War Cultist wrote: I have a soft spot for the M3 Lee/Grant. Even though it’s a weird compromise of a thing and a dead end in tank design.
I believe the Russian crews who used the Lee/Grant termed it "a coffin for seven comrades."
I am disappointed to see that the claims Russian crews liked the otherwise underwhelming Matilda because it had a built-in kettle for making tea, might well be apocryphal.
Modern tanks do. That's definitely a feature in post war designs.
No armoured vehicle in British army is considered oporationsal unless the boiling vessel is working and operates.
Our 60 + ton battle tanks are armoured kettles on tracks depending on your priorities. Every tank and APC comes with a built in boiling vessel powered off the engine.
Some land rover versus and trucks get fitted put with them too.
Tea and hot rations are a series business. But a safe way of using local water with tablets and boiling.
The Centurion was an excellent tank, the best of its era, a real pioneer via the superb combination of gun, good gun sights, mobility, reliability, sloped armour and electric kettle.
They did. The Churchill Mk VIII was the howitzer variant, it had a 25pdr gun.
But nobody ever talks about tank, because the AVRE existed. What's the fun in talking about Churchill variants with entirely sensible, effective howitzers, when there was a Churchill with a 40 pound spigot mortar?
Frazzled wrote: Has anyone noted the humble Imperium of Man's Rhino, er 113? Best to sit on top in mine country.
Actually Fraz one of my fathers three cousins who never came back was killed riding on top one when it hit a VERY large explosive device and was flipped. I actually don't know much beyond that, but....
Hivefleet Oblivion wrote: I am disappointed to see that the claims Russian crews liked the otherwise underwhelming Matilda because it had a built-in kettle for making tea, might well be apocryphal.
The Matilda* was the only British tank to serve from the beginning of the war to the end. That doesn't make it good, of course, it just shows there's more to a tank's role than all that sexy stuff like effective firepower and moving quicker than a fast walk.
*Matilda II technically. But Matilda I was such an absolute disaster the people don't really acknowledge it ever existed, and just refer to the Matilda II as Matilda.
Iron_Captain wrote: If armoured cars are fair game, I nominate the Škoda Želva:
Is that a military vehicle or a driving art deco exhibit Take special note of the little flag the Czechs attached to it...
If we're going to include Armoured Cars as well, honorable mention at least has to go to the Polish Kubus of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. It didn't exactly have the most glorious or inspiring career but considering the sheer guts it must have taken to build an effective homemade AFV in occupied Warsaw, I can't help but admire the Poles. A bit like a WW2 Polish version of the A-Team, only much more impressive.
it makes sense though, all this gear was about in the time fram when they came up with 40k.
Always thought it was inspired by the quite similar looking FV432 personally, which would make more sense IMO as the latter was the British equivilent.
Future War Cultist wrote: I have a soft spot for the M3 Lee/Grant. Even though it’s a weird compromise of a thing and a dead end in tank design.
I believe the Russian crews who used the Lee/Grant termed it "a coffin for seven comrades."
I am disappointed to see that the claims Russian crews liked the otherwise underwhelming Matilda because it had a built-in kettle for making tea, might well be apocryphal.
Modern tanks do. That's definitely a feature in post war designs.
No armoured vehicle in British army is considered oporationsal unless the boiling vessel is working and operates.
Our 60 + ton battle tanks are armoured kettles on tracks depending on your priorities. Every tank and APC comes with a built in boiling vessel powered off the engine.
Some land rover versus and trucks get fitted put with them too.
Tea and hot rations are a series business. But a safe way of using local water with tablets and boiling.
Apparently the British army shipped more tea, by weight, than anything else except rifle bullets during the war. Make sure your priorities are in order.
Future War Cultist wrote: I have a soft spot for the M3 Lee/Grant. Even though it’s a weird compromise of a thing and a dead end in tank design.
I believe the Russian crews who used the Lee/Grant termed it "a coffin for seven comrades."
I am disappointed to see that the claims Russian crews liked the otherwise underwhelming Matilda because it had a built-in kettle for making tea, might well be apocryphal.
Modern tanks do. That's definitely a feature in post war designs.
No armoured vehicle in British army is considered oporationsal unless the boiling vessel is working and operates.
Our 60 + ton battle tanks are armoured kettles on tracks depending on your priorities. Every tank and APC comes with a built in boiling vessel powered off the engine.
Some land rover versus and trucks get fitted put with them too.
Tea and hot rations are a series business. But a safe way of using local water with tablets and boiling.
Apparently the British army shipped more tea, by weight, than anything else except rifle bullets during the war. Make sure your priorities are in order.
If true... Well we cannot be expected to go to war without tea... How uncivilised is that! Posetively German lol...
Its true the British army often did and does stop for tea when it can, but it's kinda a morale thing. A hot drink and a sit down goes a along way.
Wait until it gets 2xAC/20 on those legs from a Demolisher.
Quad mechs remain a lot more stable though than their bipedal counterparts. Not a fan of Demolishers personally, in my own Battletech unit I withdrew them until they could be upgraded to the Gauss rifle armed versions. The stock AC-20 variants carry quite a lot of ammo which has a nasty habit of going up, destroying the tank and taking the crew with it, Gauss-Demolishers have a vastly superior crew survival rate and outside of urban or wooded settings can often pop AC-Demolishers long before the latter can even get in range. Even better as a tank- or mech-destroyer is the Alacorn VI, they're just hideously expensive though.
Quad mechs remain a lot more stable though than their bipedal counterparts. Not a fan of Demolishers personally, in my own Battletech unit I withdrew them until they could be upgraded to the Gauss rifle armed versions. The stock AC-20 variants carry quite a lot of ammo which has a nasty habit of going up, destroying the tank and taking the crew with it, Gauss-Demolishers have a vastly superior crew survival rate and outside of urban or wooded settings can often pop AC-Demolishers long before the latter can even get in range. Even better as a tank- or mech-destroyer is the Alacorn VI, they're just hideously expensive though.
simonr1978 wrote: Not a fan of Demolishers personally, in my own Battletech unit I withdrew them until they could be upgraded to the Gauss rifle armed versions. The stock AC-20 variants carry quite a lot of ammo which has a nasty habit of going up, destroying the tank and taking the crew with it, Gauss-Demolishers have a vastly superior crew survival rate and outside of urban or wooded settings can often pop AC-Demolishers long before the latter can even get in range.
Vehicles in the latest rules last so little time that stuff like ammo explosions don't really strike me as that much of a problem. Any heavy vehicle, even tracked, is only going to last so many hits before immobilisation forces a withdrawal anyway.
Demolishers with AC-20 work well as ambushing units. Take a couple, hide them somewhere, and watch as your opponent second guesses every single move he makes for the next 10 turns. Sometimes you don't even want them stumbling in to your tank, because they were doing so much better as a distraction
Even better as a tank- or mech-destroyer is the Alacorn VI, they're just hideously expensive though.
C-bills are screwy at the best of times, but with vehicles they're so screwy it's actually pretty fun. We play C-bill games sometimes, with people trying to find the best bargains they can, without being too silly (so don't just spam Savannah Masters).
Anyhow, my best success in those games came from taking four of these beauties, the Main Gauche.
They also happen to be one of my favourite looking battetech units. They're a lot cooler looking than that picture.
Any heavy vehicle, even tracked, is only going to last so many hits before immobilisation forces a withdrawal anyway.
If that's a problem, try using the vehicle effectiveness rules from Tactical Operations. When you tick all those boxes you get something that makes tanks look like they're just about worth their Battle Value, at least in 3025.
XuQishi wrote: If that's a problem, try using the vehicle effectiveness rules from Tactical Operations. When you tick all those boxes you get something that makes tanks look like they're just about worth their Battle Value, at least in 3025.
We've used them in a couple of more recent games, but we've also played with a bunch of other vehicle rules that have been published over the years, and we've also played with a lot of house rules as well. Not to 'fix' vehicles, though, because weaker vehicles never really felt like a problem in what is a mech game.
Well, I guess its a problem if you want to make BV accurate in a match up involving both mechs and vehicles. Good luck with that.
Nuclear Weapons? Check
Too large to be transported by anything other than another Ogre? Check
Eventually turns the planet into a nuclear blasted wasteland?
Check
Vehicles in the latest rules last so little time that stuff like ammo explosions don't really strike me as that much of a problem. Any heavy vehicle, even tracked, is only going to last so many hits before immobilisation forces a withdrawal anyway.
Which is why I mentioned crew survival in particular with regard to the Demolishers. The crew will usually survive the destruction of a vehicle in Battletech, except if they're killed by critical or the ammo cooks off in which case they're killed in the explosion. In my experience the mortality rate among my AC-Demolisher crews due to their tanks brewing up was far higher than among Gauss-Demolishers, Manticores, Bulldogs or the handful of Alacorns my unit can afford to keep operational and I'd really prefer it if my tank crews weren't killed unnecessarily.
Ditched the Main Battle Tank appellation a few Marks before - these are designated Planetary Siege Units; with primary weapons measured in the megaton per second scale. Anti Grav, capable of fully autonomous warfare or human pilot neural interface for human guidance at AI decision making speed. Main weapons capable of engaging capital ships in orbit.
Bromsy wrote: If we're going fictional, obviously I'm going
MK XXXIII BOLO of the line.
Ditched the Main Battle Tank appellation a few Marks before - these are designated Planetary Siege Units; with primary weapons measured in the megaton per second scale. Anti Grav, capable of fully autonomous warfare or human pilot neural interface for human guidance at AI decision making speed. Main weapons capable of engaging capital ships in orbit.
Those mobile fortress things are reminding me of a game system I played once. I can't remember the name, but each player was given a massive vehicle of some kind (i.e. tracked, sea, air), from which they could deploy further units. The game itself, as with most games run by this particular gamer, was done on a massive scale itself. As in across a good few 6 feet tables - representing a ring world like planet (i.e. you could fire off the board on one end and hit someone on the other. Also important due to intervening terrain making some of the terrain impassable based on your vehicle type). The models themselves were only like 15mm, with tinier support units.
It was fun to play a game on a scale which truly represented that ..super, duper heavy tank concept.
Then there was the more run of the will stuff like a Ratte tearing down the streets of Moscow, or Germans, with prototype tanks, facing off against the Martians. The 28mm World of Tanks games we run are maybe a bit less impressive by comparison.
Bromsy wrote: If we're going fictional, obviously I'm going
MK XXXIII BOLO of the line.
Ditched the Main Battle Tank appellation a few Marks before - these are designated Planetary Siege Units; with primary weapons measured in the megaton per second scale. Anti Grav, capable of fully autonomous warfare or human pilot neural interface for human guidance at AI decision making speed. Main weapons capable of engaging capital ships in orbit.
Because hells yeah.
The one Bolo story I ever read had one sitting out a civil war because it didn't agree with the aims of its superiors, and then getting lost, half-buried and forgotten.
And in the Ogre setting, IIRC the automated Ogre factories and the few remaining Ogres ended up ruling the world between them.
When I was about nine years old, I spent a year in Huron, Kansas - there, in a barn, was a rusted hulk of an old WWI French Tank - gun long gone, tracks only partially present, turret present, but open in the front, where the gun used to be, only bare hints of what color the paint might have been, once upon a time.
For many years I had no idea how a French tank ended up in rural Kansas, until about ten years ago - the US bought over a hundred of them, after the war - then we manufactured almost a thousand more of our own.
When the tanks were taken out of service they were sometimes shipped to Kansas to be stored - and then were later sold off for use as tractors, after the weapons were removed.
Still, it was an exiting mystery when I was nine.
The Auld Grump - sometimes I wonder if that old hulk is still there, hidden in a disused barn.
Agreed on the little FT. Unlike the British MkIV and the German A7V it actually has all the appearance of a tank*. Looking at it though it's puzzled me for a while why such an issue is made about the T-34 having sloped armour when the FT was there with sloped armour on its front back in 1917.
Another favourite of mine is the M-24 Chaffee, partly because of an interest in the Vietnam war back in the stages when it was still French Indochina and the Chaffee's use at Dien Bien Phu. It's one of my "One day..." projects to get a decent kit and build it up as Bazeille.
* As a bit of an aside, I used to be a member of a now largely defunct tank-related forum and one of the subjects that came up was how to define a tank. It was something that was never really satisfactorily resolved since whatever definition we came up with ended up either included vehicles that weren't tanks or excluding vehicles that were.
simonr1978 wrote: Looking at it though it's puzzled me for a while why such an issue is made about the T-34 having sloped armour when the FT was there with sloped armour on its front back in 1917.
The Schneider CA1, developed in 1915 also had slopped armor. In fact, the first tank with fully slopped armor was the French SOMUA S35.
People make a big deal about the T-34 for more reasons that just its slopped armor (which was not a new invention); it had, at the time of its debut, an unparalleled combination of firepower, mobility, and armor protection.
simonr1978 wrote: Looking at it though it's puzzled me for a while why such an issue is made about the T-34 having sloped armour when the FT was there with sloped armour on its front back in 1917.
The Schneider CA1, developed in 1915 also had slopped armor. In fact, the first tank with fully slopped armor was the French SOMUA S35.
People make a big deal about the T-34 for more reason that just its slopped armor (which was not a new invention); it had, at the time of its debut, an unparalleled combination of firepower, mobility, and armor protection.
simonr1978 wrote: Looking at it though it's puzzled me for a while why such an issue is made about the T-34 having sloped armour when the FT was there with sloped armour on its front back in 1917.
The Schneider CA1, developed in 1915 also had slopped armor. In fact, the first tank with fully slopped armor was the French SOMUA S35.
People make a big deal about the T-34 for more reason that just its slopped armor (which was not a new invention); it had, at the time of its debut, an unparalleled combination of firepower, mobility, and armor protection.
jhe90 wrote: They known about the value of sloped, and deflecting angles In armour for many centuries. Diffrent forms, same physics.
There were some civil war Iron Clads built with sloping armour, so yeah, it'd been around a while.
The sloped armour of the T-34 is noted because the plate was already pretty thick for an early war tank, so the combination made it extremely hard to penetrate for German early war tanks. That feature then combined with its mobility and reliability to make a tank that really was everything you wanted out of a tank - it could breakthrough enemy lines then roll about the operational areas laying havoc and collapsing then enemy line.
Had similar sloping been placed on a tank with a thinner plate so that it became hard to penetrate but not impossible, or placed on a tank that was harder to build or less mobile, then it wouldn't have been such a feature.
Or had the T-34 rolled out in 1943 then it would have been noted, but not so loved. I mean, the Sherman had a thicker plate on almost the same slope, with much higher standards of manufacturing, but it debuted in an environment where German tanks and field guns were now far more commonly high velocity 75mm guns or bigger, and as a result no-one talks about the quality of the Sherman's armour with any kind of awe.
It wasn't the sloped armour, or the wide tracks, or any individual feature, it was having all those features combined in a single tank, and having it in 1941 that was key.
That’s always been my understanding of the importance of the T-34, it’s key feature was balance. It was an effective tank, well suited to it’s operational theatre and capable of being produced in vast numbers.
Another thing about the T 34 was it was a cheap, easily replaceable tank that was often fighting expensive, hard to replace tanks. As such the crews were encouraged to ram Tiger tanks if feasible. Trading a T34 for a tiger was a hands down win.
The T34 was an excellent design, even Nazi military experts called it that. It was not easy for Nazis to admit those they considered 'subhunan' made an excellent design.
The real issue with it was the construction quality. Two T34s from two different factories could be lightyears apart in construction quality. One might be fairly well made, the other could be a clanking rattletrap with quarter inch gaps in it's armor, missing or misaligned rivets, a terrible engine, etc.
It also suffered from a quality death spiral effect. They had short lifespans on the field, which meant it made sense to put less time into building them, which lowered quality, which lowered lifespan, which meant they had to be replaced faster which lowered production time and quality.
Heh heh, the T34 abd the Sherman were polar opposites. The T34 was an excellent design that suffered from haphazard construction quality. The Sherman was well produced abd suffered from a poor design.
I understand the importance of the T-34 well, the point I was getting at is that the fact that it had sloped armour is often touted as some sort of revolutionary, previously untried or even unique feature which as demonstrated by the example of FT-17 (Or as mentioned, the even earlier examples of US civil war ironclads) it really wasn't. There's no denying the effectiveness overall of the T-34 as a whole though.
Techpriestsupport wrote: Another thing about the T 34 was it was a cheap, easily replaceable tank that was often fighting expensive, hard to replace tanks. As such the crews were encouraged to ram Tiger tanks if feasible. Trading a T34 for a tiger was a hands down win.
The T34 was an excellent design, even Nazi military experts called it that. It was not easy for Nazis to admit those they considered 'subhunan' made an excellent design.
The real issue with it was the construction quality. Two T34s from two different factories could be lightyears apart in construction quality. One might be fairly well made, the other could be a clanking rattletrap with quarter inch gaps in it's armor, missing or misaligned rivets, a terrible engine, etc.
It also suffered from a quality death spiral effect. They had short lifespans on the field, which meant it made sense to put less time into building them, which lowered quality, which lowered lifespan, which meant they had to be replaced faster which lowered production time and quality.
Heh heh, the T34 abd the Sherman were polar opposites. The T34 was an excellent design that suffered from haphazard construction quality. The Sherman was well produced abd suffered from a poor design.
What is this nonsense?
Sherman was an excellent design for it's time. Ease of manufacture. Ease of maintenance. Excellent communications. Excellent observation. Excellent space and hatches making it easy to get out if in a hurry. Good armor for it's size. It's gun was one of the best assault guns of the war and superior to the Mark IV at the time. The 75 remained capable of taking out it's primary opponents, but was upgraded to a better 76mm antitank rifle or 105mm assault gun. There were even jumbo variants with better armor than a Tiger 1. If you wanted to survive a penetration you wanted to be in a Sherman, not a German or Soviet tank.
The Sherman was literally in every theater of the war, from desert to winter steppe to steaming jungle. No German or Soviet tank did that.
Techpriestsupport wrote: Another thing about the T 34 was it was a cheap, easily replaceable tank that was often fighting expensive, hard to replace tanks. As such the crews were encouraged to ram Tiger tanks if feasible. Trading a T34 for a tiger was a hands down win.
The T34 was an excellent design, even Nazi military experts called it that. It was not easy for Nazis to admit those they considered 'subhunan' made an excellent design.
The real issue with it was the construction quality. Two T34s from two different factories could be lightyears apart in construction quality. One might be fairly well made, the other could be a clanking rattletrap with quarter inch gaps in it's armor, missing or misaligned rivets, a terrible engine, etc.
It also suffered from a quality death spiral effect. They had short lifespans on the field, which meant it made sense to put less time into building them, which lowered quality, which lowered lifespan, which meant they had to be replaced faster which lowered production time and quality.
Heh heh, the T34 abd the Sherman were polar opposites. The T34 was an excellent design that suffered from haphazard construction quality. The Sherman was well produced abd suffered from a poor design.
What is this nonsense?
Sherman was an excellent design for it's time. Ease of manufacture. Ease of maintenance. Excellent communications. Excellent observation. Excellent space and hatches making it easy to get out if in a hurry. Good armor for it's size. It's gun was one of the best assault guns of the war and superior to the Mark IV at the time. The 75 remained capable of taking out it's primary opponents, but was upgraded to a better 76mm antitank rifle or 105mm assault gun. There were even jumbo variants with better armor than a Tiger 1. If you wanted to survive a penetration you wanted to be in a Sherman, not a German or Soviet tank.
The Sherman was literally in every theater of the war, from desert to winter steppe to steaming jungle. No German or Soviet tank did that.
True, but most importantly, it was reliable! they where utter work horses that even if they broke, could be repaired by your average american farm boy., or car guy on there engines.
easily modified to do almost any roles, mounted with anything from heavy tank guns to rockets, amphibious or adhoc bulldozers to blast trhough thick hedges of normandy.
Israel had them working into the 60's and beyond with 105mm guns, able to take on soviet post war tanks, not best, but they could do it.
Shermans are still in some country's armouries. Of course so are T-34, and I suppose they saw combat more often. Here's an M36 however during the 90s Yugo wars.
(There's an image of an M36 I believe from the same conflict which had its engine replaced with a tractor's. Like literally a hole cut out of the back and they'd stuck half a tractor in there...).
The blog WWII After WWII has tonnes of articles on WWII era vehicles being used decades after (among all the other gear).
simonr1978 wrote: I understand the importance of the T-34 well, the point I was getting at is that the fact that it had sloped armour is often touted as some sort of revolutionary, previously untried or even unique feature which as demonstrated by the example of FT-17 (Or as mentioned, the even earlier examples of US civil war ironclads) it really wasn't. There's no denying the effectiveness overall of the T-34 as a whole though.
It’s only touted like that on bs pop-history shows and people on the internet that don’t know what they’re talking about.
Wyrmalla wrote: Shermans are still in some country's armouries. Of course so are T-34, and I suppose they saw combat more often. Here's an M36 however during the 90s Yugo wars.
(There's an image of an M36 I believe from the same conflict which had its engine replaced with a tractor's. Like literally a hole cut out of the back and they'd stuck half a tractor in there...).
The blog WWII After WWII has tonnes of articles on WWII era vehicles being used decades after (among all the other gear).
Wyrmalla wrote: Shermans are still in some country's armouries. Of course so are T-34, and I suppose they saw combat more often. Here's an M36 however during the 90s Yugo wars.
(There's an image of an M36 I believe from the same conflict which had its engine replaced with a tractor's. Like literally a hole cut out of the back and they'd stuck half a tractor in there...).
The blog WWII After WWII has tonnes of articles on WWII era vehicles being used decades after (among all the other gear).
I think most attempts by military and paramilitary forces to improve their vehicle's armour post-production tend to look like somebody starting to try and scratchbuild a tank.
Like that T26E4 Super Pershing that they...I think they welded parts from an industrial boiler to its turret?
Edit: Tanks Encyclopaedia says those things are remnants of a destroyed Panther they added to the front. Even more brutal, protecting yourself from your enemies - with your enemies' carcasses!
Well field improvisations, or work undertaken in ad-hoc shops aren't going to look pretty; they're just supposed to be practical. Meanwhile actual development programs are much better.
vs
(Yes, ERA on a BMP-1 is a super smart idea. ...Uh, we'll just ignore that one in Syria which blew itself up. That's a new form made specifically for light armoured vehicles actually).
Witzkatz wrote: I think most attempts by military and paramilitary forces to improve their vehicle's armour post-production tend to look like somebody starting to try and scratchbuild a tank.
Like that T26E4 Super Pershing that they...I think they welded parts from an industrial boiler to its turret?
Edit: Tanks Encyclopaedia says those things are remnants of a destroyed Panther they added to the front. Even more brutal, protecting yourself from your enemies - with your enemies' carcasses!
They say no one drinks from skulls of enemi s. They do use there armour plates.
Techpriestsupport wrote: Another thing about the T 34 was it was a cheap, easily replaceable tank that was often fighting expensive, hard to replace tanks. As such the crews were encouraged to ram Tiger tanks if feasible. Trading a T34 for a tiger was a hands down win.
The T34 was an excellent design, even Nazi military experts called it that. It was not easy for Nazis to admit those they considered 'subhunan' made an excellent design.
The real issue with it was the construction quality. Two T34s from two different factories could be lightyears apart in construction quality. One might be fairly well made, the other could be a clanking rattletrap with quarter inch gaps in it's armor, missing or misaligned rivets, a terrible engine, etc.
It also suffered from a quality death spiral effect. They had short lifespans on the field, which meant it made sense to put less time into building them, which lowered quality, which lowered lifespan, which meant they had to be replaced faster which lowered production time and quality.
Heh heh, the T34 abd the Sherman were polar opposites. The T34 was an excellent design that suffered from haphazard construction quality. The Sherman was well produced abd suffered from a poor design.
What is this nonsense?
Sherman was an excellent design for it's time. Ease of manufacture. Ease of maintenance. Excellent communications. Excellent observation. Excellent space and hatches making it easy to get out if in a hurry. Good armor for it's size. It's gun was one of the best assault guns of the war and superior to the Mark IV at the time. The 75 remained capable of taking out it's primary opponents, but was upgraded to a better 76mm antitank rifle or 105mm assault gun. There were even jumbo variants with better armor than a Tiger 1. If you wanted to survive a penetration you wanted to be in a Sherman, not a German or Soviet tank.
The Sherman was literally in every theater of the war, from desert to winter steppe to steaming jungle. No German or Soviet tank did that.
The Sherman sucked.
It was a pastiche design that was a collection of mutually exclusive goals that lead to a tank that was meant to. Make everyone happy and in the end pleased no one. Light armor, light weapons, a gasoline engine that was so prone to catching fire on the first hit the crews named them 'the Robson lighter' created a tank that needed overwhelming numbers to defeat. Later war German tanks.
It was a pastiche design that was a collection of mutually exclusive goals that lead to a tank that was meant to. Make everyone happy and in the end pleased no one.
Literally none of that is true.
Light armor,
Wrong.
light weapons,
Wrong again.
a gasoline engine that was so prone to catching fire on the first hit the crews named them 'the Robson lighter'
Wrong yet again. German tanks also used gasoline engines and had a higher burnout rate than the Sherman. The Sherman, like all tanks of the era, burned out because of ammunition fires, something that German tanks were equally vulnerable to, but unlike the Nazis, we were able to help prevent it with the wet stowage system. Also, they were never called “Ronsons” during the war, that is all post-war Wheraboo nonsense.
created a tank that needed overwhelming numbers to defeat. Later war German tanks.
Techpriestsupport wrote: The tiger tank had a gasoline engine because it was too big for the diesels of the day to successfully power.
All German tanks used gasoline. The Russians were the only nation that field diesel tanks more or less exclusively, starting with the T-34 (all earlier tanks were gasoline fueled).
IIRC the UK also fielded some of the diesel powered M4A2 Shermans, as did the US although I think they were only used in the Pacific theatre in the latter case.
simonr1978 wrote: IIRC the UK also fielded some of the diesel powered M4A2 Shermans, as did the US although I think they were only used in the Pacific theatre in the latter case.
Indeed, the Western Allies field diesel engine AFVs (M3A3 Lee, M4A2 Sherman, M10, and Achilles), but not in the quantities as the Russians.
Techpriestsupport wrote: Another thing about the T 34 was it was a cheap, easily replaceable tank that was often fighting expensive, hard to replace tanks. As such the crews were encouraged to ram Tiger tanks if feasible. Trading a T34 for a tiger was a hands down win.
Sort of. That certainly became true over the course of the war, as Germany upgraded its existing designs and developed new, heavier designs. But at the start of the war, and really through released a series of increasingly heavy designs. is idea that German tanks were all finely engineered, heavy but ultra-rare was not a constant of the war. It became true, as Germany focused tank design on upgrading designs and pushing towards heavier and heavier designs
The crews weren't encouraged to ram enemy tanks. That happened, but it wasn't doctrine. It was something down out of necessity in very specific instances. It's just one of those instances happened to be at Kursk, which was basically the only point in the war when Russia lacked a gun capable of taking out German armour at reasonable ranges (the Tiger was around before then, but was quite rare and could be dealt with by other means).
But of course, Kursk is one of the only bits of the war anyone pays attention to... it's really the same problem you see with the focus on Normandy meaning everyone has a totally false impression of the Sherman.
The real issue with it was the construction quality. Two T34s from two different factories could be lightyears apart in construction quality. One might be fairly well made, the other could be a clanking rattletrap with quarter inch gaps in it's armor, missing or misaligned rivets, a terrible engine, etc.
Yeah, Russian quality wasn't that tight before they had to pick up and move their factories miles inland, afterwards things got a bit shoddy. Also to be noted is Russian industrial focused was almost entirely on speed - they looked at innovations like underwater welding, just anything to get the number of tanks produced daily to increase. In contrast the Germans added ever increasing complexity to their tanks, but adapted almost no modern manufacturing, minimal use of assembly lines etc.
It also suffered from a quality death spiral effect. They had short lifespans on the field, which meant it made sense to put less time into building them, which lowered quality, which lowered lifespan, which meant they had to be replaced faster which lowered production time and quality.
Sort of. Its certainly true that T-34s didn't live that long, and the Soviets set their construction standards with those short lifespans in mind. But this didn't really lower the life expectancy of the tank, because when a tank rolls out of the factory and a month later gets hit by a tungsten round from an ambushing German field gun at 150m it really doesn't matter if your suspension was a bit crude.
This is a design principal followed by the Germans, as well. It sounds weird because they also over engineered stuff, but at the same time they were lowering the specifics of their designs. Longevity is different to complexity and reliability. The Stg44 for instance was a revolutionary design, sophisticated and very effective. It's also got manufacturing standards that no army in peace time would even look at, because the rifle would be suffering really high rates of failure after a year. But Germany in 1944 didn't care, and nor should they, because there was little chance of the country surviving for a year, let alone the soldier you gave the rifle to.
Heh heh, the T34 abd the Sherman were polar opposites. The T34 was an excellent design that suffered from haphazard construction quality. The Sherman was well produced abd suffered from a poor design.
The Sherman was an excellent design. It ranks right alongside the T34 as the two best tank designs of the war.
It was a pastiche design that was a collection of mutually exclusive goals that lead to a tank that was meant to. Make everyone happy and in the end pleased no one. Light armor, light weapons, a gasoline engine that was so prone to catching fire on the first hit the crews named them 'the Robson lighter' created a tank that needed overwhelming numbers to defeat. Later war German tanks.
Every single sentence in your post is wrong.
The Sherman's armour wasn't light. With slope taken in to account the front plate was 93mm thick. The Tiger's hull was 100m thick. Being almost as well covered as a Tiger is not light armour.
The gun wasn't light. On deployment the Sherman's 75mm gun was the best gun on any medium tank. It remained an effective gun throughout the war. At one point, Normandy, the US was caught out by the number of Panthers deployed, in addition to armour upgrades to the PzrIV, which meant the 75mm was struggling to penetrate at longer ranges. As a result the US called in the upgunned 76mm Shermans they had designed and built, but which tank commanders at the front had deemed unnecessary before that point. The 76m version was capable of blowing through a Panther or Tiger at ranges past 1,000m. The German advantage in armour lasted 6 weeks.
The complaint about being a gasoline engine is just weird. You know what the Tiger ran on? Gasoline. Panther? Gasoline. Mk IV? Gasoline. Meanwhile there were Shermans built with diesel engines, as the US was quite adept at making use of any existing facilities to make sure they got as many tanks produced as possible. People attack the tank with a diesel version, while celebrating the German tanks that were all diesel. Very weird.
The Ronson lighter is also a myth. It was supposedly used because of the motto 'lights up first time, every time'. Except that motto wasn't even used by Ronson until years after the war. There was possibly an issue with Shermans lighting up, but if it did happen more than in other tanks it was due to the ammo, not the engine. And the problem ended with the introduction of wet ammo stowage and redistributed ammo, at which point the Sherman was one of the tanks least likely to explode. Sure, when knocked out the Sherman did light up, but that's true of every tank - because once penetrated and abandoned the enemy would typically keep shooting it until it did light up, because you don't want to leave the enemy with a tank they can recover and use again. But in terms of Shermans lighting up while the crew were in them, it was probably never true, and the opposite became true when ammo stowage was changed.
And lastly... the idea of massed numbers being used to defeat late war tanks is total bunk. It probably came from people reading about US doctrine preferred ratios for attackers, which said you wanted something like 6:1. But that was nothing to do with US vs German tank quality, its because the attacker always wants overwhelming superiority to offset the advantages of defense and ensure a successful outcome. 3:1 is widely used as the generic rule for what the attacker want, but its often forgotten that's the minimum needed, and if greater force is available you use it. Hence 6:1. But the same number was in use by the Germans - you know the German strategy of armoured breakthrough that served them so well in Poland, France and the initial stage of Russia - that was all about concentrating your armour in overwhelming force against a single point in the enemy line. It wasn't done because German armour needed a ratio of 6:1 to be competitive, its because that's how successful attacks work.
The second issue with that last claim is the crazy idea that you'd ever just zerg rush an enemy armour point with your own tanks. It just doesn't work like that.
So anyway, in summary, literally every claim you just made is totally wrong.
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simonr1978 wrote: IIRC the UK also fielded some of the diesel powered M4A2 Shermans, as did the US although I think they were only used in the Pacific theatre in the latter case.
I believe the diesel powered Shermans weren't done to try and build longer ranged Shermans, but because the US was finding ways to make use of existing facilities to increase tank production.
And just to note - there are good reasons to go with a petrol engine. Diesel engines at that time were nowhere near as responsive, you would hit the accelerator and there'd be a delay before you'd get a surge of power. Fine for tractors, not so great for a tank that will need to maneuver rapidly while under fire. And on top of changing to diesel would mean retooling factories to build different engines, and training crews to service diesel engines. You had to really commit to making operational range a key element of your major tank types to justify the shift to diesel. Only Russia made that assessment.
simonr1978 wrote: IIRC the UK also fielded some of the diesel powered M4A2 Shermans, as did the US although I think they were only used in the Pacific theatre in the latter case.
I believe the diesel powered Shermans weren't done to try and build longer ranged Shermans, but because the US was finding ways to make use of existing facilities to increase tank production.
And just to note - there are good reasons to go with a petrol engine. Diesel engines at that time were nowhere near as responsive, you would hit the accelerator and there'd be a delay before you'd get a surge of power. Fine for tractors, not so great for a tank that will need to maneuver rapidly while under fire. And on top of changing to diesel would mean retooling factories to build different engines, and training crews to service diesel engines. You had to really commit to making operational range a key element of your major tank types to justify the shift to diesel. Only Russia made that assessment.
I don't think I suggested it was anything to do with the range of the tanks concerned, if that was implied then I apologise, it was more a counter to Scootypuffjunior's original assertion that only the Russians fielded diesel engine tanks. Aside from that I wholeheartedly agree with everything both he and you have said in reply about the Sherman.
There was another good reason to go with a petrol engine back in the late 30s and early 40s which was logistics, at least according to Len Deighton in Blitzkreig he mentions that the majority of civilian filling stations wouldn't stock diesel but enterprising tank commanders could live off the land to a degree and refuel using local supplies. IIRC he suggests that the Austrian Anschluss was to a certain extent dependant on this happening in order for the armour to cross the border.
simonr1978 wrote: IIRC the UK also fielded some of the diesel powered M4A2 Shermans, as did the US although I think they were only used in the Pacific theatre in the latter case.
I believe the diesel powered Shermans weren't done to try and build longer ranged Shermans, but because the US was finding ways to make use of existing facilities to increase tank production.
And just to note - there are good reasons to go with a petrol engine. Diesel engines at that time were nowhere near as responsive, you would hit the accelerator and there'd be a delay before you'd get a surge of power. Fine for tractors, not so great for a tank that will need to maneuver rapidly while under fire. And on top of changing to diesel would mean retooling factories to build different engines, and training crews to service diesel engines. You had to really commit to making operational range a key element of your major tank types to justify the shift to diesel. Only Russia made that assessment.
I don't think I suggested it was anything to do with the range of the tanks concerned, if that was implied then I apologise, it was more a counter to Scootypuffjunior's original assertion that only the Russians fielded diesel engine tanks. Aside from that I wholeheartedly agree with everything both he and you have said in reply about the Sherman.
There was another good reason to go with a petrol engine back in the late 30s and early 40s which was logistics, at least according to Len Deighton in Blitzkreig he mentions that the majority of civilian filling stations wouldn't stock diesel but enterprising tank commanders could live off the land to a degree and refuel using local supplies. IIRC he suggests that the Austrian Anschluss was to a certain extent dependant on this happening in order for the armour to cross the border.
Allies use Petrol from North Africa to Europe.
If the Germans use Petrol they could also use captured fuel, and resupply to some degree at allied forces fuel dumps. Capturing a Russian fuel dump useless, but get a US fuel store, oh, you can refuel your armour with what you find.
Techpriestsupport wrote: Another thing about the T 34 was it was a cheap, easily replaceable tank that was often fighting expensive, hard to replace tanks. As such the crews were encouraged to ram Tiger tanks if feasible. Trading a T34 for a tiger was a hands down win.
It's worth noting that British cruiser tanks often had sloped armour. But it was sloped for the reason that they wanted to use thinner armour, for lightness. The uniqueness of the T34 was actually sloping heavy armour, as Sebster mentioned.
The one other aspect of the T34 wasn't the design of the tank; it was the design of a production line, far more advanced than the Germans had. Designed by an American from Detroit, Maurice Kahn, in a strange brief period in the depression when For and Packard weren't hiring, and American industry was helping Stalin build up production capacity. Kahn was a genius at designing efficient factories from scratch, an inspiration for Mies van de Rohe.... and is an unsung genius of the Soviet war effort.
The Sherman is easily one of the best tanks of the war.
It was a pastiche design that was a collection of mutually exclusive goals that lead to a tank that was meant to.
It really wasn't. The tanks design was actually pretty smooth (way smoother than the utter cluster feth that was the Ordnance Departments laughable attempts to build a heavy tank). When the Sherman first hit production lines in 1942 it was superior to the Panzer IV, and arguably superior to the T34, but the Sherman wouldn't see much combat until the US hit Africa in 1943 so by then the T34 had already cemented its legacy as a to be feared war machine, while the Sherman started meeting German armor in force after the Panzer IV got an upgrade, and the Tiger and Panther had come out with armor too heavy for a 75mm to reliable penetrate.
But really that never mattered. In 1943 much of the German armor fleet was still Panzer IIIs and unupgraded Panzer IVs. They didn't give the Sherman any trouble. Tigers and Panthers were few and far between. In a month Germany could produce between 100 and 120 Tigers. In a Month the US could chuck out 1000 Shermans. Tigers had great guns and armor but they weren't winning that fight, especially when the Red Army was blowing them up faster than they could be replaced and very few actually went west. The Sherman's greatest enemy wasn't anything in the German armor inventory, but the Panzerfaust an infantry born weapon produced in droves that worked quite well against pretty much everything that wasn't an IS series tank.
Make everyone happy and in the end pleased no one.
American commanders were more than pleased with the Sherman. So were American tankers for the most part. The Shermans rotten reputation wasn't born on the field but on the home front where rumor and supposition mixed with stories of the fearsome Tiger to produce a myth.
Light armor, light weapons,
Even in 1945 at the end of the war the Sherman had adequate armor and adequate weaponry for it's most common foe; infantry. To put this into perspective during the Battle of France Germany fielded over 2400 tanks. During the Battle of the Bulge they fielded a meager 557, nearly 1/5 of the force they had in 1939. Initially early in the Battle the US and Western allies had about the same number on the front, 500. Within a week, Germany had 450 tanks, and the Western allies had 1600. By 1945 that number became 280+ vs 2400.
German tanks were over engineered, maintenance heavy, expensive monetarily and materially, and took forever to build. The simple little Sherman was a superb tank in 1943, and by 1944 it didn't matter that it's design had fallen behind in the unending race of upgun/uparmor because in the words of a German "I ran out of shells but you didn't run out of tanks." War is not simply a matter of having the best technical specs.
a gasoline engine that was so prone to catching fire on the first hit the crews named them 'the Robson lighter'
Sebster covered this quite well.
To drive it home, who here knows how Michael Wittmann, famed Tiger commander magnificent who arguably made his entire tank design the legend that it is at Villers-Bocage, died? Tiger 007 ignited, burned, and the turret was blown clean off by exploding ammunition when the hull of the tank was penetrated by an anti-tank round.
created a tank that needed overwhelming numbers to defeat. Later war German tanks.
Which would have mattered if the Germans weren't running out of tanks and the only answer to a tank was another tank. The Sherman was more likely to cross paths with panzerfausts and anti-tank gun emplacements than tanks in the late war. Fury is actually a decent representation in a certain regard as only once do you even see a German tank in the film which is pretty much what the late war was like (of course the Tiger in that movie was commanded by an idiot, and so were the Shermans but w/e it doesn't have to be perfect). To bring up the Battle of the Bulge again, one of the keys in holding the cross road cities like St. Vith were *drum roll* Shermans! Us tanks and tank destroyers became pivotal in holding those cities because sure the Germans had Tiger IIs but they didn't have a lot of them and they wouldn't advance without infantry, a lesson Germany learned hard at Kursk when Soviet troops overran and destroyed the first Tigers to see battle because they advanced without infantry support.
The Sherman didn't have to beat German tanks in a fight if they blew up their supporting infantry and lighter vehicles, which Shermans were superbly good at. St. Vith was basically held by a single platoon of Hellcats and a company's worth of Shermans sitting inclined on a hill shooting their guns artillery style into every German advance on the position. It didn't matter than 75mm had a long shot at killing a Tiger II, or that the 76mm was ineffective. No Tiger II is going to advance alone into a closed quarters environment. Infantry would overrun and destroy it, and infantry and lighter vehicles struggled to advance against tanks they couldn't see.
The tiger tank had a gasoline engine because it was too big for the diesels of the day to successfully power. The panther had a diesel.
German tanks all had gasoline engines, and this is for two main reasons that lead into each other. One internal combustion engines were still a relatively new technology in 40s. They'd be around for awhile sure but mass produce and use was really an innovation of the 20s. An engine made in one month could be obsolete the next. This wasn't some hard and fast "an engine is an engine" time. Countries were manufacturing these things in different ways at different rates. Which brings us to two. Diesel engines were even more unreliable less powerful at the time than gasoline engines, and when choosing between them it was easy at the time to look and say a gasoline engine was better. Whether or not you made a tank with diesel really came down to how good your domestic diesel engines were. Soviet Russia had a vibrant tractor industry before the war and they were generally ahead of the rest of the world when it came to diesel engines because they were making tractors with diesel. It was easy for the USSR to make tanks running on diesel cause that was an industry they already had and could convert to wartime production (something planned into the Soviet war machine very early on). Likewise the US was a leading producer of automobiles which generally ran on gasoline engines so it was easy to convert that industry to wartime production. Like the US Germany had better gasoline engines than diesel so they made tanks with gasoline engines.
American commanders were more than pleased with the Sherman. So were American tankers for the most part. The Shermans rotten reputation wasn't born on the field but on the home front where rumor and supposition mixed with stories of the fearsome Tiger to produce a myth.
I've got the impression elsewhere that Belton Y Cooper's book "Death traps" played a fairly significant part in the negative reputation the Sherman suffered, as anyone can guess from the title he wasn't exactly on the fence when it came to the Sherman but with that in mind I think he was pretty unfair to them.
American commanders were more than pleased with the Sherman. So were American tankers for the most part. The Shermans rotten reputation wasn't born on the field but on the home front where rumor and supposition mixed with stories of the fearsome Tiger to produce a myth.
I've got the impression elsewhere that Belton Y Cooper's book "Death traps" played a fairly significant part in the negative reputation the Sherman suffered, as anyone can guess from the title he wasn't exactly on the fence when it came to the Sherman but with that in mind I think he was pretty unfair to them.
History is not immune to the myth of "memory". Belton Y Cooper's example is actually incredibly common in late accounts of prior events. It's why today Historians encourage the distinction of contemporary records of an event, from record of an event by contemporaries. While not commonly studied in respect to WWII, it is a major topic of study in the Civil War that veterans often undergo a paradigm shift in how they remember their war time experiences during, after, and way after an event. This extends outside of war as well which is a common subject in the study of race relations in US history. US popular culture gradually accepted as a norm that the Sherman was a bad tank and that it got US soldiers killed for being so inferior. Actual war records completely contradict this narrative, but that doesn't matter because far more people bought into the myth than fought in the war, and even the people who fought in the war are not immune to group think. Even tankers who liked their Shermans during the fighting, undoubtedly had bad memories of being in a Sherman. It's a fething war of course they do! Combine this with popular notions and even a veteran who might presumably know better might start to think "yeah the Sherman was kind of gak."
Especially if you're someone talking about something second hand on the war front. Cooper was not a tanker. He didn't fight in a Sherman, but he did recover them from battle and take accounting of losses. He saw destroyed Shermans all the time, so of course he saw the merits of popular opinion after the war. His opinions on the Pershing are actually kind of tragically laughable, cause he obviously didn't know anything about the Pershing's many problems. His memory was also pretty bad, cause he seems to love blaming Patton for delaying the M26, even though Patton didn't do a thing to delay it and wasn't even the main opponent of the Pershing in the Army (that would be Leslie McNair). His book is filled with such inaccuracies, which is in part what makes it a valuable first hand account because people on the ground never have a complete picture of what is happening around them. It's also why it's a shoddy history, cause many of his errors could have been resolved with basic research.
Really the first warning sign for anyone should be that Stephen Ambrose wrote the foreword. Even in 1998, historians and academics had already black listed the guy for being a rampant liar and full blown plagiarist, and when your foreword is written by a rampant liar and a full blown plagiarist it's a bad sign for your book. And now that I've bashed Stephen Ambrose for the first time in 2018 I can check that off my list of things to do. See you guys again in 2019 to remind you that the author of Band of Brothers was a total ass
ChargerIIC wrote: I'd hate to be TFG, but this is a thread on what is your favorite tank not why other people's favorite tanks are wrong.
No one is telling anyone their favorite tank is “wrong,” they’re correcting them when they say things that are wrong like, “Panther tanks used diesel,” or, “the Sherman had thin armor.”
ChargerIIC wrote: I'd hate to be TFG, but this is a thread on what is your favorite tank not why other people's favorite tanks are wrong.
No one is telling anyone their favorite tank is “wrong,” they’re correcting them when they say things that are wrong like, “Panther tanks used diesel,” or, “the Sherman had thin armor.”
Made a custom version:
Spoiler:
I'd hate to be TFG, but this is a thread on what is your favorite tank not why *people are wrong about tanks
On a serious note, this is a tangent that should really have its own thread.
In WWII 95% of all tank burnings were from munitions cooking off, not the fuel. American ammo was more stable than that used by other countries, which means that Shermans actually had a slightly lower chance of burning than British or German tanks. Shermans became even more resistant to fire when wet storage was implemented.
There is also what happened after a tank was burning. The Sherman was one of the best when it came to crew escape. Unlike Germans and Soviets (and to a lesser degree the British) Americans made their tanks easy to get into and out of. Things like having the hatches directly over the crew member, multiple hatches, quick unlock handles, and spring loaded hatches were all safety boosters. You could get all 5 crew out of a Sherman well before you could even open the only hatch on a T-34 (no exaggeration).
cuda1179 wrote: . You could get all 5 crew out of a Sherman well before you could even open the only hatch on a T-34 (no exaggeration).
Yeah, i remember from the fire safety course for Sherman's that to pass you had to be out of the tank within five seconds of someone yelling 'Fire'.
This might seem like a strange question, but what did the commander shout when he wanted the gunner to...fire...the main gun? "Shoot?" "Hit it?" "Nail the Bastard?" Because "Fire!" seemed the obvious choice to me, until now!
This might seem like a strange question, but what did the commander shout when he wanted the gunner to...fire...the main gun? "Shoot?" "Hit it?" "Nail the Bastard?" Because "Fire!" seemed the obvious choice to me, until now!
Modern American tankers use the phrase "send it" responded with "on the way" for firing the main gun. While I haven't researched it, it seems like this would be the same, or really similar in WW2
cuda1179 wrote: . You could get all 5 crew out of a Sherman well before you could even open the only hatch on a T-34 (no exaggeration).
Yeah, i remember from the fire safety course for Sherman's that to pass you had to be out of the tank within five seconds of someone yelling 'Fire'.
This might seem like a strange question, but what did the commander shout when he wanted the gunner to...fire...the main gun? "Shoot?" "Hit it?" "Nail the Bastard?" Because "Fire!" seemed the obvious choice to me, until now!
You know I never thought of that, but it makes complete sense XD
cuda1179 wrote: . You could get all 5 crew out of a Sherman well before you could even open the only hatch on a T-34 (no exaggeration).
Yeah, i remember from the fire safety course for Sherman's that to pass you had to be out of the tank within five seconds of someone yelling 'Fire'.
This might seem like a strange question, but what did the commander shout when he wanted the gunner to...fire...the main gun? "Shoot?" "Hit it?" "Nail the Bastard?" Because "Fire!" seemed the obvious choice to me, until now!
In the old days you got instructions beyond just 'fire' when it was time to fire a gun, though 'Bail Out' was the actual command when the tank was on fire. As far as gun firing these days for the British I believe the sequence goes 'on' when the gunner finds his target, 'fire' which is firing the laser rangefinder, and then 'Firing' which is the actual gun firing, at least according to a pal from UK.
simonr1978 wrote: I don't think I suggested it was anything to do with the range of the tanks concerned, if that was implied then I apologise, it was more a counter to Scootypuffjunior's original assertion that only the Russians fielded diesel engine tanks. Aside from that I wholeheartedly agree with everything both he and you have said in reply about the Sherman.
Sorry, the mistake is all mine. It sounded like I was correcting you, when I was just trying to add to your post. I was trying to make a point that diesel engines had advantages but also drawbacks, and so even when the US moved to some diesel powered Shermans it wasn't done as an upgrade but just as a way of making more Shermans.
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LordofHats wrote: To bring up the Battle of the Bulge again, one of the keys in holding the cross road cities like St. Vith were *drum roll* Shermans! Us tanks and tank destroyers became pivotal in holding those cities because sure the Germans had Tiger IIs but they didn't have a lot of them and they wouldn't advance without infantry, a lesson Germany learned hard at Kursk when Soviet troops overran and destroyed the first Tigers to see battle because they advanced without infantry support.
The Sherman didn't have to beat German tanks in a fight if they blew up their supporting infantry and lighter vehicles, which Shermans were superbly good at. St. Vith was basically held by a single platoon of Hellcats and a company's worth of Shermans sitting inclined on a hill shooting their guns artillery style into every German advance on the position. It didn't matter than 75mm had a long shot at killing a Tiger II, or that the 76mm was ineffective. No Tiger II is going to advance alone into a closed quarters environment. Infantry would overrun and destroy it, and infantry and lighter vehicles struggled to advance against tanks they couldn't see.
Excellent point. Another example is Dubno, the barely known battle that actually had more tanks in operation than Kursk. At this early point in Barbarossa the T-34 was near immune to German tank guns, the KV series even more so, and in addition to several hundred of them they also had several thousand lighter tanks (some good, many not so good). But the mechanized divisions they were in were not ready when the Germans rolled over the border, their supporting infantry had few if any trucks. So when the Russians attacked they rapidly outpaced their infantry, their attacks stagnated and the tanks were picked off by field guns, magnetic mines, molotovs etc. The Russians were slaughtered, losing loads of their superior tanks and a stupid number of soldiers.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
LordofHats wrote: History is not immune to the myth of "memory". Belton Y Cooper's example is actually incredibly common in late accounts of prior events. It's why today Historians encourage the distinction of contemporary records of an event, from record of an event by contemporaries. While not commonly studied in respect to WWII, it is a major topic of study in the Civil War that veterans often undergo a paradigm shift in how they remember their war time experiences during, after, and way after an event. This extends outside of war as well which is a common subject in the study of race relations in US history. US popular culture gradually accepted as a norm that the Sherman was a bad tank and that it got US soldiers killed for being so inferior. Actual war records completely contradict this narrative, but that doesn't matter because far more people bought into the myth than fought in the war, and even the people who fought in the war are not immune to group think. Even tankers who liked their Shermans during the fighting, undoubtedly had bad memories of being in a Sherman. It's a fething war of course they do! Combine this with popular notions and even a veteran who might presumably know better might start to think "yeah the Sherman was kind of gak."
I wonder if part of the issue is that no matter what tank you're in, no matter its qualities, its a pretty freaking terrifying experience. You can't see a damn thing, you are everyone's first target and even with all that armour there's a lot of stuff that can pop you and you will not see it coming.
But at the same time the tank itself is a war winning weapon.
So if in the US you have a lot of popular accounts coming from men on the ground, they're going to focus on how gak it was being a tanker, which they're going to think is the experience of being in a Sherman, because it wasn't like they got to spend a month in a Panzer IV just for a contrast. At the same time the popular accounts in the West of German armour is going to come from the officers who all wrote their accounts after the war, and they're going to talk about how their tanks were used in various breakthrough operations and other high level stuff.
So if in the US you have a lot of popular accounts coming from men on the ground, they're going to focus on how gak it was being a tanker, which they're going to think is the experience of being in a Sherman, because it wasn't like they got to spend a month in a Panzer IV just for a contrast. At the same time the popular accounts in the West of German armour is going to come from the officers who all wrote their accounts after the war, and they're going to talk about how their tanks were used in various breakthrough operations and other high level stuff.
Just a thought.
The events of Villers-Bocage is a good example of this honestly. Michael Wittmann performed an overwhelming tactical coup with a very small number of tanks and basically "defeated" a division. In and of itself this was an amazing feat on the part of Hauptsturmfuhrer Michael Wittmann, but the German propaganda machine seized it, turned his half-strength Battalion into "one Tiger slaughters the British" with lots of heavy photo editing, a radio interviews, news articles, the whole shebang. The Germans of course were amazed cause it's pretty damn amazing but the really shocking part is the British bought the entire bit. Even the wildly exaggerated parts. On the front lines reports of losses were conflicting and it was weeks before a real assessment of the battle was done. By then the myth of Wittmann had already cemented itself in the public mind and spread to American troops as well.
Despite being a single engagement the Battle of Villers-Bocage immortalized the Tiger as a fearsome warmachine and German tank crews as top knot, even though the Tiger was just "okay" outside of its superb gun and German tank crews at the time were already basically bled white.
LordofHats wrote: While not commonly studied in respect to WWII, it is a major topic of study in the Civil War that veterans often undergo a paradigm shift in how they remember their war time experiences during, after, and way after an event.
I recommend St Clair Mulholland's History of the 116th PA for an example of this, with Mulholland relating events he was not actually privy to. Conversely, some WW2 instances, it's actually the documents that are wrong, either for propaganda, or simply inaccuracies slipping in. Contemporary documentation would, for example, have you believe that a Duplex Drive took out a Tiger by penetrating it from the front. In reality, the duplex drive was at the bottom of the channel and the tank crew in question had been remounted in a Firefly. It was simply that the change had not made it's way back yet and the initial AAR was a bit bare of detail and poorly worded. So we get the doc that floats around to this day insisting that 75mms had no problems with Tigers from any side.
Im sure they've been brought up at somepoint, but 15 pages is pretty long so I'll bring them up again.
The Panzerkampfwagen V, or Panther, sure she was a little on the heavy side for a medium tank. And her transmission was apparently the literal definition of Kraut Space Magic that had no right to work. But she's got it all, ascetics, speed, armor and a great gun. Such a good tank even the French used her for a time after the War.
The Centurion Mk 1 on up to the Olifant Mk2. Arguably one of the world's First Main Battle Tanks and one of the best tanks ever designed. She's got a long a proven history, and is still in service today in one form or another. With the South Africans still using her as an MBT in the form of the Olifant Mk1B and Mk2.
Yep, just been reading about them. Based on the Merkava IV, but with even MORE armour as they saved weight through not needing the tank turret ...
2x crew and can hold 10x fully-equipped bods. And getting all sorts of goodies, like active defence system.
2x of them were deployed in action and struck by multiple RPGs & ATGMs and suffered absolutely no armour damage or injuries whatsoever ... As you say, quite the upgrade over the M113!
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: Im sure they've been brought up at somepoint, but 15 pages is pretty long so I'll bring them up again.
Probably 6 or 7 of the 15 pages of this thread was debates about the Panther. It's like entering the UK politics thread and saying 'I'm sure this has been brought up before but what does everyone think about Brexit'
Such a good tank even the French used her for a time after the War.
Sort of. The French used captured Panthers to equip a regiment until they had a native tank to replace it. I want to say they were in use until 1948, so three years after the war. And it was very much about the French looking to rebuilt their capacity as fast possible. In contrast new Shermans and T34s were built and used around the world in to the 1980s.
Anyhow, I agree the Panther was a gorgeous looking tank, and had an excellent gun for tank hunting.
I'd guess they can be turned using a handle inside the hull with the view ports used to aim. Flame throws aren't long range weapons with much need for accuracy.
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: Im sure they've been brought up at somepoint, but 15 pages is pretty long so I'll bring them up again.
Probably 6 or 7 of the 15 pages of this thread was debates about the Panther. It's like entering the UK politics thread and saying 'I'm sure this has been brought up before but what does everyone think about Brexit'
Fair, still...
Such a good tank even the French used her for a time after the War.
Sort of. The French used captured Panthers to equip a regiment until they had a native tank to replace it. I want to say they were in use until 1948, so three years after the war. And it was very much about the French looking to rebuilt their capacity as fast possible. In contrast new Shermans and T34s were built and used around the world in to the 1980s.
Anyhow, I agree the Panther was a gorgeous looking tank, and had an excellent gun for tank hunting.
Well they did look to basing their post war tanks off the Panther and the King Tiger. It was just... problematic. That Kraut Space Magic.
As for the Sherman, I do like how it was continuously used, it was a solid tank. Personally I prefer it to the T-34.
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: Im sure they've been brought up at somepoint, but 15 pages is pretty long so I'll bring them up again.
Probably 6 or 7 of the 15 pages of this thread was debates about the Panther. It's like entering the UK politics thread and saying 'I'm sure this has been brought up before but what does everyone think about Brexit'
Fair, still...
Such a good tank even the French used her for a time after the War.
Sort of. The French used captured Panthers to equip a regiment until they had a native tank to replace it. I want to say they were in use until 1948, so three years after the war. And it was very much about the French looking to rebuilt their capacity as fast possible. In contrast new Shermans and T34s were built and used around the world in to the 1980s.
Anyhow, I agree the Panther was a gorgeous looking tank, and had an excellent gun for tank hunting.
Well they did look to basing their post war tanks off the Panther and the King Tiger. It was just... problematic. That Kraut Space Magic.
As for the Sherman, I do like how it was continuously used, it was a solid tank. Personally I prefer it to the T-34.
Imagine a T34 built to US quality, with an 85mm turret, but with a US 76mm (which had higher penetration) and optics/radio...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Personally I would rather an M4 or M10. Crew fight ability and survivability are better.
Imagine a T34 built to US quality, with an 85mm turret, but with a US 76mm (which had higher penetration) and optics/radio...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Personally I would rather an M4 or M10. Crew fight ability and survivability are better.
Yeah I know the Sherman was better than the T-34, its why I prefer it. Heck the M4A3E3 HVSS Shermans beat T-34-85s in Korea. Im a big fan of the Sherman VC Firefly as well.
Sebster wrote:The Ronson lighter is also a myth. It was supposedly used because of the motto 'lights up first time, every time'. Except that motto wasn't even used by Ronson until years after the war. There was possibly an issue with Shermans lighting up, but if it did happen more than in other tanks it was due to the ammo, not the engine. And the problem ended with the introduction of wet ammo stowage and redistributed ammo, at which point the Sherman was one of the tanks least likely to explode. Sure, when knocked out the Sherman did light up, but that's true of every tank - because once penetrated and abandoned the enemy would typically keep shooting it until it did light up, because you don't want to leave the enemy with a tank they can recover and use again. But in terms of Shermans lighting up while the crew were in them, it was probably never true, and the opposite became true when ammo stowage was changed.
Didn't the wet stowage come in later though into the war? My previous reading was that the Panzers had compartmentalised ammo so it wouldn't immediately go off if the tank was penetrated, but that in its self was from experience gained in 39/40. Designers of the Sherman realised pretty early on that they wanted to introduce a similar system but it was still introduced later on that in the Panzer, and it's possible that they had got that idea itself from witnessing the tanks in the field or captured Panzers.
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: Well they did look to basing their post war tanks off the Panther and the King Tiger. It was just... problematic. That Kraut Space Magic.
It wasn't space magic. Panthers broke down at stupidly high rates, and the heavier German tanks broke down even more often. It's just that in war time mechanical reliability is something a nation might be more willing to tolerate, if it increases performance just a little. But no-one is going to tolerate tanks that have mechanical breakdowns from 100km onwards in peacetime. So failure rates in the AMX50 were intolerable, but tolerated in the Panther, despite the latter being much higher.
As for the Sherman, I do like how it was continuously used, it was a solid tank. Personally I prefer it to the T-34.
They're the two best designs of the war.
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Pacific wrote: Didn't the wet stowage come in later though into the war?
It did, and it was in response to a perception that ammo in the Sherman was igniting more than it should. However, subsequent reviews found this was more a perception than a reality - Shermans were getting lit up, but no more than other tanks. Still, the wet stowage system and redesign of ammo locations was brought in, and the result was instead of the Sherman being about as vulnerable as most tanks, now it was significantly less vulnerable.
My previous reading was that the Panzers had compartmentalised ammo so it wouldn't immediately go off if the tank was penetrated, but that in its self was from experience gained in 39/40. Designers of the Sherman realised pretty early on that they wanted to introduce a similar system but it was still introduced later on that in the Panzer, and it's possible that they had got that idea itself from witnessing the tanks in the field or captured Panzers.
I can't speak for all panzers, but none of them had anything like the wet stowage system. In terms of specifics, the Panther had a noted ammo problem, with most ammo stored in the side sponsons, where it was quite vulnerable. The Panzer IV actually got worse stowage as the war went on - the compartments were removed to save on weight. Other tanks I don't know the details of their storage.
Imagine a T34 built to US quality, with an 85mm turret, but with a US 76mm (which had higher penetration) and optics/radio...
Automatically Appended Next Post: Personally I would rather an M4 or M10. Crew fight ability and survivability are better.
Yeah I know the Sherman was better than the T-34, its why I prefer it. Heck the M4A3E3 HVSS Shermans beat T-34-85s in Korea. Im a big fan of the Sherman VC Firefly as well.
An interesting question might be at this point, why did the excellent design of Russian & US/UK vehicles not translate into automotive design quality after the war?
Automatically Appended Next Post: Sorry that's a bit of a trolling thing to mention but you know what I'm saying!
This is speculation but drawing some parallels on what happened in terms of aircraft. Once the US entered the war there was a tacit agreement that with lend-lease the US would provide the transport lift capacity which allowed the UK's air industry to concentrate largely on producing bombers and fighters, this meant that by war's end the US more or less dominated the civilian air transport sector whilst the UK had to play catch up and in the short term having to make do to a certain degree with adapted bomber designs like the Avro Lancastrian.
I wonder if something similar occurred on the ground with the US providing a good chunk of the motor transport capability meaning that they were in a position to exploit this in the immediate post-war period whilst British and Soviet industry had to re-adjust back to producing designs more appropriate for civilian use again? I'm not sure on this one I have to admit, hopefully someone with a bit better knowledge can correct me.
An interesting comparison between the Sherman and the Panther tanks is one of doctrinal use: the Sherman was designed from the outset as an all-purpose war machine and force multiplier, while the Panther was primarily a tank hunter, designed in response to the rising tide of good Russian tanks. One-on-one combats were exceptionally rare yet are all too often used to judge the performance of individual machines.
The Sherman was an excellent design, and one of the very first tanks to incorporate a gyro-stabilized main gun. The early combat experience of too many crews deaths due to fire was determined to be more of a crew disciplinary one than a technical one; as training increased the rate of crew loss went down dramatically - the wet stowage system used later was merely a bonus.
The survival rate of Sherman crews once the tank was knocked out of action was one of the highest of any tank during the war (the British Churchill may have been the highest) by ease of crew debarking, as noted by several already. Both the Panther and T-34 were extremely difficult to exit quickly.
I have read that while the Germans designed the Panther they considered a diesel power plant but another reason it was rejected is that there was concern about the smoke and loudness of diesels turning over on start up. Probably a secondary consideration compared to availability, but one regarded by tacticians nonetheless.
The Panther suffered from many teething problems during its career but overall it was an extremely modern and capable design. It suffered from very poor metallurgy later in the war and the armor often shattered quite dramatically from hits and high explosives. Inter-leavened road wheels provided a very smooth ride but mud and tree limbs tended to jam the works and replacing an interior running wheel could require the removal of 9 other wheels! The transmission never was very good, and many crews were ordered not to ever drive the tank in reverse for fear of damaging the final drive train. Talk about a liability! General Guderian didn't like the machine at all and preferred the upgraded Panzer IV. The operational range was usually kept to under 30 kilometers because of how often half or more of the tanks couldn't reach their rendezvous.
But for style points, the Panther wins hands down!
As a note on the Panther (and really a lot of the German big tanks in general) a lot of its issues werent so much due directly to mechanical breakdown or the like because of poor parts or whatnot, but rather that repair and maintenance were nightmares because of the way stuff was put together.
Yeah, the Panther had lots of final drive issues. That isnt necessarily because the final drive itself was terribly designed (though could have been better) , but that getting at it at all, even for simple maintenance, required the tank the be half disassembled and was an all day affair that involved cranes and lots of people, whereas on a Sherman it took a couple of hours to swap out. The aforementioned road wheels are another good example.
Now, these were also conscious design choices based on different warfare paradigms. In a short, decisive war like that of the Battle of France, with well trained and experienced crews, the Panther's issues wouldn't be so huge, and its tactical capabilities and advantages would be much more broadly felt. In a years long war of attrition, something like a T34 or Sherman that could be overmatched by something like a Panther in a quick campaign become dramatically more effective in a longer conflict where crews have little experience and haphazard training.
Likewise, the Sherman, when initially introduced, was among the best in the armor/firepower/mobility mix in late 1940/early 1941, it really was able to match or exceed the best in the world on each of those counts, and it gets a bad rap for later issues.
The chieftans hatch in youtube through world of tanks actually has some pretty good commentary on this stuff, from a real world tanker going through and visiting and exploring these tanks in museums and collections.
VictorVonTzeentch wrote: Well they did look to basing their post war tanks off the Panther and the King Tiger. It was just... problematic. That Kraut Space Magic.
It wasn't space magic. Panthers broke down at stupidly high rates, and the heavier German tanks broke down even more often. It's just that in war time mechanical reliability is something a nation might be more willing to tolerate, if it increases performance just a little. But no-one is going to tolerate tanks that have mechanical breakdowns from 100km onwards in peacetime. So failure rates in the AMX50 were intolerable, but tolerated in the Panther, despite the latter being much higher.
Well some of the break downs were attributed to the needlessly complex design of some aspects of the tank's transmission, hence the space magic. The design proved too difficult to fully work the kinks out of.
Pacific wrote: An interesting question might be at this point, why did the excellent design of Russian & US/UK vehicles not translate into automotive design quality after the war?
Sorry that's a bit of a trolling thing to mention but you know what I'm saying!
I'm not sure what the trolling you're getting at is, but to answer the question, I think it comes down to capitalism being very good at turning R&D in to all kinds of commercial applications. Communism is terrible at doing so. The US contracted private companies to produce tanks and airplanes, and after the war those companies kept the R&D from the process and applied it to improving their trucks, tractors, planes etc. Even tech that was developed entirely by govt filtered out as govt workers shifted to the private sector. Tech improvements even found new uses, everyone saw the direct uses of RADAR but it took capitalists to realise how useful RADAR could be countless other applications, up to the final, perfect human tech of reheating pizza with a microwave.
In the Soviet system tech improvements don't filter out in the same. By the late 80s their pizza reheating was decades behind. Collapse was inevitable.
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amanita wrote: An interesting comparison between the Sherman and the Panther tanks is one of doctrinal use: the Sherman was designed from the outset as an all-purpose war machine and force multiplier, while the Panther was primarily a tank hunter, designed in response to the rising tide of good Russian tanks. One-on-one combats were exceptionally rare yet are all too often used to judge the performance of individual machines.
That's a really good way of summing up the issue.
Just to add to that, there were other turreted designs designed as tank hunters. The Hellcat, for instance, had a stupidly good kill loss ratio, but this actually misrepresents its overall effectiveness - as a very specialist design it largely went unused while generalist designs like the Sherman did the grunt work.
The Panther wasn't as specialist as the Hellcat, but it was, as you say, designed primarily as a tank hunter. It was good in its role, but its role was only a small portion of the stuff a tank should be effective in - most of the time a tank should be aiding in breakthrough against infantry positions, and then potentially exploiting the gap and wrecking the enemy lines of supply and communications. And even in that role, as the war went on and the allies put higher velocity guns on their medium designs, the Panther didn't even hold much of an advantage in tank duals, certainly not enough of an advantage to justify the greater weight and complexity.
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Frazzled wrote: Yeah Chieftain is awesome. He's pretty disdainful of the Panther. It's fun watching him get around early war French tanks and the Matilda 2.
Chieftain is good, but the best thing he's contributed to the world is the sight of watching a dude that tall trying to get in and out of WW2 tanks.
In the Soviet system tech improvements don't filter out in the same. By the late 80s their pizza reheating was decades behind. Collapse was inevitable.
This may be my favorite sentence in this thread XD
Just to add to that, there were other turreted designs designed as tank hunters. The Hellcat, for instance, had a stupidly good kill loss ratio, but this actually misrepresents its overall effectiveness - as a very specialist design it largely went unused while generalist designs like the Sherman did the grunt work.
To expand on this, American Tank Destroyer Doctrine was a rigid thing. TD Battalions were distributed throughout the army to establish a defense in depth against the kind of operation that crushed France. The idea was you disperse your tank destroyers, then once the line is broken you gather them up somewhere and crush the invading tanks.
The issue is that throughout the entire war the US Army never actually encountered this scenario. Before the Battle of the Bulge there was only a brief and ineffective (if costly to repel) break at Kassarine Pass and then at the Bulge the Germany military ground to a halt for a myriad of reasons none of them primarily related to a massed counter attack by tank destroyers. The army had an entire doctrine and branch dedicated to stopping something that never happened. As a result TD battalions ended up doing all kinds of things not related to tank destroying like serving as assault guns, artillery, recon, and fire support roles. A big part of the Hell Cat's great kill loss ratio is that it was never sent to do what it was built to do and became a massive opportunist that got to enjoy the benefits of sitting in the second line with a really mean gun and insane speed.
However those formations were used for artillery support and direct fire(aka just like tanks). That was a problem.
Ironically crews survived better because the open top allowed them to bail easily.
Also ironically they ran out of M10 hulls relatively early and shifted to M4 hulls in later 1944, making them not much different actually. Really blending the issue.
In the Soviet system tech improvements don't filter out in the same. By the late 80s their pizza reheating was decades behind. Collapse was inevitable.
This may be my favorite sentence in this thread XD
Just to add to that, there were other turreted designs designed as tank hunters. The Hellcat, for instance, had a stupidly good kill loss ratio, but this actually misrepresents its overall effectiveness - as a very specialist design it largely went unused while generalist designs like the Sherman did the grunt work.
To expand on this, American Tank Destroyer Doctrine was a rigid thing. TD Battalions were distributed throughout the army to establish a defense in depth against the kind of operation that crushed France. The idea was you disperse your tank destroyers, then once the line is broken you gather them up somewhere and crush the invading tanks.
The issue is that throughout the entire war the US Army never actually encountered this scenario. Before the Battle of the Bulge there was only a brief and ineffective (if costly to repel) break at Kassarine Pass and then at the Bulge the Germany military ground to a halt for a myriad of reasons none of them primarily related to a massed counter attack by tank destroyers. The army had an entire doctrine and branch dedicated to stopping something that never happened. As a result TD battalions ended up doing all kinds of things not related to tank destroying like serving as assault guns, artillery, recon, and fire support roles. A big part of the Hell Cat's great kill loss ratio is that it was never sent to do what it was built to do and became a massive opportunist that got to enjoy the benefits of sitting in the second line with a really mean gun and insane speed.
Just like the Galactic Partridges. "Haters shall hate!"
Went to Bovington this week specifically to see the Elephant on loan from the US. Once in a lifetime opportunity, I doubt I’ll be shooting over to the US to see it again.
Massive vehicle, it’s sheer size can’t be appreciated until you stand next to it and don’t even reach the main deck. The frontal armour on the upper section is as thick as the span of your hand.
Went to Bovington this week specifically to see the Elephant on loan from the US. Once in a lifetime opportunity, I doubt I’ll be shooting over to the US to see it again.
Massive vehicle, it’s sheer size can’t be appreciated until you stand next to it and don’t even reach the main deck. The frontal armour on the upper section is as thick as the span of your hand.
I love the Elephant too. The were poorly chosen for their role at Kursk tho.
That looks like one I saw restored in a TV show years ago.
I had the pleasure to see one up and running last year. It was made all the more interesting when I learned that it had been gifted to Canada by Joseph Stalin. The thing ran beautifully and was the second oldest tank that day.
I also learned how comically ramshackle these tanks were. A wedge of metal was welded on the side to nudge the loose tread pins back in place and, apparently, the plates were so ill-fitting that a Molotov could take it out by leaking through the poor seams. (not sure how true that is).
Sherman Grizzly takes second place for being one of the few Canadian manufactured tanks I know of.
Picture makes it quite clear. I heard the Tiger-Tiger-Towing story a few times, but I guess stories can circulate quite widely on the internet without necessarily being fully true, as usual.
