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Not to get too far into the weeds, but the notion that a tank should be judged primarily on its ability to kill other tanks is deeply flawed. Most tanks in WW II died to AT guns, not other tanks. The proportion is now even more lop-sided today thanks to various missiles.

There's a lot of new research that draws on wartime records of hits, repairs, etc. and one of the big correctives is that it turns out that eyewitness testimony isn't always 100 percent correct.

Yeah, I know. Allied tank crews habitually misidentified every German tank as a Tiger or Panther (or King Tiger!) and (as postwar accounts confirm) the grass is always greener on the other side. Allied crews coveted the thick armor and massive guns of German tanks while Germans wished they had tanks that ran as reliably as the Sherman.

BTW, that's why the Sherman was the best tank of WW II - it was reliable and super-easy to repair. The Russians had good tanks but QC issues really hurt the T-34 for a long time.

Getting back to 40k, both as a practical in-game matter and as a historical analogue, there's no reason for a Vindicator upgrade. But for GW changing the rules (and making Land Raiders carry frontal armor on the rear, the Leman Russ was more than adequate to deal with opposing tanks. I myself made a Vindicator during 3rd, using plastic tubing to create a more realistic barrel in proportion to the tank and adding a T-shaped muzzle break.

 Irbis wrote:
The exact same reason RL Sherman had long AT 75 mm gun or the shorter, HE firing 76 mm gun (in 1:3 ratio) - because long, straight, precise barrel for anti-tank sniping is expensive and 80% of the time, short one will do so why overpay? Conversely, you don't want to wear out said long, expensive and accurate barrel firing cheap HE ammo, so the infantry support was left to 76 mm armed Shermans with cheaper guns/ammo. And these were so successful that toward the end of the war, the ratio was tending more towards 1:7 (though to be fair with Nazi tanks going nearly extinct by 1945 the 75 mm gun simply had too few good targets to justify expense and was mostly used to snipe strongpoints and such from long range).

And USA wasn't the only country doing this in WW2, see German Pz IV with short, infantry support 75 mm gun or long, AT role 75 mm. Then you have Russian IS-2 with long AT guns (85/100 mm) or short 122 mm - same deal, except even more pronounced...

I have no idea what you're talking about. Lol.

The Sherman had the:
- 75mm: General purpose cannon, had a good HE round and a decent enough AP round to knock out any German tanks at the time. Only in 1944 did it start to fade away due to Panther based vehicles being more common.
- 76mm: The hole-puncher. Still a decent HE round, not as good as the 75mm, and a great AP round. Also got 76mm HVAP for harder targets.
- 105mm: Which I assume is what you're thinking of. Which was a HE slinger, used to destroy fortifications and provide infantry support.

But even the 76mm was used in a general purpose role and became the mainstay of US ground forces for the rest of the war. It even lasted into Korea.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Getting back to 40k, both as a practical in-game matter and as a historical analogue, there's no reason for a Vindicator upgrade. But for GW changing the rules (and making Land Raiders carry frontal armor on the rear, the Leman Russ was more than adequate to deal with opposing tanks. I myself made a Vindicator during 3rd, using plastic tubing to create a more realistic barrel in proportion to the tank and adding a T-shaped muzzle break.

...I take it you meant Vanquisher here, not Vindicator?

 Dysartes wrote:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Getting back to 40k, both as a practical in-game matter and as a historical analogue, there's no reason for a Vindicator upgrade. But for GW changing the rules (and making Land Raiders carry frontal armor on the rear, the Leman Russ was more than adequate to deal with opposing tanks. I myself made a Vindicator during 3rd, using plastic tubing to create a more realistic barrel in proportion to the tank and adding a T-shaped muzzle break.

...I take it you meant Vanquisher here, not Vindicator?

Yeah, I get confused sometimes.

I don't think the Sherman is a good comparison to Vanquisher vs standard Leman Russ.

Unlike the Sherman 76mm with its inferior HE round compared to the 75mm, the Vanquisher cannon is not a trade-off in the lore. It is a straight upgrade to the standard battle cannon and equivalent or superior in every battlefield metric. The HE round has equivalent efficacy and longer range, the anti-tank rounds have far superior penetration and greater range.

The only disadvantage is that Vanquishers are difficult to produce and therefore manufactured on a couple of major forge worlds, and therefore they are rare and an extra logistical burden in the supply chain. If the Imperium could replace every standard battle cannon with a Vanquisher, it would- there is no significant combat disadvantage.

During the age of IG doctrines, so around 4th? There was an all armored company list published in White Dwarf that was a variant of the FW armored company that included the option to take anti-tank ammo for a bog standard Russ Battle Cannon, basically making it a Vanquisher.

And for all the discussion of main guns, what were the weapons most used on a tank performing its exploitation role? The machine guns.

As a side note, I bet it was an M1

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zY3RLn2V6D0

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Allied crews coveted the thick armor and massive guns of German tanks while Germans wished they had tanks that ran as reliably as the Sherman.

BTW, that's why the Sherman was the best tank of WW II - it was reliable and super-easy to repair. The Russians had good tanks but QC issues really hurt the T-34 for a long time.

We've all seen the famous picture of the bullet holes on planes that returned to base, with tons of holes on the wings and fuselage, but almost none on the engine and cockpit, and the real conclusion to draw is the armor the places with no bullet holes, because those are the planes that don't come home.

The conclusion to draw from every "it took five shermans to knock out one tiger" story is that somehow the Germans only ever had the one tiger, while the allies always had at least five Shermans.

 Polonius wrote:


We've all seen the famous picture of the bullet holes on planes that returned to base, with tons of holes on the wings and fuselage, but almost none on the engine and cockpit, and the real conclusion to draw is the armor the places with no bullet holes, because those are the planes that don't come home.

The conclusion to draw from every "it took five shermans to knock out one tiger" story is that somehow the Germans only ever had the one tiger, while the allies always had at least five Shermans.

A friend of mine read a book by an Army ordnance officer during WW II and the guy constantly rips on the Sherman as being a death trap, a fire bomb on tracks, etc.

Why did he think that? Well, those were the only ones he ever saw. His job was to salvage battle-damaged ones. He did see a little combat, and all of the tanks they fought were Tigers or King Tigers. Not a Mark IV in the bunch - at least according to him.

My friend's father - whose job was keep them running - thought that they were great. They could turn them around really quickly and as the Allies advanced, they'd find German tanks that were fully intact but just broke down. They'd find entire platoons that ran out of gas because those things were also fuel hogs.

All about the perspective, you see.

For the record, about the Sherman, one of my uncles deployed as a Sherman tank commander in North Africa. Because it was easier to escape from the commanders position he was the only survivor of his first tank being blown up. His second tank was lost during an air attack, once again the only surviving crew member and he said F this, send me to reconnaissance I'm never getting into a Sherman again.

 Insurgency Walker wrote:
For the record, about the Sherman, one of my uncles deployed as a Sherman tank commander in North Africa. Because it was easier to escape from the commanders position he was the only survivor of his first tank being blown up. His second tank was lost during an air attack, once again the only surviving crew member and he said F this, send me to reconnaissance I'm never getting into a Sherman again.

I mean, the sherman was actually state of the art in North Africa. I'm not saying your Uncle wasn't telling the truth or anything, but that's bad luck more than bad engineering.

Very few weapons systems can withstand a direct hit from a dedicated weapon designed to stop it. Otherwise nobody would ever sink a battleship.

He and his first crew trained in the states with tractors and didn't actually use a Sherman until North Africa. The training was totally deficient as they had been lead to believe the Shermans armor and gun were the best in production at the time and better than anything the Germans had. The trained defensive response to air attack was either to stay in or dismount and get under the tank, I forgot which, both of which got the crews killed. He had ordered his second crew to get as far away from the tank in the event of an air attack while he went to discuss the need to change doctrine when his second tank got wrecked and the loss of that crew hit him hard because they ignored his order and stayed with the track.

 Haighus wrote:
I don't think the Sherman is a good comparison to Vanquisher vs standard Leman Russ.

Unlike the Sherman 76mm with its inferior HE round compared to the 75mm, the Vanquisher cannon is not a trade-off in the lore. It is a straight upgrade to the standard battle cannon and equivalent or superior in every battlefield metric. The HE round has equivalent efficacy and longer range, the anti-tank rounds have far superior penetration and greater range.

The only disadvantage is that Vanquishers are difficult to produce and therefore manufactured on a couple of major forge worlds, and therefore they are rare and an extra logistical burden in the supply chain. If the Imperium could replace every standard battle cannon with a Vanquisher, it would- there is no significant combat disadvantage.

I don't' have my IA books with me, so I can't tell if that's true, but I'm not sure that completely checks out. Not sure why the one thing on a Leman Russ that's wildly superior to current tech would be a tank gun with vastly improved AT with no trade off on HE. I suppose maybe that's why it's so wildly difficult to produce, but even then if it's made for IG, it's still mass produced, just mass produced at a forge world instead of a hive world.




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 Insurgency Walker wrote:
He and his first crew trained in the states with tractors and didn't actually use a Sherman until North Africa. The training was totally deficient as they had been lead to believe the Shermans armor and gun were the best in production at the time and better than anything the Germans had. The trained defensive response to air attack was either to stay in or dismount and get under the tank, I forgot which, both of which got the crews killed. He had ordered his second crew to get as far away from the tank in the event of an air attack while he went to discuss the need to change doctrine when his second tank got wrecked and the loss of that crew hit him hard because they ignored his order and stayed with the track.

So... massive deficits in doctrine and training, not in the equipment. That makes sense.

Like I said, bad training. They were lead to believe the Germans could neither hit, nor penetrate a Sherman at range.

 Insurgency Walker wrote:
Like I said, bad training. They were lead to believe the Germans could neither hit, nor penetrate a Sherman at range.

Expectation management. It's a thing.

If you want to watch a film that's even worse, try Humphrey Bogart's "Sahara," which sings the praises of the M3 Lee/Grant of all things.

It's actually a good movie, but a bit dated, to say the least. M3 buffs will get a kick out of it, though.

He had several funny stories about his WWII service published in local papers and service magazines but nothing that talked about the failures of the armed forces. His experience did however cause him to partner with Harvard to set up counseling services for vets utilizing the GI bill, something that seemed to be forgotten as we moved through Korea and Vietnam wars.


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Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Insurgency Walker wrote:
Like I said, bad training. They were lead to believe the Germans could neither hit, nor penetrate a Sherman at range.

Expectation management. It's a thing.

If you want to watch a film that's even worse, try Humphrey Bogart's "Sahara," which sings the praises of the M3 Lee/Grant of all things.

It's actually a good movie, but a bit dated, to say the least. M3 buffs will get a kick out of it, though.

Love that film!

 Insurgency Walker wrote:


Love that film!

I own it on dvd. I think the M3 and the Crusader are two of the most interesting tanks in WW II.

GW seems to agree, which is why they should have an M3-ish tank with dual 75mm sponsons.

That would have rocked.

That would have been cool. As a side note Germans seemed to have enjoyed looting Stuart tanks in North Africa, and 40mm "dual purpose" guns.


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I think the largest chunk of Russ lore, though dated, can be found in the early Imperial Armor updates.

 Polonius wrote:

The conclusion to draw from every "it took five shermans to knock out one tiger" story is that somehow the Germans only ever had the one tiger, while the allies always had at least five Shermans.

Well....kinda.

To quote Nicolas Moran (reserve duty armoured branch colonel in the US army, military historian, youtuber, and "tank god" of the makers of World of Tanks), the main reason for the "5 shermans to a tiger" myth that in most in ww2 armies, the tank platoon is the minimum force that can be assigned to a given task. So, if an attack needed tank support, they would never send less than 4-5 shermans.

Also, deliberate overmatch is a thing. the enemy has one tank? send a platoon. they have a platoon of tanks? send a company. you don't WANT a fair fight, you want sufficient overmatch the enemy cant really injure you and all 5 tanks survive and are ready to attack the next village 2 miles down the road.

xerxeskingofking wrote:
Also, deliberate overmatch is a thing. the enemy has one tank? send a platoon. they have a platoon of tanks? send a company. you don't WANT a fair fight, you want sufficient overmatch the enemy cant really injure you and all 5 tanks survive and are ready to attack the next village 2 miles down the road.

One often-overlooked aspect of US forces was the proliferation of radios. Being able to communicate quickly and coordinate a response is a force-multiplier. It doesn't matter what the overall numbers are in theater, just who is engaged here and now.

That's why (to jump wildly away from tanks), Lee's armies trounced the federals again and again - he had inferior numbers excapt at the point of attack. After Gettysburg Meade got a congratulatory telegram from Halleck because he was the first Army of the Potomac commander to actually employ his entire command.

(This was one of Sherman's strengths as well - he knew where his men were, and used all of them to the fullest.)

By the late war, German command and control was breaking down and the Allies took advantage of this on both fronts.

Veering back into 40k, I have to revert to my earlier contention that the baseline Leman Russ did not need to be "upgunned" until the armor system was changed and you had weird "all-14" rated vehicles.

In addition, GW also imposed restrictions on firing all the weapons at once, which made sponson weapons - which were designed specifically for complimentary roles - generally useless.

The Demolisher variant did make some sense as it would be something used in hive cities and other dense terrain and was a call-back to CS tanks that the British in particular used (in large part because the 2-pounder had zero anti-infantry capability).

xerxeskingofking wrote:

 Polonius wrote:

The conclusion to draw from every "it took five shermans to knock out one tiger" story is that somehow the Germans only ever had the one tiger, while the allies always had at least five Shermans.

Well....kinda.

To quote Nicolas Moran (reserve duty armoured branch colonel in the US army, military historian, youtuber, and "tank god" of the makers of World of Tanks), the main reason for the "5 shermans to a tiger" myth that in most in ww2 armies, the tank platoon is the minimum force that can be assigned to a given task. So, if an attack needed tank support, they would never send less than 4-5 shermans.

Also, deliberate overmatch is a thing. the enemy has one tank? send a platoon. they have a platoon of tanks? send a company. you don't WANT a fair fight, you want sufficient overmatch the enemy cant really injure you and all 5 tanks survive and are ready to attack the next village 2 miles down the road.

So, in 40k terms: Night Lords. Never get into a fight that you won't win. Cheating and outnumbering is the way to go.

Insurgency Walker wrote:He and his first crew trained in the states with tractors and didn't actually use a Sherman until North Africa. The training was totally deficient as they had been lead to believe the Shermans armor and gun were the best in production at the time and better than anything the Germans had. The trained defensive response to air attack was either to stay in or dismount and get under the tank, I forgot which, both of which got the crews killed. He had ordered his second crew to get as far away from the tank in the event of an air attack while he went to discuss the need to change doctrine when his second tank got wrecked and the loss of that crew hit him hard because they ignored his order and stayed with the track.

To be fair, staying in the tank during air attacks was the safest thing to do in WWII- most crew casualties were when the crew were outside the vehicle and vulnerable to shrapnel and small arms. Crew inside a tank were only vulnerable to direct hits from air attack, crew outside the tank could be hit by shrapnel from bombs landing nearby. His crew were extremely unlucky to receive a direct hit.

Polonius wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
I don't think the Sherman is a good comparison to Vanquisher vs standard Leman Russ.

Unlike the Sherman 76mm with its inferior HE round compared to the 75mm, the Vanquisher cannon is not a trade-off in the lore. It is a straight upgrade to the standard battle cannon and equivalent or superior in every battlefield metric. The HE round has equivalent efficacy and longer range, the anti-tank rounds have far superior penetration and greater range.

The only disadvantage is that Vanquishers are difficult to produce and therefore manufactured on a couple of major forge worlds, and therefore they are rare and an extra logistical burden in the supply chain. If the Imperium could replace every standard battle cannon with a Vanquisher, it would- there is no significant combat disadvantage.

I don't' have my IA books with me, so I can't tell if that's true, but I'm not sure that completely checks out. Not sure why the one thing on a Leman Russ that's wildly superior to current tech would be a tank gun with vastly improved AT with no trade off on HE. I suppose maybe that's why it's so wildly difficult to produce, but even then if it's made for IG, it's still mass produced, just mass produced at a forge world instead of a hive world.

Mass produced on forge worlds yes, but only a tiny number of forge worlds- formerly Tigrus, then Stygies VIII and Gryphonne IV. Gryphonne IV has also since been lost to Hive Fleet Leviathan. Probably Mars too, but unconfirmed. Considering most Imperial vehicles are churned out by hive worlds like Armageddon and the many forge worlds around the galaxy, having just three production sites tops is going to make the variant very rare, probably as rare as Executioners.

By all accounts, the weapon is extremely difficult to manufacture. I suspect it is the recoil dampners and stabilisers that are the really complex bit, the Stygies VIII weapon is smaller specifically because they are able to produce more advanced recoil dampners and stabilisers to allow for a lighter weapon capable of handling the same velocities. From what we know of 40k tech, these could include grav technology. Initial dampners are also a thing in the lore, whatever technobabble they are supposed to function on. Essentially, the Imperium has some access to technology that can seemingly break the forces of inertia and momentum as we understand them.

In the older Vanquisher rules, they fired an identical S8 AP3 ordnance large blast as the standard battle cannon, but at range 96" rather than 72". They also had an alternate fire option of an anti-tank round that had no blast, but rolled 2d6 for armour penetration, also at range 96". The 5th edition IG codex watered this down to just the AT round at 72" range. Admittedly, that is on a smaller-barrelled vehicle that may be a knock-off Vanquisher with less capability. Basically, original Vanquisher rules were a straight upgrade, and they got significantly worse when moved into the main codex with a plastic kit. Incidentally, the detailed FW rules for standard battle cannon ammunition made the standard blast lose the "roll d6 and pick the highest" ordnance armour penetration rule (but kept the same statline), and gave an alternate anti-tank shell that kept that rule with no blast. It was worse than the default rules, but more lore friendly.



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Jarms48 wrote:

Tygre wrote:
The pattern of the Leman Russ that we have a plastic kit for is the Phaeton pattern.

This only fits for the pre-5th edition leman russ.

Ah, I found my old IA, this is the case. Although I think the basic old Russ may be Mars pattern (the page header says Phaeton, but the actual profile states Mars). The original Demolisher is definitely Phaeton pattern. I suspect the classic hull is a Mars pattern, perhaps more acurately Mars-Beta considering the existence of the Mars-Alpha, with various alternate turrets like the Phaeton pattern Demolisher. Almost every other profile in the book based on the basic GW plastic kit of the time is a Mars pattern, so I am pretty confident that the basic Russ was too. No idea about the newer hull design though, or the second version of the Demolisher based on the old hull design.

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 Haighus wrote:

There is also a Mars-Alpha pattern, although this may refer to the hull only, leaving the cannon as an unknown pattern.

Pretty sure all turrets of that type are Ryza turrets. The hull is Mars pattern.

They were all listed as such when first sold IIRC, but I don't think Ryza has ever been noted as producing a Vanquisher cannon variant. They may produce the design under license from another forge world's pattern (such as how a Vanaheim pattern Salamander scout uses a Gryphonne IV pattern autocannon), but Ryza is notable for its skill in plasma weaponry, not conventional munitions. It is a major forge world, so still possible.

However, we know Mars has the right to receive blueprints from the patterns held at any forge world (normally forge worlds are not keen on sharing lest they lose influence) and is the most advanced forge world capable of mastering any technology known to the Mechanicus. So it stands to reason they should also be able to produce Vanquisher cannons, perhaps even the original Tigrus pattern. Seeing as this is also visually very similar to the Vanquisher used by the Solar Auxillia during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy, I suspect it has a provenance close to the heart of Mechanicus power. I cannot find a profile online and don't have access to Conquest currently though, so cannot confirm the full pattern name. The basic Auxillia Russ is a Solar-Ryza pattern, supporting that it could be a Ryza pattern Vanquisher.

 Haighus wrote:
Unlike the Sherman 76mm with its inferior HE round compared to the 75mm, the Vanquisher cannon is not a trade-off in the lore. It is a straight upgrade to the standard battle cannon and equivalent or superior in every battlefield metric. The HE round has equivalent efficacy and longer range, the anti-tank rounds have far superior penetration and greater range.

From memory some of the early Vanquisher rules had it as a small blast not a large blast.

 Haighus wrote:

Insurgency Walker wrote:He and his first crew trained in the states with tractors and didn't actually use a Sherman until North Africa. The training was totally deficient as they had been lead to believe the Shermans armor and gun were the best in production at the time and better than anything the Germans had. The trained defensive response to air attack was either to stay in or dismount and get under the tank, I forgot which, both of which got the crews killed. He had ordered his second crew to get as far away from the tank in the event of an air attack while he went to discuss the need to change doctrine when his second tank got wrecked and the loss of that crew hit him hard because they ignored his order and stayed with the track.

To be fair, staying in the tank during air attacks was the safest thing to do in WWII- most crew casualties were when the crew were outside the vehicle and vulnerable to shrapnel and small arms. Crew inside a tank were only vulnerable to direct hits from air attack, crew outside the tank could be hit by shrapnel from bombs landing nearby. His crew were extremely unlucky to receive a direct hit.

Apparently the Luftwaffe was pretty skilled at hitting tanks basically lined up in parking lots. It sounded like from his description that it was mostly light Cannon fire that caused the most damage but most importantly the Germans were targeting vehicles. Get away from the vehicles you would be safe. I didn't pick his brains on it much because the stories came out in a PTSD type flood and his time in Europe was somehow less traumatic. I think by point he figured out all of the training was wrong and he didn't form much of a bond with the people around him.

 Insurgency Walker wrote:
Apparently the Luftwaffe was pretty skilled at hitting tanks basically lined up in parking lots. It sounded like from his description that it was mostly light Cannon fire that caused the most damage but most importantly the Germans were targeting vehicles. Get away from the vehicles you would be safe. I didn't pick his brains on it much because the stories came out in a PTSD type flood and his time in Europe was somehow less traumatic. I think by point he figured out all of the training was wrong and he didn't form much of a bond with the people around him.

Dive bombing to pin-point accuracy was possible, and the Germans got quote good at it.

The other technique was using cannon to strafe the engine deck from behind.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Insurgency Walker wrote:
Apparently the Luftwaffe was pretty skilled at hitting tanks basically lined up in parking lots. It sounded like from his description that it was mostly light Cannon fire that caused the most damage but most importantly the Germans were targeting vehicles. Get away from the vehicles you would be safe. I didn't pick his brains on it much because the stories came out in a PTSD type flood and his time in Europe was somehow less traumatic. I think by point he figured out all of the training was wrong and he didn't form much of a bond with the people around him.

Dive bombing to pin-point accuracy was possible, and the Germans got quote good at it.

The other technique was using cannon to strafe the engine deck from behind.

Still, being outside the tank means the crew are vulnerable to shrapnel and near misses. You would have to get really far away from the tanks to be outside the danger zone. I know green Axis tank crews often suffered much more to Allied air attacks because they tended to leg it from their tanks and get killed by shrapnel, whereas the veterans sat tight. Tank crews being much more vulnerable when out of the tank is the reason British AFVs have had boiling vessels inside since WWII to avoid crews brewing up outside the vehicle and being hit by artillery or air attack. Turned out to be good for NBC too.

Although really this probably speaks to a lack of fighter cover or AA units to break up the bombers- pinpoint dive bombing with the accuracy to reliably hit tanks is really vulnerable with the predictable arc of attack. Stukas suffered high casualties when operating in contested areas. The US was really green when they fought in NA so they suffered a lot.

Of course, none of this undermines that the tanker above had a really traumatic experience.

 Haighus wrote:
Still, being outside the tank means the crew are vulnerable to shrapnel and near misses. You would have to get really far away from the tanks to be outside the danger zone. I know green Axis tank crews often suffered much more to Allied air attacks because they tended to leg it from their tanks and get killed by shrapnel, whereas the veterans sat tight. Tank crews being much more vulnerable when out of the tank is the reason British AFVs have had boiling vessels inside since WWII to avoid crews brewing up outside the vehicle and being hit by artillery or air attack. Turned out to be good for NBC too.

In Brazen Chariots, Bob Crisp wrote about how a German somehow got on the British radio net and gave permission to "brew up" - presumably make them vulnerable and/or take them out of the fight.

Human fears are often irrational. You see a tank catch fire and think "I'd had to die that way," so you stay outside and get splinters in your skull - splinters that would have done nothing but mar the paint on the tank.

Veteran stories can be really interesting and are obviously important to capture the experience of war, but they are limited in scope and prone to strong biases - which are often inconsistent. One faction loves something but another hates it intensely.