5 Tanks That Changed History

The National Interest ^ | September 7, 2014 | Michael Peck

[C19fan]

Only the most techno-fanatic would argue that a certain type of tank has changed history. There are so many other causes -- military, political, economic, social -- that explain victory and defeat far better than size of gun or thickness of armor.

[Kickass Conservative]

Global Warming, that’s the ticket.

[martin_fierro]

Nazi Dinosaur Tank.

Your argument is invalid.

[jmacusa]

Didn't the Iraqis have some of their tanks in the ‘’hull down’’ position? Digging a tank into a kind of revetment. The Soviets sold them the weapons and from my reading of history this is a tactic it seems only the Russians used in WW2 and apparently they passed it on to the Iraqis. What is the purpose of doing this with a tank. I thought tank warfare was about maneuver.

[jmacusa]

But a main gun that could destroy any Allied tank on the battlefield from a range of almost two miles. Those things were either knocked by P-47’s, P-38s using rockets and 500lb bombs or RAF Typhoons armed the same way or artillery. That or they just ran out of gas.

[jmacusa]

God bless your uncle. I thank him for my freedom but mechanical reliability aside , I have known WW2 vets who were in the infantry, flew B-17s and B-24s, and were tankers and that damned 88mm just scared the piss out of them. They hated that thing. And the MG 42.

[jmacusa]

The deserts of Kuwait are littered with the hulks of those ‘’nice looking’’ T-72s. For me it was the Panthers and Tiger Tanks of WW2. They were like some Gothic looking beast. The damn things looked like they wanted to kill you.

[Nailbiter]

bflr read

[Slings and Arrows]

[Rockpile]

Left headlight.

It has a slot like a low level light would have in more dangerous usage areas.

[grey_whiskers]

I believe the Brits referred to Sherman’s as “Tommie cookers.”

And the Germans called it the Ronson (cigarette lighter).

[lacrew]

No, we would frequently dig in our tanks while on the defense. Even our gunnery ranges have a semblance of a dug in fighting position for some of the engagements. On an M1, the sights are on the very top of the tank....so while dug in, you can hide, using the sights like a submarine’s periscope. You pull out of the hole to fire...and back into it quickly to hide.

[Rockpile]

Those extra plates of welded on armor on the sides of some Shermans are attempts at protecting ammo storage racks.

One good feature they had that we don’t see on modern vehicles was the hatch in the floor.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Absolutely agree. My only point being that mechanical reliability issues wouldn’t be so obvious when you are seeing a working tank and seeing the effectiveness of the 88 in particular. The tanks that were not on the battlefield because they broke down on the way to it - and the tanks that weren't there because they weren’t built because building more Tigers and King Tigers was too hard for the Germans to do - weren’t in view on the battlefield. In that sense there was observation bias.

The US army had 4WD jeeps, and mechanized artillery; the Germans used lots of horses for moving their artillery. And the US army had Pershing tanks, too. The main problems of the Pershings, were quantity availability and hazard transporting them posed to the bridges used to cross rivers (both issues which the Germans faced with their bigger tanks).

According to my uncle, the Army chose to move all other equipment across a new pontoon bridge before risking destroying the bridge in an accident transporting heavy Pershings. With the result that by the time the Pershings reached the front again, you were almost up to the next river. My uncle said he saw an engagement between a Tiger and a Pershing, which saw each other at the same time. The Pershing was able to traverse its gun faster, and got off the first shot - which failed to destroy the Tiger. But before the Tiger was able to return fire, the second round knocked the turret off the Tiger - to my uncle’s great relief. I suppose the Pershing’s gunner tweaked the aim of the second round, and successfully hit the Tiger right at the interface between the turret and the body.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

German Tanks used gasoline for fuel. not diesel.

Thank you for the correction; I picked up a wrong impression from the movie Patton (not that that would ever happen </sarcasm> ).

Makes more sense; I always wondered how Hitler hoped to use captured US gasoline to power his thrust into the Bulge if his tanks were diesels. OTOH I wonder why Shermans were so notorious for catching fire compared to the German models - except of course for the fact that they were much better armored.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

they the latter were much better armored.

[X Fretensis]

We had some design deficiencies in the Sherman. During the course of the war, designers added additional steel plates around fuel tanks and ammo storage bins as a short term fix, than redesigned these features for better protection.
These design changes helped, but never eliminated the problem. The higher energy German tank ammo still was very effective against our Sherman tanks.

[X Fretensis]

You may be correct up to point. However, the quality of the tank crews counts for very much in combat. Had those T-72s been manned by Soviet crews, the out come would not have been so lopsided. We would have still won, but at some higher cost in armor losses. Remember, during the mid 60s, the Israeli’s with a lot of WWII Sherman and Centurion tanks, kicked the hell out of the Soviet T-62s and 55s crewed by Egyptians and Syrians. Crew training and quality will usually trump equipment quality every time.

[ImJustAnotherOkie]

Seriously? Molotov Cocktails!!!

[jmacusa]

The German Army did indeed use horses but they had an extensive armory of self-propelled guns and tank destroyers and well as a lot of armor they captured when the over ran France and Czechoslovakia.

[jmacusa]

I’ve never seen an M1 in the hull down position. Their tactic is to advance at rapid speed and fire on the run.