Posted on 12/11/2002 11:33:26 AM PST by sonofatpatcher2
What do you all think is the best tank in the world, now and before of cause.
I´m from Germany so for me it´s clear. The Leopard 2A5 ist the best tank the world has ever known. We also produced some great tanks like the Tiger or Panther, for Expert´s the Henschel Sturmtiger and the Köngistiger are the ancestors of all modern tanks and the Us and Russia have stolen our ideas.
And that was with T-72s against exponentially M1A1s. Hence even if the Americans had used Iraqi tanks and Iraqis had used Abrams the Americans would still have won due to superior tactics, superior training, and superior soldiers manning the tanks.
I guess when it comes to modern tanks (especially the top of the line ...and i exclude the T-72 because it is by far not even close to top of the line ....however i include the Merkava, the Leopard 2, the M1A2, the Challenger, and the T-90) i guess you eventually reach a level where the quality of the tanks may not be exactly the same, but it is darn close enough to make the tactics used the only discriminating value. Eg if a single Merkava 4 met a single M1A2 Abrams the result of that matchup is basically dependent on God and the skills, and vantages, of the respective tankers. Same thing happens when a single British Challenger with its advanced generation Chobham meets a single T-90 with its advanced Shtora anti-projectile system. It is a toss of the dice, and dependent on a myriad of external factors, plus on the skill of the crew. And here is where numbers are important! I guess in a scrap between Merkava 4s and A2 Abrams (which i really do not see ever happening, but let us just assume) i guess the winner would be the team with better tactics, and maybe more importantly (since both the Israelis and Americans have great training) more numbers of tanks involved and aerial support!
I guess it is akin to a ni-dan (2nd degree black belt) in Shotokan Karate meeting up with a second level black-sash Wushu gungfu exponent, and they fight! The outcome is basically dependent of external factors like luck and greater skill since they are virtually (not exactly, but virtually) at the same skill level.
However let me say that this is not an area i am great at ...i am just remembering what i heard those tankers saying. However i am sure that folks like Psyop (who knows about tanks) and Gunrunner can provide a more comprehensive, and hence more accurate, answer.
Hence i may be wrong on this one, but i think in modern tanks like the M1A2, Leopard 2, Merkava etc you reach a certain point where the quality, even though it is not exactly the same, is close enough to negate a lot of factors. That is the opinion of a person who has never even touched a tank in his life, so if i am wrong please be gentle (LOL)!
What is this stuff? Or is it some big secret we're not meant to know about?
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Christie and George Patton developed a tank with Patton's financing in the 20s. The army high brass was dead set against tanks and rejected the design. The design was used by the Japanese in WWII. It was also probably adapted elsewhere.
Chobham armor is a complex laminate composite scheme that is designed to be effective against multiple anti-armor technologies. In essence, it forces anti-armor weapons to go through an armor "pipeline" where each stage in the pipeline has different material and physical properties. Because different anti-armor weapons interact differently with the material layers, it is kind of like a simple state machine with the weapon as the "program". The end design goal is to design a series of layers such that very different classes of anti-armor weapons will be effectively dissipated all going through the same material pipeline due to how they interact with the different layers.
It is a pretty clever design, and when well done, highly effective in the hardness-to-weight ratio since it is explicitly hardened against multiple classes of anti-armor weapons (e.g. shaped-charge versus kinetic energy), using some minimal number of material layers when arranged in a clever sequence and conformation. Traditional armor has a single material property that must be defeated, and usually can be by selecting anti-armor weapons that are good at defeating the material properties of the armor i.e. they can be optimal against one type of anti-armor system but not all. Chobham systems appear to be optimally protective from the viewpoint of totally different classes of anti-armor weapons while only slightly adding to the overall weight of the armor. This makes the armor essentially impervious to the particular weapon selection an enemy may decide to use, eliminating an essential vulnerability of classic armor systems.
But which do you prefer, the tank top or tank bottom?
Me, I'm a tank top guy all the way!
And a built-in, automatically unfurling white flag of surrender.
There is a little more to it than that, though on some level you are correct. The same can be said of standard infantry weapons for that matter. It is the non-mechanical systems which increasingly make the weapon these days. For example, the sensor and fire control systems on the Abrams are extremely advanced compared to some other otherwise fine MBTs. Between modern MBTs on the battlefield, being able to see the other guy first and hitting him with the first shot before he can hits you goes a long way towards surviving.
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