The best tank in the world?

World's Armed Forces Site ^ | 13 November 2002 | Maverick

[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.

[scooter2]

A Greenall Whitley Seddon Beer Tanker truck.

We have a winner!

[SAMWolf]

LOL! I'm a slow reader.

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

Sii - Made in Lincoln, Nebraska?

[GGpaX4DumpedTea]

Fodderly advice - Duck!

[Nebr FAL owner]

Time to brush up on my vehicle hot-wiring technique again=8)

[BobinIL]

IMHO the best Modern Tanks are
1. M1A1 Abrams (USA)
2. Chieftan (GB)
3. Merkiva (Isriel)

best Tanks WW II

1. Panther (Ger)
2. T-34-85 (Russ)
3. Comet (GB)

[Blood of Tyrants]

Not to mention the built in, automatically deploying surrender flag.

[Blood of Tyrants]

The problem with an autoloader is that the barrel must be taken off the target to reload and that could mean the difference between hitting and being hit.

[dglang]

Are you sure you didn't mean the Sherman 'Ronson'.

[PoorMuttly]

I had to upgrade the tires on MY 120mm Escalade. BTW, the white-walls look great.

[Maximum Leader]

If I remember correctly,
the Leopard II, the Chieftan (or is the latest Brit tank the Challenger, I forget) and the Abrams all went into production about the same time.

All three use the Chobham composite armor. The trade off in armor is generally protection versus mobility. The more armor you have... the less agile the tank is (and the fewer bridges that can handle the additional weight).
The Germans went with mobility... it's the lightest of the three. The British tank Chieftain (or Challenger) and the Abrams have more armor... and I guess if you're a tank crewman... there's no such thing as too much crew protection (they're sort of like Volvo drivers in that way).
Interestingly, the Brits and the US used slope armor which helps deflect ballistic hits, while the Germans put their armor in vertical panels. I guess they had the most confidence in the newfangled Chobham composite armor.

Of those three I don't know which is the most mechanically reliable. I do know that the gas turbine engine (IIRC, the Krauts and the Brits stuck with the Diesel)on an Abrams needs a lot of fuel to keep rolling.

The Israelis developed the Merkava independently (though the Israelis wanted to bid on the M-1 project, but we didn't want to share the Chobham ctechnology with them). The Israelis developed their own composite armor and they put their engine up front. More steel between a round coming from 12 'clock and the crew.

The Leopard II has never seen combat and probably never will. I don't know enough about the Israeli track record with the Merkava to compare it to the British or American tank. However, I am familiar with British craftsmanship (my dad used to own a Jaguar which led to him pretty much putting the mechanic's kid through college), so I'd go with the Abrams.

[RLK]

What's the moisture content and slope of the terrain? Moving heavy equipment in certain terrains will cause the soil to gel and become unstable. Much of my experience is with Caterpillar tractors up to D9 and rubber tireds up to DW21 and double barreled Ucs. All are mountainous sized pieces of equipment. They function differently in sand and/or mud.

The original function of a tank was ability to inflict damage while being protected from small arms fire. With the mounting of increasingly heavy cannon on tanks the tank became a piece of mobile artillary.

The question becomes, what is your enemy armed with and in what kind of terrain? There are cases where I'd rather have a fast rubber tired vehicle vehicle with 25 millimeter and 30/223 caliber high rate of fire systems than I would a tank.

[sticker]

I think the T-34 is considered the best tank of WW2

[WhiskeyPapa]

A tank is only as good as the soldiers who operate it. The Leopards are operated by German socialist "I've already put in my 35.5 hours this week" weenies, and the French Le Clercs are operated by French surrender monkeys or Arab "It's not so easy to steer as a camel, I'd better surrender to Ashleigh Banfield right away" camel herders. So the Abrams with its highly-trained US troops is, and will remain, the best.

ROFLMAO!!!

Too true, too true!

Walt

[jimfree]

Check the picture half way down the link page. http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/r/d/rdg137/tv.htm

[Blood of Tyrants]

Here is a great link. http://www.ciar.org/~ttk/mbt/

[WhiskeyPapa]

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.

Ah, the Germans! Always "at your throat or at your feet."

-- thanks, Winnie.

Well, eveybody steals everybody's ideas. The Abrams uses Chobham (sp)armor and the Rheinmetal (sp) gun.

Even the old M-68 105 mm gun was a Brit design.

On the other hand the U.S. had visionary Walter Christie, whose suspension graced many the Soviet tank.

The German heavy tanks had the awkward interleaved suspension. Have one road wheel fail and you had to remove a gazillion bolts.

The U.S. tanks (read Sherman) were individually inferior to the German tanks, but within the "system" of arty, air and armor, the Sherman worked pretty well. It was a conscious decision to not interrupt the flood of Shermans coming off the production lines. Of course it wasn't much fun if you had King Tiger coming right at you and you couldn't maneuver on it.

There was a case during the Battle of the Bulge where some Shermans were driven about 400 miles from a port up to Belgium on their tracks -- something far beyond the heavy German tanks.

It's also true that the U.S. generals responsible for the actual development of tanks in WWII were lame as heck.

Walt

[Hacksaw]

You ever try to park a vehicle - a tank even - with only one gear? Nawp. They have two gears - Reverse and backwards-reverse. That way they can be neatly parked.

My friend had a Camaro without a reverse gear - we would simply push it out of the parking stop if we were not on a hill. Of course, that has nothing to do with the topic at all :)

[Hacksaw]

On the other hand the U.S. had visionary Walter Christie, whose suspension graced many the Soviet tank.

Didn't we simply give the Soviets most of their tanks through the Merchant Marine?

[WhiskeyPapa]

Didn't we simply give the Soviets most of their tanks through the Merchant Marine?

We gave the Russians about 4,000 Shermans. Of the top of my head, they made @ 33,000 T-34s.

We gave the Russians large numbers of trucks; that allowed them to concentrate on tanks some.

Walt