Posted on 06/02/2009 11:14:06 AM PDT by franksolich
at first which are various quotes from a book, concerning tanks; that part not copied-and-pasted to here
Okay, a whole lot of questions, from a professional civilian.
(a) What were the significant differences between a Sherman tank and a Soviet T-34; one has the impression they were very much alike?
(b) A by-then-antique British Centurion tank has been the only tank I myself have ever seen up close, and operating (although not in combat, of course); how did that tank compare with the Shermans and T-34s?
(c) One gets the impression the Allies did in fact have some heavy tanks, comparable with the German Panthers and Tigers, but not a whole lot of them; some, but not many. What were such equivalent tanks? Did they demand a vastly different training and skill to use, as compared with Shermans, or only a little bit different?
(d) Why did tank tracks, formidable-looking things, last only 2,500 miles, or in the case of German tanks, 500 miles? To this professional civilian, such tracks look virtually indestructible, good for a trip to the moon and back.
(e) If the Soviet-made T-34 was the "best" tank of the war, why wasn't it adapted by the Allies, too--and remember, apparently the T-34 was American-designed in the first place.
(f) What is the current equivalent of the now-obsolete (one assumes now-obsolete) Sherman tank--light-weight, fast moving, smaller, but not so well armored as heavy tanks?
There's probably more questions, but after a recent excursion to Skins's island, the brain is rather sluggish.
(Excerpt) Read more at conservativecave.com ...
I dunno. If you was askin’ ‘bout Nucler Physics, I could find someone to help...
I can answer D and F. Tank treads actually wear out pretty quickly because they don’t roll - they slide. With all that weight on them, there’s lots of friction, and lots of rubber or metal left on the ground. Metal treads like the Germans used wear out faster than rubber treads, which is why all modern tracked vehicles use rubber. Rubber’s also probably cheaper. Plus, it’s a PITA to change a tread out, or even an individual track shoe.
The equivalent modern light tank, though not properly classified as a ‘tank’ but instead as a ‘infantry fighting vehicle,’ would be the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle. It has a turret with TOW missiles, a 7.62mm machine gun, and a 25mm cannon as its main gun. It’s not as heavily armored as a real ‘tank,’ but it’s still armored and (relatively) fast.
Was not the T-34 an American design?
The British gun was the 17 pounder. The Brits didn’t have any outstanding tanks in the latter part of the war so they used ours. The Firefly (brit) and Sherman 76mm were good tanks but the Americans and Brits used speed to defeat the Germans. The key was to swarm the Germans and get behind them while occupying their attention with AT guns and air attacks. Our best tank was a P-47.
By 1944, tanks operated at the whim of aircraft above them. A tank seen from the air was a dead duck.
The T-34 was good because it could run at the enemy at a rapid pace.
The Centurion was a late WW II design that entered service after WW II. The British learned the lessons of WW II and the Centurion had very thick sloped armor and a big gun, originally a 84 mm gun. It was vastly superior tank to both the Sherman and T-34. The fact that Centurions were in service for most of the Cold War period, including Israel is a testament to the great design.
In addition to its ease of manufacture, the T. 34 was equally easy to maintain and for the same reason: simplicity. The T. 34 in effect was AK-47 of tanks. In addition to heavy armor the armor was sloped which proved to be very effective.
In view of the snow and mud which obtained in Russia for about two thirds of the year, the extrawide tracks on the T. 34 meant that it slogged on when the Germans with narrower treads were bogged down.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanks_in_World_War_II
thats the wiki
http://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/world-war-2-tanks.asp
another site
http://military.discovery.com/history/world-war-2/vehicles/vehicles.html
Military Channel site on tanks
Was not the T-34 an American design?
What might be considered the grandfather of the T-34 was the American designed Christie tank. The Soviets bought a few copies and used it as the basis of the BT series of tanks. The T-34 kept the Christie suspension of the original but the design and engine were Soviet.
For the Sherman, speed and pure numbers trumped the German. 4or 5 Shermans to a Tiger.....one gets around and pops him in the ass....over.....[The others? Toast]
T-34 was not an American design. The basic suspension was developed from a design by J Walter Christie, using large road wheels for high speed travel, but he didn’t design the tank. The Soviets had several tanks that used the Christie system (BT-5, BT-7) before the T-34, which first arrived in 1940 and still had some bugs when the Germans invaded in 41.
The German produced by far the most powerful and deadly tanks of WWII.
Take the heavy Tiger Tank. It weighed over 56 tons, it was equipped with an 88 mm cannon and 92 rounds of ammunition. Its frontal armor was 100 mm thick and no allied tank could knock it out even at close range, at least from the front. The Tiger, conversely, could destroy Allied tanks over 2,000 yards away.
The even heavier Tiger II or King Tiger which was used during the Battle of the Bulge weighed in at nearly 65 tons had even thicker armor making it virtually an indestructible fortress unto itself on the battlefield.
The problem was two-fold with these types of tanks: Their sheer size and complex engineering made them impossible to mass produce unlike the Soviet T-34s and American Shermans which were massed produced by the tens of thousands. In addition these heavy tanks were terrible gas guzzlers and Germany was chronically short of fuel especially towards the end of WWII.
I saw a program on tanks on the Military Channel about tanks and many experts regard the medium sized German Panther Tank as the superior tank of WWII. Although smaller than the Tiger, it was faster and more fuel efficient than the Tigers and it also had sloping armor.
The two best tanks in operation today are the American M-1 Abrams Tank and the German Leopard Tank.
The Sherman tank was nick named “Ronson” or “Zippo” because of the way it burned when struck by the German guns or anti tank efforts.
You might be thinking of the T-10-2-4 which ran on Dr. Pepper.
Yes, the Russians understood the importance of simplicity. Reminds me of the (probably apocryphal) story of how NASA spent millions developing a pen that could write in zero gravity while the Russians just used pencils.
(e) If the Soviet-made T-34 was the “best” tank of the war, why wasn’t it adapted by the Allies, too—and remember, apparently the T-34 was American-designed in the first place.
The T-34 was not an American design. Its torsion-bar suspension, however, was based on the designs of an American, Walter Christie. An earlier Soviet light tank was a licensed copy of a Christie tank.
Today one does not really have the differentiation of tank designs of say World War II. With increased engine power and developments in metallurgy and ceramics a tank designer can build a well balanced tank, in terms of armor, firepower and mobility. Back in World War II there was a much greater tradeoff between these characteristics. Probably the closest comparison to the Sherman in the post-war era were the German Leopard I and the French AMX-30 which sacrificed armor protection for more speed.
(d) re: tracks. If you sit down and look at a Cat dozer or other tracked vehicle pushing through the dirt, it will become obvious why their wear out.
Lemme find you a pic:
http://www.afrikakorps.org/_photos/Sherman/VVSSEarlyTopRoller.jpg
Those are from a German tank, but the issues are the same today on Cat construction equipment, tanks, you name it.
From your comments, you’re looking at the outer part of the track mechanism. You’re looking at those nice, big chunks of steel and wondering “Jeez — how can those wear out so quickly?”
You’re looking at the wrong place. Look at that picture and see those little “nubs” that keep the track centered on the bogey wheels? Those little wheels that transfer the weight of the machine down onto the track pads?
Put some dirt, some sand, some rocks down in that place - between the bogeys and the back of the track face. Now run that around a few hundred thousands of times in highly abrasive ground, with small rocks, gravel, you name it.
And what happens? The track starts to slop from side-to-side on the bogey. Pretty soon, the track will jump off the bogeys and you’re officially screwed.
Go look at ads for used farm & construction equipment - look for ads on tracked equipment. It will tell you what percentage wear there is on the “undercarriage” — they’re talking about all that mechanical stuff INSIDE the track orbit. When you have to repair all that, it is a) expensive and b) time consuming. And there’s no way around it - sooner or later, you will need to do it on any machine that isn’t on pavement.
Now, in farm and construction equipment, the undercarriage will last years and years. You might have to re-work the undercarriage after 5 to 15 years of hard use on a farm/construction machine. You might have to rework the undercarriage of a tank in a year - the difference is that the tank is moving right along at 45MPH, and the construction equipment can’t make it to 15MPH, and they rarely, really, really rarely move that fast in day-to-day use.
Tanks live a rough life, even if they’re never in battle.
The increasing size of tanks also limited their movement,as many bridges would not support their weight.
To quote Joe Stalin:
“Quantity has a quality all its own.”
Yes, I've used that expression myself. Although the Russians were terribly wasteful of manpower which, contrary to popular belief, was not inexhaustible.
The Soviets had the KV and JS (Josef Stalin) heavy tanks but as these were more expensive to produce the Soviets favored the T-34. The British had the Churchill tank but it was very slow and served more as an infantry support tank. The Americans developed the Pershing but it entered too late in the war to make a difference.
“Most effective tank ever built”?? So why aren’t the still making them? The T-34 was superior to any tank in the field in the first 2 years of the Eastern Front, and was improved with a larger turret and 85mm gun in 1943. The secret of the T-34’s success was mass production, as was the Sherman’s. The Russians produced at least 50,000 T-34s (nobody knows for sure)while the Germans built less than 2,000 Tigers (all types) 5000+ Panthers and something like 30,000 of all other types, mostly MK IV, of which the later models were roughly equal to the Sherman and T34. Add that to 40,000+ Shermans, plus all other Russian, US, and British production, and you can see the sheer numbers the Germans faced.
All you ever wanted to know about the M4 Sherman, and then some.
As I said, apocryphal. Meant to demonstrate the perils of over-engineering and the value of simplicity.
Very true. There are trade offs with tank design. Hitler was always fascinated with super weapons. The Germans traditionally preferred quality over quantity. The Tiger was truly a super weapon in WWII. The question was whether or not it was very practical considering the resources and engineering needed to produce them not to mention the vast quantities of precious fuel they consumed.
“Quantity has its own quality”- Lenin
Pins and bushings.
It is important to remember that for the most part tanks were not built to fight other tanks. That is what ‘tank destroyers’ were for. Tanks themselves were a multi purpose weapon to go against troops, trucks, trenchs, bunkers, everything. The fact that one model of tank was slightly better than another in a straight dual was not enough reason to scrap the weaker one and try again.
Since the story is false, it doesn't demonstrate the perils you cite ... in fact, the real story demonstrates the opposite. The Russians had been using grease pencils (not the graphite kind). When they had the opportunity, they also bought "space pens", as they were cleaner and more durable than the grease pencils, and not much more expensive than other pens. The real story show that given the opportunity, even the notoriously low-tech Soviets would prefer the more effective, more technologically advanced solution.
Geez, sorry I brought it up guys.
“Most effective tank ever built”?? So why aren’t the still making them?
I make the point that the T. 34 tank was effective because it was mass produced and you repeat the point after having taken issue with me. You might as well ask me why they are not still manufacturing the DC-3.
It does not do much good to have a perfect tank if you can produce only one example. I said that the T.-34 was arguably most effective tank ever built because the Russians were able to build enough of them to dominate the theater. One of the characteristics in judging a tank or any weapon system for that matter is whether the damn thing can be produced. The Germans also produced the jet but could not get enough into the air to make a difference. Was the jet better than the Spitfire? Certainly not.
A weapon system, much like historic hecharacters, should be judged within the context of its time.
The T. 34 among other tanks was even used by the North Vietnamese and their final push. So the tank did have longevity. Sort of like a DC-3.
I’ll take a swing at d) and f):
Tank treads wear out because tanks are freaking heavy, and move quite fast. That’s a lot of moving parts that have to tolerate an extremely harsh environment (weight, friction, torsion, mud, dust, sand) with no lubrication. The plates don’t necessarily wear out all that fast, but the parts holding the track together would wear insanely fast. However, there is also some wear to the plates, and since the tank relies on the textured surface of the plates for traction, wear has a direct effect on the performance.
for f): A current light tank in the US inventory might be the 551 Sheridan, which is air-droppable (barely). A Bradley would tear up a Sheridan, but the Sheridan is half-decent against some opponents.
It’s the internet. ;’}
Say something not-quite-right, everybody and his brother jumps all over you.
You seem to be confusing effectiveness with mass production. The T34 was the most effective tank in 41-42. It was surpassed by the Tiger and Panther, but was built in huge numbers. The reason T34s are still being used in backwater countries is that there were so many of them made, not that they have a chance against any modern tank. T34s were even seen in use in the recent Balkan wars. If they had Shermans, they would have used them, too.
Tee-hee, imaging being an internet expert on space pencils. You wouldn’t get many chances to show off.
Most effective tank in 41-42 is definitely not the same thing as most effective tank ever built. Those are two different things.
“(f) What is the current equivalent of the now-obsolete (one assumes now-obsolete) Sherman tank—light-weight, fast moving, smaller, but not so well armored as heavy tanks?”
The last medium tank the Army had was the M551 Sheridan. They were capable of being dropped from an aircraft. They were primarily used in the 82nd Divisions 3/73 Armor and there was a Troop (Company) of them in the 11th ACR in Fulda.
They were scheduled to be replaced by the XM8 but Clinton killed the project in the mid-90’s and as such killed the Armor Battalion at Bragg.
The Stryker has kinda take on the role of the medium tank/armored scout vehicle...but the only tank we use now is the M1A2 Abrams.
My Brigade Commander and the Battalion Commander for one of our Armor units when I was in Iraq cut their teeth on the Sheridan.
The young kids of the Airborne Infantry unit that was attatched to us were shocked at the sight of a tanker with a mustard stain on his jump wings.
“Even then it (Sherman Firefly) was still thin skinned and burned. “
Yes. Sadly, the Germans called them “Tommy cookers,” a Tommy being the common nickname for a British soldier.
In fact, for a variety of reasons, I'm a huge fan of the "space pen". I own several ... well used.
Yes, very, very true.
I think the point is best bade that in WWII, it was industrial manufacturing that overwhelmed the Axis powers, not superior equipment. We’d probably both agree that in terms of technology and quality, the Germans made better tanks. But they spent so much time and effort refining and changing them that they sacrificed parts interchangeability and supply availability as well as total numbers of tanks.
Just about any German tank was more than a match for any Sherman tank in a one-on-one battle.
When it was 12 Shermans vs. one Panzer... the odds shifted a bit.
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