Classic Top Ten Tanks

[asianobserve]

The French does have 1 classic tank, the baby grandpa of all modern MBTs, Renault FT.

It's actually a cutie... like a French poodle:

 

[Armand2REP]

Bollocks, and it is clear that You have not even smallest idea about tanks development.

The first autoloader designed for a tank was in... USA, in one of T20 prototype series, the T22 if I remember correctly, also Germans were experimanting with autoloaders. But first MBT with autoloader was T-64 from Soviet Union, we can also add here Swedish Strv103 but this was more an SPG than a tank. French designs used something that we can call semi autoloader, but it was never real autoloader.

The first country that designed APFSDS ammunition and smoothbore guns was.. Oh my Soviet Union!

The first country that used thermal sights was... oh my USA!

So where are these innovations made in France? Oh yeah I get it, in French fantasions, no offence here.

First auto-loader...


First smoothbore fin stabalised rounds and thermal night sights...


Sucks to be wrong = you

The French does have 1 classic tank, the baby grandpa of all modern MBTs, Renault FT.

It was the world's first "modern tank" with the placement of items and rotating turret that tanks share to this day. France is the pioneer of most tank technology.

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Armand,
French tanks were horrible during Early WW2, They have good mobility, firepower also Armour but weren't practical..

 

[Damian]

First auto-loader...

You have absoluterly no knowledge, this is not autoloader, there is no automated process, the whole system in AMX-13 was more similiar to principles of automatic firearms reloading process, system is based on coil spring, this is not true autoloader...

First smoothbore fin stabalised rounds and thermal night sights...

AMX-30 in B2 variant is using 105mm rifled gun designated CN-105-F1 You amateur, and look when AMX-30B2 was fielded.

Sucks to be wrong = you

I'am at least not stupid and I do not base my knowledge on stupid movies from YT but my knwledge is based on books. From where You take information that AMX-30 use smoothbore gun, You are really from France? I do not belive, You don't have even smallest idea about tanks development history in Your own country.

Not surprise but mass, Their is only 10% of tank loses to German during head on Armour fights, most German tanks were destroyed in Air raids..

Another stupid myth about air superiority, air forces are not effective against land forces even today, not to mention days when there were no PGM's. Most German AFV's were destroyed due to allied or soviet armored forces or by mechanical failures, these destroyed by air forces are very small numbers.

Tiger was a miracle machine

Only on paper, in reality it was a complete failure, and proofs that Germans back then did not have even smallest idea how properly design AFV's, overweighted, underpowered, oversized, unreliabale vehicles are definetly miracle machines in popular culture, not in reality. Still PzKpfw. VI Ausf. H1/E was better design that this complete fail model Ausf. B.

Abt M26 it have serious problems with its 90mm cannon which was over weighted, Also its 47tons compare 50 tons of Tiger-1, Tiger-2 was most powerful tank and carry most lethal gun of 71L, Allied had nothing to compare to it..

? There were no problems with 90mm gun of M26, there were problems with ammunition however due to weak quality control. And what have weight to protection levels? M26 weighting 41 metric tons had comparabale protection to 56 tons Tiger, so it is obvious that US machine was better designed.

But I know I know, myths, propaganda, lack of understanding how AFV's should be designed, popular culture showing Tiger and King Tiger as best tanks of WWII etc. etc. etc.

Its a outstanding deign, In late period of war lack of spares and air-power were responsible of its doom..
IS-2 were destroyed by Tiger-1 in many instance in eastern front, What was dreaded is SU-152..

Outstanding?! Where do You read such BS? It was unreliabale to such level that designers of this thing should be shot for fucking up the whole design, Hitler itself should be shot by Wehrmacht high officers for demanding such useless vehicle to be fielded.

And yes many IS-2 were destroyed, as many Tigers were destroyed, read about Tiger tanks units losses on eastern front.

 

[Damian]

More about Armands lies and misinformation.

AMX-30B2 that he thinks was first tank with smoothbore gun and thermal sights was fielded in... 1982 oh my, 3 years after Leopard 2, and 2 years after M1 Abrams, and actually the M1 Abrams was first tank equipped with thermal sights, because first batch of Leo2's had simple active IR night sight, while Leo2 was first NATO and western tank with smoothbore gun.

Chars français - 1966 AMX 30 B
Chars français - 1982 AMX 30 B2
Chars français - 1995 AMX 30 B2 BRENUS

Yes, this prooves Armands "great an deep knowledge" about tanks.

 

[JBH22]

^^ for him the made in france tag is the best as such he becomes oblivious to facts,but let's understand his patriotic zeal

 

[Damian]

There is a difference between patriotism and blind fanatism that ignores obvious historic facts and prises even lies to adversaries than just accept the fact that he can be wrong.

But hey, even French sources seems to prooves that first smoothbore gun firing smoothbore adapted APFSDS ammunition was CN-120/26 L52 gun mounted on Leclerc, also it seems that Leclerc was first and the only French tank with thermal sights, while older tanks used only low light night vision systems or active IR night vision systems.

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Another stupid myth about air superiority, air forces are not effective against land forces even today, not to mention days when there were no PGM's. Most German AFV's were destroyed due to allied or soviet armored forces or by mechanical failures, these destroyed by air forces are very small numbers.

Only on paper, in reality it was a complete failure, and proofs that Germans back then did not have even smallest idea how properly design AFV's, overweighted, underpowered, oversized, unreliabale vehicles are definetly miracle machines in popular culture, not in reality. Still PzKpfw. VI Ausf. H1/E was better design that this complete fail model Ausf. B.

? There were no problems with 90mm gun of M26, there were problems with ammunition however due to weak quality control. And what have weight to protection levels? M26 weighting 41 metric tons had comparabale protection to 56 tons Tiger, so it is obvious that US machine was better designed.

But I know I know, myths, propaganda, lack of understanding how AFV's should be designed, popular culture showing Tiger and King Tiger as best tanks of WWII etc. etc. etc.

Outstanding?! Where do You read such BS? It was unreliabale to such level that designers of this thing should be shot for fucking up the whole design, Hitler itself should be shot by Wehrmacht high officers for demanding such useless vehicle to be fielded.

And yes many IS-2 were destroyed, as many Tigers were destroyed, read about Tiger tanks units losses on eastern front.

This will explain most i mentioned:
Search for Tank evolutions, Watch all parts:

Credit Goes to:
1. David Fletcher of Royal Armored corps, Tank Museum, Bovington..
2. Prof. John Erickson of Defense Studies, University of Edinburgh..
3. Dr. Simon Trew of Royal Military Collage Sandhurst..
4. Daniel Taylor: Author- ' Villers - bocage '
5. Dr.Stephen Badsey of Royal Military Academy Sandhurst..




Also for more Info: PDF of Tiger call 'MBI - Tiger Tanks of World War II' , But Now it Can be Only Downloaded via torrent:

MBI - Tiger Tanks of World War II.pdf "º isoHunt "º the BitTorrent & P2P search engine

By: Micheal Green

 

[Damian]

This will explain most i mentioned:
Search for Tank evolutions, Watch all parts:

Credit Goes to:
1. David Fletcher of Royal Armored corps, Tank Museum, Bovington..
2. Prof. John Erickson of Defense Studies, University of Edinburgh..
3. Dr. Simon Trew of Royal Military Collage Sandhurst..
4. Daniel Taylor: Author- ' Villers - bocage '
5. Dr.Stephen Badsey of Royal Military Academy Sandhurst..

Some sort of another "brilliant" Discovery Channel series? If yes then thanks but no, I preffer books.

Also for more Info: PDF of Tiger call 'MBI - Tiger Tanks of World War II' , But Now it Can be Only Downloaded via torrent:

MBI - Tiger Tanks of World War II.pdf "º isoHunt "º the BitTorrent & P2P search engine

By: Micheal Green

Ah, this is more interesting, I will try to get my hands on it and later compare with other sources.

But overall design comparrision is against Tiger.

Look M26 weight is 41-42 tons, Tiger 56 tons and IS-2 is 46 tons, all of them with comparabale protection and firepower but both M26 and IS-2 were lighter and much more mobile.

So who knew better how properly design a tank? Definetly Americans and Soviets.

Also M26 was later classified as medium tank, look Americans designed a medium tank with protection and firepower comparabale to heavy tank! And still even if up armored over side surfaces, M26 should weight below 50 tons.

As I said, Tiger was not good design in reality, too big, overweight, underpowered, unreliabale.

BTW:

IS-2 armor schematics, and later compare this with Tiger and then compare weight of both vehicles, what vehicles were better designed from protection and weight point of view?

 

[Kunal Biswas]

The people i mentioned abt are Historians of War, 'Royal Military Collage Sandhurst', 'Defense Studies, University of Edinburgh'..

Read and watch before you give your views..

 

[Damian]

The people i mentioned abt are Historians of War, 'Royal Military Collage Sandhurst', 'Defense Studies, University of Edinburgh'..

Read and watch before you give your views..

I watched few times in my childhood Discovery Channel series about military history and weapons systems history, and these are useless, I prefer books because in books there is a bibliography and books are more credible, these programs on Discovery Channel are edited and probably even if these people have knowledge and opinions based on real facts, their words in these programs are many times complete bollocks.

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Than read their books..

 

[Damian]

I will, if there are any good monographys about specific vehicles made by them, if not then what's the point?

Bit I provided proofs that Tiger was just terrible design, Soviets and Americans were abale to design lighter, more compact vehicles with comparabale levels of protection and firepower that were also simpler, reliabale.

So once again I will ask, who knew better how properly design AFV's back then?

 

[Kunal Biswas]

Back than ?, What time line you are taking abt ?

Their is huge development in tank deign during WW2 and it was rapid too, Only After British captured Tiger in Tunisia it helped to developed Allied their own heavy tanks, Where as Russian started from KV-1, British come up with Churchill and US relied on M4 Sherman & M36, until very late in War M46 appeared, By than German Armour quality dropped drastically coz of lack of specific alloys, Production facilitates were mostly out of action, Few tanks remained to face Russian advance..

Other wise German had superior quality tanks compare to any-other..





I have given you specific Operation names, Google abt it, Read the kills made by Tiger Crew, And do see what type of tank existed in time when most Tank battle occurred & Results..

I have also given you PDF link, Documentaries which are not of fancy discovery channel but well made documentaries..
Read and observe the evolution of tanks during the era..

 

[Damian]

Back than ?, What time line you are taking abt ?

WWII.

Their is huge development in tank deign during WW2 and it was rapid too, Only After British captured Tiger in Tunisia it helped to developed Allied their own heavy tanks,

How the hell Tiger helped western Allies build their own heavy tanks if their heavy tanks were developed with different design pilosophy in mind and they did not repeat wrong decisions that Germans made?

Where as Russian started from KV-1, British come up with Churchill and US relied on M4 Sherman & M36, until very late in War M46 appeared,

KV-1 was a very good tank for it's time. Churchil never was good tank design, it was too archaic. US relied on M4 and from initial versions they developed incredibly good medium tank, M36 was TD not tank so what the point? M46 never take any action in WWII, You confused it with M26.

By than German Armour quality dropped drastically coz of lack of specific alloys, Production facilitates were mostly out of action, Few tanks remained to face Russian advance..

And this all because Germans completely ignored all basic principles of tanks design, they were putting more and more armor making bigger and bigger vehicles that were underpowered, overweighted etc. etc. etc. even promisive E series that were intended as replacement for used vehicles, had the same wrong design philosophy of incredibly big and heavy vehicles, while You can have smaller, more compact still well protected vehicles.

Other wise German had superior quality tanks compare to any-other..

Superior quality? Tiger with it's unreliability was far from the term "quality".

I have given you specific Operation names, Google abt it, Read the kills made by Tiger Crew, And do see what type of tank existed in time when most Tank battle occurred & Results..

And? What is the point, we are not talking here about battles, operations, specific crews battles records but about specific vehicles.

Why You just don't accept simple facts that Germans never builded really superior from design point of view vehicles, they just have luck that Allies and Soviets concentrated on mass production not production of superior vehicles.

I have also given you PDF link, Documentaries which are not of fancy discovery channel but well made documentaries..
Read and observe the evolution of tanks during the era..

You did not give me any PDF link.

And remember that I read many more good books about this subject that You probably even seen in Your entire life Kunal.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

I would not claim that Wiki is the last word on anything, but:

Tank classification - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medium_tank

Heavy tank - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Damian]

Tank Classification is rather fluent thing, in WWII it was based on vehicle weight and armor, but in different countries it was seen differently, in Germany Panther was Medium Tank while Allies and Soviets seen it as Heavy Tanks.

M26 was initially designated as Heavy Tank but after WWII it was redesignated as Medium Tank, Soviets seen KV and IS series as heavy tanks, despite fact that these were lighter than german heavy tanks.

IMHO classification should be rather based on 4 main features of such vehicle.

It's armor protection, weight, firepower and intended role in armed forces structure. But still such classification is not perfect.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Damien wrote

There was never such thing as Chobham armor, it is simple "codename" given to armor by journalists from mass media, proper codename is Burlington, and it was used only in the first, basic model designated M1, from the M1IP variant and in M1A1 variant, they used US designed composite armor that was different to Burlington armor but probably based on it. In 1988 US.Army fielded M1A1HA with a completely new composite armor design that is using also Depleted Uranium alloy elements in it's structure. Currently the most modern variants of M1 tank, M1A1SA, M1A1FEP and M1A2SEP are using 3rd or probably (if rumors about recent upgrades are true) even 4th generation of this armor.

That is interesting, When my National Guard unit (252 Bn) first got the M1 the word was mechanics needed a secret security clearance to work on the armor.

I was at different times a driver and a loader on the M60 tanks & was sorry to see it didn't make the top 10. By the time the Abrams came along I was a chemical operations NCO (impressed by smoke generation by the M1.)

 

[Damian]

BTW, important news.

Jane's Defence Weekly reports that the future structure of the British army is still in limbo, with even deeper cuts under consideration. This might include retaining just one AS90 regiment, equipping the rest of the artillery regiments with 105mm Light Guns, perhaps buying some M777, and retaining just one Challenger 2 regiment. As the so-called "seed corn" option, this would allow the armoured corps to retain at least a minimum level of expertise for regeneration at a later date.

The article didn't say anything about axing FRES SV, though.

Britains new answer to FRES? - Tanknet - Page 21

It is just insane, only one regiment with only 35 tanks?! Stupidity of politicians just exceed any expectations.

So USMC alone will be stronger than whole British Armed Forces...

That is interesting, When my National Guard unit (252 Bn) first got the M1 the word was mechanics needed a secret security clearance to work on the armor.

They still need such security clearance, we know more or less actual armor design these days but it is still very far from complete knowledge.

AFAIK Burlington was rather simple composite armor without dynamic (non energetic or non explosive reactive or semi reactive) elements, this changed in 1988, the M1A1HA armor was probably first US composite armor with dynamic elements.

I was at different times a driver and a loader on the M60 tanks & was sorry to see it didn't make the top 10.

M60 series were really good tanks at their times, with surprisingly good protection despite that it was only simple RHA and CHA armor.

By the time the Abrams came along I was a chemical operations NCO (impressed by smoke generation by the M1.)

Integral smoke generators in M1's are currently disabled because of currently used fuel the JP-8, but with Diesel fuel these generators can be used again.

 

[W.G.Ewald]

Not to mean any disrespect to anyone else, I would nominate Damien as the DFI resident expert on the subject of armor.