Re: Top 10 tanks of the war
Let's just stick to mobility for the moment. Your stats above are "book" values and of little relevance on their own or outside the world of engineering test tracks.
When it comes to off road vehicular mobility there are two broad categories that really matter: Agility and flotation.
Agility is automotive performance. Acceleration, torque, tractive power, that sort of thing. Flotation is how the vehicle's wheels, tracks, or whatever interact with the soil / ground under them. These two factors in combination are what really matters in determining an AFV's mobility at a tactical, and sometimes operational, level.
For example, the Sherman uses a rubber bushed double pin track that is tensioned and has return rollers. While this track is not as efficent at low speeds, say under 15 mph it is actually more efficent energy-wise at speeds above that. The result is that a Sherman driving on a paved road (like in a long road march) is more economical and has less rolling resistance than a tank with a steel track lacking return rollers.
Steel tracks also have the bad disadvantage of being very hard on most paved road surfaces. These tracks will generally tear the road up in short order. This too is a problem particularly if there are follow on units needing to use the road.
Then there is the issue of straight weight. Heavier vehicles are restricted on what surfaces they can move and this is true to an extent regardless of ground pressure exerted by the vehicle. Here, a very heavy tank like the Tiger is at a disadvantage. It will damage all but the most heavily built roads (and in the WW II era there were few roads designed for a load use of 50 tons or more). It is restricted on what bridges it can cross (one reason the Germans increased fording capacity).
Acceleration is how lively the vehicle is. How quick it can go from a standing start to whatever speed. This is important for a combat vehicle actually. A smooth and quick acceleration allows a crew to move out of danger more rapidly. A higher horsepower to weight ratio also says something about torque and maneuverability or "liveliness" of the vehicle.
Anyway, what you find is that the Germans and US as two examples had very different ideas about what tanks were for and what criteria they were looking for in them. Clearly the Germans were far more concerned about the defensive capacity of their tanks. They sought long range gunfire and antitank performance. Their armor layouts more and more reflected a view that engagements would be head on. There was less concern about operational mobility that would be required in a deep offensive operation or breakthrough.
The US on the other hand concerned themselves more, at least initially, with operational mobility. Their tanks were optimized for use in breakthroughs and not tank on tank combat. Good road and high speed automotive performance gave them what they were looking for. Excellent maintainability and reliability added to this too.
Then the US coupled this with an unmatched civil engineering capacity. That is they could build roads where none existed. They could bridge rivers of any size in hours (the 291st Engineer battalion put three bridges across the Rhine in less than 24 hours as one example). The inclusion of masses of heavy construction machinery in engineer battalions and dozer tanks in tank battalions made a huge difference.
For the Germans, if a bridge that could take a Tiger didn't exist for a river crossing it might be a week or more before the crossing could occur if the tank could not ford the river.
Soils are another factor in the mobility equation. The Soviets set their tank design ground pressure for all but the heaviest vehicles at about 9 psi, at least initially. This value was chosen as it allows mobility on saturated chernozym soil common in Russia. Above this value a tank would break the crust of the soil and become bogged in the muck below.
Thus, the repeated German surprise at the Soviets operating tanks in places they assumed tanks could never go.
You see, I see you as looking at this like sports statistics. How many touchdowns, home runs, plays made etc., by individual players. But, tanks don't operate in a vacuum. They are part of a larger system in modern warfare. It is the system that needs examination. On the part of the Germans they failed to appreciate the need for a good maintenance and civil engineering system to go with their mechanized units.
Instead, they optimized their equipment for great tactical performance. The US and Soviets optimized theirs for great operational performance as part of a much larger system. The result was the Germans could win locally more often than not but ended up losing the larger battle virtually every time.
It was a design flaw in itself that their doctrine had them producing the wrong kind of tanks for the war they were fighting.
Last edited by Slipdigit; August 3rd, 2009 at 05:37 PM.
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