Foes of the Battlefield:T-54 Vs M-47

These two early cold wars rivals as many of you guys know, equiped several armies in spawning days of East vs West rivalry.

Which do you prefer ?
And if you had to chose one as your 'armies' principal MBT which of the two would it be and why?

M 47 Patton MBT
1952
5 man crew
46,170Kg
3.01metres heigh
6.31 metres hull length
101mm Max steel armour
max speed 48KPH
Max Range 130 Km
powered by Continental V12 cylinder petrol aircooled engine
M63 90mm gun, 2x M1919 7.62mm MG and one 12.7mm Browning HMG.

T 54 MBT
1947
4 man crew
41,500 Kg
2.4 metres heigh
6.04 metres hull length
203mm max steel armour
Max speed 50 KPH
Max Range 510 Km
Powered by a V-12 Water cooled diesel
100mm gun, 2x SGMT 7.62mm MG and one 12.7mm HMG

If I was going to equip my hypothetical army I would chose the T-54, on the grounds it is a more simplified design, better range, diesel engine, thicker armour, better main gun, smaller target area and is more user friendly to a less technical minded army.

Though having said that I am not a tremendous fan of the Patton series of tanks.

Kym

 

The T-54 gets that range advantage from external fuel tanks. If you drop them off, the T-54 looses quite a but of range. I can't say for sure but since the T-54 is smaller than the M-47, it would have an internal fuel tank of equal or smaller capacity.

The inside of the Patton is more spacious which means the crew can work more comfortably which increases their performance.

 

True
But the T-54 is damned cheaper to make.

Granted that the M-47 is an interim tank, until the M48. But they equiped several NATO armies and with 8,000 of them made they were the Wests equal to the T-54 for a time.

Was an M-47 worth one T-54 let alone 3 ?

 

The T-54 definitely had some advantages over the M-47. The biggest, to me anyway, is that is has a low profile silhouette which makes it more difficult to hit. Cheaper is usually better but you also have to consider that the US could afford to build more expensive tanks.

 

But in this case, the more expensive tank (M-47) was apparently not as good as the cheaper tank (T-54).

I go with the T-54 - an older design that is smaller, faster, better armed & armoured...
And is the same against the M-48!

 

I agree...
I would rather equip my army with T-54s as opposed to the M47 and with some money Id re-arm them with the L7 105mm. Id still have change left over.

Kym

 

I am a staunch American and I would still go T-54, but the M-47 does have some pluses too. I would like would like to wonder though if an army equiping with Soviet made MBTs would be able to purchase/lisence build British weapons.

On a side note, I go M-48 Patton all the way over T-54. just being named Patton gives you something that's above words. :bang:

 

Countries like India & Pakistan (and Finland, and...) have militaries that are a strange mixture of American, Russian, British and home-made equipment.

 

i never thought the Patton tanks did the man any justice

i'd rather have a T-FORTY FOUR than a Patton any day

i much prefer the centurion

 

it seems to me that, with the given information in the first post, the patton never stood a chance.
Though I think it's a very interesting point by stating that the interior was more spacy and therefore improved the crew's performance.
Is there any data referring to these tanks considering their battlefield performance?

 

I not sure they were ever used in armor combat. Maybe in some small engagements but I don't think anybody used them combat anywhere. Hopefully somebody can provide us with some more info.

 

I thought a Jordanian M-47 brigade fought against the Israelis in '67.
(I think they were wiped-out if I remember correctly.)

The Pakistanis were also equipped with M-47 Pattons when they were fighting the Indo-Pakistani War of '65.
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"Two British journalists who visited one of the Patton squadrons of the 25th Cavalry after the ceasefire counted 25 burned-out Centurions in a three-mile stretch near Chawinda even after the Indians had begun retrieving destroyed vehicles. Of these, 11 were in a field no more than 800 yards across - a grim testimony to the intensity of these encounters. The Pakistanis admitted losing 44 tanks in the Sialkot sector, but claimed 120 Indian tanks, and the British journalists saw no reason to doubt them.

Following the war India admitted losing 128 tanks, and this probably consisted of about a dozen in the Lahore sector, a similar number in the Chhamb area, and the remainder in the Sialkot sector. The Pakistanis admitted losing 165 tanks, more than half of which were knocked out in the debacle at Asal Uttar. These losses are probably on the low side, but many tanks damaged in combat were later retrieved and put back into action. Both sides claimed an excess of 400 tank kills on the ground and about 100 from the air attacks, which is clearly excessive.

The Patton emerged from the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965 with a tarnished reputation. The fiasco at Asal Uttar was the source of the disparagement, though a contributory factor was the exaggerated esteem in which the Patton had been held by both the Indian and Pakistani soldier before the war. Yet no vehicle, whatever its technical merits, can survive the kind of gross tactical bungling which characterised the Pakistani charge into the tank trap at Asal Uttar. Much attention has been paid to the supposed advantages of the Centurion over the Patton in these encounters, ignoring the fact that the majority of Patton causalities were caused by recoilless rifles, artillery and anti-tank guns, and that a third of the Pattons lost were simply abandoned due to lack of fuel and ammunition. In the Sialkot sector outnumbered Pattons performed exceedingly well in the hands of the 25th Cavalry and other regiments of the 6th Armoured Division, which exacted a disproportionately heavy toll of Centurions from the Poona Horse and Hodson's Horse. The Indian Army has made much of the fact that some of its Centurions survived repeated hits; yet have failed to point out that the majority of tanks in the Sialkot sector were Shermans whose guns were inadequate even in 1944. Neither the Indian nor Pakistani Army showed any great facility in the use of armoured formations in offensive operations, whether the Pakistani 1st Armoured Division at Asal Uttar or the Indian 1st Armoured Division at Chawinda. In contrast, both proved adept with smaller forces in a defensive role such a the 2nd Armoured Brigade at Asal Uttar and the 25th Cavalry at Chawinda, where they defeated their better equipped but clumsier foes. The M47 and M48 did not play a major role in the 1971 war.

(Source: The M47 and M48 Patton Tanks by Steven J. Zaloga)

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Maybe not so much a reflection of the hardware, but the tactics used. It appears the M-47 Patton could hold it's own against the Centurian, all things being equal.
I hope this helps.

Tim

 

Trouble is - what Centurion version was it?



I do wonder about the Cold-War tanks. Which were best?
All the battle experiance that has been had all comes out as 'inconclusive' - mis-matches in equipment, tactics, troop skills, whatever basically mean that the only conclusive statement we can make was that the Centurian was better than the T-34. Well, duh.

In pure technical stats, the USA does seem to have been behind the UK and USSR all the way (until the M1A1), but pure stats can be misleading.

http://www.fun-online.sk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3302

In total sales, The USA wins (I don't count the USSR's massive production here, as their exports tended to be to countries who had no choice [Warsaw Pact] or no other supplier [China]) - but then that could be more a simple case of economics than ability.