I have two questions! Help me please!?

I Have some questions, Its for a school project. If you can, please help me answer them. =]

1.How did technology improve the tanks capability throughout the war?

2. How did the tank help in war?



I just joined!

 

:-? Anyone there?...Even if you cant help me...maybe you can reply and say "sorry, I cant help you..."

 

It's all the same forum. The same question need not be posted in multiple sections.

 

Try being a bit more patient.

Most of Europe was asleep when you posted and whilst this is a knowledgable forum it is not the busiest, there aren't people on here night and day checking incase someone asks a question they can answer.

I'm sure someone will be able to help out a bit.

Welcome to the Forum.

 

Metallurgy - for improved armour and weapons manufacture
Operational Research - for finding why things happened and how to make them happen the way you want
Ballistics (computing)- better gunnery
Mathematics (computing)- better and faster calculations for doing the original designs and "tweaking" them
Mass Production Techniques - getting more tanks out faster
Optics - better gunsights
etc etc. The list is probably endless but that's just off the top of my head.
To answer

it would probably be easier to reverse the question - how would the war have gone if the tank didn't exist - WWI stalemate on the French border, no Blitzkrieg etc

 

Sorry, I can't help you.

 

Welcome to the forum. I may not be too much of a technological type but I might try to answer this question:

The tank basically shaped what land war looked like during World War II. Without it, armies would have to rely on infantry and artillery to attack and defend, which as World War I showed would have been hugely costly with the advent of machine guns and such. The tank provided a way out of this type of warfare by bringing mobility back to the battlefield and providing mobile firepower coupled with invulnerability to small arms fire. However, during World War II more and more effort was taken to develop weapons specifically meant to defeat enemy tanks, which made tank combat a whole new type of warfare, costly and never a guaranteed success.

 

That is questionable - the Germans infantry did rather well without tanks in WWI.

Christian

 

but at a slower pace - and of course they were stopped.

But even leaving that aside - thanks to WW1 defensive techniques had developed to the point where a purely infantry assault would be very unlikely to succeed.

 

They weren't really stopped - the attack just ran out of momentum, because of heavy casualties, which also means that the German army was incapable of withstanding the following Allied offensive. Had the Germans employed the same tactics in 1914, however, it is very likely they would have reached Paris.

 

the never ending story of tank-anti tank.
" x made this tank, very powerfull but then y develpoed a beter antitank gun, and so on and on"

 

I don't pretend to be an expert on WW1, but I have certainly formed the impression that the development of infantry tactics by the Germans in the last year of the war was more revolutionary in its impact in that conflict than the tank. It just wasn't so visible!

Tony Williams: Military gun and ammunition website and discussion forum

 

The tank was the most influential factor of the fighting in World War II. Not only did it entail a new style of combat, but it changed the war armies were organized, deployed, and fought as a cohersive unit.

The tank allowed fast, rapid, decisive attacks into enemy terriotry, completly avoiding the endless bloodbath that was WWI. Now armies could move hundreds of miles in a few days and topple nations in mere weeks. Ironically, this did little to end the war quickly, but rathered ended up spreading the fighting to areas far larger than those of the Great War.

The tank revolutionized warfare, to say the least. The tank is the defining symbol of WWII.

 

Generally, the trend of tank development in WW II was bigger guns, better ammo, better optics, thicker armor, more reliability, easier mass production, better crew survivability, etc. These trends were not without diversions and digressions. Zhukov (sp) gave the best reponse. Without tanks, WW II as we know it would not have occurred. Without tanks, the Germans would not have achieved the rapid smashing successes they did. They would not have been able to resist the Russian superiority in man power as long as they did. Good luck with your term paper or assignment. As a history major and teacher I'd say that your topic is so broad as to approach unmanageability. Narrow it if you can.

 

Tony
I tend to agree, at least to the extent tanks were used during WWI (i.e. as infantry support). If used as Fuller had suggested, this might have been different.

Still, the tactics used by the German infantry, while impressive in magnitude, was not different from the basic tactics used by von Clausewitz and Moltke.

phip
Remember that Napoleon advanced further into Russia than Germany did, succeeding in capturing Moscow, and Germany in WWI also advanced far into Russia (I don't remember the extent). As I recall, the advance by both Napoleon and Imperial Germany was faster than that of the Third Reich.

 

But then again Christian,you are ignoring the fact that the Russians themselves has tanks to slow down the otherwise "rapid" advance into russia.

 

To put it more basically, Napoleon and the Second Reich faced an obsolete miltary and political power which saved its skin only by using the vast distances and manpower resources of its country. The Third Reich faced a proud, newly industrialized country with the resources and leadership required to wage modern war (though not in the first year).

 

I will try to answer question number one.

Rivetted armour, to welded plates of armour, to single castings of armour hulls: such as the turret, front or rear parts of the hull.

Find a walnutt: Step one, crush the walnut in a plastic bag, when broken up try to imagine rivetting all those pieces together; not too strong is it? Step two,think of welding all those parts together with the realization that the weakest part of anything welded is the weld itself. Step three, take a walnut and try to break it into two or three pieces only; then imagine how few welds there is to make it a single piece. You will understand the basic concept of better strength of the armour, therefore, a better chance to resist any impacting projectile. With this cast technology the benfots to manufacturing is: standardization, speed of putting pieces together to name just two benefits in advanceemnt of making a tank.

With this said I am sure you can see that skills developed and leasons learned are transeferable t the welding of say an automobile, a ship or anything else you can think of.

If you possess a better manufacting rate, better quality control etc anyone that can out produce and maintain a high enough level of quality components will be able to replace a destroyed vehicle faster than the enemy will more than like not only win tha battle filed but ensure the won territory remains in control of the victor.

In summary quality, speed, dependability, ease of use, low production costs, and ability of the tank to be serviced in the filed are all realted; therefore, key issues such as crew survivablity rates are greatly increased.

This just one example of how better technology helped build the tank, and the fact that this new techology can influence other manufacturing
processes.

The Mutant Poodle

 

Hey! wow thanks for all you're input! =D

 

Mutant Poodle, most countries found welded preferable to cast. Only Britain cast components had the same quality as their RHA steel.