Favortie Tank of WWII?

This question probably belongs in another forum but since we're on the Tank issue here goes........ Was the German tank used in the Indiana Jones movie "The Last Crusade" a captured Char-b or an earlier Brit' tank from WW1?

 

Old Indiana being chased thru the desert on his horse by a tank??

If thats the one..Im no tank expert...but too high profile and wide..to be a Char B..know they could take to pieces and build their own inventin....but looked more like a Churchill chasis with a homemade turret on top...

If its the clip where falls over hill...thats gotta be a model...

Any indiana experts remember it then?

 

This one?

http://www.theraider.net/showimage.php?ImageUrl=http://www.theraider.net/films/crusade/gallery/screens/c36.jpg

 

It is not German. Looks like a varient of the British Mark V tank.

http://mailer.fsu.edu/~akirk/tanks/

 

Now you say that, I didnt take much notice to the side of the tank...Still looks a little low at the front...But my tank regogniton aint too good..if its got a star its allied if its got a cross its errr..the enemy..

 

It's not German, French, British or American.
It's pure Hollywood

 

I'm sure it is pure h-wood but I couldn't remember exactly. Does look like an ole Brit' WW1 though!

 

Reviving another old thread...

Taking into account that a tank is supposed to be an optimal combination of armor, firepower and maneuverability, I think the 3 top candidates are Panther G, T-34/85 and IS-2. I voted Panther G.

 

I would have to say the Tiger II as it was a great tank. i remember reading (on achtung panzer) a quote of an allied soldier "5 shermans suprised a Tiger they all opened fire and the Tiger backed up and made a quick exit with no signs of great damage".


also when im playing BattleField (http://www.eagames.com/pccd/battlefield1942/) the Tigers are near impossible to knock out and unstoppable to even the T34.To also get off track abit what is your thoughts about WW2 games ?

 

I hate this comparisons, because tanks (like much else) are a product of their specifications, design philosophies, available resources, tooling, etc, all of this to be considered within restricted timeframes. The Panther was :
- impossible in 1941,
- a flaming death trap in 1943,
- a heck of a tank in 1944.

This is yet another instance of all statements in general being dangerous.

Speaking of design philosophies, the Pussians were somewhat puzzled with the fact that the Panther had a 75mm gun, while the JS II for the same weight lugged a 122mm. They thought it was a waste of a good chassis!

And the JS II wasn't even a tank to be produced in earth shaking quantities, IIRC it was to be made at a 250/month rate. Why? Because it was a specialist tank, for the independent heavy breaktrhough tank regiments, so for this and other reasons how can we compare this with the Panther? Different tanks for different purposes, all they had in common was the fact both had tracks, wheels, an engine, a rotating tower, a gun, and a varying amount of armour!

This kind of debates tends to go the comparison between apples and pineapples way. I can say I like/dislike this tank because so and so. When I say tank "A" is better than "B" then the applecart is bowled over.

- "A" tank had a higher MV.
- Yeah, but the projectiles shattered. "B" was better.
- Right, but when "A" changed to APCRST shot, the problem was gone.
- Sure, but "B" was 8 tons lighter so could run better.
- etc etc etc.

Well, my favorite (in terms of looks ) is the humble long barrel PzIV.

(edit) Hey, when posting this I saw I got a Purple Heart! What does an armchair warrior like me do to receive one, get carpal tunnel syndrome?

[ 02. November 2003, 05:42 AM: Message edited by: Za Rodina ]

 

You're right, Za..we've debated this many times, here.

If we ask, 'What is the best tank/gun/aircraft etc...' comparisons are, as you say, almost impossible and heated debate usually follows

But 'favourite' - that's something altogether different and more personal. You can be as illogical as you wish and vote for, say, the Covenanter tank as your favourite - and no-one can argue with you !

 

Of course there can never be an all too definite and precise comparison, but you can try to measure the resources and afford needed for a tank in relation to its fighting strength. If it is all so subjective and personal, a leadership can't even state what kind of tanks they need.

For example, I guess nobody will deny that the Panzer IV was a better tank than the Panzer III. No matter what advantages the III might have had, his turret was not suitable for a bigger gun, so it was weaker, even though it had almost the same weight.

 

I'll make it nice and simple. If asking "What is the best Ww2 tank" is akin to asking "what is world's best car?", then lets simplify the question to: "What is the sexiest tank of WW2?"

The answer is without a doubt the Panther, The BBC designed their Daleks (for Dr Who) after them.

You must remember, our preferences (in the western world) is almost purely based on western propaganda...all these stories of childhood books and movies...eg. "My dad went up against a tiger II with a garand and roman candle"...you know what I mean! Well, how many Russian movies on the Ost-front did we all see in our childhood...none, right?

If that was the case our favourite tanks might have ended up being the IS-2 or KV-2!

 

If our simple child brains were formed that way, the best tank in the world would be the T-34/85 I know, I saw the movies and at least a Polish serial, a sort of WW2 A-Team with an '85, 4 crewmen and a German Shepherd (casting problems, call it Silesian )

A couple of months ago I tripped upon a forum, at www.soviet-empire.com (don't go there, it moved away, and good riddance to bad rubbish) peopled by the most incredible sort of unreconstructed communists, who actually believed anything! Holy mackerel, I style myself Za Rodina, but these guys took it for real!!!

Of course, the T-34/85 might be argued to be "the best tank in the world, etc etc" for technical reasons, not the point here, yes or no. But practically all the guys in that forum said so, not on any technical or historical grounds. It was all faith based! Hell and damnation, I hadn't seen this in 25 years!

Cheers,

 

9. I think the Skink has to be up there with the best of 'em, imagine getting one of those to fight against infantry

I always liked the look of the TOG 1, great looking thing, I wonder how it would have fared in combat .

My personal faveorite tank of the war? I reckon it must be the Churchill, specifically the funnies, great vehicles.

Something that strikes me, why is it that when talking about the 'best tank of the war' no one looks at the very late war stuff? Discounting numbers or the amount of service they saw, surley the IS series, Pershing and Centurion (I do mean the centurion not chieftan dont I? I always get my post war tanks mixed up, possibly because courtesy of hollywood I get the impression every battle of WW2 was fought between pershings, shermans and walker bulldogs) must have compared relativley well with their contemporaries, in fact I seem to remember someone citing stats from a Korean war battle to prove as much.

[ 03. November 2003, 04:36 AM: Message edited by: Stefan ]

 

By Gad, Sir - the TOG ! ( 'The Old Gang' ).

Given a halfway sportin' chance, don'tcha'know, it would have broken those Nazi trench lines and pushed on into open country - so we could have let the cavalry loose !

Then we'd've seen some real fightin ! They do not like it up 'em ! Why, I remember one time in the Punjab with Carruthers.......

 

My favorite tank of World War II is the Konig Tiger. It was huge, but it could still travel faster than 20 mph. I remember watching the History Channel and they had a veteran on talking about how his tank fired at one and it appeared as though nothing had happened to the tank. I also like the Sherman because there is something special about those tanks.

 

While it isn't exactly a "tank" I think it is close enough to qualify. My favorite is the M-18 Hellcat. Yes, the armor is paper thin but the combination of speed (fastest AFV of the war topping out at about 55 mph on a road), low sillouette and, decent gun (especially if HVAP rounds are being used as these would drill a Panther out to about 1000 yds)is hard to beat.
It had the best kill record of any US tank destroyer. It also used that combination of assets to shoot more than one German panzer unit to pieces by a combination of maneuver and fire.

 

I have pondered a little and think the initial question does make more sense than you all think. I think the best tank is the one coming closest to the ideal of a modern MBT.

This probably favors the Panther and Stalin tanks.