Top 10 tanks of the war

I wouldn't go as far to say it is the best, but it was very good.

 

The M-3 was withdrawn from frontline combat as soon as the M4 Sherman was available in large numbers. It was able to hold its own. It became less and less needed again when the Sherman came out.

Why did the M3 have 2 primary weapons......a 75mm and a 37mm? then 3 browing .303 machine guns? Like a fort on wheels :-D

 

A recent book I just purchased said that the JS-2 is the most powerful. Panzer tank ace Otto Carius said it is just as good as the Tiger.

 

The IS-2 had superb ballistic shape and thick armor in contrast to the Tiger I's box-like hull. The 122mm gun, while suffering from a low rate of fire, could destroy any German tank at stand-off range and was devastating against infantry. Overall it was a far more modern design than the Pz. VIE. The only German tank that was capable of matching it at anywhere equal terms was the Pz VIB, but it was a much heavier tank.

The Americans knew that a 75mm gun mounted in a turret was necessary. But the technical means to design and manufacture a turret did not exist, so the gun was slapped to the hull until something better could be found the British and American forces would at least have the firepower and amored chasis to fight.

 

The 75mm was designed to fire primarily HE at infantry and AT guns, and the 37mm was to be used against tanks.
Though the 75mm proved better against tanks than the 37mm.

 

On the site he gives no real background or insight as to how he came about his evaluations. This is his disclaimer,

"The War Minister brings you evaluations of WW2 and other things you will find on this great web war page. The War Minister is my own personal page, and the things compiled on The War Minister are strictly my opinion only."

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/3120/index.html

It looks like it may not have been updated since 1998.

 

Here is an interesting post by another guy (forget his username) I keep around for my own edification concerning the Pershing, and bemoan the slow implimentation of this unit. It was folly to use the same engine and tranny as the Sherman in this larger/heavier tank, but hindsight is always 20/20 is it not?

20 Pershings arrived at Antwerp in January 1945 and were split between the 3rd and 9th Armored Divisions. Training was not completed until February. They first entered combat on February 25th with 3rd AD, Task Force Lovelady in the fighting around the Roer River. The first Pershing lost was near Elsdorf when it was ambushed by a Tiger on February 26th. It was repaired and put back into service.

On March 1st, a Pershing was disabled by a direct hit from a 150mm shell but was repaired. Four Pershings were in on the capture of the Ludendorf bridge at Remagen but a crater prevented them from crossing the bridge, so, they ended up providing fire support for the infantry and destroying a troop train.

A famous duel with a Panther took place in Cologne on March 6th. The Panther knocked out a Sherman and the Pershing was caught on camera going after the Panther and destroying it (the only combat footage of a Pershing in WWII). On the drive into Cologne, two Pershings were knocked out with one of these a total loss.

The "Super" Pershing was a test vehicle armed with the new T15E1 90mm gun, which could penetrate 220mm of armor angled at 30 degrees at a range of 1000 yards. The author of Death Traps made reference to this tank when it was test fired on a captured Tiger. The shot went through the front, through the crew compartment, through the engine and out the back (the gun was also larger than the standard 90mm and not a good fit iside the Pershing--it took some practice for the cannoneer to figure how to load the gun without help). The Super Pershing was up-armored by 3rd AD's ordnance in hopes of giving it equal armor to the King Tiger. The Super Pershing succeeded in knocking out a tank variously id'd as a Tiger or Panther at a range of 1500 yards. It is also supposed to have won a clsoe range one-on-one duel with a King Tiger but the type of German tank is disputed. The Army eventually decided the T15E1 90mm gun was too powerful and did not pursue it.

The one other thing that always bugged me to no end was our sending the Soviets one of these new tanks to them in one of our last L/L shippments. Kinda like; "Ok, this is what we are building next, check it out and figure out its weak points. Yes, you are very welcome."

 

Well, for the post Za did, I'll give Kudos to him. But placing the KT in 2nd... huummm... Plus some info is wrong. The Sherman 76mm was good but not great. It was better than the 75mm but they should've gone "British" and built shermans with the 90mm.
As someone mentioned, the mechanical performance of the JS2 was not that bad. About the KT being the only one able to counter it is partially true... If we can compare a 46ton tank to a 69ton beast that is . The Panther kinks were never worked out tough the G version had a larger lifespan, it couldn't really be called "a sound design" if you know what I mean. The drive train was still had a remarkably short life (and trust me, in the middle of a tank battle you do not want this to burn out!) and tough it's turret layout was somewhat improved in the latter ausf G mark it still was, by far, it's most vulnerable component. On his plus side, The Sherman had to aim for the turret (not mantlet! So, a rather small target) and close to 700m to knock out a panther (front vs front that is). Even against the JS2 a well trained panther crew was a good match.
Anyway, can we really trust a site wich as the JagdTiger as one of the best tank destroyers of the war??

Oh and please don't take it too hard on the guy who said we could build 5000 panthers out of the Tigers and KT built. Out of total money cost (disregarding minor aspects like rare materials and such), it shouldn't be too far from this mark.



Cheers...

 

Well they sent us coppies of thiers. At least the T-34 and I think others.

 

http://www.ww2f.com/weapons-wwii/21...-kv-workers-aberdeen-testing-grounds-u-s.html

 

Good article. It comes as a bit of a surprise that the Russian optics are considered of being "incomparable" quality, though Russian armor experts like Vasiliy Fofanov had been arguing loudly that late war Russian optics were of very high quality for a long time. It would seem that the notoriously bubbled glass was caused soley by the demand to build ballistically resistant sights. The Russians built their late war sights with machine-tools purchased from Zeiss during the '30s and reverse-engineered Pz III's aiming sight. The estimated velocity of the guns might be way off, but US M3 was a much better gun than either the L-11 or F-34 in terms of penetration. The real problem I see there is the claim that the T-34 was slower than the M4. I thought the T-34 was much faster at least in theoretic maximum speed. Any idea about this?

 

Well, the T-34 might have been slower due to the poor finish of the engine parts. I mean the air filters were faulty and for an engine to have a good performance, it need O2 to enhance combustion. The F-34 and L-11 were actually quite similar in performance compared to the 75mm M3 or M6. The difference is less than 10mm at 1000 meters. And it gets smaller as ranges increase.

The sights in Russian tanks tough reverse engineered were of poor manufacture (not actually poor manufacture but they were inexperienced in building them with impact resistance glass as mentioned above). Also, the late war Russian armor,
was supposedly very good. I've read somewhere that the JS-2 armor was a rolled steel plate 100mm and not 120mm thick. Only it gave the same amount of protection than a standard 120mm plate. Again, the examples tested by the Americans didn't have that kind of finesse to them. The armor was of poor quality steel. This can be explained if the Russians sent them early production tanks. As we don't have the model of T-34 analyzed it's hard to judge their end results. It's a very interesting post nonetheless and it appears to be a very thorough examination of the Russian tanks?




Cheers...

 

Not to be picky but could you do it without including self-propelled guns and tank destroyers


And don't worry T.A. a lot has changed since my initial Sherman bashing days

 

Hello JagdtigerI

for the best ten IMHO

T-34
Pz.IV
Sherman
SU-100
Stug III/IV
SU-85
M24 Chaffee
Pz.III
T-70
Tiger I

Regards
Kruska

 

oops see above post

 

Hello JagdtigerI,

no sorry , unless this thread would be termed best 10 turret tanks.

I strongly advocate towards the tactical issue of combined and interchangeable/flexible weapon systems, such as the Bundeswehr does.

The Wehrmacht from 1943 onwards was primarily in a defensive role, as such IMO a Stug would pay of better then a PzIII or Panther.
It depends on the given tactical situation of attack or defense, as such an army without the respective flexibility on weapon systems wouldn't make it long.
In today's time the costing issue and general ability of an MBT makes a Jagdpanzer obsolete - it has or is being replaced by AFV's with upgraded weaponery of 30-40mm cannons and missiles. (e.g. Wiesel and KMW Puma).

Regards
Kruska

 

Ok be like that!

As a combined list I would agree for the most part.

I think that the Sherman has to be at least in the number 2 spot, no question. The T-70 is kind or an odd choice, mabye you could defend it furhter? Also, I'm not to sure about the M-24 especially if you are not going to include the Stuart



oh yea and ps........congrats on osts-1000: posts!

 

Hello JagdtigerI,

Yes indeed a 1001 fairy tales

I choose the M24 Chaffee due to its superb characteristics of speed, production$$ and gunnery. The Stuart?? no way - nothing innovative in regards to a Puma or even a BT5.
The Sherman was theee main MBT for the allies but in regards to kills or battle impact it could not match a Pz.IV or later H versions IMO. It was the quantities that helped the Sherman to become a real threat.

The T70 was a damn cheap way of getting a kind of AFV that could and did spread havoc amongst the Wehrmachts infantry, dug in positions and on any light to soft target. In conjunction with the T34 it proved to be the menace of the Wehrmacht.

The Wehrmacht would need a Pz.III to tackle it, but costwise there was no way to build Pz.III in such numbers as to tackle just this one Russian modell.

Regards
Kruska

 

On the T-70: The Soviets slowed and then ended its production by 1944. Why? Because it was recognized as a pathetically bad tank. It had a two man crew, one man turret and, in combat was virtually blind. The crew had no intercom or radio so they were operating basically on what the driver could see out of his one vision slit and the commander what he could see in the gunsight.

Even on the scoring of armor, mobility and, firepower, the T-70 was inferior to the Pz III let alone Pz IV. It appears that the Soviets were gladly rid of it as a tank even as they left the chassis in modified form in production as the light self-propelled artillery piece the SU-76.

This is why the Soviets gladly took, and even requested more of, the Valentine tank. They recognized it was a far superior light tank to their own T-70 and made every effort to replace the later with the former.

 

Ditto on the T-70, where the heck did you get that from?