Top 10 tanks of the war

What, no IS-3?!

 

Hello Sloniksp,

NO, because I was refering to "best" tanks and not to "ultimate" MBT of WWII.

Regards
Kruska

 

PPSH!

 

A short bit of info on the Comet

In 1943, work began on developing a successor to the Cromwell and Challenger tanks, under the General Staff specification A34. The design was based on technology used in the Cromwell, and it was intended that the new vehicle would be armed with the Vickers 75mm gun. However, for reasons of communality the 17-pounder model was chosen , being modified by Vickers. The weapon was designated as the "Gun, QF, Tanks 77mm." The title "77mm" was adopted to avoid confusion with other 3in guns which were entering British and US service.

Production of the Comet began in the autumn of 1944 and by January 1945 143 vehicles had been built. Comprising an all-welded hull and a turret which was part cast and part rolled plate, it was mechanically identical to the Cromwell. Though slower than the latter, its main gun was more powerful then the Cromwell's especially when firing the new armored-piercing, discarding sabot round, which had a muzzle velocity of 1097m/sec (3600ft/sec)

The Comet saw action in German in March-May 1945, and was a great success, being more reliable than either the Challenger or Cromwell. The Comet remained in British Army service until the mid-1960s.

 

You are mistaken sir, that's a Submachine gun .

It's surely only polite to cite Steve Crawford & Chris Westhorp's 'Tanks of WW2' from which that long quote is taken .
I'm no Panzer Fanboy, but I also think you're being a smidge too harsh on the German designs. They're flawed for sure, and often over-egged by their weirdly devoted followers, but those chaps at Krupp, Man, Kummersdorf etc. weren't stupid.

Tiger work was begun in 1936.
Not sure I agree on the overall thrust of Fuhrer intervention. Work on the Tiger was never really halted, and the Panther's genesis was mid 1941 anyway, there was no impetus for it before that. We can blame Adolf for many things but it's pretty safe to say that nearly all the High Command saw no real need for extra effort on heavier tanks until c.'41, based mostly on a confidence that they had plenty of adequate vehicles rather than any real perception of an early end to the war.

I'm in one of those moods today...

Individual 'Best' is still meaningless really, and a bit off TA's original 'Top Ten' suggestion to my eye.
Eg: In some terrain the Tiger was the beast it was intended to be, yet in Italy it was seen as a lesser threat than the Mk.IV by allied crews. Early Churchills flopped at Dieppe (though it's likely no other vehicle of the period could have climbed the sea wall at all) but shone in (again) Italy.
Matilda 2 was undergunned & slow, but at Arras halted a vigorous German advance and shocked Rommel & his boys, & she ruled the desert for a period by sheer thickness of armour.

Etc. Etc.
Horses, courses, apples, pears.

The 'Best' tank at a given time is the one most suited to specific terrain, opposition, production, tactical conditions blah blah blah. If one was facing a tribal uprising in Abbysinia then even an MG armed Tankette might be the 'best' choice.
'Top ten' across a mass conflict that lasted 6 years is a somewhat different question isn't it?, I believe TA was looking for a more general assessment in order to avoid such subjective 'certainties'. Seems a bit of a shame to reduce it to the old 'Tigers' slanging match, sure there are other threads here far more suited to that debate.
Are we not trying to consider which ten tanks shone the most at specific times/terrains throughout the conflict? To be a contender a vehicle doesn't really have to be an overall success, but may have proved the most useful instrument at critical points.

I suppose there's a case for further subdivisions... Best ten mechanically, Ten Most successful in terms of kill rates, Ten Most useful at a given time, Ten that had the biggest impact on specific operations etc. etc. etc.
It just rumbles on...

I'll crawl back under my rock now .

Here's a nice comet anyway, snapped at beltring a few years ago:


~A

 

Hello Von Poop,

truely an excellent post - (which will be saluted as soon as reinforcments arrive on my give away account) - with nothing much to add on my part. The reccognized problem with threads such as best plane best tank is indeed their "open" character and the final arguement.

Which might still be an issue that can be solved as long as the initial arguments do not start to change due to maybe loosing out on one's own opinion.

First it is the gun that is maybe superior, then the other side will forward economic reasons, which are countered by armourthicknes, and then it becomes a fuel issue and so on. and the final argument is that "it won the war" or helped to win the war.

So in that last argument lies the problem

Regards
Kruska

 

Top 10 tanks of WW2.

#1 The Cromwell.

To those who have seen, and more importantly heard this beauty, it would suffice.
The Rolls Royce of tanks in the British arsenal. Fast, mobile and highly reliable it fits the bill perfectly for combined arms warfare.

The Cromwell was the first of a series of designs that would put Britain on the top in armoured design.

#2 T-34
This USSR tank has all the bells and whistles like the Cromwell, but if the Cromwell can be likened to a fine dinner (and I think it can) then the T-34 is that dinner after passing through the digestive system.

On the otherhand it is extremely simple to operate and produce. Tanks to the people!

#3 Sherman.
Has the same qualities as the Cromwell and T-34.
Lack the bling of beeing a Rolls or commie scrap.

#4 Pz III
Germany strikes first. The backbone of the early victories (only victories when I come to think of it) of Germany.
A reliable and balanced tank. Featured good comms and holy trinity (armour, gun, mobility) for the time it was launched.

# v1.2 The Comet
The Cromwell "Now availiable with blinged-up gun and slightly longerhull"
And this could go on with the sub variants of Shermans and T-34, Pz IV with long barrel 75mm.

There are fun tanks that are just that.

The chronically unreliable Crusader which is a looker, or the overengeneered Panther that seems modern.

As for the perceived superiority of German tanks in WW2.
89 Shermans to dent a Tiger doesn't cut it. Airpower and AT guns is the way to go.

The lesson learned in the early years of the war was that the enemy of the tank was minefields covered by AT guns.

Later on the jabos would reign destruction amongst tanks and their umbivical cord (SP) to the rear.

Why waste precious resources on building complicated machines that are disposed of by a long tube hidden in the forrest??

And in the case they survive, they breakdown, or are getting maintenance rather than "getting the farthest with the mostest?"

 

Jaeger,

Didnt the Cromwell only see limited combat in WW2 as the Sherman was still the preferred choice?

 

No.

 

Well Yea....

The first Cromwells were produced in January 1943 and by the time they were ready for active service the Cromwells were in the process of being replaced by the readily available M4 Sherman for purposes of standardization and logistical saftey. The place Cromwells saw most service would probably be with the 7th Armored division in their operations in Normandy. While the Cromwell was a well liked vehicle, fast and reliable with the favorable Meteor engine, the majority of British tank units were equipped with Shermans. Because of that limited service I find it quite hard to give it a spot in the top five at least.

 

Err. Recce reg, Polish, Czech's 7th Armd.

Battle losses 21 Army Group to 31.12.44

June: Sherman 66, Cromwell 42, Churchill 16.
July: Sherman 186 Cromwell 28 Churchill 17.
August: Sherman 547 Cromwell 143 Churchill 142, Challenger 2.
September: Sherman 115 Cromwell 7 Churchill nil, Challenger nil.
October: Sherman 490 Cromwell 174 Churchill 56 Challenger 11.
November: Sherman 158 Cromwell 36 Churchill 81 Challenger 1
December: Sherman 157 Cromwell 5 Churchill 21 Challenger 1

(Obviously some earlier 'damaged' tanks were written off in August and October)
Totals:
Stuart M3 210
Stuart VI 80
Sherman 1717
Cromwell 435
Challenger 15
Churchill.. 333

total 2500 + 290 Stuarts


December 1944 British tank numbers with Units:
472 Churchill
1,168 Sherman 75mm
605 Sherman 17-pdr
59 Sherman 76mm
522 Cromwell
31 Comet

If anybody wants to discount the Cromwell for "small numbers deployed" then I expect the same people to stop posting about them bloody experimental kraut wagons and the Tiger I and II.

Get your facts right lads.

 

Thanks for providing the facts to prove my point Jaeger...

Good thing that's not me...

 

Jaeger

The only Rolls Royce thing about the Cromwell is the engine, IMO it's too small gunned for it's time and weight class. The British had to wait for the Centurion to get a really great tank and in the meantime the Firefly was probably a better all round vehicle than the Cromwell.

An why the PzIII rather than the PzIV? AFAIK there were more PzIV than PzIII in Poland and around similar numbers in France, the PzII was the true German "victory tank".

 

Jagdtiger.

Deploying over a 1000 tanks in France alone (don't have handy stats from Italy at the moment) and fighting for over a year in different theatres should qualify it to something more than "only limited service".

Ofcourse there were alot of Shermans about. The reason why Goodwood became such a shamble was Bimbos dilemma. "I have 500 new Shermans on the beaches, I can afford to loose them not men."

The 7th Armd did was the only unit to be kitted out with the Cromwell as their main tank. However the Recce Regts. all had them, and the Poles and Czech units.

TOS

Good thing you got the Rolls bit right.
Undergunned yes. However the Cromwell is ideal for mobile warfare.

And that is a parameter for deciding the list.
Many tanks were developed that were one dimentional. The Tiger tank was great in a defensive battle with slow moving fronts. However it could not keep up in the offensives of the early german campaigns or the swan in France 44 or Germany 45.
The Panther was to mechanicaly unreliable in that respect too.
The Churchill (which was one of the safest tanks to serve in) was a modern WW1 infantry tank, not suited for mobile warfare.
The T-34, Sherman and my favourite the Cromwell kept on running. Not too big or heavy, they fulfilled their role in combined arms warfare and kept up momentum in the offensives.

The British had to wait for the Comet to get a really great tank. The Centurion was mindboggling, but the Comet did well when it first came.

Firefly is a bastard modification like the Challenger and doesn't qualify for my list.

The Pz mark IV was unbalanced from the start. A short 75mm gun. The Mark III was balanced from the start, and therefore I rate it higher.

And that ends my post no.1000

 

The Sherman M4A3E8 and T-34/85 were definatly the War Winning Vehicles. 40,000 Shermans and around 50,000 T-34, no matter which models, make the 9,000 P4's, 4,500 Panthers and 1,300 Tigers hopeless.

 

You may have a point here, does anybody know if what they did with the 17lb was just shortening the cartridge or did they do something similar to what Germans did to get the KwK 40 from the Pak 40 ?
AFAIK both Pak and KwK used identical shells but the KwK 40 of the late Pz IV had a much shorter and thicker cartrige with similar power.

AFAIK the short 75 had similar AT performance to the 37mm of the early PzIII if not better (much better with HEAT but that was not initially available). During the French campaign PzIVs knocked out the heavily armoured French Char 2Bis in more than one instance, something the infantry's 37mm that was balistically identical to the PzIII gun usually failed to do even at point blank range.
But you can still say the early PzIV are unbalanced because of the 14mm hull and 20mm turret armour that was no match for even an anti tank rifle, even the earliest PzIII had 30mm front plates and the PzIII generally had better armour than the PzIV up to late 1942.

 

Jaeger,

A little over 4,000 being built is not exactly "limited" but compared to over 40,000 Shermans....

The initial question was whether the Sherman was the preferred choice, which it was, and the stats you posted only worked towards proving that.

The Firefly wasn't exactly a "bastard" design, it had some flaws, but compared to the Challenger it was excellent.

The Cromwell was indeed mobile but as TOS mentioned, its gun was slightly less than adequate. I'd say its effect on the war was rather small, its chassis was the basis of no other successful vehicles widely produced. If you want to give it the 8,9,10 spot I wouldn't argue, but to say that an undergunned, useless (in terms of special purpose vehicles) tank which was used in a secondary support role to the Sherman is the best tank of the war is quite silly.

 

To say the Cromwell had a "secondary support role", because it was issued to fewer units that performed in the same role and just as as well as the Sherman equipped ones is incorrect, and the AT perfomance of it's gun was slightly better than that of the 75 Shermans so while undergunned for it's introduction date and size calling it inadequate is going too far.

As the biggest advantage of the Cromwell over other allied tanks was it's speed it made little sense to waste it for special purpose roles that wouldn't get any benefit from a very fast chassis.

And if you give too much importance to production figures the T-34 carries the day without any competition by those M4s that fought in a "support role" .

 

It was in no way aimed that direction. The full sentence wrote:

The deployment and numbers defy "limited combat".

Firefly, a Sherman with a 17pdr gun plus adjustements. Challenger, Cromwell with a 17pdr plus adjustments.

Both designs were not built like that from scratch. Both Bastard designs.

If it had been built 50,000 of them it would be acceptable to call it a good tank?
That would mean that the British could not make a good tank because their industry output could not supply incredible numbers.

The Cromwell is much par with the Sherman, better mobility though.

All three finalists (my choice) share the common balance that is needed for succesful mobile warfare.

 

One of the things I take into account when deciding upon best tanks is their effect on the war.

The Sherman was a tank that saw combat in both theaters for as long as the U.S. was in the war. Of the 88,410 tanks and SPGs produced by the U.S. during the war about 45,00 were Shermans. Its chassis was invaluable in terms of versatility. Its later models with the 76mm gun could engage German Tigers, Panthers, and Pzr. IVs at much greater ranges than the Cromwell

The Cromwell was tank that saw combat in one theater (please don't eat me alive because of this statement, there may have been some in the Pacific but certainly not many) from only 1943-1945. Of the 27,896 tanks and SPGs produced by the U.K. only 4,000 were Cromwell. I understand its chassis wouldn't have been good for any special purpose vehicles but that just takes away from its overall worth. It wasn't that great in terms of protection and firepower, the later model Shermans were certainly superior in that respect.

If you want to include it in the top three, even though its only advantage is mobility, then the T-34 and Sherman have to be in front of it. Would the war have been any different without the Cromwell? IMO absolutely not.