Best Tank

[r16]

in the good old days when America ruled supreme and they captured all those stupid Iraqi Enigmas and fire tested a few just for the fun of it . Turned out the stupid Iraqis had filled enough rubber and iron pieces to stop anything in the US Army inventory , except the Hellfire , which would naturally be not fired on those boxes anyhow . Like also at the same time a Russian type T-72 was tested and like it also kept anything out .

the best tank is Modern Armour , now that ı always play at Monarch and tend to have 100s of them while the AIs are still at Infantry .

t-64 attempts to be "Full Spec" fighting a "modern war" instead of the "Russian War" where one sends human waves fortified with Vodka . T-72 is better because it aims at a better "Russian War" and all the goodies designed for T-64 are like also available when some Red Army Marshall , also an Hero of the Soviet Union , knocks some heads .

against the Japanese , American tanks on Okinawa had sand bags , concrete slabs , barbed wire and ı think broken glass fixed on various places so that the Banzai charging guy wouldn't be able to climb . ı understand in at least once , a Japanese officer entered a British tank in Burma , Katana and all .

 

[Zardnaar]

in the good old days when America ruled supreme and they captured all those stupid Iraqi Enigmas and fire tested a few just for the fun of it . Turned out the stupid Iraqis had filled enough rubber and iron pieces to stop anything in the US Army inventory , except the Hellfire , which would naturally be not fired on those boxes anyhow . Like also at the same time a Russian type T-72 was tested and like it also kept anything out .

the best tank is Modern Armour , now that ı always play at Monarch and tend to have 100s of them while the AIs are still at Infantry .

t-64 attempts to be "Full Spec" fighting a "modern war" instead of the "Russian War" where one sends human waves fortified with Vodka . T-72 is better because it aims at a better "Russian War" and all the goodies designed for T-64 are like also available when some Red Army Marshall , also an Hero of the Soviet Union , knocks some heads .

against the Japanese , American tanks on Okinawa had sand bags , concrete slabs , barbed wire and ı think broken glass fixed on various places so that the Banzai charging guy wouldn't be able to climb . ı understand in at least once , a Japanese officer entered a British tank in Burma , Katana and all .

Hence why I look at battlefield conditions.

None of the leading contenders are invincible. They gave all been taken out in various wars.

But

Abrams.

Gulf War 1
23 damaged
9 destroyed

Of the 9 destroyed 7 were by friendly fire.

They had to blow one up themselves, took a thermite grenade, 2 missiles and another shot point blank from another Abrams. Hellfire missiles will do the job.

Saudis have lost an unknown amount in Yemen. Same with Iraqis using them.

So depends on range, angle, what missile was used (RPG 7 vs 29), side, rear, front, turret or even where it hits on the side.

If you give the tanks to idiots well.....

Abrams was designed to blow up Soviet tanks coming through the Fulda gap.its very good at that.

No tanks that good in cities, guerilla warfare etc. Especially without.

 

[r16]

ı don't know , M-60/T-55s have been quite nice , when it's not one of these peer to peer things , and am kinda wrong person or something to argue how America is matchless . But will readily agree that it's in the mind . Or how ı would ridicule the "fear" that some stupid Iranian explosively formed projectile thing has gone through one had created , which apparently repeated the thing in Afghanistan against the "heavy" Challenger . Or , like we would have been invaded already or whatever , ı love them Iranians , let me tell you . The American state of mind is such that one intel type writes a whistleblowing type of book , to support his claim to be awarded 150 million dollars in cash from the US , because it was him that captured some 750 from the family of one of the mistresses of Saddam and that's according to a law passed in 1860 something in which Lincoln awards 20% of the loot if you rat on a cannon maker that uses shoddy production stuff and this certainly isn't Pençik , where a Muslim warrior gives one in fifth to the State and keeps the rest of the plunder and so on . So , the guy inspects an M-1 struck by a Kornet and declares it's so out of this world that it like proves Klingons are here .

 

[Zardnaar]

Tank design was very close 45-75 or so. M60 over T-55 though but it would depend on upgrades etc. T-55 is well obsolete along with the M-60.

M-60 probably better in rough terrain due to gun elevation/depression issues every Soviet tank has and M-60 has better gun. M-60 was developed to counter the T-55. Assuming the M-60 is an A3 model.

But
Cannon can punch through around a metre of steel, HEAT 1.5-1.6 metres.

That's why the old steel tanks are so bad now. M-60has rolled steel armor, they can add ERA to it but still. M-60s good enough vs anything comparable and can knock it out (T-55, 62, early T-72). They can knock out the M-60 though (and have done so).

when they rate armor they say 1100mm RHA equivalent.

 

[Hygro]

ı don't know , M-60/T-55s have been quite nice , when it's not one of these peer to peer things , and am kinda wrong person or something to argue how America is matchless . But will readily agree that it's in the mind . Or how ı would ridicule the "fear" that some stupid Iranian explosively formed projectile thing has gone through one had created , which apparently repeated the thing in Afghanistan against the "heavy" Challenger . Or , like we would have been invaded already or whatever , ı love them Iranians , let me tell you . The American state of mind is such that one intel type writes a whistleblowing type of book , to support his claim to be awarded 150 million dollars in cash from the US , because it was him that captured some 750 from the family of one of the mistresses of Saddam and that's according to a law passed in 1860 something in which Lincoln awards 20% of the loot if you rat on a cannon maker that uses shoddy production stuff and this certainly isn't Pençik , where a Muslim warrior gives one in fifth to the State and keeps the rest of the plunder and so on . So , the guy inspects an M-1 struck by a Kornet and declares it's so out of this world that it like proves Klingons are here .

Wait did that really happen?

 

[Phrossack]

You people are going to make me delay my withdrawal from CFC by forcing me to correct some of the misconceptions on glorious tanks here. I'll type out a proper ramble when I get the chance.

But tanks are not going obsolete, and the Challenger 2 is overrated as all hell and will hopefully join the 21st century within a decade or so.

 

[Ajidica]

the Challenger 2 is overrated as all hell

So no different than the rest of the British military then.

 

[Phrossack]

So no different than the rest of the British military then.

European NATO militaries as a whole, with the possible exception of France, manage to be both expensive enough to anger the public and weak enough to be a minor speed bump for Russia. It's a careful balance, that.

 

[FriendlyFire]

against the Japanese , American tanks on Okinawa had sand bags , concrete slabs , barbed wire and ı think broken glass fixed on various places so that the Banzai charging guy wouldn't be able to climb . ı understand in at least once , a Japanese officer entered a British tank in Burma , Katana and all .

Concrete slabs, wooden boards were designed to defeat the Japanese magnetic anti tank weapons
The nails, barbed wire was to prevent swarms of Japanese prying off the hatches, or getting onto the engine to pour petrol to set fire to the engine. Rushing tanks like this is a desperate and costly tactic

That was in dense jungle, crew had hatch open due to the heat and the noise of tanks were so bad that the crew inside didnt even hear anything.

 

[r16]

Wait did that really happen?

some guy named Ford , assigned to Samarra as an intel type , counts McCrystal [one time US commander in Afghanistan] and the female commander of the Abu Ghraip prison as his supporters , in his case in the US Supreme Court , alleging the 750 millions so captured were airlifted to Cyprus and then pooof ... To cover that he was drugged by supersecret truth serums and he is willing to call the doctor who designed that as a witness . But , of course the entire book might be designed by the boys from Langley . You know , for stuff . Also ...

my anti-Americanism never stops State Department appearing here , you know .

Tank design was very close 45-75 or so.

it's still so . It's just that tanks are extremely expensive and nobody wants to get caught when electrics happen . Which can actually field a force field and stuff , instead of active defence thing .

Concrete slabs, wooden boards were designed to defeat the Japanese magnetic anti tank weapons

The nails, barbed wire was to prevent swarms of Japanese prying off the hatches, or getting onto the engine to pour petrol to set fire to the engine. Rushing tanks like this is a desperate and costly tactic

That was in dense jungle, crew had hatch open due to the heat and the noise of tanks were so bad that the crew inside didnt even hear anything.

those magnetic tank weapons are naturally based on that weird German tank held thing , needed to be placed by hand , leading to like 10 Russian Desantniki or tank riders with submachine guns assigned to each tank anyhow . And does not hurt the glory of Katana wielding dude , though you would really need a lightsaber if you were to go head to head with armour .

 

[Lord Shadow]

The best tanks tend to be the most battle-tested ones. The Abrams has a good number of conflicts under its belt, so it's no wonder it's probably the best one. I'm not sure to what extent the First Gulf War roflstomp of Iraqi T-72s is a meaningful accolade, however, considering those tanks were fairly old (previous generation) at the time compared to the M1A1 and the crews nowhere near as well-trained and supported as their American counterparts.

The later Israeli Merkavas are reputedly well-protected as well, at least in the versus non-tanks context, from experience with messing around Palestinian population centers.

As for the importance of features in general, I'd agree protection versus missiles is paramount in this day and age, since a tank is most likely to face those instead of enemy guns. As far as I know, the Russians are the ones most investing in this area.

The Americans don't seem to favour active protection systems nor ERA-type protection, so it remains to be seen just how effective plain good ol' Chobham is against modern anti-tank missiles. Clearly, they're used to beating up lesser, ill-equipped Third World nations, and serious contemplation of conflict against a comparable foreign power is not among their priorities. At least on the land warfare front: the air-naval aspect is possibly a somewhat different story, more from the perspective of other powers trying to challenge the established dominance of the US.

 

[Lexicus]

Wait did that really happen?

Infantry without "real" anti-tank weapons has little choice but to try tactics like that. Swarming onto the tank and throwing grenades in the hatches was a common tactic by poorly-equipped Soviet infantry on the Eastern Front when German tanks entered areas with lots of cover (e.g. built-up or forested). "Molotov cocktails" were IIRC so named by Finns who were similarly poorly-equipped relative to the Red army during the Winter War (1940).

I know a lot less about the Pacific Theater but it doesn't stretch the imagination that Japanese troops extended their human-wave tactics to Allied tanks. One of the major lessons of World War II generally was/is that tanks need infantry support or enemy infantry can get into their blind spots and destroy them.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

I don't think there were enough tanks on either side of the Pacific conflict to really have drawn much from them tactics-wise. There were Shermans set up to be flamethrowers which are quite famous and photogenic (and horrific) but I don't think there was a whole lot of tank action in that theater.

 

[Lexicus]

I don't think there were enough tanks on either side of the Pacific conflict to really have drawn much from them tactics-wise. There were Shermans set up to be flamethrowers which are quite famous and photogenic (and horrific) but I don't think there was a whole lot of tank action in that theater.

Sherman "crocodiles" were used in Europe too. But yes, there weren't many tanks in use in the Pacific. The land battlefields were not suited for it: the Burma campaign was fought in a lot of dense jungle where supply was a constant problem, and the little flyspeck islands in the Pacific wouldn't lend themselves to armored operations even if most of them weren't covered in jungle and swamp.

 

[Hygro]

Infantry without "real" anti-tank weapons has little choice but to try tactics like that. Swarming onto the tank and throwing grenades in the hatches was a common tactic by poorly-equipped Soviet infantry on the Eastern Front when German tanks entered areas with lots of cover (e.g. built-up or forested). "Molotov cocktails" were IIRC so named by Finns who were similarly poorly-equipped relative to the Red army during the Winter War (1940).

I know a lot less about the Pacific Theater but it doesn't stretch the imagination that Japanese troops extended their human-wave tactics to Allied tanks. One of the major lessons of World War II generally was/is that tanks need infantry support or enemy infantry can get into their blind spots and destroy them.

I mean the big collect on faulty cannons

 

[Zardnaar]

Sherman "crocodiles" were used in Europe too. But yes, there weren't many tanks in use in the Pacific. The land battlefields were not suited for it: the Burma campaign was fought in a lot of dense jungle where supply was a constant problem, and the little flyspeck islands in the Pacific wouldn't lend themselves to armored operations even if most of them weren't covered in jungle and swamp.

Obsolete tanks got sent to the Pacific. I think a Matilda was used in 45.

One story I read was Japanese suicide soldiers with an artillery she'll in a hole so they would try to detonate it near the tank.

Some however just sat in the foxhole catatonic and just got shot.

 

[cardgame]

Yeah we sent a lot of M3 Stuarts into the Pacific because they were way too 1930s for Europe, but Japan had no serious AT except field guns, I think.

 

[FriendlyFire]

Yeah we sent a lot of M3 Stuarts into the Pacific because they were way too 1930s for Europe, but Japan had no serious AT except field guns, I think.

Japanese had quite a few 37mm guns, a few 45mm and some 75mm Antitank guns very late in the war. Like the Germans the Japanese learned to conceal there weak Antitank guns for very close range side shots which were idea in any kind of dense terrain
Fields guns were issued AT rounds to be used in direct fire. M3 remained useful because they light tanks were more useable in jungle and forest terrain environments, plus M3 could easily defeat the any Japanese light tank it encountered making them ideal choice of tank.

 

[r16]

the last ever major contract for contracts was to be New Turkey , because people with access to American think tanks knew the Army of Petrol would happen , as a side in a Turkish Civil War so there would be a buildup period , and also there would be trouble for looks so the strategy for Merkava IV was to get it signed , with the initial fund transfers and like some crisis with no deliveries , to hobble Army of Petrol , because everybody laughs at the others . So , them good Iranians jumped in with both feet to make sure there would be no initial contract which might accidentally release blueprints and the like . And so the entire 2006 Lebanon clashes were a sales and counter sales campaign , with like 100s missiles in the air as soon one was spotted .

 

[Lexicus]

Yeah we sent a lot of M3 Stuarts into the Pacific because they were way too 1930s for Europe, but Japan had no serious AT except field guns, I think.

It's funny because M3 Stuarts are some of the most annoying units in Company of Heroes