Interesting video. All depends on how you define "the best." German tanks were maintenance nightmares. T-34s also had plenty of flaws. The Sherman certainly offered a very balanced tank design and despite it's percieved flaws it still contributed to the win.
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Is the M-1 Abrams outclassed now?
- Thread starter Randy Daytona
- Start date
Also the M4 design had many logistic constraints effecting it. These were Tanks that were built in Detroit. Shipped bay rail to San Francisco and New York. Crained aboard ships and transported halfway around the world where they would have to be serviced in the field. The Sherman design fit the bill.
A great many Sherman crewmen would disagree, having read quite a few accounts they did not do well in combat and their main advantage was numbers.
Their main advantage was C2. Each Sherman had a radio, whereas not every Panzer/Tiger had a radio. Secondary advantage was probably the logistics tail keeping them fueled. Shermans were not always numerically superior on the battlefield but the Allies lost many of them and always had enough gas to put them into the fight. The Germans had gas supply shortages after failing to secure key oilfields in the Caspian region after Stalingrad. The Shermans did not do so well in combat, sadly.
I thought so too. Really challenged a lot of assumptions I had concerning WW2 armor. Previously I might have gone with a T-34/85 or a Panther, but the Sherman Jumbo with the 76 added I would have to consider now. Then again, best tank could either be 1v1 (then you would probably want a Tiger II or an IS-2), if you were the overall army group commander, that's another choice.
Don't worry, no tank photo of the day. Well, maybe 1, or 2.
Cobra King
Without doubt the most famous of all the Jumbos was named ‘Cobra King’, the first tank into Bastogne in Belgium, the vital crossroads town at the centre of the fighting during the Battle of the Bulge. Cobra King was issued to 37th Tank Battalion of the 4th Armoured Division on the 24th or 25th of October 1944 and was assigned as the company commander’s vehicle of Company C.
This Jumbo of 743rd Tank Battalion was knocked out on 22nd November 1944 near Lohn, Germany. It was hit by four 88 mm rounds from an anti-tank gun 800 yds (730 m) away. One bounced off the glacis plate and two off the manlet before the fourth actually penetrated through the gunners telescope opening (chalked ‘9’ by Divisional Intelligence staff).
I think the biggest take away about the "best tank?" is that each tank can't be judged in a vacuum and they're all part of a bigger system of systems involving differing TTPs, C2, and combined arms. The King Tiger may have been a fearsome tank but without gas, spare parts, a reliable way to get to the front, and air cover coupled with a limited quantity of tanks then the value of an individual tank isnt worth much.
SethB
Member
It can provide infantry support but it's the wrong tool for the job if you are up against other tanks. For one thing, the chassis can't stabilize well enough to fire the cannon when it isn't pointed forward. So if you have to shoot uphill you may roll.
Source: An OCS classmate that hated his MGS with a passion.
That's the feedback I've gotten from my friends that served in them.
It's hard to really grasp the differences between Russian/Soviet artillery and ours. One thing to point out is that the US has computers and tables that allow us to calculated for MET (environmental changes that effect when the round falls) but we don't always use it. A mentor was a battery commander in OIF 1 and they shot cold stick, that is without adjusting for MET. It's fast and accurate enough for what he was doing.
The other thing that you have to take into account is organization and how that effects artillery use. The US has computer programs that can transmit a fire mission from the observer to the firing piece without any intervention. This is great with radar. The radar catches an incoming round on the ascending branch (while it is going up) calculates a point of origin and sends a fire mission to Brigade which routes it down to Battalion, Battery, Platoon and out to the shooter (cannon or rocket) without any human input.
Return fire timelines using that system are measured in seconds, not minutes.
Most Russian rocket launchers, in contrast, have a fire direction system that doesn't use HF/VHF/VSAT to send missions directly to the shooter. They have to type them in by hand. Shooting rockets and missiles off grids written on 3x5 cards works really well when you are shooting pre-ATO fires or something planned, but it doesn't work for a time sensitive target, a moving target or for return fire. In that regard the US is much more flexible than the Russians. They mass and they plan ahead. Their system works pretty well within its limitations.
Finally, a caveat. When the Army went to the BCT system they got rid of DIVARTY. I don't know the Navy well enough to make a good analogy but let me try. Imagine if every pilot were suddenly ship's company and had to explain and justify what they needed to maintain currency and prepare for war.
The result (though DIVARTY has been brought back) is a Field Artillery branch that hasn't trained itself how to perform key tasks in nearly 20 years.
Source: Me, Army 13A Field Artillery Officer for five years (2010-2014). HIMARS and MLRS.
TLDR; the M1 is absolutely outclassed now... but not by the T-14 Armata. Rather, it’s the rise of the IED and M1’s insufficient protections. No amount of M1 upgrades can create a V hull or put Chobham armor on its undersides. If you think IEDs are a tool of only nonstate actors, I’d say you underestimate the state actors. Small, disposable drone technologies will only make the M1 more vulnerable.
I think you misunderstand what a tank is for. Tanks have always been vulnerable to anti-tank mines and plunging fire. But the M1 was built to fight tanks not be invulnerable to all the things.
Check. I think the world took note of the battle of 73 easting. The world also took note of the number of M1s lost in OIF to IEDs, compared to all enemy fire during Desert Shield/Storm. Our adversaries aren’t into symmetric warfare so much anymore.
Our CURRENT/RECENT adversaries. A 70ton tank isnt an ideal COIN platform especially in an urban environment because it's easy for the enemy to neutralize armors advantages. But armor is also potent in an urban environment because it can bring a big gun and is impervious to small arms fire. Risk vs reward. This is nothing new and the tactics used in OIF are no different then WWII tactics demonstrated in Private Ryan or in countless real world encounters in Stalingrad, Pacific Islands, Berlin, etc. Plenty of tanks on both sides in WWII were killed at close range by infantry taking shots at less armored areas with bazookas and panzerfausts. again, IEDs are just a poor man's anti tank mine which have also been successfully used in many conflicts. The shortcomings of armor aren't really anything new and the methods of exploiting them aren't either.
Also, the open desert tank battles of ODS against static armor were very different affairs from the urban engagements of OIF against infantry. ODS battles are where any modern tank would shine and OIF will challenge any modern tank against an enemy with access to anti-tank weapons.
I don’t disagree. There is a definite place on the future battlefield for a big, mobile gun w/ protections against small arms. I just wonder if that big gun platform needs to still have a human inside it, given what we know about TBI now. The tank could get a lot smaller, lighter, faster, and cheaper if there isn’t a crew compartment to worry about protecting or ventilating.
Huge assumption: The future battlefield will be more and more an urban one. If that assumption is false and it’s actually comprised of forests in Europe or deserts in Asia, where maneuver units are truly maneuvering over large expanses of sparsely inhabited terrain against adversary symmetric maneuver units, the M1 can do what it was built [in the 80’s] to do.
Huge assumption: The future battlefield will be more and more an urban one. If that assumption is false and it’s actually comprised of forests in Europe or deserts in Asia, where maneuver units are truly maneuvering over large expanses of sparsely inhabited terrain against adversary symmetric maneuver units, the M1 can do what it was built [in the 80’s] to do.
Vizzini is not a fan of this scenario.
SethB
Member
I've never been a tanker but one thing to keep in mind is that the AGT 1500 turbine gets .5 MPG, needs JP8 every 12 hours, and rebuilds every 1,000 hours. When the Crusader program was going they were going to share a new engine, the LV 100-5, which promised 33% less fuel consumption (50% less at idle, which is huge) along with 3,000 hour rebuilds.
In the Fulda Gap you've got interior lines, prepositioned supplies, etc. In an immature theater somewhere else you've got to bring it with you, and in a place with insurgents that comes with its own costs.
Probably one of the reasons that the Army is interested in a light tank to begin with.
In the Fulda Gap you've got interior lines, prepositioned supplies, etc. In an immature theater somewhere else you've got to bring it with you, and in a place with insurgents that comes with its own costs.
Probably one of the reasons that the Army is interested in a light tank to begin with.
Something the HEMTTs were designed to support, just in case we did start beating the Russians back- the tanks would need a logistics tail that could keep up with them. (Vizzini's nightmare scenario/one of the classic blunders.) I can't remember what the doctrine was but I thought it was a minimum number of miles per day across some specified terrain.
The HEMTT family of vehicles are part of a loose analogy of the Navy's doctrine of underway replenishment and power projection.