Was watching the military channel tonight and they had an interesting show on, rating the 10 top tanks of all time. They rated the tanks on the following factors:
Firepower
Fear Factor
Mobility
Armor/Protection
Production Rating
So, I thought it would be interesting to see how the tank buffs on the SDMB ranks things compared to how the show did. When ranking tanks you need to compare them on the above factors to the tanks of their day…and also for their historic impact. I’m not sure I rememeber the exact rankings now from the show, and I wouldn’t put it in the OP anyway, but IIRC there were 2 US tanks, 3 British, 2 German, 2 Soviet and one from Israel.
Feel free to pick whatever tanks you like, but if you can try and give a 1-10 rating for the 5 factors and maybe a small blurb on why you think the tank ranks whatever rank you give them.
The Panther is very high, as well as the Jadpanther. The T34 was very good for it’s “production values” and the Sherman was also cheap- and easy to maintain, comparitively.
I also would have rated the panther as high…but surprisingly it didn’t make the grade in the show. The German tanks that made it were the Tiger (I think it was number 3) and either the Panzer III or Panzer IV (I think it was number 7 or 8). The Jagdpanther (I assume this is what you meant) wasn’t a tank of course…it was a tank destroyer, a different beast.
The Sherman was number 10…that sounds about right, though maybe it should be a bit higher than that. It got high marks for Production and Mobility, medium marks for Firepower and Fear Factor, and low marks for Armor/Protection.
The T-34 was the number one tank on the show with off the scale marks for Production, high marks for Mobility, Fire Power, Fear Factor and Armor/Protection. It was by far the highest rated tank on the show. Ugly sumbitch though.
What surprised me was that the British actually had the most tanks in the top 10. No slight on the British, but I wouldn’t have figured that before hand. Of course, one of the tanks was from WWI (the Mark 1 I think).
I guess the Sherman has to get in just because there were so darned many of them, but it was undergunned (bar the one the Brits put a long-barrelled 76mm gun in) and, I understand, a bit of a fire-trap. It did well for reliability though, didn’t it?
Supposedly it took five Shermans to bring down a Panther - but on the one hand the Allies had air superiority and some ground attack planes that ate Panthers for breakfast, on the other hand the Germans were short of fuel and ammo, and on the gripping hand the Allies had five Shermans for every Panther, and then some.
The Panther beats out the T34 in all those categories other than Production. It beats out the PIII and the PIV also in all categories other than Production.
Reliability should be in there, as many russian tanks couldn’t drive 50 miles without a breakdown.
The problem with rating something like the Sherman is that it had so many variants, the armour weakness was something of a deceit, its because the main gun was far less powerful than its enemy competition and that meant it had to close up the range, which then made it even more vulnerable.
When the British equipped it with the 25 pounder cannon, it just about equalled the Tiger in terms of firepower, which meant it didn’t have to close up as much and therefore the armour was much more effective.
The same 25 pounder cannon was fitted to the Cromwell, which had somewhat better armour protection, and this truly was a match in just about every department for the Tiger.
The Centurion perhaps deserves a higher placing by one or two, it really was the best tank for over a decade, in many differant theatres of action.
Well, I would probably disagree with you that it beats out the T34 in all categories except production. The firepower were about the same IIRC, Armor Protection also (when the T34 first came out it was the only tank with sloped armor…obviously not the case with the Panther), Fear Factor (again, when the T34 first came out it was going up against PWIII’s and early IV’s, and while used stupidly by the commanders was pretty well feared) and mobility (mobility includes both speed, reliability and ease of maintenance…two of those were pretty poor with the Panther, especially the early models). Besides, the show ranked the T34 as the best tank in history…I didn’t. I’d probably rank it as 2 or 3…and I’d probably rank the Panther somewhere on the list (maybe 7 or 8).
As for beating out the PWIII’s and IV’s, remember how devastating they were when THEY first came out…in the early campaigns. Mostly they got their high rank because they were the ONLY tanks in wide scale use at the time with not only inter-tank radio communications, but tank to tank communications…a huge factor in their tactical capabilities over other tanks of the time.
I’ve never heard that before…certainly on the show they made a big point of how reliable they were (similar to the Sherman). Do you have a cite that they broke down frequently? If so then I could certainly see ranking them much lower.
The way they ranked them was the first production, in comparison to other tanks of its time. The reason the Sherman made the list was its historic impact, ease of Production and Mobility (which included relability and ease of maintenance). It got poor marks for Armor, and only medium marks for Firepower (it did have a 75mm gun which was middle of the road for the time when it first appeared).
The Centurion made the list as one of the 3 British tanks. I think it was ranked something like 6 or 7, and it got solid marks in every category…but no exceptional marks in any one (except Production IIRC). The third British tank was the Challenger of course…I think it was number 4 or 5.
The US Abrams was number 2 but I thought the reasons were kind of BS. The reason it was ranked number 2 was because it hadn’t been battle tested against a ‘worthy foe’, though they acknowledged its the best battle tank in the world today (they went through the factors that they felt made it so). The other tanks ‘in its class’ were the British Challenger and German Leopard II, but since none of these tanks are likely to meet on a battle field, the Abrams can’t be fully tested. Also, they gave it low marks for Production (because of how complicated it is to make), though IIRC we’ve made quite a few of them (this is one of the reasons they felt it was the best tank today…there are too few Challengers and Leopard II’s). They also gave the Abrams poor marks in Mobility…because it uses a lot of gas I guess. But so do the other big modern tanks so I’m not sure why they singled out the Abrams (though the Leopard II has a turbo-charged diesel engine, so maybe it gets better, um, mileage).
Myself, I think for shear battle field impact and kill ratio the Abrams is going to be hard to beat…so I rank it number one. I think the kill ratio in the first GW was something like 500-600 to 1 (only 4 were knocked out IIRC…while they killed something like 2500 enemy tanks). Granted the tanks they were going up against were not in their class, but thats still pretty phenominal I’d say.
The French Char B1-bis should have made the list as far as fear, armament, and armor go (although their range sucked). It could go toe to toe with several pIII’s and IV’s, and walk away to fight again. Tactics were the only thing that beat the French MBT during the blitz.
Did they have internal and external radio communications? It wasn’t just about which tank could beat which in a direct fight…but about something unique or extraordinary they brought when they were first out.
As far as tactics goes, that was certainly part of why the Germans were successful early on…and the show made the point that one of the things that allowed them to use the tactics they did was being able to communicate not only between the crew but between the tanks.
From what I understand, all of the major powers in WWII had radio communications in their tanks. The Soviets actually got worse mainly because of Stalin’s paranoia. IIRC the Germans main advantage were throat mic that made communication better.
Tactics was 90% of the reason the German Blitz was so successful. They started using pI’s (training tanks) and had to adopt the Czech 38t as their mbt. And they initially relied on the Czech tank production facilities because allied tank production was vastly superior. The French had more modern tanks than the Germans did. And even with the superior German tactics a protracted battle between forces would have resulted in equal losses or more losses on the German side. Eventually the Germans did catch up to and in some cases surpass allied tank design and production (Tiger, Panther) but in the early years of the war they would have lost if they played by the rules everyone expected them to.
The poster was refering to a french tank, and AFAIK, for the most part, french tanks didn’t have radios. I remember an account of a tank battle where the french commander issued orders by sending runners (with some exceptions, french tanks didn’t operate in large units but were dispatched to infantry units as support. And the french high command had chosen not to rely on radios, but rather on field phones, on the basis that radioed messages could be intercepted).
Right, but my point was that was a tactical decision, rather than a design flaw. Although the B1 had plenty of those. The fourth man position was designed for the radio operator.It was perfect for what the French military had in mind. Static defense.
Now remember, this is my personall pick. i am in no way a tank historian. What earned my respect many years before was reading accounts of panzer crews regarding the char. How they would drive right past the tank in hopes of it missing them because they knew they couldn’t take it. How any of their ant-tank guns besides the 88 would basically bounce off of the char. And the fact that it had enogh presence in WWII that it became a legend at the time.
Good points well made, but having an impenetrable tank with a good gun isn’t all that helpful if it cannot maintain mobility to prevent being bypassed, outflanked, overrun by infantry or shelled/bombed. And the one-man turret used by the french was a huge disadvantage in hectic combat.
My impression was that the soviet T34 and KV1 tanks were exceptionally rugged, reliable designs once the bugs had been worked out, but having illiterate peasants mass-producing and servicing them didn’t do much for relability. Having said that, german/allied tank designs subjected to this probably wouldn’t even have started. Also diesel engines were much safer and gave a better operational radius.
Bearing in mind how incompetently russian tanks were often used, and the poor crew quality and lack of radios, the fact they chewed the Germans up as they did tells a lot. If I was being sent back in time to the late 1930 with a briefcase of blueprints to give to the allies, the T34/85 would be my tank selection. Light, rugged, simple, manouvrable, lots of firepower.
I’d probably rank it as 2 or 3…and I’d probably rank the Panther somewhere on the list (maybe 7 or 8).