I need to read "What is the best MBT?" thread.

[Dr Strangelove]

The best tank of WWII was..(drumroll).....the P-51!

I seem to recall that at the outset of the war none of the allies, including the Soviets had the foresight to install radios in each tank. They had this insane idea that tanks could be controlled by the same hand signals used by cavalry. The German tanks all had radios in them and the Wehrmacht had extensively practiced using them to maintain cohesion in combat. The US army also studied the use of radios in tanks and other facets of combat. The US system was much more flexible than the German one and IMHO was a major factor in the allied victories in the west.

[Drekkus]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
The best tank of WWII was..(drumroll).....the P-51!

The Mustang? I would say the P-47 was a better ground attack fighter. Or the Typhoon/Tempest series for that matter.

Btw, the mustang is the most beautifull thing military technology ever produced.

[Khan Singh]

The most beautiful thing created by military technology is the katana.

Tanks are dead. That's why none of the major powers are replacing theirs. On the other hand, in an India-Pakistan war they would probably be important.

[Andemagne]

The most beautiful thing created by military technology is the katana.

I second that.

[sachmo71]

Originally posted by Drekkus


The Mustang? I would say the P-47 was a better ground attack fighter. Or the Typhoon/Tempest series for that matter.

Btw, the mustang is the most beautifull thing military technology ever produced.

The P-51, if I am not mistaken, was the designation for the US Army standard field radio. Also the Mustang...such a sweet plane! With the Merlin engine at full throttle, the pilots would have to take off with hard left rudder as the torque of the engine would try and pull the nose off of the centerline! That's power!

[Evan von Christoph]

M2A3 Abrams, perhaps is a better choice for the new century?

[Caligastia]

My GOD! What bunch of NERDS you all are!

Except MTG, he is speaking from experience.

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by David Floyd
True, but up-gunned Shermans (Sherman 76s) weren't actually that bad.

The Brit modified "Sherman Fireflies" with the 17pdr gun (a longer, higher velocity 3"/76mm) were much better than the US shermans with the US 3"/76mm AA gun.

[GePap]

Best MBT was....

.....well, of what time? It seems silly to me to argue which was the best of all times, since obviously modern ones are qualitatively better than WW2 ones, and most WW2 ones are more historically important. The T-34 helped change history- I don't see the M2A3 Abrams getting into main-stream history books.

MOst important tank of WW1- F-17, the design on which most future tanks were based.

Best tank of WW2, overall? Panther series- better armor, better gunnery than T-34 or Firefly, fast enought and in sufficent numbers to be significant, unlike Tiger of Konigstiger.
Most important tank of WW2: T-34, produced almost as much as the Sherman during the war, and had a much bigger historical impact.

Best tank after WW2? Well, we need the geeks to give us all the stats on modern MBT- i guess in the running: leopard 2, Challenger 2, M2A3 abrams, Merkava 3, T-90, Leclerc,and so forth.
Most important? T-55. By far the most numerous tank after the war, has seen more combat than all these tanks above combined, the predecessor of most modern Soviet/Russian/Chinese tanks, and thus the impetus for most western tanks.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Caligastia
My GOD! What bunch of NERDS you all are!

Except MTG, he is speaking from experience.

None in tanks. If Uncleroggy was still here (I think he used to post in SMAC and maybe Civ II forums way back, and on ACOL, but I haven't heard of/from him in ages), he could give the whole rundown - ex Armored Cav officer, command experience in the Abrams, and a whole ton of professional schooling on armored warfare.

[Alexander's Horse]

A cav background doesn't help at all. Lancer dropped out of the discussion at a pretty early stage in the original thread.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Lefty Scaevola


The Brit modified "Sherman Fireflies" with the 17pdr gun (a longer, higher velocity 3"/76mm) were much better than the US shermans with the US 3"/76mm AA gun.

As pure tank killers, yes, but overall I'd say not. The 17pdr was the best pure AT gun produced by any of the allies, and third only to the Rheinmetall 75 L/70 KwK 42 and Krupp 88 L/71 KwK 43 guns in overall effectiveness.

The downside was that the British never uparmored the 17pdr M-10s and Sherman IIc and Sherman Vc Fireflies - all that lethality, and just about any AT weapon in the German inventory could take it out easily.

The 17pdr also lost a lot of it's general purpose and anti-infantry capability, much moreso than the Sherman-76 variants, and this forced a lower ratio of 17pdr armed tanks in the overall force mixture of the armored regiments - typically one in five Fireflies to regular tanks, rather than the two in five or two in four ratios of Sherman 76's to Sherman 75's.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Alexander's Horse
A cav background doesn't help at all. Lancer dropped out of the discussion at a pretty early stage in the original thread.

Uncleroggy was a tanker in an independent armored cav regiment - what most of you guys would classify as a light armored division.

[Case]

Does anyone know why the Western Allies didn't build T-34s?

[MattHiggs]

Argh !

We must stop this now before it becomes the 8,000,000,000 page abomination it became those dark years ago