Your Favourite Tank In WW2

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    • Yeah, I guess so. XD Tank Destroyers don't have turrets and have big guns; I think that's the difference.
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    • Although they are separated by time in CoW tech tree, so there is a difference.
      “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.”

      ~St. Francis of Assisi

    • Well if a Hellcat, a StuG-IIIf and a SU-76 can all be called "tank destroyers", it's such a big difference that I think it's safe to say that a tank and a TD indeed ARE all the same.
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    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      Well if a Hellcat, a StuG-IIIf and a SU-76 can all be called "tank destroyers", it's such a big difference that I think it's safe to say that a tank and a TD indeed ARE all the same.
      As I am sure you know, K.R, there were two different ideas of what tank destroyers should be: (1) relatively fast-moving, with relatively light armor on the sides, rear and top, with a big caliber, high-velocity, long-barreled anti-tank gun, and (2) relatively slow-moving, with relatively heavy armor on the turret, mantlet, glacis and sides, with a big caliber, high-velocity, anti-tank gun. There were, of course, two different tank destroyer doctrines that drove the two different tank destroyer design concepts. The lightly-armored fast-movers were supposed to be held in reserve and rushed to the point of an enemy armor thrust as needed, and the more heavily armored slow-movers were supposed to mingle with other forces, strike from from cover and/or camouflaged prepared positions and be used primarily as defensive weapons against enemy offensive maneuvers. All TDs were supposed to be more mobile and better protected than towed anti-tank guns, and usually carried bigger caliber guns, too.

      FYI, in the universe of WW2 technology, this is why you cannot have a tank destroyer that is both heavily armored and fast because tank destroyer design was inherently a trade-off between those two factors.

      In practice, tank destroyers were often not to be found when they were really needed, and the concept was mostly discarded (except by the West German Bundeswehr) by the major powers after World War II in favor of the more versatile main battle tank paradigm. With bigger caliber guns, better armor-piercing rounds, higher horsepower engines, and better armor technology and configurations, the main battle tank became the primary armored fighting vehicle from the 1950s through the present.

    • MontanaBB wrote:

      With bigger caliber guns, better armor-piercing rounds, higher horsepower engines, and better armor technology and configurations, the main battle tank became the primary armored fighting vehicle from the 1950s through the present.
      British tank's high velocity cannons were also not very good with HE shells as well, making them less versatile.
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    • Quasi-duck wrote:

      British tank's high velocity cannons were also not very good with HE shells as well, making them less versatile.
      Well, that's over. Given the level of shared new technology between the Brits and Americans during World War II, it's surprising that the western Allies did not come up with better armor-piercing technology sooner, but it was an apparent weakness of both. That said, the level of shared tank armor and gun technology among the NATO allies (and their friendly affiliates, like Sweden) over the last 30 to 40 years is really quite remarkable. The current M1A2 Abrams represents a combination of modern technologies and design concepts pioneered by the British, Germans, Americans and others, as are the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2A6. New military tech is so d@mn expensive, that even the notoriously chauvinistic American defense industry and congressionally-mandated procurement protocols have come to recognize that we should buy the "better idea" when one of our allies gets there first.

    • MontanaBB wrote:

      Quasi-duck wrote:

      British tank's high velocity cannons were also not very good with HE shells as well, making them less versatile.
      Well, that's over. Given the level of shared new technology between the Brits and Americans during World War II, it's surprising that the western Allies did not come up with better armor-piercing technology sooner, but it was an apparent weakness of both. That said, the level of shared tank armor and gun technology among the NATO allies (and their friendly affiliates, like Sweden) over the last 30 to 40 years is really quite remarkable. The current M1A2 Abrams represents a combination of modern technologies and design concepts pioneered by the British, Germans, Americans and others, as are the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2A6. New military tech is so d@mn expensive, that even the notoriously chauvinistic American defense industry and congressionally-mandated procurement protocols have come to recognize that we should buy the "better idea" when one of our allies gets there first.
      Apparently, since Britain use a rifled cannon now, they don't have great sabot rounds.
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    • MontanaBB wrote:

      K.Rokossovski wrote:

      Well if a Hellcat, a StuG-IIIf and a SU-76 can all be called "tank destroyers", it's such a big difference that I think it's safe to say that a tank and a TD indeed ARE all the same.
      As I am sure you know, K.R, there were two different ideas of what tank destroyers should be: (1) relatively fast-moving, with relatively light armor on the sides, rear and top, with a big caliber, high-velocity, long-barreled anti-tank gun, and (2) relatively slow-moving, with relatively heavy armor on the turret, mantlet, glacis and sides, with a big caliber, high-velocity, anti-tank gun.
      This is one of the trade-offs, maybe the most important, but certainly not the only one. Another one is the choice between turreted or fixed gun (which is really quality/expensive versus quantity/cheap; or Hellcat versus SU-76); then there's design complexity (for example, use an existing medium tank hull or design a specific one; or StuG-III versus Hellcat); secondary armament may be considered a third one (or anti-infantry defense choices; a co-axial machinegun don't have much value on a non-turreted TD, bow machinegun requires an extra crew member in a role it isn't designed for, etc etc).
      When the fake daddies are curtailed, we have failed. When their roller coaster tolerance is obliterated, their education funds are taken by Kazakhstani phishers, and their candy bars distributed between the Botswana youth gangs, we have succeeded.
      - BIG DADDY.

    • K.Rokossovski wrote:

      This is one of the trade-offs, maybe the most important, but certainly not the only one. Another one is the choice between turreted or fixed gun (which is really quality/expensive versus quantity/cheap; or Hellcat versus SU-76); then there's design complexity (for example, use an existing medium tank hull or design a specific one; or StuG-III versus Hellcat); secondary armament may be considered a third one (or anti-infantry defense choices; a co-axial machinegun don't have much value on a non-turreted TD, bow machinegun requires an extra crew member in a role it isn't designed for, etc etc).
      This is the difference between a TD and a tank. A tank can fight infantry and is good at it, while they often did not have overly powerful guns, unless it was a heavy tank.

      Tank destroyers are, obviously, very good at destroying tanks. They are very poor against infantry though, especially when you look at the German tank destroyers, many of which did not even have machine guns.

      This is the key difference between TD and a tank. Tanks are much more versatile, but lack the power to adequately engage enemy tanks, only do a mediocre job. Tank destroyers often cripple a tank in one shot but will be troubled by infantry. You wouldn't use a tank destroyer to clear out houses and trenches over a tank, but you wouldn't use a tank over a tank destroyer for defending positions or setting up ambushes against large numbers of enemy tanks.
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