Favorite tanks

I personally would love to ride a Stug III or IV on the road. (Forgive me I know they aren't technically tanks, but they're my favorite armored vehicle out of any tank or vehicle)

 

I'm with Karjala......Stug III Ausf G. Not a tank but the best assault gun and tank killer. Production data doesn't lie. Although quite underrated by allied intelligence during WW2 and still somewhat underestimated today, the StuG III was nonetheless the most produced of any German AFV during the conflict. The irony of its evolution mirrored the more famous Pzkfw IV. At first, this was a simple derivative of the Pzkfw III for infantry support only. With its low profile and low cost, the real battlehorse of the Wehrmacht was the StuG III. Shifting from a close support vehicle to a tank killer of first magnitude, soldering without interruption anywhere from North Africa to Europe and Russia. The crews loved it because of its low profile and heavier armor (compared to Pzkfw III) and the infantry it was supporting for its firepower and availability. The most successful Pzjager. StuGs rule!

 

Ditto Martin. The Pzkfw III was proportional and well designed as far the crew compartment. Many of the tanks of the time were cramped. This I believe to be the first that had all operational bases covered with the appropriate number of crew members to carry out that tasks. Driver, radio/machine gun operator, gunner, loader and commander whereas how many countries had the 3-man crew (driver, gunner and commander/loader).

The Germans may over engineer their tanks but they do design some very nice ones.

 

The British Medium Mark I of the 1920s had a three-man turret, but with the odd catch that the loader had to double as a machine gunner. There was no coaxial MG, but there were four ball mountings sited around the turret. Usually just one MG was carried, and moved to the appropriate ball mount when needed. So there would be a loss of efficiency if the tank needed to simultaneously engage with the main gun and turret MG (there were also two hull MGs, one each side, which one gunner had to take turns operating).

The late 1930s British tanks (cruisers A9, A10, A13, Matilda Mark II) had normal three-man turrets with coaxial MGs.

Panzer III and IV were developed simultaneously and were intended to operate together in the panzer battalion, three companies of IIIs and one of IVs. Guderian describes them as light and medium tanks in Panzer Leader, but the specifications were the same except for main armament, so the PzIII was only slightly smaller than IV and is usually referred to as a medium.

There were several design issues with the PzIII, including the debate over whether it should have a 37mm or 50mm gun. Some early models had two coaxial MGs, and there were several different suspensions with five, six, or eight road wheels per side. Only small numbers of each model were built, so that at the outbreak of war there were only 98 PzIIIs in service, alongside 211 PzIVs.

 

This always reminds me of the armored trains

 

#25 looks like a tank Homer Simpson would design. Lots of guns, sounds great on paper. Pity the fools who have to inhabit one. ..Too many shot traps...Too heavy...Was there a movie theatre inside-.

 

I thought the Bob Semple tank of New Zealand was the "Homer Simpson" tank.

 

That looks like a dalek.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSNkSAa1eG4

 

M-26 Pershing. The first one that could really slug it out with a Tiger, toe to toe.

Even this one:

 

There is a civil war era fort in Detroit called Fort Wayne after General "Mad Anthony" Wayne. At least once a summer dad would take us up there to run around and look at all the neat stuff. One of those neat things was a Sherman and in those days before everything got roped off as a safety hazard the kids could climb all over and inside of it and actually have fun. Of course you'd bang your head and get jabbed and scraped by various strange levers and knobs, but back then kids were expected to have scraped knees and bumps on their heads. Bleeding aside, it beat the hell out of playing in a cardboard refrigerator box at home.

Those childhood experiences may prejudice me, but I think the Sherman (all things considered) was probably the best tank of the war, and certainly my favorite. They were easy to build and easy to maintain and we flooded Europe with them. By 44, the gun was obsolete but the design of the turret allowed it to be upgraded to the 76 or the British 17 pounder, and that was already happening as the war progressed.

Sure, there were "better" tanks in actual combat, but with the cost, complexity and general reliability issues we'd have damned few tanks in combat by 1944.

 

I agree KB, contrary to anything its critics say, the M4 made a positive impact for the allies during the war, and it too is my favorite tank of WW2. I am also envious that you got to climb inside one when you were a kid.

 

Well I have spent most of my life teaching and practicing design/architecture so I have a slightly bias bent toward aesthetics and function but aesthetics in the old Louis Sullivan "Form follows function" school certainly applies to AFV's. According to that the French should have made elegant tanks !!! Not.. The Char B is a bit of a lump. The Russians I would not have expected to produce good tanks but I am partial to the T 34-85. From the people who gave us the Spitfire, ummmmmmmm, I guess the Comet is not so bad.. The Sherman, a tank of excellent automotive qualities looks like it was cobbled together from the M3, an ungainly parent....The M 18 is appealing.

I once thought about putting a tank model on my drawing board....the art of the tank so to speak to please my eye. In the end it would have been a semi-tank, a Jagdpanther, beautiful to my eye....not to late, may still do it..............Other contenders , the Mark 111 long barrel, the Panther and they KonigsTiger ( bit overweight, Poppy ).................

The Easy Eight comes to mind at times but in the end the Jagdpanther is my favorite..

Gaines

 

Here.
I've got time for most of the Interwar designs. Probably my favourite period of armoured effort.
Something completely fascinating about the groping about going on. The automotive and technological limitations of a period where the internal combustion engine was barely a couple of decades old, and the very concept of what a tank needed to be was far from certain. Vast exercises like the armoured force trials still not entirely settling exactly what was required. People like Hobart pressing on; desperate to work it out, knowing that there was 'something' needing grasping.
we can snigger all we like at assorted peculiar looking efforts, but the intentions behind them all were earnest & serious.

The multi-turrets in particular, like the 35 above and the Independent it was based on (or stolen from... good story there), are fascinating reminders that the 'land battleship' concept still seemed attractive and possible, right up until early M3s, Rams, Centurions etc. with their secondary turrets and Polsten barbettes.

I also find them aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes thinking the designers of that period had something of the HG Wells lurking at the back of the mind still.
You certainly couldn't accuse them of the homogeneity of overall shape that eventually overtook Tank design.
What's a tank? Errrmmm, dunno, get back to us, we're working on it:


BRITISH ARMOURED FIGHTING VEHICLES 1918-1939. © IWM (STT 1674)IWM Non Commercial Licence





Second War favourite. Probably anything in the desert. With Pennants, & dustcloud.

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH AFRICA 1942. © IWM (E 18970)IWM Non Commercial Licence

THE BRITISH ARMY IN NORTH AFRICA 1941. © IWM (E 6839)IWM Non Commercial Licence

Postwar. Always the Conq. For the wide-skirted hang of the thing:


With maybe a bit of it's intended sparring partner, for purely stylistic reasons.:

 

My favorite WWII tank has always been this baby:
View attachment 22260

The M3 Lee/Grant series was a hurried improvisation, essentially the hull, chassis and engine of the obsolete M2 Medium Tank with a 75mm gun shoved into a sponson mounting and increased armor. It lasted a little over a year in front line service against the Germans in North Africa, mostly in British hands. It played a vital role in 8th Army's 1942 battles, since it was the only tank with a gun that could match the long 75's of the Germans for range. During the critical July-August fighting at El Alamein it was dubbed "Egypt's Last Hope." It was replaced by the Sherman soon after, but served on with the British, Indians, and Australians against the Japanese in Burma and the Southwest Pacific, where its multiple guns made it very useful as an infantry support vehicle. The Soviets disliked the Lee/Grant (they called it 'The Grave for Six Brothers') and so did the Americans of 1st and 2nd Armored who used it in Tunisia, but for a quick improvisation it compiled a very respectable combat record. Some people think the M3 is ugly, but something about it appeals to me visually. The Israeli tank museum at Latrun has a couple, and I got to climb on them.

 

Von P, do you have the link for that orgasmic film clip of the Kubinka T35 in action?

 

This one?

Уникальный экспонат - танк

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Owf2e7Xtx70

One of the most surprising videos Za ever threw at me.

 

Sure you know the german Neubaufahrzeug:

Only a few were built, but they saw actual battle.

One of my favourites is the french Somua S-35. It was developped before the war and although it had some flaws and i don't like the looks, it was a great design. Speed, armour, firepower and weight were nicely balanced. This was the future of tank design. When you look at the M4 Sherman you see the influence of the S-35.

 

I've read somewhere that the Soviets frequently refered to a tank as a "grave for x brothers" where x was the number in the crew of that particular type of tank. As such I'm not sure it speaks all that much to their dislike of a particular type of tank. I have seen numbers on the casualty raites from various powers given that a tank was knocked out. From what I recall comparing Soviet Shermans to US Shermans the Soviet rate was ~1 higher than the US rate which was close to the German rate for MK IVs. Thus it may simply be acknowledging that being a Soviet tanker during WWII was a very risky profession.

 

Next to the Stug III, the Panzer IV Ausf H has always been a fascinating tank to me. A robust tank with at least over 8000 produced it was one of the work horses of the German armored forces to the end of the war. Used in all theaters of the war it was a reliable machine that came to be respected by its foes. Its chasis remained unchanged during the war. It started with a weight of 18 tons, an armor thickness of 20 mm, and a 75 mm gun to having an armor thickness of 80 mm, a weight of 25 tons, but still using the 75 mm gun. With the help of their TZF 5f telescope, it had a great first kill capability that was unmatched by many other Allied tanks, topped with great accuracy. After the war the Panzer IV still saw combat with the Israelis during the Six Days War and the Golan Heights