Best Tank of WW2??????

Just to pour oil on troubled waters, if the authorities say it's a tank, it's a tank, if they say it's a tank destroyer, it's a tank destroyer. M10s have turrets and are definitely tank destroyers as are Jagdpanzer. It's what they were built for, after all.

 

Well, it's not a tank destroyer, since there were no other tanks to destroy

 

Not necessarily. The early Pz IV had some advantages over the other two. Against either it could (and this was done frequently) shell its opponet with HE from longer ranges where neither could reply (say, over 1000 to 1500 yards) effectively with the intent of either damaging the enemy vehicle or disabling it. This type of fire could damage the engine by splinters entering the engine grill openings or, could damage a track or suspension causing the vehicle to become disabled.
This was a common use of the early Pz IV models in support of the Pz III.

The Pz IV has a huge advantage over the early T 34 in crew efficency and fighting efficency. Early T 34's lack a cupola and must fight 'buttoned up' as the vehicle commander is also the gunner. The loader has just three ready service rounds available. After this he must tear up the floor matting and pull out, open and, remove rounds from three round cases stacked under the floor.
With no turret basket the loader must try and follow turret rotation in the clutter on the floor of the vehicle.
The commander is limited in his view of the world to his gunsight periscope and one vision slit in the side of the turret. The driver has just two ahead vision slits for his view. The loader and assistant driver / hull gunner are essentially blind.
There is no intercom system so the commander must either shout over vehicle noise or use hand and foot signals to let the crew know what to do. Without a radio the commander is also unaware of what the rest of his unit is doing.
This gives the Pz IV alot of advantages in terms of rate of fire, maneuver, and tactical coordination that the T 34 lacks. If you add the occasional German non-penetrating hit to the mix the T 34 crew now also must fight their panic and fear as well.
The Matilda is better of with near equal efficency in crew layout to the Pz IV. It's two big drawbacks are low speed and a poor main gun. The 2pdr is only capable of firing AP rounds. But, its big drawback is a lower rate of accurate fire due to the oddity of being aimed in elevation and fine traverse by the gunner using a shoulder pad and friction lock arrangement. This means he must relay the gun after each firing.
Of the two, the Matilda is by far the more dangerous opponet to the Pz IV in 1941.

 

Heck, I can't even say it in English let alone in Portagee But you get the drift!

 

Darn you guys, I missed out on all the newbee bashing.

 

Was that the case?

 

You seem to be forgetting that the Matilda, due to the limitations of the 2lb, would need to close in with the Pz IV, not likely with a 10 mph speed disadvantage and a non stellar reputation for reliability .

Generally speaking on a "flat playng ground" the bigger tank has the advantage if we are comparing balanced designs, but I think this method is skewed in favour of the "big unreliables" (KG, KV, etc).
When considering "unbalanced" designs like the Matilda, that was unbalanced in favour of armour, all bets are off.

As someone said the "tanks" posted by VP predated the definition what about this?

 

Unfortunately for our PzIV, he must rely on a lucky shot to disable the T-34 while the T-34 can penetrate a PzIVe from the front @ 1000-1500m

Meanwhile the PzIV still can't penetrate the fighting compartment.

The PzIVe wouldn't have to worry about non-penetrating hits, that's true.

The Matilda's 2 pdr was designed to be fired on the move, which is why the gunner had the shoulder pads - the gunners knees acted as shock absorbers. Something which was used to great effect at Arras. Unfortunately, this took an unusually intensive training effort to achieve. The early PzIVs wouldn't have a hope in hell against a Matilda II

Either way, your PzIV is dead in the water to both. Personally, I would never in a million years call it a candidate for overall best tank of the war.

 

The Matilda's 2pdr could start to think about penetrating the PzIVe's (1941) front hull at 1000m and the turret front from about 1500m. Not that limited.

 

The IVe had 50mm face hardened front hull armour, there are plenty of reports of 2lb shots shattering against it at ranges far shorter than 1000m, Turret front is 30mm but your 1500m figure still looks high. Most tables I've seen do not give penetration for the 2lb above 1000m and around 30mm of homogeneous armour sloped at 0 degs at that range. Now just give some HEAT ammo to the 75/24 and the Matilda is in real trouble.

 

The Matilda round was useless against anything other than human flesh at 1500m. It's AP performance could pierce a PzIV - E up to 300m... Not 1000m (considering we're using normal AP shot. If we go to APCBC shots then, the effective range is increased to around 500m vs an early PzIV hull). I don't agree with TA as the Matilda being more dangerous to a PzIV than a T-34 altough I can see why he says that. In my opinion, the armor layout of the T-34 it's gun and it's speed could make the PzIV suffer a lot more. If we look at the stats of the Russian's gun (I'll consider the F-34 for the model 41 but even considering the weaker L-11 the result would be similar), we can see that it is able to break trough the Hull of a mark E (the same mark as the one facing the matilda) at a distance up to 1500m. The turret would be at even greater ranges. Plus, it had the mobility to give the Pz.IV an headache and the armor to shrug off anything the German tank could throw at it. Even at ranges closer to 100m. True the Panzer IV could fire HE shells to disable the tracks of a T-34 still, it could do little to really harm the Russian tank (a T-34 with broken tracks at 1000m could still take out the Panzer).
I think that strategy would actually be more successfull against a Matilda as her slow speed would allow for an even better hit probability.


Cheers...

 

Ach, unfair! Ze early models per definitiön vere Sturmgeschütze without ze turret

 

Don't underestimate the Gr.38 Hl round availability, it could penetrate a T34 or Matilda II frontal armour. If I was an allied tanker I would not literally bet my life on the assumption the German did'nt have any. And if both opponenents can penetrate the other crew layout, training and optics will probably decide who survives and I know were I would put my money. Would the APCBC require the littlejohn adapter? I dont't recoll seeing it on Matildas.

 

The reason I think the Matilda is far more dangerous is that in a moving tank battle it, unlike the T 34, actually has a good chance of spotting the enemy and engaging him. The early T 34 is little more than a turretted assault gun. It is almost impossible for the T 34/76 M42 to be moving in one direction while the commander has the turret rotated in another to engage a target.
This is due to the absolutely abominable level of optical devices and vision ports provided. There is as I said just one periscope that doubles as the gunsight for the commander along with a vision slit in the side of the turret. This is reproduced for the loader on the 42 model. On the 43 model the loader's periscope is eliminated; an admission to its uselessness. The hull machinegunner has nothing but a hole drilled in the mantle of his machinegun for a view port. The driver has the two vision ports directly to his front for a view. This doesn't even account for the often poor quality of the optics early war nor for their bad design. The PT-4-7 periscope when in use was easily subject to dirt messing up the very exposed lens for example.
The Germans after capturing some T 34s found them to have many blind spots and a very low rate of engagement. As you may know, in tank battles it is usually the side on target first that wins regardless of which vehicles are engaging. This can be in basic form determined by the formula:

Prob of success = Prob kill x ((1-Prob you are hit)(1-Prob enemy survives your hit))

That is, if you fire and hit first the enemy must then survive your hit and then score one himself. In the case of the T 34 the engagement rate is low and the probability of spotting the enemy is equally low. This means even if you survive one or more hits you are still unlikely to successfully engage an enemy tank. Chances are in early T 34s that you will be knocked out long before you actually get on target.

Now this is very generalized. Tactical conditions, terrain and, a number of other factors come into play here. But, the Germans well into the middle of the war were easily taking out far more Soviet tanks than they themselves lost. Far more by comparison than Rommel's panzers were doing to the British. That says something about real world conditions here.

 

Most tables I've seen give around 40-42mm @ 30 degrees from 1000m which translates to over 50mm @ 0 degrees and I've seen one table which gives values up to 2000m.

 

APCBC did not require the littlejohn adapter.

 

What table are you using, that's the lowest penetration figures for the 2pdr I've ever seen.

 

How to define the best in the first place?

Time factor: The usage and availability of armor in the given time envelope e.g. year 1939 or years 1941-42 or late war i.e. fall 1944-spring 45.

Weight category: Basically four – five categories; light, medium, medium heavy or light heavy, heavy and super heavy. There is a bit different tactical purpose of armor according to weight.

Firepower: I.e. the effectiveness of the main gun to deliver lethal impact on hard and soft targets. Hard target penetration ability, explosive effect on soft targets. What’s the max. combined kinetic and chemical energy that can be delivered. What are the characteristics of gun sights and ability to quickly (rate of fire and turret rotation speed) and accurately (hit probability) engage targets. What’s the real rate of fire and turret rotation speed? What are the available types of ammo? What’s the flight time to targets, i.e. velocity of the main gun (related to kinetic energy)? What’s the max range of the main gun with different ammo used? The inherited accuracy of the main gun itself and ammo (sabot=sub-caliber high velocity, tungsten core (usually sabots), normal APC (most common) and HEAT (hollow charge principle etc...) used, with the gun sight this turns into the hit probability (practice and combat hit probabilities are two different things).

Mobility: Hard surface and cross country performance. Power to weight ratio, ground pressure, ground clearance, max. speed, max. sustained speed, average cross country speed, radius of action on hard surface (road), radius of action on cross country, smallest turning radius, max. turning radius, gradient climbing, step climbing, trench crossing, fording, key automotive components; all this equals overall mobility and maneouvrability.

Battlefield survivability: Overall armor protection (front: turret, mantle, glacis and nose; side: turret, super and hull; rear: turret and hull; bottom: hull) provided against all weapon types. Sloped vs straight armor plates (angles), the quality and type of armor (RHA steel or not – componsite armor wasn’t really yet used during WWII). Silhouette i.e. profile and size of the armor. Crew comfort: The ability of the crew to fight effective - e.g. space, heating and ventilation system. Communication system (intercom and radios), armor’s ability to communicate with its crew, other armor, platoons, companies, battalions and so on plus supporting troops etc… Service and reliability factors i.e. armors ability to get into battlefield and stay there to fight.

These above listed issues would be the ones, I would pay some attention.

There were many good tanks/SP guns in WWII within all services. Some armor was great in a certain envelope and vulnerable out of it. Hence, any comparison done by one service’s armor of another service’s armor will be tainted by A) their knowledge and opinions on what fits their bill and B) the armor is already built to some specification that wasn’t their requirements.

Just my 2 cents as an ex-armor(ed) commander

AJJ

 

I remain firmly convinced 'favourite' still always remains a better discussion criteria than 'best'. The latter's objective status always proving near impossible to define against real world criteria.
T.A.'s 'Top 10' thread perhaps offered the best compromise between the two approaches without forcing the impossible hunt for just one vehicle:
http://www.ww2f.com/weapons-wwii/12664-top-10-tanks-war.html

And welcome aboard AJJ.
(Hope you don't mind me asking; - what period were you commanding Armour? )

Cheers,
Adam.

 

Hi Von Poop,

Thanks!

I don't mind asking, I was a "modern" soldier, I served at a certain Western armor(ed) troops as an armor(ed) vehicle and a tank commader from 1984 til around 1992 then moved to a SF unit via armor(ed) recon and ranger units until around 2000 and later served as an instructor. Currently civilian person with civilian job or retired reservist

History (particularly WWII) is a hobby for me, has always been.

I agree with you that "favourite" would probably be a better discussion criteria. Of course one can always define e.g. the best firepower during some specific time period or the best armor within this weight category during this and that time period etc...

Anyway, if defining the best armor in certain particular area e.g. mobility, there needs to be supporting criteria and definations as already mentioned time factor and weight category as well as the tactical purpose of that particular armor.

As for the overall best tank/armor in WWII, I really don't know, since there were many bests for their initial purposes and categories at given timeperiods. But, hey that's just my subjective opinion, nothing else; just my 2 cents of worth.

All the best,

AJJ