Question: Fastest Tank?
 

Talking in history class today and my Professor was wondering what is the fastest tank built? :hmmm:

Well off the top of my head the M18 topped off at 60mph and was the fastest tank at that time, afaik that record still stands. :hmmm:

If you consider the Scorpion a 'tank', then this is it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FV101_Scorpion
(by modern standards it's not, but with tracks, some armor and a 76mm gun, it certainly fits...)
It's rated speed is 72.5km/h (45mph), but its sustained record is actually over 82km/h I believe.

Otherwise, T-80 variants are known to be pretty swift. A good candidate is the Ukrainian T-84: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-84 Has a massive engine and reportedly can do about 70km/h (43mph)

Check the Russian BT series tanks. they were American designed, but they were rather fast. I'm not saying the fastest but they were certainly up there.

Ah yes, the BTs could do about 45mph. However they 'cheated' - they were 'convertible' tanks that could have their tracks removed and quickly switched to wheels, and so their max speed was in wheeled mode on the road.

They were still quite fast on tracks... but also notoriously unreliable (had constant engine breakdowns in actual use, among other things). And the 'convertible' design, ironically, actually slowed them down by adding a bunch of extra weight to the tracked configuration :88) The Christie tank design (which they were, with few alterations) matured rather well in the T-34 however, which wasn't nearly as impressively fast.

[edit]

And yes, looking over the candidates, IF you consider the M-18 a tank, then it quite probably wins. If not, it seems that a lot of modern MBTs are good candidates - they can all reportedly do about 45mph in good road conditions. The more powerful T-80 derivatives might be a bit swifter than average since they're much lighter for the amount of engine power they have.

Read this 200mph(320 kmph)
 

Land: Fastest Tank
http://bp3.blogger.com/_iKcZ3qcCmyo/.../s400/Tank.jpg

Currently, the largest tank ever built, the M1-J10 Main Battle Tank, nicknamed “Jihadi Slaughter” or “JaySlaw” for short is being built in Lima, Ohio by General Dynamics. The JaySlaw measures nearly 90 feet in length, 35 feet wide and stands almost 2 stories high. The main weapon of the M1-J10 is a 478mm smoothbore cannon, designed by the Rheinmetall Corporation of Germany. Engagement ranges approaching 22 miles were successfully demonstrated during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The JaySlaw has been clocked at a speed of over 200mph in desert sand which is simply astounding considering the vehicle weighs more than a thousand tons.

I don't know if it's a hoax but WoW it makes the German WWII Maus looks like a dwarf....A 478 mm Rheinmetall gun????

Frinik

People may have different ideas of what they mean when sayiong "tank". As long as that is not clear, the disucssion is pretty useless, for it may compare MBTs to light tanks or even IFVs, and tracked to wheeled tanks. By the standards of WWIIU, the CV90 series almost would be rated as an MBT although it is an IFV, and comparing an M1, a Leo-1 and a Centauro in a way means to mix up eras concepts and technological advcances. But all three could not be m,uch more different. And a Fuchs - to many laymen also rates as a "tank".

It's not real, definitely.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/hayl...n/post_new.gif 04-01-2011, 09:58 AM

Speed
 

According to my research pretty much all modern MBTs can do from 65 up to 72 kmph top speed be it the Leopard, Abrams, Leclerc, Challengers etc.the T-84 is listed at 65kmph. With the modern fire tracking systems speed does not matter that much anyway.Going a few klicks per hour more ain´t going to save your skin considering the velocity of modern shells or missiles.

Fuel consumption matters more. For example the Leopard 2A6 has a very efficient diesel engine whereas the Abrams has a gas turbine engine which consumes a lot more fuel. This gives the Leopard a greater fuel autonomy range.

but IIRC the Abrams can run on practically any fuel you can put into it.

Ok so top speed of all time is

M18 Hellcat at 60 MPH

and top speed of a tank currently in service is

FV101 Scorpion at 51 MPH

Thanks everyone! :yeah:

Possibly stretching a point a bit, but the HIND could be a candidate - widely thought of 'back in the day' as a flying tank, it does around 200mph give or take... one of the fastest, and also heaviest armoured.

Photoshopped an M1 Abrams and made it 3x's the size.

The official international speed record for the World's Fastest Tank has recently been set by a CVR(T) Scorpion Tank upgraded to the latest S 2000 Peacekeeper standard by Repaircraft. Timed by the British police and MMST and witnessed by the Guiness Book of Records, a standard production S 2000 raced its way into the record books at an average speed of 82.23 kph. (51 mph) held since 2002.

However, in the early 80's I trained on Scorpions when they had the Jaguar 3.6 litre petrol engine, and before electronic ignition was fitted to the engine. On one strtch of the A1 (M) up near Catterick in N. Yorkshire, I was clocked by a Jaguar XJS that I overtook, doing 88mph (a tad over 140kph)

When electronic ignition was eventually fitted from the mid 80's, the speed was governed and we were never able to find one that could exceed 65mph.

Details on Military vehicles that are still in service are very hard to substantiate, since most, if not all, are restricted information.