Quote:
|
Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Bewolf
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl
I thought it was a great injustice that the Tiger was not featured on the Military Channel's "Top Ten Tanks", which I just saw last night. I mean, for God's sake, the Sherman and the Centurion were in the top ten. Even the 15-ton failure that is the M551 Sheridan made it. The S-tank made the list despite not strictly being a tank at all!
The Tiger, I or II, should have been included if for no other reason than being the most intimidating tank of WW2. The best tank ace in the world, Wittman, commanded a Tiger. For that matter, if they're going to include turretless vehicles like the S-tank, the Jagdpanther and the Stug III should have been in there as well. I found the whole thing to be a complete mockumentation by someone completely unfamiliar with the philosophy of good tank design.
Oh well, at least the Leopard 2 and the Panther made it.
|
True, but these US comparison shows are odd anyways. In one, the Sherman made first as the best tank of WW2 place because it's ease of production and logistics. You just gotta bend the criteria until it fits your design.
edit- and if any tank should have been the best for ease of production and logistics, it should've been the T-34. Even the Germans learned something from that nasty little beast. It is a testament to the incompetence of the WW2 Soviet war machine that so many were lost, despite being clearly superior to the Panzer III and IV, and outnumbering them, no less!
For some reason me thinks the tankers inside these would reconsider such judgement when facing a Tiger or Panther. |
I suppose that would depend on whether you asked the one Sherman crew that survived or the four that were killed. As proud as I am of my American heritage, I am ashamed when I look back at the way our military threw so many hundreds of thousands of lives away in the World Wars. D-Day and the ensuing battles were little more than a side-show compared to the Eastern Front, and even in Korea and Vietnam the U.S. military failed to provide a significantly advanced tactical doctrine or equipment to our troops. Only in the years since we adopted German-style tactics and equipment (early 80's) have we developed a war machine that rivals the efficiency of the Germans in the last century and a half.
Even then, with the war on terror, we insisted upon fighting the last war, woefully underprepared despite the lessons we learned from the British and the Soviets during their occupations of those regeions.
If German martial tradition has one claim to fame, it is that German military thinkers have been among the most effective and progressive of any in the world. German generals and strategists, collectively, are unequaled by any other nation in modern history. When I report to my unit for duty, I don a modern woodland digital-camouflage pattern that is directly derived from late 44' Waffen SS camouflage. I wear a helmet that is patterned after the German design of 1915, albeit made of Kevlar. My weapon is a machine gun that is a direct descendant of the MG42, the M240G. The weapons of my comrades owe their design to the MP44, the M16A2, with a few American innovations  . Our combined-arms doctrine was purchased at the cost of untold thousands of American lives on the Western Front. And that's to say nothing of Germany's contributions to jet, submarine, and rocket weapons.
The proof is in the pudding, so to speak, I suppose. Even if certain "documentaries" of questionable worth pervade our media, the truth is evident in the machines, methods, and tactics we employ. |
*COUGH*
Though you are probably right, I am not sure if to take that as a compliment or with a shudder. There is this saying over here, stating "Death is a master from Germany". And Death is what war and all the tools and machines are for, after all. So I am kinda torn between this realisation and the ages old fascination for war in general, within which Germay indeed has a place.
It all boils down to accepting war as natural human behaviour that can't be avoided and thus propperly recognized or fight it in the name of idealism and the hope of improving humankind.
Anyways, so much to the philosophical aspect of this. I wholeheartly agree to your assessment of the T34. It was a nasty surprise for the Germans in Russia and was very influential in the development of the Panther, which is considered to be the first modern concept MBT by some.
I also agree to the short sightness of the american leadership, namely Patton, who did not see the need for the by then available Pershing, instead putting his money on the Sherman. Though not a bad tank per se, intended to fight in combination with infantry and tank destroyers, the old phrase "no plan survives enemy contact" became too true for the Ronson. Especially if "enemy contact" was defined by "heavy tanks".
But I suppose every army has a lesson to learn here and there. For the germans this lesson was the T34. For the western allies it was the Panther and Tiger.