Quote:
Originally Posted by Sledgehammer427
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
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.