Top 10 best tanks in the world

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Oberon

"The thing I'm most interested in tho, is the big gun. Which is as you can see rifled for greater accuracy. Not like those smooth-bore american ones that just hit something 'over there'."

Haha, always cracks me up!

[Oberon]

One should also not count out Russian equipment simply because 'It's Russian'.

When the wall fell the Bundeswehr found themselves in an interesting position of having Soviet and Western kit in their hands and were able to put them both to the test, with some surprising results.

Originally Posted by wikipedia

The July 1997 issue of Jane's International Defence Review confirmed that after the collapse of USSR, US and German analysts had a chance to examine Soviet made T-72 tanks equipped with Kontakt-5 ERA, and they proved impenetrable to most modern US and German tank projectiles; this sparked the development of more modern Western tank ammunition, such as the M829A2 and M829A3. Russian tank designers responded with newer types of Heavy Reactive Armour, including Relikt and Kaktus.

Like Skybird said, never take your opponent for granted, even if you think they may be less lethal, always treat them with respect or you will be nastily surprised.

[Bilge_Rat]

good point. No one knows how good the T-90 really is. The Iraqi T-72s destroyed by coalition forces were a mixture of export and home built Iraqi models, all of which were reportedly inferior in terms of quality/features to the models used by Russian forces.

In a head to head matchup, the T-90 is probably inferior to the best western MBTs, but it can certainly win if it gets a flank shot, again a case of who is commanding the tank being more important than the tank itself, for example:

One example of this increased firepower was displayed by Lt. G.K Henry's Firefly during the defense of Norrey-en-Bessin on 9 June against an attack by the 3rd Company of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment of the 12th SS Panzer Division. Determined to capture the town in preparation for a larger offensive to drive the British and Canadians back into the sea, Kurt Meyer ordered an attack by 12 Panthers of the 3rd Company and infantry to attack Norrey-en-Bessin and drive the Canadians out of the town. The attack got underway at 1300 hours with the Panthers racing to the town at full speed only to stop to fire their guns, quickly outrunning their infantry support which was forced to ground by allied artillery fire. Within 1,000 m (1,100 yd) of the town, 9 Shermans of the 1st Hussars opened fire into the advancing Panthers flanks. Lt. Henry's gunner, Trooper A. Chapman, waited until the Panthers "lined up like ducks in a row" and quickly knocked out five German Panthers with just 6 rounds. The attack was repulsed with the loss of 7 of the 12 attacking Panthers, the majority credited to Lt. Henry's single Firefly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman_Firefly

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by Oberon

One should also not count out Russian equipment simply because 'It's Russian'.

When the wall fell the Bundeswehr found themselves in an interesting position of having Soviet and Western kit in their hands and were able to put them both to the test, with some surprising results.



Like Skybird said, never take your opponent for granted, even if you think they may be less lethal, always treat them with respect or you will be nastily surprised.

In Finnish terrain tanks will never have large scale battles and even an T-72 can be useful.
The Finnish army retired them for Leopards but still has some modernized T-55s in use that usually beat the T-72s in wargames.
The first shot was faster and more accurate usually.

The IFVs are useful in our terrain and i think that when wisely used the BMB-3 and BTR-90 would be very dangerous machines.

[Dan D]

Originally Posted by Oberon

...When the wall fell the Bundeswehr found themselves in an interesting position of having Soviet and Western kit in their hands ...

Side-note: I have read an article about how Israel and Germany have been cooperating on a secret service level (nothing the public needed to know about) for some decades when it comes to military technology.

Both nations were facing the same challenge at the same time: they had to build up their armies from the scratch against Soviet weapon technology.

So they exchanged their knowledge. When Israel captured Soviet weapons in wars against its neighbours who had Soviet weapon technology, they let German military experts take a look at it. And when Germany had a chance to put its hands on Soviet weapon technology e.g after the re-unifcation, the whole NVA, Nationale Volksarmee, the East-German army, it gave some of the **** to Israel for testing purposes.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Dowly

"The thing I'm most interested in tho, is the big gun. Which is as you can see rifled for greater accuracy. Not like those smooth-bore american ones that just hit something 'over there'."

Haha, always cracks me up!

"Right, he's going around in circles the little BLEEP!"

"Oh no! I seem to have brought Puff Daddys car...to the Somme!"

"This really is just a battle of range...who runs out of fuel first...and that's a bad plan because I suspect it's going to be me..."

[Jimbuna]

Further to Oberons link, is the CR2 the fastest over rough terrain?

[Bilge_Rat]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Further to Oberons link, is the CR2 the fastest over rough terrain?

hard to say, officially top speed cross-country is:

M1A2- 48 km
T90s- 45 km
CR2- 40 km

but they may be deliberately misrepresenting their capabilities for security purposes.

max speed does not really mean anything on a tactical level, a tanker will never go fast over rough terrain and run the risk of bogging or throwing a track unless he has no other choice.

Here is a good site for general non-classified info on modern tanks:

http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/main.html

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

hard to say, officially top speed cross-country is:

M1A2- 48 km
T90s- 45 km
CR2- 40 km

but they may be deliberately misrepresenting their capabilities for security purposes.

max speed does not really mean anything on a tactical level, a tanker will never go fast over rough terrain and run the risk of bogging or throwing a track unless he has no other choice.

Here is a good site for general non-classified info on modern tanks:

http://www.fprado.com/armorsite/main.html

Cool site

[Castout]

Well it's a personal ranking based on personal opinion alone.

I wouldn't care much or take it seriously. That specific youtube guys has been videoing various types of military machine ranking.

As for me the world's greatest tank is the think tank.
Honestly one should never put too much pride on military equipment or machines. Strategy, training and skills as well as motives play a major part in winning any war not just what kind of tank one drives into battle.

Realization must be made that it is ALWAYS easier to destroy than to build and when applied to tanking the arsenal and weaponry to destroy a sophisticated tank are so numerous, effective, much cheaper and widely spread & deployed that in a full scale war a tank crew is not expected to survive that long in his tank. No matter what people say there's no one invincible tank.

a Crewless tank perhaps holds the most advantage in terms of operational survivability in a battlefield environment imo just that none is deployed.

Then again the world is yet to have seen another full scale war since the Korean and Vietnam war. Iraq's first war wouldn't fit a full scale war to me. Iraqis were fighting with pretty much obsolete equipment and inferior numbers especially in the air.

The Soviet tanks are often mistaken for being very much inferior when the fact is that they were designed according to a different doctrine than the West relied on.
Soviet designed tanks are designed to be deployed in superior numbers to overwhelm Western Europe defenses. Their strength lies primarily in their numbers while the West opted for superior more sophisticated tank building. The Soviet thought oh well even the superior Nazi tanks crumbled by the sheer weight of numbers of the simpler T-34s so why fix what aint broken.

I think someone mentioned that tank crews ride into battle so they could arrive first and die first too. A tank attracts too much attention and begs for immediate enemy response be it from the ground or air.

[L.T]

would be awsome to have old "tankers" giving there opinion on this, and as one i will try to say what is important for me.

tv shows looks at statistics, and either they go with what history books say or they go for the "popularity" factor

Im a former LEO 1 and 2 driver even had 6 months in M-41DK1 drove the last Danish centurion to the scrap yard so i have kinda abit experience with atleast those tanks. But i have been fortunate enough to be at tank schools in the UK and Germany had some fun in poland and seen loads of MBT`s all over the world. (nothing like tank bust a base in a country you visit)

A tank in modern warfare is nothing like a tank in ww2. The German panther and Tiger is "if you look at the gun" the closest thing to a modern tank, but ww2 simply came down to numbers. A modern tank are not the same speerhead, a modern tank is more used in a supporting role, kinda like the stugg or jagdpanthers.

So what are the worlds best tank? well its hard to say.

Fuel used and range

How complicatet is it to maintain

How complicatet is it to repair

How complkicatet is it to move

How long does it take to train crew

How well does it protect the crew

How effective are the tank on the battle field (Guns/radio/logistics)

When i sit in a tank i need to know it wount break down under normal combat situations. I need to know that the systems are effective and reliable and i dont want to wach engine temp guage and fuel guage all the time. And if something go wrong i want to know it can be fixed either on spot or atleast fast in the repair shop.

I dont want it to be so complicatet that i cant learn the basics on how it all works (by them self) or as the full package, on a engineers level. I want to know how it work so i and the rest of the crew have a basic idea how to try to repair something, and a skill level so we can help the mech`s when they work on the tank.

For me a tank should be simple, with reliable simple systems that do the job. Easy to repair and easy to use. Tank warfare is complicatet and the last thing a tank crew should do was to use a complicatet system in a complicatet enviroment.

The T-34 is a war machine, built for massive attacks in great numbers, the numbers save it, not the tank it self (personaly i think the KV1 is a better tank because when intruduced it could hold its own ground)

And by experience, yes been driving one, that tank can hurt the crew as bad as the enemy, flat out dangerous to be in running fast over cross country

Tiger is simply over engineered way to complicatet.

Panther, werry poorly build, using parts with a history of breaking apart.

Here and now my favorite is the CH II, but that is from my "personal level"

If you want a digital battlefield with a way to complicatet engine you go for abrams

If you want top crew safety and "half" a MBT go with the merkava

You want a formula 1 tank that also is abit complicatet go with the leclerc

If you want simplicity and reliability go for a T-90

At this time there imo only two tanks that could be mentioned as the best tanks and that is the CH II and the leo II

On the battlefield the CH II have a slight upper hand, but for repairs and fixing the Leo is the one with an upper hand..

Its not a tank, but i have a big weak spot for the scorpion. In its day it was the best made "tank" and the two participating in the falklands war did more "setting fear into the enemy" than many MBT`s have done in the last few wars..

But in all its werry simple. The best tank is the one stil running after a campaign..

L.T

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by L.T

Its not a tank, but i have a big weak spot for the scorpion. In its day it was the best made "tank" and the two participating in the falklands war did more "setting fear into the enemy" than many MBT`s have done in the last few wars..

Two? You mean "two troops", not "two tanks".

Originally Posted by International Wikipedia

Combat use

Two troops from B Squadron, Blues and Royals served in the Falkland war. They were the only armoured vehicle used in action by the British Army during the conflict.

Scorpions also served in the Gulf war. The 1st Queen's Dragoon Guards a reconnaissance regiment had 32 and the close reconnaissance troops of the armoured regiments each had eight.

Originally Posted by German Wikipedia

Im Falklandkrieg kämpfte das britische Regiment Blues and Royals mit 4 Scorpion- und 4 Scimitar-Panzern.

Smartass intervention end.

[krashkart]

Here's my vote:

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by krashkart

Here's my vote:

Is that part of your home made still Krashkart?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by jimbuna

Further to Oberons link, is the CR2 the fastest over rough terrain?

Like Bilge Rat said, a tank will hardly take the risk of travellimng at max speed over rugged terrain.

However, consider that the M1, Leo-2 and Chally-2 all are of comparable weight that they must move. But the Chally's engine has 1200, that of the Leopard 2 and the turbine of the Abrams produce 1500 HP. that's 20% less power for a tank of the same weight - hard to imagine that it could travel as fast as the other two.

most times I picked a read on tanks somewhere, they say that the Leopard has the slightly faster top speed than the Abrams, but that the Abrams has slightly faster acceleration. It also is often said that these differences are so minor only that they hardly are of more than theoretical interest. Obviosuly armour sets attached to the tank additonally also make a difference (in weight).

How fast the gears switch, the gear's robustness and how easy it is for the driver to switch between forward and reverse, I would rate of higher importance - when the tank is dug in and typically moves forward to fire from an elevated position, than dives back in reverse to achieve fully covered position during reload (so deep then that the gun can't fire), and then jumps forward again to fire. This sequences lasts just seconds, and in a heavy tank engagement these seconds really could make the difference between life and death. As long as the tank is not ready to fire, it tries to duck down. Onyl when it is ready to fire, it exposes itself a bit more.

You can nicely simulate this difference in SBP. It is an important behaviour, and thus they made big efforts to correctly simulate it. It has saved me so very often from being directly hit, when their projectiles reached my position the moment the tank was fully hull down and reloading. As often i have been killed when the projectiles reached my position while I just was firing in the same position, more part of the turret exposed to clear the gun.