And why they went up so quickly after being hit. A Canadian tank commander in Normandy stated you had more time to get out of a diesel tank if it were hit than a gasoline tank.
The reason Shermans went up was because the ammo was stored unprotected high in the sides. After a while they started placing sheets of appliqué armor on the sides right where the ammo is stored, as you can see in this picture: Later Shermans moved the armor down to the floor inside an area surrounded by water.
Yet a tank doesn't have to brew just because it gets hit by a shell in it's ammo storage. The nicknames give to the Sherman can easily be applied to the gasoline since gasoline is known to be quite volitaile. The allies knew this but didn't want to switch to less dangerous diesel since it would create logistic problems. Even with that, a large chunk of Sherman tanks had diesel engines. This is why tanks, AFV's, and trucks of today run on diesel than gasoline. Easier to obtain and not as dangerous.
Probably the biggest Panzer/tank ever: The "Maus" (mouse) was constructed by famous engineer Ferdinand Porsche and weightet 200 tons. Unfortunately, it was almost useless because it was too slow and heavy to move on the battlefield. But it looks quite impressive: here's the english wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer_VIII_Maus
Actually there may be an account where this was actually used in the Battle of Berlin. I'll try to find it. You have to wonder the name though..."Maus"???
M1 Abrams is a good tank, but I like the Leopard II the Germans have. Looks like a good tank, even if it hasn't really been tested in battle.
Here is a military discussion This guy thinks the US M-1 is the best, with the German Leopard 2 and Briish Challenger 2 close behind. According to the article, during Desert Storm, a Challenger took out an Iraqi tank at 5 kilometers. An M-1 was stuck in the mud, took repeated hits from T-72s, and not only survived but took out the Iraqi tanks. As for me, I don't know. My ROTC experience ended before I got into a tank. My father was infantry and very much against the whole tank business (two things he told me when I considered becoming an Army officer -- (i) wear your flak jacket (his life was saved by one in Korea) and (ii) stay away from tanks).
Yeah, but in fairness most modern western tanks against a T72 would be rather like sending something like a Chieftain or Patton into western Germany circa 1945. I'm rather surprised that website mentioned above ignores the Merkava though. True, it's a very theatre-based tank design, but it happens to be a pretty good one. That said, in all honesty most modern 1st world designs aren't a million miles away from each other - if you start ranking them you end up having to be like gymnastics judges and go to the 4th decimal place! And it is, of course, all too easy to get hung up on rankings. 1940 French tanks were "the best in the world", and one-on-one, who would dispute Panther or Tiger against Sherman or even T34? Yet I can't help noticing who won there... Anyway, just to get this vaguely back on track, didn't the Swiss keep using redistributed panzers (or Jagdpanzers, at least) until fairly recently? (reading this thread reminds me, I really must go back to Bovington sometime soon...)
Each to their own Nice, but while I am an avowed fan of the T34, under the often-rumoured-but-never-seen optimum conditions everything I've read and researched - although I'm not claiming universal knowledge here by ANY means - shades it to the Panther. Superior frontal armour, gucci kit on board... granted, the side armour was almost criminally thin in comparison, and the mechanical problems were never, I think, completely ironed out, but even so...
Many nations continued to use Panzers. The Finnish, Swiss, Austrian and Italian armies continued to use some Panzers (don't know which models). The last known use of a Panzer were the Syrians in 1967 against the Israelis, the PzKpw IVs were used by the Syrians against the modern Israeli tanks.
That is about the coolest factoid I have ever read about military history...I had no idea. Herr Porsche would have been very proud...
as far as I know the Swedish Leopard 2s are better equipped than the German ones, while the Dutch are as good as ours. the Austrian and Spanish are a bit older afaik. Isn't the abrams built with German engineering (the guns)?
Yeah, funny. I remember seeing a Japanese comic (or was it a cartoon) where WW2 was actually fought with mechs. They all had the same name and rough characteristics as the tanks though. It wasn't too bad either. Not a classic, mind, but it passed the time.
I always loved the look of the jagdpanzer I don't know if it was the military channel or the history channel, but probably over the new year's weekend, they were running a series of "The 10 best ...", and the T-34 came in first. Production was a key factor in its ranking, as was reliability and ease of maintenance. I think the only reason the M1 Abrams (#2) didn't win was because it has never really been tested in an all-out tank battle against relatively even competition. Asfar as the Panzer, it wasn't even ranked as the best German WWII tank. That was the Tiger, whose only blemish was again the poor production (heck, don't German engineered cars still get blamed for over-engineering and difficult production and maintenance?)
"I don't know why you're talking about Sweden ... They're the neutral one. They don't have an army." - President George W. Bush, December, 2002