This particular type of jagdpanzer is called the Jagdpanzer 38(t) which post-war was called the "Hertzer". I also like the way it looks. I really wish someone made a 1/72 scale model of it. It was a decent weapon - cheap and reliable (running on the pre-war Czech LT-38 tank chassis) with good firepower. The problem was its interior. Cramped does not begin to describe it, and the loader was put in the wrong side to load the gun just because there was no where else to put him. Visibility was also poor, especially for the commander. This is an incredibly common description of German WWII equipment, not only from enemies looking at captured equipment, but of the German soldiers themselves. I've seen it in a number of memoirs.
You're out of your mind. We're talking Panthers and Tigers, here, the pinnacle of German armor design in WWII, not the all the versions of the Panzer (I-V). The T-34 was a phenomenal tank for when it was introduced, but by the end of the war it was by no means the best tank on the battlefield. The Russians built the Jozef Stalin class of tanks to compete with the Panthers and Tigers. The Panther was essentially an upgraded T-34. Equal mobility. Better armor. Better gun. Better internal controls. Less drunk, actually literate crews. Tiger was a heavy tank, not a medium tank like the Panthers and T-34s. Much bigger gun. Much heavier armor. Less mobile. Come on. Ever play Steel Panthers or Panzer General?
The problem with those games is that they don't take into account some very important aspects of war, such as mechanical breakdown or logistics. If you want to play Atari 2600 "Combat" with two tanks, sure I would pick the German ones, with their longer ranged guns and excelent optics. But in a real battlefield, I'd like a tank that won't break down easily, will get enough gas, shells, and spare parts, and also be more likely to get towed away and repaired if it was damaged. It'd also like well trained and equipped troops and air superiority to go with me, and late in the war those things were standard equipment with Russian tanks.
And forgive my ignorance, but I thought the "Rising Sun" flag was a bit... well, non-kosher after 1945...?
IIRC the 90 has the same gun, a lot less effective armor and less effective electronics. It seems that a lot of similar design elements were used though. I'll try to check Jane's today.
As a national flag, yes. But it is still the military flag. It is used kind of like the Union Jack is on US Navy ships.
The Type 90 is supposed to have very modern armor, but at about 50 tons it probably doesn't have a whole lot of it. I guess the need to make it easy to ship around Japan had a part in that. And going back to the purpose of the thread, I think the Japanese Type 90 looks great - very Leopard II A4. I know the flat sided turret decreases protection a bit, but it looks really mean. I really don't like the look of the newer Leopard II tanks with the sloped forward turret additions.
But doesn't increased armor sloping means better protection...since it has to penetrate more than a box like armored-vehicle. And I disagree about the looks...I think a more slanted armored vehicle, like the Panther, looked much better than the box-like Tiger
Well, kind of. First, from the front the main turret panels on the Leopard and Type 90 do angle, but out to the sides. And penetrators don't really travel a straight line through the armor - they tend to dip a bit and follow a path of lesser resistance, so you can't judge armor effectiveness by only looking at the horizontal distance between inside and outside. And the shape has an impact on things like interior layout and ease of accessing the engine and other things on the outside. For example, with the new armor on the turret sides on the Leopard II A5 and A6, getting at the engine has become more complicated. I like the Tiger better too.
One thing about armor -- the Russian used reactive armor to overcome the defects in their armor manufacturing techniques. Western armies tended not to use reactive armor. Russian tanks were covered by boxes that if shruck by a projectile would explode, "hopefully" destroying or deflecting the projectile before it reached the main armor. The US DU sabot dart though seems not to have a problem defeating this. Supposedly, the Russians were working on "proactive armor." That armor would have a sensor that would sense an imminent impact and explode out before impact, in order to defeat the projectile.
I can just picture the board meeting trying to pitch this idea. Engineer: "Comrades. To avoid death by the capitalist pigs' anti-tank weapons, we have devised an ingenious device which will sense the approaching missile, and will detonate a full 3/10ths of a second before the missile would strike." General: "And what exactly happens upon detonation, Boris?" Engineer: "Why, the tank would explode, Comrade." General: "The tank would explode?" Engineer: "Certainly." General: "And how is this a good thing, Boris?" Engineer: "The explosion would render the tank, and its crew, of no value to the capitalist pig enemy; the imperialist dogs would have used up one of their expensive anti-tank missiles for nothing; and the glorious soldiers would have given their brave lives at the hands of the adoring motherland, rather than their despicable enemies." General: "Bravo, Boris! Genious!"
One of the reasons the M24 became such a tank in Japan was that it was light enough to use on Japanese roads and bridges.