hey all,

its been a while, and I need a good way to both keep active in this group and also continue procrastinating on the most confusing tank that I have ever tried to cover, the Churchill (oh god, the rework programs, the conflicting data, its a nightmare). So I figured that I would drop a question to the group to get a bit of discussion going. That question is in the title. WWII was arguably the first time that the tank would really see combat as a fully fleshed out concept, with doctrines being made in the interwar (and wartime) years and with design philosophies being honed to suit. Hence the question, who was the most correct. you could look at this from a few different ways, who had the best design philosophies, which country was the best in tank warfare, which country made the best choices given their situation.

Yes, it is kinda open ended, but hopefully people will get some insight, different opinions, and maybe a few crushed myths too.

6702493
ah, the British railway loading gauge. That is one of the first things discussed in my main source that I am using for my long rumored Churchill write-up, and was, I suppose, a bit of a handicap. this brings up a interesting question as far as the British tanks go, and allow me to use the two photos you used to illustrate it. both of these photos were taken in the UK, the one with the Sherman you can tell based off of the railroad signals and the wooden box cars. So because of this, we can assume that the flatcars in these pictures both pertain to the same loading gauge (for those not into railroads, the loading gauge dictates how much a train can weigh, its height, and its width.) now a Sherman weighs a bit over 30 tons, but a Matilda II weights 25 tons. because there are 2 Matilda's per car (50 tons!) on the top photo we know the main concern is not weight as far as loading gauge is concerned. Sherman are only 1 inch wider than a Matilda, so width is not the concern either. but the car that the Sherman is on is bowed down because the Sherman is much taller than the Matilda, and basically all other British tanks (well, exempting challenger I guess), so it seems that the loading gauge most affects height.

what this means for British tanks is that the fighting compartment on all of their tanks until the centurion has to fit between the tracks, on Sherman and Centurion the hull goes over the tracks and gives a bit more room in the fighting compartment which allows for a bigger turret ring and bigger weaponry. basically all British tanks during the war, infantry or cruiser, have the main characteristics of having a relatively low profile compared to its piers, but tight turrets. I wonder now if this was not a doctrine choice of "lets make the tanks have low silhouettes for combat" but more of a "if we make this tank any taller it won't fit through a tunnel." thats a interesting question.

However, I think that at the end of the day british tank doctrine was largely a failure due to their ideas with the difference between infantry and cruiser tanks, and with the specialized weapons (the antitank gun is fantastic for antitank work, worthless for everything else) as opposed to multirole cannons. none of these ideas survived the war, and while there were some good things to come out of this they replaced it with centurion, which can be looked at as either a Panther but without reliability problems, a course correction from specialized doctrine, or a Sherman for 1946.

6702432
I think Germany and, to a lesser extent, the Soviets had a pretty good idea of what they wanted their tanks to do. The Pz3 did a lot of things write considering the time period, though the gun was a bit anemic. Then they got the idea of adding armor on designs not designed for it and things started going a bit downhill.
The Soviets got a face-full of Eastern Front and didn't really have time to get something better than the T-34 designed, but they seemed to be making decent process while prototyping.

6702676
Being real, I can just barely see it.

6702813
At some point I figured that germany would be brought up, and early to mid war I really cannot argue with it being the leader in tank doctrine, with good sensible designs to back it up ( I mean, the panzers II, III, and IV were really solid) but after kursk I have to wonder. I'm split between two thoughts.

1. The germans move to tanks that were too large and too few and that no longer had the reliability to operate effectively in the offensive role, and should have stuck with more production of 'tried and true' designs instead of fewer tanks of 'higher' quality

Or

2. Making fewer, but more effective tanks (panther, king tiger) was the right call because they would never be able to out build the Soviets, but the execution is what held them back.

Perhaps germany was making all the right choices given the situation, but were doomed regardless of what they went with.

Honestly, as far as what tanks they were making and production choices, the Soviet Union may have been the closest to being 'right'. Yes, early T-34s were not as awesome as everyone makes them out to be, and their reliability was pretty awful, but in the early war the Russians did not need reliable tanks, they just needed tanks. Your tank does not need to go more than 150 km when the front line is outside the factory doors. But as the war went on, and the initiative moved to the Soviets, their tanks became reliable enough to support an offensive. Their tanks were modernized efficiently, And their ideas lead directly to the T-44 and T-54 (both only missing the war by a matter of months).
Doctrinally though, I do not know if the soviets used their tanks well. On a strategic level maybe, but tactically...

6703033
One wonders what a "Tiger" or "Panther" would look like if the methods used to produce the Sherman was thrown on it.

Hmmm.

Starting with the panther, it would have had a cast turret. That part is easy. Second, it would have had a redesigned hull front so that it could be unbolted for access to the transmission. That would mean a part of the hull is cast and rounded, so they would have wanted to go with the late war style of transmission casting (which has a sharper beak). They probably would have canned the overlapping suspension and just beefed up the remaining torsion bars. The final drives would have been double herringbone and would have been more reliable (not sure how much though).also, there would be a periscopic sight for the gunner. Gunner, rejoice! Finally, that hydraulic traverse would have been replaced by a electric one. Those are the changes to the tank that could be noticed.

All the big changes would happen at the factory where they were assembled. The american manufacturing process was very different to the german one in two very important ways. 1, the us made purpose built tank arsenals while the germans adapted existing plants to production, and 2, the us standardized on a design and then built all the tooling needed to produce the parts needed en mass to high tolerance, while the germans constantly upgraded designs and did not produce specific tooling so the design could be changed immediately. What this means is that while it would take some time to be set up, and hard to change a design for the Americans (it would require new tooling to be made for every change) once in place it was much quicker and cheaper to build and what they did build was repeatable. The germans could make design changes instantly, but with about 1/5 the amount of specific tooling that the americans had it took longer to make their vehicles and to a far less degree of repeatability, which played hell with spare parts production. Also, with a scratch built plant the americans could set it up in the most efficient way possible. The germans meanwhile had to use existing factorys which were not well laid out for AFV production and until 1942 had to share the plants with commercial vehicle production (really). So, a more american panther would require a entirely different factory and dedicated tooling, and would have far fewer modifications over its production.

6705025
Only just saw this post now, interesting thoughts.

Thanks.

Also, you said "Starting", were you going to post something else, or that was it?

6855938
Nah, that's basically it. Unlike other countries that underwent pretty radical changes in their tank design philosophy by the time panther came around the germans were pretty set in stone. A German tank was going to have transmission at the front, engine at the back, limited access points, overlapping (if not interleaving) torsion bar suspension, ammunition in the panniers on the side, and so on. And because of this, a more American TIger would probably be similar to a more American Panther.