Were heavy tanks worth the cost in WWII?

Started by Razgovory, March 24, 2014, 11:23:18 AM

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derspiess

#45
March 26, 2014, 11:04:55 AM
You know what tank kicked ass?  The M551 Sheridan.  Okay, not really, but I always thought the gun was cool.  Except for maybe that night at Ft. Bragg in 1995 when they were doing gunnery just a few yards from my tent.
"If you can play a guitar and harmonica at the same time, like Bob Dylan or Neil Young, you're a genius. But make that extra bit of effort and strap some cymbals to your knees, suddenly people want to get the hell away from you."  --Rich Hall

The Brain

#46
March 26, 2014, 11:09:07 AM
The Swedish S-tank was best.
Women want me. Men want to be with me.

Syt

#47
March 26, 2014, 11:10:04 AM
Swedish stank?  :hmm:
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

grumbler

#48
March 26, 2014, 05:19:12 PM
Quote from: Syt on March 26, 2014, 11:10:04 AM
Swedish stank?  :hmm:

Present tense is more appropriate.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

Kleves

#49
March 26, 2014, 11:16:15 PM
No doubt that TDs were ultimately a mistake, but didn't the US TDs have a pretty good record (i.e. positive kill-ratio) in Europe?
My aim, then, was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us. Fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Syt

#50
March 26, 2014, 11:17:25 PM
Quote from: grumbler on March 26, 2014, 05:19:12 PM
Quote from: Syt on March 26, 2014, 11:10:04 AM
Swedish stank?  :hmm:

Present tense is more appropriate.

I was thinking more along the lines of: http://de.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=stank

Quote3.
 
Stank
The smell that is present when you are having sex.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

grumbler

#51
March 27, 2014, 09:04:23 AM
Quote from: Kleves on March 26, 2014, 11:16:15 PM
No doubt that TDs were ultimately a mistake, but didn't the US TDs have a pretty good record (i.e. positive kill-ratio) in Europe?

Not if you look at all TD kills divided by all TD losses.  In the cases where they were used as proper tank destroyers (i.e. defensively), they would certainly have a positive kill ratio, but the opportunities for such use were few, and when one considers both that the production of an M10 cost the production of a Sherman with the 76mm gun, and that TD were most often used as tanks anyway, the concept can't help but be seen as a failure.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

grumbler

#52
March 27, 2014, 09:05:35 AM
Quote from: Syt on March 26, 2014, 11:17:25 PM
Quote from: grumbler on March 26, 2014, 05:19:12 PM
Quote from: Syt on March 26, 2014, 11:10:04 AM
Swedish stank?  :hmm:

Present tense is more appropriate.

I was thinking more along the lines of: http://de.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=stank

Quote3.
 
Stank
The smell that is present when you are having sex.
Okay.  Germans are weird, but I knew that already.
The future is all around us, waiting, in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.   -G'Kar

Bayraktar!

DGuller

#53
March 27, 2014, 09:08:24 AM
Quote from: Kleves on March 26, 2014, 11:16:15 PM
No doubt that TDs were ultimately a mistake, but didn't the US TDs have a pretty good record (i.e. positive kill-ratio) in Europe?
For that matter, for all the hate heaped on Shermans, didn't they still have a pretty good kill ratio against what they faced (especially if you consider German tanks lost to breakdowns, which you arguably should, since reliability is part of the design compromise).

Admiral Yi

#54
March 27, 2014, 10:10:10 AM
Why should you assign a German breakdown kill to Shermans, instead of, say, some guy in a jeep?

PDH

#55
March 27, 2014, 10:26:24 AM
The Sherman gets a lot of scorn heaped on it, but had the TD nonsense been not there than the Sherman could have been upgunned to 76mm a year earlier, and quite possibly up armored (as was done in shops anyway) without too much loss of mobility.  While it would still "ronson" when hit with an 88, it would have been a far better option for quickly having a far better tank force.
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
-Umberto Eco

-------
"I'm pretty sure my level of depression has nothing to do with how much of a fucking asshole you are."

-CdM

Admiral Yi

#56
March 27, 2014, 10:29:10 AM
It still wouldn't have looked cool.

What does ronson mean?  Brew up?

Malthus

#57
March 27, 2014, 10:30:44 AM
Quote from: Admiral Yi on March 27, 2014, 10:29:10 AM
It still wouldn't have looked cool.

What does ronson mean?  Brew up?

Yup - "Ronson" was a popular brand of cigarette lighter at the time.
The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane—Marcus Aurelius

PDH

#58
March 27, 2014, 10:37:39 AM
"Lights up the first time, every time!"
I have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma, a harmless enigma that is made terrible by our own mad attempt to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
-Umberto Eco

-------
"I'm pretty sure my level of depression has nothing to do with how much of a fucking asshole you are."

-CdM

Razgovory

#59
March 27, 2014, 10:51:56 AM
I actually think the Shermans were some of the best tanks of the war.  Of course I happen to believe that an adequate tank on the battlefield is worth much more then a great tank that is not.
I've given it serious thought. I must scorn the ways of my family, and seek a Japanese woman to yield me my progeny. He shall live in the lands of the east, and be well tutored in his sacred trust to weave the best traditions of Japan and the Sacred South together, until such time as he (or, indeed his house, which will periodically require infusion of both Southern and Japanese bloodlines of note) can deliver to the South it's independence, either in this world or in space.  -Lettow April of 2011

Raz is right. -MadImmortalMan March of 2017
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