Talk:Tanks in World War II

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I made some changes

• Most of the t-26s were obsolete, very very very few had radios.
• A tank can not be based on a suspension system! It can have it inside it but a tank can not be based on a suspensions system that sentence was so wrong.
• T-28 had a twin turret, I just added it as extra info. And it was equal to the Pz 3 not 4.
• T-34 improved version remained battle worthy, 2 words by the way, until the 50s not just 1945.
• No commanders cupola on the first T-34 models and no radios, Kv tanks did have radios but only the company commander had a transmitter the rest only had receivers.
• Lend Lease tanks went to the Far East to replace the home made tanks there.

Worhopen 01:25, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

I had to revert some of your edits along with some vandalism by other editors.

T-26 was no worse than the numeous German Pz-II, 35(t) and 38(t) it faced.

Tank designs are frequently described as being 'based on' a suspension system. It may not make sense to you but it is a common usage of language.

T-28s did not have twin turrets. See the wiki article. T-28s had a single main turret with a 76.2mm gun and two smaller machinegun turrets. The low-velocity 76.2mm gun is more comperable to the Pzkw-IV's short 75mm than to the 37mm and 50mm guns of the 1941-vintage Pzkw-III.

All T-34s were designed to have radio and many early models had them. Most German and US tanks lacked transmitters also.

Lend-lease tanks were used in all theatres.

DMorpheus 15:50, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Most T-26s were worse because

A no spare parts

B poor maintenance

C the design was very old

T-28, a tank is not just a gun the Pz4 was many times superior to the t-28 because the pz4 had radios, a commanders cupola and was several time more mechanically reliable.

T-34, No most T-34s did NOT have radios less then 10% did if even that.

Far East, yes tanks saw actions everywhere but the VAST MAJORITY went to replace domestic tanks in the east because they were superior to what was shipped.

Worhopen 03:27, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry; look, you claimed the T-26 was "hopelessly obsolete" (your words) - an obsolete design is completely different than a poorly-maintenanted tank force. How poor maintenance and lack of spare parts are two different things is beyond me, so I am not sure why you'd list them as separate items. The T-26 was far from a great design but it was no worse in basic characteristics to the numerous German 35(t) and 38(t)s, and far better than the pzkw-II. Its gun could penetrate any German tank in 1941; its two-man turret was the same layout used on the Czech tanks. It was no worse that many British and Italian tanks also in use about this time and into 1942. Calling it obsolete is a stretch. The T-34 made most other tanks, German and Soviet, look outdated. But it makes no sense to single out the T-26 as obsolete.

All T-28s had radios. Pretty good for a design dating from 1933. The gun was similar to the pzkw-IV. The armor was better on the up-armored versions. It had a three-man turret. Pzkw-IV more mechanically reliable? Yes, certainly. I don't think you can document that it was "several times" more reliable, whatever that means. You claimed the T-28 had twin turrets and was most comperable to the pzkw-III; not true.

All T-34s were designed to have radio. At some periods, only 10% actually had them - but not all all periods. Early models generally had radio. By 1943 all had radio. It was during the tough period of late 1941 thru early 1943 that radios were not always fitted.

Please provide some statistics to show that the vast majority of Lend-lease tanks went to the far east. You can't, because they didn't. Almost all were used on the Soviet-German front.

regards, DMorpheus 12:25, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

NPOV

So all the British tanks are woeful death-traps, but the American tanks were amazing considering their development?? If you can find a single Sherman gunner who enjoyed facing any German tank with his pea-shooter, I'd love to meet him. VonBlade (talk) 19:04, 11 July 2008 (UTC)

Paste of German tanks in World War II

I've just undone this paste by user:66.50.42.162, which appeared to be the text of German tanks in World War II pasted straight into here. Good faith maybe, but duplication isn't good encyclopedic authoring or editing. Nor was it sourced. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:17, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Incorrect title

I think this page has an incorrect title. In no way shape or form can this page carry the title "Tanks in WWII"

It might at a stretch carry the title "US Tanks in WWII" but without any mention at all of German, Russian and British, and to a lesser extent French, Italian and Japanese tanks then its nothing like what the title claims it to be.

I accept that its up to other contributors to add to the article but as it stands the titale needs changing.

Jonewer (talk) 18:07, 22 December 2009 (UTC)

Actually, reading the article again, its quite plain that the section on tanks in WWII on "Tank" page

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank#World_War_II

Is far superior to this one in providing information on tanks in WWII. In addition, there a numerous other pages on WWII tanks and tank actions that provide a wealth of information on the subject.

This page also makes some truly bizarre assertions such as

"The sheer power of American production, superior combined-arms tactics and German errors on all levels meant that the American forces generally prevailed. Interestingly, this was the same pattern that was seen at the beginning of the war, when weakly armored and undergunned German panzers crushed their much more powerful French, British and Soviet opponents in the early blitzkriegs."

Now to say that the german forces in 1940 were undergunned and weakly armoured compared to their British and French adversaries certainly raises an eyebrow. While its true that the French had a small number of good tanks like the Somua, the majority were Renault R35, and some of the ludicrous Char 3c, neither of which had any place on a modern battlefield. The British had no tank to match the Panzer III or IV. In any case the German success in 1940 had little to do with the quality of the tanks and everything to do with introduction of a modern style of fighting and the concurrent collapse of French communication and morale.

To compare the Allied advances in 1944 and 1945 with the 1940 blitzkreig is glib to say the least.

I therefore propose that this article is deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.151.131.141 (talk) 08:45, 23 December 2009 (UTC)

Lots of the content had been deleted in april 2009 by a vandal and no one except me had the brains to restore it. 83.249.10.9 (talk) 23:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Awful structure

I think that the idea of telling a dozen of separate stories in one article is flawed. Obviously this article should be split into: Polish tanks in World War II, French tanks in World War II, etc. The best idea that comes to my mind right now about Tanks in World War II is a complete re-write, with a section about each campaign. This is the only way to actually tell the reader an interesting story - how the tank designs compared, how the strategies compared, how they fought tactically, what was the outcome, how the shocking discovery of e.g. KV-1 prompted introduction of Tiger, etc, etc. --Kubanczyk (talk) 00:06, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I oppose a simple split. We might move content out into those articles, but we need to keep one single central article for Tanks in World War II, as it's an important topic. I'd agree that this current article isn't it though. The best way to achieve this will be to start with a blank-sheet concept for what that structure ought to be, then building that article - using as much of this as practical, but not forcing the re-use of something just "because it's there". If the idea of deleting great chunks is unappealing, paste diifs to these deletions on the talk: page. Anyone writing the sub articles can then find and re-use it. Andy Dingley (talk) 00:12, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Whoever wrote this article is obviously pushing some kind of view that American tanks were brilliantly and everyone else was blatantly incompetent and inferior. They also don't seem to know much about the subject of the article. They're like a virgin talking about sex, they don't understand anything about tanks in the second world war.--92.251.222.149 (talk) 01:09, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

Nice bit of griping, but can you be any more specific? I certainly don't read this article as any whitewash about US tanks being any better than they were. As I assume that you're not in your 80s and you appear to be posting from an IP address in neutral Ireland, I wonder just how you lost your "tank virginity"? Andy Dingley (talk) 01:53, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

American tanks

Per 92.251.222.149's comments re American tanks.

US tanks were designed and produced differently to those of Germany, the UK or the USSR - production was everything, not design. A known-bad design would be built, because it could be built (immediately and in volume), rather than waiting for something better. The M3 used a sponson-mounted main gun because this was the only way to produce a 75mm main gun tank in that timescale. The M4 was barely changed in response to its combat experience. Where it was changed was either to make use of available engines or to streamline production. The only real change as an improvement in performance was the Firefly, a British development. Combat experience was largely ignored deliberately, because it was recognised that this would affect production, and quantity was everything. As the article says, given the poor starting conditions for the US, and how early on their final design was produced (the M4 was even in production in time for Tunisia, then spent the two years to Berlin with no significant improvement (ammo storage was about the only one)).

German, UK & USSR designs changed frequently, in response to changing conditions and knowledge gained. The Germans developed new designs, the Soviets improved, the British did the best they could with what they had. The best analogue to the US design process would be some of the British designs, the Challenger conversion and the Valiant, where inexperienced designers (typically railway heavy mechanical engineers) cooked up flawed designs that were even worse than usual. The M4 wasn't perfect, but it was no Valiant! In contrast, the Soviets had pencils but no spare manufacturing, so they designed good tanks because they couldn't afford to build anything that was less than good. British cludging even managed to make a useful tank out of the Churchill (after innumerable variants) and by the time of the victory parade the ghastly Cruiser had given rise to the excellent Comet. Andy Dingley (talk) 02:27, 11 August 2011 (UTC)

The vast majority of this article should be about the employment of tanks at the operational level, not the technical aspects of tanks themselves. There is nothing in the article about this.--92.251.128.18 (talk) 06:37, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

The design, production and availability of tanks in WW2 is inseparable from their service history - especially so for the British, who were hampered so much by the poor design quality of their tanks. Andy Dingley (talk) 16:33, 12 August 2011 (UTC)

US Section Minor Edit

Removed this "The M36 Jackson with the powerful 90 mm gun also entered service in the fall of 1944 and could penetrate the glacis of a Panther at 600 meters." from the US section. It was in the middle of the M4 part of the article and did not seem to fit in well there. Also there are no other references to Tank Destroyers in the US Section. There are numerous statements in the US section that need citation. As a very new editor, I dont feel comfortable putting that many tags at one time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThreeSidedGolem (talk • contribs) 16:47, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

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Remove

I removed these gallery due to cluttering.

• T-34 Model 1942 s ekranami (Russian for "with screens"), with appliqué armour welded to the hull, near Leningrad, 1942.
  T-34 Model 1942 s ekranami (Russian for "with screens"), with appliqué armour welded to the hull, near Leningrad, 1942.

• 
  T-34 rocket launcher in France.
• 
  Sherman Firefly of British 7th Armoured Division in Hamburg, 4 May 1945.
• 
  A M4A3R3 used by the USMC during the Battle of Iwo Jima.

(MrNiceGuy1113 (talk) 17:26, 2 September 2012 (UTC))

Gun and turret stabilization and drive

This seems to be a serious aspect that has had too little attention. One of the best WW II stories I have heard from a veteran was that the gun control on American tanks could be used to compensate for lighter armor and guns compared to some German tanks. He said that he drove up and down hills and they fired on the move. The German tanks, he said, had a crank for gun elevation and power only for turret rotation. He said the American tank had a stabilized gun and could shoot while moving. The B29 bomber had electronic (apparently analogue vacuum tube) sights for its remote machine guns, with stabilization and target lead calculation. The target lead may be less important in a land vehicle (It was not introduced in the Bradley until the A3 version.) but stabilization is even more important, so the statement that late WW II US tanks had stabilized main guns is quite credible. But I don't see anything written about it, either here or elsewhere. David R. Ingham (talk) 03:04, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

US tanks certainly adopted stabilization early on (I think the M3 Grant was the first to see combat, with UK forces in the Western Desert). The value of this extra complexity was questioned, and defended, for the rest of the war. The idea of shooting "up hill and down dale" was certainly discussed, and might even have had some importance for the first US forces into Tunisia. In the desert though, many of the major battles were fought on the flat. In France and Germany, this type of cross-country driving was risky in a slow tank, as it meant losing some of the advantage of cover. What probably made more difference though was the rate of turret traverse. The Tiger's heavy turret made it infamously slow, even under power, and this certainly changed tactics. If stabilization really mattered, it was probably for the US high-speed tank destroyers and light tanks (lighter than a Sherman, thus faster). Andy Dingley (talk) 10:58, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Re-write

I am going to try to do some re-writing since, as noted in the tags, this article has "numerous issues". Looking forward to working cooperatively with whoever wants to pitch in. DMorpheus2 (talk) 18:19, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

May I suggest we begin with reorganizing the article so that major tank producers/employers are listed first (USA, USSR, UK, France, Germany) and the less important users later (say Japan, Italy, Poland, China.. others?). I am not sure Czechoslovakia should be listed at all since a state by that name was nonexistent during WW2. It is certainly true that the pre-war 38t and 35t designs were very important in the hands of the Germans, Bulgarians, Romanians and others, but how to handle?

I also wonder whether the emphasis should be on design, operations or something else?

regards, DMorpheus2 (talk) 18:26, 20 February 2013 (UTC)

I've done a lot of work reorganizing and beginning some copyediting but this article still needs a ton of work. DMorpheus2 (talk) 20:09, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I added a lead photo of a US M4 and infantrymen. I think this is a good lead because the 'message' of the intro probably should be something to the effect that the tank went from an object of research in the 1930s to a fundamental part of the combined arms team by the end of the war. So a photo of a tank with infantry makes this point. I also think the lead photo should be either an M4 or a T34 since these two are the most important tanks on the winning side of the war. Anything else is "less typical" Regards, DMorpheus2 (talk) 20:39, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

M3 Medium tank "poor at fighting tanks"?

According to the article, "The appearance of the M3 "Lee" medium tank in the summer of 1942 finally gave the British a larger supply of medium tanks than they could otherwise have hoped for. Although poorly designed, with a very high profile, it was produced in great numbers and was very effective when engaging targets other than enemy tanks, such as infantry and gun positions". I'm curious, what exact model of tank did the British have at the time that was superior to the M3 Medium? I was strongly under the impression that the whole reason they urgently sent the M3 Medium over in large numbers is because the British desperately needed a tank fitted with a 75mm gun that could tackle the more powerful armor that was appearing, and they didn't have anything of their own in the pipeline ready just yet. I always read that the M3 Medium showed up just in time to take over the brunt of tank-on-tank battle, and did a respectable job of if, considering its flaws. It was not perfect by any means, but it was the best the British had available at the time, and it certainly was plenty capable of tanking out enemy tanks. They didn't desperately need a 75mm-gun tank so they could more effectively engage infantry formations and pillboxes; mortars and howitzers work okay for that. They badly needed it because it could handle the Panzer III and IV, and the 2-pounder couldn't. The way this is written it makes it sound like the British took on the M3 and found it was pretty much useless for anything but infantry support. That is just false, everything I've ever read about it is wrong. Of course, as always, we have the problem of people comparing the object with later, better tanks that came along afterwards. Compared to what was available later, one would not choose an M3 to be your fighting tank, but compared with what they had before, it was a definite improvement, and it most definetly was very useful in taking out tanks. The British didn't have anything nearly as powerful as the M3 Medium with its 75 mm gun available in North Africa until the M4 Medium came (which is also unfairly given the same unkind treatment in retrospect, while it was considered far superior to previous designs when it was first sent overseas; according to the Internet, it was a lowly, badly designed and despised deathtrap, but it is clear that soldiers in 1943 didn't think so to any great degree.

BTW, "Sherman", "Lee", "Stuart", etc, are all Britsh designations. They were not used by the US, even informally, during the war. The "Sherman" was called "The M4 Medium", or "the M4" in all publications; that's what the soldiers called it. They drove "M3 Light Tanks", not "Stuarts", and they flew "P-47s", "P-51s", "PBYs" and "F4Fs", not "Thunderbolts", "Mustangs", "Catalinas" and "Wildcats"...although the aircraft names were in fact officially adopted by the US from the UK, unlike the tank designations. Popular culture has since adopted the British names and the M4 is now generally known as the "Sherman tank", but it was not the proper designation outside of British service. Therefore, when writing about American service, the American designation should be used. When writing about British service, the British designation should be used. We call it the Martin B-57 Canberra, not the English Electric Canberra B.Mk.V, and in this case we DID actually offically adopted the "Canberra" name...but it was mostly called "the B-57". It's not a "P-51" in RAF use, it's a "Mustang F.Mk.I", so why would we call the M3 Light, M3 Medium and M4 Medium the "Stuart, Lee and Sherman"? Also, it is an "M3 Medium", not "the M3", unless it is very clear which you are talking about from context. Like the M1 Carbine, M1 Rifle and M1 SMG, just calling them "M1" can be very confusing when it's not 100% clear which you are talking about, and it's always better to assume the reader doesn't know than to leave them confused. A person who doesn't carefully read everything isn't going to catch that we've stopped talking about the M3 Light Tank and are now talking about the M3 MEDIUM Tank if it only says the second name once, buried in a sentence somewhere.

Idumea47b (talk) 06:32, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Idumea47b (talk) 06:32, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

The drawback to the M3 was its high profile. When it appeared, the only tank combat using it was in the Western Desert - where the scenery was wide and flat, with little cover. The issue then was accurate range, as much as armour penetration. The M3, in particular, could be ranged and engaged whilst advancing because it was tall enough to present a target above its own dust cloud - the Crusader was much harder to see as a clear target.

The Soviets, OTOH, were fighting a defensive war when it arrived. The projectile weight was useful, the shorter range not such a limitation, and they could often fight from a hull-down(ish) position. However they had less need for a HE round, having artillery nearby (it not needing to advance and keep up), and not having suffered the British limitation of the single-purpose 2pdr. Once the Soviets began advancing, they were much less happy about the M3.

The naming was used in the US, one of the few examples that was, as the US factories used the Grant / Lee distinction to identify the two turret variants, even though they were both M3s. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:42, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Ordnance QF 17 Pounder anti-tank gun

Changed the calibre of the gun from 77mm to 76.2mm. If i'm wrong on this matter, please let me know, as this may have been the conversion in context, or some other matter that I am unaware of. Bayley Sherlock (talk) 18:02, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

You're correct, the previous value may have been due to confusion with the related Ordnance 77 mm HV as fitted to Comet. The 77mm was also 76.2mm - the name was chosen for differentiation GraemeLeggett (talk) 20:26, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

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