Why aren't track links used as makeshift add-on armor anymore? Having spare links could aid in repairs and maintenance while acting as spaced armor at the same time if placed correctly. Lower front plate and turret back/sides protection would benefit from this simple trick.
Because it adds a lot of weight for negligible increase in protection. Allied leadership specifically discouraged tank crews from putting improvised armor on their tanks for this very reason.
ok well attach balloons to it to lighten the weight problem solved
It was useless at best in WW2, and while AT weaponry has improved a whole lot since the shot-stopping capacity of track links hasn't.
Because usually the issue is dying from the side armour being penetrated by a flanking hit.
Realistically it should be on the side of modern tanks.
not that good vs modern tank rounds and at weapons. if youre adding weight just use era or proper slat
Sherman crews did this out of desperation. It didn't help against the big cats but it was symbolic like cope cages.
did it help against smaller "cats" like pz 3s or 4s?
The Sherman was a very good tank when facing up against the Panzer 3 and 4 because that was what they designed to face against in the first place. In a lot of cases, the Sherman outclassed them.
It only became a problem when they ran into Panther's, Tiger's, and their Jagpanzer variants, but their numbers were so small and the stories you hear about 3 Sherman's needing to take out 1 Tiger weren't as common as you'd think because there simply weren't enough of them being produced. Keep in mind that the StuG III was the most produced tank in Germany throughout the entirety of WW2.
Tiger - 1,347
Panther - 6,000
Panzer III - 6,000
Panzer IV - 8,000
StuG III - 10,000
And yet when they did encounter them the Sherman crews either
1) died
2) fought desperately in a large enough group
3) retreated and waited tank destroyers
lol
Yeah no shit homosexual, tanks aren't magic. You can't make a tank that is perfectly protected against everything while being mobile, ergonomic, easily maintainable, and producible in large numbers
Oh no, the Germans have 4 Tigers in the area, we'll have to flank them and wait until their transmission breaks, the horror
>Tfw you get your understanding of WW2 tank warfare from video games
Never denied that, but I also don't see your point? The Sherman came out over a year before the Panther and Tiger had even went into production, so of course they are going to struggle. The Sherman was never intended to be used in a strictly anti-tank role. It excelled in infantry support though.
The US had a better tank though that should have been the one fighting the Panthers and Tigers called the Pershing.
butthurt WoT players detected. sorry but in real life the sherman wasn't a magic super tank with golden ammo.
>sorry but in real life the sherman wasn't a magic
I know. I did say
>Yeah no shit homosexual, tanks aren't magic
Learn to read
>muh Pershing
Yeah okay just wait for that thing to be developed and don't ship any Shermans in the meantime. I'm sure it'll be fine
The Pershing wasn't introduced until mid to late 1944. It had limited production because the US military doctrine at the time viewed a tanks primary role as either being infantry support or for breakthroughs. Neither of those require large caliber, high velocity main guns or thick frontal armor.
Yes the point is that US military doctrine was wrong
None of them claimed it was.
>HONOR DICTATES YOU SEND ONE TANK BECAUSE HANS IS LOSING AND CAN ONLY AFFORD ONE TANK PER SECTOR
How effective military operating in groups go over military history autists is baffling. You send a tank squad even for a fortified mg box.
I remember someone pointing out once that the "5 Shermans for one cat" myth comes from a squad of 5 being the smallest unit of maneuver for tanks. Pretty much exactly like you said, even if they were just MGing some infantry there would be 4 others nearby
Was probably Chieftain
Why use heavy tracks that give 15-20mm protection when you can use light ERA for 200-500mm in KE and CE respectively?
Thats funny, because the M4 Sherman had the highest survivability ratings for the crew than any other tank in WW2, it also had the lowest burn rates of any tank in WW2, thanks to its hull floor stored ammunition and wet stowage.
Panzer IV, V and VI you are looking at 60-80% burn rate.
M4? 15-25%.
Also have you heard of Combined Arms? You are so invested in video game worlds that you don't realize a one on one tank battle in a vacuum of possibilities wouldn't ever happen.
FUN FACT TOO! Germoids love to boast about Tiger I and its unpenetrable armor, BUT did you know!?! That the M4 Sherman with its 63mm upper front plate with its 47 or 57 degree slope matched the 102mm FLAT plate of the Tiger I upper front plate! It did that while being MUCH lighter. So Tiger I has 4 inches flat angle, M4s had 3 and 3/4 - 4 inches angled LOS effective armor. Must suck to be an overweight unreliable piece of dogwank!
ALSO FUN FACT! Check picrel to see what the Shermans 75mm M3 Gun could do to a Panthers side with its HE shell M48, only 666g of TNT and the Panthers armor is crumpled. German engineering at its best!
Combat report of M4 Shermans with 75mm M3 Gun taking on German panzers
M4 Crew Injury Report showing the M4s high survivability rating amongst crews.
Most German crews never got to report back about the tanks performance and issues because they died!
>using percentages instead of absolute numbers
as we all know, the us spammed Shermans because of bad doctrine, so 25% of Shermans destroyed with their crew means a LOT dead more than any German tank
What difference does that make if the individual M4 crew survives more often than Panzer crews?
You are basically saying that ''yeah German tanks had higher burn rates and lower survivability, but less were made so thats TECHNICALLY less men dead!''
That is not sustainable in a war.
i dont think manufactoring defects due to strategic lack of alloy materials is a legitimate critique of the design. Nor is it a legitimate merit of the 75mm gun.
When responding to
what was produced is more important than how the design should work. What they needed to do was prove it was the norm instead of the exception.
>t didn't help against the big cats
but it did reduce the effectiveness of shaped charges from the Panzerfaust. the Germans put something similar on their tanks to combat the bazooka.
>Germans put something similar on their tanks to combat the bazooka.
no, it was because of ptrd/s
Silly no Tanks, That was the Panther with the Armor put on the side. Panzer 4's had additional armor bolted on to help protect against Bazookas and PIATs.
Negligible protection against modern APFSDS and HEAT. There's also no good exterior mounting positions on, say, an M1A2 or Leopard 2A6. It's just extra weight at best for modern tanks.
Reactive armor is more effective and keeping spare parts on-hand made sense in the 1940's when logistics and supply chains meant for hundreds of thousands to millions of personnel in rapidly changing front lines wasn't quite figured out yet.
Wait, so that grognard I played against at GW that gave 10 year old me shit for glueing extra treads to the front of my rhinos was actually clueless?
Yes
>Why aren't track links used as makeshift add-on armor anymore?
Because the US did tests and found out that "turns out, we were already making them with as much armor and weight as they need to be"
You can even make an argument that track links lessen your armor since they normalize kinetic shells and are much softer steel
average /k/ bait as always
>any discussion involving the slight mention or picture of a sherman tank
>instant obvious bait ''it took 5 to kill 1/it was a death trap'' posts begin appearing
>original purpose of thread gone
One Sherman could take out a tiger, I thought everybody knew this?
tracklinks are something like 10-20mm of mild steel or structural steel rather than armor steel, which means 10% protection for an equivalent thickness
so you basically add ~8mm of steel equivalent for maybe a half-ton extra weight
US BRL concluded that the extra protection was negligible
it might have been counter-productive under a specific set of circumstances where the softer track link might actually imrpove the grip of panzerfaust warheads impacting on steep angles allowing them to detonate when otherwise they would have their fuze ripped off
when needed then removed once it wasnt
but extra protection overall was considered a secondary concern as tanks just couldnt take the extra weight
mnaking the front invincible to the strongest german guns would only confer a 10% increase in survivability because if you face yourself to a specific threat head-on, their platoon mate will have a good shot on your side
Track links are not quite RHA hard but they're *far* from mild steel.
meant to say 10% less protection for an equivalent thickness
What the frick anon, 10% compared to RHA would be if the tracks were made of coal or some shit, not steel lmao.
The sorts of structural/track steel were somewhere around 60% as effective as RHA, but that depends on what exactly they are made of.
they add a negligible amount of defense
and you don't need this many track links for maintenance