>WW2. >Light tanks. >Medium tanks. >Heavy tanks. >After WW2. >Main battle tanks

>WW2
>Light tanks
>Medium tanks
>Heavy tanks

>After WW2
>Main battle tanks
What made militaries ditch tank variants?

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

LifeStraw Water Filter for Hiking and Preparedness

250 Piece Survival Gear First Aid Kit

  1. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Anti materiel rifles

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      they had those back in ww2, not an argument

  2. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    IFV+MBT combo.

  3. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >WW2
    >We can only do a couple design categories well, or all of them okay
    >make designs focusing on each area

    >after WW2
    >tech has advanced, we can create fast, well armored and armed tanks
    >make a universal design

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >we can create fast, well armored and armed tanks
      fast - yes
      well armed - yes
      well armored - lol. lmao, even.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        advances in armor techniques meant we didn't need to throw a meter of thickness on every angle. also the fact that new ammo types chew through most tanks anyways.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >advances in armor techniques
          the armor in the picture is just steel without anything particular going on. any 60s shell would go through any 60s NATO tank like paper, and most WP tanks as well

          it wasn't until composite armor showed up - T-64+ for the vatnigs, Abrams/Challenger/Leclerc/Leo2 for the west - that survivability in the face of direct fire actually became seriously viable as a concept again.

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >any 60s shell would go through any 60s NATO tank like paper
            M60A1 needlenose turret was immune to 100mm and 115mm APFSDS within a 30degree frontal arc

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >any 60s shell would go through any 60s NATO tank like paper, and most WP tanks as well
            Yes, and there was nothing they could do to stop this. Enough armor to stop small arms and ww2 era AT weapons was really all they could hope for.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              the T-72 successfully resisted hits from HEAT shells from US marines even on its all-steel turret
              and could withstand hits from 60s and 70s era handheld rockets

              for every leopard 1 and AMX40 designed with little armor in mind, theres at least 1 other tank with a more conventional heavily armored layout
              the idea that you couldnt armor yourself up against HEAT and so dont bother was not a universal sentiment

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        TO SHOW YOU THE POWER OF flex TAPE, I CUT THIS TANK IN HALF

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      What could we make if we wanted a Super heavy variant? Could we make a tank so armored up that it could shake off Javelin, TOW, RPG, and other anti tank weapons?

  4. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >What made militaries ditch tank variants?
    classification by weight no longer made sense
    tank sizes were creeping upwards, with the 10-ton chaffee being as heavy as a pre-war medium, and the 40-ton M26 being reclassified as a medium for no real reason

    doctrinally, weight classifications didnt tell you much either
    the M4 sherman was a medium tank that did the role of the heavies, is it a medium or a heavy?
    is a light tank simply a tank that weights less or a dedicated recon and cavalry platform?
    the M1 abrams is a breakthrough, maneuver, and cavalry vehicle, is it light, medium, or heavy?
    is weight an absolute term or a relative one, because while an M1 abrams weights 60 tons, it could potentially be uparmored until its 100 tons and retain the ability to move at a snails pace

    so rather than bother with all these weight classifications they just named them solely after their battlefield role
    with the MBT being "main" because it fills out the bulk of units and does most jobs

  5. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >What made militaries ditch tank variants?
    wait until you learn about naval classifications and how they make even less consistent sense

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >50 years from now
      "and here is our brand new Huron class corvette!"
      >displaces 20,000 tons, has a 120mm autoloading gun, 100 VLS tubes, and two helicopter launch pads

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      We should classify (surface combatant( warships by the number of VLS cells in a nearly one to one analogy to first, second, and third rate ships of the line

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Naval classifications made sense until post-WWII

  6. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    sherman was so embarrassing they never made a light tank again or used another name like IFV

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Engine, Armor, and weapons technology advanced to the point where you didn't have to make such extreme choices between mobility and armored protection, which is also why weight creeped up during the war. You could make a tank armed with a gun with good AT and HE performance, decent armor, and good cross country speed, which made tanks that made trade offs less worthwhile.

      They didn't, we just started calling light tanks IFVs despite them filling the exact same role.

      >Light Tanks = IFVs
      I must have missed the troop compartments in the M3 and M5 Light tanks.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        If I remove the troop compartment from an IFV does it become a light tank?
        IMO the compartment makes it a multi-role light tank.

  7. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    would you call something like amx 13 or m41 walker bulldog a main battle tank?

  8. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    THE HARD TRUTH: the Abrams is so fricking fat its a logistical and mobility nightmare in a lot of less developed theaters (ie the Abraps IS A HEAVY TANK) so they're building a medium tank again but refuse to call it that

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >the abrams is a logistics nightmare!
      >sep v3 weighs less than the Challenger 2 with TES armor and APS, weighs 2 tons more than a Leo 2A7 PSO
      >nightmare
      shut the frick up moron

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >60+ ton tanks don't break 50 ton slavshit bridges because, uh, the challenger is even fatter

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Not trying to get into your argument here but weight isn't the sole reason for logistic. For example, before Operation Desert Storm there was loads of Abrams that were flat out dead because their engines were breaking. Not saying that means it is shit - it isn't. Just saying there is more to it than weight.

        Its weight has become a problem for the Pentagon though but I don't think the SepV4 will be much heavier if at all.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          source please?

          >60+ ton tanks don't break 50 ton slavshit bridges because, uh, the challenger is even fatter

          please tell me about how the challenger 2 being fine for ukraine (first mbt donated) and PZH (also more than 50 metric tons) means Abrams isnt dumbass

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        It's not the weight so much as the engine and the constant refuelling is a logistical nightmare over conventionally-powered MBTs.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          Skill issue

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        Every modern MBT is a logistics nightmare. Granted, its a nightmare that most 1st world nations can cope with easily in most circumstances, but sometimes the logistics just aren't there. That's what the MPF is for.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >so they're building a medium tank again but refuse to call it that
      because its not a maneuver weapon, its an assault gun thats going to be spread out among IBCTs to provide infantry support

      a medium tank like the M4 shermans main role was cavalry action and exploitation, and was concentrated into armored divisions
      the MPFs role is closer to the M8 scott, in that it will broken up into individual platoons and used to reinforce infantry battalions when needed

      the M1 is not a heavy tank because there is no longer any distinction between medium and heavy roles
      which is why they stopped bothering using weight as a classification, because the M1 is a tank destroyer, breakthrough, and cavalry vehicle

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        You say that, but the Abrams at its height fulfilled the purpose of the M103 Heavy Tank as a heavy breakthrough vehicle during the Gulf War while it was the M60A3 that acted as the US's true MBT, capable of breakthrough and pursuit where the Abrams was unable to perform the latter due to its weight limitations, which the MPF was made specifically to address.

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          >You say that, but the Abrams at its height fulfilled the purpose of the M103 Heavy Tank as a heavy breakthrough vehicle during the Gulf War while it was the M60A3 that acted as the US's true MBT
          the M1A1 was used for breakthrough and maneuver in the gulf war, the M60 played an ancillary role at best
          the M1s were instrumental in engaging and then encircling enemy formations
          the only major use of the M60 in iraq came from the marines who literally had nothing else

          the M103 had a totally different role from the M1, it was intended to blunt enemy armored advances and force enemy units to go around it where they would be engaged by M48s
          this is obviously not how the M1 was ever used in combat

          >which the MPF was made specifically to address.
          MPF was made to address the fact that with the return to division-level organization for a peer war
          all the MBTs and IFVs are going to be permanently used in their own division and there will be none for use infantry penny packets
          so with stryker dragoons going to support SBCTs and bradley still in CABTs, this means the infantry are getting their own vehicle

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        >a medium tank like the M4 shermans main role was cavalry action and exploitation, and was concentrated into armored divisions
        >the MPFs role is closer to the M8 scott, in that it will broken up into individual platoons and used to reinforce infantry battalions when needed
        The US Army used the Sherman in more separate battalions used for infantry support than in battalions in Armored Divisions...

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      https://i.imgur.com/dyae9Dk.jpg

      we still have light tanks moron

      Won't be adopted fully

      I expect these to end up in countries where they need tanks but America deems them not worthy to even bother sending old M1A1s

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Why is it painted desert tan in the testing grounds?

  9. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    we still have light tanks moron

  10. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >After WW2
    The Centurion was technically ready in WW2. It never saw combat though. That is considered the first MBT. However technically it depends on who you ask whether more tank definitions exist. The French, for example, have 'Light Tanks' in their AMX range. Whereas the US would probably classify those as IFV's.

    Then you've got issues during WW2. For example, the UK considered the Matilda II to be a Heavy tank, but the Soviets considered it to be a Medium Tank.

    Finally you left with the good ol' meme of 'what is a tank' and then it comes down to preference and or the meme image that usually comes with it.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Sorry, not IFV but AFV.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >That is considered the first MBT
      By people who don't know its history, perhaps. The British considered the Matilda an infantry tank...

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >facepalm

  11. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    They didnt need to shit out loads of them in the fastest time possible anymore, with most being made by different manufacturers using different designs, tool lines and workers. Nowadays we can spend decades designing, building and evolving a single design iand only building a very small number. The UK in ww2, made use of over fifty different tank designs and churned out over 22000 in six years. Today, we have had one design since the 90s (Challenger) with around 200 (and dropping) in use.

  12. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    MBTs are now obsolete anyway. Vietnam and Ukraine has proved this. The Iraq wars being the exception due to the flat terrain.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Vietnam and Ukraine has proved this
      >NVA used tanks
      >SVA used tanks
      >when they didnt have enough tanks, US and SVA forces pressed M113s into the tank role
      >ukranians using captured russian tanks and western sent tanks
      >ukranian offensives carried out with mechanized forces
      sure bud

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      The US was using medium tanks in Vietnam you dunce.

  13. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    The whole distinction is muddy since a late to post war light tank weighed as much or more than a pre to early war medium. Definitions shift with technology, its why we don't consider 90mm to be a large gun today when in the early 40s it would've been pretty big compared to most tanks. Following WWII the MBT concept took off since technology allowed for a tank heavier than a tiger I with a bigger gun to go faster. At that point there's no need for distinctions when an MBT does almost everything (save for being easily moved around, which is where light tanks survived, particularly in French use)

  14. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    they became poor as all the funding got cut
    everything else is ultra cope

  15. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Tanks were as often classified as infantry/cavalry/anti-tank(Artillery) as they were by weight.
    Medium and Heavy tanks converged into MBTs because of technological improvements.
    And most modern militaries actually recognize a Light Tank category So its more a kin to
    >Pre World War 2
    >Tankette
    >Infantry tank (Light/Heavy)
    >Cavalry tank (Fast/Heavy)

    >World War 2
    >Light Tank
    >Medium Tank
    >Heavy Tank
    >Assault Guns
    >Tank Destroyers

    >Modern
    >Light Tank
    >MBT
    >Fire Support(often wheeled)

  16. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >What made militaries ditch tank variants?
    In actual war all variants end up used as the same soon or later despite whatever was believed by theorists. This plus better tech gave rise to the MBT concept.
    The problem is that modern MBTs like the Abrams have gotten so fat that they've become logistically difficult to deploy (that's why the USMC ditched them). Hence the recent rise of medium-light tanks again like the MPF.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Hence the recent rise of medium-light tanks again like the MPF.
      the MPF is a very niche, limited production vehicle
      an entire division of infantry only gets a single company of them

      it has less to do with logistical foot print and more to do with just giving infantry a source of direct fire, because the army is just concentrating all their MBTs back into divisional units
      while the MPF is going to be crewed by tankers, its functionally closer to an assault gun

      the medium tank and the heavy tank are both dead, its MBTs the whole way down

  17. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Light tanks are making a return because you can build something the same weight as a WW2 Sherman that still offers good protection vs anything short of high end MBT sabot rounds

  18. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    They didn't, we just started calling light tanks IFVs despite them filling the exact same role.

  19. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    logistics and economics
    and the Europeans do still do light tanks/tracked recon vehicles/wheeled guns

  20. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Am I forgotten? More Cold War light tanks to follow.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      Deathstalker.

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous
  21. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    To make logistics abit easier with less spareparts to carry, also militaries ony ditch heavy tanks for obvious reasons while light and medium tanks still used in quiet a few countries

  22. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    The Centurion

  23. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    WW2 only had tank variants due to interwar baggage

  24. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Light tanks are for c**ts who don't have first world infrastructure or c**ts that have shit tier geography for 60t-70t behemoths.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      You may not like it but this is what peak performance looks like.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >using 70t MBTs for jungle warfare

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        105mm gets wienerblocked by tree trunks.

  25. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    During the war, most of the jobs that you needed a tank for were filled by the medium tank. Light tanks were for scouting, going wherever a larger tank can't go, and fighting people with no good tanks. Heavy tanks existed because they couldn't build powerful enough medium tanks without serious mechanical and logistical problems, so instead they built a few special purpose big tanks for when they really needed the extra armor and firepower.

    Over time, medium tanks got larger and more powerful, making the role of heavy tanks obsolete. Light tanks stuck around a while longer, but as APCs developed into IFVs the role of light tank was also made obsolete as well.

    This being the case, Medium Tanks were renamed to Main Battle Tanks.

    Now we things like the MPF which fills the medium tank role, or the Stryker MGS which fills the light tank role, but we don't call them tanks, mainly because the definition of "Tank" has shifted to only mean MBTs.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Now we things like the MPF which fills the medium tank role
      MPF fills the role of the M8 gun motor carriage, not the M4 sherman

      > or the Stryker MGS which fills the light tank role
      styker MGS is not a light tank its an assault gun for use in stryker brigades

      • 11 months ago
        Anonymous

        whats the difference between a light tank and an assault gun?

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          a light tank is an M5 stuart, used for recon and cavalry action
          an assault gun is an M8 scott, for supporting infantry

          this is evident in how the MPF is going to be used compared to how the M5 stuart was used
          the MPF will be embedded in infantry divisions and split into small packets to support them when needed
          the M5 stuart was added to armored divisions and were used to support the tanks and would perform recon and flank security

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            weren't medium and light tanks also frequently used as infantry support? I know the British had dedicated infantry tanks.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              M4s intended for infantry support were used in independent tank battalions, where they would be attached to infantry units
              this is mostly due to the relatively small number of dedicated assault guns the western allies produced, a tank battalion would have 3 companies of M4s and only a single platoon of M8s or M4 105mm

              M4s intended for maneuver would be concentrated into armored divisions, where they would remain in large armored formations instead of being divided up

              the use of MPF battalions embedded in infantry divisions is almost exactly the same use-case as the seperate tank battalion
              a small force of gun-motor carriages intended to beef up infantry units
              whereas the MBTs remain in armor divisions, where they are supported by mechanized infantry in bradleys
              the faster paced nature of modern warfare means that there is a virtually zero chance that they would ever assign M1s to support infantry the way M4 shermans were

        • 11 months ago
          Anonymous

          a light tank can cross most bridges found in south east asia or operate in low oxygen mountain regions like those found in the tibetan plateau. you can carry two or 3 of them in a C130.

          Every modern MBT is a logistics nightmare. Granted, its a nightmare that most 1st world nations can cope with easily in most circumstances, but sometimes the logistics just aren't there. That's what the MPF is for.

          it needs almost twice the amount of fuel that the Leopard 2 does

          >any 60s shell would go through any 60s NATO tank like paper
          M60A1 needlenose turret was immune to 100mm and 115mm APFSDS within a 30degree frontal arc

          it was very vulnerable to HEAT and could be penned by sabot outside of that arc from ranges where soviet tanks were unlikely to even hit it. the longest ranges in the fulda gap are like 800m and i dont think hitting a rather large tank like the m60 with HEAT would be impossible at those ranges

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >it was very vulnerable to HEAT
            100m and 115mm HEAT could also be resisted within the same arc on its turret

            >and could be penned by sabot outside of that arc from ranges where soviet tanks were unlikely to even hit it.
            it was designed to resist modern ammo of its own time and it did so even after T-55s got better ammo
            its armor was nowhere near useless which is why the turret was improved in the first place over the original hemispherical one

          • 11 months ago
            Anonymous

            >almost twice the amount of fuel that the Leopard 2
            ITT: Lies.
            L2A7 Road range: 340km Fuel capacity: 1200L Efficiency: 3.53L/km
            M1A2 Road range: 426km Fuel capacity: 1909L Efficiency: 4.48L/km

            It's 27% less efficient per KM, but it can use any fuel while the L2 can only use diesel. Abrama fuel inefficiency is actually caused by a good logistical decision (being able to convert to JP8, and being able to use anything in an emergency). If Germans could into logistics then they might understand why spending 27% more fuel in return for this is a huge net logistic advantage.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              >426km
              did they improve it so much from the 270km it had in the 90s?

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                >did they improve it so much from the 270km it had in the 90s?
                No they didn't because it never had that range because that range was made up by you.

                Variant M1 M1IP M1A1 M1A2 M1A2 SEP
                Range 310 mi (500 km) 275 mi (443 km) 288 mi (463 km) 265 mi (426 km) 264 mi (425 km)

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              >M1A2 Road range: 426km Fuel capacity
              its 270 km, this number is fake, propaganda. These tanks have been tested and they stopped at 270 km. Leopards continuted as per the number stated which was much higher than Abrams.

              Abrams stopped and all other tanks, continued. Leclerc, Leopard, Challenger, and a few others that were tested.

              Abrams was the worst in this aspect. Not in some other aspects, but trash in this one.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                May I see? I spent a fair few years in an armored brigade with Abrams as a logistics officer. I'd love to see what you're talking about.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              Road range isn't always a good metric for fuel efficiency/consumption. Idling turboshafts are far worse than turbodiesels.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                Good thing they have an APU these days then, so that they don't need to idle.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                APU will not help fuel efficiency at speeds lower than full throttle. In practice, mechanized columns rarely get to drive around anywhere nearly as fast as they could in theory.

            • 11 months ago
              Anonymous

              the numbers for the swedish trial were 148 liter/10 km for the M1A2 and 72 liter/10 km for the Leopard 2 Improved. the prototype leclerc did 138 liter/10 km

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                The Swedish trial is worthless unless you plan to drive your tanks around at 5-20km/h in mountains for 50,000km. Every country that's good at winning wars would consider the terrain used for that test restricted or impassable for armored warfare and would not deploy tanks there, design tanks with operating there in mind or use it to indicate tank performance.

                Those figures are out of touch with reality, as someone who spent the better part of a decade lining fuel trucks up against Abrams requirements.

              • 11 months ago
                Anonymous

                USMC had enough tanks and armored vehicles stashed in norwegian mountains to equip atleast a 15000 man division

  26. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    HEAT made heavy tanks impractical so everyone just went with all-medium fleets as the basis of their forces, not that this wasn't mostly the case already*. Light tanks didn't go anywhere.

    *Pretty much every ww2 tank unit was armed primarily with medium tanks, heavy tanks were already rare.

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      This is the only correct answer in the thread. No amount of steel armor could protect you from a soldier with a rocket launcher, so the concept of a heavy tank became obsolete. Light tanks stayed in US Army service until 1997 when they were ultimately replaced by the M1128. Some medium tanks embraced the meta by down armoring to minmax armament and mobility (Leopard, AMX).

      Once composite armor and ceramics got good the MBT evolved into a breakthrough tank like the heavies of WWII. Abrams (55-65t), Leo 2 (55-65t), C2 (65-75t) and Leclerc 55t all follow this trend, being heavier or in the same range as WWII heavies like the IS2 (45t), Tiger 1(55t) and Tiger 2 (65t).

      Also, frick everyone else in this thread for trying to bullshit their way through the question.

  27. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    They didn't

  28. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    They didn't

  29. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    They didn't

  30. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Metallurgy and machining evolved so that you can have a tank that is
    >fast
    >armoured
    >well gunned
    Rather than having to compromise

  31. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    They didn't

  32. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    >we will never have cool looking tank destroyers ever again
    sad

  33. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Hello Frens

  34. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Tankers are worth more than tanks. Dont want to lose some good tankers because they were sitting in some rusty old thing from their fathers generation. Better to put them in a new more protected tank than some old thing thats gonna light on fire quicker than a sparkler on fourth of july

  35. 11 months ago
    Sea King

    >What made militaries ditch tank variants?
    Never did

  36. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

    Except that light/medium tanks are back given their lower logistics footprint and less importance of armor (literally any MBT can be taken out by modern ATGM's and loitering munitions)

    • 11 months ago
      Anonymous

      >Except that light/medium tanks are back given their lower logistics footprint and less importance of armor
      light tanks are still incredibly niche as IFV conversions like the M3 bradley do their job
      medium tanks never returned or are still just niche vehicles, with MBTs still being the bulk of armored units

      total procurement of the MPF is only expected to reach about 2000, and spread out over several dozen light divisions
      compared to about 3000 M1s + another 2000 reserve M1s all concentrated into maneuver units

  37. 11 months ago
    Anonymous

Leave a Reply to Anonymous Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *