Allied WW2 experimental weapons.
- Thread starter Worgen
- Start date
Gliders were a fairly weird piece of WWII on their own, honestly. The Germans came close to a tank-glider too with the Messerschmitt Me 321 and its powered derivative the Me 323, plus the failed Junkers Ju 322 prototype. All of those would've been able to carry up to a Panzer IV, if Germany could make a plane reliably capable of towing them.
The basic concept of airborne armour was sound - it was more not having the right equipment. As you say, the tetrarch was not really up to the task by that stage of the war (and had some major compromises in design for its small size anyway). Tetrarchs were considered for Market Garden and arguably might have been some use against the early response panzergrenadier units as few actual tanks were available to the Germans quickly. Although it's doubtful they could have compensated for the many compromises during planning that doomed the endeavour.
- Feb 13, 2009
- 160
- 33
- 33
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Gender
- Does it really matter?
Project Pigeon - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Anti-tank dog - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Sadly both Allied ideas.
By todays standards sure. But the pre-widespread radar days, an aircraft that made no noise was perfect for delivering troops, armour, and artillery behind enemy lines undetected.
Wasn't the point of the glider based tank to be able to get some kind of tank like thing somewhere you can't get a real tank? Doesn't have to be very good, has to be better than not having a tank at all, and used with that in mind.
Uranium was originally discovered from material from the Ore Mountains which are between Germany and the Czech republic and completely German controlled at the time. Also Eastern Germany was the biggest Uranium exporter of the whole Eastern block during the Cold War.
If they would have been serious about getting Uranium, they certainly wouldn't have had to look towards African.
Last edited:
- Apr 1, 2009
- 14,481
- 3,436
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
Well, really everyone used horses for most of their stuff except for the US. We were the only really mechanized military at the time.
- Apr 1, 2009
- 14,481
- 3,436
- 118
- Gender
- Whatever, just wash your hands.
Wasn't the Tetrarch mainly designed around infantry support, not fighting other armor? Like I know that at least the US had the idea that the tank was for supporting infantry and going against light vehicles and infantry, while tank killers were for dealing with enemy tanks. Granted this idea didn't last long but it lasted long enough that we ended up with vehicles like the hellcat.
The M18 Hellcat Tank Destroyer - The Army Historical Foundation
Even before Nazi Germany’s declaration of war on America on 11 December 1941, the U.S. Army was coming to terms with the need to adapt its arsenal and operational doctrines […]
armyhistory.org
Yes, US tank doctrine was indeed that tank destroyers and AT guns killed enemy tanks, and tanks were for smashing infantry and stuff. That's why US tanks were often quite poorly gunned in terms of armour penetration, at least until quite late on. The USA was perhaps a little stronger on this idea than other nations, however it was a sound enough concept: in practice, tanks did spend far more time shooting at "soft" targets, or light armoured fighting vehicles where even relatively weak penetration guns were sufficient.
In a similar way, whilst the British wanted good tank killing guns, British tanks that couldn't fit the 17-pounder used the US 75mm despite it having lower penetration than the 6-pounder, because the better HE capability was more valuable than the extra penetration. The Germans had better guns in the sense of having the calibre for good HE (75-88mm) and superior armour penetration, but even the German tactic was ideally to draw the enemy armour into an anti-tank screen rather than take them on head-to-head. Why risk those expensive vehicles without necessity?
The tetrarch was an early war tank, and may have been an adequate light tank by the standards of late 30s - 1941. The armour was negligible, but the gun was enough for for all but the heaviest opposition of that era. By 1944, however, it was only use against armoured cars; this made it at best a bit... "niche" - basically a glorified armoured car itself. I would not however say it was designed around infantry support, per se. Early war allied tank doctrine saw tanks as infantry support weapons - dot them around the infantry to stiffen them up. This isn't so much a factor in tank design, however, as tactics. Most tanks which were tactically used as "infantry support" would still function for notional blitzkrieg: the exceptions being those that were painfully slow because they were expected to slog along with foot troops.
From my understanding, that's not entirely true, the US had tank destroyers to destroy tanks, and normal tanks to support infantry. However, what they were supporting infantry against could include other tanks. Or anything else, but tanks were amongst the things they were supposed to deal with, just not exclusively like for tank destroyers.
In theory, US armor was supposed to be very specialized, with only TDs fighting tanks while the Sherman got on with destroying fortifications with the HE shells on the 75mm and 105 howitzer.
In practice, the US military put all of its best guns on any moving platforms they'd fit in. The Tank Destroyers got (slight) priority on armor piercing shells for the 76mm and the new 90mm, the Shermans generally split between the anti-tank 76mm, general purpose 75mm, and infantry support 105mm howitzer.
The Chieftain over on YouTube has done a lot of videos on tanks and stuff. Really cool to check out
In practice, the US military put all of its best guns on any moving platforms they'd fit in. The Tank Destroyers got (slight) priority on armor piercing shells for the 76mm and the new 90mm, the Shermans generally split between the anti-tank 76mm, general purpose 75mm, and infantry support 105mm howitzer.
The Chieftain over on YouTube has done a lot of videos on tanks and stuff. Really cool to check out
So, at the start of world war 2 the general concept of tank warfare was that they would primarily be used to attack infantry, as had happened in world war 1. Faster tanks had started to appear, but in the minds of military theorists they were still the "cavalry" of the modern age. They would flank and outmanoeuvre the slow infantry.
It's only once the eastern front kicks off that you start to get these large scale battles between tanks, and this triggers a kind of arms race in tank design and a rethinking of the concept of the tank's role away from attacking infantry and towards being able to engage and defeat other tanks.
The Western allies, including the US, lagged behind on this realisation a bit, and by the time D-day happened German tanks were so outnumbered that it didn't really matter. But the US doctrine was pretty clear. Tank destroyers kill tanks, tanks themselves attack infantry and use their speed to outmanoeuvre slower forces. They were expected to be able to fight other tanks if they faced them, but it wasn't seen as a great priority, and the opportunity to rethink this never really came up during the war.
After the war, all nations adopted the eastern front mentality, which is why tank destroyer as a concept really stops meaning anything. All tanks are tank destroyers.
Indeed. If I recall, a friend of mine wrote a history paper a few years back, arguing that the Germans might have been far better off producing Panthers instead of Tigers. Their combat performance was quite solid, much more cost effective and took less time to produce than Tigers and Tiger II's, they were at least more fuel efficient than Tiger's, and they also had far better speeds than any other comparable tank the Germans had to offer.
I suspect in part, tank destroyers were also something of a workaround solution for a wide range of occasional manufacturing and logistical issues. Or at least that's been my guess for a while, just based on a number of the designs, especially earlier on in the war, from Germany and the Soviet Union. US and UK designs though seemed to be less like a hodgepodge of spare parts, and more like a planned out end-product.
If my assertions are correct at all, then I'd expect that the same kind of desperate scramble to output viable combat vehicles directly into the war effort would've been pretty much non-existent. And by the time the next war came around, properly planned out and up-to-date tank designs would've been fully incorporated into a nation's military. I expect tank destroyers would've at least partially remained in active service if a shooting war between the Soviet Union and any allied countries had actually occurred shortly after WWII. (During the war that is, not to today.)
Last edited:
I think the Germans enthusiastically adopted tank destroyers for two reasons. Firstly, they were solidly on the defensive after 1942, and tank destroyers fundamentally tend to be defensive in nature, as they are poorly suited to attacking. Secondly, limitations of materials and production: without the turret, they were significantly cheaper and mechanically simpler, and the weight savings could be used for additional armour. By the end of the war, German armoured regiments were not only often permanently understrength, but were equipped with a lot of tank destroyers in place of what should have been tanks. (There are all sorts of other changes across the whole German army in structure and equipment that effectively turned it into a "defensive" military.)
The Germans and Soviets rapidly realised the advantage of tank destroyers from the early German Marder series with similar design concepts. The US built specialist ones, but effectively as tanks, turret and all (e.g. M10). The British largely didn't bother with tank destroyers, but then the British deemed the guns they fit on their tanks adequate for the task of tank destruction.
The Panther was, like the Tiger, a little finicky and hard to maintain, but it was definitely the right tank for the Germans to be building alongside the PzIV, and not that much more expensive. There's a reason they gave up on the Tiger. The Tiger II was in ways a move in the right direction being simplified, except for its weight being a liability.
Well, maybe. But I'm not sure the differences in doctrine for tank destroyers are in a way different from the concept that tanks had different roles, too. Light tanks were not employed as heavy tanks were; some tanks were specialised against other tanks, others against infantry, etc.
The most fundamental concept of a tank destroyer is really that it is a mobile field gun - because once a conventional field gun is unlimbered, it's not going anywhere in a hurry. And indeed they were often designed and operated by the artillery branch rather than the armoured.