Tanks!

[Thaluikhain]

I read about tanks on tvtropes and it seems the military is moving away from them. But, I'm writing a book that has all kinds of cool stuff, like a pair of tanks - one slow but powerful and well-armoured, the other a spider tank - fast, agile, but a bit more fragile. Why am I using tanks? Rule of cool I guess. That's not really contributing much, but I just wanted to pitch in about sci-fi tanks I want to use.

I might have to read the rest of this topic. For a small sense of accuracy.

Spider tanks? As it, it walks on legs?

Yeah, massive problems there. Armouring it is going to be a pain. A big solid slab like a modern tank has relatively few surfaces that need armouring, but with legs sticking out of it, you have to armour all the sides of those, and especially the joints. You'd probably want as much surface area on the ground as a tank's tracks, which is a lot, especially as not all the feet will be on the ground at the same time.

Also, it's not going to be faster on flatish surfaces, tracks or wheels would be much better. It's really not going to be faster when you've added all that weight to it.

Now, not saying you couldn't make one, but you'd almost always be able to make a better tank cheaper the old fashioned way.

 

[maturin]

To contrast - the British Challenger 2 has better armor (with the only Challenger 2 ever destroyed was done...by a faulty explosive shell inside the tank, compared with the Abram's record being tarnished during the War in Iraq where Iraqi infantry were able to disable many by way of short range AT Rockets, and post invasion were reliably damaged by IED's and the RPG-29), the German Leopard is a more technologically advanced vehicle, the Leclerc has a superior rate of fire,

The Challenger 2 has better *frontal* armor (probably, since these things are classified). Neither the Abrams nor Challenger has ever suffered a penetration from the frontal arc, so the service records don't really differ. But with upgrades, Abrams side protection is markedly superior, which is an outgrowth of the tank actually being used extensively in urban combat. It's easy to claim that your tank has never been destroyed when it almost never sees action. The LeClerc and T-90 are downright invincible by that token.

The Abrams' record was in no way 'tarnished,' unless you subscribe to myths of invincibility. It was put into situations where tanks are supposed to be useless and helpless and did very well, occasionally being disabled by weapons that were more than up to the task. Decent short-range AT weapons will always be able to threaten the side, roof and rear armor of tanks. That's a fact of life. So I'll remind you that the Abrams does better than the competition in protecting all the above categories. The Abrams has been knocked out many times, but has done an outstanding job of keeping its crew members alive. Almost all the fatalities that have occurred are from massive IEDs, often big enough to flip the entire tank over. No one has ever bothered to contend that any other armored vehicle on the planet would have fared better. And I'm not sure how you can say that the RPG-29 "reliably" damages an Abrams. So far as I know the incidents of known RPG-9 attacks can be counted on one hand. The most well-documented case caused penetration of the crew compartment, but no actual component damage or casualties.

Given that the Abrams has a superior gun to the Challenger and perhaps better armor than Leopard, with the best FCS out there, I think it's fair to say that it is the most well-rounded in the critical categories. Sure, it's a fuel-guzzling behemoth, but unlike armor and firepower, mobility and cost effectiveness are evaluated in relative terms, based on your military's resources and logistical capacity.

Edit: Abrams is on par with the slightly newer Leopard. But the other Western tanks all have shortcomings by comparison. I don't think you would ever want to face a Leopard or Abrams in a Merkava, Challenger of LeClerc.

 

[ecoho]

First off, I have to admit that there is a massive "Home Team" bias involved. Because when it comes to cars, guns, warplanes, tanks, and basically everything else, I am basically Richard Hammond: The fact that it has "Made in the USA" stamped on it is 95% of the reason I like it. There are still things I like from overseas, but they are rare (like the Israeli Merkava I added to my list just recently).

However:
The Challenger is slow and loud, and its rifled gun cant shoot the sabot AT rounds we use that can one shot almost any tank.
The Leclerc gets its ROF from an auto-loader, which can be a pain in combat and in some cases shoots slower than a well-trained human.
The Leopards tech works against it to make it overly complicated. The Abrams was built to be "GI-proof" after all (the man the tank is named after once said that if you leave a GI in the desert with nothing but an anvil for 3 days, he would find a way to break it).
The T-90 is EXPENSIVE, has the same auto-loader problems as the Leclerc, and is complicated to build.

Plus, the Abrams turbine gives it one thing you wouldnt expect with a tank: Stealth. I remember reading about one incident where a company of Abrams was doing war-games with a German Leopard company, and the Leopards lost because they got ambushed by the Abrams. Turns out, not only couldnt hear the turbines from the Abrams, because they run more quietly than a Diesel engine. So when they rolled into an area and didnt expect anything because they couldnt hear/find them, here comes several Abrams charging out from the trees, and wiping them out before they can fight back.

At least you've come out and admitted there was home team bias. That said, again - the Abram's one thing it does well is in it's Engine.

The Challenger is slow and loud, but then I recall it's a Main Battle Tank, not the Ezekiel's Wheel. It's designed to punch people in the face, not skulk around the battlefield. Besides, no other Tank in the world has an inbuilt Kettle for onboard cups of tea while punching people.

Most tanks last time I looked used Autoloaders. However, the Leclerc's Autoloader was specially designed for the tank to mitigate most issues with autoloaders you'd find on something like - for example - the M1 Abrams, so it had to count for something (plus I had to find at least one good thing to say about a French Tank, and we really scraped that one together).

Again, I do think the Leopard 2's technological edge still puts it out there. Also, the fact that Canada, Chile, Austria, Denmark, Greece, Poland and a shit tonne of other countries use it says a lot about how effective the tank can be. Would it benefit more from an experienced crew? Yes, but so would any tank in existence ever.

As mentioned above, the T-90 does not have the same autoloader problems as the Leclerc. That said, there are a few other tricks it has to compensate for it. Also, FLYING TANK.

In comparison, the Abrams has only it's Engine still going for it. The stealth thing? ENGINE. It only further proves my point.

ok I can end this right now, its not the tank its the training. Yes both US and British crew are well trained but an Abrams tank crew can operate at maximum efficiently right out of AIT (which is shorter then the British equivalent) were as the crusader crews tend to need another 3 months to be as good as the guy who've been driving it for the last year. I know this to be true due to some joint exercises with the Brits who BTW are not to be fucked with

the leopard is a tech nightmare and as such very few people can drive the dam thing the way it should be.

don't know anything about the T-90 other then the dam things huge and a lovely target as one tanker said.

 

[Neverhoodian]

No love for this ol' girl?

Spoiler

The Matilda. What a lovely name for a tank.[footnote]Technically it's the Matilda II. You can see the first model in the background of the first photo[/footnote]

It may have been slow and ponderous, but the Matilda was the best tank Britain fielded in the early stages of World War II. It trounced Italian vehicles and had armor thick enough to withstand most German munitions of the time. Indeed, the tank shaped the course of the war significantly for both sides. For example, the German 88mm gun may not have earned its fearsome reputation if not for the Matilda.

During the Battle of France, the Allies launched a counterattack at Arras, which included a sizable force of Matildas. The attack got off to a promising start and caused considerable consternation for the opposing 7th Panzer Division, commanded by Erwin Rommel. Their tanks and anti-tank guns were insufficient to penetrate the Matilda's thick armor. In a fit of desperate innovation, Rommel ordered the division's 88mm anti-aircraft guns to be used against the Matildas. Only then were they stopped and the Allies driven back. While not the first time the dreaded "eighty-eight" was used against ground targets, the result of this particular engagement proved its effectiveness as an anti-tank gun. It would go on to be used with deadly efficiency against a variety of targets for the remainder of the War.

The Matilda's a right beast in World of Tanks as well. It's slow as molasses, but its upgraded gun is fantastic. It's fast-firing, accurate and has insane penetration for its tier. Couple that with thick armor and the thing's a veritable doom fortress when it's top tier, ventilating anything that moves while bouncing return fire like a mofo.