Which is your favorite workhorse of WWII?

>>34905271
Sherman best tonk

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>>34905271

>>34905271
Sherman

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>>34905271
assult gun best

>>34905271
Sherman tank

>>34905271
The Panzer IV is my favorite, but the Sherman was the best.

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>>34905271
>ravioli ravioli!

>>34905441
>>34905483
>>34905504
Sometimes I feel like it's useless to try to talk about weapons of other nations on /k/.

>>34905843
We're just the best, there's no harm in admitting that

>>34905852
Sherman was a pretty decent early war tank introduced mid war

>>34905843
>Asks a board with a majority of Americans which tank is their favorite.
>Shocked and dismayed when the American tank gets picked more.

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>>34905843
disprove our claims rather than complaining

also please not when it says clearly in op

>Which is YOUR favorite workhorse of WWII

>>34905992
please note what it says* fuck me

>>34905889
It was a decent early war tank against mid war tanks and the Sherman was out of its league in Western Europe but it still punched above its weight class to success.

Think of it this way. Would you rather be able to ship 100 Shermans, because they are fairly light and compact, across the ocean to battle or only be able to ship 50 "Shormans", because they are fairly heavy and large, across the ocean to battle?

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>be German artilleryman
>Fire behind Shermans and kill and maim scores of infantrymen
>Think the Americans will learn after the last 50 odd times I do this.
>they never do.

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>>34905843

If you have a different favourite then fucking post it rather than just bitching. The M4 isn't my personal favourite either, but whats the point in complaining? Just post your own fav.

For me, it's the Queen of the Desert. Always found a use somewhere in the world from the very first day of the war to the very last.

>>34905889
>stomped the early-midwar pz4s so hard american generals literally refused to believe that germans were capable of building tanks
In fact the only nation that truly felt fear from German armor was Britain. It's too bad that everyone thinks the British are somehow upstanding history experts.

>>34906192

>Stuff I just pulled out my ass

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>>34906135
>be american artilleryman
>demand surrender of german defenders in aachen
>they say no
>direct fire 155mm the town to rubble
>german commander col wilck calls it a terror weapon and calls for its banning

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More valuable than any tank.

>>34906060
>out of its league in Western Europe
Holds all the speed/distance advance records in the West. Soviets had no qualms using it paired with SU-85s in their Mechanized Corps, including numerous elite "Guards" units up to and including Berlin.

My favorite tank of WW2 is the King Tiger even though not many of them were made

>>34906362
>be german
>get shot with new cool gun
>get salty
>call for it to be banned

>>34905843
>best armor of any tank below 40t
>one of the best all-around guns, capable of easily defeating the armor of any other tank below 40t throughout the war, while providing excellent HE capability
>the only stabilized gun in the war (for the units that figured out how to operate and maintain the device)
>the most reliable (in operational terms--even when a part broke, it was faster and easier to replace than practically any other design) tank in the war
>hands-down the best ergonomics and crew comfort in the war, including good vision and communications and excellent gun-laying
>capable of being transported on most cargo ships (important when the factories are on the wrong continent)

The Sherman's only real downsides were:

1) Dry ammunition stowage until rather late in the war (of course, almost everybody else made the same mistake...)
2) Gun performance dropped off against the 40t+ tanks with heavier armor that were introduced mid/late-war
3) Armor wasn't heavy enough to reliably shrug off the mid/late-war long-75/88mm rounds
4) Poor hatch design until mid/late-war (although still better than most); the addition of a cupola with vision blocks and a loader's hatch fixed most of this

If you're going to denigrate American armor, stick to the Tank Destroyer Doctrine, which conveniently forgot that the US had already missed its chance to defend France, and would have to spend the entire war on the offensive.

>>34906192
>>34906221
>force tankers to wear berets instead of helmets
>force tankers to stay in a disabled tank until it catches fire because cowardice, old chap

And then they complain about losses.

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>>34905271
Sherman is objectively the best platform out of the three, but I like the Panzer IV the most.

The Sherman always looked like it had a high profile, was that a major disadvantage or was it negligible?

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>>34909145
I'd guess it was negligible.

>>34905504
>>34905483
>>34905441
Sherman was worse than t34
T34 shits on sherman

Panzer IV, just due to how it looks.

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>>34909237
wrong
>The Sherman remained a common U.S. tank in the Korean War

>A 1954 survey concluded that there were 119 tank vs. tank actions involving U.S. Army and Marine units during the Korean War, with 97 T-34-85 tanks knocked out and another 18 probable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_Sherman#Post.E2.80.93World_War_II

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-34#Korean_War_.281950.E2.80.931951.29

>>34909130

still its embarassing that they had to put skirts on because fucking AT rifles could pierce the side armor.

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>>34909246
>same as t34 tier optics
>shit tier size
>shit tier gun
>shit tier armor
if nazis were armed with M4s instead of Pz4s in WW2 they would lose by 1943

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>>34909265
>if nazis were armed with M4s instead of Pz4s in WW2 they would lose by 1943
t. no idea about WW2

>same as t34 tier optics
source, heard otherwise.
>shit tier size
see >>34909156
>shit tier gun
the 75mm was sufficient in most situations, the 76mm fixed that issue entirely.
>shit tier armor
against most German AT equipment, yes.

>>34909249
well to be fair the Panzer IV was developed in 1935.

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Honestly i've gotta say that the t34 was the all around best design, now production quality was, well, soviet, but the armor setup and upgrade-ability with the 85mm turret was pretty great.

Also, the fact that it even could be manufactured by drunk slavs is proof of its simple and good design i mean you've seen those slav welds and literal gaps in armor plating.

>>34909286
The t34 is pretty great, until you remember that human beings have to work and fight in there.

>>34905271
As a scale modeler I like the aesthetic of the Panzer IV the best. There are so many variants and paint schemes also the boxy look of it is very appealing to me. The Sherman and T-34 most mostly came in green.

>>34909301
Well yeah but we're talking 5'5'' tall slavs here. If the tank was made with longer people in mind it would have been more spacious.

>>34909308
They don't just have to be short to work in the fucking thing, they have to be levitating contortionists with unending stamina, and the driver should be able to tie railroad tracks into knots with his bare hands.

>>34909321
Manlets are well known for fast gains.

>>34905271

The Pz.IV. A great tank which managed to remain competetive despite being put in situations it was never even designed for despite being five years older than most of the opposition.

Plus I live near the former largest Pz.IV factory, that might be a factor.

>>34905571
>rivets
Are they trying to kill the crew ?

>>34909326
Upgrades to the Pz.IV. widely included added armor plates to the sides and to the front, these armor plates were placed so that there was a cavity between the tank and the plates, i wonder how much more effective this spaced armor was compared to just placing the armor plates right on the tank with no cavity in between.

>>34909334
What's the deal with rivets anyway? Do the pop inside the armored compartment or something if the armor plates are subjected to stress, like getting hit by a shell?

>>34909346
I think it's when they get hit by a shell they come loose on the inside and fly about.
It's something along those lines.

>>34909346
yes

>>34909347
>>34909348
Couldn't the rivets be immersed in some glue or have some leather covers or something inside the armor compartment so that if they come loose they wont go flying around?

>>34909341

Well, it did provide nice protection against AT rifles as intended, but as a bonus HEAT shells also were affected as the copper jets lost much of their power in the space between the two plates.

As time passed the .57 AT rifles fell out of use, so the Germans put wire meshes there instead. Did the job just as well against HEAT.

>>34909359
Couldn't the armor be welded?

>>34909325
>>34909321
>meet the crew
>Ivanovich, the driver. He pounded railroad spikes on the trans-Siberian before the war, and says he'll pound anything else too, usually accompanied with an exaggerated wink.
>Sergei , the radio operator. Due to his small size, he has managed to fit a record player into his cramped position, and constantly plays hardbass, much to the annoyance of Ivanovich.
>Andrei, the loader. A logger before the war, his arms are well suited to hefting shells into the main gun. He looks sad even by Slav standards, and talks to the shells when no one is around.
>Dmitri, the gunner/commander. No one had actually seen him eat, aside from occasionally gnawing on a crust of bread he keeps in his jacket. His commands are normally slurred by copious amounts of vodka, and he once ND'd his Tokarav by sitting on it.

>>34909359
Glue that'll hold up to an HE shell smacking the outside of the plate? Yeah, good luck with that. A good spall liner would probably do the job, but kevlar composites is rather higher in the tech tree than a fuckign welding torch.

>>34909404
>T-34
>radio
That's a good one

>>34907727
Most of the things about the Sherman being a deathtrap can be attributed to the British lunacy during the war.

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>>34909145
It's largely compensated for by having good gun depression.
Basically, if you wanna peek over a slope in a Sherman, it can do so while exposing far less than a T-34 because it can lower its gun to a steeper angle. The T-34 (and most other Soviet tanks) meanwhile has notoriously poor gun depression, meaning that it has to expose far more of the tank, essentially nullifying the advantage of its low profile. This can be especially dangerous if the lower front plate gets exposed while cresting a hill.

In pic related you can see how the very same thing is still an issue with the T-72, and not with the M1.

>>34909471
It's really quite unfortunate that the Sherman had to be made around that radial aircraft engine, with some other engine more suited for a tank it could have been made a lot smaller.

>>34909417
Is no joke comrade, we wouldn't use hand signals to communicate with other tanks, w-would we?

>>34909494
Personally, I'd rather have a large tank with good ergonomics and gun depression than a small cramped one. Especially when the compact size is nullified when you have to expose the whole tank to get the shot off.

Western tank design overall seems to agree with that sentiment.

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>>34909494
And that's why ordinance wanted to standardize the T20E3 and T23E3 as the M27 and M27B1 in 1943, though AGF declined for various reasons.

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>>34909513
Ergonomics has nothing to do with it, the driveshaft angle significantly increased the height of the tank.

>>34909404
i want to hear about their advantures

>>34909573
They got their tank blown up in their first battle and were replaced by some of the other million slavs out there.

>>34909520
How unfortunate, that tank was a lot better than the Sherman.

>>34909702
...if it worked.

>>34909713
It didn't?

>>34909618
Such is life.

>>34909733
it was far too unreliable to be used in service. The war ended before those issues could be fixed.

>>34909825
such silly things never stopped the british

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>>34905271

Crusader is the most aesthetic.

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Hotchkiss H35/39

Almost certainly a 2 man deathrap, but there's just something I love about the tiny little things.

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>>34905271
The M4 was the best medium of the war, her postwar performance proves this, but my favorite WWII tank is the M24 Chaffee.

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Panzer 4 is my favorite tank. Cant find good kits/books on them because everyone is muh tiger.

>>34909829
because they could buy Shermans when their tanks went kaput.

>>34910896
>can't find good kits
>what is Dragon

>>34910936
I cant paint for shit.

>>34910964
Then you don't deserve good kits

>>34909513
I don't think that hull downing mattered so much, since Sherman was mostly on offensive during WWII.

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>>34909145
Less the height and more the high center of gravity. The Soviets complained about it, with numerous anecdotes in Dmitriy Loza's book, specifically because the original LL Shermans had rubber track pads which meant icy roads often led to upside-down tanks. They also lacked the infrastructure to safely unload the tanks from trains, having to "jump" them off the flatcars. The former was rectified fairly quickly with cleated tracks, though the rubber ones would later be praised in urban fighting as the Sherman was significantly quieter than Soviet tanks w/ them equipped.

>>34907680
Except on the occasion where TDs were actually used in their doctrinal role, they blew German armor the fuck out. Especially in the Bulge where they had some hilarious 80:1 kill ratio or something like that

>>34909265
You aren't even comparing them by model. You literally have a late war T-34 being compared to an early Sherman.

>>34912196
That's true for all models if we take
M4A1 vs T-34-76 1941
Jumbo vs T-34E
M4A3E8 vs T-34-85

>>34912359
>same as t34 tier optics
Still need proof.
>shit tier size
At least real people can fit inside.
>shit tier gun
Did I miss something or why 75 M3 is better than F-34? Also Sherman has a turret to use that properly.
>shit tier armor
Sherman wins at all three if you compare front armor, but side is mostly worse.

>>34912359
>>34912418

People seem to conveniently forget that late war Shermans had something like 7mm less frontal armor than a Tiger I

>>34912359
>M4A3E8 vs T-34-85

The Easy 8 has far better readiness and is easier to maintain. It has excellent suspension, giving it first rate stability. It has spring loaded hatches and a wet ammo rack. Its gun is quite accurate and performs very well. Its combat readiness is phoneminal, it gives its crew the best chance of survival, and its got a good gun.

The T-34-85's suspension is still terrible and it still doesn't even have a turret basket.

>>34912560
>T-34-85's suspension
* Correction. The transmission is terrible. Its suspension was adequate.

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>>34905271
I prefer that tool used to put them to sleep.

>>34909829

Most British tanks were pretty reliable.

It's just the early Cruisers, which were reliable until they'd already down X thousand miles and only then got shunted to the desert with no tank transporters; and the early Crusader Marks.

I recommend Fletcher's book on the Crusaders. The MkI's had so many issues that were not crippling but in such quantity something always happened, the MkII's fixed it but were improperly transported and kept and thus arrived half broken, and the MkIII was finally the one that fixed it.

From the Crusader and Churchill MkIII's onwards circa 1942, they generally had very good reliability on their tanks. Valentine, Matilda, Cromwell (if labour intensive), Centaur, Challenger and Comet were all quite reliable past then.

>>34912497
Of course it was an improvement against KwK 40, but it clearly didn't enjoy such immunity from main line enemy guns like Tiger I did for over a year.

How many T-34s even had a front armor upgrade?
Did the added weight completely kill the thing they called transmission?

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>>34905271

Medium thanks were all shit with ZERO survivability.

>>34912780
Its not possible or even a good idea to have an army composed of mostly heavy tanks.

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>>34905271

>>34913159
Huehuehuehue your tank is shit
https://youtu.be/p4JVBp2JOgE

>>34913240
>wha wha the tank is too cramped, it doesn't have a tea making station my feet hurt

Britbongs are shit tankers.

daily reminder that even the soviets thought the 76mm Sherman was better than there piece of shit T34 regardless if it was an 85 or not

>>34913240
>6 Foot tall
>Tank is to cramp

Wew lad

>>34910320
apparently the Boche got some good use out of them and their Renault counterpart in the Balkans in Anti-Partisan uses... the size make them easier to get into the backwoods, and mtns that the partisans would hide in.

>>34912418
Sherman frontal 51/56c
T34 frontal 45mm/60c
wow few mm's with big as fuck 90c lower glacis

Sherman uber alles.

>>34913677
The Sherman's low glacis was never really an issue, its as well protected as the rest of the hull. Furthermore, the transmission sits directly behind it and will likely prevent penetrating shells from entering the crew compartment.

>>34913677
see>>34912497
T-34 instead didn't get an armor upgrade, except for the turret.

the Mark IV because wehraboo and because they frankestein'd it all the time

>>34906108
THIS

None of your shit would even run without the ol'6x6.

>>34909404
I can see this being an HBO mini-series with a little bit more refinement.

>>34913240
>"Tank"
Tank destroyer yeah?

>>34906478
>the one thing that I don't build in HoI:IV as paratroopers are useless.

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>>34905271
Sherman definitely.

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>>34906868
>Spend the war having special forces kill German soldiers, take their uniforms and engage in sabotage
>Germans do it back
>Get salty and execute them as spies when even if they would reveal themselves before attacking
>Try to charge the leader with War crimes only to get btfo by the defense when they call up a Surprise British commando witness.

>>34914733
I'm gonna need some more details with that cause I'm really intredasted now.

>>34909417
lold

>>34909145

Shermans were called "fireflies" by crews because they tended to catch fire in the process of driving to the front from the french coast.

so no, the high profile was negligible. Especially when you consider that any sherman destroyed would then be really handy for 4 shermans that came along to hide behind.

>>34905271
Churchill or Sherman

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>>34906868

>>34915178
The firefly is a sherman with a 17 pounder

>>34905843
The OP asked for peoples favorites. GOD FORBID they have different favorites than you. Go fuck yourself.

>>34915178
The title you were looking for was "Zippo; Lights every time!" or something akin to that.

>>34906084
Hetzers were despised by their crews and were absolute shit compared to StuGs lmao

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>>34905271
These bad boys were said to have spit out nearly 5 JPM (Jews per minute) by official estimates.

>>34915565
It wasn't Zippo, it was Ronson. They also didn't even use the slogan until years after the war ended.

>era where most of human knowledge is a click away
>people still perpetuate old wives tales

Fucking unbelievable

>>34905498
>ywn be a Knight's Cross recipient with a captured SVT40 marching along side a StuG going to fight Jewish-Bolshevism

why even?

>>34905271
m4 sherman is shit in war thunder

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>>34914864
here,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Skorzeny#Dachau_Trials
The entire page is great, its pure comedy from top to bottom.

>>34915849
H I S T O R I C A L R E E N A C T M E N T
The only downside is that, instead of Judaeo-Bolsheviks, you're fighting nothing but severely intoxicated GIs (all of whom are somehow 82nd airborne.)

>>34913981
>>34906108

UNDISPUTED MVP

>>34915884
Skorzeny's uniforms came from POWs. FFE Yeo-Thomas admitted ion the stand to murdering soldiers for German uniforms.Man was literally killed and resurrected by the Gestapo and he still testified for Skorzeny because it was an outrage.

>After his testimony, Yeo-Thomas struggled to get out of his seat as he was still recuperating. Skorzeny and the rest of the defendants launched themselves out of their seats and stood at attention causing a furor in the couroom.
>Afterwards, Yeo-Thomas and Skorzeny became pen pals and offered Skorzeny a place to stay in France. When Skorzeny started complaining about being detained for denazification, Yeo-Thomas told him to escape.

>>34905271
STUG-III

>>34912187
That's fine, IF the TDs happen to be close enough to attacking enemy tanks to head them off at the pass.

With the US strategically on the offensive the entire war, this only happened TWICE. Once in Africa, where relatively-cheap halftracks mounting AT guns went ~1:1 against tanks, and the aforementioned occasion in the Bulge.

For the ENTIRE rest of the war, TD Doctrine was a waste of resources, with TDs used mostly as poorly-armored tanks or as light artillery pieces firing indirectly.

The lesson was learned after the war: you engage the enemy with what you have at hand, not what's sitting in reserve an hour or two away, and therefore what you put on the line needs to be capable of dealing with just about anything that the enemy has (at least, in terms of ground forces--air is a more complex story).

>>34906084
Huh, I always thought that hetzers were smaller and lower profile than that.

>>34905271
Late Mdl Sherman M4E1? 76mm gun

>>34914341

Makes me long for HoI 3 where my paratroopers were a fire brigade rushing around the map taking vital points and shattering defenses.

One game I had them at 95% XP with all level 7+ generals.

I loved them so much.

>>34915884
>Monty gets detained by American GIs because of a rumor that a German spy looks like Monty
Fucking lol

>>34915849

Give it a couple more years.

>>34915959

That's not true. Some of them are 101st. Also you have to be SS if you're going to be German because the entire German military was SS.

>>34916967

That's...pretty small and low profile for a tank, yes.

>>34905571
>Give me the death I deservoli

>>34909404
>and talks to the shells when no one is around.

/ourguy/

>>34915178
>Shermans were called "fireflies" by crews because they tended to catch fire in the process of driving to the front from the french coast.

Please never post on this board again.

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>>34916956
>Head them off at the pass
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjGW2WwDQhM

Also this anon gets it. American TD crews in WWII were among the best tank-killers in the history of armored warfare, but they were always at the mercy of poor positioning and the situation of the war they were fighting. It didn't help that General Bruce was a fucking idiot who shot his command in the foot so many times that most TD units were crossing the Rhine on ankle-stumps. Pic related.

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>>34909404
>Not making a biopic about the real life Odd Ball from Kelly's Heroes

>His disrespect for superiors and disdain for the Party frequently held him back from promotion. At one point he was reprimanded for beating an SS oficer to a bloody pulp after witnessing him abusing Soviet POWs
>Whenever a kill was contested between him and another Panzer crew, he would always give the credit to the other tank crew even if he did get the kill.

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>>34917251
>mfw I called this out a couple of years ago and got called an autist faggot

Thank you anon.

>>34917263
It's undeniable that there was a connection between the two of them. Kurt was a weird proto-hippie who still went out and amassed hundreds of kills.

>>34905843
I'm not American, but the Sherman was just the most well-rounded medium tank for its time.
The two others only got better when their gun was upgraded.

>>34917915
The Panzer IV and 34 were great in their original forms, but they were old designs IV especially. They had to constantly upgrade to edge out the other.

America didn't have that sort of life or death pressure on them like Germany and Russia had.

>>34909545
Probably an urealized benefit, rather than a purposeful design implementation

>>34909573
Well, there was a fiction book by Ilya Boyashov, "The white tiger" about a tank crew of a misterious driver obsessed with a white Tiger tank, a gunner with unstoppable sex drive and an alcoholic yakut loader.
>>34913994
Try polish "Four tankmen and a dog" TV series
>>34917251
Wow. Never knew it.
>>34909301
And then you realise that most of soviet citizens were pretty short due to agricultural sector being weak since the Romanovs.

>>34918325
The Russians made a movie out of The White Tiger. It's on youtube.

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>>34906108
Here in NZ we salvaged these things that yanks buried brought them home, then put them to work doing some hard labor.

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>>34905271
chinese Active Tank Protection System, GL5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ikURZkQPjs

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>Work horses

>People fighting about tanks

This is truely the best workhorse of the war! The all American tractor: The Willys-Bantam Jeep.

>>34918346
I know, I've seen it in a movie theater.
The movie is a failure both as an adaptation of a book and as a war movie.

>>34914733
Storytime?

>>34918347
Great to see a fellow /k/iwi

>>34905464
>tfw will never go to war with a a cute mare companion

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>>34918403
>British spend years dumping operatives behind German lines to aid resistance groups.
>Resistance groups use German uniforms for operations. Can't hold the German prisoners, so they have to be killed for good measure.
>After awhile it starts getting to be a real nuisance, so Hitler issues the Commando order (authorizing the execution of all enemy forces caught using uniforms) It's relatively rarely carried out. Commandos who are captured can be a source of information
>British get wind of it and are outraged and continue to carry out clandestine operations, which involve executions of captured soldiers and use of uniforms
>German Brandenburger commandos did this as well, using uniforms, but their uniforms always came off of POW's, and were noted to reveal their allegiance when action had to be taken.
>Operation Gref rolls around read up on their antics
>Skorzeny used uniforms of captured American personel
>Americans go apeshit thinking they were murdering soldiers for their uniforms and execute dozens of operatives as spies when
>After the war, the Americans decide they aren't going to forget this
>Skorzeny just turned himself in
>Slap a war crimes charge on him with a death penalty as punishment
>Skorzeny council is an American officer
>Fuck.
>Skorzeny spends the next three days carefully outlining his actions to the Lawyer
>Lawyer understands and prepares the defense
>Skorzeny's trial begins
>Bleeding heart prosecution attempts to paint Skorzeny as a criminal
>Defenses turn
Defense calls in FFE Yeo-Thomas, a famed British commando still recovering from a prolonged stay in a concentration camp.
>FFE Yeo-thomas lays out an opertation he conducted where he murdered German soldiers for uniforms for a jail break of his resistance comrades
>Trial falls apart almost immediately.
>After his testimony, Yeo-Thomas struggled to get out of his seat.
>Skorzeny and the rest of the defendants launched themselves out of their seats and stood at attention as he left

>>34918520
Didn't german submariners use captured british uniform because of how functional they were?

>>34913330

>Nick Moran
>British

Ya dun fucked up mate, he's a US Army tanker.

>>34918719
He was in the irish army before migrating to the US. And ireland is an isle of britain, technically making him british.

>>34913330
Is that why they're considered some of the best in the world?
It takes something like 2 years to train a british tanker.

>>34915565
It's Ronson;Lights first time, every time.

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>>34906176
Jungle Matilda's are cool.

What really was the British workhorse, aside from the Sherman? The Churchill?

>>34919002
Cromwells

>>34916967
These are kids next to it

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>>34919091
>workhorse
More like racehorse

>>34919119
File name made me giggle.

>>34906108

This tbqh

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Daimler Dingo you filthy scrubs

>>34919287
Great little car

>can go the same speed in reverse as it does forwards
>driver's seat and controls angled to allow him to look backwards easier
>comfortable ride

>>34905571
Despite being a load of shit I think this tank looks pretty cool. Kind of has inter-war Steampunk vibes. Something you'd fine in one of those semi-realistic Japanese games that are super autistic about detail.

Then again, none of those are good things for a tank.

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>tfw not mechanized infantry
>tfw no Opel Blitz
>tfw no halftrack
>tfw making do with a Fiat 500 staff car towing bicycles

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>>34909286
>Honestly i've gotta say that the t34 was the all around best design, now production quality was, well, soviet, but the armor setup and upgrade-ability with the 85mm turret was pretty great.
>>34909237
>>34909265

The t-34-76 and 85 are both shit tanks.

>cramped interior, even for short people
>christie suspension takes up a lot of interior space
>sloped side armour adds negligible protection and takes up even more interior space
>bow gunner has atrocious visibility, borderline useless because of this
>commander's cupola seems large but inside he is cramped against the side due to the gun size
>commander's vision is inadequate
>loader needs to be a professional gymnast due to the size of the ammunition and the size of the gun
>driver, loader and bow gunner are fucked when they need to escape
>driver's hatch a key vulnerability
>no turret basket, watch your legs comrade, also make sure not to trip over spent casings
>maintenance commonly requires at least 500 bolts to be undone and redone
>tank requires more and more serious maintenance the longer it lives, eventually requiring turret removal for suspension maintenance

Fucking sick of this "T-34 was good!", it was an important tool but it was not considered by anyone who knows a little about tanks a good tank when you look beyond black and white films of T-34's charging across open fields.

>>34916956
>That's fine, IF the TDs happen to be close enough to attacking enemy tanks to head them off at the pass.
Which is fine, because they're not intended to stop local counterattacks. You don't understand that point. They're there to prevent entire division level attacks at the smallest. Which, as you noted, only truly occurred twice. The Americans quite reasonably expected the Germans to have larger scale counter offensives, as was seen in Russia. In fact, I believe that tank destroyer doctrine would be vindicated had the Germans had some strength to spare in the West or had the tank destroyers been in the East.

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>>34915178
>Shermans were called "fireflies" by crews because they tended to catch fire in the process of driving to the front from the french coast.

>>34919526

The T-34 was the best tank available when it was produced, but only because of it's armor and gun. Once those were matched it had nothing to sell itself.

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Panzer 4 does not ever get enough love. Muh tiger fags need to fuck off.

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>>34920761
this

>>34920237
The T-34 had reliability problems nearly as awful as the Panther. The only difference is that the Germans built the Panther with the intention of completely relying on each individual tank they built, while the Soviets could afford to abandon tanks that became useless because the transmission shat itself again and they didn't have time to undo half the rear end to replace it. The road to Soviet success was paved with broken-down T-34s, to say nothing of the ones that actually died in combat.

The sheer fact that the Sherman could drive on its own track from Normandy to the Rhine without breaking down is one of the principal advantages it had over every other tank in service at the time, to say nothing of the ease with which they could be maintained, or even recovered from the battlefield after being knocked out and rebuilt. A "dead" Sherman could be returned to service in as little as 24 hours. The Israelis abused this fact to no end postwar, recovering every wreck they could possibly get their hands on and rebuilding them as much more heavily armed tanks capable of standing against T-55s. Most Shermans in private and museum possession are also similarly rebuilt from killed tanks, some being welded up outright from two halves of blown up vehicles.

>>34918928
Wasn't that more true for the PZ IV ammo than the Sherman?

>>34921071
The Sherman's rep for burning was caused by several factors.

First, like with any tank where the ammo is unprotected, there's serious risk of the tank brewing up.

Second, with the Allies on the advance most brewed-up Shermans got recovered, leading to people seeing a lot of them burned-out.
Made worse by the Sherman being used by the vast majority of tank forces in western Europe.

Thirdly, with them mostly being on the retreat by that point of the war German commanders tried to make sure every tank they knocked out was destroyed beyond recovery, generally by shooting them until they started burning up.

>>34906176
wont you go a waltzing with me?

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>>34920761
wespe does not get enough love. Muh panzer iv fags need to fuck off.

>>34919573
Large-scale German attacks occurred more than twice, although not very much more. It just happened that TDs were in position only twice.

The bazooka was far more useful in stopping armored attacks than TDs, because it was actually present when and where they occurred.

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>>34921143
Don't forget that the British also had a bad habit of fully loading their ammo racks right up until the later stages of the Normandy campaign, leading to a lot of instances of "bong-in-the-box" that may have likely been survivable for at least a few crew members in otherwise identical American tanks.

>>34909130
I dont know why but the hummel is just pure artillery porn. Its boxy design is just so rudimentary its perfect

T-34 because unlike the Sherman it was in production before the war even began and unlike the Panzer 3&4 it wasn't two tanks filling the same role and didn't need a to be upgraded to a new variant every few months.

>>34923867
>didn't need a to be upgraded to a new variant every few months.

There were loads of T-34 variants, what are you talking about? It went through several turrets and several guns, the engine received some modifications as well.

>>34922207
Also don't forget that the bongs made their crews wear berets.

Berets. In a tank.

>>34923935
The Germans wore field caps.
Seems like the Soviets, the Italians, the Japs, the French and the Americans had some sense.

>>34923932
Those variations were relatively minor and there were only a few models. It's nothing compared to the Germans producing 3 different medium tanks with variants counting up to J and N

>>34924138
There's as much difference between the PzIVA and the J as there is between the T-34/76A and the T-34-85. Both originally had infantry support guns and later were equipped with high velocity guns to improve their performance against tanks alongside improvements to protection and mobility.

>>34923935
Well yeah, youre in a tank. They didnt think of shrapnel flying around in the insides of a tank so they stuck with berets for epeen

>>34905271
why is everything on /k/ always a pissing contest?
I for one happen to like all three here.

>>34924138
There were nine major T-34 variants that served as tanks during WWII, 10 Pz.IV variants, 12 Pz.III variants, 3 Pz.V variants, and 16 Sherman variants used by the US during the war though the number increases if you start counting British variants and yet more if you're one of those idiots that considers the Ram tanks as Sherman variants for some goddamn reason.

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You are all wrong comrades! I present to you only good thing to come from glorius communism.
KV-2: Most stronk tenk of all war, clubbed many fascist invaders.

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In motherland we have saying. KV-2, stronk as bear on unicycle.

>>34915849
>>34905498
>yfw Heroes of Stalingrad was historically accurate

>>34925348
>turret so heavy it cant traverse when not on level ground
>shots that have no hope of penetrating still regularly knock turret off turret ring

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>>34924122
>The Germans wore field caps.
They had goofy looking padded berets for a while.

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>>34925423
padding sans beret

>>34905843
It is

>>34920855

Sure. But in a 1 v 1 fight the T-34 could take pretty much anything except maybe a KV-1 (which is, of course, on the same side).

The T-34 IS overrated, but it WAS a monster in a straight up fight until the Panther and Tiger showed up.

>>34925423
while most all guderian's ideas were sound.
this one fell short, and was quickly replaced.

>>34918870
>technically making him British
Fuck off retard.

>>34925348
>Be KV-2
>Get overwhelmed by Finns on skies.

>>34912560
>The T-34-85's suspension is still terrible and it still doesn't even have a turret basket.
neither do wet stowage shermans

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>>34905271
I know it can hardly be called a workhorse even before it went completly obsolete, but I do have a soft spot for the Panzer III

>>34925374
That's wrong. In WoT, 'deathstar' refers to the Fv. 215b 183

>>34920855
>The sheer fact that the Sherman could drive on its own track from Normandy to the Rhine without breaking down is one of the principal advantages it had over every other tank in service at the time
you must be talking about the US supply line keeping the troops awash in parts or else the tanks break down like everyone else's

>>34905843
>TYOOL 1000+560+430+27
>still falling for Kraut and commie memes that Sherman isn't best tonk
S A D

>>34906362
>Be me
>American artilleryman
>Get request for fire from some grunt, not even a F.O. but has a radio
>whatevs, we have ammo to spare, quickly work out firing solution
>Deliver rounds on time and on target
>Krauts BTFO

>>34907680
>Dry ammunition stowage until rather late in the war (of course, almost everybody else made the same mistake...)
It was later proved that the wet jackets were pretty much irrelevant compared to the lowering of the ammo. Early racks were everywhere and practically guaranteed a ammo hit if penetrated, lowering the racks to the floor (as in wet stowage) reduced the probability from ~85% (on par with German and Russian tanks) to ~15% (a class of its own)

>>34928843
Quick google says yes they did except 76mm which only had half a turret basket

>>34928950
yep, i should've been more specific. 76mm and 105mm shermans had no turret basket

>>34918692
Submariner uniforms don't matter, they didn't wear them anyway.

>>34928926
How old are you?

>>34929041
I don't think you get the purpose of greentexts

>>34929050
>Be me
People don't call anybody else than themselves as "me" even in greentexting.

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>>34905271
the strv m/42
ok so it didnt actually take part in ww2 since sweden wasnt invaded but its a impressive tank concidering that its a completely original design which whent from the drawingboard to service in just 2 years

Its preformance was similar to the short barreled pz4's and 75mm sherman's

>>34929100
M8 are you fucking new?
People use it to LARP all the time, usually ending with
>mfw I'm *fill blank*

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>>34929125

>>34929152
Sure the greentexts have first person view point, but when starting it with "be me" you literally claim that it happened to you.
>>34906135
>>34906362
These guys do it right.

>>34905843
Welcome to /k/

>>34905464
my grandpa took a saddle from one of those faggots. little bitch had taken a knife to it to try to destroy it

>>34905271
My favourite will and always be the Churchill series. Such lovely tanks although I'm sure a bit of nationalism clouds my judgement

>>34907680
And how did matter that it was below 40 tons?

>T-90 best modern (under 50 ton) tank!

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There were many "Wunderwaffen", cool guns, weird vehicles, brilliant inventions, but this is the workhorse that won the war.

T-34 was hardly a match for most German tanks. But a dozen of T-34s could take on any single German tank easily.

>>34915959
This is why I do soviet with my svt

>>34913330
Bongs have the best tank loaders I've ever seen

>>34929642
To be honest, with all the pockets that surrendered at the start of Barbarossa, they probably could have outfitted whole divisions with SVT's, since the Soviet Union was looking to replace the Mosin with it.

>>34929125
Well, since the M/42 is nothing more than a Lago with a larger turret, you could say it took in reality 6 years in the making. Still impressive though.

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>>34905271

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>>34931426
>Tiger II
>Mustangs
>Stalingrad 1942
Why are you doing this to me?

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>>34905271
>not picturing the best

>>34931594
Ayy lmao

Also
>workhorse

>>34931594
The best waste of resources and overblown hype.

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>>34929024
>ywn operate innaocean with a comfy sweater
Feels bad man

>>34909404
There goes my set of sides and I need fresh underwear too

>>34929458
It mattered because heavy tanks were rare on the battlefield; they were expensive and time-consuming to manufacture, generally less reliable, much less mobile, and rarely where they were needed in enough numbers to decide the outcome in anything larger than a skirmish.

So, yeah, medium tanks mattered.

>>34915664
6000000edgy1488me

>>34905271
german tanks were ahead of there time, literally every todays is german design copy, so yes my favorite workhorse is pz3.

>>34912106
Forward pedestrian!

>>34932817
The Panzer III was, the others weren't.

>>34928963
They have a turret platform that supports all members of the crew in the turret. Just because it doesn't cover an area equal to the turret ring doesn't mean it doesn't have one at all.

>>34905271
sherman is best but panzer iv is my fav

Panzer III is my favorite, it's kinda cute.
And Panther was a great design overall, it's faults were more a product of German situation late war. Still, it barely cost more than Panzer IV and was superior to any other medium tank fielded in big numbers in WW2.

>>34932768
Being over 40 tons didn't alone make any tank a heavy tank.
>generally less reliable
Hard to say if any heavy tank was less reliable than T-34 and Panther. Though those problems weren't caused by weight alone.
>much less mobile
B1, KV and Tiger II sure, but Tiger I and IS were as mobile as most common medium tanks.

>>34932992
it was totally removed in late 76mm tanks. the ammo was in the hull floor; having a turret basket would not be conducive to optimum ordnance servicing

>>34933144
Shit, guess the one I saw wasn't late enough.

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>>34925379
It actually bothers me that there are people who think captured weapons aren't historically accurate.

>>34919315
Dieselpunk. Goddamnit.

>>34928894
The track life for M4A2's provided to the soviets was 5000km, about double that of the T-34 though in Russian experience the T-34 and Sherman had similar times before requiring drive-train service at around 2000km or ~250hours, whichever came first. Note that those numbers are from 1944, early war T-34's were significantly less mechanically reliable with mid-war T-34's V2 12 cylinder engines lasting around ten hours or 250km. Comparatively postwar French tests of Panthers found their drivetrains to last about 150km between failures.

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My french qt

>>34933959
Were they using the Panther D?

>>34933978
delte thies

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>>34934010
They were using captured panthers in two regiments postwar, mostly asuf. A's. Most parts had a service life in french experience of around 2000km with the final drive being the weak-point with an average life between failures of 150 hours. Soviet estimates based on captured panthers gave the engine an overall life of 700 to 1000 hours.

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>>34934120
christ I should have proofread that, it's ausf. a not asuf, and the final drive had a failure time of 150km not 150 hours.

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>Be King tiger
>king of all german tanks
>even bigger than big bro i guess he didn't eat he's sausege
>hehe
>Need lot's of fuel to move big ass
>I will just bully small tanks for fuel
>Can't cross bridge because too fat
>I will go diet tommorow
>Sinking in the mud here
>Soon engineers finnish bridge
>Will kill many t34's
>Fuhrer will be proud
>Someone one yells air sirens all little tanks are hidden
> Enemy fighters can see me from the moon
>Such is life as the king

>>34905271

Kv2

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>>34905271
Universal Carrier.

>>34934910
lindy fuck off

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>>34925733
>this one fell short,
What the fuck did you just fucking say about me, you little bolshevik? I’ll have you know I graduated top of my class at ϟϟ Junkerschule Bad Tolz, and I’ve been involved in numerous raids on Jewish Ghettos, and I have over 300 confirmed relocations. I am trained in gorilla anti-terrorism and I’m the top einsatzkommando in the entire Waffen ϟϟ. You are nothing to me but just another untermensch. I will wipe you the fuck out with precision the likes of which has never been seen before in this delousing chamber mark my fucking words. You think you can get away with saying that shit to me over the enigma machine? Think again, jude. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of collaborators across the Deutsches Reich and your Jewish ancestry is being traced right now so you better prepare for the sturm, parasite. The sturm that ausrottens the pathetic little thing you call your life. You’re fucking incinerated, kid. I can blitz anywhere, anytime, and I can exterminate you in over seven hundred ways, and that’s just with my pesticides. Not only am I extensively trained in the Nuremburg Laws, but I have access to the entire armory of the Wehrmacht and I will use it to its full extent to concentrate your miserable ass off the face of the lebensraum, you little shit. If only you could have known what incredible retribution your little “clever” culture of critique was about to bring down upon you, maybe you would have signed on to the Havara Agreement. But you couldn’t, you didn’t, and now you’re paying the price, you goddamn idiot. I will shit the glory of the herrenrasse all over you and you will drown in it. You’re fucking dead, yiddo.

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>>34907680
>If you're going to denigrate American armor, stick to the Tank Destroyer Doctrine, which conveniently forgot that the US had already missed its chance to defend France, and would have to spend the entire war on the offensive.
>fronts are never elastic, it's always one side defending while the other attacks all the way across the continent
There was literally nothing wrong with the doctrine, we just changes what vehicles we used for quick response to armored pushes.

Comfort Women?

>>34936684
>There was literally nothing wrong with the doctrine

>>34936820
When it got used it worked marvelously. Unfortunately in order to be used a lot of tank-like things had to be held in reserve and no sane commander would leave a bunch of self propelled 75mm, 76mm, and 90mm guns in reserve.

>>34936851
>Unfortunately in order to be used
so literally there's a thing wrong with it. we could go on and on

>>34906221
He's right though. German armor was a joke until they started producing Panthers. Self propelled guns were OK, but the purists tankers hated them.

>>34936884
The only thing wrong with it is that maintaining a mobile reserve is wasteful if the enemy can't force you into using it.

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>>34929507
>But a dozen of T-34s could take on any single German tank easily.

A dozen of pretty much any tank could take on any single tank easily you faggot. Pic fucking related; I stand by it.

>>34936941
well, there's that the americans misunderstood the early german tank attacks in the first place and discounted infantry and artillery support, the offensive tactics were difficult to impossible to use in the field, the speed the tank destroyer command was after with the gmc m18 wasn't actually all that much of a help, tanks were quickly armed with similar guns as the tank destroyers, etc etc. the us had no mechanized warfare experience at that point, and doing something about the panzers was important, but what they came up with was a serendipitous mistake in that the crews successfully acted in roles for which they weren't trained and for their units weren't designed, but the army quickly killed the TDs after the war. saying there was literally nothing wrong with the TD doctrine is nothing but nationalistic cheerleading

>>34910964
>>/tg/
Then at least try to learn, bruh.

>>34936999
>tanks were quickly armed with similar guns as the tank destroyers, etc etc.
Most shermans in Europe still had the 75s all the way through the war. Having an M10 or M18 around is mighty handy for shooting at anything bigger than a pz IV.

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>>34936999
Nice trips.

Before I start, let me just say that I firmly believe the M18 to be a piece of shit and General Bruce to be one of the most imbecilic commanders in the US Army during the Second World War, who's autistic obsession with tank destroyers that "gotta go fast" cost many brave American soldiers their lives.

That out of the way, let me remind you of the alternative in 1943: The towed gun. Right up until the end of the Battle of the Bulge, and even for a time after that, there was fierce debate over whether the Army's AT guns should be self-propelled or towed. It was the efforts of the Tank Destroyer Board that saw the latter option snuffed out, likely saving many Americans later in the war. Similarly, it was the Tank Destroyers who got into the field with the bigger guns first. The combat effectiveness of these weapons may be dubious, but it is at least noteworthy that the 75mm, 76mm, and 90mm guns that would win the war for America got their debut with the tank killers in Africa, Italy, and France.

I'm not saying the doctrine was perfect. It wasn't; it was shit. What I am saying is that we should remember the importance of the men behind the doctrine, as well as the bravery of the men who put it into practice. American TD crews were easily among the best tank-killers history has ever seen, often succeeding in spite of their equipment rather than thanks to it.

>>34937068
by ve day well over half the shermans in europe were 76mm tanks

>>34937075
>What I am saying is that we should remember the importance of the men behind the doctrine, as well as the bravery of the men who put it into practice
with this i absolutely agree. i'm arguing against >>34936684
>There was literally nothing wrong with the doctrine

>>34937075
I think the same holds true for anyone.
Most people have a propensity for attributing military failure to the quality of the fighting men, when most of the time it is anything but. Case in point, Italy in WW2.

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>>34937068
>Having an M10 or M18 around is mighty handy for shooting at anything bigger than a pz IV.

You have to weigh the pros and cons here.

On one hand you could have one in every three, four, or even five Shermans armed with a 76mm gun. All of the supplies are the same for every vehicle in your command, except for your ammo supply. You probably lose out on overall firepower, but gain on flexibility and reliability in the field (sounds pretty fuckin American, don't it?)

On the other hand, you could have a separate unit of M10s or M18s under your command. They need different parts, differently trained crews, as well as different ammo. What you gain in firepower is lost in your ability to fight a mobile, offensive war.

All of this through the lens of the 75mm M3 being ineffective against anything larger than a Panzer IV so we need to proof for those tanks... in 1944. It's like arguing that the M4 needed more machine guns to fight off German aircraft.

>>34937113
Your only argument against it is that situational weapons are situational and keeping guns in reserve is lame, but that idea is flawed since once the doctrine was really defined they were doing plenty of things to keep themselves busy when they weren't countering armored assaults.

>>34937172
>All of this through the lens of the 75mm M3 being ineffective against anything larger than a Panzer IV so we need to proof for those tanks... in 1944.
Exactly. Why slap a 76 on every tank when the 75 has a better HE shell and a longer barrel life? It's better to have a specific counter to a threat than to hurt yourself in the long run to be "better rounded."

>>34937225
>Why slap a 76 on every tank when the 75 has a better HE shell and a longer barrel life? It's better to have a specific counter to a threat than to hurt yourself in the long run to be "better rounded."

Because that's exactly why American tanks were great and German tanks tended to be sorta shit...

Also you conveniently forgot about the rest of that phrase, in which I alluded to the relative absence of German Armor post-Normandy, thus negating any need for a dedicated anti-tank vehicle, and even calling into question the need to up-gun the Sherman at all.

>>34937271
A rare enemy is still an enemy, and it's better to not have to rely on M8s to kill every tiger.

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>>34937281
And a war is still a war; it's better not to waste resources on an industrial scale to counter a non-threat.

It all boils down to this: You have to kill a Tiger. Do you:
A) Pop the turret off one or two Sherman tanks and put a new turret with a bigger gun on, or
B) Call up your Tank Destroyer units and cower under your burning tank while wondering why you didn't pick option A.

If you want a less funny, also less hyperbolic example; which is easier:
-Building an M18?
-Putting a new turret on a Sherman?

>>34937362
In a perfect work I would've liked to see 76 jumbos hit Europe before everything was basically over, but M10s and M18s unarguably did the job.

>>34909417
Even this is a joke there is some truth into it. In battle of stalingrad T-34s leaved factory in such hurry some didn't had optics, radios etc. Could be expected because after the first 1 or 2 years of war factories filled with teenagers because all men went to war.

>>34934465
>>Will kill many t34's
Gets killed by 1 T-34 covered in wheat

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>>34937553
>Unarguably

False. The M10's 3in gun was barely better than a Sherman's 75mm versus even Panzer IVs, and was mounted on a far inferior platform to a standard Sherman. The M18's 76mm gun was better, but was being phased into widespread service on the Sherman by the time the M18 saw significant combat, compounded by the M18 being, by design, one of the worst tank-killing platforms to see service in WWII.

American Tank Destroyer crews unarguably did their job. Attributing that to any value you may place in the stopgap M10 and failed M18 is simply misguided.

You have shown that you aren't understanding the US Army's mindset here. There was no "X is ideal but Y is doing the job for now". It was "Y is doing the job and is therefore ideal" until something comes along that makes it so Y can no longer do the job. Emphasis was placed on the needs of commanders in the field, rather than trying to anticipate any given situation. This saves time and resources when you can build a thousand medium tanks a day; you'll never need to say "shit, I've just wasted a bunch of resources because all these tanks are obsolete". Instead you say "Alright, time to upgrade the fleet!"

The Army would always take upgrades to existing equipment as far as it could go before putting much resources into entirely new developments. Hence why the M10 and M36 existed in the first place, while vehicles like the M18 and M26 spent quite a bit of time in development limbo (albeit for different reasons posed by different assholes who both knew very little about the equipment they were in charge of. We're looking at you, Patton.)

>>34939535
There's no evidence of Patton having anything to do with the M26s slow adoption, but tons regarding it not being reliable enough for TRADOC

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>>34939557
>There's no evidence of Patton having anything to do with the M26s slow adoption
Quoted from Steven J Zaloga's "M26/M46 Pershing Tank 1943-53"
>While Devers wanted the T26E1 tank program accelerated, there was little consensus in the combat arms. After a presentation about the new tank in England in January 1944, the future 3rd Army commander, Brig(Gen) Maurice Rose, strongly supported the acceleration of the program because of his previous contact with the German Tiger tank in Sicily. On the other hand, the future Third Army commander, Gen George S. Patton, opposed the plan. Patton was a far more influential tank commander than Rose, and his opinion held sway among senior US Army leaders in England.

He then goes on to talk about how Patton also wanted every Sherman to have a 75mm M3 gun and generally knew very little about the technical aspects of what made a good tank.

It's also worth noting that much of the Pershing's less than brilliant development history has to do with arbitrary requirements established by McNair of AGF:
>Complaining about the potential weight load limits of the torsion bar suspension in spite of having observed the success of vehicles such as the Tiger I, KV-1, and early IS models
>Worries about the torquematic transmission transmission in spite of it being the mature option among the T20 series (as opposed to electric on the T23 or a torque-converter fluid drive on the T20)

Of course, the US took an arguably more careful approach to tank development than their Russian or German counterparts, and the fact is that many of the state-side "development" problems we see in the Pershing would simply have been in-combat "teething" problems in the T-34 or Panther. At the time of development, the US Army had recieved the shock and humiliation of Kasserine pass without the humbling of Normandy. It was a matter of pride that the next tank they put onto the battlefield be as close to perfect as possible.

>>34935587
off your meds, again?

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>>34939692
did you just assume my prescription?

>>34939692
Newfag

>>34919179
Ditto

>>34919287
My grandpa was in one of those, he was spotted by a german on a recce mission and got shot at. It went through his bundle of clothes in the car and put several holes in every piece of clothing because of how they were folded up. He said you could get out of trouble faster than you got in.

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>strg+f
>SU-76
>No matches.

Why? The SU-76 (and the T-70 on which its based upon) are always overlooked.
Those two little tanks were built in almost as huge numbers as the T-34 and whole soviet tank-companies were equipped with it.
They were literally their second armored backbone.

>>34905271

An american, an englishman, and a russian are discussing:

The burger says:
- I'm so wealthy, that I have a car for me, one for my wife, one for each of my childrens, and one extra in case mine breaks

The englishman replies:
- You're a new rich, and a very poor planner, all you need is one car, but a good one. A rolls-royce.

And then they ask the ruskie, which was keeping silent:
- And you, how many cars do you have?

- None, he replies. If I get drunk, the police drives me home. If I get really drunk, the ambulance drives me home, And if i'm doing anything wrong, the KGB's cars come to pick me up.

- But what do you have to go on holidays then?

- T-34s

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>>34935194
Universal Carriers are fucking cool.
They did all sorts of shit and got everywhere. As a weird tankette psuedo-apc thing they don't really have any other stablemates either, and that uniqueness is one of the thi gs that makes them interesting.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16gWRxv_aZY

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>>34940696
This desu. They were excellent little vehicles and gave great service. And adorable to boot.

>>34919494
I mean... if it works

>>34940696
A Wehraboo made a sweet Panzer 1 replica on a T16 carrier
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YljF5iaxxJQ

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>>34909265
>comparing early war tank to late war tank

>>34939655
zaloga is mistaken.

>>34939535
>The M18's 76mm gun was better
the 3 inch and 76mm guns performed identically

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>>34905271
>Which is your favorite workhorse of WWII?
So I heard you gots cargo?

>>34944518
Do you have any proof to back that up, or are you just an idiot who can't accept that I called out your (and Patton's) shit.

>>34944524
>the 3 inch and 76mm guns performed identically
I assume you're talking about penetration performance. This is true, but that is not the sole factor determining whether or not a weapon was effective. The M1 was significantly lighter and more compact than the M7, had a faster rifling twist, and could mount a muzzle break. Admittedly, all of these features were really only of value to the M18 because of it's idiotic weight/speed requirements; on an M4 they likely would have performed just as well either way. Likewise, comparing the performance to the M3 gun the way I did was a bit hyperbolic.

>>34944656
>Do you have any proof to back that up, or are you just an idiot who can't accept that I called out your (and Patton's) shit.
i'd suggest baily's Faint Praise, hunnicutt's Pershing, or more recent work by zaloga, for example Armored Thunderbolt

>>34944777
Hey good shit, I'll take a look. You'll have to excuse my bluntness, but understand that "Your source is wrong" without any other counter-point or sources is a pretty abrasive way to argue a point around here. I haven't had the fortune to get my hands on really any of the Hunnicutt books, at least physically. I'll step back from my Patton point, at least as far as him being instrumental in the delay of the M26's adoption.

All that being said, I'm standing firm on the M18 being trash.

Also nice lucky trips

>>34944964
>You'll have to excuse my bluntness, but understand that "Your source is wrong" without any other counter-point or sources is a pretty abrasive way to argue a point around here
fair enough. the ephemeral nature of this board sometimes makes it difficult to put forth the effort required for actual scholarly argument. note also that in december 1943/january 1944 patton was in a pretty big fucking doghouse and was sweating about his future in the army. rose commanded the 3d armored division, of course, not the 3d us army. i also wouldn't call the m18 trash

>>34945056
>i also wouldn't call the m18 trash

This I have to stand by. The vehicle was Gen. Bruce's pet project, and years of fighting with McNair and other officials over the needs of American tank-killers robbed him of his objectivity. In his mind, faster was always better, forgetting that a fast tank destroyer is useless if it can't kill tanks. To compound this issue, his assertions that a lightly-armored, highly mobile vehicle would give numerous tactical and strategic advantages were often wrong. M18 crews rarely used their high-speed in combat, and the tactic developed around the vehicle's mobility and dubiously effective armament against heavier German tanks were absurd, if not suicidal.

The M18 was Bruce's prized hotrod, not the slugging beast American crews wanted for fighting Tigers and Panthers. Crews didn't like the light armor, barely adequate against artillery fragments. It's speed, combined with an open top, left the loader, gunner and commander exposed to all manner of debris outside the tank, and travelling offroad could quickly lead to injuries (sometimes serious) from think like branches and stones that tankers, and even TD crews in more reasonably paced vehicles, didn't have to worry about.

In short, it was a meme tank destroyer. Literally "gotta go fast". In place of technical soundness, higher commanders used unsound doctrine, and field commanders relied on the bravery and incredible skill of their tank destroyer crews. I've said it many times before, and I'll say it again. The crews of the M18 Hellcat succeeded in spite of their vehicles, not thanks to them.

>>34944597
>Not a Liberty ship
Where did the triple-expansion engine touch you?

>>34918368
.1 yuan for u

>>34919119
Picture : empty ammo racks, empty radio slot, 10% fuel and only 1 crew.