Main Battle Tank Battle

Well

Im not a tabnk man, or a soldier at that....And the Merkava still is secret in some ways...But here is what i know...
The Mk I and Mk II had the Older, thiner turret shape. Now, The Mk III, was a diffrent story. It had the 120mm main gun, unlike the older veraients.So the Turret had to be redesighned to some level...The earlier Mk III still had a very thin turret, but when the new generation of AT weapons(top attack), and the addition of the new fire control system, they added some armour slates and other things around and above the turret. The armour slates added around the turret vary from tank to tank according to the needs of the activety(they are modular). There are now Mk IIIs and Mk II with more extra armor. Now, the Merkava Mk IV is a whole diffrent tank. really, the body, engine electronics, turret, whole diffrent deal...
 
Yes.

Your right. I guss the desighners decided that the extra armor and electronic systems are more importent. By the way, when yuo say mobilty, do you mean speed? because it dose lack that(55kmh cross country).
 
ideal tank creature comforts page

I realize this is a serious discussion of what tank is the best fighting maching, and I don't want to annoy anyone by dropping this in here, but in the course of talking about the 'perfect tank', for a little variety, perhaps someone might like to see what tankers say about the 'ideal tank' from their point of view.

You can go here to see their dialogue.

http://www.ciar.org/ttk/mbt/tanks/tanks.creature-comforts.1.html

Here's a brief quote from the start of the discussion, and it goes on from there with a lot of give and take between the tankers--

begin quote:
Forget bigger guns, AA missiles etc. The things tankers would like to see
are:-
a) A small diesel generator to run the electrics with the main engine off.
b) Air conditioning for those blazing hot summers and places where it's
always so hot.
c) A small pump to run a decontamination shower. Also doubles as a neat
field shower.
d) DC sockets to operate stuff like notebooks, shavers, stereos and which
they can use to recharge their cellular phones.
e) More stowage. You can never have enough.
f) a Microwave oven.
g) cupholders

If this seems like a flippant topic, just consider these things for a
moment. We send millions on each tank and they are just so underspecified.
I'd like to hear from some tankers on these suggestions and also for any
other things that anyone feels should come as standard on a multi-million
dollar ride.

I remember from somewhere that an Abrams clocks in at about 3.5 million
sans support. I'd expect more than DU mesh armour and thermal imagers for that kinda money.

endquote

He gets a lot of answers and counter-suggestions as you go farther down the page. Actually kind of interesting.
 
acctually

The older Centurion had a soket for an electric tea pot....Israeli teams hookd in an electric pan for egges and stuff...
 
I remember reading somewhere that during WWII the British made tea in their tanks from the heat coming out of somwhere and the Americans brewed beer in their tanks.
 
FutureRANGER said:
I remember reading somewhere that during WWII the British made tea in their tanks from the heat coming out of somwhere and the Americans brewed beer in their tanks.
Click to expand...

There is a fascinating similarity between the spellings of 'Luger' and 'Lager'.
 
The M1A2 IS climate controlled, DOES have a external Generator for running electrical systems, showers in the field are for REMFs, ANY tank that uses 24 volts can have power sockets using a simple $50 inverter (I know I bought one for MY tank), Already has excellent stowage space, and WTF do I need a microwave oven and cupholders for? Are you suggesting I take a fridge and my La-Z-Boy recliner as well? I think you are missing the point that it's a TANK. 2nd GEN FLIR is VERY expensive.

You obviously aren't a tanker.
 
dragon_master_gunner said:
The M1A2 IS climate controlled, DOES have a external Generator for running electrical systems, showers in the field are for REMFs, ANY tank that uses 24 volts can have power sockets using a simple $50 inverter (I know I bought one for MY tank), Already has excellent stowage space, and WTF do I need a microwave oven and cupholders for? Are you suggesting I take a fridge and my La-Z-Boy recliner as well? I think you are missing the point that it's a TANK. 2nd GEN FLIR is VERY expensive.

You obviously aren't a tanker.
Click to expand...

quote: "You obviously aren't a tanker."

I was cheerfully giving a link to and quoting a thread written by tankers, as a meaningful contribution to this forum. I've admitted from the start I am not knowledgeable about tanks, which is why I came here, and which is why others come here, so I can ask and they can share. So what's the point of saying I'm not a tanker? I don't get it. If you want to argue about it, go argue with the tankers who originally wrote the thread. They wrote it, and they are tankers, and that's their opinion.

As for the 'lugar-lager' joke, that's all it is, just a play on words. Someone suggested the US tankers made beer in their tanks in WWII. Someone else -a tanker- suggested getting a jerrycan and pouring it down the barrel of the main gun for a 'shower' to get 'clean tankers'. Come to think of it, now we've got another funny word association, 'tankers and tankards'. It's only a joke, and I'm not mocking anybody, least of all tankers, I'm respectfully following in the hallowed footsteps of the tankers who started it with the joking around about 'clean tankers'. : )
 
gornaway tea bag gun

FutureRANGER said:
I remember reading somewhere that during WWII the British made tea in their tanks from the heat coming out of somwhere and the Americans brewed beer in their tanks.
Click to expand...

Ah yes, the Brits and their tea.

Fifteen years ago some British yacht owners held a 'tea bag launcher' contest. The tea-drinker's olympics was held to air a crying need for new ways to get used tea bags away from the sides of their clean white yachts so they wouldn't come floating back and stain the hulls. [No, British tea bag litter cops were not called 'Bobbies' because of that]. Anyways, variouis contestants offered their official entries, and the olympics were held, and a winner was declared. Amazingly, the thing worked. The contraption consisted of a spring-loaded plunger in a plastic pvc tube, and a double-action trigger. You put the soggy used tea bag into the breech (it might have been a muzzle-loader; it's been 15 years since I read the article and details are fuzzy now), close it, and pull the trigger once, which slams the plunger against the internal forward stop and squeezes the tea bag dry, then you squeeze the trigger the rest of the way, releasing the internal stop and propelling the offending object into the bay (preferably away from nearby yachts--so as not to make enemies out of one's fellow brother or sister yacht owners, thereby risking starting a war). This amazing -and real- invention was known as the 'gornaway tea bag gun'. And now you have somothing 'new and useful' to add to your arsenal, courtesy of the Brits.

PS - I'm not a Brit myself, I'm an American.

Hope this helps.
 
Geez, calm down, John Arthur. I was pointing out all the stuuf the A2 SEP has. Relax. I wasn't busting on you for not being a tanker.

I I have no idea where your luger-lager thing came from. I never said anything about jerrycans, lager, or anything like that. Re-read my post.
 
I think the abrams is probably the overall best, but the challenger 2 is the best protected nato tank, its armour is twice as thick as the abrams and it uses a better verison on cobram (you can argue against all this, im no expert on tanks and i have a poor memory,so that infomation may be wrong, apart from about it being the best protected nato tank).
 
Actually, I beg to differ. The M1A2 SEP is the better armored tank. Look at the date of your source. It's probably prior to 2000. And there is no way you could have ..."twice as thick"... armor.

More Armor= Heavier= less mobility. Germans found that out with the Maus and the Elefant.

Being a Tank Commander for most of my career, I've learned at least one thing about Tank Survivability: It's not just about being able to take a hit, it's about being able to get out of a fight just as fast as you got into one.

And it's Chobham, not cobram. Sorry, pet peeve.
 
A. I never claimed i could spell, or that being well armourd is the only thing that counts.
B. The challenger is a slow tank, 59kph on a road, 40 acros country, and im nto sure about "twice as thick", it is thicker thou, and its probably on par or better than abrams armour pound for pound (i could be wrong).
C. The British army only got its full consinement of challenger 2s in 2002, its a new tank.

I did find a very interesting site about militery hardware thou - http://www.army-technology.com/projects/index.html
 
2002, huh? When I was at Master Gunner school back in 2000, one of our instructors was a British SGM. He had already been on and manuevered a CH 2. He said the consensus amoung the Brit Tankers was that it was junk. I got to play around with some Brit tankers in Osnabruck, Germany. They concurred. They (the guys that had been on the CH 2) had a laundry list of things that they didn't like, first and foremost being the thermals. (Mounted on the MANTLET, of all things...grat for reducing parallax, but moronic for protecting a sensitive thermal sight from the shock of recoil.) The Brits might have gotten completely fielded with the CH 2 in 2002, but it's been around longer than that.

People think that the M1A2 SEP is THE only M1A2... not true. Same with the M1A1...comes in many different flavors: M1IP, M1E1, M1A1, M1A1 HC, M1A1 AMES, etc...
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top