Masters of the battlefield … Since their first triumph in 1916, hundreds of thousands of armored tracked vehicles have blazed their deadly path on the battlefields. Today it is impossible to imagine any military conflict without the participation of tanks - despite the continuous progress of anti-tank weapons, a more reliable means of covering the infantry has not yet been found than heavy armored vehicles.
Tanks are different - there are big and scary, there are small, but also scary. The American Military Channel has compiled a rating of the 10 most formidable tanks in the world, each of which has left its own bright mark in military history.
Of course, the search for the "best tank" among thousands of structures from different periods of the twentieth century is a senseless and thankless task. A tank is an anthropotechnical system in which the characteristics of a vehicle do not always play a leading role; too much depends on the "human factor" - on the training and morale of the tank's crew, and, consequently, on such subtle nuances as ergonomics or the quality of optical instruments.
The tactics of using armored vehicles and their compliance with the theater of operations are of considerable importance. For example, the odious first-generation Merkava on the East European Plain would have turned into a clumsy barn, but this hybrid of a tank and an infantry fighting vehicle turned out to be most adapted to the conditions of the endless Arab-Israeli conflict.
It is no coincidence that I made a clarification about the "first generation" "Merkav" - one of the most important criteria for the perfection of a tank's design is its modernization potential. The fourth generation of the Israeli vehicle has turned into a balanced main battle tank, in no way inferior in capabilities to the best world analogues. Most of the legendary tanks have followed the same path. 1940 T-34 and T-34-85. What do the British "Centurion" and its Israeli version of "Shot Kal Dalet" have in common? Equally strikingly different are the 1980 M1 Abrams and the modern M1A2 SEP.
The only thing the experts are absolutely right about is the psychological impact that the tank has on its opponents. The ominous shadows of "Tigers" and "Panthers" still wander in the people's memory of the Great Patriotic War. A good tank must take part in the battle and scare the enemy. This explains the absence of many Soviet tanks in the Discovery rating. Armies that used Soviet weapons were defeated every time by chance. Therefore, despite the excellent combat characteristics, Soviet armored vehicles received a rather controversial assessment in NATO countries.
Based on this "inadequate" rating, we will try to analyze the main misconceptions of the "experts" of the "Discovery" channel and, for sure, we will learn a lot of new things on the topic of armored vehicles.
10th place - M4 "Sherman"
By the time it entered World War II, the US Armed Forces had three hundred obsolete M2 and M3 tanks. By the fall of 1945, American industry had mastered the production of 130,000 armored vehicles, of which 49,200 were M4 medium tanks.
"Sherman" became the standard of pragmatism: tanks with a gasoline engine entered the ground forces, at the same time a diesel modification M4A2 was developed for the Marine Corps (it was she who was supplied to the USSR under Lend-Lease) - the designers rightly decided that this would facilitate the supply of troops …Based on the basic model of the tank, countless modifications have been developed to competently solve each specific task. Panzerwaffe ambush detected? The "Fireflies" - the killers of "Tigers" and "Panthers" based on the M4 with a British 17-pounder cannon, are moving forward. The amphibious "Duplex Drive" and the destructive MLRS "Calliope" (60-barreled "Katyusha" on the armored chassis of the "Sherman" tank) were developed. There were Sherman-Crab minesweepers for making passages in minefields, as well as six types of self-propelled artillery mounts and seven types of armored recovery vehicles based on the Sherman.
The Sherman became the first tank equipped with a hydraulic turret drive (which ensured high targeting accuracy) and a vertical stabilizer for the gun - tankers admitted that in a duel situation their shot was always the first. Among the other advantages of the Sherman, not noted in the tabular performance characteristics, was low noise, which made it possible to use the tank in operations where stealth was required (the roar and clang of the thirty-four could be heard at night for many kilometers).
Of course, the mass-produced product, like the T-34, was inferior in open combat to super-protected German monsters, assembled almost in single copies. In order to avoid a drop in morale, the Shermans, destroyed by the Tigers' shells, were forbidden to be opened in active units - this was done by special teams in the rear. Again this notorious pragmatism …
Discovery did find a "flaw" in the M4 - a gasoline engine. Allegedly, this had a critical impact on the survivability of the tank. What can be argued here? The grief-experts seem to have been inspired by the yellow press rather than serious research on the topic. The well-known misconception “our BT tanks burned like matches” is based on the memoirs of Soviet commanders who made excuses for the high losses in the summer of 1941 (despite the fact that all Wehrmacht tanks, without exception, were equipped with carburetor ICEs). The myth about the extreme fire hazard of gasoline engines is backed up by our personal experience - gasoline burns much more fun than diesel fuel. But the well-known trick with extinguishing a torch in a bucket with a solarium cannot serve as objective proof - in battle, no one sets fire to a fuel tank with a torch, they beat it with a red-hot pig at supersonic speed. At the same time, such a colossal amount of thermal energy is released that both high-octane gasoline and heavy fractions of oil will flash into an unbearably bright light, turning the tank into a charred pile of metal in a matter of seconds. Finally, for the hardiest skeptics, a third of all Shermans were diesel powered.
So it remained unclear why the M4 "Sherman" took the last place in the rating - this is one of the best combat vehicles of the twentieth century, plowing the sands of the Sahara and Sinai, the tropical islands of Oceania and the icy Russian expanses with its tracks.
9th place - "Merkava"
The Israel Defense Forces 'chariot' was born in hot tank battles, not on the drawing boards of design bureaus. The tank became the embodiment of the ideas of Israeli tankers, who by that time had received colossal combat experience in four wars in the Middle East. In principle, the appearance of the "Merkava" is a mere coincidence - the Israeli army is used to using any foreign equipment, but the sudden refusal of Great Britain to sell the Chieftain tanks set Israel the task of creating its own combat vehicle, the characteristics of which would maximally meet the requirements of the Middle East conflicts.
The development of a promising tank was headed by an experienced General Israel Tal. At the heart of the "Merkava" were two concepts, the first of which: "the life of the crew above all else" led to a completely original layout of the tank with a front engine compartment. It does not matter anymore that the frontal armor has been pierced and the power plant has been destroyed - the tankers are reliably protected by a multi-meter layer of metal - after all, not a single sub-caliber shell with a uranium core is capable of penetrating two 76 mm layers of spaced armor and a huge 12-cylinder diesel engine installed behind them. Moreover, the MTO is separated from the fighting compartment by an additional armored bulkhead (all data on the first generation of the "Merkava").
The spacious fighting compartment is designed to carry six paratroopers, which turns the Merkava into a versatile combat vehicle that combines the capabilities of a main battle tank and an infantry fighting vehicle. The original aft hatch 600 mm wide for dismounting assault troops helps, if necessary, to quickly leave the damaged vehicle, and its dimensions allow you to pull out a seriously wounded soldier from the tank.
The second concept of the Israeli vehicle sounds like a "tank house". The Merkava is perhaps the only tank in the world that spends most of its time not at storage bases, but at the front line - hence the desire of the Israel Defense Forces to make the tank as suitable as possible for a long-term crew stay.
An objective assessment of the "Merkava" is best seen from the results of combat use. During the Second Lebanon War, out of 400 Merkavas of all modifications, 46 were damaged, while not a single tank caught fire. Of all the damaged vehicles, only five could not be repaired.
Obviously, a tank with an original design and special capabilities, which has been repeatedly tested in battle, deserves a higher rating than the one that Discovery gave it. The grief-experts again found a "drawback" - a small number of cars produced. It seems that the Discovery channel is not very familiar with geography - do you think 2000 Merkava tanks are enough for a country smaller than the Moscow region?
8th place - Family T-54/55
95 thousand tanks. 70 countries of the world. 30 wars in 75 years. The paving stones on Red Square shook under the tracks of these tanks, and the whole world was shaking along with it. The T-54/55 family remains the most famous type of Soviet tank in the West, mainly due to the daunting number of these vehicles.
Twenty thousand steel Russian monsters stationed in the countries of Eastern Europe were ready at any moment to make a march towards La Mash. The NATO command understood that in case of war, Europe would be lost in a week, the Russians would crush two armored divisions of the US Army like a hurricane crumpled newspaper. They had to lay nuclear bombs under the dams in order, if necessary, to flood half of Europe and slow down the advance of the T-54/55 steel wedges.
Technically, the T-54/55 tanks continue the glorious traditions of the thirty-four. Thanks to the transverse arrangement of the engine and a decrease in the dimensions of the aft MTO, it was possible to move the turret closer to the middle of the hull - the load on the front rollers decreased, which made it possible to increase the frontal armor to 100 mm (all these changes were made during the development of the "transitional" T-44 tank), the caliber of the gun was increased to 100 mm, modern observation and communication systems appeared.
In 1947, the T-54 went into series, and in 1958 it was replaced by the T-55, the main difference of which was the ability to operate in a global nuclear war. How to make a sealed tank? Seal every crevice? No, you just need to constantly maintain a higher pressure inside the tank, which will prevent radioactive dust and poisonous substances from getting inside. The inner surface of the armor also had a special lining that protected the crew from lethal radiation rays. In 1959, China entered the production race, grinding countless of these simple and reliable machines in three decades.
T-54/55 are still at war on all continents, attacking, defending, destroying, burning, exploding, retreating, winning … do everything that a real tank is supposed to do. Unfortunately, in the West they are better known as a symbol of Saddam Hussein's army, ingloriously killed in the sands of Mesopotamia. The only reason to respect the T-54/55 is the number of tanks produced, the pseudo-experts of Discovery summarize.
Despite Discovery's contempt for old Soviet technology, the Israel Defense Forces until recently used several hundred T-54/55 tanks. About 500 more tanks captured from the Arabs were converted into first-class Akhzarit armored personnel carriers.
7th place - Challenger 2
An attempt in the 1950s to abandon heavy booking in favor of mobility did not bring success - well-protected tanks operated confidently on the battlefield, while the light French AMX-13 was forced to seek natural cover and was afraid to approach enemy positions. Unlike the French, the British did everything right - the fat-bellied "Chieftain" faithfully served for half a century, 1000 tanks of this type proved their high combat qualities in the Iran-Iraq war. In the 1980s, Great Britain adopted a new generation of armored vehicles - the invulnerable Challengers, none of which were lost during the Gulf War (there is some evidence that the British Armed Forces budget for 1992 included the purchase two towers for tanks "Challenger", which speaks if not about destruction, then about serious damage to two vehicles). In 1993, another supertank, Challenger 2, appeared, which, according to the British, is the most protected tank in the world. Also, the "Challenger" claims to be the farthest artillery shot - an Iraqi T-55 was hit from a distance of 5300 meters.
During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, out of 120 Challenger 2 tanks, the British army lost one vehicle - according to the command, in the heat of battle, the tank came under the “friendly fire” of its own unit, 2 crew members were killed. In 2007, another Challenger was seriously damaged - its frontal armor was pierced by a shot from a conventional RPG! Surprisingly, there were no casualties. Despite the appearance of numerous caustic remarks about the security of the tank and the mandatory presence of "weak points", there is still reason to believe that, in general, the security of the "Challenger 2" is the standard for modern combat tracked vehicles. For example, one of the British tanks withstood 15 hits from anti-tank grenade launchers without breaking through the armor.
In 2008, the modernization of Challenger-2 began: the tanks are equipped with a 1500 hp diesel engine, a new automatic transmission, new weapons and … an air conditioner.
A beautiful, strong car rightfully takes its place in the top ten best tanks in the world. Alas, only 422 of these first-class tracked vehicles are in service with the UK and Oman.
6th place - Panzerkampfwagen IV
The most massive Wehrmacht tank was designed in accordance with the conditions of "lightning war" - a brilliant idea of the German General Staff. European countries, having tasted the taste of the German Blitzkrieg, surrendered a month later, Guderian's tank wedges destroyed everything in their path, depriving the enemy of any hope of salvation.
Discovery is wrong again. The T-IV had little to do with the "lightning war", on June 22, 1941 the Germans had only 400 T-IVs, which was less than 10% of the total number of tanks involved in Operation Barbarossa. At that time, the main forces of the Panzerwaffe were light vehicles T-II, T-III and the PzKpfw 38 (t) captured in Czechoslovakia.
The real history of the T-IV tank is not a Blitzkrieg, but a terrible bloodbath on the Russian-German front with a tragic ending for the Germans. It was for the period 1942-1944. came the main rate of production of "fours", which, even with the appearance of "Tigers" and "Panthers", until the end of the war remained the "workhorses" of the Panzerwaffe.
From a technical point of view, the T-IV was a continuously improving combat vehicle, created in the best traditions of the German tank building school. With its own advantages and disadvantages. Excellent optics, a radio station, a front-mounted transmission, which increased the reliability of control and simplified the work of the driver (at the same time, the presence of a long universal joint increased the height of the tank), many technological hatches for quick access to the components and mechanisms of the tracked vehicle, the ergonomics of the fighting compartment thought out to the smallest detail. By 1942, the T-IV was on par with the T-34 in design perfection, surpassing the latter in firepower and protection. The thickness of the frontal armor increased to 80 mm, instead of the short-barreled gun, a new long-barreled 75 mm KwK 40 L / 43 gun was installed, which already posed a considerable threat to enemy tanks. On the basis of the Quartet, a number of successful vehicles were created - the Stug IV and Brummber self-propelled guns with a 150 mm howitzer, the Nashorn and Jagdpantser IV tank destroyers, as well as several self-propelled anti-aircraft guns.
There is still heated debate over whether the T-IV was capable of replacing the Panther, a tank of a completely different level, with competent modernization. The diameter of the shoulder strap of the Panther turret corresponded to the T-IV, the dimensions of the Quartet's engine compartment made it possible to install an increased power engine, the armor of both tanks was identical (of course, we are talking about the later modifications of the T-IV). The production technology of the "four" was worked out to the smallest detail, at the same time, the German industry faced difficulties in the production of the "Panther": the "raw" design of the new tank suffered from numerous "childhood diseases", diseases were complicated by the lack of necessary raw materials, alloying additives and workers … It is logical to assume that instead of setting up production of a new tank in the heat of the war, it was much more effective to modernize the well-known "four" and increase its production volumes. Although … what did it matter? The Third Reich could be saved from defeat only by an atomic bomb, but here too Germany was 10 years behind.
It is noteworthy that the T-IV is practically the only tank of the Third Reich that was used after the war, the invincible "Tiger" and the complex "Panther" did not interest the winners at all. The Quartet was in service with the European armies for a long time and even managed to fight in Palestine in 1967.
Tanks are built for war, not for parades. Despite the outwardly unprepossessing T-IV, we must pay tribute to the veteran - there are seven thousand tanks of this type left on the battlefields. None of the modern machines has such a vivid and tragic combat history.
