Constant attempts to bury the idea of a tank do not find their realization. Despite the rapid evolution of anti-tank weapons, there is still no more reliable means of covering soldiers than heavy armored vehicles.
I bring to your attention an overview of the outstanding tanks of the Second World War, created on the basis of the Discovery programs - "Killer Tanks: Steel Fist" and the Military Channel - "Ten Best Tanks of the 20th Century". Undoubtedly, all the cars from the review are worthy of attention. But I noticed that when describing tanks, experts do not consider its entire combat history, but only talk about those episodes of World War II when this machine was able to show itself in the best possible way. It is logical to immediately break the war into periods and consider which tank was the best and when. I would like to draw your attention to two important points:
First, the strategy and technical characteristics of the machines should not be confused. The red flag over Berlin does not mean that the Germans were weak and did not have good equipment. It also follows that having the best tanks in the world does not mean that your army will advance victoriously. You can be crushed corny by the amount. Do not forget that the army is a system, the competent use of its diverse forces by the enemy can put you in a difficult position.
Secondly, all the disputes, "who is stronger than the IS-2 or" Tiger ", do not make much sense. Tanks rarely fight tanks. Much more often, their opponents are enemy defensive lines, fortifications, artillery batteries, infantry and vehicles. In World War II, half of all tank losses fell on the actions of anti-tank artillery (which is logical - when the number of tanks went to tens of thousands, the number of guns was estimated at hundreds of thousands - an order of magnitude more!). Another fierce enemy of tanks is mines. They were blown up by about 25% of combat vehicles. Aviation chalked up a few percent. How much is left for tank battles then ?!
Hence the conclusion that a tank battle at Prokhorovka is a rare exotic. Currently, this trend continues - instead of the anti-tank "forty-five" are RPGs.
Well, now let's move on to our favorite cars.
Period 1939-1940. Blitzkrieg
… Pre-dawn haze, fog, shooting and the roar of engines. On the morning of May 10, 1940, the Wehrmacht breaks into Holland. After 17 days, Belgium fell, the remnants of the British expeditionary force were evacuated across the English Channel. On June 14, German tanks appeared on the streets of Paris …
One of the conditions of the "lightning war" is the special tactics of using tanks: the unprecedented concentration of armored vehicles in the direction of the main attacks and the perfectly coordinated actions of the Germans allowed the "steel claws" of Hoth and Guderian for hundreds of kilometers to crash into the defenses, and, without slowing down, move deep into the enemy's territory … The unique tactical technique required special technical solutions. German armored vehicles were required to be equipped with radio stations, with tank battalions there were air traffic controllers for emergency communication with the Luftwaffe.
It was at this time that the "finest hour" of the Panzerkampfwagen III and Panzerkampfwagen IV fell. Behind such clumsy names are formidable combat vehicles that have wound on their tracks the asphalt of European roads, the icy expanses of Russia and the sands of the Sahara.
The PzKpfw III, better known as the T-III, is a light tank with a 37 mm gun. Reservation from all angles - 30 mm. The main quality is Speed (40 km / h on the highway). Thanks to the perfect optics of Carl Zeiss, the ergonomic workstations of the crew and the presence of a radio station, the troikas could successfully fight with much heavier vehicles. But with the advent of new opponents, the flaws of the T-III became more pronounced. The Germans replaced the 37 mm cannon with 50 mm guns and covered the tank with hinged screens - temporary measures gave their results, the T-III fought for several more years. By 1943, the production of the T-III was discontinued, due to the complete depletion of its resource for modernization. In total, the German industry has produced 5,000 "triplets".
The PzKpfw IV, which became the most massive Panzerwaffe tank, looked much more serious - the Germans managed to build 8,700 vehicles. Combining all the advantages of the lighter T-III, the "four" had high firepower and protection - the thickness of the frontal plate was gradually increased to 80 mm, and the shells of its 75 mm long-barreled gun pierced the armor of enemy tanks like foil (by the way, it was fired 1133 early modifications with a short-barreled gun).
The weak points of the car are too thin sides and stern (only 30 mm in the first modifications), the designers neglected the slope of the armor plates for the sake of manufacturability and convenience of the crew.
Seven thousand tanks of this type remained lying on the battlefields of World War II, but the history of the T-IV did not end there - the "fours" were operated in the armies of France and Czechoslovakia until the early 1950s and even took part in the Six-Day Arab-Israeli War of 1967 of the year.
Period 1941-1942. Red Dawn
- General Reingard, commander of the 41st Panzer Corps of the Wehrmacht
In the summer of 1941, the KV tank smashed the elite units of the Wehrmacht with the same impunity, as if it rolled out onto the Borodino field in 1812. Invincible, invincible and incredibly powerful. Until the end of 1941, all the armies of the world had no weapons at all that could stop the Russian 45-ton monster. The KV was 2 times heavier than the largest tank in the Wehrmacht.
Armor KV is a wonderful song of steel and technology. 75 millimeters of steel from all angles! The frontal armor plates had an optimal angle of inclination, which further increased the projectile resistance of the KV armor - the German 37 mm anti-tank guns did not take it even at close range, and the 50 mm guns did not go further than 500 meters. At the same time, the long-barreled 76 mm gun F-34 (ZIS-5) made it possible to hit any German tank of that period from a distance of 1.5 kilometers from any direction.
If battles like the legendary battle of Zinovy Kolobanov took place regularly, then 235 KV tanks of the Southern Military District could completely destroy the Panzerwaffe in the summer of 1941. The technical capabilities of the KV tanks in theory allowed this to be done. Alas, not everything is so simple. Remember - we said that tanks rarely fight tanks …
In addition to the invulnerable KV, the Red Army had an even more terrible tank - the great warrior T-34.
- the opinion of a German tanker from the 4th tank division, destroyed by T-34 tanks in the battle of Mtsensk on October 11, 1941.
Neither the volume nor the objectives of this article allows you to fully cover the history of the T-34 tank. Obviously, the Russian monster had no analogues in 1941: a 500-horsepower diesel engine, unique booking, 76 mm F-34 cannon (generally similar to the KV tank) and wide tracks - all these technical solutions provided the T-34 with an optimal ratio of mobility, fire power and security. Even individually, these parameters of the T-34 were higher than those of any Panzerwaffe tank.
The main thing is that the Soviet designers managed to create a tank exactly the way the Red Army needed it. The T-34 was ideally suited to the conditions of the Eastern Front. The extreme simplicity and manufacturability of the design made it possible in the shortest possible time to establish the mass production of these combat vehicles, as a result - the T-34s were easy to operate, numerous and ubiquitous.
In the first year of the war alone, by the summer of 1942, the Red Army received about 15,000 T-34s, and more than 84,000 T-34s of all modifications were produced.
Discovery journalists were jealous of the successes of Soviet tank building, constantly hinting that the basis of a successful tank was the American Christie design. In a playful manner, the Russian “rudeness” and “uncouthness” got it - “Well! I did not have time to get into the hatch - I was all scratched! Americans forget that convenience was not a priority feature of armored vehicles on the Eastern Front; the fierce nature of the battles did not allow the tankers to think about such trifles. The main thing is not to burn out in the tank.
The "thirty-four" had much more serious shortcomings. The transmission is the T-34's weak link. The German design school preferred a front-mounted gearbox, closer to the driver. Soviet engineers took a more efficient path - the transmission and engine were compactly located in an isolated compartment in the rear of the T-34. There was no need for a long propeller shaft through the entire body of the tank; the design was simplified, the height of the car decreased. An excellent technical solution, isn't it?
The gimbal was not needed. But control rods were needed. In the T-34, they reached a length of 5 meters! Can you imagine what kind of effort it took to the driver? But this did not create any special problems - in an extreme situation, a person is able to run on his hands and paddle with his ears. But what Soviet tankers could withstand - metal could not withstand. Under the influence of monstrous loads, the thrust was torn. As a result, many T-34s went into battle in one pre-selected gear. They preferred not to touch the gearbox during the battle at all - according to the veteran tankers, it was better to sacrifice mobility than suddenly turn into a standing target.
The T-34 is a completely ruthless tank, both in relation to the enemy and in relation to its own crew. It remains only to admire the courage of the tankers.
Year 1943. Menagerie
- frequent descriptions of meetings with PzKPfw VI from tankmen's memoirs
1943, the time of great tank battles. In an effort to regain the lost technical superiority, Germany is creating by this time two new models of "superweapons" - heavy tanks "Tiger" and "Panther".
Panzerkampfwagen VI "Tiger" Ausf. The H1 was designed as a heavy breakthrough tank capable of destroying any enemy and putting the Red Army to flight. By personal order of Hitler, the thickness of the frontal armor plate had to be at least 100 mm, the sides and stern of the tank were protected by eight centimeters of metal. The main weapon is the 88 mm KwK 36 cannon, created on the basis of a powerful anti-aircraft gun. Its capabilities are evidenced by the fact that when firing a captured Tiger cannon, it was possible to achieve five consecutive hits on a 40 × 50 cm target from a distance of 1100 m. In addition to its high flatness, the KwK 36 inherited a high rate of fire of an anti-aircraft gun. In combat conditions, the "Tiger" fired eight rounds per minute, which was a record for such large tank guns. Six crew members sat comfortably in an invulnerable steel box weighing 57 tons, looking at the wide Russian expanses through high-quality Carl Zeiss optics.
The bulky German monster is often described as a slow and clumsy tank. In reality, the Tiger was one of the fastest fighting vehicles of the Second World War. The 700-horsepower Maybach engine accelerated the Tiger to 45 km / h on the highway. This thick-skinned tank was no less fast and maneuverable on rough terrain, thanks to an eight-speed hydromechanical gearbox (almost automatic, like on a Mercedes!) And sophisticated side clutches with a dual power supply.
At first glance, the design of the suspension and caterpillar propeller was a parody of itself - tracks 0.7 meters wide required the installation of a second row of rollers on each side. In this form, the "Tiger" did not fit on the railway platform, each time it was necessary to remove the "ordinary" caterpillar tracks and the outer row of rollers, instead installing thin "transport" tracks. It remains to be amazed at the strength of those guys who “shooed” a 60-ton colossus in the field. But there were also advantages to the strange suspension of the "Tiger" - two rows of rollers ensured a high smoothness of the ride, our veterans witnessed cases when the "Tiger" fired on the move.
The Tiger had one more drawback that frightened the Germans. It was an inscription on a technical memo that was in every vehicle: “The tank costs 800,000 Reichsmarks. Keep him safe!"
According to Goebbels's perverted logic, the tankers should have been very happy to learn that their "Tiger" is worth like seven T-IV tanks.
Realizing that the "Tiger" is a rare and exotic weapon of professionals, German tank builders created a simpler and cheaper tank, with the intention of turning it into a massive Wehrmacht medium tank.
Panzerkampfwagen V "Panther" is still the subject of heated debate. The technical capabilities of the car raises no objections - with a mass of 44 tons, the Panther surpassed the T-34 in mobility, developing 55-60 km / h on a good highway. The tank was armed with a 75 mm KwK 42 cannon with a barrel length of 70 calibers! An armor-piercing sub-caliber projectile fired from its infernal vent flew 1 kilometer in the first second - with such performance characteristics, the Panther cannon could pierce any Allied tank at a distance of over 2 kilometers. The armor of the "Panther" is also recognized as worthy by most sources - the thickness of the forehead varied from 60 to 80 mm, while the angles of inclination of the armor reached 55 °. The board was less protected - at the level of the T-34, so it was easily hit by Soviet anti-tank weapons. The lower part of the side was additionally protected by two rows of rollers on each side.
The whole question is in the very appearance of the "Panther" - did the Reich need such a tank? Perhaps you should have focused on modernizing and increasing production of the proven T-IV? Or spend money on building invincible Tigers? It seems to me that the answer is simple - in 1943, nothing could save Germany from defeat.
In total, less than 6,000 Panthers were built, which was clearly not enough to saturate the Wehrmacht. The situation was aggravated by the drop in the quality of the armor of tanks due to the lack of resources and alloying additives.
"Panther" was the quintessence of advanced ideas and new technologies. In March 1945, near Balaton, hundreds of Panthers equipped with night vision devices attacked Soviet troops at night. Even that didn't help.
Year 1944. Forward to Berlin
The changed conditions required new means of warfare. By this time, the Soviet troops had already received a heavy breakthrough tank IS-2, armed with a 122 mm howitzer. If the hit of an ordinary tank shell caused local destruction of the wall, then the 122 mm howitzer shell demolished the whole house. Which was required for successful assault operations.
Another formidable weapon of the tank is a 12, 7 mm DShK machine gun, mounted on a tower on a pivot mount. The bullets of the large-caliber machine gun reached the enemy even behind the thick brickwork. The DShK increased the capabilities of the Is-2 by an order of magnitude in battles on the streets of European cities.
The armor thickness of the IS-2 reached 120 mm. One of the main achievements of Soviet engineers is the efficiency and low metal consumption of the IS-2 design. With a mass comparable to that of the Panther, the Soviet tank was much more seriously protected. But the too dense layout required the placement of fuel tanks in the control compartment - when the armor was penetrated, the Is-2 crew had little chance of surviving. The driver, who did not have his own hatch, was especially at risk.
Liberation tanks IS-2 became the personification of Victory and were in service with the Soviet army for almost 50 years.
The next hero, the M4 "Sherman", managed to fight on the Eastern Front, the first vehicles of this type came to the USSR back in 1942 (the number of M4 tanks delivered under the Lend-Lease was 3600). But fame came to him only after massive use in the West in 1944.
Sherman is the pinnacle of rationality and pragmatism. It is all the more surprising that the United States, which had 50 tanks at the beginning of the war, managed to create such a balanced combat vehicle and riveted 49,000 Shermans of various modifications by 1945. For example, the ground forces used a Sherman with a gasoline engine, and the Marine Corps received a modification of the M4A2 equipped with a diesel engine. American engineers rightly believed that this would greatly simplify the operation of tanks - diesel fuel could be easily found on sailors, in contrast to high-octane gasoline. By the way, it was this modification of the M4A2 that entered the Soviet Union.
No less famous are the special versions of the Sherman - the Firefly tank hunter armed with a British 17-pounder cannon; "Jumbo" - a heavily armored version in an assault body kit and even an amphibious "Duplex Drive".
Compared to the swift forms of the T-34, the Sherman is tall and clumsy. Possessing the same armament, the American tank is significantly inferior in mobility to the T-34.
Why did the command of the Red Army like Emcha (as our soldiers called the M4) so much that elite units, for example, the 1st Guards Mechanized Corps and the 9th Guards Tank Corps, were completely transferred to them? The answer is simple: "Sherman" had the optimal balance of booking, firepower, mobility and … reliability. In addition, the "Sherman" was the first tank with a hydraulic turret drive (this ensured special guidance accuracy) and a gun stabilizer in the vertical plane - tankers admitted that in a duel situation their shot was always the first. Of the other advantages of the "Sherman", usually not listed in the tables, was low noise, which made it possible to use it in operations where stealth is needed.
The Middle East gave the Sherman a second life, where this tank served until the 70s of the twentieth century, having taken part in more than a dozen battles. The last "Shermans" completed their military service in Chile at the end of the twentieth century.
Year 1945. Ghosts of the coming wars
Many people expected long-awaited and lasting peace after the horrific sacrifices and devastation of World War II. Alas, their expectations were not met. On the contrary, ideological, economic and religious contradictions have become even more acute.
This was well understood by those who created new weapons systems - therefore, the military-industrial complex of the victorious countries did not stop for a minute. Even when the Victory was already obvious, and fascist Germany was struggling in its death throes in the design bureau and in factories, theoretical and experimental research continued, new types of weapons were developed. Particular attention was paid to the armored forces, which had proven themselves well during the war. Starting from bulky and uncontrollable multi-turret monsters and ugly tankettes, tank building has reached a fundamentally different level in just a few years. where again faced with many threats, tk. anti-tank weapons have evolved successfully. In this regard, it is curious to look at the tanks with which the Allies ended the war, what conclusions were made and what measures were taken.
In the USSR, in May 1945, the first batch of IS-3s was rolled out of the Tankograd workshops. The new tank was a further upgrade of the heavy IS-2. This time, the designers went even further - the inclination of the welded sheets, especially in the front of the hull, was brought to the maximum possible. Thick 110-mm plates of frontal armor were positioned so that a tricycle, tapered, forward-extended bow was formed, called the "pike nose". The turret received a new flattened shape, which provided the tank with even better anti-cannon defense. The driver received his own hatch, and all viewing slots were replaced with modern periscopes.
The IS-3 was several days late by the end of hostilities in Europe, but the beautiful new tank took part in the Victory Parade along with the legendary T-34 and KV, still covered in the soot of recent battles. Visual change of generations.
Another interesting novelty was the T-44 (in my opinion, an epoch-making event in Soviet tank building). Actually, it was developed back in 1944, but never had time to take part in the war. Only in 1945 did the troops receive a sufficient number of these excellent tanks.
A major drawback of the T-34 was the forward-shifted turret. This increased the load on the front rollers and made it impossible to strengthen the frontal armor of the T-34 - "thirty-fours" and ran until the end of the war with a 45 mm forehead. Realizing that the problem could not be solved just like that, the designers decided on a complete rearrangement of the tank. Thanks to the transverse placement of the engine, the dimensions of the MTO have decreased, which made it possible to mount the turret in the center of the tank. The load on the rollers was leveled, the frontal armor plate increased to 120 mm (!), And its inclination increased to 60 °. The working conditions of the crew have improved. The T-44 became the prototype of the famous T-54/55 family.
A specific situation has developed overseas. The Americans guessed that in addition to the successful Sherman, the army needed a new, heavier tank. The result was the M26 Pershing, a large (sometimes considered heavy) medium tank with heavy armor and a new 90mm cannon. This time, the Americans failed to create a masterpiece. Technically, "Pershing" remained at the level of "Panther", while possessing a little more reliability. The tank had problems with mobility and maneuverability - the M26 was equipped with a Sherman engine, while having a mass of 10 tons more. The limited use of Pershing on the Western Front began only in February 1945. The next time the Pershing went into battle in Korea.
