Tanks!

It's been a while. We need another tank thread! Post tanks from any era, experimental ones, prototypes that were so stupid no one would ever use it ever, and what you think were the best tanks ever.
(Pic related, the best tank ever PzKfw VI Tiger Ausf. B)

Sounds like too much fun. We just argue about Jesus and race wars here

King Tigers were nice. Too bad that they had a shit ton of technical problems.

So, would the KT be able to penetrate the IS3 reliably?

It's unfortunate that the IS-3 wasn't even brought out until after the Germans had been defeated. Also, the IS tanks had, at maximum, around 110mm of armor. At 2000 meters, the King Tiger could penetrate 132mm of Armor.

t. Butthurt Eternal Kraut

you don't need tanks when you hae CAS

Too bad there weren't many king tigers and had no experienced crews because they had already lost the war.

IS-3 had alot of problems. The red army in 44-45 was better off with fleets of T-34s.

So was Germany with Panthers. Volume > Size every time with tank combat.

I agree, people like to beat off to Tigers but this machine served the German army far better.

CAS/interdiction>Volume

seriously though, once you gain air superiority, if your air force is big enough its over, you fuck the other guys materiel and supplies.

you still need tanks for combined arms user

oh yeah fuck, well you don't need tanks to fuck tanks up is what I'm trying to get at, but you do need tanks to fuck infantry up

Skyhawk a cute!
A CUTE!

Read a book called "Bombing to Win." It's about bombing campaigns during the second world war, Vietnam, Persian Gulf War, and during Iraq and Afghanistan. It basically states that a nation can never win an armed conflict with solely air power.

dude, best looking CAS aircraft ever

desu I reserve that for my own planefu, the Last Gunfighter.

>you will never find a stug carcass in some russian swamp
why live

yeah but thats a fighter that can do bombing, I'm talking aircraft strictly design for bombing first

not as cute as this little thing

gonna one-up you there buddy
nothing can beat this adorable little thing.

hold up, if we talking cute tanks, you motherfuckers aint got shit on a panzer II

oh yeah
le reich bike can

...

rare panzer II coming through

>the best tank ever
You mean one of the worst tanks ever made.
During the battle of Bulge there's no single account of them ever engagin the enemy, but there was plenty of them captured because once they broke, got stuck in the mud etc. etc.(which believe me - happened quite a lot to 70 ton tank in the 40's) they just left them to rot because holy shit, they couldn't do anything with them.
The entire point of IS3 was to outrange KT. At some distances it could penetrate it but before it - IS3 could do it as well.
>It's unfortunate that the IS-3 wasn't even brought out until after the Germans had been defeated.
I remember seeing records of them being used in Vienna with predictable results - 2 tanks destroyed with Panzerfausts, 3rd by Panther flanking it. Not that it's surprising - same happened when Israelis fought them, except with ATGM's and Centruions/Super Shermans/other tanks.
> Also, the IS tanks had, at maximum, around 110mm of armor. At 2000 meters, the King Tiger could penetrate 132mm of Armor.
It doesn't work like that.

For example IS2(later variants) had 120mm at 60 degrees angle which equalled in 240mm of effective armour(thickness/cos(angle)). IS3 had that weird frontal armour designed to provide the best possible protection without making it weight more than 50 tonnes.

Still making any IS tanks after 2 was retarded and it was only done because of Stalin.

the desert is an amazing preservative.

Indeed

Build a system of shelters, minefields, barbed wire and hidden artillery positions.

Without tanks nobody will go through. Airpower will be worthless too, it will do too little and too slow.

If you have a tank you just mount a mine clearing device in front, pass the minefield(under fire!), make place for the other tank with dozer blade which clears out barbed wire and open the way for infantry. During all that time you're supporting them with accurate fire from machineguns and main gun.

Airplanes are overrated and interdiction has proven to be very cost-heavy. It's rewarding when it works but when it doesn't it's waste of time.

As usual though, every single bigger conflict since the late 17th century proves the old good "artillery is the king".

qtp2t tank coming through.

Mah boo Centurion
>Dem angles senpai
>Dat cannon. I would suck it
>Naughty girl

I like to have a thought experiment when the topic of tigers and whether they should have been made comes up.

An individual tiger was pretty intimidating. There was a reason they were so infamous, even if claiming they were undeadable is blatant memes.

So here's the thought experiment. A single Tiger I was 60 tons (short tons, not tonnes) of material. For the purposes of the thought experiment, we're going to assume that this is 60 tons of Pussy and Ass, shortened to PA. Actual tank production is several industries, using many different materials, and can't realistically be boiled down to just one thing, but this is for the sake of convenience and also because we're comparing tanks. While the pieces will be different two different tanks will still use the same industries to create it.

So a Tiger I is 60 tons of PA. A far humbler tank, and one that was not favored by a future Tiger ace, is the 38t. The 38t only needs 11 tons of Pussy and Ass. For around the same material (and without the need for retooling production, since the Czechs were already making them) you can have a whole platoon of 38ts and still have some left over.

Roughly the same amount of Tigers and 38ts were actually made during the war. However, if this straight across thought experiment could actually apply to real life, in the place of 1,347 Tigers, you could have 7,347 38ts. That's almost as many tanks there as Panzer 4s that were ever made. If you could actually use that many tanks, it'd be pretty devastating, as even a light tank is still quite an obstacle for infantry to handle, and still functional as a mobile attack platform.

Now obviously this is far from perfect as the Germans didn't just not have enough tanks, they didn't have enough gas. There is also the question of whether you would really want 7,347 38ts when for the same material you could have 2,886 of the vastly superior Panzer 4 or 3108 Stug 3s, but I like using the 38t because the number is more dramatic.