Best main battle Tank In the world?

reply to post by Zakka


M1A3: Under development, with prospective prototypes by 2014, operational by 2017
www.armytimes.com...

Even though the Abrams is 20 years old it's gone through a huge amount of improvements. From the 105mm cannon to the 120mm smooth bore. And a ton of internal enhancements, Plus the TUSK (Tank Urban Survival Kit) Someone one finally figured out that Tanks don't fare so well in urban combat.

I wonder whether the current range of MBTs in use across the West e.g. Abrams, Challenger 2, Leopard, Leclerc et al will be the last cohort of super heavy, powerful machines which were designed to slug it out in tank on tank warfare.

I think the end is nigh for the MBT. We’ll see more nimble machines which are better suited to the changing military doctrines and reality. Even now in most Western armies the numbers of MBTs are fast diminishing, not because of cost but because they are not used.

As to the best MBT available now... Clearly, the tank with the better trained crew who are sure that they have air superiority. How many Iraqi tanks met their fate from above?

As to the best design, I would go for the Chally because it has a bivvie to make tea.

Regards

I am just waiting for the dreadnouts and the mech warriors to come out, ala the third Matrix movie and Avatar

reply to post by Twiptwop


how do you think the new goverments we place in power after toppleing nations pay for us to be there......BLACK GOLD.

Still thinking the Abrams M1A1. Hasn't failed us yet.

The next war may see the end of a lot of major weapon systems.
Most of what we have now is designed to fight hordes of Russians crossing the Fulda gap.
The F22 will be the last manned fighter for sure.
Drones and Hypersonic missiles remove the need for aircraft carriers and maybe even bombers.
Not to mention they are giant floating targets for ship killers.
As far as I know the submarine seems to be ok for the future and may replace the carrier for force projection.
Plus there is talk of small unmanned submarine drones.
The job of Artillery is getting replaced by drones. Commanders want precision kills now, not the ability to level an entire grid square. And politicians like less collateral damage.

That only leaves infantry and tanks.
Infantry? They're still screwed, he may get a better rifle, smart rounds, optical camouflage and ability to call down thunderbolts from the sky but they will always be stuck in the mud. No matter what happens it will always be an 18 year old with a rifle holding the ground.

That leaves Tanks.
Missiles will get cheaper, smaller and smarter. Someone will eventfully come up with kamikaze drones.
Basically they just hang around and told "Go to X spot and find the biggest metallic object out there and Ram it"
Not very hard to find an 70 ton battle tank.
In WWII the Russians strapped explosives to dogs with a trigger switch on their back.
They were trained to run under tanks, trigger goes off, Kaboom.
Rough on Fido but I guess it worked well enough that Germans started shooting dogs on sight.
Take the same idea and apply it to a small robotic tank.
It doesn't have to go far and can be made cheap.

Contrary to the fantasies of many people no major power, U.S., China, Russia, can afford to invade the other.
So the next Major war may have to be short and brutal, with possible limited tactical nuclear exchange.
By limited I mean to battle field targets not cities.
Or a long protracted asymmetrical war.
Either way there's not much use for hordes of tanks.

You can make tea on a M1
Just put your canteen cup on the back engine grill.
It's a friggen 500 Degree jet engine exhaust.
I used to heat up MREs that way.
Tastes like jet fuel but a little Tabasco sauce cured that.

Just make sue they don't drive off with your lunch.
I was ticked off all day when that happened.

Originally posted by cpay970
Still thinking the Abrams M1A1. Hasn't failed us yet.

Abrams M1A1 is great.

1. Leopard 2 precisely 2A7+
2. Challenger 2 and Abrams
3. Merkava and Leclerc

Everything depends on what model we considers. All this tanks are quite similar in statistics. Nev upgrade could change the lieder any time. I chose Leopard 2 because this tank has best potential to be upgraded any time and its developers team put the biggest efforts to test many variant of this tank so this is best developed constriction now.

there will forever be a place for heavily armoured vehicles. After all an standard foot soldier will always be more vulnerable.

Personally i dont think there is an obvious best tank in the world right now. Every tank is fairly even in terms of capabilities, and different draw backs and advantages.
Id still go for the current russian tanks though in a major war. For a few simple reasons, they arent that heavy and are very diversely equipped. Not just focusing on huge massive standard composite armour.

reply to post by roguetechie

Look at the T 72 with it's horrific vulnerabilities... There's a crap ton of 'em but they still can't do jack.

Well used, they can be great.

Anyway, the best tank around is probably the Merkava 4 tank along with the Trophy system installed to stop RPGs.

the merkava is most likely the best tank in the world for urban warfare and fighting rather close to your base of operations, but i wouldnt invade other countries ww2 style with merkavas.

Omg this is a big tank, I never seen something like that . Big one.

Didn't the US take out 5000 Iraqi T72's with only 3000 M1 Abrams In the Gulf war without a single loss?

Sorry but that Is crazy.
Either those T72 are really crap, the M1 Is simply a monster of a Tank or the Iraqi Tank crews were a few 16yr olds with a week training.

Originally posted by Zakka
Didn't the US take out 5000 Iraqi T72's with only 3000 M1 Abrams In the Gulf war without a single loss?

Sorry but that Is crazy.
Either those T72 are really crap, the M1 Is simply a monster of a Tank or the Iraqi Tank crews were a few 16yr olds with a week training.

Or maybe the T-72's counterpart was the M60 Patton, which the Abrams replaced? I'd like to see an Abrams take on a Russian T-80.

reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


Do you mean T90?
I'm pretty sure the Abram Is In a different leaque to the T80.

Originally posted by Zakka
reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi

 

Do you mean T90?
I'm pretty sure the Abram Is In a different leaque to the T80.

No, I mean T-80. T-80s are Russian tanks that aren't made for export because they are better built. T-80UK or T-80UM series are quite capable tanks when it comes to leading MBTs.

reply to post by Zakka


5000 T-72's???

Where did you get that from .There weren't 5000 t-72's monkey models in iraqi army.Their major force was T-62 and T-55's .And most were destroyed by airforce and naval artillery.Very few remained.

reply to post by Dimitri Dzengalshlevi


Please get you facts straight about the two tanks you mentioned. Even the basic model of the T-72 has considerably better armor protection than the T-62. The T-72 is a fine and adaptable MBT hence its continuing use by the Russians in conjunction with the T-80 and T90. The T-62 was a marginal,and unsuccessful design that was actually not much of an improvement over the T54/55 that is was supposed to replace. The T-62 had extremely poor hull side/rear and deck armor. The Russians were not to keen on this tank and in fact in its first combat use against the Chinese it fared poorly. It was seriously outmatched by contemporary Western designs and was too expensive for Soviet client's to want to invest in.

reply to post by roguetechie


This is good point you have made. Russian tanks have always had a much higher chance to brew-up catastrophically when penetrated. It was true of the T-34 series, and their more modern designs continue this tradition T-72s and T-80s like to pop their tops. Just research the T-80s experiences in Chechnya. This is related to Russia's desire to build smaller profile tanks with radically sloped armor. This philosophy results in tamks that are smaller targets with very impressive armor protection LOS from the front. The trade off is that the smaller internal volume of their tanks(due to the radical sloping) leaves less room for the energy of a penetrating shot to dissipate before striking something that makes the tank go boom.