British Challenger 2

Originally posted by BlackWidow23
It seems that we are overlooking a major advantage about the engine that IMHO outweighs the .5mpg issue.

The engine can run off of virtually any flammable fluid. An ambrams engine can run off jet fuel, gas from a BP station, diesel, and even alchohol if you feel like it. If it is liquid and it will burn it can usually fuel the abrams. That is a huge advantage in my mind, an abrams low on fuel doesnt have to wait for a supply line, it can literally stop by a gas station and fill up.

Sorry, but thats only a "laboratory" advantage for the following reasons:

1. Needless to say, any such situations are highly unlikely and, as always in such cases, one has to question wether the benefits justify the costs.

2. Almost EVERYWHERE where there is fuel, there is also Diesel available. At third world gas stations, the main consumers are truck drivers... and trucks run on Diesel. Airports may have huge stocks of kerosene, but they also have stations and tanks for the utilitarian vehicles... which use Diesel. When SHTF and you want to refill your Abrams from, lets say, an abandoned vehicle around - what would you look for? Aload of cars each with a 50 liter petrol tank, or rather a truck with an 800 liter Diesel tank (BTW, the M1 fuel tank holds about 1900 liter, a third more than a Leo2, but still has less range).

3. In any case a tank commander should never be so stupid and GET himself in the situation to need an untimely refill. So while the M1 might be THEORETICALLY less complicated at refill, a tank with a longer range to begin with will be at the advantage when it comes to operational mobility.

Also, it has to be noted that although the abrams uses an older generation of british armor, the abrams has tweaked it a bit, and I would be amazed if it was as weak as people make it out to be, especially with the DU and the anti-spalling mesh inside.

Just as a sidenote: the DU mesh is only is used on parts of the M1, mainly the turret.

Firepower and ammunition is big. Sorry to all the diehard abrams fans here, but a smoothbore gun will simply never be as accurate as something with a rifled barrel, so states the laws of physics.

Hehe, the old "rifled owns smoothbore" argument usually brought up in Chally threads. While it is true that the rifled barrel has statistical advantages, the smoothbore is always the better choice in practise, and here´s why:

The preferred Antitank round is the APFSDS. The APFSDS however doesnt benefit from the spin of a rifled barrel (in fact it becomes unstable), thats why the british rounds have this anti-spinning cage. So this round has no accuracy advantage from the spin, but it suffers from the lower muzzle velocity that is inevitable with the rifled barrel. Result = less accuracy than the L44/M256.

The preferred multipurpose round is the HEAT. The HEAT also benefits from the higher pressure of the smoothbore, making it more precise. In turn however a HEAT from a rifled barrel needs a comparable spinning ring like the APFSDS because a spinning shaped charge warhead cannot correctly form the explosive jet - hence the smoothbore again is the better choice: flatter trajectory with at least similar accuracy.

The only ammunition that actually BENEFITS from the rifled barrel is the HESH. Problem is only that its usefulness is limited. Most modern vehicles nowadays have spaced armour and spall liners inside, increasing their survivability against the HESH´s principle a lot. Well, it might be good against buildings and structure, but hitting a house is not exactly something that needs outstanding first-shot accuracy.

And bringing a fortification down can equally be done with modern HEATs, so the HESH-rifled barrel combo doesnt really have any PRACTICAL advantage at all.

Let me rephrase: The armor has been tweaked a lot.
I really wonder how people think that the armor on the abrams is the same 1st gen armor that was taken from britain. When I said "tweaked" I was saying that the basic composition of the armor is all that armor on the abrams has in common with 1st generation chobbam. Therefore I dont think that it is fair to say that dorchester armor is "better" than the armor on the abrams without knowing the exact compositions of each.

Originally posted by BlackWidow23

Let me rephrase: The armor has been tweaked a lot.
I really wonder how people think that the armor on the abrams is the same 1st gen armor that was taken from britain. When I said "tweaked" I was saying that the basic composition of the armor is all that armor on the abrams has in common with 1st generation chobbam. Therefore I dont think that it is fair to say that dorchester armor is "better" than the armor on the abrams without knowing the exact compositions of each.

If you'd bother to look at earlier Abrams or Chally 2 threads and I'm not too sure which, you'd find that I gave the Dorchester composition in an answer to a similar thread. To date, nobody has posted otherwise.

May I respectfully draw your attention to the search button somewhere on the toolbar?

Ok, so somehow you know the exact composition of dorchester armor? I dont believe that for one minute. The American and British government go out of their way to keep things like that a secret, to keep them away from the public. We all know that it is a mix of specially placed ceramic tiles and steel, but the exact composition is a secret. Do you know the placement of the tiles and steel, and the exact composition of the armor in between? If you do I would be DELIGHTED to know. And I would also like to know where you found out.

the top 3 best tanks are as follows


1( m1 abrams- United States

2)Challenger 2-UK

3) Leopard 2-Germany

what makes the m1 so good is by the time it has fired a round at a target it has already selected another targrt

Originally posted by udumliberal
what makes the m1 so good is by the time it has fired a round at a target it has already selected another targrt

Do you even know what your talking about??? I thought not
"Hunter,killer" that you just mentioned has been around since modern tank warfare..........

Originally posted by udumliberal
what makes the m1 so good is by the time it has fired a round at a target it has already selected another targrt

Yeah, well done...

The Chally, and for that matter any other modern tank, can do that. You know that the Chally and the M1 share the same Fire control system, don't you?

Well as a former Driver, Loader, Gunner and Mechanic of challenger 2 i can tell you it's a 1200 hp reverse 360 dragon on track's.

About the reverse 360 part well i did a few of those.

I could tell you a few tales about the challenger 2 muhahaha.

There is also the challenger 2 E it's the version the british army was offered but refused due to the massive price increase.

However there are other country's out there like Greece and Jordan to name a few who have the 2E.

You know the british army no thrill's

Anyway the Chally 2 E was rejected like i was saying but it had some really nice kit on it.

FULL CREW INDEPENDENT THERMAL IMAGE UNIT'S
DRIVER MACHINE GUN
DRIVER REVERSE CAMERA
DRIVER G.P.S

I think it had a slide in slide out engine bay like the M1 not shure tho maybe someone can clear that up.

I think it is a very poor version of the chally 2 with a few toy's added to create a wow factor.

I can not see the british army giving out a better tank than they posses.

As i said above the prince of Jordan bought a few chally 2 E's.

I had him on my tank for a few day's and quite a few time's over the year's.
He was fully trained on challenger 2.

His companion/bodyguard was a real charmer.

My 2 PENCE worth.

Regards
Lee





[edit on 30-12-2007 by h3akalee]

I really wonder why flame bait threads like this are allowed to exist.

If you look back at WW2, the german tanks were all the rage, they were the best for their time, but you know what? It didn't even matter because the Americans trumped them anyway with just the sheer numbers of their INFERIOR Sherman tank.

Besides, i really doubt that when the SHTF, that neither if these tanks will even be relevant. Imagine what comes flying out of area 51 during WW3? I'm pretty sure these tanks are far far behind what they really have behind the curtain anyway

Originally posted by h3akalee

However there are other country's out there like Greece and Jordan to name a few who have the 2E.

Greece has chosen the Leopard 2 over the Challenger 2E. Jordan has only Challenger 1 tanks. Which somehow raises questions concerning your anecdote that you trained a Prince of Jordan

I think it had a slide in slide out engine bay like the M1 not shure tho maybe someone can clear that up.

Isn´t that standard in tank design? Anyway the 2E used the Europowerpack which combines the worlds premier tank engine and transmission series in one compact package.

Originally posted by LwSiX...
Besides, i really doubt that when the SHTF, that neither if these tanks will even be relevant. Imagine what comes flying out of area 51 during WW3?

That won´t be of much concern in some situations, such as simple bad weather.

[edit on 30/12/2007 by Lonestar24]

Originally posted by LwSiX It didn't even matter because the Americans trumped them anyway with just the sheer numbers of their INFERIOR Sherman tank.

What a lopsided view of WWII you really have.

German tanks were not the rage and, apart from the Panther and Tiger, I would have thought the Sherman was an equal to or better than the Pz Kmpf Mk III and Mk IV.

American tanks may have overwhelmed the Axis on the Western Front being used as they were by the British, Canadian, Free French and other Commonwealth forces, but it was on the Russian front where the German Panzer Divisions were bled to death.

Originally posted by MAVERICK05
this is to sminkey pinkey. to your first saying on "until the abrams came along" they HAVE came along, im talking about NOW, not in past years. and when i said that i dont think that we would let them have better vehicles, i didnt mean it literally, i meant it as kind of a rivalry between countries, as in "our tanks are the #," not physically not letting them manufacture their own.

Yes, but your tanks WEREN'T the # (well, actually that's exactly what M60 was compared with Brit MBTs at the time) and even when the Abrams came along, you still got your gun and armour from the Brits.

Now you get your gun from the Germans.

If you're so desperate not to be outdone by others, why can't you design your own?

As for now...the Israelis just might have the best combat tank in the world. Certainly crew survivability is far higher on their list than yours.

Stillbrew, Chobham and Dorchester armour are all British inventions and were carried around by Chieftan, Challenger and Challenger 2 respectively.

The L7 gun (the most widely used western main gun) was designed by Royal Ordnance and its replacement is from Rheinmettal.

The Lycoming is certainly American, but here's a question: Since the death of the Bofors "S-Tank", how many nations have designed tanks with turbine engines?

Maybe your superiority is in the systems? Perhaps your lazer rangefinder and fire-control are just so much better than the lazer range-finders in British, French and German tanks...

Originally posted by fritz

Originally posted by LwSiX It didn't even matter because the Americans trumped them anyway with just the sheer numbers of their INFERIOR Sherman tank.

What a lopsided view of WWII you really have.

German tanks were not the rage and, apart from the Panther and Tiger, I would have thought the Sherman was an equal to or better than the Pz Kmpf Mk III and Mk IV.

American tanks may have overwhelmed the Axis on the Western Front being used as they were by the British, Canadian, Free French and other Commonwealth forces, but it was on the Russian front where the German Panzer Divisions were bled to death.

Really?

You better research it more carefully next time:

The M4 Sherman tank was a winner by numbers, not by quality. When the US entered World War 2 it did not have a modern tank, even the latest existing designs were obsolete compared to the modern German tanks.

So a new medium tank design was quickly developed, and since it was technically simple and very reliable, a decision was made to immediately start mass producing it in enormous numbers and not wait for the slow development process of an advanced heavy tank. The M26 Pershing heavy tank was slowly developed and reached the war front just before the end of the war.

As a vehicle, the M4 Sherman was very reliable, and as such it was superior to the German tanks, but as a tank the M4 Sherman had several problems, especially when compared to its enemies, the German tanks. It was simply inferior to them is most aspects. It had a relatively thin armor, an inferior 75mm or 76mm gun which simply could not penetrate the front armor of the German Tiger tanks even from short range, while they could easily destroy the Sherman from long ranges, and it was very tall, 3.43m, which is taller than the German Tigers, and one meter taller than the superb Russian T-34. It means the Sherman could not hide as well as other tanks, which is likely what its crews wanted to do when German Tigers were nearby. With such inferiority in firepower, armor, and shape, no wonder the Sherman crews saw the German Tiger tanks as a formidable monster.

In fact, to destroy a German Tiger, the Shermans had to hit it from the side or from behind, and obviously if the Tiger crew saw them approaching, it could destroy some Shermans before the others could eventually destroy it.

Source

I decided not to meddle anymore with these silly which tank is better topics as it has been proven over and over again that the Leopard is technically superior to all other tanks. However, differences are minor, especially compared to the Challenger 2. Then it comes to crew experience and skills.

The Ma1 is oldfashioned compared to the two others. Especially in terms of fuel consumption.

reply to post by Mdv2


Um, your source does not contradict what Fritz said, which was entirely correct in three things: 1. That the amount of Tiger and Panther tanks in the West were miniscule compared to the amount of Panzer IIIs, IVs and a myriad of in-between versions; 2. That the mainstay of the allied tanks, the Sherman, was not worse or even better than those; and 3. that the Panzerwaffe, as well as Germany, was primarily defeated in the East (as a response to an earlier post).

Your source, as usual in such WW2 comparisons, only compares the Sherman to the Panther and Tiger, against which it of course held no dice in open combat.

Yeah, tanks. Both are impressive; the Crew survivability of the Abrams, the Chobham reactive Armour on the Challenger. Seeing as how every Soviet tractor could be fitted with an armour pack and the sheer size of the soviet tank corps (as was) I for one am glad we never went head to head. Its never the weapon, though, but the user - look at WWII when some SS guy took out 600 armoured vehicles with ONE Tiger tank...
The secret of modern warfare is always this; Force maximisation, i.e. bang for bucks. Tanks are handy things to be able to call on, but they are a link in a much bigger chain. Interesting debate...

Originally posted by fritz

Originally posted by LwSiX It didn't even matter because the Americans trumped them anyway with just the sheer numbers of their INFERIOR Sherman tank.

What a lopsided view of WWII you really have.

German tanks were not the rage and, apart from the Panther and Tiger, I would have thought the Sherman was an equal to or better than the Pz Kmpf Mk III and Mk IV.

American tanks may have overwhelmed the Axis on the Western Front being used as they were by the British, Canadian, Free French and other Commonwealth forces, but it was on the Russian front where the German Panzer Divisions were bled to death.

It amazes me how incredibly dense people can be around here. The point of my post wasn't to say the Americans beat the Germans all by themselves with their little shermans, it was to to illustrate the point that even though you may have yourself a better tank, it doesn't mean it will win on the battlefield. Thanks for playing, have a nice day.


[edit on 31-12-2007 by LwSiX]

reply to post by LwSiX[/url]

LwSiX, I did not say you HAD said that the Yanks with their Shermans won the war all by themselves. FAR FROM IT!

All I was trying to point out, is that Hitler concentrated most of his armoured forces on the Eastern Front, where they very slowly bled to death.

As an example of this, take a look at the ORBAT of Operation Goodwood, the Allies mustered some 877 tanks, not less than 10,000 1st line assault troops and mixed armoured-infantry backed up by over 8,000 combat vehicles of all types.

The German forces on the other hand - the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, Panzer Lehr, Hitler Jugend and 16th Luftwaffe Field Division numbered between them, just 4800 infantry, around 50 assault guns and 200 tanks.

[The main reason for this apparent lack of 1st line fighting troops, was because the German infantry was stretched across the whole of the Normandy Front]

Thus the Germans faced odds of 4:1 [against] in tanks, almost 3:1 [against] in infantry and a massive 16:1 [against] in all classes of combat vehicles.

I hope this illustrates my point.

The last panzer 3 versions was introduced in 1942 so if the sherman was superiour no suprize really. However there were new panzer 4 versions almost right up to the end of the war. The last versions of those were certainly better than the sherman in terms of optics, arnament and with better protection.

The russians were indeed bleeding the germans to death.


Personally i think these days there is no best tank in the world except for a best tank in a such and such situation.

Im fairly sure that the russian tanks perform best in urban combat with theire new era and arena. The challenger 2 might be the most accurate tank in the world but vs a brand new T80 with all the latest era and such you wont have enough firepower to take it out untill you are within 2km range.

reply to post by LwSiX


If German tanks were all the rage, why did they lose Kursk?

In 1940 the Germans were amazed by the Matilda 1, an obviously obsolete tank from an obsolete thought process - "Infantry" and "Cruiser" tanks - it was slow and under-armed - a single .50 cal - but it's armour was far thicker than the Panzer's and the Germans' 37mm couldn't guarantee its death.

Matilda 2 was more of the same and until the Germans began fitting a 75mm the Afrika Korps were actually afraid of it. It was slow, it only had a 2 pounder, but it was virtually unkillable and Commonwealth infantry loved to have them as support.

The only reason people remember Panzers is because Heinz Guderian knew how to use them.

At Arras in 1940 Gen Le Q Martel - one of the pioneer visionaries of tanks - used his obsolete Matilda 1s to very nearly beat off Rommel, who is "legendary" for commanding Panzers.

The best German tank of the war - Pzkfw 5 Panther - stole its ideas from the T-34. It was designed after the 3s and 4s had their arses whipped by the new, low-tech Soviet tractor.

Tiger and Konigstiger (or Royal or King or Tiger 2) had only one thing going for them - the 88. Tiger 1 had vertical armour all over it and shot traps under the turret mantle. Sure, it could survive the American 75s (which were copied from the pre-WW1 French "quick-firers") and 76s, but it couldn't survive a British 17 pounder (77mm). It also couldn't fire on the move, totally negating the strategy that made German tanks successful.

Both iterations were slow, expensive and complicated. Meaning they broke down. A lot. The Germans pretty much lost more Tigers to break-downs at Kursk than to Soviet guns.

THE tank of WW2 is generally held to be the T-34. For good reason. However, I caveat that by terming it "the COMBAT tank of WW2. THE tank of WW2 was the Centurion. It was entering service on the continent before VE Day, but didn't see combat.

The Sherman, a logical update of the Lee/Grant, was kept in production, even although the Allies knew it was inferior, because US industry, untouched by bombing, could produce it in such great numbers that the Germans simply couldn't kill all of them. The Brits, however, spent the war contiually designing (and implementing) new tanks. Their mainstay, the Churchill, was tougher than Sherman and it led to its own replacement - the Centurion.

Between Normandy, Falaise and Caen, given the choice of Panzer, Sherman and Churchill, then Churchill would be my choice.

Churchill: 75mm gun, 152mm front armour.
Pzkfw 4: 75mm gun, 80mm front armour.
Sherman ("Easy Eight"): 76mm gun, 91mm front armour.

Since the introduction of the Centurion, the UK has led tank design. At every step.

Except, maybe, for the French FL10 turret as seen on AMX13 (and other AFVs). Interesting turret design with stabilisation and perhaps the fastest-firing tank gun ever. A bit thin, 'though...

On a side note, to our thread originator, if the US doesn't allow other militaries to produce better vehicles, why did the British Army reject the Humvee (a purpose-designed and built military vehicle) as being inferior to the Land Rover (a civilian vehicle with minimal "upgrades")?

[edit on 1-1-2008 by HowlrunnerIV]