Greatest ever tank

er....RPG's with special warheads bitchslap them to the side and back armour?!

M1 Abrams with the TUSK armor upgrade is the best tank on the planet. Period.

They basically took actual lessons learned from battle in urban settings and fixed the problems. So, the M1 already the best at the style of fighting it was designed for, now will be the best at asymmetric combat as well after the upgrade.

i was basing this RPG thing of pre tusk upgrades.....but why say its the best upgrade? surely the fact it needs a armour upgrade that steep is somthing to talk about?!

the challenger doesnt even need a upgrade...unlike abrams designers they actually thought of what would happen if they got attacked at the side and took approiate messures to protect.

Originally posted by M6D
i was basing this RPG thing of pre tusk upgrades.....but why say its the best upgrade? surely the fact it needs a armour upgrade that steep is somthing to talk about?!

the challenger doesnt even need a upgrade...unlike abrams designers they actually thought of what would happen if they got attacked at the side and took approiate messures to protect.

The Challenger has never fought the way the Abrams has, in an urban setting. In the open, the way ALL tanks are designed to fight, no tank in the history of warfare has a better record than the M1. In Desert Storm out of nearly 1900 M1's only 18 were dissabled, not one crew member was killed!!!

Now, take that same tank, any tank, and place it in an urban setting, where NO MODERN TANK, including the Challenger was designed to fight, and th stats are reduced. But even now, pre upgrade, only about 4% of the tanks in theatre have been dissabled in Iraq. And thats fighting a style it wasnt intended to fight!

So, you cannot compare the Challenger to the M1's performance when the Challenger has almsot no exposure to the same combat situations the M1 is facing right now.

After the upgrade, the M1 will be EASILY the best tank ever to exist, as it nearly is now.

They all say that, but id hate to tell you....we're in basrah, i think we have a little experiance of our own here and there you know....

and please, do tell me, whats with all this disabled nonsense?! if we used the logic that disabled meant the tank could easily be repaired, then surely in world war two, i could just make a generally stupid comment like..oh dont worry, the sherman isnt weak, because many of htem have only been disabled...oh yeah, we only had to scrape the drivers remains out, but we've rebuilt the tank, its fine.

its basically the same, disabled, distroyed, big diffrence, one is temporarily knocked out, the other isnt, it still counts as a battlefield kill.

Originally posted by M6D
They all say that, but id hate to tell you....we're in basrah, i think we have a little experiance of our own here and there you know....

and please, do tell me, whats with all this disabled nonsense?! if we used the logic that disabled meant the tank could easily be repaired, then surely in world war two, i could just make a generally stupid comment like..oh dont worry, the sherman isnt weak, because many of htem have only been disabled...oh yeah, we only had to scrape the drivers remains out, but we've rebuilt the tank, its fine.

its basically the same, disabled, distroyed, big diffrence, one is temporarily knocked out, the other isnt, it still counts as a battlefield kill.

#1 I know there are challengers in iraq right now, but none are activly sweeping the hottest parts of the country in combat, you are simply "holding" Basrah. How many challengers have taken an RPG to the rear? The top? Under the side skirts? Mmm? I bet none. You cant compare if your tank isnt getting shot at.

#2 "Dissabled" means that the tank can no longer function, but it wasnt destroyed to the point of killing its occupants, which btw, is the sole reason that tanks exist: To protect its operators. So in that regard, the M1 has a 100% perfect record fighting the style of combat it was designed to fight.

Again, you cannot compare your precious challenger to the M1, as its hardly seen a fraction of the action the Abrams has.

[edit on 7-7-2005 by skippytjc]

But we do know from the action it has seen, its side armour is more then capable of ample protection for the tank, and if the rear armour is the same thickness on hte challenger, that would inply that it could easily take a round to the side, so my 'precious' challenger,doesnt really need a armour upgrade, does it now?

and come on, im tired of this, a tank knocked out in battle, is still knocked out, it still shows the tank has a weakness because its stopped been effective on the battlefield, if a tank stops been effective on hte battlefield, whats the point in claiming that it its disbaled? for all intents and purposes at the time, its taken out the battle, it can no longer do anything, so sayings its disabled is basically admitting that you got your tank knocked out anyway.

The Abrams has also never fought against a modern tank.......so we dont really know anything, now do we?

And those insanely derated T-72's of the Iraqi guard do NOT count.

Exellent point, i was just saying though how we know that a challengers side armour is stronger then a abrams and we know it can take hits to the side.

It’s not an excellent point.

The bottom line FACT is the Abrams has done more fighting than any other modern day tank has, and its record is nearly flawless when you consider the amount of tanks in theatre and the volume of combat. And it’s irrelevant what tanks it has fought, as it has fought the tanks it’s been called to fight against.

You guys are ATTEMPTING to compare what you THINK or IMAGINE your precious favorite tanks can do against a tank that actually FIGHTS every day.

You guys are like kids trying to guess whose dad could beat up whose, and none of your dads have actually ever fought. Well the bottom line, cold hard fact is the Abrams has the best combat record in ACTUAL REAL combat than any tank that’s operated today. PERIOD.

Why don’t you guys go find same data to support your claims? How many modern day tanks has a Challenger fought? How many times has a Challenger been hit in the rear with an RPG? Not one of you can provide any data, but you still can’t get it through your heads that stats on paper don’t mean crap if your tank never gets shot at.

You know, a car that never leaves the driveway doesn’t get into accidents...Does that mean it has a flawless record?

Ill tell you what, start producing dome actual, real data on the Challenger fighting in URBAN combat and then we can talk. Until then you armchair quarterbacks can talk about your fantasy tanks performance all you want. But its only fantasy and speculation until they start to fight in the same conditions and volume the Abrams has, until then you have no argument...

Again, all hail the best tank in the history of all warfare: The M1 Abrams! The best combat record in history

How many modern day tanks has a Challenger fought?

The challenger hasn't fought any modern day tanks. Heres my question: How many modern day tanks has an Abrams fought? NONE!!

en.wikipedia.org...

Therefore it is not uncommon around the world and is found in the armies of many potential enemies of the US and other Western nations. Many Western analysts regard this as worrisome, due to the fact that, at least theoretically, its 125 mm 2A46 main gun is capable of destroying any modern main battle tank in the world today, including the M1 Abrams. On the other hand, on those three occasions when Soviet clients using T-72s have met Western armies that possessed modern main battle tanks—Lebanon in 1982, Kuwait in 1991, and Iraq in 2003—the Syrians and Iraqis were heavily defeated, although this might have more to do with the poor training and low morale of their crews than with any deficiencies in the T-72 itself. It might also be mentioned that the versions these armies fielded were, in either case, at least 30 years out of date at the time, had not been significantly upgraded, were firing inferior ammunition (often with steel penetrators and half-charges of propellant).

so the T-72 tank is modern and upgraded but is manned by poorly trained crew. in anicase the T-72 is modern just bad design and selling to countries but not helping to train them.

The 125 mm 2A46 series main gun is almost as powerful (depending on the ammunition) as the NATO-standard 120 mm/L60 found in many modern Western MBTs (which is to say, highly powerful and highly lethal, at least theoretically capable of destroying any tank in the world today at a kilometer or more), but its rate of fire depends very much on the state of repair of the autoloader, which is necessary due to the extremely small and cramped interior space in the turret, which prevents the addition of a fourth crew member as a loader. This autoloader is based on the autoloader from the T-62 series with mechanical improvements, and is rather slow and prone to malfunctions if not maintained properly.

considered to be one of the most powerful gun but couldnt kill an Abrams from point blank range. tsk tsk.

Originally posted by UK_05_XM29

How many modern day tanks has a Challenger fought?

The challenger hasn't fought any modern day tanks. Heres my question: How many modern day tanks has an Abrams fought? NONE!!

#1 How does the Challenger stand up to an RPG from behind? You dont know? Why?

#2 How does the Challenger stand up to an IED from underneath? You dont know? Why?

#3 How does the Challenger stand up to an RPG to the top fired from a building? You dont know? Why?

#4 How well does a Challenger gun crew fight from the gun positions during an Urban firefight? You dont know? Why?

#5 How much Urban combat awareness does the crew have in an intense firefight with buildings within feet of all sides of the tank? You dont know? Why?

Starting to see a pattern here?

You guys can SPECULATE all you want about any tanks performance, but the Abrams is the only modern day tank that has/is fighting in any volume in Urban combat and can be measured with REAL COMBAT performance.

Again, the M1, rules supreme with actual combat results.

Please, stop with the "But it never foought this or that" stuff, why dont you post some actual stats for the Challenger in Iraq today. You cant, because you dont have any.

M1 Abrams, best tank in the history of mankind, combat proven!

Actually the wiki article says that the tanks werent modern, had poor training and poor morale. Those t72's werent upgraded in anyway.

I say modern T72's arent as good as current western tanks but then again the T72 is a older design. If you want a more balanced comparison compare it with the T80. Wait when did the T80 fight the current western tanks? Never. How you guys are saying that the M1 is the best by comparisions with the T72 is like saying the Centurion is the best tank of its era because it beats Charbis tanks hands down.

The soviets were more advanced at tank tech till the last generation. The T55 was a excellent tank for its time. The T72 was still the best tank when it just came out and i mean the normal version not the degraded version. Only now is it much more unclear which tank has the edge.

The T34 is perhaps the best tank ever because it could combine combat effectiveness with quanity perhaps best of every tank. The panther is a better tank in terms of combat effectiveness but it was harder to produce. I do think that if the Germans concentrated on the panther designs instead of the tiger then they could decrease the numerical superiority of the allieds quite much and perhaps would have won the ground war because of the increased numbers but still having a tank which was a match for all allied tanks of ww2.

Actually, after Desert Storm, they WERE upgraded. They had laser rangefinders, night vision, and other mods put on by the Russians.

Originally posted by M6D
Exellent point, i was just saying though how we know that a challengers side armour is stronger then a abrams and we know it can take hits to the side.

Isn't the armor made by the same UK comapny? Chobham armor IS a British invention.

Anyways, I think that any top ten list that does not include the Tiger and King Tiger tanks are invalid. Just ask any Sherman Tank crewman what they feared most.

The allies never found a good way to defeat the King Tiger. Only the Germans could. Most were put out of commision by mechanical failures and lack of fuel by the end of the war.

well technically the abrams doesnt even use chobham, us stingy brits didnt want to give it to them, so they have a diritive of composites and uranium lace, we use chobham second generation, or dorcester, or somthing like that, but about this whole....amount of kills thing, surely, if we just exanded the amount of challengers of proportions to that of abrams, then you could compare in a semi sort of way...in fact, its very hard to compare to diffrent tanks when the abrams outnumbers our damn tanks!

Originally posted by M6D
well technically the abrams doesnt even use chobham, us stingy brits didnt want to give it to them, so they have a diritive of composites and uranium lace, we use chobham second generation, or dorcester, or somthing like that, but about this whole....amount of kills thing, surely, if we just exanded the amount of challengers of proportions to that of abrams, then you could compare in a semi sort of way...in fact, its very hard to compare to diffrent tanks when the abrams outnumbers our damn tanks!

Blah blah blah blah technically blah bla blah tech this, tech that, blah blah if this, blah if that, blah blah.

Meaningless without the actual combat scorcard that the Abrams has.

Come back and talk when you have some real combat data my friend. Until then, all you are doing is speculating. You may as well be talking about Mechs and spaceships, fantasy.

Here is a pick of the worlds best tank patroling in the Urban war zone, out there were it counts, not back at the training field
:

Dude, dont give me that crap, blah blah blah stuff, i merely stated the abrams doesnt use chobham, dont expand it out of proportion, for petes sake, and yeah, britain is out there in the field to, so dont give me that americas so almighty stuff either.