Why no more Heavy Tanks? @TheChieftainsHatch

be aware that the initial question I asked Chieftain is quite different to the title of the video yet as you will see in the video it leads basically to the same answer hello everyone we are today here with the chip then and I have a question for you which is Rara naive probably but I actually don't really know the answer to this what it is with the main battle tank because it came up somewhere in the Cold War but some people claim the panther was already a main battle tank some other people claim the other thing so what is it with the main battle link because I look at it and say yeah that's a universal tank but we also had this in my opinion in the Second World War I know the after the Cold War basically they got rid of heavy tanks yeah so it's basically a main battling just a medium tank but also some people argue that main battle tanks are now as heavy so that is the question to get rid of the the camera medium tank medium tank or and but where where does the the whole and and by the way for those people I know that the is-2 has a heavy tank served until the 1990s but I'm talking about new build ones so so what is the whole thing with the main battle tank stuff what was it is about um I don't know if I've seen an official doctrinal distinguisher because if you look at the if you look at the front page of the manual of an M1 you're not the same main battle tank it says tank one full tracked 120 millimeter main gun uh General Abrams okay M1A1 what whatever uh it doesn't say MBT in it it also makes no medium or something else because for instance for contrast I know that the the NVA the national Forex I made from the gdr from the German Democratic Republic they had like I have manuals from them from the 1970s for handbook for a medium tank crew man yeah so so they have because they have they have the is2s for instance which are still heavy no and if you look at the the manual for for tank platoon you know the current US dollar memory it doesn't say medium tank main battle they just says tank period um was Panther the first thing was so that here I have some video I got like Steve zaloga uh Hillary Doyle kennesus David Fletcher you know a lot of big games in tank and the question came up what was the first MBT and none of them wanted to give an answer until father needs a logo says Panther and I don't think he's wrong but but what makes a main battle tank but that that's for me because if I look at the Panther and I look at the panther four well the panda has a longer gun and it has more way more front Lama and Wheeler side armor in comparison I think so the front line is really strong the side armor is rather weak on that was the pencil for it more on the front but not that but the panther was also pretty good at doing the same job as tiger if if your job requires taking hits whilst killing things Panther wasn't bad so so it's it's basically about having more armor so let's let's look at a different so look at look at the two tanks that people say what were the first mvts that slightly less controversial than Panther people say Centurion or they will say t-55 t54 they were developed as a cruiser tank and as a medium tank and only later were they redesignated so when the tanks were built nobody's had this in idea in mind we are going to make an MBT they just built the best Cruiser and medium tank that they could which turned out to be so good that it made the necessity of heavy tanks perhaps obsolete so a main battle tank is qualified by heavy armor at the front and kill uh ability to kill nearly every other enemy tank correct and that's that's why that's why conqueror didn't last very particularly long because yeah Conker had that great big 120 millimeter gun but then and that was designed to go with the conquer was the British heavy tank like the m103 that was designed to go alongside the British Centurion with a 20 pounder m103 had a 120 millimeter gun the tank that had fought alongside had a 90 millimeter gun but by the time you get to the the British L7 yeah what does a masterpiece of a gun all of a sudden that can kill basically anything that the 120 can why do you need it or Chieftain comes out with a 120 gun and it replaces Centurion but it's got as good a gun if not better than gun then conqueror there's no need to have that heavy tank so it will take the hits from pretty much anything out there it will kill pretty much anything out there which is your heavy tank characteristic but it is mobile enough and sustainable enough to perform the vast majority of Battlefield operations at the larger scale that you need to perform thus obviating the need for a lighter tank to do those jobs now that yet there are some parts of terrain where you need a light tank of them the Himalayan mountains or something you need a light tank or some of the islands in Japan but the the MBT can do the jobs of heavy and medium tanks and to an extent some of the light tank functions of reconnaissance so if you look at the aura the organization of let's say late Cold War reconnaissance units uh you will see and both the the Germans the Americans and the the Soviets you would combine ifes and Recon vehicles with a couple of Tanks here and there for the Recon encounter Recon roles now the British kind of never really got with that the British always kept our Recon is purely for sneaking around we're not going to shoot anything which is a little bit optimistic it's uh swing fire Striker is notwithstanding uh but uh if the tank is now performing roles in reconnaissance units and the main maneuver units and what are effectively the Breakthrough units you now have a main battle tank and I think that it became the way it was used not the way it was designed it was if the tank was designed well enough that it could be used in all these different ways it was immediate it was a main battle tank so basically a bit like the sugar it was not designed as a tank destroyer but it became one eventually yeah it would just let's build the best medium tank we can and all of a sudden they have improvements in particularly engine technology which means he can have a much more powerful engine which means you can have a much more armored vehicle while still maintaining that Mobility uh plus improvements in armor design and so on uh that the the medium tank just evolved and became the MBT nobody sat down and said I want to I want to design an MPT it's just I want to design the best time tank I can as mobile as possible as armored as possible in this armed as possible and now I get the point about the panther being the first yeah being battle tank okay the funny thing is I didn't had I didn't wrote that question down it came up in the last discussion basically but I had the other question why heavy armor disappeared basically after the second power so we answered that as well so I'm I might rename this video depending on how I feel about it which goes better so is there so yeah basically why we also answered that question completely why my heavy armor was gone after the second book yeah we don't need it anymore yeah I mean look what's that what's the heaviest tank built it was con you know conqueror was heavier than in one of those like 70 tons and and who came up with the world main battle tank then I have absolutely no idea and when did camera up more or less I I would think the 60s Maybe again because it's not actually a doctrinal term I don't recall everything in any official manual I think it's a term of convenience much like tank destroyer is a term of convenience I mean what's it like the centauro B2 it's an eight by eight tank destroyer with a 120 millimeter gun I don't know if the if it is actually officially called a tank destroyer in Italian Doctrine or is it simply used but the Americans use tank destroyer right the Americans use tank destroyer but that wasn't a designer vehicle that was a Doctrine so a tank destroyer it could be a toad three-inch gun or it could be a truck with a 37 millimeter on it so or it could be a tracked vehicle like yeah yeah the Germans in the late where they finally distinguish between the Panzer egg and the yak pants yeah so so there's two different definition as a tank destroyed those American World War II definition which was the roll which arguably is the attack helicopter Battalion today which does the same thing designed to sling a lot of anti-tank weapons you know go somewhere quickly sling a lot of anti-tank weapons then go somewhere else that's a World War II tank destroy unit but a modern tank destroyer like an ITV or you know this a brdm2 with like eight missiles on the top I think we just call them tank destroys because of convenience I mean it gets the concept of what it does without necessarily saying it is a maneuver combat vehicle I actually I argue that is actually more of a wheeled tank than a tank destroyer um or any other thing that we have that is used as a tank destroyer we just don't call it one I mean that's still very interesting and something we should probably add that some of these terms changed over time and are very convenient for instance the Germans before they were defined medium light and heavy tank solely on the size of the gun they weren't alone I think the uh the Americans did the same heavy gun tank medium gun tank specifically we call it light medium and heavy and not not not with the the canvas the determining Factor but not in the name and I remember I talked with David really shortly about this in in on tankfest but we were just we had no time for an interview or anything and he said also that the British had very different concepts what we nowadays think of a light medium and everything but so so that was a really interesting and by the way this is also why I have a video of why the basically the tiger by the 1930s definition and I think it was mid-30s would be actually a medium tank so yeah there's a another question is like what's an assault tank what's a heavy tank what's a breakthrough tank so the terms breakthrough tank did not exist in American Doctrine but you had both assault tanks and heavy tanks well what's the difference both of them were designed to wade into the thicker battle and take whatever comes at it the only difference I found between a heavy tank like the m6 and the assault tank like the jumper with the T14 is the gun they had the the heavy the m6 heavy tank and you read it again in the archives of the discussions are going on what what endeavor's think for example of it he's always talking about the gun is the is the power of the gun on this heavy tank worth the limitations in mobility and transportation and so on it doesn't say that the armor is necessarily bonus he just looks at it as this makes the tank heavier he's talking about the gun but when we finally do get something put into service the the assault tank m4a32 the jumbo that's all about the armor and they they stick a 75 millimeter gun on it and they're quite happy the the T14 assault tank though is for the British requirement it's like a big super sized Sherman with the same 75 millimeter gun okay so that's the American perspective now I don't claim to know what the British or the Germans how they categorize it per se but I just found it interesting that you had you know is is jumbo a heavy tank no it's an assault tank whereas the m6 was on the salt tank it was the heavy tank the m6 is the Dreadnought right yeah yeah I don't think it was ever called that but we moved to that next we need to move to that next okay different video okay then thank you very much thank you for watching and see you next time bye

Channel: Military History not Visualized

Views: 133,290

Keywords: Military History not Visualized, Military History, mhv

Id: kmrEMYc8Wio

Length: 12min 31sec (751 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 02 2022