Purpose of the MBT?

[Tukhachevskii]

As I said - on a very, very abstract level that may be true. It's highly unlikely that you'll find much agreement by focusing on this level, though.


One example: No tank in WW1 ever bounced a cannon shell. Tiger2 was definitively built to do exactly this. The first tank built to stop shells -not only bullets and fragments- was the Char B-1bis, with a few days advantage over the Mathilda II.[Was the technology extant to do that? The Germans had a programme to copy British tanks in an enlarged format which would have weighed in at around 100 tonnes (the AZU? IIRC)to protect them against British artillery firing in the DF mode. The engine, suspension and ergonomic technology avaliable at the time made that a fantasy]

Show me a tank type of WWI which served as command tank or was in radio contact with all other tanks.[Conceptual flaw not a design "flaw"]

Show me a WWI tank which was meant for reconnaissance. [Doctrinal/Conceptual issue not a design issue]

Show me a WWI flamethrower tank. [Design issue, not a conceptual one]

Show me a WWI tank with a useful operational range and speed - enough for the encirclement of an army or corps. [Conceptual/doctrinal issue not a design "flaw"}

Show me a swimming WWI tank.[If you mean "amphibious, show me where on the Western Front a Tank would have been required to "swim"...also a design "flaw" not a conceptual/doctrinal issue]


Besides; Tiger and Tiger 2, even Ferdinand/Elefant were highly successful vehicles in the context of open terrain (Eastern front), well worth their price. These designs have been bashed a lot for their difficulties, but the kill ratio is outstanding and they were able to harass front lines or support a local counterattack at little risk.

Fuchs,

I don't know if its a confucsion based upon sematics but as I see it you're confusing conceptual/doctrinall issues (what are tanks for and how should they do it) with technical design (i.e., how they are designed to fulfill their conceptual potentionl in accordance with military doctrine.

You criticise that there were no command tnaks in the Great War. Tanks were infantry support vehicles, not an autonomous arm. Sure, after 1918 and Fuller's embryonic operational concept/scheme of manouvre for 1919 (Plan 1919) tnaks begun to be thought of as an autonomous arm rather than an adjunct branch of the Army. Sort of like air warfare doctrine, fighter tactis only developed as a by product of the original purpose of the plane...reconnaisance.

Secondly, (actually I think I might not be addressing the issues in order) the idea of reconnaisance beyond the FEBA was alter development. I see a lot of people applying hidsight in the discussion...you've got to rememebr that unlike Athena who sprouted from Zeus' head fully armed an armoured tank warfare doctrine develoepd in penny packets. WILF, your comments against Fuller are, on the whole, accurate but you have to remember that Fuller was one of the first, if not the first, to serously sit downa nd consider the implications, applications and ramifications of the tank (and the internal combustion engine) for warfare. It wa sonly the interwar years that the Soviets and Germans really tried to figure things out practically (as opposed to theoretically as was the case in the cash strapped UK).

p.s. A defence of Tukhachevskii...like many of the inter-war innovators he experimented with various designs for the army but his primary goal was the mechanisation of the soviet army. His advocation of meachnisation was as much a political ploy- aimed at the cavalry and infantry gurus like Budenny and Voroshilov (also Stalin cronies) who despised the former Tsarist era voin-spetsy (military-technical specialist) as rivals and saw mechanisation as a threat to the proletariant workers and peasants army- as it was a "purely" military exercise. Tukhachevskii and many of his supports advocated mechanisation to get the industrialisation of the USSR going (i.e., to get production targets and manufacturing on line)...they were NOT settled on the tactcal composition of mech units. In fact, IIRC Tukhachevskii advocated Bde based formations organised aropund loose Corps HQ (Divisioanl size acording to Soviet nomenclature) based on the mission, terrain and enemy.

If you want to aim your fire at tank design try this on for size....Tsar Tank