7STW's pic got me to wondering. How would a Tiger Tank stack up against today's tanks?

Tiger might get one shot off, if it was hidden well.

One interesting fact though, isn't the MIAI using the same barrel as top of the line current German tanks, made by the same German company that made barrels for the Tiger?

That thing just seems like death trap if we ever fight anyone with decent armor whose crews don't try and surrender to news helicopters.

Good Iron no doubt the Centurian prolly the best of her day.Just aliitle late with the intrduction.

The real question is what a dug in hull down Tiger would do to a Bradley with its ridiculously high profile.

When the M1 was first deployed to Europe, there were stories going around how that any cars foolish enough to follow the tanks to closely had the paint blistered off of them.

So, Steve, what part of Bradley and Abrams read the same to you?

This thread should be more like
German Leopard vs the MI

This doesn't relate to much here, but I distinctly remember a day down in Hohenfels. Driving a jeep and coming around a corner on a little dirt road to confront an FRG Leopard not 30 yards away.

Skidded to a stop and just sat for a moment. Bunch of German soldiers that were riding the tank looking back, just smiling - knowing that if it was 25 years before my ass would have been grass!

Very, very impressive looking into the muzzle of a tank gun. Said gun attached to a grey monster with that square white German cross on it was, unsettling.

When the British were testing the Atomic bomb in Australia in the 1950's, one of the tests included placing a Centurian, with its engine running, about 600 yards from the detonation.

After the test, the tank was found to have suffered only minor damage to its lights, optics, antennas ect and it was determined it only have stopped running when it ran out of fuel! The tank was decontaminated and driven off the test site!

That vehicle was in service another twenty odd years with the Australian Army, and included seeing combat in Vietnam.

It is now set up as a gate guard at a barracks in the northern Australia somewhere...

You need better Nukes.

I'll take an A-10... grin...

A King Tiger against and Abrams? Somebody is kidding themselves.

Killed three miles before the Tigers gets in range? How do that work?

A KonigsTiger's main gun could cause serious problems. Armor heavy enuff to give SOME protection. SERIOUS mobility problems. SUPERBLY trained crews though.

That's why it should be compared to the German Leopard 2.I mean 65 years of difference between.Even on a chitty day my 2000 Chev will smoke a stock 40's Chev.Of the newer tanks I'd grab the Leopard 2.

They are also fantastically fuel thirsty..In GW 1 and 2, it was found that the logistics elements had real problems keeping up with them and it was always a concern they would end up running dry at the wrong time...

Being dead or not but I'd still take the Leopard 2 over a M1.

Well there is no doubt that the three best battle tanks are the Abrams, Leopard, and Challenger. I would hate to have to see a duel between those three although based on the DVD the Abrams has the edge over both but only by a slim margin.

When I was stationed in West Berlin in 1971, I worked with a German civilian (whose father had been a Colonel in the SS), and he told me that a WWII German tank was equivalent to 10 US tanks. Of course, the Americans always had an eleventh tank!

But they didn't. It's not cool to say and it's not cool to do, but US logisitcs forces are without peer from rivals or allies.
Expat

Actually, the only reason they didn't was because the Tanks slowed up their advance and wait for the Loggies...

In one instance it was M1's from the USMC, and they endup waiting for a couple of days...Of course it doesn't help when the enemy folds like a pack of cards

But in both wars, running out of fuel or rounds was the main worry, as it was only at that point the Iraqi's stood any chance of counter attacking, and even then it was slim...

I'm going with the battle tested, Abrams.
If I hadda. Normally I ride in a Ford. .357 cal main gun, no armour. Good speed.

Are you German? No offense but I notice you favor German technology as superior over all others.

The uped gun Sherman Firefly could take the Tiger out also.

It has been a good thread, I learned a lot about tanks.
As an aside, my little brother got to 'drive' an M1 a few years back-he said he was amazed by how hard that thing accelerated from a dead stop-he said it literally pushed him back in his seat.
And this from, what, a 60 ton vehicle?
Pretty cool.

Pulling the turbine will pull the teeth of the M1.

The best defense a tank has is speed and never being where everybody thinks it's suppose to be. If they pull the turbine look for M1's being knocked out all over the place.

Turbine powered M-1s, really are a quiet beast. You wouldnt think that a 72-ton tracked beast of war could sneak up on you, but they can get very close before you hear them. You can hear diesel powered armored vehicles from a long ways away.

Those dang heat seekers can ruin your day!

It was the king of the battlefield if it could fight on its own terms, and it wreaked havoc on M 3s and T 34s, but on the other hand, Shermans and T 34s wiped out Tigers if they could fight them on THEIR terms.

Maybe the reason new research is not going on for the tank is because while MBT's look cool there is no real need in today's battle field environment of the terrorist.

If there is a real need for MBT's, than the turbine is the way to go to move something that big at the speed it needs to move.

As I keep saying speed and never being where everybody thinks the tank should is the best defense the tank has. Far better than the best armour available.

Tim,
What is that saying of the fighter pilots-"Speed is life?"

Also, I don't think we should ever neglect MBT and Artillery.
Just because the 'tangos' don't have them the ChiComs and Norks do by the thousands.
The Soviets used to have entire artillery divisions, if memory serves.
Not a bad idea, that.

The Merkava is interesting because it has the engine in front of the driver, and a large crew compartment to the rear.

The engine in front places more protection between the crew and the enemy.

The rear space allows for carrying additional personnel, and for emergency exit out of the rear of the tank.

Chuck

When one of those tungsten sabos goes through a tank, the thing creates such havoc that what is left of the crew gets sucked right out the exit hole of the projectile.
Nice way to die, eh??

I know little about tanks. Is the Merkava an Abrams variant or a tank unique to the Israelis?

An emergency escape hatch is interesting because I asked an M1 tanker where was the escape hatch I couldn't find one. He just smiled and said, "You don't understand. An escape hatch isn't needed because anything that can penetrate this thing and we are all dead."

I would imagine that anything that can penetrate the Merkava and the crew is dead.

It has a big over and under clamshell door on the back and can be used in a medevac role.....that is one badass ambulance, Achmed.

Making the best tank better
Abrams fares well in Iraq, but safety upgrades sought

By Sean D. Naylor
Times staff writer

Fighting in conditions far removed from the north European plains for which it was designed, the Abrams tank has proven its value in the war in Iraq, according to the Army�s chief of armor.

Not a single tanker has been killed by a conventional antitank weapon, Maj. Gen. Terry Tucker said Feb. 18. The few fatalities suffered aboard tanks have been caused by roadside bombs or small arms, he said.

Nonetheless, the Army is considering upgrades so the Abrams will prevail on battlefields for the next quarter century. Among changes under consideration for the near term are better protections for the tank�s commander and loader while they fire their machine guns, and a new anti-personnel round for the Abrams� 120mm main gun. The long-term upgrades on Tucker�s mind include improved armor and a new main gun.

About 4,500 troops have served on tanks in Iraq. Of those, three soldiers have been killed inside their tanks by roadside bombs. An additional 10 to 15 crew members have been killed while riding with their heads out of the hatch, standing on the tanks, or, in one case, by an insurgent who climbed onto the tank and shot down into the crew compartment, Tucker said.

�I am unaware of any case where any tanker in Iraq has been killed inside of a tank by a penetration of a tank round or RPG or any other munition,� Tucker said. �It�s a pretty safe place to be.�

About 1,135 Abrams tanks have seen action in Iraq, Tucker said, some more than once. Of those, he said, �probably 70 percent have been hit or damaged in some way. In fact, it�s hard to find an Abrams tank out there that has fought in Iraq that has not been damaged.�

Eighty tanks have sustained damage that required them to be sent back to the United States for repairs, said Tucker, noting that the damage was �fairly minor� in some cases.

�If a seam or a weld was broken, that�s pretty delicate work, and we couldn�t do that in theater, so we�ve brought tanks back to the U.S. for welding repairs,� he said.

�About 63 of those 80 tanks will go back to the fleet,� Tucker said. The remaining 17 �will probably never go back to the fleet.�

Those figures mean that 1 to 1.5 percent of the tanks involved in the fight in Iraq might not return to action. �I�ll take those numbers any day,� Tucker said.

Tucker acknowledged that the loss of even a few Abrams tanks has come as something of a reality check to the armor community. In the 1991 Persian Gulf War, during which Tucker commanded a cavalry squadron, tank combat involved Abrams tanks engaging and destroying their Iraqi counterparts with overwhelming fire in the open desert.

�This fight�s different,� he said. �The enemy�s learned from that. And the technique that they�re using is massed fire against one tank: 14, 18, 20 RPGs � I�ve heard reports of tanks taking 50 RPG hits. It�s a new technique that they�re using, and in fact we�re having some significant damage on tanks that has to be repaired before we put them back in the fight.�

Tucker cited the example of an Abrams with the 3rd Infantry Division that took part in the first �thunder run� into Baghdad. The tank was struck by 14 to 18 rocket-propelled grenades, one of which knocked out the hydraulics system so the crew had to operate the turret manually. Nevertheless, the tank completed the first run and then went on the second, its crew still fighting with the tank in manual mode.

�That crew refused to get off of it, because that tank couldn�t be killed,� he said.

Early problems

Not every Abrams was quite as resilient. Tucker estimated that the number of tanks that had to be temporarily abandoned or pulled out of the fight immediately due to combat damage was �at least 17 and probably in the 20s.�

However, no tanks have been permanently abandoned in Iraq, he said. Even if U.S. forces had to scuttle a damaged tank � in some cases by having another tank fire on it; in others, by having Air Force jets destroy the damaged tank with Maverick missiles � to prevent sensitive equipment from falling into enemy hands, U.S. troops retrieved the carcasses and brought them all back to the United States.

The survival rate of the tank and the crewmen was a testament to the Abrams� design, according to Tucker. �The Abrams tank was designed and built to be able to take the kind of punishment it�s been taking in Iraq, and be repaired and put back into the fight,� he said.

�That tank is designed with the ammunition separated from the crew compartment, and if the ammunition is ignited in the storage compartment, the tank is designed for the back of the turret to blow out, so the fire and the explosion goes outward, as opposed to inward, so you don�t injure or kill the crew.�

The general estimated that Iraqi insurgents have used a dozen different types of RPGs against the Abrams in Iraq. �My concern is that in the future we�ll see more of the newer types, which are more powerful and have more capability,� he said.

But contrary to rumor, there is no indication that any �exotic� antitank rounds � including foreign-made missiles such as the Milan, new versions of the RPG, or new tank main gun rounds � have been used against the Abrams in Iraq, the general said.

Other than a couple of enormous custom-made bombs, the Abrams and its crews have survived everything enemy forces in Iraq have thrown at it. Meanwhile, officials plotting the future of the Abrams are not resting on their laurels, according to Tucker.

�We still think of the Abrams tank as the king of the fight, and I�m here to tell you that it is, but I�m also here to tell you that the Abrams tank is 25 years old,� he said.

�We�ve improved it a lot over the years ... but it�s still a 1980 tank, and we have more work to do to keep the Abrams tank king of the battlefield for the next 25 years, because 25 years from now, when the American Army goes to fight, it will go to fight in Abrams tanks.�

In the near term, the Army has studied how the Abrams has fared in Iraq and come up with a series of improvements that it refers to collectively as the tank urban survivability kit.

But these capabilities are not funded in the Army budget, said Maj. Chad Young, assistant product manager for M1, M1A1 and the survivability kit. The service has not yet finalized how much it would cost to put the kit on each tank, Young said.

A program that is funded and will be fielded to tank units in Iraq �probably this summer,� according to Tucker, is an anti-personnel canister round (�a big shotgun round,� Tucker calls it) for the Abrams� 120mm main gun.

Meanwhile, looking farther into the future, �the Abrams tank needs to become more lethal ... [and] more survivable than it is now,� Tucker said. �It�s fairly easy to make it more lethal and more survivable,� he continued. �The challenge is going to be to do that while we try to make it lighter and more mobile.�

Studying new armor

To solve the mobility problem, the Army is examining new types of composite armor and electrified armor that have the potential to be lighter, yet provide a greater level of protection than the highly classified composite armor package with which the Abrams is presently equipped, according to Tucker.

In 2008, Army will begin to field its next-generation family of combat vehicles, the Future Combat Systems. That won�t mean the end for the Abrams, which is scheduled to serve until at least 2040. In fact, the first FCS-equipped unit of action will probably include one FCS battalion and one battalion of Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles, Tucker said.

From (http://www.marinetimes.com/story.php?f=0-MARINEPAPER-710058.php)

They are CDAT's now, Computerized Dumb Ass Tanker, the only thing on the battle field armor wise that can take out an M-1 is a Leopard with the 120mm or another M1A2 SEP.

A clamshell door is not the same thing as an escape hatch which is usually in the floor.

Very interesting thread,read it all. The one thing I will say is the Tiger did not fail because of the superior numbers of shermans,T34's etc. Its major downfall was the loss of air superiority by the Luftwaffe. Even the M1 and the leopard would fail if fighting under un-friendly skies.
My dad was a german partrooper in Normandy and his unit was the ground support for the few tiger 2's in Normandy. They could only move them at night and hide them during the day.
He had several stories of the P47,51's and even the P38 flying around looking for targets of oppertunity,sometimes so low the pilots would wave! They did not dare fire at the planes with their small arms as the entire squadron would decsend and level the area. He always told me a squadron could level a small forest in no time and if you were in there the chance for survival was slim.

nobody said it was....I was elaborating on exactly what that rear exit on the Israeli tank is........it ain't a hatch, it's a big ass clamshell blast door you can walk in and out of.

They rebuilt a Tiger on that show "Tank Overhaul." It had been sitting in a river in Poland for decades.

That Panzer rescued from Poland was a Panther.