Tank Classes Explained - What actually is an MBT?
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- Опубликовано: 19 июн 2024
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Light tank. Infantry tank. Cruiser. Tank Destroyer. Medium Tank. MBT. Heavy Tank. What do these actually mean? What separates a tank destroyer from a light tank? Aren't they all sort of the same anyway? In this AFV crash course I take you through the basics of armoured vehicle classifications, and attempt to clear up any confusions you might have. I even make some funny jokes and show you some cool footage!
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Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:51 Sponsor Message
01:54 Triangle Basics
02:44 Light Tanks
03:30 Heavy Tanks
03:55 Infantry Tank
04:29 Medium Tanks
05:34 Cruiser Tanks
06:02 Tonnage vs Class
06:55 Tank Destroyers
09:20 Main Battle Tanks
10:53 The Survivors
12:15 Outro
All content is presented in historical context for educational purposes. All footage is owned by its copyright holder and is used in this channel under "fair use".
Music by Epidemic Sound 
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1st main battle tank originally called the universal tank was the British centurion only 1 existed 1945 but 105 entered serviced in 1946-1947 .
The Centurion came from the development of the A27 Cromwell & centaur cruiser tank from the earlier A24 Cavalier tank all accentually the same tank with differing engines +internals but exterior basically the same.
The USA would not Have an MBT till the M48 Patton in 1952 developed out in the Korean war & out of M47 & early M46 Patton both being medium tanks.
The M4 Sherman was an Medium tank not a Universal tank later coined MBT by yanks.
USSR T-34 in service from 1940 is the most comparable medium tank to the M4 Sherman that only entered service in late 1942 with the 1st combat in September of that year with mixed results by British crews but any tank at that point was preferable to a shortage of tanks.
The M4 was the Mk1 Sherman, M4A1 & the Mk2 & M4A2 was the Mk3 in British request as the purchaser that was arrived upon after the complaints-limitations of all American the M3 Lee designated grant in British configuration as the radio operator was taken out done by the commander by welding a radio box on the rear of the turret,
hence the grant had 6 crew rather then 7 in the all American Lee.
Can't blame the yanks for they didn't really build a tank by that point beside the light M2 Stuarts which armour it was lacking & gun was lacking until the M2A4 in 1939
M2 AT 1937 with the turret removed with a fixed 47mm Antitank gun placed in was rather popular & nifty according to the veterans I talked to.
The M4 Sherman tank is not as great as Americans think but considering the Americans went into ww2 as civilian economy with tooling set up for war it is impressive they even managed to produce a medium tank let alone shy of 50,000 in ww2 though USSR outdid them but they had war economy!
It's all a matter of context lad but I'm tired of American delusion.
Honestly they came into the war the least prepared & has the luxury of Geographical isolation to develop Arms & vehicles which much of their developments were borrowed From the Commonwealth nations & Britain.
The USA didn't have radar till Britain gave them it.
The USA did not have an effective anti air gun till the Swedish licenced the Bofer's 40mm for US production.
I can be brutal to the USA if I want & show they are original copiers before the Chinese but I am not so harsh!
USA had no tank destroyer & neither di the UK as we both had Motor-gun-carriages/MGC's.
The 3 inch Churchill MGC & M18 Hellcat MGC are nothing like tank destroyer in role or design.
Chrysler merely marketed the M18 they lamely called the Hellcat as USA troops at the time were terrified of German tank destroyers though Why?
Yanks always confuse me in their lunacy!
Panzerjäger=armour hunter=Tank destroyer main element to be such are as follows:
*Panzerabwehr kanone = tank defence cannon = Anti-tank gun which the USA & British MGC's did not contain as wither field howitzers or dual purpose guns.
*Think frontal armour sloped at at least 27° with usually no turret.
*no bearing & as cheap a plant as possible to keep down cost as a Delahaye, Praga or Maybach both being repurposed car engines to power the tank destroyer.
The whole purpose of tank-destroyers was to repurpose the existing automotive industry to produce armoured vehicles powered on a car engine that could effectively engage real tanks!
Put an anti tank gun in armoured up car you essentially have a Panzerjäger my lad!
The Panzerjäger was used to great effect more so on the Eastern front against near seemingly endless USSR T34 tank that for every 1 destroyed the Germans would say more took it's place in some form or another.
Context is everything & the USA as well as Britain had no reason let alone want to redirect civilian luxury automotive industries to making Tank destroyers.
The toffs & political elite would never allow it in the west then or let alone today!
The poor can go without motors but not the rich unlike German that did quite the opposite due to mainly Austrian thoughts on the matter.
Technically speaking The British Archer would be a tank destroyer if not for the detail of the gun being backwards making it a SPG anti tank gun!
British tank development was weird & technically we had 5 or 7 standard tanks in ww2 depending on whom you ask.
USA & the USSR had 1 respectively as the M4 & T34 having relatively recently made industrial sector.
Britain's industries traced back to the Victorian era if not Georgian era in some cases with 1940's technology & so forth slapped on top.
Britain much like Japan was in a constant struggle of tradition & progress in military command!
Our island nations are much older then the USSR & the USA which the latter Britain made.
The earliest anti-tank missile carrier is the FV1620 Humber Hornet from 1958 a joint venture between Britain & Sweden using the Malkara (missile) a joint development By Britain & Australia.
ATGM vehicles came in the need & want to replace (self-propelled-gun) & (Motor-gun carriages) a British ww1 invention.
The French Nord SS.10 is the only earlier ATGM I am aware of before the Malkara.
French Nord SS.10 were put in quad launcher on doge trucks but only by the 1960's with not much detail from what I have read.
i am tired of People conflating GMC's & SPG's with tank destroyer/armour hunters for the later is obsolete in practice & has not been further developed since the Axis in ww2!
In many ways most power today try their best to avoid using or give Nazi technology a new sheen to not be associated with said.
I'd like to work on old Axis doctrines but I guarantee non would give me funding to do so as the Mechanical & electrical engineer that I am!
Feel like it’s a missed opportunity for a world of tanks plug here
I'm going to answer the last question: Connectivity is the ability to communicate, integrate with, and gather battlefield data for a tactical network. Autonomy is the ability to operate partly or entirely as an unmanned system and/or use AI to enhance the offensive/defensive capabilities of tanks on an individual or squadron level.
Ah yes, light, medium, heavy, MBT, TD, and british, my favorite tank types
And then theres another type: Germany on crack
And the other type is: Germany on crack
mien favriot is thee gjerrman tank
British tanks always dissapoint me, they drink too much fuel called "tea" or something
Beaten to the thought by 7 months
Next, evolution of german AA tank (or maybe world AA tank)
Good idea. Maybe do NATO and Soviet/Russian AA systems like the German Flakpanzer Gepard and the Soviet ZSU-24-3 Shilka. Also go into the roll of how these AA guns now are often used to support ground operations like the Shilka Aleppo.
Actually good idea, i would love to see the evolution from trucks with mgs to complex system like the panstir
Yes
Jerman udah nggak pake Gepard
@@meddy833 wasnt the shilka zsu-23-4 or am I just trippin
A small correction for the stug, because it wasn't actually a tank destroyer. It was an artillery piece. Though it would be used as a tank destroyer it was more by placing them for ambushes and when initially fielded they would be moved behind the infantry and were even an arm of the artillery regiment
It started as an artillery piece but transitioned into being used as a dedicated tank destroyer, so it still counts. Plus again, the categories are more about their doctrinal use than how they were actually equipped, and by the end of the war Germany was absolutely using them doctrinally as TDs.
@TheRedKing247 they were good at it too
First stugs yes, like the III A and sturmhaubitze 42 G, but when they received the long 75mm gun, it was definitely a tank destroyer.
I guess, technically, the StuG F still counts, because there it left the assault artillery role, becoming dedicated tank destroyers. They did have however cousins, that have the same chassis, but having a short barreled 105mm howitzer instead of the longer 75 mm gun. The StuH 42s (Sturmhaubitzen), that still have the original role.
An assult gun
Great video for a casual armour enthusiast like me. As everything, a tank is developed for a specific purpose, with design priorities in line with that specific purpose. It makes a lot of sense that you can't have it all, and the triangle visualises that nicely.
But as you mentioned, it kind of falls apart when evaluating WWII tank destroyers, and modern MBTs, the latter of which kind of _does_ have it all. The usefulness of the triangle is ultimately limited by its oversimplification - as any 3 axis system is, really.
I would propose maybe a pentagon, with the axes 'tactical flexibility' and 'monetary cost' added. This way the applicability of the system is expanded to cover tank destroyers, and it can also be used to explain how the modern MBT still leaves room for AFVs like the M1128 Stryker and maybe even vehicles like the PzH 2000 to exist.
Ugh, the Pentagon is the source of most problems- LOL! I get your point, though, and it's a good one.
Aghm.
Don't think so.
I think you make fair points but to me the Stryker which I openly admit have absolutely HATED because of its high profile our country has this deadly fascination when building vehicles so they are more noticeable and targetable at distance along with less protection for the American soldiers in them just so the damn thing is deployable has always been my grind against it.
The problems is: the pentago. Also falls short. There is hundreds of small factors that go into a tank that can change depending pn the context
@@m_fredi9549 You can list the issues down to a very finite issues but a basic overall reformation of the mans concept to me is good enough. It does not mean each category cant have hundreds of sub categories or data inputs. Start with the basics and work inward in a more detailed manner.
Sprocket players that didn't heard about "sacrifice one to get another stat": 100 ton unpenetrable tank with ultra powerful canon and mobility that light tanks will be jealous of.
in Sprocket there is no such a thing such as Cost or reliability, so that kind of stuff ends up happening
TBF, if you look at something like a Merkava or an Abrams, they really are 70+ ton monsters with powerful engines pushing them up to speeds formerly seen only on armored cars and tankettes, all while being almost impenatrable from the front and well protected on the sides and top, and mounting a cannon that can level a midsize concrete building in 2-3 shots or push a DU rod through a full meter of hardened steel.
They truly are modern marvels of engineering.
@@NathanNakaji-be1kz Sprocket isn't supposed to reflect modern tanks tho, only WWII and some post war stuff.
So an important thing to include is that "MBT" isnt necesarily a classification of tank but more a definition of role.
A country can have a light tank as an MBT, or a country can have a medium tank as an MBT. As long as it is "The" dedicated battle tank of a country. (Hence the word "Main")
I totally see why you didnt go into this though since it is a considerably more modern take on tanks and trying to use it in regards to the second world war would make this whole conversation needlessly complex.
Great video as always, perhaps it would be interesting to make a similar video but about amored vehicles in general or helicopters!
Yep, that's pretty much the point. People make up stuff and their own definitions.
And then we have the STRV 103 which even questions what defines a tank in the first place. Imo it is very much a tank, it just doesnt have a turret but was intended and used as Swedens MBT.
Just like the original designations of light, medium and heavy (according to the video) - it describes a role, rather than the size.
@@kjellkriminell372 I wouldn't say it brings into question what even is a tank, it simply doesn't have a turret, a unique armour design and a very good cannon which a lot of other nations used as well
@@jeffbenton6183 true, however countries did have specific designations (regarding weight and caliber) for those, as opposed to MBT's
The Chieftain made a video not to long ago saying that the Tank Triangle simplifies things to much.
there are other components of a tank that are important, Ergonomics, Fire Controls, observation equipment etc. all components that are honestly a lot more important in todays day and age.
Very true, the triangle does simplify things a lot, but then again, how do you measure ergonomics and observation capabilities?
Maybe there can be a multiplier of some sort? Adding too many sides to the triangle risks muddling with complexity, but where the hard stats is its "100%" potential, worse ergo reduces how well a crew can reach and sustain it. For example, a powerful gun doesn't work as well if bad optics means the commander and gunner have a hard time getting on target, or the turret is so small that getting ammo into the breach takes a minor juggling act.
Top speed might look good if you look at the engine power and the final gear ratio, but if you have a hard time putting the transmission into the final gear, or the final gear has a habit of shattering under load, then you're never actually going to go that fast. Armor has to take into account armor quality, and maybe assembly methods. Riveted tanks are more likely to injure their crew on impact than welded ones. Good escape methods means you have more good crews surviving.
So maybe you can have a double triangle. One outer triangle listing the hard stats, one inner triangle of how easy it was for crews to hit that max potential. For example, Pz 3s and 4s were decently ergonomically designed, so the crew can do what was needed fairly easily. However the Panther has a bunch of ergo and reliability problems, which would drag down it's firepower, mobility, and armor protection in all but the most expert crews.
Of course you can't really take into account production numbers with this, just 1v1 duels. 1 super awesome tank looks good against 1 ok tank, but not 10 ok tanks.
My only problem with that is how does something like ergonomics define a tank role? Same with fire control.
@@blackopscw7913Agreed, the tank triangle is fine as long as you don't try and use it to measure how 'good' a tank is, only its intended purpose.
@@RainShadow-yi3xr Same here
I feel like the Iron Triangle has a major weakness in that it doesn't take into account how well a crew can use it to it's potential. Having a big gun seems nice until you realize the optics are garbage, the commander can barely see outside, and it takes a minute to manhandle the ammo into the breach. All the horsepower in the world won't help you if you keep shredding your transmission, or it gets stuck in 2nd. Thick angled armor looks nice until it gets in the way of crew space or escape hatches.
Crew potential neutered the early French tanks of what on paper looked like very good stats for their time. But a decent gun and armor became massive problems when the commander had to practically do everything in the turret, and communication/coordination was awful. This makes some tanks in War Thunder feel more capable than what they really were since they only look at hard stats.
Very good point. Also the fact that respective countries control what numbers are known also doesn't help in evaluating modern tanks. Russia isn't going to tell the truth if lying gets more sales and the same can be said with the US or even comparing export models vs main models.
Ah yes, The Panther Paradox
Because you can configure a tank in many different ways while staying in the same triangle, but you can not fundamentally alter any of the three points without effecting the others.
@@johanmetreus1268 I mean, you could make an engine a bit bigger if you decided that the crew should just deal with breathing engine fumes all the time, and the turret boys better figure out how to curl into a ball so their feet can fit.
@@Appletank8 ...or you could remove all the ammunition inside and have some shells strapped to the turret... yes, I get your point.
Should be a fourth parameter, internal space.
You could argue that the iron triangle is still true today. It's just that modern MBTs tend to be decent enough at everything that there isn't really a need to employ several different fighting tanks anymore. And whilst the steel hexagon brings up some very important points the triangle lacks, the iron triangle has that simple beauty where making one aspect stronger directly weakens the other two.
right? what I'm hearing is that you can still theoretically build a modern heavy tank and modern light tank, they would just be obsolete; an MBT is therefore a modern medium tank
@@potats5916 I believe the limit at this point is volume, you simply can't build heavier armor because the tank would be too large to fit onto a train flatbed car, and you can't build a faster vehicle because even engineered surfaces like roads are disintegrating underneath the vehicles already.
The thumbnail explained it perfectly! Light, medium, heavy, mbt, tank destroyer, and finally: *British*
May i add that the british classification of Infantry Tanks and Cruiser tanks do not easily fit into the triangle nor the common perception of Light, Medium, and Heavy, as their roles in the wider context of the British doctrine is far more important (though i don't really have a great grasp of)
As this video is for dummies, i wouldn't blame anyone if this is any way confusing, also there may be Literary errors so do correct me on those.
you would have Light (Valentine) /Medium (Matilda, Churchill) Infantry Tanks, and Light (Stuart, likely Tetrarch) /Medium (Cromwell) Cruiser Tanks
i introduce the 3Ds, Doctrine Dictates Design
British Infantry tanks in Doctrine filled similar roles like that of the US and German Medium Tanks where they are there to provide greater firepower and protection with sufficient mobility to withstand contemporary weaponries without requiring heavy logistical equipment to Maintain, Deploy, and Recover.
British Cruiser Tanks on the other hand were performing more like the common perception of Light Tanks, in that they are primarily for lighter and more maneuverable cavalry groups suited for Reconnaissance and Flanking maneuvers, without requiring significantly greater logistical support to Maintain, Deploy, and Recover than that of the common AFV.
Weight too can be a factor for designations but not the main deciding factor, a Heavy Tank would require heavier logistical support and heavier equipment to maintain, deploy, and recover, although this depends heavily on the equipment used and being procured by the Armed Forces employing AFVs (Armored Fighting Vehicles)
as Doctrine dictates Design, different armed forces facing different factors that shape their doctrine, will have different Designs for their own AFVs.
in the case of Casemate Tank Destroyers, i raise that Tank Destroyers in design were mostly because of the lack of Technological advancements sufficient to mount even more powerful guns of the time to a turret without sufficient and if not heavy modifications with significant downsides, case in point the early US TDs which were basically Shermans that went on Diets and coming out with Body Dysmorphia.
This has been my depressingly un-caffeinated Ted Talk, if you've gotten here reading it, Thank you.
That's not really accurate. The British did have their own classification of light tanks, mostly machinegun-armed scout tanks equivalent to the Panzers I and II. Cruisers were doctrinally equivalent to medium tanks, being intended for the exploitation role. They tended to be lighter armoured and faster than contemporary mediums, but not to the point of lights, and their tendency to be undergunned until the Cromwell had more to do with the British being short on antitank guns until the Americans started providing them in bulk than a doctrinal choice.
The infantry tank classification was essentially the result of "preparing to fight the last war" thinking. The British (and French, although they didn't last through the first year of the war) retained the idea from World War I that the primary role of tanks was to breach trenchlines and to provide cover for infantry advancing behind them. The fall of France demonstrated the flaw of this approach and while the Churchill finished design work and went into production afterwards, it was the last infantry tank. Other powers had infantry support vehicles, but they were generally designed for providing fire support from behind the infantry rather than as mobile cover for infantry.
Ironically, infantry tanks might actually be useful in Ukraine, but a tank with enough protection to be able to perform that role on the modern battlefield would probably be prohibitively heavy.
@@Draxynnic Thanks for the addition, i didn't hear of the specific classification of British Light Tanks, will read up on those from whatever material i can find
the case with the Churchill though is that there's still the Black Prince Tank, which is in a sense an evoluton of the Churchill, although if we're going with the standard of Mass-Produced and has a History of Service then i can agree with the point
Infantry Tanks in Ukraine would probably work if it weren't for accurate Artillery, dense Minefields, and ubiquitus surveillance, as you pointed out it would be prohibitively heavy and i add would still be extremely vulnerable especially from Mines, and would require heavy support to Deploy, Recover, and Repair.
@@nightshade4873 There's a "Light tanks of the United Kingdom" Wikipedia article that provides a decent overview.
The Black Prince was certainly experimented with, but it didn't reach operational use for good reason. During its development, the British were also experimenting with more conventional heavy tanks (due to concerns about the Churchill's speed) and the somewhat ridiculous Tortoise (not quite as ridiculous as the Maus and E-100, but the Germans weren't the only ones to experiment with superheavies...). In the end, though, once the designs being put into production were those that reflected battlefield experience, it was the cruiser series that actually saw mass production.
Part of my thinking with a "modern infantry tank" would be having frontal-armour level protection in all directions. Would make it less susceptible to drones, artillery, and mines, but probably prohibitively heavy as noted, and likely still subject to mobility kills from mines hitting the track. Western designers also wouldn't make them due to the assumption of an air power advantage (which Ukraine obviously doesn't have).
Love how you included the Wiesel tankette. I love playing it in War Thunder with the ATGMs. Feels like a hamster tumbling around on the battlefield with a rocket tube
Other reason why tank destroyers faded away (which did touch on with the Panzerjagers) is that, especially in Germany, the tank destroyers were built as a way to reuse materials in an ongoing war. An issue that is not present nowadays since we haven't had to fight a war like WW2 and so are not desperate to make use of everything we have.
Great video on tank classification! Tanks really are based on design, philosophy, and nation to go along with the speed, armor, and firepower triangle in the video.
But deep down, a tank is still a tank. And that's not about to change anytime soon.
Rather than using “classic” and “modern” to label tank destroyers I would class them more as the ones with armor being “assault guns” with the thin armored ones being classed more as “tank destroyers” rather than looking at what they’re red with. Things like a StuG or an ISU-152 can and often did act as tank destroyers but they were intended to support attacks, thus them having armor. Sturmgeschutz literally means “assault gun” after all. The thin armored vehicles like the M18 Hellcat, Nashorn, or even modern ATGM carriers like the M901 can help on the attack but they’re designed more to act as ambusher on the defense against tanks. None of them are as flexible as a true tank and so do need to be classed as something else.
I mostly agree but German casemate TDs like the Jagdpanther were intended for ambushing tanks and were, along with the Stug, also used as quicker to produce substitutes for tanks. classifying German TDs is pretty hard.
I love how I’m the thumbnail it’s all the different classes then it’s just Britain. When you look at it, British tanks just seem like somebody dared a tank designer to do something, like make a backwards tank in the case of the archer, or make a giant barn in the case of the fv4005, or make a tank that suits its name in the case of the tortoise.
or the achilles which is just a sherman without a roof
No way you got a world of warships sponsor in a video about tanks. World of tanks would've been on point
the steel hexagon as an evolution of the iron triangle is a great idea, just needs some refining.
Hexagons are the best-agons
This was a concise presentation. You explained the obsolete tank classes better than I could. You even split the "light tank" into air-transportable and troop carrying, with or without merging into the tank destroyer. I would have gone back to the days when tanks first crawled across the battlefield, were split into large tanks with lots of firepower (breakthrough siege engines) and the tracked replacement for the armored car, the Whippet and FT-17 light tanks. That would only confuse the issue because the FT-17 was not really any faster than the heavy Mk VIII Liberty tank -- and there were efforts to put an infantry section or half-platoon on the heavy tanks.
Just found your channel last night and started binging love your content
thanks to the thumbnail, i now know that "british" is a tank class
Discuss about recoiless rifle and tanks using it pls
Anyone: *mentions the triangle of firepower, armor and mobility*
Lazerpig: so you have choosen... Death.
I can't remember where I heard/read it but I remember the MBT being described as the armour of a super heavy, the firepower of a heavy, the maneuverability of a medium and the speed of a light all in one package
Great Video and the Balance of the 3 Primary things all tank design strives for and one of the first to mention the other triangles that must be balanced in tank design.
If I remember correctly the ideal horsepower ratio was 13-15 per ton and is still the ideal, but I think most modern tanks are closer to the 17-20+ range if HP per ton of tank due to the amount of weight of newer MBTs.
Great points about air drop and one thing that never is considered is the fire control system will need to be completely re-boresighted to have any type of initial accuracy at a distance where you want to kill your enemy at.
Thanks for this video and the knowledge ya bring brother.
For most modern tanks it's 20-25hp/t, up to 30hp/t in some cases
During ww2 only few tanks had power ratio in the 13-15hp/t range, Sherman has around 13hp/t iirc.
@@Ally5141 I knew the power ratios had improved but not as far as you mentioned which is highly possible with turbine engines. Do we have a max HP/T for diesel engines currently used today? Just curious on this. I believe ya.
Thanks for the info and correction.
@@meddy833 that's not depend on the engine type, most MBTs will have power ratios in that area, I only know about two turbine powered tanks
20 - 25 per ton are the most modern tanks.
Thanks. I knew it must be up in the 20s for some vehicles.
@@korana6308
Love your videos! Keep em coming!
I think you got the TDs backwards. I see the 'classic' vehicle as a light, highly mobile vehicle with a big gun that fought from ambush whenever possible. The 'modern' ones were the vehicles with armor piled on so they could attack tanks head on and prevail.
I believe I once heard Nick Moran (The Chieftain) once mention in passing that the M1 Abrams was pretty much a TD, since it was optimized to engage tanks and didn't even have HE at first. He has also mentioned that modern attack helicopters fill classic TD doctrine neatly.
why did WOWS sponsor this video and not WOT???
That is a very good question
Because everyone watching this video already plays either WOT or WT. It’s a question of market saturation.
Why spend money showing people product A who already use your product A (or a competitor) when you can show them a similar product B that you might get more conversion on.
@CMDR_Hadion By that logic a company selling medicine for athlete foot should also make commercial here. And no. Not everyone plays those games.
@@armija but you have heard of them. If you’re watching tank videos on RUclips, you have definitely heard of them.
0:40 You have me with " will this intro ever end"
I was laughing my ass off thah
LOL "Will this intro ever end?" Great video and explination...
I remember being pissed off when War Thunder changed the classification of several vehicles, including the American M18 Hellcat and the Italian B1 Centauro, from tank destroyers to light tanks. They completely ignored doctrine and usage in warfare, and just went, "They're lightly armored and highly mobile, so they're light tanks."
This does leave a few classifications out though. "Self-propelled gun" is a term thrown around for various big guns mounted in open versions of other vehicles, or on trucks. What separates these from tank destroyers?
Also, can a vehicle like the B1 Centauro still be classified as a tank destroyer in modern times? They're definitely not used like light tanks, but they do also fill a reconnaissance role. They also stick to a standard cannon, not ATGMs (although the Italians also have the Freccia and Dardo with those), so they're a bit confusing.
Also the same case with the TAM's and the P40 in terms of classification.
Calling it a cruiser or cavalry tank might make sense, it's got more firepower than a light tank with similar mobility and armour but it's much bigger and more complex.
Hi
Great video. Compliments.
Ok so I'm working on an alternate history story involving airships. And this video helps with that. Classifications tend to be self-explanatory, but it's the nuances and details I was trying to understand so this helps massively.
Great video as always! 🔥
These classifications remind me of warship classification. Just like the tanks, light and heavy cruisers were mainly named after their armament (6 v 8 inch), and battlecruisers were the fast, but lightly armored variant of the battleship, that ended up being replaced as propulsion tech evolved, giving the fast battleship a chance
Finally, i love your videos
Thank you for a good video. It is made very cleanly. I have two questions:
1- Why MBT's made heavies obsolate? A new type of "ultra" heavies could be used to break deadlocks. Why this is not a thing?
2- Why light tanks were popular to begin with? (Apart from the "tankette" philosophy of post WW1 era.) Why they weren't always outclassed by specialized reconnaissance vehicles?
Hello! There are two very simple explanations for both of these things
1. The thing is, breaking deadlocks can be much easier done with other vehicles and weapons, a heavy tank by necessity has to have a lot of frontal armour, but in a breakthrough mission of WW2 style, it would also need a good bit of side armour too. Even the most heavily armoured tanks today, mainly the M1A2 SEPv3 for current service ones (there are significantly more well armoured vehicles that have not entered production yet, like T-14 armata which is stuck in trials with little funding to fix identified issues due to the industry having other priorities right now) have something along the lines of up to 900mm of kinetic protection (main danger to tanks from other tanks) and up to 2000mm chemical protection (basically everyone else), but while this does sound rather impressive, this is mostly frontally, side protection can be great against chemical but not kinetic rounds, the M1A2 SEPv3 is something in the ballpark of 70+ tons just to have that frontal protection. Adding even half the side kinetic protection, which would be insufficient to protect the tank from any side shots still, would likely require an increase in weight of around 30%, but then you need a bigger engine, a bigger hull, so you find yourself with your tank weighs ballooning into the 100 tons + territory, but at that point there will be massive logistical issues and technical issues we cant really solve in a practical manner even today. And lets say the introduce a tank like that, what would anyone else need to do to defeat it? Well, make their tank gun slightly bigger, the M1A2's L44 gun maxes out at a theoretical maximum penetration of around 900mm, but if you made it longer, or also wider, you can likely make it be able to penetrate more than 1000mm easily, something which pretty much eveyrone has made prototypes of, and you can, even if a bit jankily, stick those guns into your old chassis and the enemy armour advantage vanishes away. There are other factors of improving protection without resorting to adding weight I didnt go into, but they are also being utilised
2. Light tanks were extremely popular because they provided good protection from most common weapons of the era (back during the interwar period an anti tank rifle was an innovation) and could provide decent firepower to support troops, but very quickly fell off once anti tank weapons became more common and eventually so man portable that the protection from light tank armour became a nonfactor. Them being extremely easy to produce even in something like a civilian train production facility also helped, as you didnt need much investment in the infrastructure to upkeep them
Evolution of tank/spg shells? And/or their development? Awesome video
Quick note that the Iron triangle only looks at raw stats and oftentimes it has very important exceptions.
Ignoring the issue of logistics, as heavy tank can theoretically be as fast as a medium or light tank, even (as the IS7, for example).
The problem with the iron triangle stems from ignoring the soft factors of any army, which are mainly logistics, ergonomics, and crew survivability.
A heavy tank that may catch fire or get stuck frequently and lead their crew to abandon the tank (or die inside it) is worth nothing compared to a medium tank that provides an easy and viable way to protect the crew from these dangers.
You could argue that the sturmtiger was the best assault gun and vehicle of WWII given you ignore that ONLY 14 SHELLS COULD BE STORED, AND YOU NEEDED A CRANE TO LOAD THEM. Same thing applies to just about any other vehicle that isn't "loyal" to the crew. (like T34s produced with cut corners, that caused the crew not to be able to go further than 2nd gear for risk of transmission break (or the lever breaking due to pressure).
Fact is, one of the reasons the Tiger series were enough of a success even with the many engine and transmission issues (not to mention the tracks getting stuck in mud) was that everything inside the tank aided it to respond to the crew very well. Every single tool was correctly signaled with bright colors to be seen even under heavy smoke, and the seats were actually hospitable for the long hours inside the vehicle that crews would spend. This all contributes to a crew making the most out of its tank, and essentially proving that the Iron triangle is much too limited to hard factors to portray an accurate picture of a tank's worth.
Either way, you did make a great video explaining the iron triangle's concept and the ways tanks were classified.
"Will this intro ever end?"
That line alone in your script means you deserve a Like.
tbh, the armour triangle is a good referance point, in my eyes you have to think about the erganomics of the tank. how easily can the loader load the gun, how comfy is it to stay in the tank for long periods of time. how easy is it to see out of etc
thank you for using world of tanks icons lol. made it easier to keep track.
Always thought they were better than War Thunders attempts!
I really enjoyed this video. I always wondered though why do we still call modern tanks such as Abrams and Leopard 2 MBTs when due to their heavy weight they should have a more restricted mobility and therefore be more similar to the heavy tanks of WW2
Because they fulfil the roles of both infantry- and cavalry tanks, which is what makes them universal. There is simply no benefit in trying to build tanks for different roles.
😂😂😂😂 will this intro ever end? Hilarious
Ah yes, the thumbnail shows the 6 different types of tanks
-Light
-Medium
-Heavy
-MBT
-Tank destroyer
And then there's just...
-🇬🇧
And then there's just...Chucrhill
i do love how this can all be summed up with 3 main classes which defiend their roles, and then you have us drunk brits with 2 completly different classes because we are stubon and like to do our own thing
I like how in the thumbnail Churchill is classified as a british tank.
I believe that the iron triangle is still relevant. All that would really need to be done is simply some scaling adjustments.
The raw metric for connectivity would be the data rate of the data link terminals. For example Link 16 typically runs between about 30 and 120 kbits/s. However as with everything actual capability is more complicated.
Current Link 16 hardware could easily manage >1 megabit rates were that deemed necessary, but of course that could only happen as part of a NATO-wide agreement with well managed implementation programme. You can't just go shoving masses of data out on to a network that isn't expecting it. (Imagine the dressing down you'd get for DoSing your own C4ISR system lol) Then we would also need to consider resistance to traditional electronic warfare methods like jamming and spoofing.
You could use antenna output as proxy for the former, but that won't account for whether that is output from a directional or an omnidirectional antenna. This is especially important as AESA antennas keep getting smaller, cheaper and more power dense and so can be used as for a comms as well as radar applications.
Resistance to spoofing is of course a qualitative rather than quantitative dimension and the only good proxy metric I can think of would be the amount of surplus processing capacity available to perform authentication on incoming data. But here again are more complications: Do you run authentication sequentially or in parallel? How connected are the systems in your vehicle _internally_ ? Are they set up to share capacity? How much do they tax the vehicle's generating capacity? etc. etc.
Great video again 👏👍
About modern light tanks. The Type 62 and the ZTQ-15 are both Chinese light tanks designed specifically for usage in the mountainous southern region that larger and heavier main battle tanks would struggle in.
well im no expert but i think the stell hexagon would work like this:
*mobility-
-how fast is the tank?
-whats its reverse speed?
-how fast can it accelerate and swich gears?
-can it turn on the spot and how well can it turn on the spot?
*lethality-
-how much armour can the gun go trough?
-whats the guns max. range?
-what type of shells can it shoot?(APFSDS,HEAT-VT,HESH,etc.)
*autonomy-
-does the tank have thermals and what generation of thermals does it have (to my knowlage : gen I trough III are regular old night vision)
-how much situational awareness the crew optimaly can have?
-does it have AI assisted 360 vission tech?
-how much can the tank oparate without R&R?
-how relaible is the tank and how easy it is to fix/maintain?
*adaptability-
-how flexable is the tank?
-how many difirent types of tarreins can it traverse without issiue?
-can the tank be easyly modified/upgraded (via either new varriants , armour packages or easyly applied modifications and/or waepon systems)
*connectivity-
-how easyly can the tank crew (esspesialy the commender) cominicate whith other units?
-this inclueds: other tanks , İFV's , infintary , heli's , any type of bombardment capable air ; nayv or ground veichel / vessel ,etc.
-how easyly can it call for support? (this is more dependent on the command structure of the millitary the tank is used by)
-can it launche/connect whith survalianse drones?
-what type of info. can the drone provide
-to what extent can the tank benifit from the survalianse drones in question?
-how big is the drone?
-how long can the drone stay in the air and how long does the drone take to do R&R?
-how easyly can the drone be shot down or taken out of action?
-what type of equipment does the drone have and what can it carry (fuel tanks , eloctronic warfare equipment , guided ordinanse , laser designator , etc.)
-many more things that i dont have the patianse to list
-can the tank call direct JTAC's? (via laser designators or via relaying cordinants)
*survivability-
-how many hits can the tank ... well ... tank without being desibled / imobilased / destroyed -- poped?
-how well can it protect the crew?(aka the most expensive and irraplatiable part of a tank)
-how much composites and armour does the tank have?
-does it have smoke launchers?
-does it have active protection systems? (like the trophy system)
-does it have blow-out pannels?
İ hope i gave some usefull knowlage here , have a good day/night ! :)
and also i answered ur question @RedWrenchFilms ! muhahahahahah!!!!!! >:D
personally i would classify the two types of tank destroyers as sneakies and chonkers, sneakies are thinly armored and relied mostly on speed and stealth, even the awkward marder 38(t) with its tall silhouette fits this, since it was designed to easily dismount the gun into a towed AT gun, very sneaky, then you have StuG IIIs and SU-85s and ISU-152s and Elephants and Tortoises, relatively thick armor, absolute units, chonkers, if you will.
I'd say that if not the hexagon, there is at least one thing the Iron Triangle needs these days, and it's situational awareness.
Ah, yes. The six classes of tanks:
Light
Medium
Heavy
MBT
Tank Destroyer
🇬🇧
When are we getting the part 2 of the attack heli video?
About the hexagon,. I believe an extra dimension should be added the price of the tank. Here's a funny example of an experimental heavy tank Object 490. It had insane armor, literally impossible to penetrate from the front even with modern technology (although vulnerable from the sides to modern ammo, but impenetrable back then, and had a really weak rear armor even back then. A lot of firepower: The main rotating turret with 125mm could cover 270° field of fire but couldn't fire backwards. The auxiliary turret could rotate 360° but only had a 40mn full auto cannon and a 7,62 machine gun. However the secondary had an elevation of 80° and could be used as an AA self defense. The heavy tank prototype was even faster than MBT because it had 2 MBT engines. The project was abandoned for being too expensive.
currently outside of these 3 categories you would have to add, price, flexibility, weight (as price affects mobility also :D, look at mobility of abrams vs T90 - its the same). Now you can just pay more (make expensive tank) that is just great firepower, armor and mobility. But costs as much as other 2-3 tanks. So make it a hexagon.
MBT's are just classes of Heavy or Medium tanks. The thing is, you have to adjust the scale to modern times and not to WW2 times. Also since tanks got more expnesive you cant rly run 2-3 tank types anymore. For example Korean MBT is a medium tank, while US or German is a heavy tank - so even the triangle would work like in WW2.
Comparing a first MBT to WW2 tanks in triangle is as effective as comparing WW2 tanks to WW1 - put a Tiger into a WW1 tanks triangle and it will be excellent at everything.
2:06 is that taken in Denmark? It appears to be a danish Centurion, and a danish Leopard 1a5DK in the background
Everyone says the Centurion and Chieftain were MBTs because they had all 3 points of the triangle, but their mobility is abysmal. They are slower than Tiger I and King Tigers, their mobility is outclassed by any common WWII medium tank.
Yes on top of that. The first versions of a Centurion tank mounted literally the same caliber gun 76mm as the T34 original gun... So it's literally no different from any other tank, except the Brits just called it an MBT. The sooner people will realize it the sooner they will understand that those definitions are all made up.
@@korana6308 please, apart from a similar calibre the two guns had nothing in common. The difference was even greater than the two 8,8 cm guns used by the Germans.
All definitions are made up per default, that is how we end up having any at all.
Love how the thumbnail had: MBT, Tank Destroyer and then whatever the British were doing.
i'd like to see something like an a updated video on this where it inculdes "super heavy tanks" like the Panzer VIII Maus and maybe also artillery
Maus is essentialy the firepower and armor slider turned to 100 and mobility slider turned to 5
Neat little video. As we all understand, the triangle simply falls off in relevance come the 1950s.
Had this discussion in a other forum. and.. well surprisingly most people agree. While the iron triangle is important. Its not the be all end all.
For example, compare the IS2 to the Tiger 2. Fire power considerably higher, Armour, quite a bit higher, mobility, well slightly lower, but that is really only doe to poor gearing. The power/weight is actually better at IS2 as well.
The the discussion is what gives. And the answer was pretty much everything else. Ergonomic, crew communication, ammo capacity, visibility, gun depression.
While IS2 is a consederly better tank looking at the iron triangle, the general consensus was that the Tiger 2 probobly would be a better operating tank. While when the IS2 get shot on target, it for sure would win, but the Tiger 2 would be much more likely to do so. Not only with higher fire rage, but better optics and better way to hold shot on target.
The armor of the IS2 is also considerably thicker, but more brittle. And anything else than a head on confrontation the added armor and gun would matter little.
Amazing video
I needed this 6 months ago but you have solved so much time, you could of mentioned light tanks are great because they take alot less material and time to make plus are usaly esayer to repear and don't tend to need repairs often unless there "throaway" tanks,
Heavy tanks are the opposite and because there so slow they will be taking alot of damage, in moderm era most wepons are stronger then conventional armor and so useing heavy armor is just useless.
And so arnor changed being still expensive but lighter, adionaly agants modern weppons speed is better then lots of armor
In the future I believe reliability and fuel economy will also become factors. As drones progress in military actions, the need for being able to operate with limited logistical support or sporadic at times.
"will this intro ever end?" 😂😂😂
I'd argue the vital piece in the change from mediums and heavies into MBTs was ammo technology
During WW2 more firepower meant almost exclusive bigger, longer guns with 75 mm starting out as some of the biggest tank shells and ending the war as the bare minimum for anti tank guns
But with the development of HEAT and APDS/APFSDS gun caliber stopped being so important and heavies like the conqueror or M103 became irrelevant when the smaller centurion and M60 had significantly smaller guns but had almost equal anti tank performance
it gets even more confusing when you factor things like cruiser tanks, infantry tanks,cavalry tanks, super heavy tanks, spgs.
bt tanks were probably somewhere between a medium tank and a infantry tank.
I think the new ensurement for tanks should be he {insert name here} pentagon with; Protection, Mobility, Firepower, Size, Adaptability.
Interesting and when it came to the classic tank Destroyers the exceptions are the ones used by the United States in World War II M36 Stonewall Jackson M10 Wolverine M18 Hellcat turret designs.
Rotating turrets weren't stable enough to operate powerful guns. The Panzer IV had a short barreled 7.5cm gun but the Jagdpanzer IV had a long barreled 7.5cm gun just like Panther. The Jagdpanther had a long barreled 8.8cm gun whilst Tiger I sported a short barreled 8.8cm gun. A casemate allowed for a powerful gun but also meant that once immobilized the tank destroyer was useless. A rotating turret tank could at least become a bunker.
Missed opportunity to be sponsored by world of tanks
"Will this intro ever end?" Hahahaha
I think this is why I prefer the WWI and WWII tanks in World of Tanks. There's so much more variety in them. When you get up to the tier 9 and 10, and then the 'modern armour' stuff, it starts to feel like every single tank is the same. What really is the difference between the Challenger 1, the Abrams, the Leopard 1, the T-80, and the Merkava 1? If you're about to say "Oh, all those are super different because of these little details.", compare the question with, What is the difference between the Churchill I, the M3 Lee, the Hetzer, the KV-2, and the AMX ELC Bis?
I believe that the iron triangle is actually a 3d iron pyramid with the 4th point being flexibility- that would solve the tank destroyer problem
ooo, like a tetrahedron scale!
How about your rooikats, centauros, strykers and other big gun armored cars?
We can have all the fancy toys we want, but as it stands, there still isn't a very good replacement for "Man with optical lenses", and probably won't be for a while
MBTs are diversified, but only in weight class (specifically tons between 40 to 70). For example, Japan's Type-10 Hitomaru is lighter than Israel's Merkva, Britain's Challenger, US M1 Abrams tanks, Germany's Leopard 2s, and any countries building MBTs heavier than 65 tons. The Type-10 is less than 50 tons, while also sporting a 120mm gun, just like the 65+ ton tanks. However, they are specialized for Japan's terrain, as well as designed to cross Japan's many bridges that cannot hold anything heavier than 50 tons. The French Leclerc is also below 60 tons, unlike the other Western counterparts.
Russia's T-80/T-90 tanks are also below 50 tons, as well as, due to them being designed during the Cold War, and able to cross most bridges and terrain that would not become unstable with heavy vehicles.
It shows that MBTs still are diversified, but now in weight class instead of mission capabilities unlike during WW2.
U can grade autonomy on how much of the system is automated
Tank video: “sponsored by World of Warships”
World of Tanks: 😳🥺😞😔
What about a tank's cost and manufacturability? I think those are very important during a wartime too.
0:57 does iron triangle work on boats too?
With words like "light, medium and heavy" I just thought it was about weight and naturally heavier tanks would be weighed down by more armor and bigger guns.
My only problem with the iron triangle is the lack of soft factors. Any of these areas in a vacuum serve their purpose, but in combat, the soft factors usually decide how useful these vehicles actually were.
What I would consider the "Soft Triangle" is:
Robustness(How hardy the vehicle is in adverse conditions, such as sand, snow, rubble, etc)
Ease of repair(Duh. Good examples was the Sherman's ease of repair against the Crusaders... Yeah...those poor buggers hated anything not European weather, and were hard to just keep running.)
Comfort(The comfort of the crew can determine a lot of things. Ease to replace other members, ease to reload, how easily the driver can...drive(T34 operators had a hard time shifting), etc)
Alot of people think IFVs are an evolution of Light Tanks, but if you auctually look at it, it seems like it went Halftrack>APC>IFV
So we can say today we have 1.5 types of tanks - the MBT (always a tank), the modern tank destroyer (sometimes a tank), and the IFV (never a tank)
*watches hoping to hear about french "calvary tanks"*
My favorite classifications; Light, Medium, Heavy, MBT, Tank Destroyer, and British.
was expecting world of tanks to be the sponsor haha
And now light tanks are making a comeback with firepower almost equal to mbt and with the development of APS it greatly increased its survivability
Like picking Mario in Mario Kart.
Excellent analogy 😂.
What would you say the Swedish s-tank is then ? It’s kinda a modern classic tank destroyer but it’s also really fast. But has armour too
It’s an MBT!
I feel like a modern tank destroyer kinda like the Jagdpanther, would only be able to be taken out by artillery or air, imagine a normal mbt or chemical projectile not being able to penetrate it's frontal defenses. lol
And then we have engineering marvels like the Bob Semple, which was so well-balanced, it turned the triangular metric into a single point...
The hellcat series will be the best if we are still struggling with armor thickness tho.
Fun fact the Polish made a tank destroyer that was on a BMP platform but mounted a couple or so dozen Brimstone anti tank guided missiles! Seriously it could littely be a nightmare for whole tank battalions
Great video as always!
I'd love to see a video about german super heavy tanks
5:54 You for a slight moment touched on exactly what I'm looking into: *_"Infantry_*_ tanks_ ... but did you use that term previously? or in any of the graphics?
Between 3:55 and 4:29 there is a whole section on them!
@@RedWrenchFilmsI'm afraid you didn't read my comment.
You had some great material about the 3 major types ... light, medium and heavy.
What I pointed to ... cuz I do MilSpec tech_docs: you used the term/name *_"infantry_*_ tank"_ 1 time.
@@BenTrem42 I read it. There is another instance of me using the term at the beginning of the section I have about these vehicles specifically. Watch from 3:55 and you’ll see the part I’m talking about.
#Nomenclature
Okay, used "Infantry" there in narration and also in the graphic. (Lovely pseudo-3D! I used a similar technique when doing FMECA ... 3 factor analysis for failure modes.)
So practically always Light / Medium / Heavy, but 2 times Infantry? 3:55 and 5:56.
;-)
cheers
p.s. I recorded that 3 minutes of narration.