Tankery, The Thread

[CoffeeGrunt]

I hereby inaugurate this thread for the discussion of tanks and where to find them. We'll make allowances for fictional ones as well, just remember that the Leman Russ is an awful design and Baneblades are silly. :P

To start off the discussion: Challenger II is best tank.

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[eldargal]

[Haighus]

I'm going to second that the Challenger II is the best tank. Also, why do armies dislike HESH rounds so much? They are no less effective than HEAT rounds against modern armoured vehicles (in other words, neither is any good against Chobham armour), are very good against soft-skinned vehicles, and much better against infantry and buildings as a HE round. The only reason I can see is that they require a rifled barrel for maximum efficacy to be honest.

[Psychosplodge]

More round types complicates using an autoloader?

[Haighus]

More round types complicates using an autoloader?

Which encourages using HESH rounds, because they are very multipurpose, and only a APFSDS round is needed then to round out the combat capability to include enemy modern heavy armour.

[CoffeeGrunt]

I think it's because a Main Battle Tank is meant to be for pure anti-tank warfare, whereas HESH would make it more of an infantry support or demolition vehicle. HESH is pretty useless against modern armour because it relies on spreading force across a wider area to cause the internal parts of a tank to be broken off and flung around, damaging the tank and crew. Modern tanks are too well-built for it to work. Not to mention ERA plating makes it effectively irrelevant.

But then, it's a primarily American-led initiative to make every AFV have a set role and just make loads of different ones, rather than a generalist design.

[Haighus]

True, but HEAT rounds are proving just as ineffective vs modern armour too, with ceramic armour and ERA making them pretty useless as well. US tanks are equipped with HEAT, canister and sometimes HE rounds in addition to their APFSDS rounds, Challenger IIs have just APFSDS rounds and HESH rounds. The US tank ammunition development is apparently working on making HEAT rounds better against personnel and lighter vehicles at the expense of anti-armour effectiveness too, because they are not useful anti-armour rounds in a modern setting. So the specialisation angle doesn't really fit, when even the US tanks have a large variety of shell types they are trying to reduce to fewer general purpose shells. MBTs cannot be left without an anti-personnel option, as they can't always be operating purely against enemy armour.