what would you consider to be the most influencialtank design of world war 2?

i mean the tank that had the most influence on post war tank design.

my noninations would be the T34, as from its first use in combat to the modern day, its main design features are considered a desirable adition to new tank design:
sloped armour
powerfull main gun
simple mechanical components
good crew protection
good mobility.

what would your choice be?

cheers

joe

I'll agree with the T-34. For the same reasons.

the T-34. No doubt about it.

Hmm...Tank design, T34 but everything that came after used some variation of the Christie suspension.... Every vehicle contributed something to what came next, the M26 had some inluence on a whole generation...Jim

Jim, you took the post right off of my mouth. Pretty much every US tank that came after the Pershing can trace its lineage back to the design.

Shaun

Y'all have just about covered it, with one exception: The FT-17, the first mass produced tank with a fully rotating turret, rear mounted engine and rear drive sprocket. But it had a poor influence on future French developemnt - the one man turret!!!

While not that influential, the Churchill did show that a tank that can have many uses as a engineering vehicle was of great use to a modern army and still be a useful tank that can hold its own.

Just a thought (++)

Obviously the T-34 on Soviet and the M-26 on US. What about the first Leopard on modern. The AMX 30, British Chieftan and later Challenger, and eventually the US M-1

l would also say the T-34 and M-26.

Most influential tank of WW2 would have to be the T-34. It simply changed the shape of how things were going. it forced the germans to completely re-consider there design. As to the best to come out of the war it would have to be the Centurion. It is one one the most widely used tanks in the world and could be constantly upgraded and has lasted in service for nearly 50 years. And think what it has spurned? the challenge 2!!

I would definatly have to say, the Chi Ha! I mean look at modern tank design, and look at that. Its obviously linked in some superficial way. They basically are brothers.

~Chip #:-) #:-) #:-) #:-) #:-) #:-)

has to be the t-34 and centurion.

interesting you say the centurion as it never saw service in ww2,

however i agree it was definatly the best tank to come out of the war, and until the 1980's (abrams) was probably the best tank in the world,

just look what the israelis did with it!

cheers

joe

An observation - other than the T-34, the choices followed national lines Of course it is good that each of us are proud of what our countries produced

In my view the M26 and the Panther (from which the Leopard has derived)...
Ciao

the centurion may have just missed seeing action in ww2 but she was definitely a ww2 design.and without the t-34 there would be no panther.

Panther, Was the first tank to ever have been equiped with a form of infrared sighting. Although at that time the technology had not matured so only some of them had an IR sensor and then had to have another truck or vehicle "paint" the target so to speak with IR so that the panther could pick it up and shoot the target in the middle of the night. The ability to see in the night is a huge advantage when the other guy is blind.

The IR source was separate development from the Panther - the Germans were also producing IR scopes for rifles.

True but if I'm not mistaken (and I am not sure so I very well could be) the Panther was the first weapon system to ever employ it.

I have to agree with the T-34 due to the sloped armor, large gun, diesel engine, but here are two others:
the Pzkpfw III the first tank with torsion bar supension and the first to have the modern style of crew layout (TC, gunner and loader in turret, TC commands,doesn't play with the weapons allowing better tactical agility) Driver in hull.
The S35 Somua, the first tank to use large castings rather than rolled/welded steel the US would take its basic design add the German style turret crew layout and produce the M4 Sherman.
Conversely the Leopard owes more to the M47 and M48 than to the Panther.
Here's another overlooked influence, the Panther F which introduced range finders to tanks, which it can be argued has had a bigger influence than IR, becuase the Panther IR was still-born and would it was British and US developments starting with the CDL and then searchlight use in Korea that finally led to modern nightfighting ability.

I was doing some thinking - which on weekends can be painful

The T-34 was very influencial, especially if you consider it was ready at beginning of WWII (as stated above, well sloped armor, wide foot print, entire drive train in the rear, and big gun) but it was based on an American design BUT before anyone gets upset - the Christie suspension, used by both the British (in some Crusier designs) and by the Russians in the BT-1 (copies of original Christie), BT-2/5/7 and then T-34 was a deadend!!. Russian designs starting with the T-44 use a torsion bar suspension.

The biggest legacies of the T-34, and they are big ones, are the use of sloped armor all over the hull, excellent horesepower to weight ratio, and low ground pressure, and probably extremely important for a European country - ability to be mass-produced. Russia had the only European tank designs that could be and was truly mass-produced.

The German designs were initially over-engineered and had to be contnually redesigned to use less strategic materials and for easier construction. Other than torsion bar suspension, I don't know of any legacy of German WW2 tank designs.

British tanks, particularly the drive trains were abysmal, at least until the later war years. Heavy armor on the Matilda, Valentine and Churchhill saved many British crews, the crusier crews were not so lucky. But the British kept at it and they ended teh war with a prototype for a brillant design in th Centurion.

The French had the best tank designs and in some cases the best tank cannon in 1939/40, but they lacked radios and sound tactics. They ended WW2 without a home built tank.

The Japanese had an excellent tank cannon in their 47mm, they produced a lot of different tank designs, but they had weak armor, and poor armor doctrine and tactics.

The US started with sorry designs - that is what happens in an isolationist atmosphere - but they developed and MASS PRODUCED two of the best designs of WW2, the Sherman and the Pershing. Granted the Sherman had thin armor, and intially a poor anti-armor cannon, but it was fast, mobile, easy to operate and maintain, was easily converted to other uses, could be mass produced by several techniques (some were cast in locomotive factories, while others used rolled plate), could use several different non-strategic powerplants, and could easily be upgraded. Its design was capable of world-wide deployment and it was highly successful (one of the constraints of design to fit maximum number in a ships cargo hold), being used in the deserts of North Africa, the mountains and mud of Italy (tho' not without much sliding around), the urban areas, snow and ice of NW Europe, the jungles of Burma, and could when required, swim or deep-wade for amphibious ops around the Pacific and in Europe. No other tank design saw such world-wide use during WW2. The Pershing, like the Centurion and T-34 was a legacy of WW2, and lead to a long string of successful tank designs, ending with M60A3. It continues to live in the IDF where it adaptablity has allowed it be continually upgraded.

Now I will go back into eye-ball defilade and await return fire :-)

some interesting points there ranger,

one thing i tried to think about was,
each new design to appear during ww2 was most often in response to experience in combat, so each design influences the next.

just one example,

matilda-1940 arras counter attack, germans face a heavily armoured tank impenatrable to
almost all their anti tank weapons

this gives them the idea for the tiger,

tiger-heavily armoured and armed, but experience against the T34 makes the germans
realise they need a tank with better mobility.

hence the panther,

experience of fighting the tiger and panther in europe makes the americans seek the need for something better than the sherman, along comes the pershing.

what im getting at is that all these vehicles contribute to the development of the others,

cheers

joe

GB -
You are correct in the evolution of armor development, however, some designs are revolutionary: Some examples - Christie T3 (high speed, high mobility, diesel engine) which reached its culmination in the T-34, and the M-26 (heavy armor (for US), large gun (for US), cross-drive transmission (worldwide first, I believe) ) which resulted in the basic configuration for all new US tanks, M-1 Abrams (turbine engine, use of depleted uranium armor, thermal sights, crew safety to the max).

German tank design was in a reactionary cycle once the war started. The Russians settled on a solid design in the T-34 and just improved it and added a new heavy tank to support it.
The US also settled on a good design in the M-4, and then worked to upgrade it while they worked on a solid replacement. Britain continued to develop a good fast tank, but relied on US for their main battle tank, releasing their industry to work on other projects. The genius of the British was their willingness to experiment - Hobart's "Funnies" were a perfect example of experimenting to develop special purpose vehicles.

Ola People

Most influencial tank of WW2....

Must be the Bishop SP Gun.

After this ``thing`` the Brits suddenly started to produce better looking things because the Germans would laugh themselves to death when this thing appeared.

No without doubt the most influencial tank of WW2 is the T34 all of the qualifications why are stated above so I don´t need to repeat them now

Faust,
Thanks for returning some humor to this thread. Things were getting way too serious!!