Cold War MBT Comparisons

[TCBF]

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"The M48 wasn't available at the time, Tom.

The Prime Minister of the day, St Laurent, wanted the Canadian Forces to be totally equipped with US gear.  Weapons, tanks, artillery, everything.  That's why we ended up with the early 50's vehicles of the jeep, 3/4, and deuce, all license built in Canada.  But the US wouldn't let us have the M47, they were all destined for Korea right off the assembly line.  Seeing as how we had promised NATO a mechanised brigade, we needed a new tank, and ended up with the Centurion.  The M47 was a piece of garbage, and the M48 had to be rushed in to service to replace it.

I personally didn't like the M47, the M48 or the M60.  Mind you, the Chieftan was pretty sad as well, if it had to be moved.  It was a good static gun emplacement, though!"

- I don't know... The M26 - 2400 of them - carried the can for the USA in Korea.  The M-46 (2350 built)came out in 1949. Some 200 M46 ended up in Korea.  The M47 (8676 built) never saw action in Korea (though they were shipped there), and were sold to over a dozen countries.  The M48 also went to over a dozen countries, and Turkey alone counted for about 2874 of the 11,703that were  built starting in 1952.  The 15000 M60s stated building in 1960/61.

My point? Had we told the Yanks we wanted to crew US tanks in Korea and the BAOR, they would have made them available to us.

Tom

 

[old medic]

Tom, can I ask what that was in reply to?
What was the dicsussion or thread it came from?

 

[TCBF]

It came from the MGS thread, but we digressed, and so I thought I would bring it here, as the MGS thread is getting big, and someone catching up might not appreciate the digression (which is usually caused by me!).

Tom

 

[Lance Wiebe]

I made a boo-boo anyway.

It was Mackenzie King that wanted our Forces fully intertwined with the US.  He even wanted to go so far as use the same uniforms, rank structure as well as equipment.  It was him that first tried ordering US tanks to replace the Sherman.  It was Louis St Laurent who convinced the Americans that they needed all the tanks they could build, while he promptly ordered the Centurion and Ferret scout car.

Numbers alone don't account for anything.  The Americans were giving trainloads of tanks away to every banana republic that swore they would fight communism.  The US literally gave tanks away to NATO members because they knew that thousands of tanks would be required to stop the Warsaw Pact.  You've been in the M48 and M60's.  You also know that the M60 was designed as a product improved M48, and was labelled "interim tank" (hm, like the Stryker, come to think of it.  I wonder if the Stryker will end up like the M60, produced by the thousands and in use by hundreds of countries?  Naw, few countries would accept it, even for free.......but I digress)

The Centurion had over 4000 built as well, and was used world wide. 

And I still don't like the M47 to M60 family of tanks.

 

[a_majoor]

American and British "generation one" tanks took the lessons they learned in WWII to heart; the Centurion was heavily armoured and well gunned, a sort of motorized gun emplacement,(following it's "Infantry tank parents; the Matilda and Churchill) while the US tanks tried to marry the wide ranging mobility of the meduim tank to more firepower (sacrificing armour protection in the process). It wasn't until "generation three"  that mobility protection and firepower could be equally balanced in a MBT.

The only real success story of the time was the "Patturion", the Israeli marriage of the Centurion hull, M-48 drive train and L-7 105mm cannon which addressed the various weakness in the parent designs. Cutting and pasting can do wonders if you know what you want to achieve. (The LAV III will eventually meet the same fate, as various systems get tacked onto the basic hull).

 

[TCBF]

I like the 'Good old American Know How' that went into the US vehicles.  They actualy think of the guys who have to live, fight, and service the vehicles they build.  At Fort Hood Texas in 1978, I became - on an exchange with the "Buffalo Soldiers" of the 3/10 Cav,  2D 'BlackJack' Bde, 1st Cav Div - an M60A1 driver for five weeks.  Up to that point, I had been a Lynx driver in the 8CH in Petawawa.  I found the M60A1 simple to drive and service, from an automotive point of view.  The TC nitsite had issues.  The M85 .50 cal and the Co-ax M73/219 was a POS which left me - and others -  with bloody knuckles, and it eventually drove the Yanks so crazy they bought an MG made by furriners (MAG 58).

But, even though it had flaws, it gave the Yanks a string of evolutionary - vice revolutionary - MBTs when they needed lots fast.  If the MBT 70 program had gone better (summed up quicker)  the M1 may have arrived before 1980.  But it didn't. 

So, I think it was a successful tank.  Not the best in the world, but reliable.  When you take 13 M60A1 tanks, issue them to a Canadian Lynx Sqn, and 4 weeks later 7 out of 13 crews pass Tank Table VIII  (our hosts didn't think any would pass, and we out-gunned NG M60A1 companies), you know you are dealing with a crew-friendly tank.

Also, you can sleep the whole crew comfortably, one per fender.  Don't hang a hammock off the gun tube like I did, SSM Penner showed me the error of my ways. ;D

Tom

 

[Lance Wiebe]

You are correct.  The M60 was designed for a conscript army, and every position was relatively simple to learn.  Mark Phillips was my gunner, and Angus Gosse was the driver, while I loaded and Lt Hillyer was my CC.

One of the reasons we did well is that all of our crew commanders were tank trained on, wait for it, the Centurion.  Some of us lower ranks were also qualified on the Cent, although obviously not as commanders.

The M60 had the highest sillhouette of any tank I have had the pleasure of serving in.  It's two speed transmission gave horrendous performance.  It's cross country capability was rather poor for a tracked vehicle.

But, for a conscript army requiring large numbers of tanks, it was simple to build, cheap, and easy to train crews on.  But it rates rather poorly with its contemporaries.

 

[TCBF]

Lance:  You spelt Mark's name wrong.  remember - "One 'L', no 'S', hold the mayonnaise!"

So, of your tank crew:

1.  One now Commands the Canadian Forces.
2.  One was RSM of the RCD, is now base RSM of Borden.
3.  One has a job ensuring very tall buildings get built in Vancouver and no one gets killed in the process.
4.  What are you up to these days? ;D

Of my tank crew:
1. One retired a Colonel.  (Major Ted Nurse)
2. One retired a Captain.  (WO George Halfkenny)
3. One retired a MWO.    (Tpr Dave Smith - the Hussar Dave Smith, not the Strat Dave Smith).

Sgt Norm Wall (RC Sigs) - who replaced WO Halfkenny, retired a CWO.

Then-Tpr TCBF: now still  collecting the Queen's coin.  I actually saw 26 Leo C2s at the B Sqn Bison BBQ at the tank hanger in Wainwright yesterday.  A nice sight to wash down my buffalo sandwhich with.

We learned to drive the M60A1 in a 'playground' that had - among other things - a slalom course of 45 gal drums full of rocks as pylons.  The idea - mine, anyway - was as you got better, to try and get as close as you could to the drums without hitting one and sending 500 pounds of rock arcing into the spectators.  The T Bar steering was very responsive in first gear.  They never got around to telling us it was less responsive in second gear, and as I geared up, took a good run at a barrel, and tried to turn in the nick of time.....

Did I also mention I clotheslined our IG in a tree during a live fire battle run?

Or, that I - during the night live fire battle run, with a HEAT round up the tube - turned the tank in a complete circle trying to find the track Major Nurse wanted me to follow?

Major Nurse:  "Tpr Falls, I am moving you out of this tank, and into the worst job in the Squadron. Tpr Smith, what's the worst job in a Squadron?"

Tpr Smith (with joyfull glee): "That would be slinging  POL in Adm Troop, Sir."

Major Nurse:  "Right, Tpr Falls, it's off to Adm Troop for you!"

I went into Killeen, and drowned my sorrows at the National Hall, drinking Pearl.

 

[oyaguy]

Layman Alert. Me.

I'm curious, how did the M60 and the Centurion rate against contemporary Soviet tanks.

 

[Lance Wiebe]

Well, the T55 was actually not a bad tank for its day.  It's biggest problem was the lack of quality control in its armour, but it performed pretty good.  It was, I would say, about on par with the M26/M47.  The T62 was another story.  We thought, and we were told that it was a good tank, but years later, when we actually inspected them, we realised what a POS it really was.  The wost ergonomics imaginable, a terrible autoloader, poor sights, no FCS, it was truly garbage.  A tank produced by the thousands, because it was cheap.  The Soviets were willing to overwhelm the west with numbers, not quality.  They actually expected their tank losses to be in the range of 20:1, which shows the value they placed on their crews. 

Mind you, most of the crews were Mongolians, because the turret could not ift anyone over 5'4"!

 

[Lance Wiebe]

It's kind of funny when you look at our cres back then.  I was the senior Cpl in the troop, (that's why I was the TL's loader).  In both our crews, we had some people do pretty good, didn't we? 

We know what happened to Mark.  What happened to us? ;D

 

[TCBF]

"We know what happened to Mark.  What happened to us?"

- I was drunk when the fire started. ;D

If the T-62 had an autoloader, he was a Mongolian named Jal-bukha.  Auto-ejector is what you meant. ;D

 

[Lance Wiebe]

Oops.  Blame it on our first heat wave of the year.  Yes, I meant the auto-ejector.  After the gun fired, the weapon would go to a certain position, the power elevation and traverse motors would cut out, and the round would be ejected.  Well, most of the time.  Sometimes things would not quite line up correctly, and the casing would go bouncing around the turret, injuring crew members.  They seemed to have placed a lot of trust in first round hits, because the second round was slow in coming.  The extremely crude FCS made first round hits a matter of luck, however.

The Soviets rushed the T62 into production, and produced thousands at three huge factories.  Shortly after that, they rushed a replacement design team into action, because they realised the short-comings of the T62.  The results were the T-64 and the T-72.

 

[a_majoor]

Soviet military intelligence, at least the technical branch, seemed rather credulous when it came to the claims of the western manufacturers. The then new Chieftain was touted as having a revolutionary "opposed piston" diesel engine, so the USSR rushed an opposed piston engine into production for the T-64. In the Chieftain, the engine was a dog and the tank was a motorized fortress; crews hoped they could break down in a good fire position. The T-64 engine didn't work so well either...flash forward a few decades and out comes the T-80 with (surprise) a gas turbine engine to match the nice shiny M-1 engine. It worked about as well as the initial install on the M-1 as well, but rather than go through all the R&D work, the later T-80 and beyond have a diesel engine (the regular kind without opposed pistons).

The Soviet large calibre smooth bores were also rushed into production in response to the claims of Rheinmettal with their 120mm smoothbore, it has taken decades of research to perfect the ammunition to meet the theoretical maximums you find in sales brochures. In retrospect, they should have copied the British 120mm rifles instead. That ammunition development hasn't kept pace is a bit strange since the Russians are quite good at metallurgy and high speed aerodynamics, but we should count our blessings....

 

[12alfa]

Soviet military intelligence, at least the technical branch, seemed rather credulous when it came to the claims of the western manufacturers. The then new Chieftain was touted as having a revolutionary "opposed piston" diesel engine, so the USSR rushed an opposed piston engine into production for the T-64. In the Chieftain, the engine was a dog and the tank was a motorized fortress; crews hoped they could break down in a good fire position. The T-64 engine didn't work so well either...flash forward a few decades and out comes the T-80 with (surprise) a gas turbine engine to match the nice shiny M-1 engine. It worked about as well as the initial install on the M-1 as well, but rather than go through all the R&D work, the later T-80 and beyond have a diesel engine (the regular kind without opposed pistons).

The Soviet large calibre smooth bores were also rushed into production in response to the claims of Rheinmettal with their 120mm smoothbore, it has taken decades of research to perfect the ammunition to meet the theoretical maximums you find in sales brochures. In retrospect, they should have copied the British 120mm rifles instead. That ammunition development hasn't kept pace is a bit strange since the Russians are quite good at metallurgy and high speed aerodynamics, but we should count our blessings....

If you look into the development of the Cheiftian , you will see that the powerplant was not a dog at first. It was only after they up armoured the tank to such a degree that the fine engine was over worked and in the end was never up-powered to match the extra weight.
They built it for the t-55/62 threat, but as they were working on the development the T-64/72 appeared and scared them to uparmour the beast. The end result was a poor hp/ton MBT, well armoured, but under powered at the same time.great FCS and cannon though.
I seen them on Ex in Germany, they were seen miles away, black smoke and all. The tube apeared before you saw the tank, anyone looking at it seen it was built for busness, the tube was very long, it said "don't mess with me".

The Cheif has got bad press, but in most wars they performed very well against T-72, M-60, T-62/55's, when the crew wanted to fight the system.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

The Brits have a bad habit of building a tank, then trying to find an engine that fits.  ;D The Centurion had and aircraft engine and the Chieftan had a marine engine. The Chieftan's engine was designed as a horizontally opposed affair, but would only fit by turning it 90 degrees, making it vertically opposed. The top cylinders would starve for oil and the bottom ones were bathed in it. That's where all the smoke came from.

 

[12alfa]

They got it right now. ;D