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IS 2 greatest tank of ww2

7thGuardsTankDiv said:
IS 2 gun is a long high velocity gun and therefore not a howitzer.

Really? The earlier IS-2's D-25 is just an A-19 modified for use in a tank.

The term "howitzer" hasn't got anything to do with the length of the gun or velocity of the shell. It has to do with the ability to fire at high angles (I don't think you're gonna fire 122mm 2 or 3 clicks without a fairly high angle.

MOST howitzers TEND to have a caliber (barrel length to bore) of under 30, but the A-19 and D-25 are something like 48.
 
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Glad you brought that up Sage.


People use the term "howitzer" or "gun" to refer to the caliber and length of the barrel, when in fact it refers to, as you said, the firing attitude.


Guns fire at a relatively flat trajectory at point targets they can visually identify, using "open sights."

Howitizers fire in parabolic trajectories that arch over the intervening terrain, and generally not at point targets either, but at area targets.

Finally, you have mortars, which fire at the steepest attitude of them all, dropping their projectiles near vertically on top of the area.



Note that strictly speaking, these aren't all mutually exclusive. There are howitzers that can be depressed and fired as guns, but generally if a gun cannot fire at around a 45 degree angle, it isn't a howitzer. Most AT guns, for example, don't elevate more than about 15 degrees. Mortars can fire over 45 degrees.
 
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If you want to know what was the best tank of world war 2 then you need to ask yourself a question. This question is not which has the best gun or armor, speed or maneuverability. the question you must ask is which tank had the greatest impact on the war as a whole.

This includes things like how many were produced, what was the vehicle's operational range, could it cross the average bridge. This question goes far beyond simple statistics and therefore you would even have to concider the Sherman because what other tank was so simple to produce and easy to maintain that the US could place almost as many Sherman Tanks in an Infantry Division as the Germans could had in a Wermacht Panzer Division.

I am not argueing that the Sherman was the best tank. I am helping to define what makes a tank design great. As an example you can argue about the stats of the JS2 but if not one single JS2 ever saw service would it have made any real difference in the outcome of the Eastern Front? I know the T34/76 had a major impact and it was continued with the T34/85.

And by the way, the Tiger I was in service long before Kursk,http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_I , and therefore long before the debute of the JS2. In fact, the JS2 showed up about the same time as the King Tiger was deployed to the Eastern Front. The Tiger I was a German heavy tank used in World War II, from late 1942 until the German surrender in 1945. It was initially deployed to Army Group North (Lenningrad) and to the Afrika Korps. The majority by far of the Tiger Aces were assigned to units equiped with the Tiger I but most of these started on earlier models. For instance, M. Whittman was first assigned to a Stug IIIb.

Anyway, answer the real question because that is the only one that made any real difference :D

Ohh, and a note on the Panther 2, it was also developed with a gyrostabalized turret allowing it to fire effectively on the move.
 
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73306500.sORS6AcU.threadomancy.jpg


Seriously...
(though the OP was comedy gold)
 
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KrazyKraut, my wording was a little off but I didn't intend to imply that the JS2 was used during Kursk.

But what I am saying is clear enough. I don't think the JS2 had any real impact on the war so I don't believe it was the best tank of that period. In fact the Sherman did have a greater impact on the war then the JS2. The Sherman had a greater impact then the King Tiger as well not because more tanks were killed by Shermans but because the simple reliable Sherman allowed the US to deploy tanks almost everywhere while the Germans could only mass tanks in specific areas for short durations of time. It wasn't the panzer Divisions that suffered from the Sherman Tank but the German Infantry units which always seemed to be faced with an enemy who had tanks nearby and in numbers who was often able to exploit this situation.

Reguardless of the technical superiority of other tank designs, if they couldn't be produced in numbers or used to effect then what use were they. I would argue that the T34 in it's different versions was the best tank design of the war.
 
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The IS 1 used the KV 85 (KV1 w 85mm gun) chassi before up-gunning to the 122mm. So in some part (half) the IS predecessors was used in Kursk.

The IS2 was nearly impervious to the Panthers 75mm gun. The 88mm (kwk36) of the Tiger I could penetrate its front armour within 500m or closer. Hits at flank or rear armour, could knock it out at longer range. It should be noted that you don
 
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Now, if someone would like to provide us with a fact based argument as to why the IS2 shouldn't be considered the greatest tank of WW2, I would really enjoy that.

Sure i'll take a stab at it: When people make thease silly comparison threads, they like to take Vehical X and compare it to Vehical Y and say "in an imaginary 1on1 boxing match between thease two, who would win?", but that's a far cry from what actually wins a war.

To me, the greatest tank of WWII is the T-34, not because it would win an imaginary fist fight with Mike Tyson (be he the Panther, Tiger or TigerII), but because it actually did have a huge impact on the real war, more so than any other tank i can think of, it may not be the glorious tank killer that little boys dream up when drawing war pictures with their crayons, no, but it was ideally designed to win the war in which it fought, a war of attrition.

People enjoy the amazing and the dramatic, but you know the saying "Fighters make movies, Bombers make history", well, it's true of tanks and infantry weapons too..
 
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7thGuardsTankDiv said:
.................................
Is this a joke thread?-:confused:
7thGuardsTankDiv said:
Russian weapons are advanced designs for instance SVT 40 is an extremely complex and high production quality weapon much better quality than haphazard quality g43.

Svt-38/40 vs Ge-43:
Lol, the Svt-38/40 suffered from so many problems for example shot dispersion, gas system breaking and wearing out, lack of accuracy,"time lags"(soviet vet wording), weapon jamming/round extraction issues, ect. being some of the big ones (there are plenty of accounts of Soviet complaints about) it was dropped from production after 1941 as a sniper rifle then entirely shortly after and replaced by the more reliable mosin nagant rifle. It later resurfaced as an automatic weapon (AVT) only to fill the demand for smgs (there were not enough smgs to go around) in 1943 (Kursk) it was later cancelled in August of 1943. Where as the Ge-43 suffered from far less issues, German soldiers they considered the Ge-43 reliable and some even thought it better than the K98k due the firepower upgrade (semi-auto). The Ge-43 unlike the Svt was actually somewhat compareable in accuracy to the common bolt action infantry rifle of the time (Kar 98K up to 500 meters) .The Only quality degradation on the Ge-43 was its finish (stock ect.) plastic parts were even used as well as old furniture however the weapon performed quite well in combat. The Ge-43's attributes are usually over shadowed by the Stg-44. As it performed quite well it was given priority in production over the Ge-43 in an attempt to give the Wehrmacht yet more firepower to combat the lack of man power in the later war.

IS-2 tank vs tank:
Err... No its 600 meters (saw up to 800 m in some places but 600m is what is mostly agreed on by sources and vets as to when the round regularly penetrates the frontal hull) frontal hull penetration with both the 75mm L/70 and the 88mmL/56 This may seem impressive if you do not take any of the faults and flaws of the IS-2 into consideration. There are various weak places on the front of the IS-2 most notably the turret (favored for 1500 meter kills with Panther or Tiger I pretty common tactic) which is quite poorly armored in comparison with the rest of the vehicle, the frontal Driver's hatch (which had a nasty tendencey to break off and kill the driver as well as causing damage to the vehicle, fire from shrapnmal,ect.), where the stepped armor meets(on earlier stepped armor verision its the one in RO), and the top frontal armor near the turret base is only 90mm thick in places, as well as any weld seams.

TT33 said:
The IS-2 was not suited for tank vs tank situations. In this area the Tiger I is in its element The IS-2 suffered from many problems that left it at a disadvantage the poor accuracy of its main weapon(effective accuracy was approximately 800 meters for stationary targets with a good gunner), slow and difficult reload rate due to the massive side of the round, poor ammunition amounts (28) also due to the size of the rounds, poor armor quality,poor speed, mobilty, and a low velocity round for its size (its penetration was similar to the 88mm L/56 on the Tiger I). The Tiger I on the other hand had excellent accuracy (it could make first round hits up to 1000+ meters), quick reloading due to a good turret set up and ammo stowage, it housed a large ammount of amunition (92), excellent armor quality (RHA), pretty quick for a tank of its size in fact only German tank with quicker top road and cross country speeds is the Panther, very manuverable for its size ( low psi due to wide track) and weight could pivot in place.
My point is that although the IS-2 is newer and somewhat similar to the Tiger I the Tiger I is a specialized tank killer where as the IS-2 is ment to deal with fortfications with its massive rounds I do not pretend to say that the IS-2 was no threat to the Tiger I because it was a big threat that required the worn out German tankers to be ever more vigilant however I like to point out that the always out-number Tiger I could still pull off amazing feats such as "Otto Carius in a 1944 action in Malinava in a Tiger I's destroyed 17 Js-2's and 5 T-34's ."

:Link to where I posted this first:

[URL]http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=29949&page=2[/URL]

Steel quality: Soviet Steel quality towards the end of the war was at its lowest: In 1944 it is interresting to note that the steel of soviet tanks such as the T-34/85 did not contain Nickel, Vanadium and Molybdenium and contained about 50% less Chrome than German armour steel.

122mm vs 75mm L/70 Penetration: Even the penetration of the 122mm was disappointing when you consider how large the round was:
According to Finnish tank officer Lt.Col. P. Kantakoski the penetration of 122 mm Soviet armour shell penetrated only 140 mm at 500 m (90/0 degrees). Panther's 75 mm gun penetrated 160 mm at the same distance and angle. Kantakoski says also that on eastern front tanks seldom shot beyond 1000 meters and the most typical ranges were 400 to 500 meters. On the other hand tanks with optical range finders like Panther and K
 
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Sure i'll take a stab at it: When people make thease silly comparison threads, they like to take Vehical X and compare it to Vehical Y and say "in an imaginary 1on1 boxing match between thease two, who would win?", but that's a far cry from what actually wins a war.

To me, the greatest tank of WWII is the T-34, not because it would win an imaginary fist fight with Mike Tyson (be he the Panther, Tiger or TigerII), but because it actually did have a huge impact on the real war, more so than any other tank i can think of, it may not be the glorious tank killer that little boys dream up when drawing war pictures with their crayons, no, but it was ideally designed to win the war in which it fought, a war of attrition.

People enjoy the amazing and the dramatic, but you know the saying "Fighters make movies, Bombers make history", well, it's true of tanks and infantry weapons too..

This is the only post in this topic that makes any sense to me.
 
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Grobut said:
To me, the greatest tank of WWII is the T-34, not because it would win an imaginary fist fight with Mike Tyson (be he the Panther, Tiger or TigerII), but because it actually did have a huge impact on the real war, more so than any other tank i can think of, it may not be the glorious tank killer that little boys dream up when drawing war pictures with their crayons, no, but it was ideally designed to win the war in which it fought, a war of attrition.

Ah the classic "war-winner" argument: I agree to some degree to what you said the T-34 did make a big impact on the war as there were always replacements, however it is important to consider technological advantage or superiority as well. The T-34 was a tank of desperation for desperate times which means it recieved few modernizations or model reworkings/replacements to keep the technological edge, instead everything was kept simple for mass production to rebulid a crippled tank force after 1941. Its greatest strength "production and simplcity" was its greatest weakness which the Germans quickly exploited with their generally better designs not talking about the Panther or Tiger (overkill) series but about the Stug III F-G and Panzer IV G-J series which provided the Germans with unparalleled tank firepower and armor superiority from 1942-1944 against their Soviet counter-parts. In spring of 1944 when the T-34/85 finally cameout ( well on the battle-field) it only served to shorten the techincal gap in firepower (the T-34/85 did not replace the T-34/76 in ww2) its anti-armor properties being inferior to comparable designs such as the Panzer IV and the Sherman 76. It's armor was left almost unchanged (turret armor was only changed) from earlier designs. Both of these failing allowed The Panzer IV and Stug designs to maintain a their superiority at long ranges (as well as optics,ect.) which was the ideal German method to dealing with Soviet tanks. While the T-34 was produced enough that it could ultimately sustain the heavy losses inflicted upon it by the Germans there are many battles in the Ost-front that have been won or adavnces halted/repelled due to "technogical superiority" as well which is why to get a nice solid "BEST TANK" comparison technogical superiority needs to play a major part in the tank in question especially when comparing a vehicle to a German tank design : My pick :

Allies: Sherman 76 or Firefly (because in may ways better than the T-34, it also served in most fronts of the war)
Axis: Stug III/Pz IV or Panther (they do no meet production of T-34 or Sherman but they were the more highly produced German vehicles).
 
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Is this a joke thread?-:confused:


Svt-38/40 vs Ge-43:
Lol, the Svt-38/40 suffered from so many problems for example shot dispersion, gas system breaking and wearing out, lack of accuracy,"time lags"(soviet vet wording), weapon jamming/round extraction issues, ect. being some of the big ones (there are plenty of accounts of Soviet complaints about) it was dropped from production after 1941 as a sniper rifle then entirely shortly after and replaced by the more reliable mosin nagant rifle. It later resurfaced as an automatic weapon (AVT) only to fill the demand for smgs (there were not enough smgs to go around) in 1943 (Kursk) it was later cancelled in August of 1943. Where as the Ge-43 suffered from far less issues, German soldiers they considered the Ge-43 reliable and some even thought it better than the K98k due the firepower upgrade (semi-auto). The Ge-43 unlike the Svt was actually somewhat compareable in accuracy to the common bolt action infantry rifle of the time (Kar 98K up to 500 meters) .The Only quality degradation on the Ge-43 was its finish (stock ect.) plastic parts were even used as well as old furniture however the weapon performed quite well in combat. The Ge-43's attributes are usually over shadowed by the Stg-44. As it performed quite well it was given priority in production over the Ge-43 in an attempt to give the Wehrmacht yet more firepower to combat the lack of man power in the later war.
Yeah, but the Gew. 43 still had some teething flaws, not unexpected thanks to the destruction of Germany's ability to make anything at all, courtesy of Allied bombing.

For example, the gas system. Yes, it was the same one as the SVT-40. Except it had no regulator, and probably a few tapped too much gas from the barrel, resulting in some nice battering of the action. Although it probably had better accuracy, if it was a tilting-bolt action it'd still have vertical shot dispersion. See the FAL, SKS, and any other tilting bolt rifle.

Also, if it was anything remotely like the M1 Garand and M14 with it's operating parts connecting to the stock, then you'd have to bed it to get better accuracy. That's a given though, especially with wood-stocked rifles.

Then again, as long as it could keep minute of badguy, it would be good enough for most/all.
 
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Hunt3r.j2 said:
For example, the gas system. Yes, it was the same one as the SVT-40.
Not quite, The Ge-43's gas system components were continously modified/streamlined throughout the war, it was not simply a copy from the original.

Hunt3r.j2 said:
if it was a tilting-bolt action it'd still have vertical shot dispersion. See the FAL, SKS, and any other tilting bolt rifle.

Possibly however most accounts for the rifle shows that it was liked by most soldiers and there were minimal complaints (in fact I found none for dispertion) of this or any other issues. Anyway there is no comparison the Svt-40 was one of the worst semi's of ww2 to say other wise is to turn a blind eye to its serious issues.
 
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