Tank destroyer
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A tank destroyer, is a type of armored fighting vehicle armed with a gun, or missile launcher, and is designed specifically to engage enemy armored vehicles. Many have been based on a [tracked] tank chassis, while others are wheeled.
Since World War II, main battle tanks have largely replaced gun-armed tank destroyers although lightly armored anti tank guided missile (ATGM) carriers are commonly used for supplementary long-range anti-tank work. However, the resurgence of expeditionary warfare in the past twenty years has seen the emergence of gun-armed wheeled vehicles, sometimes called protected gun systems, that are tank destroyers in all but name.
World War II
Dedicated anti-tank vehicles made their first major appearance in the Second World War as combatants developed effective armored vehicles and tactics. Some were little more than stopgap solutions, mounting a gun on a tracked vehicle to give mobility, while others were more sophisticated designs. An example of the development of tank destroyer technology throughout the war are the Marder III and Hetzer vehicle, that were very different in spite of being based on the same chassis: Marder was straightforwardly an anti-tank gun on tracks whereas Hetzer traded some firepower (its Pak 39, designed to operate within the confines of a full-armored fighting compartment, fires the same projectiles from a reduced propellant charge compared to Marder's Pak 40) for better armor protection and ease of battlefield concealment.
The role of the tank destroyer was to attack enemy tanks from an ambush. A turret was not particularly important for this form of attack, nor particularly desirable since a low silhouette was paramount in order to make the vehicle easier to conceal. The absence of a turret also meant that tank destroyers could be manufactured significantly cheaper, faster and more easily than the tanks on which they were based.
Except for the American tank destroyers they were all turretless and had fixed or casemate superstructures. The latter allowed accommodation of a bigger cannon than could be mounted in a turreted tank on the same chassis, and increased the vehicle's internal volume, allowing for increased ammunition stowage and crew comfort.[1] Eliminating the turret also allowed the vehicle to carry thicker armor than would otherwise be the case, although sometimes there was no roof (or merely a strip of canvas) to keep the overall weight down to the limit that the chassis could bear. After hard lessons early in the war, machine guns were mounted for use against infantry but the mounting was usually less effective than that which would be found on a true tank.
Polish
The first dedicated tank destroyers[citation needed] were two models of TKS Polish tankettes with 20 mm (24 vehicles) and 37 mm guns (2). They suffered heavy losses during the invasion of Poland before entering battles due to air bombardment, penetrating their weak top armor.
German
The first German tank destroyers were the Panzerjäger ("tank hunters") which took an existing anti-tank gun and mounted it on a convenient chassis to give mobility, usually with just a three-sided gun shield for protection. For instance, 202 German Panzer I light tanks were modified by removing the turret and were rebuilt as the Panzerjäger I self-propelled Skoda 47 mm anti-tank gun. Similarly, Panzer II tanks were used on the eastern front. Captured Soviet 76.2 mm anti-tank guns were mounted on modified Panzer II chassis, producing the Marder II self-propelled anti-tank gun. The most common mounting was a German 75 mm anti-tank gun on the Czech Panzer 38(t) chassis to produce the Marder III. The Panzer 38(t) chassis was also used to make the Jagdpanzer 38 'Hetzer' casemate style tank destroyer. The Panzerjäger series continued up to the 88 mm equipped Nashorn.
German tank destroyers based on the Panzer Mk III or later German tanks were unique in that they had more armor than their tank counterparts, sacrificing speed for better crew protection. One of the more successful German tank destroyers was actually designed as a self-propelled artillery gun, the Sturmgeschütz III. Based on the Mk III tank chassis, the Sturmgeschütz III was originally fitted with a low-velocity gun, and was assigned to the artillery arm for infantry fire support. Later, after encountering Soviet tanks, it was refitted with a high-velocity anti-tank gun, enabling it to function as a tank destroyer. The Sturmgeschütz III used a new casemate-style superstructure with an integrated design similar to the later Jagdpanzer. It became the single most-produced armored fighting vehicle of Nazi Germany throughout the war, and was employed in infantry support and offensive armored operations as well in the defensive anti-tank role.
Although the early German Panzerjäger carried more effective weapons than the tanks on which they were based, they were generally lacking in protection for the crew, having thinly armored open-topped superstructures. The "open-topped" design format of the Panzerjäger vehicles was succeeded by the Jagdpanzer '("hunting tanks") which mounted the gun in true casemate-style superstructures, completely enclosing the crew compartment in armor that was integral to the hull. The first of these Jagdpanzers was the Ferdinand (later renamed the Elefant), a 70-ton monster mounting an 88 mm cannon. However, the Elefant proved to be mechanically unreliable and difficult to maneuver, and the type was discontinued after only 91 vehicles had been completed. The German Army had more success with the Jagdpanther. Introduced in mid-1944, the Jagdpanther was considered the best of the casemate-design Jagdpanzer designs.[2] It featured an 88 mm cannon fitted to the chassis of the medium Panther tank, providing greatly improved armor-penetrating capability in a medium-weight vehicle.
Facing an increasingly defensive war, the German Army reverted to larger and and more powerfully armed Jagdpanzer designs, and in July 1944 the first Jagdtiger rolled off the production line, the heaviest German armored fighting vehicle to go into active service.[2] The Jagdtiger featured a huge 128 mm cannon and heavy armor protection. It was first deployed to combat units in September 1944.
The decision of German armored vehicle designers to use a casemate-stye superstructure for all tank destroyers had the advantage of a reduced silhouette, allowing the crew to more frequently fire from defilade ambush positions. Such designs were also easier and faster to manufacture and offered good crew protection from artillery fire and shell splinters. However, the lack of a rotating turret limited the gun's traverse to a few degrees. This meant that the entire tank normally had to be turned onto its target by the driver, a much slower process than simply rotating a powered turret.[3] If the TD became immobilized due to engine failure or track damage, it could not rotate its gun to counter opposing tanks, making it highly vulnerable to counterfire.[4] This vulnerability was later exploited by opposing tank forces. Even the largest and most powerful of German tank destroyers were found abandoned on the field after a battle, having been immobilized by one or more hits by high explosive (HE) or armor-piercing (AP) shells to the track or front drive sprocket.[5]
Soviet
As with the Germans, most of the Soviet designs mounted anti-tank guns, with limited traverse in casemate-style turretless hulls. The results were smaller, lighter, and simpler to build than tanks, but could carry larger guns. The Soviets produced the 85 mm SU-85 and 100 mm SU-100 self-propelled guns based on the same chassis as the T-34 medium tank, as well as the 122 mm ISU-122 and 152 mm ISU-152 which shared components with the IS-2 heavy tank and was nicknamed Zveroboy ("beast killer") for its ability to destroy German Tigers, Panthers and Elefants. The ISU-152 built as a heavy assault gun, relied on the weight of the shell fired from its M-1937/43 howitzer to defeat tanks.[6] In 1943, the Soviets also shifted all production of light tanks like the T-70 to much simpler and better-armed SU-76 self-propelled guns, which used the same drive train. The SU-76 "Suka" was originally designed as an anti-tank vehicle, but was soon relegated to the infantry-support role.[7]
United States
U.S. Army and counterpart British designs were very different in conception. U.S. doctrine was based in light of the fall of France on the perceived need to defeat German blitzkrieg tactics, and U.S. units expected to be faced with large numbers of German tanks attacking on relatively narrow fronts. These were expected to breakthrough a thin screen of largely immobile anti-tank guns, hence the decision to go for mobility. All American tank destroyers were officially known by the exact same collective term used for American self-propelled artillery ordnance, "Gun Motor Carriage".
In actual practice, such attacks rarely happened; indeed, throughout the war only one battalion ever fought in an engagement quite like that which had originally been envisaged. The Tank Destroyer Command eventually numbered over 100,000 men and 80 battalions each equipped with 36 self-propelled tank destroyers or towed guns.
The U.S. tank destroyer designs were intended to be very mobile and heavily armed. Most retained a turret, but left it open on top both to save weight and to accommodate a larger gun. The earliest expedient design was an M3 Half-track mounting an M1897 75 mm gun in a limited-traverse mount, and called the 75 mm Gun Motor Carriage M3. Another, considerably less successful, early design mounted a 37-mm anti-tank gun in the bed of a Dodge 3/4-ton truck - the 37-mm GMC M6. By far the most common US design was the 3in Gun Motor Carriage M10 (Wolverine), later supplemented by the 90 mm Gun Motor Carriage M36 (Jackson) and 76 mm Gun Motor Carriage M18 (Hellcat). The M18 came closest to the US ideal; the vehicle was very fast, small, and mounted a 76 mm gun in a turret. The M36 Jackson GMC possessed the only American-origin operational gun that could rival the vaunted 88 mm German ordnance, the 90 mm M3 gun, and the M36 remained in service well after World War II. The only dedicated American-origin, casemate hull design fighting vehicle of any type to be built during the war, that resembled the German and Soviet tank destroyers in hull and general gun mounting design, was the experimental T28 Super Heavy Tank, which mounted a 105 mm T5E1 long-barrel cannon, which had a maximum firing range of 12 miles (20 km), and was originally designed as a self-propelled assault gun to breach Germany's Siegfried Line defenses.
Of these tank destroyers, only the 90 mm gun of the M36 proved to be effective against the Germans' larger armored vehicles at long range.[7] The open top and light armor made these tank destroyers vulnerable to anything greater than small-arms fire. As the number of German tanks encountered by American forces steadily decreased throughout the war, most battalions were split up and assigned to infantry units as supporting arms, fighting as assault guns or being used essentially as tanks.
British
Although initially flawed in its division of tanks into cruiser and infantry support roles[citation needed], repeated encounters with German armor led the British to recognize the inevitability of tank-to-tank combat earlier than the Americans[citation needed]. As a result, there was extra impetus given to the development of anti-tank weaponry, which culminated in the Ordnance QF 17 pounder, widely considered one of the best anti-tank guns of the war.[8]
Towed anti-tank guns were the domain of the Royal Artillery rather than the Royal Armoured Corps and vehicles adapted to mount artillery including anti-tank self-propelled guns such as the Deacon and Archer were their preserve.
The self-propelled guns that were built in the "tank destroyer" mold came about through the desire to field the formidable QF 17 pounder anti-tank gun and simultaneous lack of suitable tanks to carry it. As a result they were of a somewhat extemporized nature. Mounting the gun on the Valentine tank chassis gave the Marder-like Archer. The 17 pounder was also used to re-equip the US-supplied M10 Tank Destroyer, replacing the American 3" gun to produce the 17pdr SP Achilles. The Tank, Cruiser, Challenger (A30) was a project to bring a 17 pdr tank into use to support the Cromwell cruiser tank. Delays led to it being outnumbered in use by the Sherman Firefly but a derivative of Challenger was the more-or-less open-topped variant Avenger which was delayed until post war before entering service.
The closest the British came to developing an armored tank destroyer in the vein of the German Jagdpanzers or Soviet ISU series was the Churchill 3 inch Gun Carrier [citation needed] - a Churchill tank chassis with a boxy superstructure in place of the turret and mounting a 3 inch anti-aircraft gun. Although a number were ordered, they were not put into service. The design was rejected in favor of developing a 17 pounder armed Cromwell tank variant ultimately leading to the Comet tank. The heavy assault tank known as Tortoise was well armoured and had a very powerful 32 pounder gun but did not reach service use.
By 1944, a number of the Shermans in British use were being converted to Sherman Fireflies by adding the QF 17 pounder gun. Initially this gave each platoon of Shermans one powerfully armed tank. By war's end - through the production of more Fireflies and the replacement of Shermans by British tanks - about 50% of Shermans in British service were Fireflies.
Post-World War II
In the face of the Warsaw Pact, a general need for extra firepower was identified. In the 1950s, the UK produced the FV 4101 Charioteer to beef up the tank regiments, mounting a 20 pounder gun in an oversize turret on the Cromwell tank hull—it lacked the all round capability of the Centurion tank. In the late 1960s, Germany developed the Kanonenjagdpanzer, essentially a modernized World War II Jagdpanzer mounting a 90 mm gun. As Soviet designs became more heavily armored, the 90 mm gun became ineffective and the Kanonenjagdpanzers were retrofitted for different roles or retired. Some provisions were made for the fitting of a 105 mm cannon, and many of the vehicles were modified to fire HOT or TOW missiles in place of a main gun. These upgraded variants remained in service into the 1990s.[9]
With the development of flexible anti-tank missiles, which were capable of installation on almost any vehicle in the 1960s, the concept of the tank destroyer has waned. With the weight of main battle tanks growing to the forty to seventy-tonne range, airborne forces were unable to deploy reasonable anti-tank forces. The result was a number of attempts to make a light vehicle, including the conventional ASU-85, the recoilless rifle-armed Ontos, and missile-armed Hornet Malkara armored car and Sheridan light assault vehicle.
Modern
Many forces' IFVs carry anti-tank missile in every infantry platoon, and attack helicopters have also added anti-tank capability to the modern battlefield. But there are still dedicated anti-tank vehicles with very heavy long-range missiles, and ones intended for airborne use.
There have also been dedicated anti-tank vehicles built on ordinary armored personnel carrier or armored car chassis. Examples include the U.S. M901 ITV (Improved TOW Vehicle) and the Norwegian NM142, both on an M113 chassis, several Soviet ATGM launchers based on the BRDM reconnaissance car, the British FV438 Swingfire and FV102 Striker and the German Raketenjagdpanzer series built on the chassis of the HS 30 and Marder IFV.
A US Army combined arms battalion has two infantry companies with TOW missile-armed Bradley IFVs and can bring a large concentration of accurate and lethal fire to bear on an attacking enemy unit that uses AFVs.
Missile carrying vehicles however are referred to as anti-tank missile carriers instead of tank destroyers.
Some gun-armed tank destroyers continue to be used. The People's Republic of China has developed the tracked PTZ89 and the wheeled PTL02 tank destroyers. PTZ89 is armed with a 120 mm smoothbore cannon while PTL02, developed by NORINCO for the PLA's new light (rapid reaction) mechanized infantry divisions, carries a 100 mm one (a version armed with a 105 mm rifled gun is available for export). PTL02 is built on the 6×6 wheeled chassis of the WZ551 APC.
Italy and Spain use the Italian-built Centauro, a wheeled tank destroyer with a 105 mm cannon. The gun-armed tank destroyer may possibly see revival in the US Army through the introduction of the Stryker, more specifically, the M1128 Mobile Gun System, a Stryker variant armed with a 105 mm cannon which has remote control and autoloading capabilities. Originally, the Canadian Forces had considered replacing their aging Leopard 1 tanks with the Stryker Mobile Gun System. But with the increased use of IEDs capable of destroying Strykers by insurgent forces, they opted instead to purchase the Leopard 2 tank.
See also
Notes
- ^ (Perrett 1987:84)
- ^ a b Forty and Livesey 2006 p. 33
- ^ Irwin, John P. Another River, Another Town, New York: Random House Publishers (2002), pp. 61-61
- ^ Irwin, pp. 61-61
- ^ Irwin, pp. 61-62: Even the U.S. M4 Sherman could disable a Jagdpanther's track or fracture the front drive sprocket with a 75 mm HE shell. As the TD crew abandoned their vehicle, they were easy targets for enemy machinegun fire.
- ^ Forty and Livesey 2006 p. 329
- ^ a b Forty and Livesey 2006 p. 392 Cite error: The named reference "tanks3" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ Forty and Livesey 2006 p. 116
- ^ (Gelbart 1996:137-8)
References
- Harry Yeide, (2005) The Tank Killers: A History of America's World War II Tank Destroyer Force. Havertown, PA: Casemate. ISBN 1-932033-26-2
- Perrett, Bryan (1987). Soviet Armour Since 1945. London: Blandford Press. ISBN 0-7137-1735-1.
- Gelbart, Marsh (1996). Tanks: Main battle and light tanks. London: Brassey's. ISBN 1-85753-168-X.
- Forty, George and Livesy, Jack, eds. The Complete Guide to Tanks & Armoured Fighting Vehicles. London: Anness Publishing Ltd., 2006. ISBN 1846811104.
External links
- Popular Science, April 1940, Tanks Can Be Destroyed article on early US Army concepts for tank destoyers