Timeline for Are there advantages to using a quad-treaded/split tracked system for a vehicle?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
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| Aug 13, 2020 at 14:32 | comment | added | AmiralPatate | @DevSolar I think we have a misundertanding. The T-95 is a slightly bigger tank. It's even reasonable when compared to the Maus, which weighs twice as much and is designed to go underwater to cross rivers. But even that doesn't even being to compare with crawler-transporters or excavators as per the answer. When I say "super-tank", I'm thinking about e.g. the (ultimately rejected) Ratte, or the (very real) Heavy Gustav siege gun. Those defy common sense, and for the latter might have been a better use of limited resources to build an additional tank division instead. | |
| Aug 13, 2020 at 13:58 | comment | added | DevSolar | @AmiralPatate: So they designed a fortification-smashing siege gun from 1934 onward, a task you claim made obsolete by mobile warfare. Yet still both the US and the UK "identified the need" to build superheavy assault tanks (the T95 / T28 and Tortoise respectively) nine years later. Let's not talk about icebergs for aircraft carriers etc. As for the US/Soviet crede "logistics wins wars", that never was an option for Germany, because to have logistics, you need resources, and if you have a look at the history, that's exactly what Germany didn't have... | |
| Aug 13, 2020 at 13:56 | comment | added | Jan Hudec | @DKNguyen, mechas could be used in some specialized roles, but for most uses a treaded vehicle is more practical than a mech of the same weight class no matter what form the alien giants come in. | |
| Aug 13, 2020 at 13:34 | comment | added | DKNguyen | @JanHudec That's when you need mechas. For if combat effective alien giants exist, then so too can giant humanoid mechas. Unless the aliens come in the form of giant slugs. | |
| Aug 13, 2020 at 13:13 | comment | added | AmiralPatate | @DevSolar It's not the idea of a railway gun I'm ridiculing, it's the idea of a 1350-ton one designed to blast the Maginot Line, a task made obsolete by successfully Blitzkriegging France before it even was completed. It's kind of examplary of the point being made, bigger guns and tanks didn't win the war. Good strategy and logistics did. | |
| Aug 13, 2020 at 7:40 | comment | added | DevSolar | @AmiralPatate I've seen that kind of ridicule often. But note that all sides used railway guns to good effect in WWI, so it is natural to have some people thinking about how you could expand on the concept. So the Germans had some over-the-top projects on their blackboards that turned out to be bad ideas and got cancelled. Likewise did the allies. | |
| Aug 13, 2020 at 7:07 | comment | added | Jan Hudec | There is no particular military use for a tank of this size for fighting among humans. If we one day encounter belligerent alien giants, such things may become needed to pack enough firepower to matter or carry enough armour not to get swatted like flies. | |
| Aug 12, 2020 at 14:38 | comment | added | AmiralPatate | "in the real world there's no particular military use for a tank of this size, but that's never stopped sci-fi" - Interestingly, Nazis had a bunch of super-tank projects (up to ginormous artillery cannons on rails), which AFAIK are universally considered massive wastes of brain power and few precious resources, which you could argue made them pretty good ideas. | |
| Aug 12, 2020 at 6:02 | history | answered | Cadence | CC BY-SA 4.0 |