Posted: Aug 23, 2012 2:32 pm
Rome Existed wrote:I don't get the claim of 3 mediums to 2 heavies. Surely 2 heavies are better than 3 mediums, especially when the opposition you're going up against has mediums with guns as powerful as heavies!
You're looking at this exclusively from a tactical point of view, which is more or less the mistake the Germans made. They (predominantly Hitler) were obsessed with building the tank that would totally dominate the battlefield. They succeeded pretty well, but it didn't win them the war.
A good tank design is as much about the logistics of building it, training crews to use it, getting it to the front, maintaining it and supplying it as it is about how well it actually performs in battle. People like Patton and Guderian understood this very well, which is why they weren't pushing to get the heaviest, meanest mofo tank, but to get the one that delivered the best overall performance.
The standout successes of WW2 in this regard are the T-34 and the M4. Neither ruled the battlefield, but they weren't exactly pushovers either, especially not after a number of design improvements were made. The thing is they were always on hand in sufficient numbers to get the job done. Whereas the Germans exacted a heavy toll when they had their übercats on hand, which didn't happen anywhere near often enough to have an impact on the overall picture, they got the living shit kicked out of them when they didn't, which was near enough all of the time.
The Soviets didn't have to worry about shipping their tanks across an ocean and so they could have the best of both worlds. By the end of the war they were mainly using only two different types of chassis though : the T-34 chassis for the medium tanks and tank destroyers and the KV chassis for the heavies.