modern american super-heavy tank us tanks of ww2

It’s a reputation at risk with more countries than ever before producing newer and deadlier MBTs. Today the US can boast having the best tanks in the world. Hence better armored fighting vehicles were always needed. It also helped that, unlike any other armed forces on the planet, the US’ own military had to deploy in force across five continents. This inadequacy, combined with the demands of the Cold War, spurred a development cycle that goes on to this day. The success of the M4 Sherman, with nearly 50,000 built in all variants, wasn’t transferred to US tanks in the immediate post-World War Two era. But it wasn’t until the advent of mechanized warfare in Central Europe that the US Army, still lethargic from isolationism, realized the tank–not the howitzer or the machine gun–is the decider for ground forces on any terrain. Unlike other tanks, Tigers were primarily assigned to independent heavy tank battalions of 45 tanks each that the high command parceled to help out in particularly tough battles.Throughout the 20th century the United States found itself in the unenviable position of having to decide far away conflicts.

The channel charts the combat effectiveness of the various tank battalions equipped with Tiger, comparing wartime and total losses versus the number of enemy tanks destroyed. And, as Military History Visualized reveals, an effective tank-though perhaps not as great as history tends to portray it. The Tiger is one of the most revered tanks of the war, if not in the entirety of tank history. First fielded in 1942, the Tiger was meant to forge breakthroughs on the battlefield, destroying enemy tanks at long range while shrugging off hits from lesser Allied anti-tank guns. The final version of the tank weighed 54 tons, had a crew of five, and was equipped with a mobile version of the famous 88-millimeter anti-tank gun. The Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger tank was a German heavy tank that served on the Eastern Front, Western Front, and in North Africa during World War II.

A new video at the YouTube channel Military History Visualized breaks down actual data on the German Tiger tanks.

Modern american super-heavy tank us tanks of ww2