Why the Trinity of Tank Design is Flawed (featuring Panzermuseum) 

on fuel side the discussion is easy: tank type dictates: scouting is gasoline and mai battletank is diesel (because it is a stronger engine on the torque side and the fuel doenst burn as easy as gasoline).

why would you want to complicated your supply line though

Irobert1115HD They are all multi fuel.

@@thethirdman225 i know but they are mostly running on diesel on parades and or using engines that are realted to the diesel engine by construction or turbines.

One interesting episode was in late 1939 when, after the Hitler-Stalin pact, the Soviets could put their hands on a Panzer III, and compare it. And indeed what they found is than in the "holy trinity", the T-34 was indeed superior, as its 45-mm armour was much thicker than the 30-mm of its opponent, and was sloped ans even when considering that the Germans used face-hardened plate, the ratio would still be 61 to 36 mm equivalent. Of course the 76-mm gun ont the T-34 was vastly superior to the 37-mm on the Panzer III, no contest here. Not only was the F-34 easily able to penetrate any German tank at the time while the PAK 36 and its derivatives would become to be known as "Panzeranklopfgeräte" (Tank door knockers), its HE projectile was also almost 10x as heavy. And despite having the firepower and armour protection of a contemporary heavy tank, thanks to its 500hp Diesel engine and wide tracks the T-34 had very good mobility as well; in theory making it the first ever Main Battle Tank, before the term was even invented. But they also found many things they liked about the Pz III. Many things like the superior workmanship and the complexity of its optics or drivetrain they found outside the possibilities of the Soviet industry at the time, but they identified three crucial engineering solutions that every future Soviet tank should include: - torsion bar suspension, giving it a smooth ride at high speed, while avoiding the huge impact on internal volume by the Chrisie-type suspension - 3-man turret with a commanders cupola, giving the gunner, the loader and the commander dedicated functions - good communication between tank, instead of only equipping command tank with radios The lessons were indeed learned, but too slowly adapted to counter Operation Barbarossa

Please do inside hatch on Tiger II! Reason: it is like Chieftain - having impregnable armor on the outside, but the soft and squishy interior is susceptible to significant emotional event! Do it!!! Plz

Oh, speaking of Hydromatic transmission, what do you think about the ones on Tiger and Tiger II? Is the reduction in requirement for good driver a reasonable trade off for the increased complexity?

I'd argue, that the holy trinity is not obsolete, and far from it. However(!) it's focussing on one tank (model) in particular. In a world where units and combined arms exists this approach is naturally flawed. It's a good starting point to compare "hard" facts of a vehicle, facts that you can measure easily. The crews performance is very important, but how do you measure it? Reload speed? Target acquisition time? How good the driver is in terrain? That's hard to put on paper, where you can just put a ruler on the armour plate, write down the thickness and call it a day. That naturally leads to a few armchair generals and arguments like "The M4 Sherman pure shit and the Tiger II is the best tank in the world", completely disregarding that the Tiger II was a very much a mediocre tank (imo) because of its out of combat flaws like speed, reliability, steel quality, etc. tl;dr; Holy trinity is good for a first look at the model, but should not be used when discussing anything bigger.

I learned in world of tanks that it is best to move after shooting. once the enemy has identified you, it's time to get go

The Chieftain to the rescue! Love your channel!

Hahhahah SPOTON man.

Nope, a Bond villain needs to have a cat...wait...dont i see a 70ton cat there? OK,mb

My man is a bond villain

BOND villain?!? No, no, no! Die Hard all day. He just poses as a historian. I am afraid that Bernhardt is already a hostage. Somebody get Bruce Willis, fast!

What? Are you suggesting germans dress like (bond) villains?

Military Aviation History / there is one flying tank.....the A-10 thunderbolt.

Didnt they try wings on a tank so they could glide them down from planes?

Does parashute a tank from a plane count as flying? :D

@@iceee420 Yes, and there was a Christie's tank with wings that was supposed to fly by its own. But the armor protection was ridiculous because it had to be light enough. Iirc prototypes were actually built and tested and found totally impractical.

...hides flying tank....

First!

But seriously they are both exemplary here. Too many people can't resist the urge to show how much they know even if it makes them look stupid in the end.

@@vdotme I really... really have a distaste for most YT collaborations. It usually becomes a popularity contest! "Im better than you" "No, im better than you!" "Im funnier than you" "No! Im funnier than you!" "I have more knowledge than you" "No!!! I have all the knowledge!" "Im talking now" "Yes, but I need to speak more than you do!" Its ridiculous! What happened to the good, old fashion, coherent, beautiful, intellectual, academic discussions?! The owner of this channel does it perfectly! He does a true inter-view. And, as a bonus, we can actually learn something meaningful :) Proper job!

I hope I get to visit DasPanermuseum one day! it's a biit of a trip from Canada.

Hans Gruber? Didn't John McClane ....? Oh well. "Happy trails, Hans"

#@@darthvader4316: Well, it is just EUR 900 away (both ways)...

i Hase heard from the Chieftain another Reosons against sloped armours that sloped armour when it sloped to the inside reduce space and sloped to the outside is not verry Usual .

Did he take his little tank with him?

One German and one Austrian 😜

@@CCfiftyeight Even more dangerous! Two weeks until I see my Austrian relatives again for christmas ^^

@@CCfiftyeight so two Germans?

@Xenomorph Captain Vex Ghost of the brony community you're right, I just see the word "que" and think they mean a line. whichever word they mean it's equally annoying

@@CCfiftyeight heh m8 Austrians are germans they just not allowed on paper to merge into one country anymore. And the fact that the prussians kicked them out in the first place was as i recall the start of the end for Austro-Hungary.

2. Know where the enemy is. -Optics and Communication

The other Trinity reliability, producebility, and suvivalblity Simplfy tho

1,5. If you must be there, do not walk in front of the camera.

Maverick_CIV 7. Use your brains. Lay an ambush and prosecute it with the utmost ruthlessness. Once you start shooting, you can’t stop until everyone else is dead or captured. 8. Don’t be squeamish.

@Maverick_CIV at number 3 I think you should add weapon system lethality as well as communications, if you can't kill it and have to move back you also need to communicate that. But as Bernd and Ralph say in the video, a lot of factors that sort of meld together.

At some point, people began misinterpreting the trinity as the most important aspects of a tank instead of its original intention when it was really about those values being inevitable or direct trade-offs. That said, I'd still argue that the holy trinity is sort of a flawed concept because you can make trade-offs between other elements such as protection and ergonomics, which then invalidates the trinity anyways.

Emery Almasy The problem is more the way it’s used, not by professionals but by gamers posing as knowledgeable people or worse, historians. From my armchair, the holy trinity model is simply incomplete and is the basis for spec sheet warfare which ignores any and all tactical and strategic considerations. There is a train of thought on the interwebs which actively discourages people from looking beyond equipment and focussing solely on what they call “tech”, all the while ignoring the human factors and decisions which make for success in warfare.

Michael Smith They can already do that with reactive armour.

@Michael Smith even smart bombs are stupid enough to be tricked I would not bet on tanks becoming obsolete, especially since they will be (wo)maned by only two people in a matter of years and possibly only one person in a matter of at most two decades. Then you can reduce size and thus energy consumption and thanks to massproduction you get a pretty cheap and yet very effective weapon; on top of that comes the fact that the ratio of fire- to manpower is incredibily good, if you can reduce the crew to two or even one. So my guess is that tanks are here to stay for quite a while.

@@IzmirWayne People says tha tanks are obsolete since WWI and th beginning of anti-tanks weapons, and your concept of one or two persons in a tank is pretty much as old... French were the ones who tried it the most, and it never worked very well, we expect the crew to do most of the job, serve the tank and maintain it, mechanics gets involved wen something is broken, and 2 guys (or even worse, one guy) having to fully maintain a tank in war situation is not good, more people in the tank means more people to maintain it and doesn't mean the job won't be well done if your loader is human and not a machine

....and not being seen starts with avoiding the draft! "Win by not playing game".... old Tsun Tzsu philosophy.

The first rule of not being seen is to not stand up when they call your name.

Mr. Nesbit, can you stand up please? *BOOM!*

Wrong one of the big faults of the Sherman was it was too tall.

And that is why they're both still alive! They clearly know the importance of not being seen!

I think he actually said "decade" but im not sure.

Definitely 'decade'

Decade. Definitely.

Definitely "decade". One good thing about Germany is that it learned from history. The rest of us just keep on producing conflict after conflict, with supposed "dickheads", even when there is no evidence to back up the purpose.

Definetly Dickhead.

@Carnivorus If I remember correctly, there were a lot fewer Pershings shipped than Shermans. And they would only require a slightly-above-average crane, if the average can lift 40 tons.

@Carnivorus Disagree, the did have problems with shipping significant numbers of Pershings. Also, How easy would it have been to get a Pershing to and over a beach in the Pacific? The USA fought all over the globe not just in Europe.

And similiar infrastructure and terrain restrictions is the reason for the short guns, narrow hulls and low weight of the Swedish pre 1950's tanks: their dimensions were kept limited by the railroad flat carriage width, railroad bridge load capacity and railroad tunnel standards as well as the weight limit and width of the average renaissance or medieval stone bridges that were still common as part of the rural road network. That because trains were the only realistic logistics option for any redeployment of armored formations in a very stretched densely forested and sparsely populated country like Sweden in the 1940'ies where 19th century living standards were the norm as soon as you got more than a mile outside any of the larger cities (cities over 20'000 inhabitants)

​@CarnivorusNo, they didn't have problems shipping the Pershing, but that's because the Army took a look at the limitations of the Sherman with regard to weight, and increased it. The 40 ton limitation was imposed in 1941 when the first Lee-Grants came off the production line. However, the Pershing only reached Europe in 1945, by which time the lift capability had been increased to of 50 tons (and possibly even over 100 tons). The LCM2's could carry 15 tons, the LCM3 could carry 30 tons and the LCM6 could carry 32 plus tons, and the post-war LCM8 (currently in service) can carry 53 tons. Bridges also went substantial increase in carrying capacity during (and after) the war.

This could hold only after US forces already had big losses and were in France. It is actually pretty silly to think that US, a country without any limitations wouldn't be in the position to build a few cranes for tanks, considering how fast and easily they build cargo ships. What in fact happened is that US army miscalculated. They though shermans will be enough in France and actually left a few thousand models with 76mm cannon in Britain at the time of the invasion. Besides, I think Germans built their tanks to fit on the trains and equipped panthers and tigers with fording equipment.

The one vehicle I don't think they took into consideration. :)

Best and sexiest tank ever

Hehehehehe New Zealand is finally on the map!

Definitely

As all things should be

ja genau

They could wear Pickelhaube's on their heads and monocle's

huh never knew ponytails were part of my culture... but yay for stereotypes

Needs angst and techno music.

Stealth is part of protection

Tank nonagon? >Firepower >>Gun caliber >>Effective range >>Fire rate >Mobility >>Top speed >>Cross country >>Effective range > Armor >>Armor weight >>Armor thickness >>Active countermeasures

As Mako below said, the Americans first planning restriction was a 40 ton limit, due to the load capacity of the dock yard cranes. If you could not load it onto a ship, it didn't matter how good the tank was, it was never going to get into the battle field.

Let's not forget the pepperoni nipples picture

well, in that case, it was really "WTF", because what you can't see the camera stands behind a Armored car that sat in the middle of the hall, the path split around the armored car, it was even outlined with a redline. Additionally, the museum is small, so it should have been easy to avoid and also easy to see what was going on. It was not some mega-event like Tank Fest in hot summer heat etc.

@@MilitaryHistoryVisualized Don't worry about it, the camo sort of added to the atmosphere.

I basically lost interest once those two dumkopfs entered into the video....

they just assumed the camo made them invisible to the camera.

It's sad that people can be that self-absorbed and oblivious to others, but setting-up a few meters of barbed wire would teach them. ;) Seriously, though, just four 1-meter poles on stands linked by tape would be pretty effective. Even when totally self-absorbed they wouldn't purposely not go around something that would inconvenience to _themselves_ to go through. I'm sure the same line-control stuff concession stands and ticket lines use are for sale to anyone.

The Chieftain also mentions this once, I think in his video on the T-34.

Right. Structural strength and simplicity has value, as noted in the video. The Chieftain added that sloped armor cuts into interior space, which is precious.

From all tanks first to cross my mind was maus

Please do not use your maus to click on this video.

it was good because it was designed to face 75mm shermans and t34 76 and the thing was simply put ,impenetrable for those plates at the ranges the Tiger was engaging them

Not sure... we need an imperial commado more. I would much rather find out what happens to Sev than see him go MIA in HD.

That'll make a good movie too bad it not safe for Disney but instead another pointless movie

What does that have to do with this video?

Nothing, but he's completely right

@@USSAnimeNCC- oh I meant a videogame.

Evilsamar lol, I read a semi-fiction novel about an axis penal company in WWII. They may have been danish

enjoy and bring strong shoes, the concrete sucks out the warmth.

yes, it's elements that are talked about, but it's good to summarize them and compare their influences... we don't always take them in account all together I think, so it's good to do so, especially since it's not modeled in games ^^

Well, by definition not everythingthat works can be the best method and cost effectivity is just for those with not enogh time on theur hand and (or) not enough money. I mean, look at the Abrams, it is neither of them, compared to a Leopard and is still regarded as one of the best MBTs.

@@mandernachluca3774 Either way "Whatever Works" is a good methodology.

@@conorclimo8534 It is certainly not bad if it works and cost effectiveness is a very good bonus ;D.

Jinseual Good luck finding a suitable hill to make use of gun depression on the North German Plain. Centurions may have had a field day with Syrian T-55s at Golan Heights, partly due to what you said, but I don't think it can be generally applied as a major factor. Especially considering the geography of West Germany.

@@K_Kara With human ingenuity you can make artificial mounds on some strategic positions.

@@Jinseual Exactly, or you dig a depression (the tank equivalent of a fox/fighting hole) for the tank to sit in, with a ramp/slope in the front and/or maybe a berm in front and you can utilize your gun depression.

Jinseual Why be resourceful when you can moan about equipment?

What do you mean? Should the crew get out to dig an artificial mound just to get good use of their depressed gun? I'm sure its a good thing to have on your tank, but in general terms, i think many other factors comes first.

But 100 years ago the nobility was pretty much powerless

@@luansagara but it did exist. French was even spoken by everyone at the treaty of Versailles, except Americans, they didnt speak French. French used to be what English is today - lingua Franca

american spotted

@@vaahtobileet i doubt

Only 'cuz they're edited folks. Not lak us 'muricans

D**n google. What part of educated does that idiot word effing checker not find acceptable

Alec Beals hahaha I didn’t even notice it lmao

Dickhead has a different meaning in german

DaNikolo not quite right. But the russians had one advantage. They didn’t imply parts that were expensive and thus hard to come by. On the other hand the germans did exactly this and the closer you come to technical perfection, the more complex it gets to fix problems that still occur from time to time. I am a mechanic and if I have some older cars ( like a '94 VW Golf III) in front of me, it is way easier to find and fix errors. If I have a VW Golf VII GTI for example, and it’s a more complex error, it often takes over an hour to find and fix them.

You are mostly correct. The Russians had a "battle life" of 3 months for their tanks so they didn't built it to have a 20 year life span. If it was still around after 3 months, all well and good. The Germans couldn't help but NOT go overboard on technical innovation because they couldn't see the tank wasn't going to last 20 years. However, with Panzer Iv's and StuGs on the Golan Heights in the 1960's, who am I to judge? But you do hit on one very important point, ease of maintenance. To have a transmission change, a Panther needed to have it's turret removed, all the interior front end removed and then the transmission removed - a three day job before you even replaced it. A Sherman could be towed in, the front end removed, an entire new front end and transmission bolted on and be back in service in under 3 hours. The benefits of the car industry and assembly line technology.

Actually you consider the quality of the people you are going to have on your tank crews as part of the design. High quality recruits in a country that is willing to devote lavish amounts of money on training them are going to have an easier time with high technology and will be able to utilize that tech to the fullest. Poor quality recruits and no willingness to devote lavish time and resources for training them demand a tank that is as simple as possible. Another factor to consider is tank cost vs reliability and maintainability. The US has always paid more for tanks in order to get tanks that were more reliable and easy to keep in running order. One of the thinks that made the M1 series tanks great is that a lot of thought went into how components were going to be accessed and removed for repair if needed. Every component in the turret that was not depot level maintenance was designed so that two people could remove it through the loader's hatch. You could replace the engine in under an hour.

Sounds like an engineer's definition. Source: I'm an engineer. :D

weight & getting into battle could come under mobility

@@gracefool Yes but not for the TANK. Battlefield mobility isn't operational mobility. That would be the train, or plane's mobility. When you get them to the battlefield, THEN the Tank's mobility comes into play.

Just a quick edit for you "Now with Prisms, but still" should actually be "Now with Cameras".

Depends on the tank's role. If tank on tank combat isn't its primary purpose, but rather simply driving deep into the enemy interior to disrupt command, logistics, and morale, then you don't need to see as much when you're buttoned up.

@@IrishCarney Bullshit. You have to see where you're going, and you need to see enough of the ground to avoid Tank Tracks (Which are intentionally below the level of vision slits/Prisms) curbs, trenches, and so forth. People don't seem to realize how tanks turn, so a 4:curb can lock it into the same track it's alongside if it's too close. One of the reasons why Tanks are so useless-to-vulnerable in Urban Combat, specifically on roads designed for Cars, and Pedestrians.

Your not off as the other allies planes like the p40 where strapped rockets when they were not made for it. A lot of kills they claim can be brought down way above fifty percent

Do not confuse the college boys.....

Wie schneller du fahrst, wie schneller nach Polen!

Those were the days. A platoon of tanks and a platoon of scouts who always trained together. And knew that whatever happened - they could depend on each other. Which didn't stop us tankers from deliberately misidentifying the M3 CFV as a "BMP" just to screw with the scouts.

@@colincampbell767 After a NG ARTEP (where the 10th Mountain was the OpFor), the officers had an After Action Review to include everyone, which doubled as a learning opportunity, one officer went into bounding overwatch vs moving overwatch using M113s (the Scouts) and Tanks. During the exercise, the Tanks provided Moving overwatch for the Scouts through a highs shrub field. The Officer asked if a bounding overwatch could have been used, with the Tanks and Scouts taking turns providing overwatch. I (an E-4, but with prior service in the Active Army) kind of shocked everyone by saying you could, but I wouldn't. To the officer's credit, he asked why. I said the tanks were too valuable to risk, AND they do not have the visibility to adequately respond to the infantry hiding in the dense shrubs. Upon realizing I may have embarrassed the officer (my brain had been in a pure tactical evaluation mode), I immediately said my OPINION would be different in a more open field. LOL With regards to the shrubs, one of the guys on another track in my platoon had told me that they were engaging some infantry on their 10 o'clock. When an Ump "killed"the track. Because we had infantry and vehicles together, a track was not allowed to approach within 25 meters (don't remember exact distance) of infantry and any infantry that finds itself within 15 meters had to make themselves visible and were considered "killed". When the Ump walked over to the track, the track commander immediately started complaining that they were not "really" within 25 meters and they were going safely past them anyway. The Ump calmly said that the track was not "killed" because of the squad at his 10 o'clock, but the other squad that he did not see 15 meters at his 1 o'clock. LOL And this is with the driver, TC, and as much as four guys with their heads sticking out of the back top hatch looking. Good times.

Was it at least faster, more fuel efficient? That way you could zip away from the main body, then back again to deliver reports or the like. Right? Also, be careful what you wish for - the BMP-1 and 2 are VERY low slung, but so much so that main gun fires at the level of, not above the heads of, dismounted infantry.

@@IrishCarney The first true IFVs, rather than simply an APC! With that said, I think the BMPs would make poor scouts because the turret wa so small. It would if you had a turret that can fit two, the gunner and commander. Th gunner can look one through the gun optics and the commander can stick his head out for a bigger picture view. Also, people often underestimate the advantage of popping your headout to listen or even smell. Of course, these days, you can do a lot with just optics, particularly if you can raise a periscope. That would be ideal. Whether you have tracked or wheeled depends a lot on the terrain expected. There were occasions (area not that hilly, lots of roadways, light woods) where I liked the HMMWV as a scout vehicle. Edit: Sorry, did not answer your first question. The M3 was more fuel efficient, but not faster. The M1 can also accelerate faster. With regards to reporting, today, it is pretty much all done with the radio. We had a saying even back then, "First Out, Last In". First to go out to scout around and last in, screen the movement back. During exercises, we rarely passed back through friendly lines. Supplies was brought to us, to include fuel sometimes. We did practice passage of lines, but rarely. It was more of a commander and senior NCO thing to coordinate the passage of lines.

Surprisingly enough, the Trinity in a slightly modified form is not just inherent to tanks, but EVERYTHING that moves, be it a tank, a truck, a car, an airplane, a ship, a submarine or a space ship. For ALL of those vehicles, the maneuverability, the range, and the carrying capacity are three elements of design that always need to be taken into account. For tanks in particular, the carrying capacity is broken down into defensive and offensive capabilities, the defensive capabilities being armor protection among other elements (such as size of the tank, crew ergonomics and such), and the offensive capabilities being the Main Gun, but can also include secondary guns, crew visibility (how well can the crew see), ease of loading the guns among others.

How about an Irishman in a tank? (Just asking for a friend...)

@ They cant, there are no potatoes left.

There were a couple of Irishmen who planned to declare war on the Soviet Union at one point, but decided against it when they learned that the Soviets had an Army of 50 million men. They couldn't figure out what were they going to do with 50 million Prisoners of War.

Despite our pugnacity and perceived expendability, the Irish were not used as shock troops as much as our Celtic cousins from Scotland. It's Scottish, not Irish bagpipes, that have echoed from hills all over the world, from Afghanistan to South Africa to New Guinea.

Y is it always my peeps? 😅

Matthew Lee you must feel really good about yourself right now

Looks like we're on track for a tank-related pun contest. I'm sure it'll be a barrel of laughs.

@@thomassaldana2465 Panzer IV sure

@@matthewlee8667 I was trying to think of a witty reply but I got a bit stug.

@@thomassaldana2465 I Sherman-aged to stump you eh?

No, actually, it is not. Fact is, the Infantry are the single most important aspect of an army. Tanks, cannot hold ground, aircraft, cannot hold ground, Artillery, cannot hold ground. Only Infantry can do those things. Only an idiot disregards the importance of infantry in an army. Yes, today Infantry are carried into battle in IFV's, they are supported by heavy armour, as in tanks, supported by Air power, supported by artillery of all sorts... Infantry does not have to mean LEG infantry, at least to carry them into battle... But Infantry are the only arm of the army that can TAKE ground, and HOLD ground.... The most important part of a combined arms group is the fucking infantry... because without those infantry the combined arms group is effectively useless.

Let me put it this way, if you take the Artillery, tanks, intel, airpower... any of those out of a combined arms op and you have a high risk of failure. You take the Infantry out, and the Op is a no go from the start. In 1941 Rommel was not demanding extra tanks in North Africa, he wanted more INFANTRY, because his formation was tank heavy. The British suffered the same issue in Operation Crusader, at least partly... using tanks alone to try and take objectives, with an extremely tank heavy force, and without their infantry they got fucking hammered. The Germans settled on a 2:1 ratio of mech/mot infantry regiments to a single Armoured regiment for their Armoured divisions... why is that I wonder? Is it perhaps because Infantry happens to be important? Oh wait, the British and Americans eventually settled on about the same ratio of infantry to armour... Why is that I wonder? Feel free to cogitate.

Did I say Logistics was not important? No, I said its all irrelevant WITHOUT INFANTRY. Without Infantry you cannot take and hold ground. Infantry is what the entire Army is there to support. Tanks were first developed to support infantry, tanks are STILL USED in an infantry support role. Just as infantry are used to support tanks. Tanks may punch the hole, but it is infantry that takes and holds the ground. Everything in an army is there to ensure the Infantry can do their job. Be it Intel, Artillery, Armour, Logistics, it is all irrelevant without the infantry. If you cannot take and hold ground you cannot win a war. That is TAUGHT at places like Westpoint and Sandhurst. If you cannot get those infantry to where they need to be, support them, and supply them, then you may as well not bother turning up for the war. Tanks are great things, but without infantry they are all but useless. Infantry however CAN operate without armoured support.....

Jeffrey Fisher Tells you a lot about the importance of initiative. The internet focuses almost entirely on equipment and ignores the input of the people using it or the environment in which it is used. That is what usually wins battles.

@@thethirdman225 Exactly, and the things that support initiative, like training, communications, logistics - tanks can't push the initiative if they are broken down, or out of gas and ammo,

In the end it comes down to who is manning the tanks, not the tanks itselves.

Actually - you yourself identified the advantage superior equipment give you. The superior tanks had 25% fewer casualties. Fewer casualties are a long term strategic advantage because your investments in crew training are not going to wind up in hospitals or body bags. BTW - did those simulations factor in the fact that the US troops were able to identify and engage the enemy before the enemy could see them?

@@colincampbell767 The half-dozen or dozen men whose lives were saved are no doubt glad they are still alive, as are their families. But that's not what wins wars. In 73 Easting, many engagements were made within visual range. For example, on engagement either at 73 Easting or in a nearby battle saw 2 M2 Bradleys take on over a dozen T-72s within visual range even though they could easily have been destroyed by any T-72 that had been able to be gotten into acton, and destroyed 5 of them with missiles and a 6th with 25mm cannon fire before they could respond. That's training, not sensor technology. In the air war over Iraq, several Iraqi pilots flew into the ground while trying to engage in combat maneuvering. That's training, not anything to do with technology. Going back to the WW2 pattern, the Germans crushed the Soviets in Barbarossa because of better training and leadership, not because their Panzer IIIs with medium-velocity guns and Panzer IVs with low velocity guns and no more than 50mm of vertical armor were stronger than T-34s and KV-1s. Sure, superb troops with superb weapons do even better. But what really is superiority? Tigers couldn't have made the armored thrusts of 1939, 40, 0r 41. Nor could Tigers in American hands have made either the long series of pushes from breaking out of the Normandy beach-head to the Rhine, nor the pivot and road-march to relieve Bastogne. And Tigers in Soviet hands would have been ill-suited to the long push as the Soviets counter-attacked. Which came first? The tanks to unreliable and thirsty for fuel to mount sustained attacks? Or the army too broken by a long war to mount effective offensive action?

Ergonomics shows up in the rate of fire difference between the Sherman and the T34.

And Russian.... Consider the T-35. 68 of them built, 5 actually destroyed in combat. The rest failed due to transmission issues.

communication costs stealth as the antennas can be easily seen and also internal space

@@tigara1290 Neither of which are the holy trinity.

Well you can increase all three, by e.g. converting a panther into a Jagdtpanther. Well, it's not a big increase in armour and mobility, but ditching the turret offers you a lot of benefits including production costs and silhouette...

Scissors Paper Stone

@Michael Smith not really. It doesn't matter for long range engagements. Also most turret less designs allow still at least 10° adjustment to the sides.

Quantity has a quality all of it's own. Also known as "perfection is the enemy of good enough".

john bunyan What about tactical considerations?

Steve56,agreed. Germany shoud've stuck with the PzIV,imagine how many of them they could've fielded had they not dabbled in resource depleting chimeras. The Third Man. True,to a degree at a tactical level. But really we're talking about the strategic level. Remember the old adage,"Amateurs talk of strategy,professionals talk about logistics."

Honestly the Panzer IV wasn't that good for mass production either. I often like to say one reason people overlook when looking for reasons why Germany lost the war (and there is a shitload of it) is that they did not dare to get Opel into their tank design efforts in 1934 because it was owned by General Motors and they thought the managers might inform the US government about the rearmament. Opel was the only company in Germany with any knowledge about car and truck mass production in Germany at that point. So Opel stuck to trucks... Do I want to know what could have happened if the first German tanks of WW2 would have been mass-production optimized? Not really...

History Gaming Verified Agreed,but conjecture and what ifs are rich pickings for us armchair historians.😉

Two Tailed Warrior Yeah, absolutely. It’s ridiculous how games like WOT push people towards things like the Tiger II when in reality, that tank achieved very little.

@@thethirdman225 or even in general. It's easy to point when you're not the one who has to go out there to get shot at.

Two Tailed Warrior ...or be the general who has overall responsibility for winning the battle. People need to learn to think outside the confines of the tank. Tank crews are important but so are other things like the battlefield and who controls it. It might not be the army with the “best” tank. Control of the high ground and the fire lanes is of major importance. So is the weather. Gamers never consider any of this because there’s no reason to. WOT is little more than a FPS game with tracks.

@Grundy Malone No it didn't. The King Tiger was a failure. It was also too big to be used in the street fighting in Berlin. the Battle of the Bulge failed because the Germans missed their fuel dump at Stavelot.

With peace, the tiger would never have been made. War is a hell of a motivator for innovation.

The problem with that is it considers an idealistic situation where the terrain is suited for the tank’s range and the tank crew is able to effectively spot the enemy tank. It also doesn’t take into account one of if not the largest threat to a tank. Infantry.

Yes and no. There is no doubt that many of the German designs of WW2 had this advantage over their opposition. On the Soviet steppes, they were able to make reasonable use of this. On the other hand, life sucked for those tanks in Western Europe, because a number of the features which made the tank good in the East were a disadvantage in the West. The idea of long-range capability providing survivability is certainly still a thing today, witness the lightly-skinned vehicles mounting anti-tank missiles, but then again, when the US made the Great Missile or Gun Choice in the 1970s, they still decided the gun was the better option, and to this day, tanks are still compromising long range accuracy for other benefits.

@@TheChieftainsHatch Also manouvring a big vehicle on a small road with rocks on either side or a ditch.

The_Chieftain Much of this can be neutralised by human ingenuity. If we ignore the equipment for a minute (sacrilege!!), tactics and the presence of other elements will make a huge difference to the outcome. Laying an effective ambush, controlling the fire lanes and the high ground and the presence of infantry will all influence the result. But as you rightly point out, terrain has a massive influence.

That's true enough, I wonder how useful combine arms would be with things like the Humvee with mounted TOWs being used as long range accurate fire supporting Main Battle Tanks being used to support the infantry closer to the front. Ultimately the battle field is so dynamic with the different types of enemies, terrain, weather, and situations on a Grand strategic or even strategic level there can only be a certain amount of specialization. At a point we have to cut our losses and accept that there can be no perfect combat vehicle or even combination of combat vehicles.

airborneleaf Trinity is flawed because it ignores too many other considerations which are, in many cases, at least as important. It ignores industrial capacity, for example. The Germans built these massive tanks in WWII but her industrial capacity meant there would never be enough of them. It ignores the supply chain. It ignores the wants and needs of the army, except from a crew point of view. It ignores affordability and sustainability. Above all, used outside a tank design bureau, it totally ignores all human factors. Trinity is of limited value but the worst thing about it is the way it’s misused, especially by gamers claiming to know something about history.

The trinity is clearly simplified too much. I also doubt its a fundamental design principle. Its rather something tank designers told people who didn't know anything, to save themselves of too much explanation. It reminds me of something i was taught at junior high: "Music has 4 elements: Melody, Rhytm, Harmony, Text" Its a simplification bordering to the meaningless.

@@thethirdman225 The Trinity deals with the design trade-offs of the tanks. It's similar to the four forces of aviation (thrust, drag, lift, and gravity). It doesn't deal with things like tactics or communications because those things can be changed without altering anything else. You can change the weight or firepower to adapt to new tactics, but the new tactics don't automatically alter the weight or firepower. Also, "affordability and sustainability" are often less dependent on the tanks themselves and more dependent on the individual militaries. The US can easily build and maintain a massive number of Abrams, but a poor country can't. The reason the Trinity was important was because those factors could, and did, limit what the tanks could realistically be used for (at least prior to the introduction of the "Main Battle Tank" during the Cold War). A tank with too little mobility can't be used for effective offences. They'd run out of fuel, break down too frequently, or both. A tank with too little armor or firepower would have trouble fighting other tanks. But adding too much armor ran the risk of severely limiting the mobility or the size of the gun (if the armor was expended inward instead of outward). TLDR: They aren't the only factors in tank design, but they aren't that flawed. How the tanks can effectively be used in war depended fairly heavily on how the tank's design balanced the Trinity. Implying it's too flawed is like saying the "four forces of aviation" is flawed because it ignores pilots or fuel.

@@foxymetroid A good precis of what the trinity is but there's one rider that needs to go over this _"How the tanks can effectively be used in war depended fairly heavily on how the tank's design balanced the Trinity."_ The design of the tank is dependent on its envisioned use, not, as some people seem to think, the other way around. Trinity is subordinate to that. If you put the trinity too far up the scale then there is no logical reason for certain types of tanks to exist. Why, for example, did the allies continue to have a need for the M3 Stuart tank? Trinity tends to encourage people to simply compare without considering the design requirements. I realise it's just a subset of tank design but it cannot and should not be the ultimate arbiter. The Germans built a lot of super heavy tanks (even the Panther was a heavy tank, despite the German designation) but so much of that was dependent on the triumvirate of Hitler, Speer and Porsche, who refused to listen to the needs of the Heer and produced the tanks _they_ wanted. You end up with something looking for a function. That was an example of the trinity being too dominant in the overall equation. The PzKpfw III and IV were both designed at the behest of Guderian who was building a highly mobile tank force to operate in a combined arms strategy. The trinity might have been part of the tank design process but it was definitely subordinate to envisioned need.

Agreed. There's no way that beard is purely german. I think it must be an example of some kind of hybrid-vigor.

@@cosmicmuffet1053 Damn, I can't leave a beard. regulations...

I think Ralp is austrian...

MHV is Austrian, Ralf is German.

@@Schmusekatze42 blood wtf? all about nations IS an political thing, is bayern german? yes because of politics and so on... ethic is always basesd on politics, or it will be make then wen politic comes to it (syr my english is bad)

or they have early access via patreon.com/mhv/ ;)

In german we call that Schleichwerbung ... (not really but you get the point) Also, don´t ruin my comment @@MilitaryHistoryVisualized, I had to think about it for 5 secs ;)