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Other Stuff => General Wargames and Hobby Discussion => Topic started by: Unlucky General on September 28, 2020, 05:45:19 AM
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If you are like me and have so much time on your hands you look at Youtube for entertainment (I'm posted overseas away from my family) you may have seen the Tank Museum (UK Bovington) Top 5 Tanks series. They get a range of all sort of opinionated people (mostly qualified) to list their Top 5 tanks from history and the reasons why.
I'm not going to do that (I'm sure you are relieved) but one thing which doesn't seem to feature much in people's consideration is how 'survivable' a tank is. There are a lot of people determined to redeem the reputation of the Sherman Tank (The Chieftain being it's principle champion) on various grounds largely to do with maintenance and supply ... but what's the point if it can't take a hit?
If I was forced to be a tanker I'd try to ensure my tank was going to help be live through the conflict. There's an axiom which I'll not defend or contradict which dictates that he who shoots first likely wins - and yes, you'd need to be accurate. If that's the case you'd need a gun which is going to knock out what it hits. On the off-chance the enemy gets one off against you (perhaps there are more than one or you don't even know they are there) I'd hope my tank could take a hit without brewing up with me in it.
So, for me, armour and escape hatches might be uber-important and a gun which hopefully keeps the enemy at arms-length.
What do you think? What are your essential guidelines and do you have a preferred vehicle?
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It would depend on the type of war you THINK you will be fighting.
e.g. Your neighbor always invades you = I want good protection & don't care too much about speed.
I always invade my neighbor & his country is vast = I want speed.
AS it takes years to develop, pay for & build a tank force, and almost no time for international events
to completely change requirements, I would go for an average. Reasonable speed, armour & gun.
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This obviously highlights what is good strategically or operationally or even tactically is not always the same as what the crew would like.
You also can't discount the whole strategic and operational issue.
Would you rather be in one of four Shermans (one of which has a 17 pdr) or a lone Panther facing them?
Perhaps a supremely unreliable tank would be good from a survivability point of view? If it breaks down before you reach the start line you have a perfect excuse for returning to the depot and having a cup of tea. Kind of like the best kamikaze plane for the pilot is one that is subject to frequent engine failures so you can't take off.
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Imho this discussion is endless.
Tanks have three principle categories:
Most tanks lack in at least one category. If you have a top armored tank with the meanest gun you can find - most of the time it is slow and cumbersome. If it is fast and agile - it sure is less armored than the crew would like. And if speed and armor are awsome - the gun stinks.
When building a successful tank one needs to find the "perfect" balance of the three categories. That's why the concept of light, medium and heavy tank is obsolete and nowadays it is just MBTs.
If you add further categories into the equasion like technical reliability and numbers available you are, imho, in for an endless discussion. And to top things off I think it also matters who you ask. Ask a surviving Panther commander and I bet he will say his tank was the best, despite its misgivings and if you ask a Sherman or Firefly crew member who survived and scored kills - their tank will be unbeatable.
When talking available numbers - are those really saying anything about the "worthiness" of a tank? Take the numbers of German and Russian tanks at Kursk. The Russians lost a huge number of their tanks including T-34s - against much smaller numbers of Tiger and Panzer IV tanks - but does that say anything about the tank itself? I personally do not think the T-34 was rubbish, just because the crews were inadequately trained or the tactics used were rather crappy as in "we throw everything at them and then some more".
German Panzer I and 2s surely will be called inferior to the French Renault Char B1 (1935) and the fast Somua S-35. Yet - they lost.
Or take the Jagdtiger - lots of armor and a gun that knocks out everything your opponet can throw against it. Most of the time it was taken out of combat because it ran out of fuel and knock-outs occured almost entirely through ground attack aircraft - does that make the behemoth a good tank?
While I understand the basic human need to compare things, I really dislike this whole "what's the best tank" thing. But I admit I have my favorite tanks too - and while they are good - there is always a tank that will perform better.
Sorry for the long post.
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There's probably a complicated venn diagram that can be applied here - survivability, combat effectiveness, speed, cost, crew comfort, mechanical complexity and reliability all being key components.
Based on 1930s and 40s techologies (and taking into account development and production lead-times) it must have been almost impossible to achieve more than a couple of these to any appreicable degree. Throw in the fact you are in a rapid arms race and I think strategic considerations will dictate the preferred solution more than anything else. Axis solutions would focus on material cost (the MkIV Ausf J being a good example of a standard German medium tank actually getting worse in it's last iterations) and survival while the allies had huge distances to cover on all fronts. The brutal truth also being that the allies had far larger crew resource available so could focus on getting as many of them moving and fighting as possible.
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Since I am very unlikely to ever have to fight a war in a tank, my top five criteria would be purely based around how cool the tanks are. I have a real soft spot for the rhomboid tanks of the Great War, but unless they were armed only with a stick, I don't think I'd want to have to fight anyone from inside of one.
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Imho this discussion is endless.
Tanks have three principle categories:
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I think you have missed weight from your categories. The tiger tank had a high top speed, thick armour and a powerful gun. One reason it was poor strategically and operationally was because it was so damn heavy. It was very difficult to recover from the battlefield (which when you are retreating is a bad thing) and was difficult to get to the battlefield (bridges, railway clearance, etc) It's the same reason the Pershing didn't see a lot of service - a good tank on paper but big and heavy causing a logistical challenge to an army that was constrained by shipping.
I also don't think you can discount reliability and ease of manufacture as principal categories. Is it better to have five OK tanks or one complex but theoretically great tank (except the transmission is prone to failure and it can catch fire all by itself? cough ... Panther ... cough). The reason the allies fielded so many more tanks wasn't just base industrial capacity being greater but they standardised parts and designed things to be easy to manufacture.
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I think you have missed weight from your categories. The tiger tank had a high top speed, thick armour and a powerful gun. One reason it was poor strategically and operationally was because it was so damn heavy. It was very difficult to recover from the battlefield (which when you are retreating is a bad thing) and was difficult to get to the battlefield (bridges, railway clearance, etc) It's the same reason the Pershing didn't see a lot of service - a good tank on paper but big and heavy causing a logistical challenge to an army that was constrained by shipping.
It was always fascinating how this ended up being a design consideration for the Tiger II, such that it had incredibly good weight dispersion/ground pressure in spite of its even larger size and weight comapared to its predecessor.
And yes, the question of strategic factors, tactical factors, and individual features of a given fighting vehicle are going to weigh very differently for a member of the general staff, a field officer, or the actual crew. That's without getting into factors like the expected terrain or the conditions.
But at least I think we can all agree that every tank needs a loudspeaker to play "I've been workin' on the railroad" while blowing up enemy logistics.
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I think it's definitely important to look at historical tanks from a tactical perspective, and not a strategic one. I have younger friends who base all of their historical opinions on armchair historian strategic views. I think this (practice, not this thread!) treads dangerously close to being disingenuous to the soldiers who fought these wars first hand.
A 20-something friend of mine frequently derides German tanks from WW2 because they were expensive or unreliable, etc. While it's easy to agree on a grand scope, I'd have a hard time telling the allied servicemen who faced a functioning Tiger crewed by veterans "Oh don't worry it's not going to impact the war's result.", etc.
No matter how strategically or economically poor any armoured fighting vehicle was on either side...some poor bastard had to fight it, and it was terrifying and possibly fatal.
As such, I tend to stick to simply what I find coolest. I'd definitely value reliability, ergonomics and decent survivability.
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If I was in a tank in WW2, I'd want to be in one that was both survivable and easy to bail. Churchhill I guess. And if I got to pick a variant, the mortar one that doesn't ever go anywhere near the enemy. I've read their commander reports and it's just responding to fire support requests over and over and over.
Now with the more interesting criteria of which tank is best being the number of turrets, the M3 Lee/Grant and the Soviet T35 are hilarious contenders. Though I'd much rather be in a M3 than a T35.
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I think you have missed weight from your categories. The tiger tank had a high top speed, thick armour and a powerful gun. One reason it was poor strategically and operationally was because it was so damn heavy. It was very difficult to recover from the battlefield (which when you are retreating is a bad thing) and was difficult to get to the battlefield (bridges, railway clearance, etc) It's the same reason the Pershing didn't see a lot of service - a good tank on paper but big and heavy causing a logistical challenge to an army that was constrained by shipping.
Maybe, maybe not ... modern MBTs outweigh WWII Heavy tanks, with the exception of super-heavy tanks like the Maus, TOG, E-100 or Tortoise. A Panther weighs in at roughly 47 tons, Tiger at approx. 57 tons, Sherman, Firefly and T-34/85 weigh around 30 tons to 32 tons - a Leopard 2A6 enters at 62 tons - same weight category as the Leclerc, Merkava and Challenger 2, while the newest American M1A2C weighs in at over 70 tons. I do not see anyone calling the M1 Abrams a bad tank, just because it outweighs all other MBTs.
But I agree with what Elbows said ... As such, I tend to stick to simply what I find coolest.
Which in my case would be a Jagpanther or the T-34/85. But having sat in a T-34/85 I do not think I would like to fight in one.
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Good point on tank weight. The weight of a tank is largely irrelevant as long as you have a logistics train ramped up to deal with that sized tank.
NATO has such a system in place, whereas the Germans in late 1944 to 45 did not, hence it was difficult to cover the logistics train of tank battalions with Tigers and Panthers. Similarly the road network needs to be able to cope with such beasts, many WW2 roads and bridges were poor by modern standards, thus difficult to move large tanks.
Looking at tank numbers alone on a strategic level doesn't mean much if you produce 5 times as many tanks as your opponent but he knocks of 6 of yours for every one of his. You also need to have the logistics train in place to get all those cheap tanks from A to B. Rearm them and maintain them.
So, I think, armour, weight and speed matter tactically if that's your level. The strategic/operational only impacts before and then after such engagements. So, it depends on how you wish to approach such things. A good tank can be of bad design, e.g. the T34, but will win out because of the strategic situation, meaning its good because it's easy to build, maintain and can use the road/rail network easily. However, perhaps a Tiger tank would also win out on this level if it also had a suitable logistic train geared up to support it. ;)
DB
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I think you have missed weight from your categories. The tiger tank had a high top speed, thick armour and a powerful gun. One reason it was poor strategically and operationally was because it was so damn heavy. It was very difficult to recover from the battlefield (which when you are retreating is a bad thing) and was difficult to get to the battlefield (bridges, railway clearance, etc) It's the same reason the Pershing didn't see a lot of service - a good tank on paper but big and heavy causing a logistical challenge to an army that was constrained by shipping.
I also don't think you can discount reliability and ease of manufacture as principal categories. Is it better to have five OK tanks or one complex but theoretically great tank (except the transmission is prone to failure and it can catch fire all by itself? cough ... Panther ... cough). The reason the allies fielded so many more tanks wasn't just base industrial capacity being greater but they standardised parts and designed things to be easy to manufacture.
You would have to add crew quality as well I would say. There are a lot of examples, historical and modern, of experienced crew in an inferior tank getting more out of it than a less experienced crew in theoretically a better tank.
That's before thinking about tactics that could leave tanks vulnerable to infantry attacks and something as simple as a 'sticky bomb' do dislodge tracks and leave it immobile.
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Its the old 'cheap but reliable and easy to maintain' vs 'technically good but tricky to keep going' debate. Personally I'd go for a tank-buster like the M-10 tank destroyer. A cheap but reasonably fast chassis equipped with an ass-kicking gun. Kind of like a Fiat Uno with a 1300 motorcycle engine - it is a bit of a surprise package. The only problem was the open topped turret. When it rained the M-10 crew got wet!
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Wasn't it Richelieu who said treason is a question of dates? Same goes for tank effectiveness. Matilda, Queen of the Desert in '41 was well on the way to obsolete on the same battleground in '42.
Location and opponents as well. Same example, Matilda, was the only tank to see front line service from '39 to '45, because it transformed into the Matilda Frog, an Australian flamethrower tank all but invulnerable to the Japanese in the jungle, whereas in Europe against the Germans it would have been all but useless.
I read someone deriding the Churchill as a useless cul-de-sac of a tank, like all British efforts at tank design - slow, heavy and under-gunned. I would point to the battlefields it was required to serve in soon after its introduction - Tunisia, Sicily, Italy, Normandy - all dense and difficult terrain in which the Churchill's excellent cross-country ability and thick armour served it very well. Not to mention its versatility and conversion to 'funnies' in the 79th Armoured Division that served the Allies so well in '44 and '45.
It always seems to go that we discuss tank vs tank design like it's a tank vs tank battle. But in the rock, paper, scissors of war, often it wasn't tank vs tank, it was tank vs infantry, or anti-tank vs tank, etc.. One of the big lessons the Allies learned in North Africa was how Rommel kept his tanks back until his 88's had cleared the opposition armour, then he threw in the tanks against infantry and soft vehicles, causing mayhem.
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Well weight is important not just for logistics, also for mobility. Bridges, roads and so on... yes you can improve them, but even with a great logistical support you can do only so much. One important consideration for the Heer in the latest version of the Leo2 was bridge weight. Too much and you say goodbye to the majority of German bridges.
Also tidbit from history... do you know that the only way to work on the Panther's transmission was to cut through the frontal armor, and then re-weld it after work?
Also, despite the usual focus on tank vs tank, remember that the majority of time your tank will engage infantry. Zaloga had some interesting data on the number of HE vs AP round fired by US tanks in WW2, and basically infantry and guns were the majority targets.
By the same token mines, and 'fausts' were far bigger killers than German tanks. The big question is... how many tigers the average US or CW or Polish tanker encountered in its WW2 career? Answer from very few to none. Also by the same token, number shown that for each Sherman destroyed by Panthers 1.81 Panthers were knocked down by Shermans, that for the 'superior tanks myth' or the crap five Shermans for a tiger... (that appears ot be a post war construction). The young gentleman deriding the supposed superior German tanks may have more of a point that some here are willing to concede... lol
Then you have crew quality, ergonomics, production quality and so on. The T-34 was supposed to be a reliable tank. By all standard in 1940 it was. Then you have the big displacement east of industrial infrastructure and the subcontracting process. A 1943 T-34 was utterly unreliable compared to a 1940 one (okay nadir year was 42... then Morozov and Kartsev started to get things back under control).
Then you have doctrine. The way you employ tanks is important. Too often a tank is designed for a role and then used in a different way.
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Sounds to me like you need a set of these!
(https://hosting.photobucket.com/images/b76/DigitsDavid/9E26168E_A697_4FCB_ABE8_200BC2B66B60.jpeg?width=1920&height=1080&fit=bounds)
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I love Top Trumps. They did a Top Trumps of Prince William's wedding to Kate Middleton, and some joker bought it for me.
I was in heaven. It helped me decide one of the classic "who would win in a fight?" questions that I had long pondered over:
Posh Spice vs. Westminster Abbey: One wins, one dies!
Only on pay-per-view, this weekend on Sky Sports.
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Arrigo,
Also by the same token, number shown that for each Sherman destroyed by Panthers 1.81 Panthers were knocked down by Sherman's, that for the 'superior tanks myth' or the crap five Sherman's for a tiger... (that appears to be a post war construction).
I don't believe that statistic or, in fact, any statistic that states something like it took 5 Sherman's to knock out 1 Tiger , etc. Its absolute nonsense as tank kill ratio's are entirely dependent upon the tactical situation and doctrinal usage, as you note later on. A Tiger in good position could knock out ten Sherman's or a Sherman encountering Tiger and getting off several quick shots could take out one Tiger...
I think I know what you mean about the T34 standard in 1940, but compared to a Panzer III, which was designed well before 1940, the T34 was decidedly inferior in 1940/1 and right up until the end of the war, with regard to crew ergonomics, turret layout, situational awareness, etc, etc. But having said that compared to an A10 or a M11/39, maybe not so bad..... ;)
DB
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I saw an interview in a magazine with a WW2 Russian Tanker. He said his favorite tank was...
a Valantine!!???
His unit of mainly T34s ran into a Tiger. It kept knocking out any T34 that tried to close. They
sent the Valantine out on one flank & the Tiger couldn't get a good hit on it, even had difficulty
seeing it as it was such a low profile. It managed to get behind the Tiger & disable it.
Yet most wargamers would take the T34 ???
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DCR,
the data is not meant to say the M4 is always superior to the Sherman on the ground, but that at the end more Panthers were killed by Shermans than the other way round. It reminds me of an internet fight years ago... a chap maintained that the Panther was superior because the ballistic performance of its gun were superior at 1000 meters over the Shermans. I said that in NWE the bulk of engagements happened at less than 500 (I think the average was around 300). It also remind me a discussion I was told about... a challenger II can engage enemy infantry at 3000 meters.... but nothing was told about the ability to spot...
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Crusader Mk III - just because it's so beautiful.
Tiger I - for the "cool" factor
WW I Mk IV - because it's so dam' ugly
Grant - see above
Hussite war waggon - unbeatable!
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My vote is for the Panther - a cool looking tank though it was a heavy s.o.b. for a so-called 'medium tank... Kindof like the T-34's more attractive but overweight German cousin.
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The JS (or IS)2 should be up there as having an excellent gun and good armour particularly for its weight which was similar to a Panther.
The Sherman Firefly has the cool looks of the Sherman but with the excellent 17pdr. It should not be forgotten that the Sherman was comparatively an excellent tank when it came out, it just got outclassed later in the war.
T34 for its radical design and production practicality.
The Stug because it looks cool and was cheap to make, though perhaps it is more an assault gun than an tank.
Tiger 1 for its looks, armour and gun. It had a lot of problems as a tank but given that it came out in 1941, it remained a fearsome tank throughout the war.
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Definitely the T34-85 for sheer good looks in mass production and longevity but without a doubt the sexiest of all time is the CKD LT vz. 38 or Panzer 38(t) and all its lovely derivatives
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If I was in a tank in WW2, I'd want to be in one that was both survivable and easy to bail. Churchhill I guess. And if I got to pick a variant, the mortar one that doesn't ever go anywhere near the enemy. I've read their commander reports and it's just responding to fire support requests over and over and over.
Now with the more interesting criteria of which tank is best being the number of turrets, the M3 Lee/Grant and the Soviet T35 are hilarious contenders. Though I'd much rather be in a M3 than a T35.
Wasn't the Churchill notoriously difficult to bail out from? Or am I mistaken there?
As for survivability, I recall the Churchill's main weakness in terms of armour was appallingly thin underplating which left the crew very vulnerable to mines.
I mean I don't want to rag on the poor thing overmuch - as Cubs points out, the Church had its good points. At the same time, having some redeeming qualities and a reputation worse than its actual combat record does not make it a top tank or even a hidden gem.
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Definitely the T34-85 for sheer good looks in mass production and longevity but without a doubt the sexiest of all time is the CKD LT vz. 38 or Panzer 38(t) and all its lovely derivatives
The T-34 was a tank which I recall the Germans used in quantity when captured and often quoted as feeling it was superior to anything they produced, both among senior commanders and tank crews.
Once production was worked out again by '43 and once the crew actually had proper radios in every tank and better doctrine, the T-34 arguably combined the reliability and mobility and ease of production of the Shermans, with reasonable firepower and a hull with a better armour profile than any other tanks of comparable size and weight.
The ergonomics of the T-34 were absolutely terrible though, no doubting that, and the various guns it mounted weren't exactly tiger-killers.
The T34-85 basically solved all the problems with the base T-34 but the switch to the 85mm and larger turret (and a stronger engine to match) pretty much put it at the top of the heap for WWII "medium" tanks IMO. The Firefly is effectively comparable in capability, but I think the armour profile of the T34/T34-85 gives it the edge.
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The T-34 also shares the dubious honor of being the most wiped out tank in WW2 with some 40,000 losses. Granted many of these are likely mobility kills or abandoned tanks from the early days when crews were horribly trained...or outright untrained.
Even in the later years though, with the T-34/85 the Soviets still suffered appalling casualties vs. the Germans, but even when the Germans managed to kill four or five per tank loss...it wasn't enough to stop the advance.
If I had a simple top five, just...for "pure joy", in no order I'd have to say:
Char 2C (simple silliness)
Jagdtiger (most beautiful tank/tank hunter in the war)
KV-1 (just my favourite generic tank shape/style)
Churchill (because..Churchill)
Panzer III (a borderline perfect tank, only limited by its turret ring)
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My father was in Shermans in North Africa and then Normandy (including Goodwood).
He never had much to say about them apart from their inability to take hits in the desert, although he complained that some hits could go straight through.
He took me to Bovington when I was a young teenager (back when you could still climb up a ladder onto the top of the Jagdtiger).
He was very impressed by most of the German tanks, but especially by the Jagdtiger (we were standing on top of it at the time).
The only German tanks that he mentioned in action were Panzer IVs.
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Wasn't the Churchill notoriously difficult to bail out from? Or am I mistaken there?
I thought it was the opposite, with hatches all over the place. But again, I might be mistaken.
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I thought it was the opposite, with hatches all over the place. But again, I might be mistaken.
I believe Fram is mixing up the Churchill with the Cromwell.
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I believe Fram is mixing up the Churchill with the Cromwell.
I'll be honest, I've never read anything about the armour underneath being thin and vulnerable to mines either. That would surprise me in tanks chosen to be specialist in mine clearers!
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What about the impact a tank had, or rather the impression they made on the enemy?
I'm sure everyone is familiar with 'Tiger Terror' ... so it made it's mark on the opposition from very early on. We armchair analysts can talk over stats till the cows come home but what was the perspective of the crews they were up against or the men on the ground?
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I believe Fram is mixing up the Churchill with the Cromwell.
That might be the case.
Though the Cromwell...goddamn, I'm sorry British tank fans but the box-shaped flat-armour turrets on the Cromwell and Comet were an embarrassment - and ugly as sin (the REAL crime, of course).
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I'm surprised the Hellcat hasn't been mentioned yet. Fastest tank of the war, killing more than a few enemy tanks with the sheer speed for flanking and rear shots.
Crews must have had balls of absolute diamond though. I'm not even sure the armour was capable of repelling larger calibre infantry weapons, let alone anti-tank anything.
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That might be the case.
Though the Cromwell...goddamn, I'm sorry British tank fans but the box-shaped flat-armour turrets on the Cromwell and Comet were an embarrassment - and ugly as sin (the REAL crime, of course).
lol I like the look of the Cromwell,it’s very British,and I am an Anglophile :)
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I mean, everyone else in the war had sloped or at least rounded armour for SEVERAL YEARS before that. And even the British had SOME, e.g. the Covenanter!
It's just sort of baffling. WHY. WHY.
The Comet has much nicer proportions than the Cromwell at least. You can see the roots of the Centurion coming up there.
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What about the impact a tank had, or rather the impression they made on the enemy?
I'm sure everyone is familiar with 'Tiger Terror' ... so it made it's mark on the opposition from very early on. We armchair analysts can talk over stats till the cows come home but what was the perspective of the crews they were up against or the men on the ground?
That wasn't anything new though - Tank Terror was seen in 1940. In essence any infantry man faced with a tank he can't hurt is going to suffer from this to some extent - even when it's "only" a Panzer II.
You also have the effect of every other Panzer IV being mistaken for a Tiger (in the same way every other German anti tank gun was an '88).
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I'm sure everyone is familiar with 'Tiger Terror' ... so it made it's mark on the opposition from very early on. We armchair analysts can talk over stats till the cows come home but what was the perspective of the crews they were up against or the men on the ground?
Funny enough, I've just been reading Alan Moorhead's 'Desert War' trilogy and he was very scathing about the Tiger in Tunisia. He claims the Allied troops thought it was a poor tank, under-armoured and even being taken out by 2pdrs! Having said that, his account was absolutely on the spot and written very soon after events happened. It may well be what someone had told him, but perhaps there wasn't enough time for the accounts to be fact-checked or circumstances to be investigated fully. But I can certainly imagine a heavy tank like the Tiger struggling in the wet muddy conditions of the last weeks of the North African campaign.
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That might be the case.
Though the Cromwell...goddamn, I'm sorry British tank fans but the box-shaped flat-armour turrets on the Cromwell and Comet were an embarrassment - and ugly as sin (the REAL crime, of course).
They all look like Lego tanks don't they? Stuck together by an excited toddler with no real thought process. But I do believe I'm right in saying the hulls weren't built/designed by the same people who made the turret and gun? Which would explain a lot.
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I think with many tanks series in WWII there was the constant desire to add a bigger gun to the hull you already had. The Churchill started out with 2pdr, and ended up with a 75mm gun. Pz IIIs started with 37mm guns, and ended up with 75mm kurz ones.
Does this mean gun development was faster than tank development? Or just that existing bigger guns were used in tanks, rather than for their original purpose?
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I think that's just a result of the original idea that tanks weren't really made to fight other tanks. Originally they were used for breakthroughs, tackling bunkers, fortifications, etc. Keep in mind more than half of the tanks in WW1 only had machine guns (the 'female' tanks with the Brits). Some of this lingered into WW2.
The Germans learned (quickly) in the Spanish Civil War when the Soviet tanks showed up with 45mm guns compared to their machine guns and 20mm autocannons, etc. It was a kind of rude awakening that tanks were now mounting some decent anti-tank weapons.
So you had the situation where suddenly tank vs. tank combat was becoming a thing, and the Soviet thick armour proved that light 20mm and 37mm guns weren't going to cut it. Couple that with the discovery that high-velocity anti-aircraft guns turned out to be pretty damn good at punching armour. The Soviets used an 85mm just like the Germans used their famed 88', etc.
PS: Generally speaking, defeating armour has always outpaced armour - I'd argue that's the same today. We've increased the chances that tank crewmen are not immediately killed...but most anti-tank weapons today can easily destroy a tank, or immobilize it.
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In terms of survivability there is tank survivability and crew survivability. If a knocked out tank can be quickly repaired and put back into the line that is great for logistics but hell on the crew.
Israel is a small country and has to keep in mind the soldier of today is the father and worker of tomorrow. The Merkava is designed with crew survivability in mind. As such the crews tend to be even more aggressive as they come to believe in their own invincibility. Unique features include a back door and the engine up front, protecting the crew compartment.
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Top five tanks?
Apologies for the threadnomancy, but I have to add my 2p worth.
Renault FT. The first ‘true’ tank, the original ‘driver front, engine back, crew & gun in turret’ design.
Valentine. The first British design with ‘room to grow’.
Sherman. The one that got mass production down pat, with a good balance of gun, armour & speed.
KV 1. Good armour, good gun, good speed. How, I don’t know. I suspect witch-craft . . .
Czech LT 38. The gift that kept on giving (at least to the German army).