![]() The British Archer vehicle is notable in that as a mobile anti-tank gun, the designers chose to place the gun to fire to the rear of the vehicle, over the engine deck. While this is more accurately translated as tank-hunter or hunting-tank I am going to continue to observe the convention of calling gun-armed anti-tank vehicles destroyers and missile-armed vehicles hunters. German variants took the name panzerjäger or jadgpanzer. Often this took the form of a well-armoured turretless tracked vehicle. ![]() As the war progressed, dedicated designs were produced. Many of the earliest tank destroyers were anti-tank guns mounted on any available vehicle chassis. The tank destroyer is essentially an anti-tank gun that can move itself. In other armies properly used tank destroyers were very successful. Despite this, the Stryker Mobile Gun System (MGS) replicates the flaws of the American tank destroyer GMCs. Lightly-protected GMCs were often used in roles for which they were not suited and criticized for not being able to perform duties they had not been designed for.Īs a consequence, it has been ingrained in some American military psyche that tank destroyers don't work. As far as some commanders were concerned, anything that looked that much like a tank was a tank and was to be used as a tank. The German army operated in combined arms formations that the specialized Tank Destroyer (TD) battalions were ill-suited to counter.Īnother problem was the tank-like appearance of the tracked GMCs. Unfortunately, the American tank destroyer doctrine was flawed. All of these vehicles were lightly armoured and capable of relatively high speeds. A number of wheeled ( M6, T55E1), half-tracked ( M3, T48) and tracked ( M10, M18, M36) Gun Motor Carriages (GMC) were accordingly created. Their conclusion was that there was a requirement for highly mobile anti-tank forces. In the 1930s and 40s, the US army formed a doctrine as to how armoured forces might be used against it. ![]() ![]() The main problems are one of mentality rather than tactical worth. Added 9-3-17 Resurrection of the Turretless TankĪ topic that I have been reluctant to cover on the Scrapboard has been that of tank destroyers. ![]()
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