I know a lone modern fighter jet would make a huge difference but have always wondered about a tank
I am going to say yes. The plane. If you kept it a secret, and then used it to bomb a place you knew hitler was, and you knew could not survive the bombing. Otherwise it would depend how good the allies intel was. Nightly bombing of the war factories with percise weapons would cripple the nazis after a while. It’s why the allies tried to do it with the tech they had, even though the survival rate of their bombers was not great. But the accuracy was problematic, and the destructive force they could deliver was not enough to knock things offline for too long. But it did make a sifference. So a modern plane could speed that up a lot. And it could do so from higher than any defense at the time could reach.
Hamas is walking up to modern tanks, opens the hatch and throws a mine into them. What do ya think?
are you sure that one can just open the hatch on modern tanks? this seems like the type of oversight that should be well known to not be made
Maybe they are going to fix it next gen haha.
well, in the mean time, as soon as rumors and myths of such vulnerability appear recruits will make their makeshift solutions on the spot
Saw a video a while ago that asked similar to this. Might have been WWI.
I think the result was it would be devastating in any single battle but ultimately wouldn’t make a difference to the overall war. They weren’t using unlimited ammo and parts though.
This is basically the plot of “The Final Countdown” but with an aircraft carrier. You may enjoy this movie.
It’s why I posted
You do realize that the continuous supply of ammo, fuel, and spare parts would have so much more of an effect than literally any other thing you could do, right?
Just for the tank. Nothing else. Just wondering how it would perform and if it could change the outcome for any country
That would still be a huge advantage over any other machine of war in the history of warfare, even today.
You could say “how much difference would a single modern tank with unlimited ammo, fuel, and share parts make in Afghanistan in 2010” and the answer would be at least “very significant”
I would partly disagree because no matter how many spare parts you have, a blown up tank is a blown up tank. I thike the question is are there tanks in WW2 that can outmatch and destroy modern tanks.
From what I’ve read since posing this question tank rounds from back then would bounce off a modern tank. The new armor is highly effective.
A Abrams can track and fire while on the move and. WW2 tanks had to stop and fire. It’s speed and turret rotation is far faster from anything at that time.
One of the biggest issues it would face is bridges as no bridge from back then would most likely not support it’s 79 ton weight
So, like the spherical cow argument?
The barrels in those tanks are rated for 1500 shots. That’s all you’ll get out of the tank. Sure, you can call the barrel a spare part and assume another one is at the ready, but at that point I’ll start asking why the Allies can’t just start assembling other Abrams from the infinite spare parts pile.
Nope. See: German wunderwaffen.
War isn’t about being super cool and good at killing, war is about logistics. Germany had fighter jets that could smoke any allied plane, and that didn’t matter because they couldn’t put more than 200 in the air at one time, and more realistically, maybe 50-100. Tigers routinely had K/D ratios in the high single/low double digits (with many of the D’s being their own crews blowing them to avoid capture), and they got overrun anyway. Even a modern fighter plane wouldn’t do much because it can’t be everywhere all at once. You just need to go around it.
Nope. Now a modern nuclear submarine….
No, I don’t think it would:
- tanks are only good against other tanks in open fields. Inside of cities or against hidden infantry or air attacks they are on a disadvantage.
- mines or a blown up bridge can easily stop your tank
- the enemy could actively avoid your tank and shift its forces away from it, so you just move it around without ever engaging in a fight
- the WW2 battlefield was huge. You cannot hold a position and advance at the same time with just 1 tank, or fight an enemy that is 1000km away from you.
Interesting question.
I think not, on the grand scale. Whilst yes, it would vastly outclass other tanks, you’re forgetting about the adaptability and inventiveness of humans. I believe they would find a way to disable it fairly quickly - after all, WW2 was a constant stream of one fighting unit encountering new technology - Allies had nothing like the German Railgun for example, but it had little influence in the outcome. Also, like the Tirpiz, something like this could become a liability. It would become such a target that it would tie up a huge amount of resources protecting it. Modern tanks are still vulnerable in many ways - even from as simple a thing as just digging a hole in the ground and covering it with branches caveman style.
Which leads to asking, are there any technological advances they could learn from it and duplicate, and how much could those affect the war?
Yes, absolutely. Good point.
From what I’ve read since I posted the question. The armor would simply shrug off tank shells of that day. Don’t even know if mines from that era would be effective against them. The only issue would be the resources.
So they lure it over a pit packed to the brim with dynamite. Throw enough explosives at anything and it will be destroyed. And if there’s only one of them, they will put the effort in to disable it.
Even something as simple and dumb as “a mine takes out one of the tracks and then you snipe any motherfucker dumb enough to get out and fix it”. Once your tank is immobile, it becomes a pillbox. Your tank can’t now get the fuck out of a situation at 80MPH, so a couple of jackasses with a crowbar and a couple grenades can take your tank out pretty damn easy.
Anti tank warfare has LARGELY not changed since WWII. The tech has gotten better, but the tactics pretty much remain the same.
The biggest advantage an M1 would have is the tech inside. If it was sent back the absolute best use for it would be to strip it down and reverse engineer everything in it. Jumping 50 years in circuitry and engine design would make a lot of difference.
If you actually deployed it, the first trench it went over would likely get a rock caught in its treads, they’d derail, and it’d get pounded with artillery for the hour it takes to fix the treads.
No
Really?, I was under the impression today’s armor would just tell tanks from that era that their artillery tickles . While their sabat rounds punch through anything . And with modern optics be able to hit targets from 2 miles
One large Howitzer shell would at least disable it.
Do not fall for the Fourth Reich Wunderwaffe lies. Their military doctrine only works with complete air superiority, mostly killing civilians, small groups of “the enemy” (people defending their country), and destroying infrastructure.
The artillery they were using in WW1 would make you think the world was ending.
Tanks are susceptible to being lit on fire and cooking everyone inside
you could send one modern full auto rifle to medieval times and it would kill a bunch of people then get swamped. even assuming magical supply chain infinite ammo cheat.
the nazis better not reverse engineer then mass produce the tech you just handed them.
