Real Tanks That may have Inspired Turrets and Hulls in TO

[Aigaion 636]

A small article I've been wanting to write for some time; the goal is to find real-life Tanki guns (and maybe some hulls?) that closely relate to the ones we know and love. (Note that turrets like Ricochet, Twins, and Isida are too futuristic to be in development currently, (that we know of  :ph34r:).) Let's kick it off with Smoky!

 

Smoky - A very basic turret, I like the description of "peashooter" gun. Tanks these days have noticeably larger weapons, so we'll be looking at smaller turrets. When I think of what makes the Smoky so great, which is mainly its simplicity, the M4 Sherman readily comes to mind, definitely not just because it looks very similar to a Smoky/Hunter, but also because it was probably the most efficient tank of its era. Just like how, when you fire up a new account, you are immediately drafted into a Smoky/Hunter - the developers didn't decide what tank you start with by the role of a dice, they decided it was the easiest to handle, and very suitable for every mode. What about the real Smoky/Hunter, the M4 Sherman? "It is capable of engaging in all forms of combat, (but its primary role is in offensive operations against hostile rear areas.)" -US War Department. So, a very multi-role tank indeed, but what about the drivability as mentioned above? "As tanks go the Sherman was reputed to be pretty easy to drive," and "The Sherman tanks mechanical toughness made it easier for the driver to worry about the important parts of his job, and not breaking the tank." says The Sherman Tank Site. I think the M4 Sherman has earned a proud place of influencing the oldest turret in the game, and the classic combo of the Hunter and Smoky

 

An M4 Sherman in full desert camo, perhaps coming back from Iran? Or Desert?

 

 

Firebird - nerf mult devs ah the Firebird, essentially a magnified flamethrower. Now out there in the tank world, there is a whole class of these fire tanks, called flame tanks. Sadly, most of them are just Shermans with small portside flamethrowers. Regardless, they were effective in battle, but what we're after is a real 100% dragon of a tank. The American army was designing just that in 1954, with the M67 Flame Thrower Tank, it quickly got the name of M67 "Zippo" (ironically nicknamed after a popular brand of cigarette lighter). It was an American medium tank, only briefly used by the army, later handed down to the Marine Corps during various wars in the Korean peninsula. The Zippo had no main gun, being replaced with an M-67 tank flamethrower, and smaller machine guns. Soooo why did I choose this? Well frankly, there is simply no other type of tank with a flame main turret, but I still got all this space left so I might as well tell you a bit more about the main weapon. The main gun fired in short bursts, swirling the turret could make the jet stream go around corners. This tank never really saw real tank-to-tank combat, it was only used in mop-up operations against infantry. Surprisingly, it remained in service till 1974, when it died with no replacement, and sadly it was the end of flame tanks in the American arsenal.

 

Our Firebird, frightening off some Japanese.

 

Vulcan - Normally, you wouldn't mount a machine gun as a main anti-tank gun, until the M163 VADS. Technically, it doesn't even qualify as a proper tank, or even have an anti-tank gun. It just a heavily modified personnel carrier. But what redeems it is the VADS. "What is a "VADS"?" you might say. It stands for "Vulcan Air Defence System". Now at this point, you may be a bit confused, "There's a Vulcan in real life?" you might say, and to that I'll respond, "Heck yeah!" Let me explain: the only weapon on this tiny little thing is an M61 Vulcan, it was never used as an anti-tank weapon, and it was only ever mounted to this vehicle (and various attack and multirole aircraft). Nonetheless, what was this weapon capable of? Does it earn the honor of representing our much beloved Vulcan anti-tank gun? Judge for yourself with some stats: its effective range was 5km (3.1 miles) which in the real combat world, is not a lot, but yet remember our Vulcan also sucks at range, so they seem alike so far. This "tank" mounted version could fire at 3,000 rounds a minute, definitely matching the Vulcan we know, (it's worth mentioning that the aircraft mounted version could reach up to 6k rounds a minute, or 100 bullets a second) but the VADS normally worked in 10-100 bullet bursts, definitely less than what the average Vulcan user (if there are any left :ph34r:) would shoot off before reloading. The VADS also takes half a second to get up to maximum speed before releasing all hell on their airborne enemy. But what really makes it special is its looks, you just need to google it for yourself to agree that,, while never taking down any tanks itself, it's earned the name "Vulcan" in our books.

 

Big picture of lil' baby Vulcan tanko

 

Striker - After the birth of the tank and the tank turret came the anti-tank missile, separated by two nasty world wars. Some sources point to the Germans using some sort of anti-tank missile near the end of WWII, but that information is inconclusive. The first widely used anti-tank missile was the SS.10 developed in 1955 by the French. But we're not talking about the history right now, we want a four-barrelled anti-tank missile launcher with epic power. Well, the Chinese have delivered with the AFT-9 Anti-Tank Missile Carrier. Most missile-equipped vehicles are one of two things; a giant box stuffed with rockets or a full-on ICBM carrier. However, the AFT-9 paved its own way. The AFT-9 anti-tank missile carrier is a retractable weapon station with 4 ready-to-use launchers. Like our beloved (or hated, depending on who you ask) Striker. I chose it largely because of its appearance, and power. Also, there are some functional similarities between it and the Striker, for example, the guidance system for the operator is quite simple, to guide a missile to the target the operator needs only to keep the target in his crosshair, that is actually how it works for real. A lot like the lock on function, except it needs only to launch a single missile as that is all that is needed to eradicate most modern tanks. And ammunition is scarce, only carrying 4 missiles and an automatically reloadable 8 in the hull. If only the missiles were placed vertically like a striker, It would be an uncanny match.

 

Two Strikers waiting for a heavy tank to cross their path

 

Hammer - We know it as an anti-tank shotgun, but first for those who don't know, what is a shotgun? A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a single fixed shell to fire a number of small, spherical pellets. But I'll let you down easy, there has never been a "purpose-built" shotgun tank, but the good news is what makes the shotgun a shotgun which is its pellet firing ability. Tanks are designed to fire multiple types of shells, Armor Piercing, Piercing Incendiary, High Explosive, Thermobaric etc. - the list is very long. And our shotgun shell is one of these. Like the Hammer says, It fires Tungsten shrapnel pellets (Tungsten is a high-density material, usually a part of tank armor composite) The closest to this description is called AHEAD, it is a type of shotgun shell that can be fired from all sorts of guns; let's go in-depth. The AHEAD (Advanced Hit Efficiency And Destruction) was developed for helicopter and attack aircraft, naval, and tank use. It is used against armored or unarmored ground targets such armored vehicles, armored fortified positions, and infantry, equally suitable for the destruction of small sea targets such speedboats. So basically, anything you can aim this ammunition at. Depending on the variant, it fires 152-330 Tungsten pellets. Currently, the 30mm x 173mm version is being used on the German Army's new Puma infantry fighting tank, containing 162 Tungsten shrapnel pellets per shot.

 

Hammer on display

 

Thunder - The tank chosen needs little in the way of introduction: the original M1 Abrams. Thunder is a very basic gun, firing high explosive rounds, and while the M1 is anything but basic, that is all the M1 can do, it carries only HEAT and HE (high explosive) shells. However, the M1 suffered in lethal range. So, the M1A1 and M1A2 were made. The M1 look certainly carries on to these later generations. The look really reminds me of a Thunder, it just wouldn't be anything else. Just look at the mid-sized barrel, the rear overhang of the turret. A great inspiration to the Thunder.

 

The M1 destroys the enemy by sheer blinding awesomeness alone

 

Magnum - So, what the heck is a howitzer? Well by definition, a cannon with a comparatively short barrel, used especially for firing shells at a high angle of elevation for reaching a target behind cover or in a trench. Our much hated loved howitzer has a long barrel, and so does its inspiration, called the M110A2 howitzer. If you thought the Magnum was big, check this thing out. It's the largest available mobile howitzer in the American inventory. With a purpose-built hull, resembling a Hornet. Its top speed is 30 mph, delivered by a 2-stroke, 8-cylinder diesel. This little hull can toss 200+ lb high-explosive, and anti-personnel cluster round projectiles, that have an astonishing 8 inches in diameter, up to 25km (15.5 miles) away. With very hard work it could fire 2-4 manually loaded rounds a minute, much slower than our Magnum. The entire tank with a purpose-built hull looks almost exactly like a Hornet/Magnum (I mean like scarily similar...apart from having scooping equipment in the back), although mechanically it is much different and slower, and the turret was able to turn the turret left and right, by a small 30 degrees, elevating between -2 and 65 degrees. All in all, it is definitely deserving of the Magnum inspiration title. It had an honorable service in Vietnam, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon, and the Gulf war. The last ones were retired in 1994.

 

Our Magnum/Hornet ready to make other tanks day a lot worse.

 

Shaft - Finding a Shaft will present a few difficulties, the biggest problem is the fact that a sniper tank simply does not exist, no trace what so ever. The longest-range tank kill by a tank is held by the British made Challenger 1, at nearly 3 miles away. Looking at it, it carries a few of the shaft's aspects, a long barrel, but that's really it. It's not well enough related, so I won't give it the place of Shaft. As no sniper tank exists, the place will be currently unfilled, readers can of course debate any shaft-like tank in the comments.

I like the way  explained the problem "All the modern tanks in service with the largest armies are capable of long range combat. .-."

 

Railgun - The one we've all been waiting for, the Railgun. This gun is the only one on this list that does NOT use explosive or flammable weapons, and here is a simple brief example of how it works: it uses extremely high electrical currents to generate magnetic fields capable of accelerating a projectile to speeds of up to Mach 6, more than twice as fast as existing projectiles. The railgun has a range of more than 100 miles. It damages enemies not with explosive shells, but by slamming them with armor-piercing slugs at hypersonic speeds. The Railgun we see in game will never be possible, there are an unbelievable number of problems with it, first of all, the currently (lol, see what I did there, "current" heheheh) most powerful railgun, the BAE Systems 32 Megajoule Railgun uses a massive amount of energy, a naval ship can generate it no problem with its nuclear reactor, but something the size of a tank? No. But the damage is the most unrealistic part. I don't want this to be much longer, so I'll keep it simple: it can't be done even with the most advanced tech today. It's been estimated that it can penetrate tank armor, and in fact most of the inner tank, but sliding through and leaving an exit wound seems bleak. The railgun is a technology that is still under development and is only in its early stages. In maybe 20 or 30 years, we’ll have railguns much more powerful than this and maybe even capable of penetrating multiple M1 Abrams tanks, but that’s in the future, and not right now. To summarize, nothing is even close to our favorite weapon. The ones even remotely close to its damage take up the size of a house, and the smaller more mobile versions, like the General Atomics Blitzer railgun, are too weak to even come into the presence of our mighty machine.

 

And there you have it. This is my first article for AWS, I hope you liked it.

Peace

 

@Aigaion

Edited October 9, 2018 by Aigaion

[kaisdf 3,320]

Article Approved.

 

Interesting idea for a piece, not something I've seen before. You pulled it off well, and generally, the content was good. Having said this, it did at times feel slightly plagiarised, as there were whole sentences that were perfectly accurate and relatively complicated, unlike other parts of the piece.

 

I mention the accuracy, and, well, it was not fantastic. You should always start a sentence with a capital letter. Turret and hull names are proper nouns, and so  should always need capital letters. You do not need to capitalise random words in the middle of each sentence. 

 

The spelling was far from perfect in many cases. You left out quite a lot of words.

 

Edits:

• A lot of capitalisation errors
• Quite a few spelling mistakes
• A lot of words added/changed for clarity/accuracy/conciseness

 

I would strongly recommend you PM me (or Discord DM, Fran#3139) and I can send you the full list or corrections.

 

Apologies that I took so long to edit and approve it, I have had a busier week than expected, and, as I say, there was quite a bit to edit  :wacko: 

[iMoneyMaker 4,500]

Very Nice!! :)

[Hippin_in_Hawaii 639]

I love the concept of this article! As a fan of real-life armor, it's nice to see someone else draw these parallels!

 

 

 

 the M4 Sherman readily comes to mind, definitely not just because it looks very similar to a Smoky/Hunter, but also because it was probably the most effective and efficient tank of its era. 

 

@Aigaion

 

Just expressing a difference of opinion, but the M4 was inferior to the Panzer IV, and the Panzer IV was inferior to the T-34. I'd argue that the M4 Sherman was the least effective tank of its era. It was, I think, the least efficient tank at the beginning of the war, but by the end of the war, the Tiger probably held that particular crown.

[Ninja 10,468]

Nicely done! Funnily enough I have a draft somewhere for exactly the same article idea, its about a year old so I guess you beat me to it. :p

[Pyre 3,485]

That magnum hornet is actually scary similar...

 

Nice article.

[rus0806 265]

That magnum hornet is actually scary similar...

 

Nice article.

They look the same, like exactly the same. At first I thought it was hornet and magnum.

[Pythor 1,354]

Nice article complete w pics. Continue writing Aigaion ;)

[Total_SkiIl 1,983]

 

 

Firebird - nerf mult devs ah the Firebird, essentially a magnified flamethrower. Now out there in the tank world, there is a whole class of these fire tanks, called flame tanks. Sadly, most of them are just Shermans with small portside flamethrowers. Regardless, they were effective in battle, but what we're after is a real 100% dragon of a tank. The American army was designing just that in 1954, with the M67 Flame Thrower Tank, it quickly got the name of M67 "Zippo" (ironically nicknamed after a popular brand of cigarette lighter). It was an American medium tank, only briefly used by the army, later handed down to the Marine Corps during various wars in the Korean peninsula. The Zippo had no main gun, being replaced with an M-67 tank flamethrower, and smaller machine guns. Soooo why did I choose this? Well frankly, there is simply no other type of tank with a flame main turret, but I still got all this space left so I might as well tell you a bit more about the main weapon. The main gun fired in short bursts, swirling the turret could make the jet stream go around corners. This tank never really saw real tank-to-tank combat, it was only used in mop-up operations against infantry. Surprisingly, it remained in service till 1974, when it died with no replacement, and sadly it was the end of flame tanks in the American arsenal.

 

Our Firebird, frightening off some Japanese.

 

 

 

The British 79th Armoured Division had a flame thrower tank named Crocodile (a modified Churchill tank), part of a series of modified tanks called 'Hobart's Funnies', specifically made for the Operation Neptune (or you can call them D-Day landings).

 

Which is way before than the U.S. Army research started (which as you have written, did on 1954. But D-Day happened in 1944).

 

Edit: The T-26 light infantry tank was modified to a flame thrower tank way before in 1930s.

Edited September 27, 2018 by Total_SkiIl

[Aigaion 636]

The British 79th Armoured Division had a flame thrower tank named Crocodile (a modified Churchill tank), part of a series of modified tanks called 'Hobart's Funnies', specifically made for the Operation Neptune (or you can call them D-Day landings).

 

Which is way before than the U.S. Army research started (which as you have written, did on 1954. But D-Day happened in 1944).

 

Edit: The T-26 light infantry tank was modified to a flame thrower tank way before in 1930s.

I was aware of the existence of the Crocodile, but from what I saw I didn't think it was a true Firebird (although the Zippo is still a bit farther off), It looked like a normal tank with a flamethrower jutting out the front of the hull, and not the turret,  I'll be sure to do some more research tho when I get home.

Edited September 27, 2018 by Aigaion

[Aigaion 636]

Article Approved.

 

Interesting idea for a piece, not something I've seen before. You pulled it off well, and generally, the content was good. Having said this, it did at times feel slightly plagiarised, as there were whole sentences that were perfectly accurate and relatively complicated, unlike other parts of the piece.

 

I mention the accuracy, and, well, it was not fantastic. You should always start a sentence with a capital letter. Turret and hull names are proper nouns, and so  should always need capital letters. You do not need to capitalise random words in the middle of each sentence. 

 

The spelling was far from perfect in many cases. You left out quite a lot of words.

 

Edits:

• A lot of capitalisation errors
• Quite a few spelling mistakes
• A lot of words added/changed for clarity/accuracy/conciseness

 

I would strongly recommend you PM me (or Discord DM, Fran#3139) and I can send you the full list or corrections.

 

Apologies that I took so long to edit and approve it, I have had a busier week than expected, and, as I say, there was quite a bit to edit  :wacko: 

Very Sorry, Spelling/Grammar where never things I aced, mostly failed that stuff in grade school, but always stuck out in writing. I got Grammarly like suggested, and taking as much grammar courses as possible, I was raised up learning some German, and its a German thing to capitalize nouns, so I'm still trying to get rid of that old habit. I'll try better next time.

[Aigaion 636]

I love the concept of this article! As a fan of real-life armor, it's nice to see someone else draw these parallels!

 

 

Just expressing a difference of opinion, but the M4 was inferior to the Panzer IV, and the Panzer IV was inferior to the T-34. I'd argue that the M4 Sherman was the least effective tank of its era. It was, I think, the least efficient tank at the beginning of the war, but by the end of the war, the Tiger probably held that particular crown.

I think I meant to say that it was only really effective through the sheer number, being a largely mass produced tank of its time, but thanks for pointing that out, a 1v1 with a Sherman and a Tiger would not have ended well for the Sherman.

[Total_SkiIl 1,983]

I think I meant to say that it was only really effective through the sheer number, being a largely mass produced tank of its time, but thanks for pointing that out, a 1v1 with a Sherman and a Tiger would not have ended well for the Sherman.

Actually, not. Since the Tiger (and Tiger 2) were really heavy and not so mobile, a skilled Sherman or T-34 crew could have outflanked them easily, while staying safe.

 

Oh, also, T-34 was the most produced tank of WW2, as in excess of 30,000 were produced.

---

 

Thunder's resemblance is more so in K-2 Black Panther, Type 10 MBT, Leopard 2A4 (and up) and the T-14 Armata.

Edited September 27, 2018 by Total_SkiIl

[Aigaion 636]

Actually, not. Since the Tiger (and Tiger 2) were really heavy and not so mobile, a skilled Sherman or T-34 crew could have outflanked them easily, while staying safe.

 

Oh, also, T-34 was the most produced tank of WW2, as in excess of 30,000 were produced.

---

 

Thunder's resemblance is more so in K-2 Black Panther, Type 10 MBT, Leopard 2A4 (and up) and the T-14 Armata.

I did see most of those as an option, it was, in fact, a decision between the M1 and the K2 in the end, I chose the M1, because the turret was slightly smaller, making the barrel seem the perfect length of a thunder, plus, it was a choice between an American tank and a South Korean tank, I would have probably chosen the M1 regardless. I think the T-14's barrel was too long, and the Leopard's turret was too plain, dull, and shapeless in the end.

[a7x_Pedro48 13,999]

The Hornet-Magnum :o :o That's the same.

[Total_SkiIl 1,983]

I did see most of those as an option, it was, in fact, a decision between the M1 and the K2 in the end, I chose the M1, because the turret was slightly smaller, making the barrel seem the perfect length of a thunder, plus, it was a choice between an American tank and a South Korean tank, I would have probably chosen the M1 regardless. I think the T-14's barrel was too long, and the Leopard's turret was too plain, dull, and shapeless in the end.

No offence, but that seems biased.

[Runner 19]

No offence, but that seems biased.

It's his article...

 

<_<

 

He can choose to write about whatever he wants.

[Total_SkiIl 1,983]

It's his article...

 

<_<

 

He can choose to write about whatever he wants.

If the title says, "Real tanks that may have inspired tanki tanks", then I expect them to be quite accurate, and no matter what nation they are from.

 

If it is his topic, and this is how he wants it to be (U.S. Army tanks only), then I'd prefer a title saying, "Real U.S. Army tanks that may have inspired tanki tanks".

 

Since a reader outside from the U.S. bias wouldn't know about the earlier, more accurate resemblances available of tanki tanks around the world.

 

Not everyone spends hours on Wikipedia or other resources to get their facts. :^)

Edited September 28, 2018 by Total_SkiIl

[TheEdmundFitzgerald 2]

 nicely chosen list

Edited September 28, 2018 by TheEdmundFitzgerald

[Aigaion 636]

If the title says, "Real tanks that may have inspired tanki tanks", then I expect them to be quite accurate, and no matter what nation they are from.

 

If it is his topic, and this is how he wants it to be (U.S. Army tanks only), then I'd prefer a title saying, "Real U.S. Army tanks that may have inspired tanki tanks".

 

Since a reader outside from the U.S. bias wouldn't know about the earlier, more accurate resemblances available of tanki tanks around the world.

 

Not everyone spends hours on Wikipedia or other resources to get their facts. :^)

I didn't really mean it to be biased  :blink:  I just meant that the M1 is more widely known and recognized than an equal, but obscure South Korean tank and I did spend 3 days of research alone preparing this list, aaaand I told you why I didn't like the T-14, the M1 was a thunder match the way I saw it. and which tank came first doesn't matter, nationality doesn't matter, only resemblance, plus as the US has the largest Army, It would make since that most the tanks chosen are American right?  ^_^

[C.O.N.Q.U.E.R.O.R 3,845]

Work on formatting a bit more, get an article header, and use different fonts for paragraph headers (try cooltext.com for starters  :P). 

 

Other than that, the content was really great, gj  ^_^ 

[Total_SkiIl 1,983]

I didn't really mean it to be biased  :blink:  I just meant that the M1 is more widely known and recognized than an equal, but obscure South Korean tank and I did spend 3 days of research alone preparing this list, aaaand I told you why I didn't like the T-14, the M1 was a thunder match the way I saw it. and which tank came first doesn't matter, nationality doesn't matter, only resemblance, plus as the US has the largest Army, It would make since that most the tanks chosen are American right?  ^_^

If you are making a list that is supposed to be resemblance, I don't care how much known the tank is.

 

Plus since you are an American, you might think it is the most known; but that is the case for anyone living in a different nation. :^)

 

Accuracy > Publicity

 

 

Oh by the way, PLA has more active duty personnel than U.S. Army. Even Indian Army has more active duty personnel. :3

---

I don't mean to offend you in any way by the criticism of mine.

 

Edited September 28, 2018 by Total_SkiIl

[GuidoFawkes 2,361]

Shaft - Finding a Shaft will present a few difficulties, the biggest problem is the fact that a sniper tank simply does not exist, no trace what so ever. The longest-range tank kill by a tank is held by the British made Challenger 1, at nearly 3 miles away. Looking at it, it carries a few of the shaft's aspects, a long barrel, but that's really it. It's not well enough related, so I won't give it the place of Shaft. As no sniper tank exists, the place will be currently unfilled, readers can of course debate any shaft-like tank in the comments.

lol?

 

there are so many tanks that can snipe stuff from far away with a scope. of course, they fire shells and not charged energy but, other than that most standard far ranged tanks work just like shaft.

 

Edited October 1, 2018 by kaisdf
Please don't use overly large text.

[Aigaion 636]

lol?

 

there are so many tanks that can snipe stuff from far away with a scope. of course, they fire shells and not charged energy but, other than that most standard far ranged tanks work just like shaft.

 

every tank these days can be long range, that's the problem, none stand out, and there is no "Sniper" class of tank anywhere in the world.

Edited September 29, 2018 by Aigaion

[GuidoFawkes 2,361]

ever tank these days can be long range, that's the problem, none stand out, and there is no "Sniper" class of tank anywhere in the world.

because a lot of them are already snipers?

 

sniper class tanks don't exist but there are tanks which can perform the role of sniper