Re: Tank Destroyers (was: GE Mechanics)

In general there were two reasons for building turretless TD's:
1) lower cost and easier production

2) lower profile for easier defensive measures.

Hedglin, Nils A wrote:

> Maybe the TD is no longer a viable vehicle type, especially with the
HMMV w/ a
> TOW being able to do the job just as well.  I don't remember hearing
of any TD
> class
> vehicles in Desert Storm.  Or, maybe the HMMV has become the new TD. 
I
> guess it also depends in the terrain.  Desert Storm was a war of speed
&
> manauvering because of the wide open & reasonably flat sands.  If
something
> like that had happened in South America, then I think TDs would have
been
> able to be more effective since the Abrahms speed would have been
worthless
> in the jungle or mountains.  Then there's the whole AT gun idea, which
also
> seems to be invalidated by the speed of today's (& tomorrow's) MBTs. 
Has
> anyone tried making a self-propelled AT gun?

Currently the only turretless TD or MBT is the Swedish S-Tank.	It has
the
interesting feature in that it can lower it's profile an additional 18"
when not

moving by virtue of a pneumatic suspension system.  There is a
tremendous
disadvantage to not having a turret though and most modern designs
incorporate
a turret, despite it's weight and complexity demands.

Even in WWII the US fielded the TD's with turrets (i.e. the M10
Wolverine) and
has never really embraced the turretless type.	The Soviets and Germans
fielded
huge TD's (Elephant, Nashorn, SU-122) which were fine in defensive areas
where attackers could be herded into killing fields, but were extremely
vulnerable
if flanked - they had much thinner armor on the sides and could not
provide
defensive fire to the flanks.

Turretless TD's and SP-AT guns were a stop-gap measure used by countries
to
field as many armored units as possible with the least amount of
material and
effort.  In specialized situations - such as street fighting, a Brumbar
or
SU-152
could be awesome and intimidating but in a fluid and rapidly moving
situation,
they are probably at a severe disadvantage.  In the future, if the trend
of
fewer,
more high tech vehicles being the norm, there isn't much place for TD's
except
in lower tech worlds or nationalities that want to bulk up the
statistics of
their
armed forces.

--Binhan