Re: [DS] Why tank destroyers?

At 3:54 PM -0400 9/5/01, Roger Books wrote:
>I guess I am a bit confused about ecological niches.
>
>What is the advantage of a tank destroyer over using
>a tank for the same purpose?

As some have said its a combination of Cost and what size weapon can 
be carried. Some also lies with Doctrine and Mobility.

As far as mobility goes, since a Tank destroyer wasn't supposed to be 
armoured like Tanks were, they tended to be lighter than a similar 
design of tank. That allowed for a higher mobility with a larger 
calibre gun.

For the US, tank destroyers grew out of the Anti-Armour corps need 
for something that was self mobile and capable of carrying a larger 
weapon. The earliest were med trucks (3/4ton Dodge weapons carriers 
w/ a 37mm) with a towed gun permanently mounted. The British used 
these extensively during the Desert Campaign. Later on, M3 Halftracks 
with 75mm guns mounted were used, but were still found to be wanting. 
Next was the M10 series of vehicles with minimal armour and larger 
guns (3" or 76mm) than their M4 Sherman Brothers. The final form as 
far as the US army was concerned was the M18 with a 3". Later on the 
M10 was upgraded to a 90mm.

The general idea of the Tank destroyers was that they were to seek 
out enemy armour and destroy those. Tanks were supposed to be used as 
cavalry. They were supposed to exploit gaps and get into the rear 
areas. When tank forces were able to do this, the opponents always 
suffered. Typically on a defense, infantry units had attached or 
organic anti-tank units attached. Sometimes they had Tank Destroyer 
units attached as well.

In the German sense, the ease of production of an assault gun (no 
turret ring and associated production times for the turret) was used 
to make two types of weapons, Assault guns and Tank Destroyers. Both 
were used effectively in the same roles as the US tended to be 
vulnerable to both, but they had different roles in an ideal sense. 
The German TD's tended to have very stout armour on the front aspect 
compared to US TDs.

While the idea is great, it tended to be problematic in getting the 
Tank destroyers to meet up with the red force tanks. Keeping the Blue 
Tanks away from the Red tanks tended to be hard too.

Operating TD's as armour sometimes worked when used en masse (or due 
to US overwhelming force on attacks [1]), but they tended to suffer 
to certain tactics. For example the M10/36 types had open turrets and 
were vulnerable to over head air bursts of shells. The Germans due to 
supply constraints used TDs and Assault guns in the attack roles vs 
their intended defensive roles.

With modern missiles, Anti-tank has gained range and destructive 
power in a very portable form. Infantry units have more power at 
their disposal for anti-tank uses. As stated, the ability to convert 
a general purpose armoured vehicle to an anti-tank role is very well 
liked. The multiple versions of TOW enabled Wheeled and tracked 
vehicles demonstrates this.

See
http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com/wwii/usarmy/tanktypes.htm

http://www.valourandhorror.com/DB/SPEC/tank/German_anti_tank_1.htm

http://www.strategypage.com/dls/articles/Trackless.asp

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/documents/eto-ob/etoob-toc.htm

1. The use had a tactic where Artillery, tanks and Tank destroyers 
would be used all together to perform bombardments at times all in 
direct fire or indirect fire.

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