I think the JagdPanther has to be the ultimate TD on the Axis side, while the Jackson is my favourite Allied one, closely followed by the SU-100.

Nah, I prefer the Bren Carrier/PIAT combo

Somehow i like the Archer more for some reason (i know technically an SPG but they were doing the same job really)

I'd argue that the IKV 91 as well as the PvRbPbv 551, the PvTgb 911, Tgb1111 and PvRbBv (Hägglunds Bv 201-206 platforms) are also tank destroyers.

I can't say I would be happy to name any 'favourite tank destroyer'. My late father served in 2nd Lothians and Border Horse in North Africa and Italy. His final tank (previous ones had succumbed to 88s and mines) was the 76mm (actually 76.2mm or 3") gun Sherman. I have a picture of him stood in front of this impressive tank in Arezzo in 1945. OK, his M4 was, according to David in his chat 'A tank killer' (some 9 months ago) very good at knocking out the enemy, but I feel easier with the enemy receiving a hit from an AP round, rather than my late father, who had incredible good fortune to survive some horrendous situations.

?

Well said

Nice

Armor-piercing wit.

Ha! True enough 😍👌

I was just thinking about your videos on TD doctorine when David opened this video...

I had a feeling from the first sentence from Mr. Fletcher that we would see the Chieftain coming up to correct that statement. You could almost say that Chieftain intercepted Fletcher's comment attack with the speed of a TD!

Did ya hear that? That bell ringing...sounding the beginning of KZfaq's FIRST EVER- Tank NERD fight... Round 1... BEGIN!

My first reaction when hearing him say tanks are not meant to engage tanks "DO YOU EVEN LISTEN WHEN THE CHIEFTAIN TALKS"

I'd really appreciate the tank museum do that tank chat again but with the guy who literally wrote a book about American tank destroyers. Oh there he is...

Million dollar idea alert

Shut up and take my money already man!

Tank Museum swag idea.

Brilliant!

Id buy dozens

Thanks for everything he did

Completely agree. In fact my grandfather is pictured in this very video, riding atop the M10 at 8’40”! Photo taken in Holland in October ‘44.

Couldn't agree more, a nice cuppa Earl Grey, a plate of McVitties, and a Tank Video with David Fletcher while we're waiting for the Cricket to start.

@@himemjam Don't know what McVitties are being in the US but I would gladly take a cup of the Earl Grey!

Great timing as I was gonna make Achilles tank model 1/72.

I guess this would be one of very few Fletcher's video @ChieftainWG may respectfully beg to differ.

They also didn't disappear. They morphed into tank killing aircraft.

@@RichWhiteUM tank destroyer branch disappeared right after WWII, and the concept didn't see much light, light attack aircraft with anti tank weaponry didn't really become a thing until much later

@@RichWhiteUM And ATGW carrying vehicles like Striker and wheeled TDs like Centauro. And postwar there were still WWII style TDs e.g. Kanonenjagdpanzer.

@@quentintin1 Not precisely, there were air support aircraft that had weapons capable of killing tanks during Korea. Even during WWII; the US Navy, USMC, and US Army Air Force were placing weapons on aircraft in ground support roles that were capable of damaging armor. The "tank destroyer branch" disappeared but in reality the concept lived on. The role has been split between the different branches with all of them, the one exception being the Coast Guard, having aircraft capable of doing the job. The army and USMC also have ground assets capable of doing the job, as others have pointed out elsewhere. It is absolutely inaccurate to state that the tank destroyer concept disappeared simply because the branch of the army that they were placed in did. It's the equivalent of saying that the army shouldn't have airborne firepower anymore because the US Air Force was split off from the US Army following WWII. Neither statement is true.

Spot on.

This hackneyed and cliched comment should be a YT banning offense.

HUZZAH

The Marines used the m4a2's because they could get their hands on them. The US marine corps was always last in getting new equipment. They even went to war with springfield '03 rifles instead of the m1 Garand because the army would first be equipped with the new rifle before the marines got some. The army didn't want the m4a2 because of the fuel issues, so the marines took them. That way they at least had Shermans, otherwise they'd probably had to get m3's.

It makes logistical sense. Ask any mechanic how often they've had to flush diesels or petrol engines when owners make mistakes. In the pressure and panic of combat ? It's going to happen.

correct.. European theatre abundance of aircraft plus tanks = petrol Pacific theatre abundance of ships and tanks = diesel. (but trucks/jeeps on petrol got everywhere..).

the US still maintains the "one fuel per base" doctrine. which is why the light vehicles tend to have engines that run on anything that pours.

Germans and British used mostly gas engines in their tanks as well. I think only the Soviets and the USMC used a lot of diesel.

The problem is that "tanks were meant to fight tanks" can mean different things, a product of the ambiguity of the English Language when applied for technical purposes. The term can mean either that a tank is capable of fighting tanks or that a tank's mission was to fight other tanks. They are not the same thing. An M4 Sherman could fight tanks, was indeed designed to fight the common tanks of its day, and fought tanks quite well. M4 Sherman, nevertheless, was not employed in the mission of Tank Destroyer, which is a distinct mission from that of Tank in the US Army doctrine. M4 Shermans, thus, fought tanks only incidentally as part of its mission as Tank. Put another way, it is lawyers' quibbles over words, and it is thus always confusing for it. Tanks could be made to fight tanks, but were not deployed with the mission to fight tanks unless assigned to a Tank Destroyer unit, in which case a tank became a tank destroyer because its mission was to destroy tanks. To the people who quibbled over doctrine, it was essential that tanks be tanks, not tank destroyers, and tank destroyers be tank destroyers, not tanks. However, to the fight men at the front, they could care less once a panzer showed up.

The US for the most part didnt give its tanks like the M2 and M3 (and later M4 low velocity 75mm became obsolete) guns powerful enough to take out medium/heavy enemy tanks with the low calibre AP main guns the low velocity howitzers with HE that were supposed to be anti infantry were often better in the role. so it was moot, their ethos was give the big gun to the TD and have the tank fall back to TD units in prepared positions who are moved around to where on the battlefield they expected enemy tanks to be. their pre/early war towed TD also had rather weak guns which was why combined with the weak tanks they focussed on producing motorised TD’s.

@@watcherzero5256 Of note, M1 and M2 were treated as experimental vehicles, adopted yes, but they were replaced almost as fast as they introduced. The M1 Combat Car basically was just the most the Army could get the Congress to pay for during a difficult time. Also, its .50cal machinegun was not impotent against many tanks of the day, and as a cavalry scout vehicle, it was particularly viable in the late 1930s against many opposing scouts. Also note, M3 Lee was in development in mid 1940, before Tank Destroyer Branch was conceived and formed in 1941. M3 Lee had 37mm and 75mm guns, both considered anti-tank capable. Indeed, by the time TD Branch was actually making plans, M4 Sherman was already in development! Tank Destroyer Branch was a specific counter to massed tank penetration of the infantry line. The infantry divisions remained the primary offensive and defensive force, with tank divisions to support and exploit infantry success. TD Branch had one job: keep panzers from running unchecked behind infantry divisions when they invariably penetrated the American infantry line through their concentrated mass.

@@watcherzero5256 That is simply not true. The 75mm gun on the M3 and M4 was the same gun as armed TDs when they went into service. And the 75mm was a pretty good gun with AP ammunition, the whole myth of the horrible Sherman's is just that, a myth. They also were looking at installing the 3-inch gun in the Sherman pretty much from day one, it just took some time to get a gun that could fit in the Sherman without compromising ergonomics too much. And it is worth noting that 76mm Sherman's were available for D-Day, but they weren't wanted as it was believed the 75mm was good enough against tanks so the additional AP capability of the 76mm wasn't worth the cost (less familiar to the troops, additions to supplies, less effective HE, etc). In the doctrine tanks were intended to support infantry, and that absolutely including by engaging enemy tanks. Tank Destroyers were intended to be a mobile reserve force that could be rapidly deployed counter large armoured assaults and breakthroughs. Of course since the Germans were almost always on the defensive against the US that only really happened at Kasserine and the M10s were generally used either as tanks or self-propelled artillery rather than as TDs.

Correct. And the open top was both to lessen weight for higher speed, and to allow TD crews better visibility than the tanks they were supposed to be hunting.

And Swedish TDs are technically still in service as ATGM vehicles on the tracked Hägglunds Bv 306 platform. I don't know if they have built any TD version on the larger and armored Bv10 hull.

I agree better at the end and NOT in the middle.

It's not so much that the TD died as its mission was taken from it by other vehicles. Not just armored cars and light tanks with really big guns, but armored personnel carriers with missile launchers, and of course the attack helicopter.

Swedish TDs still mostly has tracks, 4 rubber tracks/vehicle and a fibreglass hull.

@@hhale Exactly. For most of WWII, anti-tank guns were progressively bigger and heavier cannons that needed dedicated vehicles ready to carry such weapons. After the war, however, anti-tank weapons that would be given to non-tank units started taking the form of lighter recoilless weapons or ATGMs that no longer needed a special vehicle. We could build vehicles and units devoted to slinging TOW or Hellfire missiles; but it’s more economical to add the weapon systems onto non-dedicated, multipurpose vehicles and units. So the function and role are still present, just not the specialized vehicles.

He made a mistake though. The M3 Gun Motor Carriage had a 75mm 1897 not a 3 inch gun.

The old Wobat could be mounted on a Land Rover. You'd not put much on the crews survival though. Same with the 432 mount, an even bigger target than the LR. 😟

If one wishes to get into nitpicking, the towed 3" M5 was a TD. In US WW2 terminology, the mission drove the categorisation, not the equipment. That's why the M5s were in TD battalions, but the 57mm M1s were in the anti-tank companies.

Or you could tow a AT gun with a AT tank...

only when the US is trying to maintain status quo.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😳😳😳🙄🙄🙄🐸🐸🐸

3 inches is 76.2mm so he is not that wrong apart from the missing 1.2mm

You are correct

@@raymartcarreon6069 The 76.2mm/3" gun was VERY different in all ways from the 75mm gun. The 3" gun didn't have a useful HE shell, but did have a massive case to drive the AP shell to useful velocities.

@@raymartcarreon6069 The 76.2mm/3" gun was VERY different in all ways from the 75mm gun

The "3 inch gun" was not actually 76.2mm; it was called as such so that ammunition would not be confused between it and the standard 75 and 76mm guns as it was all completely incompatible. Just because a gun is the same size doesn't mean it's the same. For example, the long (L/48) 75mm gun on the Pz IV and StuG III used completely different ammunition from the Panther's 75mm.

I read a comment by an American armor combat command officer. They ran into German armor while a TD (M10s, I think) battalion was attached. The TDs ran up a high kill score. The officer explained it as the TD crews actually being artillery and trained to fight tanks vs. the tank crews trained more in infantry support. If you ever get to the US, there is an M10 in the Patton Museum at Ft. Knox.

@@davidcox3076 thank you, David, for your interesting comments. Obviously, in battle, as far as possible, actions are coordinated. From what little information my late father gave me and from a copy of the Lothians' regimental records their actions, with a mixture of mainly 75 mm Shermans, Fireflies (the British 17pdr gunned Shermans) or the American 76.2 mm (3") gunned Shermans, were mainly front line assault with infantry support. A good example being in Italy with the Lothians crossing the Rapido river over the heroically constructed 'Amazon Bridge' - part of the assault on the German 'Gustav Line' at Cassino. Incidentally, my late father and I were pleased to give a small assistance to Rick Atkinson in his 'The Day of Battle, The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944', published 2007, the second of his WWII trilogy books. Thanks again.

@RedBaronFilms1918 Adding my own opinion, I am not trying to convince anybody. I was ready to just skip the video in annoyance at the ads but clicked anyway. They seem they have at least muted the SWOOOSH compared to last week kzfaq.info/get/bejne/j7GggK-ptLu1oYE.html to a level I can almost tolerate. I don't mind the ad but on a Friday night here 10PM, lightly dozing and listening after tea it was giving me a little heart attack but okay now. It is marked and if I was fully awake and watching I could just skip it. Just a tad lower would be even better :-)

I agree, it was bad enough when they had poor David Wiley flogging cheap tat from the shop at the beginning and end of videos, now they have to drop ads in the middle.

Even before the Apache and attack helicopters we had dedicated TOW missile vehicles. In all actuality modern TD's share much more in common with the "failed" American vehicles then the Soviet or German ones. Mobile and lightweight to be able to rush towards a concentration of enemy armor

Not to forget the plethora of recoilless rifle armed vehicles that existed in between the WWII GMCs and the deployment of practical ATGMs.

Ah - simple.

Yeah, the narrator is so biased against everything American. I guess he forgot we saved his a** in WWII.

Well, not really. This is ho the british employed the M10 - with a Royal Artillery crew. The American created the Tank Destroyer Force detatched from just anti-tank defensive guns. Their point was that anti-tank guns were part of the defensive line, spread out. If the germans would use their blietzkrieg tactics, the panzers would concentrate in one area covered just by few guns. The tank destroyers force should be high mobility reserve, ready to go where the "normal" AT guns were outgunned and the massed panzers were breaking thought to form a equally massed Antitank line of defense.

@@toomanyhobbies2011 wrong, Russia did.

@@toomanyhobbies2011 Oh dear. Anyone who thinks that is automatically proven to be not exactly up on their own historical knowledge.

I don't think he he does dismantle this vehicle, rather he doesn't distinguish the role of a tank destroyer properly, as distinct from a tank. Its like criticising a hovercraft for not being a boat and not having a propellor whilst not explaining they both have roles as watercraft. BTW I'm not from the US my Mummy sewed little Union flags into my pants so i remember.

I don't mind his opinions on the Achilles itself, but the stuff about doctrine was pretty annoying. The video is suggesting that TDs were expected to come up and kill tanks for the Shermans which doesn't align with how either was used designed or used. Tanks were expected to engage all comers, and Tank Destroyers were expected to be an entirely defensive tool that rapidly moved to engage and blunt enemy armored thrusts. Tank Destroyers weren't embedded into tank units at all and they operated independently from one another. The idea of shoot and scoot never really happened. TDs used their speed for strategic mobility and then ambushed from concealed positions, and they certainly weren't expected to be used as infantry support guns. Every major player in WW2 was playing with tank destroyers, and most of them (including the US) intended to use them as cheap, defensive ambush units firing from a concealed position. They were also useful enough that every nation used them throughout the entirety of WW2. The US versions emphasized speed above all else to be able to rapidly plug holes in the line. (along with being open topped for excellent sight lines) Whether that choice was correct or not is open to debate, but the idea that Shermans weren't expected to engage enemy armor and instead wait for TDs to come up and kill it for them doesn't align with their actual use. It would be far more accurate (imo) for him to have said that after WW2 the American tank destroyer concept was abandoned because: 1) It was intended to be a defensive tool only. Commanders are not fond of tools that have to be left behind half the time, doubly so in a primarily offensive war. It found some limited utility with indirect fire, but only had a few chances in the war to fulfill its primary purpose. 2) The weapons aren't any better than what the Tanks had. The 37mm was on the Stuart, the 75mm and 76mm were on the Sherman, and the 90mm was on the Pershing. What is the point of a specialist if it isn't actually out-preforming a generalist? (and since we put turrets on them, they weren't that much cheaper than a Sherman) 3) It looks like a tank. Despite doctrine clearly stating it wasn't a tank and shouldn't be used offensively, Commanders routinely called Tank Destroyers up to do bunker busting and position clearing, where their thin armor, open tops, and lack of MGs routinely got them killed by hidden and entrenched infantry.

British doctrine was actually different - they were embedded in the existing anti-tank regiments and were initially expected only to get to a captured location more quickly and set up to defend against a German counterattack. That's as opposed - I *think* - to a larger and more mobile tank destroyer unit which the Americans expected to use. But as time went on the Brits learned they could use the M10 more aggressively than that.

@@chriscamfield7610 Aren’t there a few occasions where M-10’s were used to beef up attacks by Tank Brigades, to compensate for the Churchill’s gun. I think something like this happened at JUPITER with 86th A/Tk Regt working with 9th RTR.

@@HydroSnips Achilles then not M10

@@HydroSnips Absolutely true!

@@janvandeven906 Achilles is just the "M10C" or "17-pounder M10". It's still an M10.

Yes

The thing was, it worked. Their ability to get to where they needed to be, the great visibility the open top provided the TC, as well as their ability to scoot made them very effective. The chieftan has a great video on the topic.

I don't know, this video is confusing to me because I understood the tank destroyer from the operational/strategic lens. Its not that tank destroyers were designed to scoot up, shoot and run faster than a heavier tank could, its that when an enemy made a breach in your lines with an armoured assault and were quickly advancing with motorized forces so they could cut off supply lines and such that the tank destroyer was the biggest gun you could strap to a slightly armoured vehicle that could GET to a defensive position in time. Basically the tank destroyer is a self powered antitank gun that had the nice bonus (especially for the crew) that it could drive off after shooting. Tank destroyers are like that defensive guy in football who hangs back a little and looks for where the other team's dudes are gonna break through the linemen and rushes after them.

@@tylerbrown9797 They were basically the linebackers and safeties of the battlefield. Some tanks were also used in the role of linebackers as they could be the pass-rushers after the line opened a hole. I think that should confuse the Brits here enough for today! I also would argue that the tank destroyer didn't actually disappear They just morphed into a different type of vehicle. Examples of modern tank destroyers would be the AH-64 Apache and the A-10 Thunderbolt II, aka the Warthog. Both of those aircraft can certainly be considered a tank destroyer, with the kill counts to prove it.

@@RichWhiteUM Yah, although the warthog should have the capability to fly autonomously at this point though since flying one against an adversary that could actually field modern tanks would be suicidal for the pilot.... I generally agree with you but I would point to the rise of the APC and the advancement of antitank rockets that made the concept of the tank destroyer seem to go away. During WW2 they could barely fit an antitank gun in a tank that could penetrate other tanks, so modifying a tank for the antitank role made more sense. Idk tho, I see many APC type vehicles with TOW missiles on them and I am just an armchair speculator I have no idea if they train to use these vehicles in a tank destroyer fashion.

@@tylerbrown9797 In a limited sense, the Bradley with its TOW launcher could be said to be a tank destroyer, especially the Cav Scout variant. There's also the Stryker variant that mounts a turret with an anti-tank 105mm gun.

Best American anti-tank vehicle of the war

And then you can argue that it grew a rotor disc and became the helicopter gunship (at least as far as the concept of rapid moving firepower to plug a breakthrough goes).