Centurion.

This is coolbgert:

From The National Interest Internet web site an article with extracts and my commentary.

"Britain's Centurion: The Best Cold War Tank?"

As extracted with commentary from the article:

* "British tactics were faulty, favoring gallant charges by tanks acting without infantry or artillery support"

Think Operation Goodwood, 1944. British tanks during a break-through offensive in Normandy. Tanks out-paced the accompanying infantry and ran straight into the massed, prepositioned and sighted 88 mm anti-tank guns of the Waffen SS. Four-hundred tanks destroyed in three days the break-through operation stalled. It should be noted that three-hundred of those tanks repaired and brought back into action relatively quickly.. 

 * "The T-55’s low height made it more difficult for the vehicle to assume a 'hull-down' position, where the hull of the tank is protected by a hill or embankment, with just the turret and gun peeking out."

Allied tanks of NATO vis-à-vis a Soviet opponent and while fighting defensively having a distinctive advantage. Firing from a wedge-shaped ramp able to depress the gun lower than the horizontal. Able to present to the enemy the bare-minimum of target and showing that thickest part of the protective armor in the process.

* “Many parents of sons entering the IAC [Israeli Armored Corps] demanded that they be assigned to Centurion units, as it was believed that they would have a greater chance of survival in battle.”

American M-48 Patton tanks in contrast to Centurion having a very fatal flaw only found out about during combat. A hit on a certain particular part of the tank by an anti-tank guided-missile [ATGM] causing scalding hot hydraulic to course through the turret, killing the entire crew!

 Those pipes in the background fascines. Combat engineers dropping the entire mess of metal pipes into an anti-tank ditch and creating "ground" allowing a tank to traverse the obstacle.

* "Israeli Centurions had their gasoline-powered Meteor engines replaced with the Patton’s diesel-powered engines, which used less fuel and were less prone to catching on fire in combat".

Gasoline-powered engines potentially EXPLOSIVE with catastrophic consequences for the entire crew. Diesel-powered engines will burn but with much less possibility of EXPLOSION!

* "The Israelis removed the turret from the Sho’t and turned the tank’s hull into the Nagmachon armored personnel carrier."

Sho't the Israeli term for the Centurion. Those Centurions when considered obsolete now simply discarded but converted into heavy armored personnel carriers [HAPC]. Indeed a whole family of such HAPC developed. Israeli ordnance personnel without peer in this regard.

As noted in the article even after SEVENTY years Centurion still going strong in one form or another. Centurion TOO another military BEST?

More to follow regarding these various topics.

coolbert.