Encyclopedia
A self-propelled anti-tank gun, or
tank destroyer, is a type of
armoured fighting vehicle. Tank destroyers are used primarily to provide
antitank support in combat operations. They may mount a high-velocity anti-tank gun or sometimes an
antitank guided missile launcher, or ATGM.
Tank destroyers cannot fulfil the many roles of tanks; they are much less flexible, and usually lack a strong anti-infantry capability. A common feature of a tank destroyer is the absence of a turret. However, as a result of having no turret and fewer parts, tank destroyers are much less expensive to manufacture.
Gun-armed tank destroyers have been largely supplanted by the more general-purpose tanks since
World War II, but lightly-armoured ATGM carriers are used for supplementary long-range antitank capabilities.
World War II
Dedicated antitank vehicles made their first major appearance in the Second World War, as combatants developed effective armoured vehicles and tactics.
These tank destroyers fell broadly into two categories. Some were designed to be faster and cheaper than medium tanks while still able to destroy heavy armour at long range. Some of these designs were clearly expedients rushed into production. The second design strategy was to create heavily-armoured vehicles that were more effective in tank-versus-tank combat than enemy tanks.
German designs
The first
German tank destroyers were the
Panzerjäger which took an existing anti-tank gun and put it on a convenient chassis to give mobility. For instance, the German
Panzer I light tank was obsolete before the war even started, with only thin armor and machine guns for armament. It was put into battle during the invasion of
Poland, where it was found to be a deathtrap. Before the subsequent
invasion of France, 202 were rebuilt as the
Panzerjäger I self-propelled 47 mm anti-tank guns. Similarly
Panzer II tanks were used during
Operation Barbarossa: captured Soviet 76.2 mm anti-tank guns were mounted on
Panzer II chassis, producing
Marder II anti-tank guns. The most common mounting was a German 75 mm anti-tank gun on the Czech
Panzer 38 chassis to produce the
Marder III. The Panzerjäger continued up to the 88 mm equipped
Nashorn.
Although the Panzerjager carried effective weapons they were generally lacking in protection for the crew having thinly armoured open-topped superstructures and used older designs of chassis. They were to be followed by the
Jagdpanzers ' which mounted the gun in better superstructures - sacrificing the wider traverse capability of the anti-gun carriage for good armour protection. The best of the designs is considered to be the
Jagdpanther which put an 88 mm gun in one of the later tank chassis, that of the
Panther tank. The Germans became side-tracked into production of large numbers of tank-destroyers because they could be produced more cheaply than full tanks. The Jadgpanzers were better suited to defence than attack because of their limited traverse and the later designs such as the
Jagdtiger were heavy and consequently less manoeuvrable albeit extremely hard to defeat.
The most effective German tank destroyer by far was one that wasn´t supposed to be one: the
Sturmgeschütz III.
Soviet
As with the Germans, the
Soviet designs mounted anti-tank guns, with limited traverse in turretless hulls. The results were smaller, lighter, and simpler to build than tanks, but could carry larger guns. This design methodology was used by both the USSR and the Germans to provide heavier anti-tank capability at lower cost, during the rapid up-armoring of all AFVs that took place during the war. The Soviets produced the 85mm
SU-85 and 100mm
SU-100 self-propelled guns based on the same chassis as the
T-34 medium tank, as well as the 122mm
ISU-122 and 152mm
ISU-152 which shared components with the
IS-2 heavy tank and was nicknamed
Zveroboy for its ability to destroy German Tigers, Panthers and Elephants. The gun was so powerful that in close range it could rip the turret clean off the tank. In 1943, the Soviets also shifted all production of light tanks like the
T-70 to much simpler and better-armed
SU-76 self-propelled guns, which used the same drive train.
US Army tank destroyer doctrine
U.S. and derivative
British designs were very different in conception. U.S. doctrine was based on the need to defeat German
blitzkrieg tactics. U.S. units expected to be faced with large numbers of German tanks attacking on relatively narrow fronts. In actual practice, such attacks rarely happened.
The U.S. tank destroyer designs were intended to be very mobile and heavily armed. Most retained a turret, but left it open on top both to save weight and to accommodate a larger gun. The earliest expedient design was an
M3 Half-track mounting an M1897 75mm gun in a limited-traverse mount. The larger guns required a counterweight at rear of the turret, which can be seen on designs like the 3-inch gun
3in Gun Motor Carriage M10 and the
90mm Gun Motor Carriage M36. The
76mm Gun Motor Carriage M18 came closer to the U.S. ideal; the vehicle was very fast, small, and mounted a 76mm gun in a turret. Of these, only the 90mm gun of the M36 proved to be effective against the German's larger tanks and tank destroyers. The open top made these particularly vulnerable to anything from ordinance such as an
artillery shell or a
hand grenade, and even the elements, which reduced fighting crew capability. Also, the very idea of independent anti-tank groups was found unworkable.
United Kingdom and Commonwealth
On the whole, the British army did not subscribe to the Tank Destroyer concept, prefering instead to design tanks armed with bigger guns. Although flawed in many other respects, contemporary British armour doctrine recognised the inevitabilty of tank versus tank combat and the Army strove to arm their tanks with the most powerful anti-tank gun available at the time.
Anti-tank guns were the domain of the
Royal Artillery rather than the Tank Corps and anti-tank gunned vehicles particularly anti-tank self-propelled guns such as the
Deacon and Archer were their preserve.
The self-propelled guns that were built in the "Tank Destroyer" mould came about through the desire to field the formidable
QF 17 pounder anti-tank gun and simultaneous lack of suitable tanks to carry it. As a result they were of a somewhat extemporised nature as a result. Mounting the gun on the
Valentine tank chassis gave the the Marder-like Archer.
The 17 pounder was also used to equip the US supplied
M10 Wolverine to give the "Achilles". Another attempt to give a specialist anti-tank tank was to fit the 17 pounder to the Cromwell chassis to give
Tank, Cruiser, Challenger and its near open-topped variant "Avenger". The latter delayed until post war before entering service.
The closest the British came to developing an armoured Tank Destroyer in the vein of the German Jagdpanzers or Russian ISU series was the Churchill 3 inch Gun Carrier - a
Churchill tank chassis with a boxy superstructure in place of the turret. The design was rejected in favour of developing a 17 pounder armed Cromwell tank variant ultimately leading to the
Comet tankBy 1944, a number of the "basic"
Shermans in British use were being converted to
Sherman Fireflies by adding the potent
QF 17 pounder gun — giving each platoon of Shermans a dedicated anti-tank tank.
Post–World War II development
In the face of the Warsaw Pact, a general need for extra firepower was identified. In the 1950s, the UK produced the FV 4101 Charioteer to beef up the tank regiments, mounting a 20 pounder gun in an oversize turret on the Cromwell tank hull - it lacked the all round capability of the
Centurion tank. It was followed by the
Conqueror tank which carried a 120 mm gun.
With the development of flexible
Anti-tank guided missiles, which were capable of installation on almost any vehicle in the 1960s, the concept of the tank destroyer has waned.
With the weight of main battle tanks growing to the forty to seventy-tonne range, airborne forces were unable to deploy reasonable antitank forces. The result was a number of attempts to make a light vehicle, including the conventional ASU-85, the recoilless rifle–armed
Ontos, and missile-armed Hornet Malkara armoured car and
Sheridan light tank.
Modern tank destroyers
Many forces'
IFVs carry ATGMs in every infantry platoon, and
attack helicopters have also added antitank capability to the modern battlefield. But there are still dedicated antitank vehicles with very heavy long-range missiles, and ones intended for airborne use.
There have also been dedicated antitank vehicles built on ordinary
armoured personnel carrier or
armoured car chassis. Examples include the U.S. M901 "Improved TOW Vehicle" and the
Norwegian NM142, both on an
M113 chassis, several
Soviet ATGM launchers based on the
BRDM reconnaissance car, and the
German Raketenjagdpanzer series built on the chassis of the HS 30 and Marder IFV.
A
US Army mechanized infantry battalion has four infantry companies with TOW missile–armed
Bradley IFVs and can bring a large concentration of accurate and lethal fire to bear on an attacking enemy unit that uses AFVs.
Some gun-armed tank destroyers continue to be used. The German army had specialized
Kanonenjagdpanzer, similar in design to the WWII tank destroyers, from the mid-1960s until the 1980s. In the same timeframe,
Sweden developed an indigenous tank destroyer to supplement its armoured forces: the
Ikv 91, armed with a high-velocity 90mm cannon. The
People's Republic of China has developed the PTL02 tank destroyer. This wheeled assault tank destroyer armed with a 100mm rifled gun was developed by NORINCO for the PLA new light mechanised infantry divisions. The vehicle has a three-man turret derived from the
Type 88 MBT, and a 6×6 wheeled chassis based on the WZ551 APC.
References
- Harry Yeide, The Tank Killers: A History of America's World War II Tank Destroyer Force. Havertown, PA: Casemate. ISBN 1-9320-3326-2
