Originally Posted by dragoon500ly
Mulling over things, in between coffee breaks, I got to thinking about the light tank. Now in the US Army, we like our tanks to be big and heavy and equipped with large caliber guns and all kinds of electronic doo-dads. But I keep coming back to the light tank. It offers all kinds of advantages when you sit down and think about it. To be sure, it doesn't have heavy armor, but it can be more strategically portable than a M-1. Prior to the intro of the 120mm smoothbore, the US was developing a series of improved 105mm shells that were as capable as the 120mm, and in at least two cases, bloody well out performed the 120mm!
Now a bit of background...the first "official" light tank other than the WWI French FT would be the M-3 Stuart, now before anyone bursts a bubble, the M-2 series of combat cars were never considered to be light tanks, simply because they were the only tanks that we had in the pre-World War II era. The Stuart is the best example of a light tank, well armored for its weight, a lovely horsepower to weight ratio and for its period, adequate armament. Too bad that it was thrown into combat against vehicles that were a generation ahead of its design. Its 37mm main armament quickly proved to be lacking in fire power.
The M-3 Stuart was replaced with the M-5 Stuart; this improvement used a newly designed hull to delete some of the numerous shot traps of the M-3s design, but kept pretty much the same turret and armament. The designers of the M-5 ignored reports coming back from the front about how inadequate the 37mm cannon had become. This was the developmental end of the Stuart.
Next out of factory was the first true advance, the M-24 Chaffee light tank. For its weight, it was adequately armored, horsepower-to-weight ratio was not as high as it could have been, but the main gun was now the 75mm cannon (it was the same cannon mounted in the B-25J medium bomber). The problem with the armament was that by the introduction of the M-24 (1945), the 75mm had pretty much lived out its developmental lifespan. The Korean War proved to be the undoing of the M-24, although I believe that this was due more to the tank being thrown up against the T-34/85 tank than any design flaw. Norway upgunned its M-24s with a 90mm and by all reports are still quite happy with the design.
The next and last US light tank was the M-41 Walker Bulldog. Lightly armored for its weight, it had excellent horsepower-to-weight and was armed with the 76mm cannon. The Bulldog didn't last long in US service as the decision was being made to go with the Main Battle Tank concept. The Bulldog served in several armies, but its moment of fame came in the Vietnam War where it equipped several companies of the ARVN. It proved to be a reliable, nimble design and several PT-76s and T-54/55s of the PAVN were destroyed prior to the fall of South Vietnam.
A few years ago, a design for a light tank was pushed. Called the M-8 Buford Mobile Gun System, it was an intresting concept. It was air-portable. Its armor could be beefed up by adding additional armor panels to met three basic threat levels. It had an excellent horsepower-to-weight ratio and was equipped with the 105mm rifled cannon. The initial tests of the M-8 showed it to be a capable design, but alas! It fell prey to the next round of budget cutbacks. Something about a Congressman needing a bridge in Alaska.
GDW also pushed something they called the LAV-75, didn't exist, even as a design concept, but its armament was in development. The 75mm gun was coupled to an autoloader that allowed the weapon to fire 10 rounds in the time it took you to read this sentence. Impressive, no? The drawback to the 75mm gun was the same one that doomed the older 75mm in WWII, armor penetration was for shit. What good did it do to hit a T-62 ten times if none of the rounds penetrated? That was pretty much the end of the 75mm gun concept.
A light tank in the US Army...nowdays we have a Stryker with a 105mm gun that the service is trying to fix (recoil is such a b***h!). A light tank battalion could be attached to the airborne/air assault/light infantry divisions and give them some badly needed firepower. The divisional cavalry squadrons could also use a light tank design. Just some random musings!
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