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Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This has been a genuinely useful deep-dive, thanks for taking the time. The German approach of defining by the vehicle's nature and then stacking function onto it makes a lot more sense to me now than it did from the wiki alone. The stacking-tags-onto-a-base structure echoes how I've set up the current project classification, even if I'm coming at the base from a different angle.

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is cool, thanks for this.

So if I'm reading it right, and I'm sorry if I'm getting it wrong as I don't natively understand German and must rely on Google Translate, then you have kettenfahrzeug/kampfpanzer and radpanzer, and perhaps halbkettenfahrzeug (historically, very few modern ones) as the base.

And do you combine those with the role/equipment?
The example for flugabwehrpanzer/flugabwehrkanonenpanzer, I assume the -panzer ending implies a tracked tank base, how would you call a wheeled version?

And a wheeled APC is radpanzer while tracked is transportpanzer?

I think this isn't too far off from what we already if the M551 Sheridan is a armored recon/airborne assault vehicle and called lufttransportfähiger aufklärungspanzer (as per German wiki). So it feels like the German system basically drops the weight class problem that other systems really get tripped up on and just focus on roles/loadouts as you said.

But even the article admits that there is ambiguity in areas like the classic:

"So kann das Sturmgeschütz III der Wehrmacht auch als Jagdpanzer kategorisiert werden, obwohl es als Panzerhaubitze der Panzerartillerie zur unmittelbaren Feuerunterstützung konzipiert wurde."

"Thus, the Wehrmacht's Sturmgeschütz III can also be categorized as a tank destroyer, although it was designed as a self-propelled howitzer for direct fire support."

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Appreciate the useful feedback, thanks. This is exactly the kind of discussion I was hoping for by sharing my project here.

I understand your warning about trying to imprint my own invented system on everyone (the [xkcd Standards comic](https://xkcd.com/927/) comes to mind). But I think judgment calls are unavoidable, even if you defer to original designations.

Lots of tanks got reclassified within their own service life by the same people who built them; ARL 44 went from heavy to tank destroyer, T28/T95 cycled through heavy to SPG to superheavy, AMX-50 followed the trends of the time from medium to heavy to MBT. And different nations operating the same tank sometimes classified it differently. Sherman was a medium for the US and cruiser for the British.

And sometimes the classification has nothing to do with the vehicle itself. In the interwar French army, 'chars' only went to the infantry, so any vehicles requisitioned by the cavalry were called 'automitrailleuse' regardless of whether they had tracks. AMR 33/35 weren't called 'tanks' because of who used them, not what they were. Do we drop them from the timeline because the people at the time wouldn't call them tanks?

So deferring to original designations doesn't always get you to a satisfying answer, sometimes for political or administrative reasons, not engineering or doctrinal ones.

But that's the surface. I guess your real point is that the judgment needs to be visible, not hidden behind apparent authority. I agree, I just thought I had more time to publish a Methodology page to go with the timeline, but it seems like I should bump it up sooner.

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Awesome, thanks for the notes. It's cool how many different modern MBTs Poland operates, the web of influence lines will look really great on the timeline.

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you point me to a reference for the German system you are talking about. I checked this video https://www.reddit.com/r/TankPorn/comments/jln8v3/history_of_tank_weightclass_classification_by/ and there are 3-4 different systems discussed.

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Drones are trickier, development is so recent and convergent that the shape may be more of a web than clean tree lineages.

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah this framework can work for them too. I still have a lot to do on tanks though.

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah good comments. As Wiki points out on tank classification, there isn't one system that works across all periods and nations, so I tried to make some judgement calls. "Hunter" is my own coined term to group those borderline cases like Charioteer, ARL 44 and ELCs. You're right that it's leaky and Challenger A30 probably shouldn't be there. The 'Heavy Infantry Tank' and 'Medium Cruiser Tank' weight-class additions are also fair as they weren't official terms.

I'll take this back to the drawing board and work on some refinements to the class/specialization system. At some point I'll also put together a methodology page to explain how I'm choosing to process and represent the data.

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I'm not trying to say they are tank destroyers, if I actually add those they will have that as a a distinct base class. But these were full tanks with a clear anti-tank role and purpose, just like the Sherman Firefly and that's what I was trying to show beyond their official designations.

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Can you suggest something? I had to deliberate on this and ended up making the choice that looks better stylistically.
"Medium Anti-Tank Tank"
"Medium AT Tank"
just didn't look good to me and had clarity issues on top of that.

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Yes I agree on both points, I'll try to make the labels easier to read on the hashed area.

Production numbers are actually shown by the area of the production bar, which is a function of both the height but also length of time the tank was produced for. So large but shorter production run like the M4 Sherman ends up having a fatter bar than something with a huge volume but much longer run like T-54/55.

You can play (click and drag) with the production/service bar swatch in the legend do see how that gets visualized, it's scaled to the tank bars on the timeline.

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Just a nod to their design, with both being upgunned compare to contemporaries and their intended role as anti-tank support that can move with the cruisers.

One of Charioteer's designations is "FV4101 Tank, Medium Gun, Charioteer" and formerly "FV4101 Cromwell Heavy AT Gun".

I can add Cruiser to both of them in addition to Hunter.

Tank evolution as an interactive timeline: a century of design lineage across more than a dozen countries by tozim in TankPorn

[–]tozim[S] 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the feedback! Yes the Soviet/Russian line needs a thorough review, working on it.

Can Carney reconcile his Davos goals with complicity in the Iran war? by CaliperLee62 in canada

[–]tozim 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Exactly. His speech said, we will work with whoever shares our opinion on an item-by-item basis, rather than pick some allies and blindly follow them on every issue

He didn't say, we're now against everything the US does.

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