Big K

Polish TK3?



or an Italian Semovente 75/34?

What was the main idea of Tankette?

cheaper? easy to hide?? what was it?

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omon

the idea was popular between ww1 and ww2, recon, suppresion of mashine gun points, mechanize infantry, early ww1 tanks were not fast enough to keep up with infantry, so lighter vehicle was needed, they didn,t prove to be especially effective, in ww2 and after, with development of anti tank, ap weapons, punzerfaust, recoiless rifle, later rpg, these things are useless, they were designed to protect crew from small arms fire, flack, they stand no chance against antitank weapons of ww2 and latter on, you'd be better off on a fast motorcycle. france instaled a 75mm recoiles gun on a vespa scooter, to deal with lav.
ussr had a few light tanks in ww2 t60, t70. they cost almost as much as t34, while being inferiour to it, it was used for recon..ect, some could swim but this was miniscule advantage, only usefull in recon. nowadays those things are replaced with btr,bmp, and other,

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Tarek Morgen

Can the Wiesel of the Bundeswehr be called a tankette too? (In German there is no really translation for the word.)

omon

i wouldn't call it that, more like self propelled aaa, or is it at missle that thing has?

Tarek Morgen

As far as i know it is whatever you need it to be. There are Antiair versions:

Mortar:

Medic:

Command:


And many others, there are over 20 version of Wiesel 1 & 2

Big K

wiesel = weasel... right?

Tarek Morgen

yep

lazybastard

That tube on the left is a TOW

My bad, that tube is way too small to be a TOW. Some shoulder-fired anti-tank weapon more likely.
Here's the TOW version:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...wiesel-001.jpg

Shipwreck

It's a Wiesel 1 HOT/ATM with the Euromissile HOT Advanced Turret Modular (ATM).

As shown on the pic, ATGW is the Euromissile HOT-2 and gun is the GIAT 20mm M621.

Lunatock

The best they had. The Polish Airforce included biplanes, and they used mounted calvalry when the Germans invaded Poland.

Big K

NO NO dont take me wrong. i know a little about the Polish attacks. they've attacked to the tanks with horses.

i thing this was one of the bravest and noblest thing in human history.

i admire and respect those who sacrifice their lives for their country all around the world.

my point was about the idea of tankette and

and

also tried to attract the attentions on this idea, going to war against full size panzers with tankettes takes a lot of courage.

aktarian

That simply did not happen. What happened was that Polish cavalry attacked some German infantry. Germans then made a fast withdrawal behind a turn on the road. Poles followed them and came upon tanks advancing. Not being able to turn around (due to speed and momentum) they rode on, past tanks. They did not charge them. But this myth continues because it's useful to both. Germans point to it how stupid and crazy Poles were and Poles point to it to show how brave they were.


Italy started arming itself fairly soon and it build what was available then. at that time tanks couldn't carry big guns (if at all) if they were using turrets. So only thing left was MGs and very light guns. When new types of weapons became available Italy already rearmed and didn't have money to reequip whole of it's forces once again. So they were stuck with obsolete weapons.

However if your enemy were some natives with no AT weapons then they could do their job. If enemy had AT weapons less so.

zraver

anywhose thats my .02 on the subject

Lunatock

The Polish Army was doing well defending Poland from the third reich. What really contributed to the conquest of Poland was soviet troops swarming into Poland from the east.

zraver

Poland inflicted over 50,000 causalties on Germany, but they never had a chance. Germanies border with Poland, Polands commitment to defend all of its borders, lack of mechanized transport, inferior airforce, and lack of tanks all combined to make the situation hopeless. Poland's only chance was a swift French invasion of the Saar. Once Poland's troops were encirlced on the Vistula, or trapped inside the Warsaw pocket it was all over.