I know a lone modern fighter jet would make a huge difference but have always wondered about a tank
Nope. Now a modern nuclear submarine….
No, I don’t think it would:
- tanks are only good against other tanks in open fields. Inside of cities or against hidden infantry or air attacks they are on a disadvantage.
- mines or a blown up bridge can easily stop your tank
- the enemy could actively avoid your tank and shift its forces away from it, so you just move it around without ever engaging in a fight
- the WW2 battlefield was huge. You cannot hold a position and advance at the same time with just 1 tank, or fight an enemy that is 1000km away from you.
Nope. See: German wunderwaffen.
War isn’t about being super cool and good at killing, war is about logistics. Germany had fighter jets that could smoke any allied plane, and that didn’t matter because they couldn’t put more than 200 in the air at one time, and more realistically, maybe 50-100. Tigers routinely had K/D ratios in the high single/low double digits (with many of the D’s being their own crews blowing them to avoid capture), and they got overrun anyway. Even a modern fighter plane wouldn’t do much because it can’t be everywhere all at once. You just need to go around it.
Interesting question.
I think not, on the grand scale. Whilst yes, it would vastly outclass other tanks, you’re forgetting about the adaptability and inventiveness of humans. I believe they would find a way to disable it fairly quickly - after all, WW2 was a constant stream of one fighting unit encountering new technology - Allies had nothing like the German Railgun for example, but it had little influence in the outcome. Also, like the Tirpiz, something like this could become a liability. It would become such a target that it would tie up a huge amount of resources protecting it. Modern tanks are still vulnerable in many ways - even from as simple a thing as just digging a hole in the ground and covering it with branches caveman style.
From what I’ve read since I posted the question. The armor would simply shrug off tank shells of that day. Don’t even know if mines from that era would be effective against them. The only issue would be the resources.
So they lure it over a pit packed to the brim with dynamite. Throw enough explosives at anything and it will be destroyed. And if there’s only one of them, they will put the effort in to disable it.
Which leads to asking, are there any technological advances they could learn from it and duplicate, and how much could those affect the war?
You do realize that the continuous supply of ammo, fuel, and spare parts would have so much more of an effect than literally any other thing you could do, right?
The barrels in those tanks are rated for 1500 shots. That’s all you’ll get out of the tank. Sure, you can call the barrel a spare part and assume another one is at the ready, but at that point I’ll start asking why the Allies can’t just start assembling other Abrams from the infinite spare parts pile.
Just for the tank. Nothing else. Just wondering how it would perform and if it could change the outcome for any country
That would still be a huge advantage over any other machine of war in the history of warfare, even today.
You could say “how much difference would a single modern tank with unlimited ammo, fuel, and share parts make in Afghanistan in 2010” and the answer would be at least “very significant”
I would partly disagree because no matter how many spare parts you have, a blown up tank is a blown up tank. I thike the question is are there tanks in WW2 that can outmatch and destroy modern tanks.
So, like the spherical cow argument?
The biggest advantage an M1 would have is the tech inside. If it was sent back the absolute best use for it would be to strip it down and reverse engineer everything in it. Jumping 50 years in circuitry and engine design would make a lot of difference.
If you actually deployed it, the first trench it went over would likely get a rock caught in its treads, they’d derail, and it’d get pounded with artillery for the hour it takes to fix the treads.
you could send one modern full auto rifle to medieval times and it would kill a bunch of people then get swamped. even assuming magical supply chain infinite ammo cheat.
the nazis better not reverse engineer then mass produce the tech you just handed them.
No
Really?, I was under the impression today’s armor would just tell tanks from that era that their artillery tickles . While their sabat rounds punch through anything . And with modern optics be able to hit targets from 2 miles
The artillery they were using in WW1 would make you think the world was ending.
Tanks are susceptible to being lit on fire and cooking everyone inside
