i think the idea is that its an all-purpose tank, that can deal with most situations

and you dont end up needing a heavy tank when you only have a light one

It's worth noting that the US, UK and USSR continued development of heavies for a period after the genesis of the MBT, in the M103, Conqueror and IS series respectively. However, with the development of more powerful guns for the MBTs (particularly guns of 100mm and upwards) the heavies became too slow to keep up and maintain their useful armour advantage.

MBTs came out of the WW II experience when the major fighting armies noticed that their best armor tended to be a general purpose compromise gun tank that they could mass produce as an expendable item for ANY mission. For the Russians this was the T-34. For the Allies this was the Sherman. For the Germans this should have been the PZKW IV and later the PZKW V, but they were idiots. Follow ons for the bumbling Americans should have been either the M-27 Grierson or the M-26 Pershing. The British were late with their Comet, and the Russians were tardy with the T-45/54. The Russians further wasted a lot of resources on the entirely unnecessary Ioseph Stalins and poorly designed KVs. 

 

The MBT concept rattled around for a while; as the various confused armies worked out why the idea worked, but by 1944, it was quite apparent to anybody with a clue, that it was the medium tank that was doing 75% of the armor work [fighting each other and close infantry support], while armored cars did the other 25% [scouting].

 

What makes it particularly bad, is that the bumbling Americans who were more or less a Sherman force by accident and stumbled into the correct solution, diverted a huge amount of their resources into "tank destroyers". If nothing else they should have built even more Shermans and armored cars and installed better DP guns in their standard medium tank. Them's the breaks. The American tank fiasco is as bad as the torpedo debacle in history of American militrary logistics; maybe worse as it's outcome resulted in far more American battle deaths.

 

Herald        

The Soviets had their bad share when it came to effective tanks, like Herlad said, they wasted alot of time with KVs and IS tanks while being slow with the T-44. The problem with the T-44 and many other of their late war tanks was the relative lack of AP firepower, their D-10 should of been brought into service alot sooner and not just for the SU-100, but for the T-44.

In your opinion are tanks such as IS-2, KV-2 or Tiger all in all better than mediums such as T-34 ?

If the heavies were better altough they were much less mobile, why is todays philosophy to build versatile tanks with balance of mobility, armor and firepower instead of following example of heavy tanks and putting the big gun and heavy armor at the cost of mobility ? Only because of price and because it's hard to produce or the heavies weren't better than the mediums in most situations( except when defending, being a static gun platfom).  Thanks.

To repair my crap English on my earlier post:

 Ok, the concept of the MBT came about at around the same time on both sides of the Iron Curtin, NATO was expected to fight defensively, while the Soviets were expected to roll across Europe using massive tank spearheads. It is foolish to say that all NATO tank designs favoured heavy armour and firepower to mobility, the point of the main battle tank is to achieve an equal balance between the three. Of all the NATO nations the US and Germany achieved this balance, while British tanks favoured heavy armour and firepower to hold positions. Excellent engine and suspension design and engineering allowed the US and German tanks of the 1980's; M1 and Leopard 2 to possess great mobility despite their heavy weight. The Soviet Union's tanks where on the other hand much smaller and lighter and tended to favour mobility, but for their size they did have good firepower and armour though inferior quality did give Western tanks an edge. However as we all know the Soviets had numbers on their side. By the 70's the Soviets started fielding tanks which were of much better quality, on paper, to pervious designs, they were better armed and armoured while still maintaining their light weight and mobility, however when the M1, Leopard 2 and Challenger started to appear the West once again were ahead of the Soviets in overall quality.

Hey Folks,

 

The MBT varies from country to country. It refers to the primary battle tank of a given combat force example: 1980's US Army 82 nd AB div had m551 sheridans as its MBT even though it was a Light tank at the time. some countries use armored cars as there MBT such as the Saladin.

 

Sincerely,

 

Keith

"Battle tanks are tracked, heavily armored vehicles weighing at least 16.5 metric tons and equipped with a 360-degree traverse turret and gun of at least 75 millimeters caliber."

One thing that seems strange to me is that the categorisation of tanks by weight is not really done by it's weight, it's more by its role. For example the Panther is classified as a medium tank altough it weighs almost the same as IS-2 which is classified as heavy tank, altough the Panther was medium when compared to Tiger. Is it more of a role classification then real weight classification ? For example by mediums you think about tanks that had good armor, firepower but were also pretty mobile while heavy tanks are heavily armored, had big guns but were pretty slow and much less mobile?