Comments by "DynamicWorlds" (@dynamicworlds1) on "Game Theory: Who Would Win -- Samurai, Knight, or Viking? (For Honor) - DEBUNKED" video.
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+Havoc Blitzkrieg No, that's a perfectly sound strategy. The infantry tanks were designed to stick with the infantry and protect them from heavy armor. They were also the ones supposed to clear the heavy tanks of the enemy from an area and start the punch-through of an enemy line, assisted by the infantry (who would provide the extra machine-gun fire). Since this job didn't require much mobility, they could also afford heavier guns and armor using the same engine, which left most of them at a pretty slow 15mph.
Cruiser tanks were then supposed to rush through the hole they created and destroy the relatively soft and squishy rear lines, cutting off logistic support to the main line. For that kind of job, a smaller gun with a higher rate of fire is better. They also save weight on the gun (and the armor) which helps add to their speed. Of course, since they're now moving way too fast for the infantry to keep up with, throwing an extra machine gun or 2 on them makes a lot of sense.
Also, once they switched over to the 6lber gun, they were more than capable of taking out medium tanks they were put up against, and could take out heavy tanks as long as they weren't facing them head on. It's not the best anti-tank gun, but it's fit for purpose and slower reload times on larger guns can easily be fatal with light armor.
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+Riceball01 Exactly, and it's pretty easy to guess which type of tanks more people had more exposure to.
Also, within WW2, tanks would likely be being compared to other vehicles, not infantry when calling them slow. Compared to the utility vehicles (trucks, jeeps, and motorcycles) and armored cars (APCs, self-propelled artillery, & self propelled anti-air) which generally could move at 35-75mph(56-121km/h), with most at about 50mph(80km/h), the 8-16mph (13-26km/h) (on road & significantly slower off road, where they spent more time) top speeds of infantry tanks are quite slow. The fact that larger objects moving at a distance appear to be moving slower than they are only amplifies this effect.
Combine this with the fact that even the heavier of the "armored" cars were only resistant to mid-caliber machine gun fire, but were basically made of tin-foil when confronted with even a 20mm autocannon (which are the smallest thing that can be called a cannon, were small enough that they functioned basically like a heavy machine gun, and were a small fraction of the size of most small tank cannons) and things start to come into perspective.
Put in context (either WW1 or WW2) tanks as slow, but hard to destroy makes total sense, even if it doesn't apply to modern tanks or even the faster tanks of WW2.
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