"let's argue about the name "tank"" Topic

link

ARMY TIMES
The Army's M10 Booker is a tank. Prove us wrong.

I agree with the "I know it when I see it" standard.

Does it matter?

I believing in letting everyone (thing?) be whatever they say they are without judgement. BTW, I understand the name "tank" was a way of hiding what it actually was, in the beginning, or am I wrong about that?

+ 1 for Jim.

OK, all tanks are armored fighting vehicles but not all AFVs are tanks. 😀

Tanks should have a Turret
Tanks should have a main gun capable of killing other tanks
Tanks should be "all terrain"
Tanks should not carry more than crew.
Tanks should be impervious to anti infantry weapons

That should cover it!

"ARMY TIMES
The Army's M10 Booker is a tank. Prove us wrong."

The designation is wrong; Everybody knows that M10's are Tank Destroyers… ;-)

Just for fun,

Tank without turret – Mark V
Without main A/T gun – FT17 mg variant etc
All terrain – OK this makes sense, but Valiant 😁
More than crew – Merkeva
Vulnerable to inf weapons – CV33 etc interwar light tanks were kind of vulnerable to MG fire.

The name "tank" sucks! There, argument on.

I an uninterested in questions along the lines of "is cereal soup?" By some definitions it's a tank, by others it is not. The army will use it cleverly and gain a lot of advantage from it or they'll use wrong and get nothing from it.

I googled and skimmed a half dozen articles and nowhere does it even hint at the armor thickness. So we don't know if it's just HMG proof or if it stands a chance against AT weapons. At 42 tons I'm guessing any proper tank can shoot right through it, but that's entirely a guess. So it's not for fighting tanks, which is fine, it's better to kill tanks with ATGMs. It should provide fine support for infantry, and that's a much-needed thing. If they use it that way. Fingers crossed.

The army says it is going to serve an assault gun role. Kind of like the StuG I assume. I wouldn't call that a tank. Certainly an armored vehicle.

The M10 Booker, formerly known as Mobile Protected Firepower

1) It's protected enough to withstand attacks from enemy armored vehicles. So are tanks.
2) But for its advantages, the Booker isn't supposed to square off against enemy main battle tanks.

Doug Bush, the Army's acquisition chief, said the Booker is a "combat vehicle,"

The service's top officer, Gen. James McConville, sounded his opinion on the Booker during a June 13 press conference.
"To me, it's a light tank"

The Booker's former program manager, David Dopp, said,
"I don't want to say it's a light tank, but it's kind of like a light tank."

Maj. Gen. Glenn Dean who oversees ground vehicle development took a stab …
"In the [U.S.] Army, the historical use of light tanks has been to perform reconnaissance functions. This is not a reconnaissance vehicle."

Dean, a prominent Booker tank denier, confessed that it "looks like, smells like [and] feels like" a tank.

Originally, of course, a large metal container for water or other liquids. Beyond that, it was never specified.

So the real question is, if you fill it with water, does it leak ?

Altar Boy – some tanks just hold liquids.

I've a large one in the back yard for watering the goats…

If it's on the Internet, it has to be true."
—-Abraham Lincoln.

I am fairly sure the President was quoting Mark Twain.

Should this thread perhaps be re-titled just to read "Let's Argue…"?

Of course Polonius is a fool, so his advice is likewise foolishness. Pretty nearly every jerk is "true to himself."

Back to the original topic:

A light-hearted way to look at the definition.

gregmita2 – Now that is clever.