multi - turreted tanks

Multi - turreted tanks were all the rage during 1930 to 1941 period. Practically every major European power had a AFV with more that one turret. By the end of 1941, they were all scrapped and never to be seen on the battlefild to this day. Why?

yours truly,

Having too many swingin' pricks of a small caliber proved to be impotent on the battlefield. Next question....

1) They were slower than single turreted tanks 2) They needed larger crews than single turreted tanks 3) They were larger than single turreted tanks (bigger targets) 4) All those turrets created coordination problems. 5) The tanks were more complex to maintain than single turreted tanks 6) They were harder to make than single turreted tanks.

John Lansford

Command control overload. Tank commanders have enough trouble keeping track of where their vehicle is relative to the rest of the formation, directing the driver where to drive to, and the gunner where to shoot and to the loader a heads up on what to load. Extra turrets just add to this load and actually degrade the overall effectiveness of the commanders ability to direct the vehicle by adding to his tasks.

I have done it with ADA vehicles that have all the same command problems.

Quite simply the vehicles never proved of any real utility. They were too heavy, too slow, too big, and too mechanically complicated and hence prone to breakdown to be effective. The crew and resources needed to operate one such large tank were better used operating several smaller tanks.

tim gueguen 101867

Because the Right Way to make a tank (which the US was a touch slow to realize) was to have as good a gun against other tanks as possible. Tanks had sufficient firepower against infantry without additional, smaller, guns, and so the additional turrets were essentially superfluous. They also made the tank bigger, more expensive, and required more crew to operate.

I'm no expert in this.

The only real multi-turret tank I know of is the Soviet T-35. I don't know why it was scrapped. What were the other multi-turret tanks?

I guess you could call the Grant 'multi-turreted' in a sense; the main gun did swivel independently of the secondary gun. It got used quite a lot, I think we even shipped some to the Soviets. My understanding is the main problem with the Grant was that the rivets would come loose when the tank was hit, and would shoot through the crew compartment, killing the people inside.

< original question sniped>

Dear Derby, Very few people are. That is why I asked the question?

To my limited knowledge here is a list of of nations with multiturretted tanks from the period. Great Britain - up to four or possibily five models produced France - first models of Char series of heavy tank. Germany - 'Gross Tractor' two models possibily Russia