No Manhatten Project- what instead?

Question: With the Army getting more money, could we see a similar production run, but of a higher quality, of a tank different from the Sherman?
Depends what you mean by "higher quality" really. Better armour? A better gun to start off with? Diesel, rather than petrol, powerplant, so it doesn't go up so easily?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M6_Heavy_Tank

One reason the M6 was canceled, was increased airplane production. With no money being spend on nukes you can easily get both heavy tanks and more planes.

True, but if you look at the entry for the Pershing, it says that the main reason this wasn't brought into service until the end of the war was not because of a lack of funding as such, but because it took the US Army until after the Normandy landings to find out that the tank destroyer doctrine - i.e., Tanks are for infantry support, Tank Destroyers take on Tanks - did not work in practice. So, what you need is a change in doctrine, not an increase in funding.

Or of course, someone from the future to persuade them it's not going to work.
 

Markus

Banned
Depends what you mean by "higher quality" really. Better armour? A better gun to start off with? Diesel, rather than petrol, powerplant, so it doesn't go up so easily?

1. Shermans were brewing up because of the ammo catching fire, the engine had absolutely nothing to do with that.
2. You are right about the US Army generally not being pro heavy tanks, but according to Ellis&Chamberlain the M6 fell victim to a so-called new Army Supply Program which cut tank production in favour of aircraft production. And it did so at a time when the M4 had not yet "proven" itself in combat in Operation Torch.
 
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