Super heavy tanks--any way to make them viable?

I'm curious: could superheavy tanks make sense in a nuclear environment? Say, in the mid-50s, when a lot of people still expected that WW3 would include a significant land campaign featuring heavy use of tactical nuclear weapons. In that sort of environment, you want a lot of armor, both to protect against blast and fire and also to provide radiation shielding. You may also want a ginormous cannon so you can fire your own nuclear artillery shells. It would be a complete white elephant, but would this sort of logic be enough to convince the US and/or Russian Army to build a few?
I was just thinking nuclear power might be the one thing that makes these beasts mobile and therefore useful. If someone decides that they need to build a nuclear-powered tank and the smallest nuclear reactor available still requires a super-heavy tank, then that would be enough for someone to at least build a prototype super-heavy tank in the 1950's. Given its power and presumptive armor and firepower, it might prove useful in a few operations. Of course, today we know that putting a nuclear reactor inside a tank that is likely to get destroyed is a bad idea, but in the 1950's and 1960's it would be seen as the future of warfare, and the US and USSR would likely build large numbers of them.

On the other hand the only nuclear-powered tank design in history was the Chrysler TV-8 which wasn't nearly large enough to qualify as a super-heavy tank, so maybe nuclear power plants back then weren't as huge as I thought they were.
 
On the other hand the only nuclear-powered tank design in history was the Chrysler TV-8 which wasn't nearly large enough to qualify as a super-heavy tank, so maybe nuclear power plants back then weren't as huge as I thought they were.

That's not actually true. I just posted the TV-8's predecessor, the TV-1, on my blog (see sig), and there were a few other designs in the family. The TV-1 and its relatives, though, were really more dressed-up napkin sketches than serious designs - as far as I can tell, no serious work was actually done on the project. There was a semi-serious nuclear-powered tank study by the Army in the early '60s, but I've not yet managed to get hold of the documents.

I think the TV-1 and its descendants are a classic example of a surprisingly common phenomenon: they were nuclear widgets designed by widget engineers without the input of nuclear engineers. You could definitely build a reactor small enough to power a tank, even in the '50s - the reactors in use today are not optimized for high power density; you can build nuclear reactors small enough to power a plane if you want to (we know because the Air Force spent fifteen years working on that idea). The problem isn't the reactor, it's the shielding - forget about cancer, if your tank carries enough shielding to not instantly char-broil its crew, then it will probably be too heavy to move. The shielding is what would kill such a concept before it ever left the drawing board. If somebody decides they really, really want a nuclear-powered tank, the thing is going to look more like the Ratte than the TV-8. Shielding mass scales sublinearly with power, so the only way to make a nuclear-powered tank is to go big, real big.
 
People still try to approach this from an engineering perspective.

Yes, Super Tanks make no economical or military sense. But they are built and ordered by humans, that don't make sense either.

When has that stopped anybody? Even after they were proven to be indecisive weapons and vulnerable to aircraft, nations still built battleships before WWII. They were not a viable weapon of war, but they were a symbol of a nation's power, and since WWII didn't come yet to prove their ussesless, they were still considered the ultimate weapon. Nations have wasted literal billions in arm races, going against logistics, tactics, and common economic sense.

You only need a reason for nations to keep building even bigger tanks. Preventing WWII, and keeping the concept of the tank as a moving fortress, could make the world be obssesed with making super-big tanks to prove themselves better than other nations. Just shuffle some politicians and all the world's economical and military sense aren't worth a damn; if France is building land dreadnoughts, Germany must too, and the USSR, and the UK, and...

Of course, once an ACTUAL war breaks out, watch them be utterly destroyed by air-power.
 
People still try to approach this from an engineering perspective.

Yes, Super Tanks make no economical or military sense. But they are built and ordered by humans, that don't make sense either.

When has that stopped anybody? Even after they were proven to be indecisive weapons and vulnerable to aircraft, nations still built battleships before WWII. They were not a viable weapon of war, but they were a symbol of a nation's power, and since WWII didn't come yet to prove their ussesless, they were still considered the ultimate weapon. Nations have wasted literal billions in arm races, going against logistics, tactics, and common economic sense.
Well prior to the invention of radar (mid-late 30s), battleships could still be used in conditions where the weather made visual air-searching impossible. Meanwhile the counter to super-heavy tanks already existed.
 
And the 88 and artillery would still tear it apart...
Read back a few pages.

The 1940 88mmAP isn't as good as you think it was. They were made for anti-concrete work, not tanks.

They were having problems with T-34s with that round, breaking up on impact when they should have easily penetrated in late '41
 
Read back a few pages.

The 1940 88mmAP isn't as good as you think it was. They were made for anti-concrete work, not tanks.

They were having problems with T-34s with that round, breaking up on impact when they should have easily penetrated in late '41

But the TOG was sooooo slow (and visible so far away) that the 88s would be able to hit them multiple times. Not to mention the artillery.
 
And the 88 and artillery would still tear it apart...
As with the Matilda 2s at Arras.

I was just thinking nuclear power might be the one thing that makes these beasts mobile and therefore useful. If someone decides that they need to build a nuclear-powered tank and the smallest nuclear reactor available still requires a super-heavy tank, then that would be enough for someone to at least build a prototype super-heavy tank in the 1950's. Given its power and presumptive armor and firepower, it might prove useful in a few operations. Of course, today we know that putting a nuclear reactor inside a tank that is likely to get destroyed is a bad idea, but in the 1950's and 1960's it would be seen as the future of warfare, and the US and USSR would likely build large numbers of them.

On the other hand the only nuclear-powered tank design in history was the Chrysler TV-8 which wasn't nearly large enough to qualify as a super-heavy tank, so maybe nuclear power plants back then weren't as huge as I thought they were.
Ye gods, Ogres... :eek:
 
The bigger you make the tank, the bigger the weapon the enemies can afford to use on it. The slower it goes too, so the easier it is to hit. Make it big and slow enough and RP-3 and HVAR rockets will be good weapons.
 
I think the TV-1 and its descendants are a classic example of a surprisingly common phenomenon: they were nuclear widgets designed by widget engineers without the input of nuclear engineers. You could definitely build a reactor small enough to power a tank, even in the '50s - the reactors in use today are not optimized for high power density; you can build nuclear reactors small enough to power a plane if you want to (we know because the Air Force spent fifteen years working on that idea). The problem isn't the reactor, it's the shielding - forget about cancer, if your tank carries enough shielding to not instantly char-broil its crew, then it will probably be too heavy to move. The shielding is what would kill such a concept before it ever left the drawing board. If somebody decides they really, really want a nuclear-powered tank, the thing is going to look more like the Ratte than the TV-8. Shielding mass scales sublinearly with power, so the only way to make a nuclear-powered tank is to go big, real big.

So nuclear power would produce practical (or at least mobile) super-heavy tanks that the OP asked about?
 
The only super-heavy tank I see as practical is the one from Hammers Slammers, each probably around the size of a apartment flat.
 
So nuclear power would produce practical (or at least mobile) super-heavy tanks that the OP asked about?

I don't think they'd be practical. They'd have all the same problems as the Ratte would if somebody tried to build it in the '60s, plus they'd leak radiation if they blew up. But, if somebody decided they absolutely had to have a nuclear-powered tank, it would definitely be a super-heavy.
 
The only super-heavy tank I see as practical is the one from Hammers Slammers, each probably around the size of a apartment flat.
IIRR there are no aircraft in the Hammerverse because lasers and powerguns render them useless. Hence hovertanks/Ogres/Bolos look practical.
 
What if instead of the super heavy tank be used as a moving fortress, we can use it as a siege tank. It can be a normal tank before rooting into the ground and become a giant artillery piece.
 
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