Why was Tank Destroyer Force deemed a failure

ATGMs were not really a thing until the 50s, well after the Army dumped the idea of TDs as a separate fighting force. Yes, the ATGM has widely replaced cannons on purpose-built tank killing vehicles, but it wasn't what killed the Tank Destroyer force after WWII.

This is more or less the actual case. The best armed TD the us fielded, the M36, had firepower on par with the M26 Pershing. Likewise, vehicles like the M10 and M18 had firepower that was matched by standard 76mm armed M4 tanks. Likewise, we were already experimenting with longer 90mm, 105mm, 120mm, and 155mm guns on standard tank platforms rather than dedicated TDs.
It also didn't help that, by nature of it's very specific role, there was a lot of internal development conflict going on between the Armored and Ordinance. Many projects were dropped or delayed because of the constant conflict. The Tank Destroyer Force wanted certain things, certain things couldn't be done because it would make the vehicles too similar to tanks, certain constraints had to be met for the sake of transporting the vehicles, etc...
Of course, as time goes on, tanks become bigger and meaner and require more powerful weapons to destroy that may not be practical to field on a traditional "tank", hence vehicles like the M901 ITV and M1134 ATGM Vehicle. Similarly, economic or manufacturing constraints may make the production of proper tanks dificult, requiring equivalent firepower to be mounted on lighter/simpler vehicles, such as the Chinese Type 89.

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Let's be fair here; when's the last time US ground forces popped a tank at all?
This isn't a dig at the US; when we need to do it, we get it done. I'm just saying; it's pretty rare for the US to really be encountering any sort of armor these days, let alone by guys on the ground. It's a huge stretch, but frankly the closest thing the Army has to "tank destroyers" now are Apaches.

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pretty much. afvdatabase.com/history.html#ATOMIC

Tank Destroyers were a product of the interwar theory of armored warfare. Basically you'd have two classes of tank, infantry and charger tanks. Infantry tanks would fight along side infantry, slow waddling behemoths with low velocity guns to pulverize bunkers and set emplacements. See the Churchill tank and early Panzer IV tanks. Charger tanks were intended to go out and fight other tanks, lighter and faster than Infantry tanks with a 38 or 40 mm cannon, which is all that designers thought would be needed to kill tanks.

The events of 1939-1941 showed that the two tank theory was flawed, with both the low velocity 75's and 40mm cannons unable to penetrate front armor of the latest generation tanks and the threat that aircraft posed to slow infantry tanks. The race was on to up gun and improve armor on existing designs. Unfortunately most tanks didn't have turret rings large enough to take larger turrets needed for suitable guns. One way around that shortcoming was the TD, modifying existing designs to take much larger guns by sacrificing the turret and armor protection.

TD's became obsolete when medium and heavy tanks started mounting guns capable of engaging other modern tanks, and the heavy tank went away with the development of the MBT.

Invasion of Iraq?

Fair enough, although tank busting in 2003 was hardly as big a deal as it was in 1944, or 1991 for that matter.

You could argue the effects were overlooked because of how easily armor was pushed aside by the American doctrine and technology. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. But in Iraq, it worked so well that there was no need to discuss it, and that might have led people to believe it wasn't that impactful, even though it was instrumental to how quickly and effectively the Iraqi military was wiped out.

>they had a good k/d because they sat back, ambushed
wow, you mean they did what they were designed for and succeeded in their mission?

>the closest thing the Army has to "tank destroyers" now are Apaches
This isn't even just technically true. Anti-tank attack helicopters are a revival of the tank destroyer doctrine, just using a vehicle that can get to where the enemy tanks are faster, is harder to engage with return fire, can hit from further away and can fire from unexpected locations. People tend to forget it because they're usually just loaded up with rocket pods in environments where there's no enemy armor to kill, but both the Apache and the Russian Mi-28 and Ka-50 series are specifically designed to hunt and kill tanks as their primary mission.

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>Anti-tank attack helicopters are a revival of the tank destroyer doctrine

You seem to be forgetting that the TD doctrine was defensive.

The best defense is a good offense

So are attack helicopters?

The first one to enter service was the SS.10 in 1955.That was France who fielding it first btw. 1957 was west Germany and Switzerland fielding the Cobra. 1958 the UK, US and Australia fielding their first ATGM. USSR fielded there first in 1960.

I could go on but I think that I made made my point in showing the time frame and slow speed at which the ATGM enter service. The US removed the last of their TDs from service in 1946.

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They're used for both.

Not according to the old, anachronistic TD doctrine.

You hit the nail on the head! The tank destroyers did excel at their mission, but they weren't the problem. The problem was the mission itself. Put simply the allies saw tank destroyers as ideal for defense but not nearly as useful in the offense. Tanks however, perform the tank destroyer mission just as well as tank destroyers without the caveats. So the decision was made that resources were better spent improving tanks, and not the redundant tank destroyers.

Holy fuck it is like they used tactics.

good thread

This is a good point. To be completely honest, I've never really looked into what kind of tank-on-tank or even anti-armor operations went on in 2003. Aside from the few BRDMs you see in the thunder run videos I sorta assumed American armor was used primarily as infantry-support, bunker-busting and firing at soft targets.

>Not according to the old, anachronistic TD doctrine
>Implying that not adhering to the US's WWII TD doctrine makes something less of a TD.
I do sorta get what you're saying though. Gunships may be closer to "Tank Hunters" in a literal sense, but that's really just semantics; they are nimble, relatively lightly armored, and designed pretty specifically (if not exclusively employed) to kill armor.

TD doctrine was offensive for America, which used turreted TD. It was defensive for the nazis, who used casemate TDs.

>TD doctrine was offensive for America
But... this is objectively wrong. The entire point of American TD doctrine was to rush second-line TD elements to the point of an enemy armored push, where they would brunt the enemy attack long enough to either force a retreat or allow other American armored forces to counterattack. American TDs were designed and were intended to be employed to destroy attacking armor, not go hunting for enemy tanks.

ATGMV's are a revival, in fact the follow on to the Tank Destroyer doctrine, and they are primarily defensive

>TD doctrine was offensive for America, which used turreted TD.

Get the fuck out of here, you don't know anything. It was purely defensive.

it's not just that the M36 had firepower "on par" with the Pershing: the Pershing literally had the exact same gun as the M36, making the M36 pointless.

Awesome link, thanks

>American tank destroyers had the best kill ratio of any American vehicle
because they got all the 76mm, HVAP and 90mms, idiot. If we had gunned our tanks properly in the first place it would have been unnecessary.

Shermans were more than a match for Panzer and StuG IIIs and IVs, which were what they were actually encountering.

Tank destroyers had good kill ratios in comparison because the only combat they saw was against tanks. Shermans mowing down infantry and destroying MG nests doesn't count towards tank kills.

>A wild lamp post appears