Talk:Archer (tank destroyer)

Military history: Land vehicles / British / European / World War II Start‑class

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The article states the breech intruded into the drivers position when the gun was fired, yet goes on to state the driver stayed in position in case the vehicle needed to be driven to a new location in a hurry. If the latter is true then wouldn't he be in danger of a fatal smack "round the back of 'is 'ead"? Andy L 143.167.143.33 (talk) 18:17, 8 January 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The Archer was capable of using this advanced round in suitable conditions. Penetration was 190mm at 500 yd and 30 deg slope which was more than capable of taking out any German tank. Just dont stand infront of the Archer when it,fires, . — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.149.71.190 (talk) 05:14, 3 May 2017 (UTC)[reply]

To whoever keeps changing the description of this vehicle back to a 'Tank Destroyer' please note that the British Army of WW2 never called it that, never used it as such and never had crew trained as tank destroyers. This is a distinction that needs to be noted. To state the Archer is a tank destroyer is simply incorrect. Should you want to state it as such, please provide a WW2 British Army or War Department Order referring to it as such and I will change my view on it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by HMMTB (talk • contribs) 06:40, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

But you are not changing its description as a "tank destroyer" (where you might have a point), you are breaking the wikilink to the WP article on tank destroyers. A link which was already piped so as not to describe this as a tank destroyer.

"Tank destroyer" is a widely-used international term for vehicles of this class. If issued in Germany or the US, they would have been "tank destroyers" by all measures. The only reason they are "not" is that UK doctrine didn't deploy its tank destroyers as tank destroyers, whether these are Archers, Achilles or whatever. That does not change the WP article in which such vehicles are described.

Your change here is damaging (it breaks any link), clearly against consensus and it is heading for a technical breach of WP:3RR. Andy Dingley (talk) 10:44, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The term 'Tank Destroyer' is a uniquely American term to fulfill the doctrine of the Tank Destroyer Command, with its motto 'Seek, Strike, Destroy'. As such, strictly speaking only the M10, M18 and M36 should be referred to as 'tank destroyers'; just as in the interwar period fighter aircraft were called fighter aircraft by many countries, apart from the US, where they were referred to as 'pursuit aircraft'. Without trying to sound too partisan, the British nomenclature is the more correct, 'self-propelled anti-tank gun' (SPAT), which is essentially what the Archer was. The tank destroyer concept was a contrived device to fulfill the aggressive role of the nascent US Army; apart from the earlier M2/M3 half track lash- ups, the tank destroyer concept demanded a 360 degree rotating turret. In no other country was such a vehicle designed. It should be noted that immediately after the end of WW2 the Tank Destroyer Command was disbanded and the tank destroyers were withdrawn from service, an admission of the abject failure of the concept and the vehicles in their designed role. Since that time no US vehicle design, or weapon system, has been called a tank destroyer; such systems are generically referred to as 'anti-armour'..

As for German designed vehicles, the Waffenamt produced many SPATs, none with a rotating turret simply because they were a defensive weapon either to be used to secure the flank of an attack or to lay in wait to ambush an enemy assault. The various German terms can be roughly translated as tank stalker (panzerjaeger) or tank hunter (jagdpanzer). The idea that such vehicles would go out en mass into the field to attack enemy armour (where they would indeed need a 360 degree main gun) was frankly ludicrous. They were quite literally ambush vehicles.

Unfortunately it has become commonplace to refer to any self-propelled anti-tank gun as a 'tank destroyer', simply because that's what the Americans called any vehicle which had the sole job of destroying tanks. Nowadays the M10/36 or M18 would probably be called an MGS (mobile gun system); Such is the vagaries of military doctrine!

(It is worth noting that the correct designations for the US WW2 tank destroyers were: M10 GMC, M36 GMC, M18 GMC. GMC here stands for 'Gun Motor Carriage'. The designation itself is an admission they really were self-propelled anti-tank guns, irrespective of what the Tank Destroyer Command wanted to call them).::Loates Jr (talk) 13:26, 31 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]