Couldn't you just have a tank with very little armour but a high range gun? Wouldn't it beat all the other tanks as its long range gun could take them out before they have a chance to fight back?
It depends on the terrain. There are theories about to have lesser heavy vehicles, which are easier to deploy. There are also active detection systems for vehicles that can protect the vehicle. The Israeli Trophy system and the Russian Arena. However, they don't work against sabot rounds. I am also somewhat skeptical to these systems if they really work. It goes back to the terrain. In open terrain, your theory if I use that term could maybe work. However, in terrain in which the combat range is much lesser, the advantage of the big gun and lesser protection can have lesser significance when the opponent can easily reach out and touch your vehicle.
This exact type of weapon has been around since WW2 it's called "self-propelled artillery". Basically artillery that can be moved about w/o being towed. These are generally long range weapons, outranging tanks.
An early example was the Hummel. A self-propelled artillery piece fielding a 150 mm howitzer on a chassis used by Germany in WW2.
The US currently has numerous self-propelled artillery weapons such as the M109 which uses a 155 mm howitzer, the M110 which uses a 203 mm howitzer to name several key self-propelled weapons in the US arsenal.
Now as for your question you sound like you are asking about tank destroyers, rather than long range guns on more lightly armored vehicles. Again if we go back to WW2 Germany excelled in these machines with a prime example being the Jagdpanzer, but they were very expensive and costly to maintain with the exception of their successful Stug. Tank destroyer were more popular during WW2. Currently I'm not aware of the US army fielding any AFV that are dedicated tank destroyers?
During the Second World War, the US military was issued the M10 Tank Destroyer and the mobile howitzer priest. Maybe one of the versions of the Stryker vehicles can be perceived as a tank destroyer. It has a 105mm gun.
The US to had many tank destroyers in WW2 including the M10. Of the US tank destroyers the 90 mm gun of the M36 proved to be most effective against the frontal armor of Germans' larger armored vehicles at long ranges.
Couldn't you just have a tank with very little armour but a high range gun? Wouldn't it beat all the other tanks as its long range gun could take them out before they have a chance to fight back?
Yes, I know there was another tank destroyer in the US armament during the war, but I didn't remember what it was called.
If I speculate, the concept of tank destroyers vanished when the mechanized/motorized infantry's capability of engaging the enemy's armor forces increased. Can the Sheridan vehicle be viewed as a tank destroyer?
They likely had many more during WW2 we just covered a few of the more successful machines.
The Sheridan was a light tank with a fairly large gun. I don't think it was a tank destroyer. It was most used in Vietnam.
There is another approach that has been tried. That is to reduce the overall weight by reducing the size of the turret or eliminating it all together, such as was done with the Swedish "S" tank. That was a turret - less design, where the entire tank was pointed at the the target and elevation was accomplished with a variable height suspension system. This makes a very low profile vehicle. It does mean that the visibility is limited by the limited height.
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