Shouldve the WW2 American T20 Medium Tank been standardized to complament or replace the M4 Medium Tank.?
The T20 series were as much an engineering excercise as an attempt to find a next generation tank. The numerous variants tested different combinations of armament, suspension designs and drivetrains. This really begs several questions if you are going to pull the trigger for production. 1. When do you make the call? 2. Which variant do you chose? 3. Who is going to build it and where? Keep in mind when making this choice that hindsight is always 20/20. Right up until June 1944 the M4 Medium was far more than adequate and there was no urgency to change. If you pull the trigger for mass production based on the experiences of June/July 1944 then you don’t see production models in Europe until at least March 1945 – far too late to do any good. This decision has to be made probably no later than mid-1943 to have any impact on the war. In mid-1943 there was very little evidence the M4 was going to be anything less than fully adequate and the M4 was in full-scale production, was easy to trans
