Tracks are so good, why do some people choose to use wheels?

In fact, each has its own advantages

What are the advantages of wheels?

First, it is light. The structure itself determines that wheels have a lot less things than tracks, so the overall mass is much lighter.

The second is high speed.

But what are the disadvantages of wheels?

The ground pressure is high. The upper limit of bearing capacity is low.

This feature determines that tanks are basically unlikely to be wheeled. Tanks are equipment that balances firepower, mobility, and protection, and require a certain degree of protection on the battlefield. In the design of a tank, the weight of armor accounts for a high proportion of the total weight. This determines that the total weight of the tank is difficult to reduce. The wheeled walking mechanism is on a heavy vehicle body, and the tires exert too much pressure on the ground, and the off-road capability is reduced too much. In order to ensure off-road performance, there must be enough ground contact area, and tracks are the inevitable choice.

So, under what circumstances will wheels be chosen?

Required to reduce the weight of the whole vehicle. For example, the Stryker series developed by the United States is essentially a rapid reaction force. It needs to be able to be transported by medium-sized transport aircraft and quickly transported by air, so the weight of the whole vehicle must be controlled at 20 tons, and the transport weight can be even lower, so it can be transported by C130 transport aircraft.

If this series uses a crawler chassis, the weight will be much higher, and it will be difficult to use a C130-level transport aircraft.

There are also those that are very heavy but only require road mobility, such as large "log" transport vehicles.

These basically run on the road and will not be on the front line battlefield. Although the load capacity is very high, just add more wheels.

So will there be some weapons that are too heavy or even exceed the limit of  crawler vehicles? Then what can we do to move? In fact, as long as you open your mind and think about the principle of  crawler vehicles, you will know. Crawler vehicles are essentially built-in flat track walking mechanisms. Vehicles need to walk on the ground. If they are too heavy, the wheels will sink into the ground, and the pressure needs to be reduced. The only way is to increase the ground contact area. Then put a metal plate in front of the wheel, and the wheel will run on the metal plate. The metal plate increases the ground contact area and the pressure is reduced. The crawler is essentially a mechanism that automatically places metal plates in front of the wheels. Of course, back to the question, if a higher load is required, so that the metal plate needs to be very large, and it is impossible to make an automatic placement mechanism like a crawler, then go back to the original intention and lay the plate first. If there is no way to change the wheel structure, then change the ground. Lay tracks on the ground and lay a distributed load-bearing structure under the tracks. If one pair of tracks is not enough, use two pairs. If the weight is too high, widen it. It can always ensure that the pressure meets the standard.

This is why the former steel behemoth can only be transported by tracks.