WW2 Tanks.... A question....

[Brian37]

For any of the eggheads. I was just watching a documentary about WW2 tank warfare between the German army and Russians. 

But, here is what I want to know in general, regardless of model or side of the war. What would be a good average of ammo, just on the big main gun itself an average tank would hold? My point in asking is, while they all offered powerful fire power, in an intense battle, how quickly could one tank run out on average? It would seem to me not long because of how small they are, say to a battleship or even a sub. 

Not that I could fight in combat myself, but those things look to be death traps once you run out.

Typically early war tanks carried smaller guns relative to the size of the tank than late war tanks.  So early war tanks normally carried more rounds of main gun ammo.   German, British and American tanks typically carried more rounds than soviet tanks.  Early war western tanks might carry 100+ rounds, late war western tanks 70-100 rounds.  Early war soviet tanks carried 70-100 rounds, late war soviet tanks carried as few as 30 rounds.

There are specialty late war tanks that carried very few but very large rounds on both sides.

Typically western tanks favor smaller rounds that can be loads and fired faster, while the Soviets favored larger rounds with higher killing power but takes longer to load.

Ok, but where did they store it, the ammo was huge, it wasn't like they were shooting spitwads out of a straw in grade school. 

I know, I know, it was magic, not engineering. AMEYE RIGHT?