What is the reason for cannons transitioning like this. To my understanding the first cannons were smooth bore and were quite inaccurate and had limited range but when they started adding rifling to them the range and accuracy went up significantly. And then much later in history you see tanks transitioning back to smooth bore barrels. What is the reason for this? Aren’t rifled barrels more superior in every way?
The reason most countries use smoothbore cannons for their tank main guns is because a projectile like a sabot round is fin-stabilized, thus negating the need for rifling. The fin-stabilized sabot round has so much power behind it that it can travel over 4 kilometers and still destroy vehicles. So range isn’t something most modern tank forces are worried about.
Smoothbore cannons also have a longer barrel life because energy isn’t adding stress to the barrel by being distributed into the grooves. This effect also helps the most amount of energy travel down the barrel and behind the round, delivering the maximum amount of force behind that projectile as possible.
Now Artillery still use rifled guns and that’s something I don’t see changing any time soon.