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In the early game, I'm having trouble seeing a role for light tanks. Mechanized infantry seem to have a similar effect against infantry and the medium tank seems better for a high velocity gun chassis. I'm looking at leg infantry brigades supplemented with a btn each of mech inf and medium tanks right now. (With a lonely recon buggy rgt to make my pre-APC armored cars usefull.)

Light tank and motorized inf in my case.

All I make through about turn 100 is mech infantry OHQs with 2 light tanks attached... and motorcycles.

The light Tank has a much better offensice then the APC. Around 6 times as much!
A lot of it comes down to using a Howitzer instead of a MG. In armor, they can be made mostly equal, but not in HP.

While hte High Velcotiry gun on the Light Tank is not good, it easily beats anything else on the level for Anti-Hard damage. And that you need a medium tank for serious anti-armor isa foregone conclusion. You pick light tanks for killing infantry.

The light tank is an awesome infantry killer with the howitzer early in the game!

I'll take both, please. Mobility kills.

Later, I like to sprinkle in some Assault Guns with Massive Howitzers for Soft Attack values that'll make you wish you'd stayed home with the Freefolk.

One of the main advantages of armored units is better defense. This helps with Breakthrough:

Check Breakthrough
If Subunit is not hit for 2 combat rounds and made at least on successful
attack (a hit!) it will breakthrough. Also if the Subunit attacker has not even
been targeted (let alone hit) in the last 2 combat rounds it will breakthrough.
There is a chance the breakthrough fails if the attack is overstacked. If
defender has no non-backbench Subunits left the breakthrough always
succeeds.

ORIGINAL: L0ckAndL0ad
One of the main advantages of armored units is better defense. This helps with Breakthrough:

Mechanized Infantry fight with their APC's, which are armored. Since APC weapons don't add weight, you can also put heavier armor on them vs a Light Tank with the same total weight.

For example:
[center]Light Tank, 40mm gun, 25mm steel armor, medium diesel. 335 weight and 330 armor.[/center]
[center]APC, 50mm steel armor, medium diesel. 300 weight and 510 armor.[/center]

Due to the bonus from Side Skirts, light tanks will still tend to have better defense than APC's. It's pretty close though. As always, model quality plays a huge factor.

Keep an eye on your fuel if you are building mech/tank/motorized

A mechanized infantry formation is also considerably more man power intensive than a pure tank formation.