poorest MBT ?

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fitz RE:AMX30 4/10/2005 2:30:22 PM

AMX-30's poor reputation is well documented. All you have offered is personal opinion. IF M-60 is inferior to AMX-30, why did the Spanish replace AMX-30's with M-60's? Why did Greece upgrade ancient M-48's while disposing of AMX-30's? Why did Saudi Arabia stick its new AMX-30's in storage while actually using and continuing to acquire M-60's?

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boris the romanian RE:AMX30 FS 4/10/2005 10:31:16 PM

The M-60A3, while not being the best MBT of all time, was much better than any contemporary AMX-30 model. It mounted the finest thermal imaging sight in the world, it had an excellent FCS, it had considerably better armoured protection and it could also fire on the move, something which cannot be said of an AMX-30. In fact, I think even a T-55A is better than the AMX-30. It has better armoured protection, equal mobility, much better adverse weather mobility (especially cold-start), far better reliability, roughly equal firepower, main gun stabilisation, and is very much cheaper. The AMX-30's advantages of slightly better firepower (although both tanks could destroy each other from 2000m+), better main gun depression (-3 degrees is characteristic of all Soviet tanks) and better FCS were not so much of an issue in the point-blank engagements likely in central Europe, and they made the AMX-30 more than thrice as expensive as the T-55.

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boris the romanian RE:AMX30 4/10/2005 10:37:46 PM

"And frankly I think that M60, Chieftain and T62 were worst." Chieftain and T-62 were fantastic tanks when first introduced. They compared very well in armour and firepower to their rivals, and the Chieftian, while a little slow, was the best armed tank until the Leopard II. FS, I consider the Leopard I to be inferior to contemporary Soviet models. It is slower, has poorer acceleration, has inferior cross-country mobility, has poorer armour, has less HEAT firepower, and is more expensive. It has more sophisticated FCS and a more accurate gun than T-64 and T-72, but while T-64 might be able to survive a direct hit accross the frontal arc from an L-7, the Leopard I will definately not survive a direct hit from 2A46/M. Still, Leopard I is a great tank and a hell of a lot better than the AMX-30.

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french stratege RE:AMX30 4/11/2005 11:39:04 AM

I was not speaking of T64 but T62.

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boris the romanian RE:AMX30 4/11/2005 11:43:00 PM

"I was not speaking of T64 but T62. " So was I.

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Yimmy RE:AMX30 4/12/2005 10:49:43 AM

Who on Earth mentioned the Chieftan as being the worst tank?! It was by far the best tank the West had in the Cold War during the 60/70's. Our tank tactics were based on sitting and waiting for the Russian tank hordes in dug in positions, and killing as many of them as possible - while the Chieftan was the best armoured tank, and had the most firepower.

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shawn RE:AMX30 4/12/2005 12:28:50 PM

Yimmy said: "Who on Earth mentioned the Chieftan as being the worst tank?! It was by far the best tank the West had in the Cold War during the 60/70's. Our tank tactics were based on sitting and waiting for the Russian tank hordes in dug in positions, and killing as many of them as possible - while the Chieftan was the best armoured tank, and had the most firepower." ---- I think Yimmy has hit the nail on the head with regards to the biggest 'fault' of the AMX-30, Western tanks of the mid-60s to late 70s were designed to fight a defensive battle against a greater number of opponents - to engage them beyond the range that the T-55s and T-62s could reply to, and then 'slug it out' with those that managed to survive close enough to return effective fire. The Chieftan and M60A1 weren't the zipppiest tanks around, they were not designed for high speed attack operations - they were designed to fight from hull down - to fire a few rounds, then rapidly shift to another prepared firing position. For example, the Centurion in Israel service had the same Detroit Diesel engine as the M-60A1, and while it had a lower top speed than the T-62, it actually had better acceleration! This made it quite good at dashing between firing points. Also note that the main long range tank killer post-WW2 was the HEAT round. Tungsten AP rounds were used closer in, until the advert of APFSDS DU rounds in the mid-1970s extended the lethal range of AP rounds. Before Chobham was developed, the best protection against both HEAT and Tungsten AP was to use lots of armour. Perhaps Mike Golf or one of the 'old tankers' could comment on this? BTW, when first introduced in 1967, the AMX-30 only carried HEAT rounds. AP rounds were introduced in the mid-1970s. Following NATO defensive tactics would have place both the AMX-30 and the Leopard 1A1 at risk in a NATO-Warsaw Pact ground war, if it happened between 1967 and 1975. Bear in mind that they were designed to the same joint German-French requirements, which originally specified for a light 30 ton tank that placed maneuverability and firepower over armour (road speed 25% better than a Chieftain or M60). Both tanks would have been able to engage the enemy at long distance, but would not have survived for long once the enemy replied with accurate fire. In this instance, the AMX-30 might have been employed in the 'traditional' tank destroyer role, with long range snipping and scooting. This is fine when you've got a lot of empty ground to give up to the enemy, but not if you're in the Fulda Gap. Besides, this defeats the whole point of calling a tank an MBT. Where the Leopard 1 was rapidly upgraded to A3 standard in 1970, with improved spaced armour to counter the effectivness of HEAT rounds, the AMX-30 retained its rather thin 80mm steel maximum armour (one of my sources says 50mm, an M60 has 120mm). The fact that it's main gun was not stabilised also greatly negates its mobility advantage, as it has to stop to shoot. While the B2 upgrade did improve the AMX-30s engine and FCS, these did not come about until the mid-1980s, whereupon the T-72, Leopard 2, Challenger 1, M1 and M60A3 were already in widespread service. The B2 upgrade also did nothing for the AMX-30 armour - in the 1991 Gulf War, the AMX-30B2s used by the French were equipped with ERA, and faced a poorly trained opposition with no effective AP rounds. If the French AMX-30B2s with ERA went up against better equipped and trained opposition, say Iranian 105mm M-48s with tungsten APFSDS, they would have have taken greater losses. Here's a little story. Back in the mid-1960s, the expanding Isreali Defense Force Armour Corps was choosing a new MBT. Over the objections of many staff officers that felt that the then new AMX-30 suited Israeli 'blitzkerig' tactics in the Sinai, the Corps commander Gen. Israel Tai choose the Centurion, then had them modified with 105mm L7 guns, Detroit Diesel powerpacks and larger fuel tanks. The Centurion proved itself, and incidently NATO defensive tactics, in the Golan Heights battles of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, where they faced well trained and determined Syrian tanks at 1:8 odds. Had the Israelis used AMX-30s, that tank's armour shortcomings would have forced the Israelis to use a fighting withdrawal tactic, which would have greatly improved Syria's chances of capturing all the Heights.

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boris the romanian RE:AMX30 4/12/2005 12:28:57 PM

"Who on Earth mentioned the Chieftan as being the worst tank?!" French Stratege, in his infinate wisdom, has decided that the Chieftain (by far the best armed and armoured MBT of its generation and sporting a pretty butch FCS) qualifies for the "Worst MBT" title. The AMX-30 was clearly a quantum leap in capability over the Chieftian and T-64. Given a choice, you know which tank I'd rather be in :-)

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french stratege RE:AMX30 4/12/2005 12:51:42 PM

I did not say Chieftain was worst.But it's inferior mobility was not to compensate a thicker armor.It suffered same raliability problems of AMX30. Mobility is very important to figh a superior numerically force under nuclear threat. "Where the Leopard 1 was rapidly upgraded to A3 standard in 1970, with improved spaced armour to counter the effectivness of HEAT rounds, the AMX-30 retained its rather thin 80mm steel maximum armour (one of my sources says 50mm, an M60 has 120mm). The fact that it's main gun was not stabilised also greatly negates its mobility advantage, as it has to stop to shoot. " Maximum AMX30 armor is 330 mm.I don't know where you find these incorrect values.

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boris the romanian RE:AMX30 4/12/2005 1:01:35 PM

"I did not say Chieftain was worst" You said that, in your opinion, the worst tanks were the Chieftain and T-62. "But it's inferior mobility was not to compensate a thicker armor" You do realise that the Chieftain had better tactical mobility under fire than did the AMX-30, right? Its cross-country speed was a good 35km/h+, and it could actually fire on the move, unlike the AMX-30. A Chieftain batallion could thus advance or retreat under fire faster (and more effectively) than an AMX-30 batallion as it could pick off enemy tanks without having to halt and wait for the gun to stop wobbling before making final elevation/traverse corrections and letting off a round. "Mobility is very important to figh a superior numerically force under nuclear threat." Mobility was far more important to the Soviets than to NATO. The Soviet theory in case of war involved a massive armoured advance into central Germany. Population centres and enemy pockets of resistence were to be bypassed at all costs. Seeing as NATO would quite probably want a tactical nuclear relese more than the Red Army, keeping large enemy pockets and cities hostage was a very important Soviet consideration. NATO doctrine, on the other hand, involved delaying the Soviet advance as long as possible until REFORGER troops arrived. Heavy armour and powerful armament are thus much more important than mobility.

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