oldbutnotwise wrote: "smoothbore vs rifled? what??? a rifled gun is always superior to a smoothbore of the same caliber, there is no advantage to the smoothbore" Actually, not true. The advantage to the smoothbore is with hypervelocity ammunition. The spin imparted by rifled guns destabilizes the ammunition at high velocity, reducing accuracy. At lower velocities the spin keeps the round stabilized. The US Army tried to counteract the issue of spin in its 105mm APDS by introducing a rotating collar to allow the sabot to spin while the dart itself did not. This was only semi-effective.

MikkoLn wrote: "Anyway, even here, I think T-series has suffered a bad inflation because of elder Iraqi tanks failure and the whole series is seen much inferior to western tanks. Without a single good reason." Except for the testing done at Aberdeen with T-64 and T-80 variants after the fall of the Soviet Union. Tanks were acquired in various ways by Western intelligence agencies. The T-64 was excellent for its generation and certainly better than US equivalent generation M60. But not in the same generation by a long shot as the M1, Challenger, Leo, etc. And the T-80 was basically an upgrade of the T-64 with reactive armor and better fire control. Same gun, same chassis, same passive armor. Result of a M1 vs. T-80 would be the same as a M1 vs. T-72. One M1 shot fired, one T-80 catastrophic kill.

While Im here; is there anyone who has good info on the top tanks that can give me an estimate on M1A1 armor (both kinds) against KE? I can categorically state, because I saw it happen, that an M1A1 Heavy, which had armor upgrade over the original M1A1, can take a KE hit from the Soviet/Russian 125mm main gun at a range of roughly 1100 meters with no significant damage. In fact, the M1A1 Heavy can withstand a hit from another M1 against its frontal armor. This happened in 1991 during an attempt to destroy a disabled tank that could not be recovered by maintenance. The original M1 was rated as having the equivalent of 1000+ mm of rolled homogeneous steel, although it's composite armor on the front slope was only 550mm, I believe. I might be off by a couple mm on the front slope of the original M1. That said, it turned out that composite armor (also called chobham) was very effective against long rod KE penetrators although it was originally designed to defeat HEAT and heavy ATGM's.

how thick is its turret roof? the days of tank VS tank are gone (look at he last conflicts). ATGM's are now top attack. what will the tank developers do? add more armor on top? this will cause them to put a bigger engine and transmission , making it even heavier. all the ATGM's developer needs to do is put some extra RDX or a 3rd warhead...

desertowl wrote: "the days of tank VS tank are gone (look at he last conflicts). ATGM's are now top attack." First off, if you read my post, I was responding to someone's very specific question as to how the M1 performed against Kinetic Energy weapons (i.e. discarding sabot long rod penetrators), which I answered with a first hand account. I also provide d some basic, unclassified statistics about the M1 tank's front slope armor. You are absolutely correct that the front slope does no good against ATGM's today. What you fail to understand is that armor/cavalry tactics take this into account. Cavalry is the fast moving force that gets onto the enemy's flank and rear and disrupts their supply and C3I and defeats the enemy in detail. Cavalry is not intended to go head to head with dug-in infantry, any more than infantry could successfully assault armor by themselves. If they tried the cavalry commander would simply flank the attacking infantry with fast moving units, most likely helicopters. A tank's single biggest advantage, both tactically and operationally, is its mobility, not its armor. Tanks are not used where the enemy is strong, but rather where he is weak. The greatest cavalry leaders (Sheridan, Rommell, Guderian, Patton, etc.) understood this. The infantry of WWII were as capable of defeating armor if they were dug in and the armor performed a deliberate attack as infantry is today. If you study the campaigns of these men you find that they used proper cavalry tactics. You are focusing far too much on the technical aspects and far too little on the operational aspects. You also assume that the tank is operating alone, rather than in concert with the other combat arms. If so, the commander deserves what he gets, which is defeated.

forgive my tendacy to become rather technical , i guess it comes with the trade. in a balanced conflict and in convetional scenario i agree to every word you wrote. lets take the last conflict in iraq as a test case: say, if the iraqies would fill the desert with sporadic AT stakeouts , combined with portable SA's , it would be ten times effective then the convetional deployment. beeing a state that is sentanced to fight a superpower with inferior to none airpower and infirior tanks , i think its the way to go. we can see examples for the efficiency of that technique as we read almost daily of another black hawk beeing shot down , usually by a low tech weapon as the RPG 7. my point is that we need to read the face of the new battlefield. do you realy belive we will live to see great armies march to war one against another?

Look at my handle, mike_golf. In a tank company that is generally how the master gunner is referred to. I'm as technical as they come. But I also understand that technical match ups only explain part of the story. On paper the Wehrmacht should have beat the US Army tank for tank, and their infantry with the panzerfaust should have as well. In 1940 the French and British should have beat the Germans in May, looking only at how many soldiers they had, how good their equipment was, etc. What it came down to, what won the campaigns, was superior operational art. That of Rommel, Guderian and Von Rundstedt in 1940 and that of Patton and Bradley in 1944. And yes, I believe it is possible that we will see large armies in combat in our lifetimes. Every generation since WWII has said that the day of the ground pounder and the tank was numbered because of ATGM's, or nukes, or whatever. And each generation was wrong. In 1989 we supposedly wouldn't need a large standing army anymore because of the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Empire. A year later we engaged in the largest armored campaign since Kursk. The problem with your proposal (which is really Rumsfeld's as far as I understand what you propose) is that it is too narrowly focused. The key to military success is to have a generally capable military with specialty units for the narrow focus needs.

I'd put the Japanese Type 90 in there, personally.

Has anyone read the article on US supply lines in Iraq? Due to lack-of-training and such a lot of shiny M1s went to war with broken computers, nav gear; what I mean is anything complicated is bound to break down and terribly expensive to replace. Also, in my notion of war you will suffer several thounsands of casualties a day, sometimes.(Iraq parts 1 and 2 were *NOT* wars, WO1 and 2 were). With other words, you will need to replace a lot of equipent, and both the US and Russia could (because what they made was simple -Shermans and T34s). A single M1 costs -no idea, but a lot- and quite possibly too much to go to war-on-*my*- scale. The T34 was, as far as I'm concerned, the best tank ever. In the Stalingrad tractor factory, the workes made or repaired the tanks at night and fought with them the next day, only to go back to the plant in the evening and... One could *not* do this with any modern tank. For control missions -like Iraq- you don't really need a 125mm smooth bore spaced-out mega-cannon with groovy kinetic superbullets. A -to take something else- bunch of vintage Tiger tanks could have done the job just as well, right here in our brave new world. Having a lot of Main Battle Tanks are a remainder of the Cold War, and are quicky getting redundant. Who are you going to shoot anyway? A Toyota Landcruiser with an RPG in the back? Again, a (...) Sherman could do it too. Therefore: the best tank in the world isn't nessesarily the most modern one, the fastest one, the best looking, the most lethal, whatever. It needs to do a job and get it over with, as cost-effective as possible. Read Sun-Tsu: wars cripple a country, it doesn't matter wether you attack or defend.

"MikkoLn wrote: "Anyway, even here, I think T-series has suffered a bad inflation because of elder Iraqi tanks failure and the whole series is seen much inferior to western tanks. Without a single good reason." Except for the testing done at Aberdeen with T-64 and T-80 variants after the fall of the Soviet Union. Tanks were acquired in various ways by Western intelligence agencies. The T-64 was excellent for its generation and certainly better than US equivalent generation M60. But not in the same generation by a long shot as the M1, Challenger, Leo, etc. And the T-80 was basically an upgrade of the T-64 with reactive armor and better fire control. Same gun, same chassis, same passive armor. Result of a M1 vs. T-80 would be the same as a M1 vs. T-72. One M1 shot fired, one T-80 catastrophic kill " So you basicly just wrote to agree with me, no? The fact that we both brought up is that tanks from different decades and generations can't be as such compared, or they can, but the results are evident. The question about KE armour values is a very interesting one, and full of still unknown features or things that can't be said for 100% sure. Over the years, estimations about different kinds of Chobham variations protection have chanced radically from time to time, depending on the source, but most of the biggest speculations have really been (or at least we have considered them) speculations with no real factual value. Anyway, what I've managed to study and especially see and heard from those who know better than me, M1A2 frontal turret KE protection straight on is generally accepted at being roughly 900mm, though the erlier models had somewhat significantly less (500...750). Latest German Leopards have different armour (have had all the time) and are propably giving even higher degree of protection against KE, in excess of 1000mm (though also 1100 is claimed) in A5. Considering that the latest russian penetrators are capable of less than 700mm KE, both M1 and Leo are perfectly safe over their frontal arc against 125. And even more, older 125mm ammunition, especially ones like used by Iraq in 91, is nowhere near the capability of the more recent 125mm ammunition.