top 10 tanks in the world!!!

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Fedaykin HMMMM????? 1/18/2004 6:50:48 PM

That could make a good new thread ----- The Use of Foodstuffs as Armour in Warfair I would like to say now that British Chedder cheese will crush all your foreign cheeses!!!(now its a flame food thread!)

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Kozzy RE:HMMMM????? 1/18/2004 6:56:42 PM

About ERA being useless against APFSDS. What about K5?

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mike_golf RE: Maintenance issues 1/18/2004 6:59:16 PM

Another point that is usually brought up in favor of Russian tanks is maintenance. I have posted before about the maintenance level of my tank company during 1990-91. Briefly, we crossed the Iraqi border with 14 fully operational M1A1's and we had 13 when the cease fire went in place. The last tank had a failed emergency fuel cutoff valve. It was back to the company in less than 24 hours. The M1 is actually designed to ease maintenance in the field. The entire power package can be removed from the tank in field conditions in less than an hour. This is simply not possible on a Russian T series tank. I have done gun tube replacements as well. We completed the entire operation of replacing a tube in 72 hours start to finish. This included test firing by remote control to ensure that the recoil mechanism operated correctly. We did this with the battalion's organic maintenance assets. I am positive that the Russian Army can't do this without sending the tank to the depot for repair. The fact is that there is a reason why Russian tanks are built rugged and simple. It is because the Russian Army's soldier quality is too low to allow for the sort of maintenance done at the crew level by Western armies. This design choice was never seen as something that was a plus over western tanks, but rather a requirement of the Russian/Soviet military just to keep a reasonable number of tanks functioning! The downside to it is that things that require more complexity aren't possible due to the limitations imposed.

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AKS RE:10 best tanks 1/18/2004 7:13:54 PM

For starters I DID NOT say t90 is THE BEST TANK, I said it is one of the best, beacuse Russians had the tank in so many conflicts and IF IT DID NOT PROVE IT SELF they would have immidiately change the design, (like they did with BMP3). ALSO STORIES how an 100 ton M1 penetrated an Iraqi T 72 is interesting, but at least tell me some SERIOUS publication that would confirm that, and even if it did IRAQI'S WERE BUILDING THEIR OWN T72's WITH THEIR OWN CHEAP MATERIALS, since when Soviets sold their patents to produce some weapon, the patent had the DEGRADED version of the product. Also I want to clear out one more thing, IN CHECHNYA T90's and T80's are MOSTLY DESTROYED FROM LAND MINES NOT RPG's. Look it up in the internet and read the chechen, russian and western sources and you will see.

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mike_golf Summarizing a few things 1/18/2004 7:17:35 PM

In general this board agrees that in order to make the "top spot" you need the following: 1. Composite armor 2. Main gun with a reasonable chance of penetrating composite armor in the frontal aspect. 3. Good mobility. These three items, firepower, protection and mobility have always been the standard design areas for tanks. But now there is a fourth to consider. 4. C3 systems. If you don't have digitized integrated C3 to the tank level you are going to be relegated to second class citizen. And the last component that many (except for the French and a few others) consider important is battlefield performance. Without it you can't make the top spot. So, for top tank, right off the bat the only tanks we will look at is the Russian T72/80/90 (Iraq, Chechnya), American M1A2 (Iraq) and British Challenger (Iraq). Protection - Challenger appears to win this category, with Abrams a close second. T90 wouldn't be in the top 3 if we included LeClerc and Leo2. Firepower - Challenger and Abrams are pretty much equal, although Challenger has a longer effective range. Personally I don't see that as enough of a plus to give it to Challenger, but others don't necessarily agree. T-90 has a hybrid gun, which means it has the worst of both worlds. Its gun can't penetrate an M1-IP, let alone an M1A2 or Challenger in the frontal aspect. So, Challenger gets it here too, then Abrams, T-90. Mobility - Abrams has a better top speed, better acceleration than Challenger. T-90 is pretty close to the same, and due to its lower weight can go places Abrams and Challenger can't. We rank this T-90, Abrams, Challenger. C3 systems - Abrams is the hands down winner. All tanks are integrated into the digital network at the lowest level. Challenger has a relatively rudimentary C3 system. T-90 has a radio. We rank them Abrams, Challenger, T-90. Okay, now score the number one tank in a category 3 points, number two gets 2 points and number 3 gets 1. Add it up and you see: Challenger: 9 points Abrams: 9 points T-90: 6 points So, Abrams and Challenger tie, T-90 is about 67% compared to them. Which is pretty close to real world effectiveness of these three tanks. Leo2 probably ties with Abrams and Challenger if we don't worry about combat experience. LeClerc is tough. On paper it looks very good. On the ground, who knows? We just haven't seen it in use enough to really judge if it's living up to its paper specs.

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mike_golf Response to AKS on T-72 1/18/2004 7:24:18 PM

First off, the M1 does not weigh 100 tons. Get over it on that. The M1A2 is in the low 70's, I don't recall off the top of my head. You can confirm the 1 shot, 2 tanks in two ways. First off, I happen to know someone who was in the tank battalion that made the shot, and heard the tale from them. Secondly, it was confirmed in, if I remember right, Tom Clancy's non-fiction novel Armored Cav. On to the T-72. Yes, other countries were sold licenses to produce the T-72 locally. To the best of my knowledge this was limited to Warsaw Pact and China. Iraq purchased T55's, T62's and T72's directly from the Soviet Union. So these were T-72's that were produced in Soviet tank works, not local factories. Someone else tried this in another thread. Finally, the RPG-29 and AT-4 (as examples) are both quite capable of producing enough chemical energy to penetrate the flank armor of the T-72 turret. From everything I know the T-90's base armor is not significantly better than the T-72. Therefore, if the ERA cannot come into play, because it has already fired for example, a modern light anti-tank weapon could be effective against the flank of a T-90. This isn't a good thing.

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AKS RE: Mike_golf 1/18/2004 7:25:29 PM

"The fact is that there is a reason why Russian tanks are built rugged and simple. It is because the Russian Army's soldier quality is too low to allow for the sort of maintenance done at the crew level by Western armies." Mike now you are getting out of facts DID YOU ever visit a RUSSIAN HIGH SCHOOL? Their 8th graders (not exagerating) take advance physics that for example a US student takes in college. Russians may not have much money, but they have a very strong education system and it applies the most to military academies and schools. Same can be said about the Brits and the French, they also have superb millitary schools and academies, beacsue of their history. One more thing, you said " I am positive that the Russian Army can't do this without sending the tank to the depot for repair." Well I just want to ask, but honestly, what is YOUR experience with Soviet or now the Russian army? Are you just guesssing (it seems like it) or you have been in training with the Russians.

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AKS RE:Summarizing a few things 1/18/2004 7:31:32 PM

Mike explain to me how is a as you said 70 ton Abrams more mobile the a 42 ton t90? So a 18 wheeler is mor mobile then a Suburban, right?!

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AKS RE:just info 1/18/2004 7:37:56 PM

Guys I have read in one of the posts that somebody mentioned the BLACK EAGLE tank. I just want to say for info. that black eagle is NOT the t95 as some web sites say it is (this is due to the secrecy and lack of info). Black Eagle is t80 based and it is made ONLY for SOUTH KOREA. T95 is mix of T72 and T80 but physically it is going to look differnt and is mad for the Russian army.

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mike_golf RE: Mike_golf 1/18/2004 7:39:30 PM

AKS, education only affects soldier quality peripherally. Military training, motivation, morale, pay, living conditions, and equipment are the most important factors, with several others close behind. The bottom line is that Russian privates are not trained to a level anywhere close to that of the British or US Army. Nor do they have the same levels of motivation, morale, living conditions or pay (not to suggest that US/UK soldiers are mercenaries, but enough pay to have a luxury or two helps). The quality of the Russian Army's officers is reasonable, although I would argue that Russian military tradition does not emphasize individual quality, unlike German, British and American military tradition. But, the fact is that Russian officers do work that in the US Army is reserved for junior NCO's, and this severely degrades crew quality. When your strategy is mass over quality that's fine, but it provides some serious limitations in certain areas. Russian tank designers knew this and took it into account. I'm not saying that Russian tank crews couldn't do the things that western crews do, with proper training. I'm saying that they can't do it right now because they lack that training. Now, onto whether the Russian Army can replace a power package (i.e. engine and transmission) or gun tube in field conditions. In the 20 years (1976 - 1996) I was in the US Army I got access to quite a bit of intelligence on the Soviet and later Russian Army. Most of it is now declassified, so I can give you the summary at least. For anything more complex or difficult than replacing tracks, servicing weapons, servicing the power package IN the tank, the tanks had to go to the depot/factory. That's not me making things up, or going with what I read in some novel. That's hard cold facts. Plus, based on evaluations of actual T-72's at Aberdeen Proving Grounds it is quite clear that the power package cannot be removed from the tank under field conditions in an hour. If I recall correctly, the turret has to be removed (or maybe that was the T-64). By the way, Mike Golf stands for Master Gunner. I was, among other things, a tank company master gunner in the US Army. I was also on a division Operations staff and a Battalion Operations staff. By the time I retired I probably knew as much about the individual capabilities of every tank operational in 1996 as anyone in the military. I don't make it up just to piss you off.

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