top 10 tanks in the world!!!

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Kozzy On Russian Quantity 1/19/2004 11:00:35 AM

I'm also pretty damn sure America has more M1s then Russia has T-90s. America has a fleet like 8,800 M1s but how many T-90s does Russia have?

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Nasty German Idiot RE:Summarizing a few things 1/19/2004 12:18:36 PM

"One clarifying thing. People keep talking like T72's used in Iraq or Chechenya, or now in use, are basicly the same as those used in early 70's (this time in relation with protection). Latest model of T72 to pour out of lines has 200% the armour of the first model. So quite a difference there. T90 with K5 can achieve roughly (quickly counting) 350% of the protection of the first T72. Late model T72's now used in russia have been however upgraded with K5 so armour protection between late model T72 and T90 is not such significantly different (maybe around 20% difference). T72's Iraq used belonged mainly to mid-production export class, which has roughly 50% better protection than early model and 50% worse than late model (excluding era)." That may be correct. But i have seen shooting tests on East-German T-72 which are still in store for that purpose that showed that even the old L-44 could easily break them at 2000 + meters. The East German T-72 were as up to date as the russian and i dont think there has been to much upgrade on them since 1990, if you look at the russian economy and the mass of tanks. Most of them are more crappy than in the 90´s, thats for sure. Even with more protection, the T-72 can be broken by any modern 120mm shell, the L-44 did it since years (not to speak about the new L55), i think even the old 105mm in service with many older M1 will do it on ranges under 2000 meters.

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Kozzy So let's all agree... 1/19/2004 12:32:33 PM

...that the T-90 is technically inferior to even older M1 models and would get it's ass kicked by the M1A2.

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AKS RE:So let's all agree... 1/19/2004 4:27:25 PM

Yes and lets also agree that while M1A2 will soon get another upgrade and become heavier, slower, and will drink more gas, Germans and Russians will each come up with some smart idea to upgrade their tanks armor and still stay inthe category of the medium tank, and not a heavy tank which Abrams is turning into. Abrams has no engeenering thought behind it, even Chobham was invented by Europeans, only way the US can think of upgrading their tank armour, is to add more armour, that is why in the near future US tanks are going to go in to the retierment since the doctorine of future wars calls for lighter, more manuvarable tanks. I absolutely agree with the fact that Abrams is the best defended tank, but lets face it guys it is not a smart tank, it is just too expansive to make and expansive to operate.

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AKS TO Fedaykin 1/19/2004 4:55:37 PM

Fedaykin, Russian soldiers do not have better training then US soldiers, their OFFICERS HAVE BETTER MILLITARY SCHOOLS, understand the difference. About the East German MIG29s. Who told you thos nice stories how Mig 29 sucks? Mig29 is an excellent fighter that is cheap to produce and easy to maintain. It also out manouvers its western counterparts and it was the first plain that came with PILOT head controlled fiering system. Also Mig29 is not as capable as Su 27 and its upgrades, but lets remember that MIg29 is INTENDED for close air interception. Most of the time Mig29s come as a "package" with anti air systems, because that is what they are made for. ONE MORE THING ABOUT THE EASTERN GERMAN PILOTS' STORY, that I read all over the Internet. It tells how they did not mtch oh so superior pilots of the blessed NATO. Fedaykin, think for a moment. DO YOU REALLY BELEIVE THAT THE WESTERN GERMANS WANTED EASTERN trained soldiers flying with them? Did you ever even visit Germany in those days? Western Germans think very low about the Esterners, it is a big problem in Germany even now, SO CAN YOU THINK OF A MORE POLITICALLY CORRECT WAY to get rid of the eastern pilots? To say that they do not MATCH THE "HIGH STANDARDS" of NATO pilots (the level is so high that during the Iraqi war, in clear day A US A10 pilot nearly destroyed a british tank group, the pilot could not even defrentiate between a CHALLANGER and a T72/T55), by administering tests. Of course they could not go out and say the truth, it would be politacally incorrect to say hey guys we kind of do not trust you, you know you are ex commies. But they said OOPS guys you did not pass our test. Fedaykin not everything you see on internet is true. I understand that I am not going to change your view on the things, most of the guys in this forum do not even want to think about non US weaponary, just because they are super patriots. I love my country too, and it has mostly Soviet/Russian weaponary, but I AM NOT GOING TO SAY THAT A STRELA AA rocket is better then Stinger, because I know it is not, and I am not going to go to some biased sites which prove that Strela is better.

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joe6pack RE:So let's all agree... 1/19/2004 5:02:56 PM

"but lets face it guys it is not a smart tank, it is just too expansive to make and expansive to operate." How do you figure that? Its smart by U.S. demands (prevents casualties, it was designed to defeat a numericly superior T-series oponents (and it can). As for its expense, theres not a whole lot of difference in cost between it and its counterparts (Leo2A6, Chally2) and the Leclerc is more expensive. "since the doctorine of future wars calls for lighter, more manuvarable tanks." What are these future wars? in the last number of wars we have had the Abrams has done pretty well for itself. As for more maneuvarable - for being as heavy as it is, its still one of the fastest tanks around and does extremely well cross country. Now, does that make it the best tank for everyone ? No.. but it does what the US demands of tank. So its a good choice for us. This love affair over "medium" a.k.a russian tanks is getting to me.. The most expensive weapon out there is the one that is second best. For all their design inovation the tanks have not come out on top of many conflicts since WWII.

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northernguy RE:So let's all agree...AKS.... 1/19/2004 5:41:35 PM

AKS writes quote I absolutely agree with the fact that Abrams is the best defended tank, but lets face it guys it is not a smart tank, it is just too expansive to make and expansive to operate. endquote That's the whole point isn't it? If you have a war fighting strategy that requires the sort of capabilities that the Abrams has then it's the best tank, for you. If you can't afford the attendant costs of such a strategy then change your strategy before changing your tank. America will never be in position of symetrical armoured warfare. If Russia overuns the American forces stationed in Europe or China destroys the 6th fleet on the way to Taiwan, America will not respond with a land invasion. America has a strategy that amongst other things tries to deliver a low casualty rate at the sharp end of its military force. It accepts that it will be very expensive to accomplish that and feels capable of always delivering an overly broad blunt end to support the equipment selected to accomplish its strategic goals. Fortunately for the Americans they are rich enough to be able to do that. The day may come when when they simply won't be able to deliver enough ice cream factory ships or internet service or whatever extravagance, to satisfy the front line troops to the point that their voting families back home may call it quits. But it hasn't happened yet!

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mike_golf Drivers of national strategy (long post) 1/19/2004 7:17:48 PM

Okay, I guess I need to point a few more things out yet again. The defining and pivotal event that led to the current military strategy of the Western world (including Russia) is WWII. I think we can all agree on that. The NATO powers, especially the US and the UK, learned a different lesson about ground forces than Russia did. They looked at the exact same events and took different views of them. Much of this has to do with national character and drivers for national strategy. Basically, to summarize, the US looked at the war on the Eastern Front and learned the lesson that quality can defeat quantity. The Wehrmacht was tactically and operationally superior to the Red Army throughout the course of the war. The Wehrmacht continuously used superior tactics, initiative and training to win operationally and tactically against numerically superior forces. An additional lesson learned for the US is that superior quality could go a long ways towards overcoming numerical and tactical inferiority. This lesson was most clearly shown by the Russian T-34, which is one of the factors that saved the Russian's butts in 1941-42. Russia had more tanks than the Wehrmacht, but they didn't have more T-34's, which was the only tank they had that was clearly superior to the PzKW III and IV of the time. It's superiority allowed Russian tank units equipped with it to fight on almost even terms with the German units even though they were definitely not close to being on par tactically or in soldier quality. On the Western Front, especially in North Africa, the Americans quickly discovered that mass would not make up for poor quality training and equipment at Kasserine Pass. Indeed, in general, it can be argued that the US won on the Western Front in Europe using the same strategy that worked well for the Russians. They overwhelmed the Germans with mass. Except for Patton no one in the US/UK forces was really the equal of the German generals on operational terms and the Wehrmacht veterans in 1944 were far and away superior at the small unit level to the Americans. By 1945 this was no longer true, the American Army had finally matured into an effective force for fighting a war of manuever. But US military and political leaders in the post WWII period realized that they were going to find themselves on the receiving end of the mass and numerical superiority strategy in most conflicts they could envision. The conflict would be a small one, relatively, like Korea or Vietnam, where the full might of the US could not be mobilized against an inferior enemy. Or it would be global in scale against Russia or China or a combination of the two. In such a conflict, even with the US fully mobilized, we could not field an army that could defeat the enemy by overwhelming them with numbers. So, the driver was how to take the lessons learned of WWII and apply them to national strategy. The three pillars of this are technologically superior equipment, better trained soldiers at the tactical and operational level, and superior logistics (yes, I'm leaving out things like control of the sea lanes and so forth, I know that). The Russians, on the other hand, did not defeat Germany with superior equipment and soldiers. Except for the early years of the Eastern Front the Russians never had equipment superiority. The German Tigers and Panthers were reasonably on par with the Russian mainstay T-34A/B/C and 85. The Panther, Tiger and King Tiger compare favorably with the JS series tanks as well. What the Russians learned was that they could defeat a better trained, better equipped military that was numerically inferior. Additionally, the Russians knew that, unless they fought China, they would always have a manpower advantage and interior lines of supply that would be to their advantage. Rather than try to build superior equipment they focused on a lot of equipment. Rather than try to build the best technology that could not be supported by their conscript masses they would build adequate tanks that could stand up to a more rugged environment (less logistical tail, less technical expertise, etc.). What this is leading up to is that the American M1/M1A1/M1A2 tank series and the Russian T-72/T-80/T-90 tank series are a product of their national strategies and the lessons they learned from WWII. We can make a very convincing case for the American M-1 being the finest heavy tank in the world (with equally valid arguments in favor of the Leo and Chally). However, probably only the US can afford to produce and maintain the M-1 for any length of time in any sort of quantity, except perhaps for Japan. Even Germany's industry and logistics would be stretched by the M-1. It's interesting to note that the losers of WWII, the Germans and Japanese, learned the same lessons as the Americans and British, even though they were defeated by mass rather than quality (well, the Japanese were defeated by a combination of mass and quality). If the Russians could

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mike_golf Medium tank issues 1/19/2004 7:43:17 PM

As you might have noticed, I am not really a believer in medium tanks. I think medium tanks are the worst of both worlds. They don't have the advantages of light cavalry (mobility, ease of support, flexibility) nor do the have the advantages of heavy cavalry (firepower, protection and resilience). This is probably my biggest gripe with Russian tanks. Because they were trying to stay in the medium tank arena they made design decisions that led to a tank that does not, in my opinion, have any advantage when compared to the militaries it is most likely to be used against. This is the same sort of issues that the US Army faced in 1944 in France. The Sherman tank was outclassed by the tanks it was facing. The only advantage it had was numbers (and of course superior logistics on the Allied part). I personally would not want to go to war in a T-90 since I much prefer being a live soldier to a dead hero.

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mike_golf RE:Summarizing a few things - MikkoLn 1/19/2004 7:52:37 PM

Sorry MikkoLn, I never meant to give the impression that the M-60A3 and T-72 were on par with armor protection. What I was really thinking was that, with rolled homogeneous steell armor, both the M60A3 and T-72 were about equal when looked at from the perspective of Chobham/Composite armor. Simply put, you cannot put enough steel armor on a 40 ton tank to defeat reasonable, modern handheld AT weapons. Even with the addition of ERA the T-72 is quite vulnerable to well trained and disciplined infantry in an armor hunter/killer role. The T-90 has the same limitation. To get beyond the limitation of steel armor plus ERA you have to go to something else. Currently that something else is composite armor. Tomorrow we will probably see the addition of active defense systems (perhaps even CIWS like warships have) rather than just reactive defense systems. But that is tomorrow. For now, if you aren't using composite armor your tanks are at a disadvantage to properly used infantry with manportable AT weapons, just like the knight was at a disadvantage to properly used infantry with pikes and crossbows.

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