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Subject: top 10 tanks in the world!!!
Hong-Xing    8/12/2003 9:07:05 AM
i think it would be this t-90 (rus) m1a2 (usa) t-98 (chi) m1a1 (usa) Challenger 2 (bri) t-95 black hawk (rus) al khalid (chi) merkeva (bra) arjun (ind) t-90||| (chi)
 
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AKS    RE:top 10 tanks in the world!!! T-34 - not   1/18/2004 4:31:41 AM
Hey mike_golf I agree that T34 is no match for todays tanks, but the other dude had a point. One thing I just want to say,you said the russian t90 has a bad armour. Well do you consider reactive armor weak? Maybe it is not as much as the 100 ton m1, but it keeps t90 very well protected, in some cases better (the HEAT head) and it keeps the tank at 42 something tons, just what the battlefield of future asked for, I mean you were in army you know that US is gone send tanks packing and get AFV's with gun turrets, newsswekk had a front page story on that. And about the quality of work NO ONE does better quality electronics equipment then GERMANS. The whole world uses their optics technology (doctors, cameras, etc.) and their electoronics manufacturers, GRUNDIK for example are pioneers in their feald, but I agree with you that tank did not see much fighting. But the most easy to maintain and the most rugged in your list is still the Russian T90.
 
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gf0012-aus    top 10 tanks in the world - AKS   1/18/2004 5:03:10 AM
Corrections: The Leo's have never been in combat The T90's have been copping an abolsute pasting in Chechnya from RPG's and IED's Its not whether a tank has reactive armour that determines its survivability - its the efficiency of that armour, Chechnya seems to raise a degree of doubt about the effectiveness of its reactive armour. reactive armour typically is a one time use - in the case of Chechnya where multiple RPG's have been used against one vehicle it reinforces the flaw of standard ERA. Some of the people in here have actually been in combat recently with tanks and I dare say - have been shot at. It would be a brave person who challenged the logic of their input - as opposed to an armchair general.
 
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Fedaykin    Your doing the same AKS    1/18/2004 5:18:57 AM
The thing is your doing exactly the same AKS - allowing your natiional loyalties decide for you. The main reason many people place the T90 low on their list of best tanks is because it is derived from the T72. The T72 is totally out classed by most western MBT (please don't take offence I'm not trying to flame thread just stating a fact of recent events), and whilst the T90 has improved electronics and ERA it is under the skin a T72. With out seeing it go up against the current crop of western MBT we can't really decide if it is an improvement on the T72. Combat in Chechnya is not a fair indication of combat performance. The main threat in Chechnya is man portable anti tank weapons, these anti tank weapons are almost certainly not the latest generation. The ERA fitted to the T90 would be useful against this type of weapon but of no use against the latest crop of high performance anti tank guns fitted to tanks which would simply pass through the ERA. As far as I am aware classic tank to tank combat is not a feature of Chechnya (or Israel/Palestine for that matter - for fans of the Merkava 4). The question being how much of an improvement is the main armour of the T90 over the T72. What sticks in my mind is the first gulf war when one shot from an abrahms managed to penetrate two T72's (lucky shot!). Of course with that kind of performance the T90's armour under the ERA would of had to be a massive improvement. Another thing that is worth noting is the 125mm main gun fitted to Russian tanks. When the British made comparative tests of this gun (during the 80's if I remember correctly) against the current crop of western main guns it was found to have worse performance than the 105mm L7 which at that time had been around for a long time and considered as close to obselesance. The 105mm L7 would have a hard time penetrating the armour of the current crop of western MBT so I will allow you to draw your own conclusion about the Russian 125mm gun. The leopard is always going to be one of the best tanks in production today but as far as I am aware it is not involved in major combat, if it has AKS please enlighten me (not that I'm saying that the Leopard wouldn't perform in combat I think it would be fantastic). The Japanese Type 90 is always going to be a sticky problem. To the forum millitary purists it will probably never be involved in combat so can't be considered as worthy to be included. To the tech heads it is like so many Japanese defence projects a money no object system. It was designed with the best of what western technology can offer and the equal to the products of the best tank producing nations so worthy of inclusion. It really depends on how you look on things. Myself I don't like using a top ten list as this is very much a subjective subject. Each tank has it's plus points and minuses. I much prefer using a tiered bench mark. With more then one tank being reguarded as the best and more then one second best and so on ad-infinitum.
 
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jacques    RE:Your doing the same AKS    1/18/2004 5:46:31 AM
Here are deficiencies with the T90. 1. doesn't have chobham armour 2. lack of the busseau in the turret rear 3. still using the outdated 125 mm gun which cannot penetrate frontal armour of western tanks. 4. has 3 men crew which is a handicap when it's time to minor maintenance 5.too cramped inside and it's not user friendly this is not a slight against slavic intelligent but a constructive critism
 
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Kozzy    RE:Your doing the same AKS    1/18/2004 8:45:19 AM
AKS, that's not true at all. The T-90 with ERA can get sliced over the frontal arc by an RPG-29 and even older RPGs without ERA. The gun has a limited depress which reduces effectivness in hilly areas. If the T-90 is penetrated it tends to go "pop" like the T-72s in Iraq. Long rods have trouble with the K5 but HEAT rounds can through easy. Lighter ERA HEAT rounds get stopped but long rods slice through.
 
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mike_golf    RE:AKS - T90 - Reactive Armor   1/18/2004 4:55:35 PM
I don't like reactive armor. I think it was a short term thing to fill a gap. ERA will soon be forgotten except as a historical curiousity. Active armor, on the other hand, will not. But it won't be ERA. The problem with it is primarily that it's a one use deal. Then a large segment of your tank is back to basic armor. And the T-90's armor isn't particularly better than the T-72's was. Secondarily, it makes it diffiuclt for tanks and infantry to cooperate closely when your infantry might get wounded or killed by your ERA. This is a significant problem in Chechnya where so much of the fighting is in urban or forested terrain. Finally, my M1A1 took a hit to the flank of the turret from either an RPG-7 or -14. It ripped the sponson box open and damaged the smoke grenade launcher. And that was it. I didn't realize I had taken a hit until we did post operations maintenance. I was buttoned up and engaged/engaging, didn't really notice the RPG. Got a serious case of the shakes afterwards since the warhead would have penetrated at the TC's position if it had. As someone else mentioned, many of the Russian tank losses in Chechnya have been to RPG's and IED's.
 
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Fedaykin    Good Point!    1/18/2004 5:14:40 PM
mike_golf's story shows up a good point, most of the current crop of western MBT make little or no use of ERA relying completly on main armour. Storys from both gulf wars of Abrahms and Challenger easily surviving hits by RPG are common. mike_golf whilst you must of got the shakes at the time as any man would these days you must be glad that a hit by an RPG hit is well within the performance specs of the Abrahms main armour. I know people are now going to point out the problems that the Abrahms had in Gulf war2 with RPG hits but I feel it is far to early to draw conclusions. Actually talking about anti tank missiles the latest developments are now moving away from direct attack and over to smart weapons that can attack weaker top armour. At least one of the Israeli missiles is designed to be able to be redirected by the firer if he see's the target to have any open hatches. Pictures are sent from the camera on the front of the missile down the fibre optic cable to the launch tripod and the soldier can make use of any opportunities.
 
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northernguy    RE:AKS - T90 - Reactive Armor..   1/18/2004 6:17:43 PM
AKS writes that the T-90 is one of the best tanks and that it has certain desirable qualities that make it so. He lists a number of these qualities some of which are great armour, very low price and ease of maintainance. Others have dealt with question of T-90 armour better than I so I put forward my ideas on the other two qualities. It may be true that light maintainance is in some way easier on a T-90 than other tank types. But absolutely everything I have read about Russian tanks is that serious maintainance requires almost factory conditions as they simply are not intended to get anything beyond the most routine maintainance in the field. To do anything more than the most elementary servicing would require the provision of equipment and technicians that the Russians were unwilling to pay for. For those countries that consider their tank forces and their crew expendable in battle this is not a detrimental quality. You have to ask yourself, why are Russian tanks so cheap? Something must have been sacrificed. From what I have read the Russian strategy considered spending money to preserve the life of the tank and its crew to be a diverison of resources from other more effective (for the Russians) strategies. I don't know much about tanks but when I was in the Navy I took great comfort from the considerabe expense and effort made to preserve the ship and me when compared to comparable ships from other nations. Since the class of ship thtat I was on, which was a destroyer escort, was assumed to be expendable and latterly a missile sponge, such efforts were appreciated all the more. I emphatically would not agree wrt ships that cheaper is better. It seems likely that tank crews would take the same position. Northernguy
 
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mike_golf    RE:Good Point - Fedaykin   1/18/2004 6:21:48 PM
Well, since we know, based on evaluations, that the RPG-14 could penetrate the turret of an M-60 in the side aspect I'm certainly glad I wasn't in an M-60! But, let's take that one step further. We know the energy and penetration capabilities of the RPG-14. And we know the amount of armor on the turret of a T-72. We also know, based on public knowledge, plus observed performance, that the T-90's basic armor is not a significant improvement over the T-72. However, the T-90 does have ERA. So, to the ERA believers this is a big plus that puts the T-90 on par with the M1. So, let's put me in a T-90 in southern Iraq in 1991, assaulting an airfield defended by an Iraqi regular army tank battalion and perhaps a regiment of infantry. I still survive the RPG hit, all to the well and good. But what if I'm facing real infantry instead of Iraqi conscripts? Infantry units that have armor hunter-killer teams with multiple RPG (or AT-4) armed soldiers. They are trained to fire at the same point on the turret, and three or four engage me with a ripple volley. So, the first one is stopped by ERA, maybe even the second. The third hits where the ERA was already used. It penetrates and kills the TC (me). This is a bad thing from my perspective, but likely my crew survives. An RPG-14 probably does not create enough spalling to kill the crew and cause a sympathetic ammunition detonation (cook off). But, my crew is now leaderless and in the next 10 seconds four or five more RPG's slam into the tank, killing the crew and cooking off the ammo, which causes the turret to brew up. Now, if this was an M1 in this hypothetical situation RPG's 2, 3 and 4 still don't penetrate, since the M1's composite armor is not degraded by the first hit. After a couple of hits by an RPG, even the densest tank commander (me for example) is going to realize he has a problem and bring his machineguns to bear. Which can engage infantry at 100 to 200 meters without exposing the crew to return fire (a problem for the T-90). So now these infantry have 7.62mm and .50cal machine gun fire hitting their positions, from every tank in my platoon. They are at least suppressed and we continue to move, allowing the infantry to mop them up behind us. What a Bushmaster 25mm chain gun does to infantry just isn't a pretty sight.
 
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mike_golf    RE: Survivability - NorthernGuy   1/18/2004 6:35:07 PM
Great point about crew survivability NorthernGuy. The M1, for example, aside from composite armor, has fire suppression systems, anti-shock enhancements on equipment bolted to the inside of the turret and an ammo compartment with armored doors and blow off panels. The basis for doing this goes back to WWII. One of the things that sustained the German Panzer outfits for so long is that most tank kills were not catastrophic and their veteran crews survived to fight another day. The western armies that would have to face Soviet armies during the cold war knew their biggest advantage was their people and technology. Numbers wise they were outclassed. So, using technology to ensure crew survival was part of the NATO strategy. This is the reason for composite (chobham) armor, anti-spalling measures, fire suppression systems, armored ammunition bustles and so forth. Even if an M1 is penetrated the crew has a significantly higher chance of surviving than the crew of a T-90 does. Now, I ask you, which tank would you rather be in? Which tank crews are likely to have higher morale and confidence in their leadership? Especially if there is any sort of free information flow and they know what sort of tanks they have vs. what other countries have?
 
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