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Subject: Russian T90 vs. US M1A2 Abrams
achtpanz    6/14/2004 3:59:14 AM
Russian T90 vs American M1A2 Abrams - Which is better? If these tanks fought in battle, which would suffer more casualties, which one is superior? What are their advantages? Any information would be helpful.
 
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boris the romanian       1/17/2008 9:58:22 PM

May be you could help me here Boris, why did the Russians integrate missile firing technology into their tanks?  I know of the advantages of range it provides when compared to standard ammunition, but would not a specialised heavy ATGM system be better suited?

 

 



Well you're right, the obvious reason is accuracy at range. The Soviets began experimenting with missile-armed tanks in the 1950s in a series of configurations for their "next generation" MBT that eventually resulted in the T-64. Some were wholly missile armed (and quite comical in appearance, I might add) while others had tube-launched missiles and some had external launchers.
 
All configurations were impractical for an MBT and the T-64 intially lacked a gun-launched missile capability. It is good to keep in mind that a gun-launched missile was more important for Soviet vehicles than for NATO tanks when it came to accuracy at range because, at the time, FCS and stabilization gear (i.e. T-55 and T-62) was quite inferior to what was fielded in NATO, not to mention the loose "qualtiy control standards" of Soviet industry in producing guns and ammunition.
 
By the time of Kobra, AT plinking (ideally employed by platoons in overwatch of advancing columns, in much the same way as IS-series tanks were supposed to provide overwatch to T-34s several decades before) was only part of the reason ATGMs were integrated on Soviet tanks. Kobra had a very high speed by contemporary standards (averaging 300-400m/s), and it was also intended to trade shots with NATO ATGM carriers (eg Jaguar, Swingfire) at long ranges. Massed NATO ATGMs had, by this time, become a very serious threat to Soviet armour.
 
You should also keep in mind that the Soviets DID have specialist heavy ATGMs in service in the form of Konkurs (typically mounted on BRDM-2) and Shturm (MT-LB). Both types intitally suffered from reliability and accuracy problems, Konkurs in particular, but these were subsequently resolved and Konkurs was quite popular in Afghanistan (BMP-2). Shturm also had considerable success (Mi-24).
 
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00_Chem_AJB    I shouldn't be up this late.   1/17/2008 10:14:21 PM
 The missile armed tanks was Khrushchev's idea and plan I believe, and you are right some of them are comical if not stupidly over engineered. I was aware of the AT-3 and AT-5 mounts on the BRMD, as well as the system based on the MB-LT but those like you said had reliability issues as well as being rather light. I however I was more thinking on Khrushchev's original idea of a MBT based ATGM system to support the tanks advances.

 Also a bit off this mini topic; but with the Soviet political rhetoric ?that they would not attack NATO? why were their tanks designed to be optimised for attacking and not defending?

 
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boris the romanian       1/17/2008 10:37:25 PM
"The missile armed tanks was Khrushchev's idea and plan I believe, and you are right some of them are comical if not stupidly over engineered. I was aware of the AT-3 and AT-5 mounts on the BRMD, as well as the system based on the MB-LT but those like you said had reliability issues as well as being rather light. I however I was more thinking on Khrushchev's original idea of a MBT based ATGM system to support the tanks advances. "
 
Originally the Khruschewian Red Army was intending to use massed tanks to exploit holes punched through NATO lines by nuclear weapons, so ATGMs with longer ranges than Skorpion and Malyutka types envisaged for those tanks were not necessary. By the time that Malyutka-2, Konkurs and Shturm had their reliabilty issues resolved they proved to be fine missiles, easily capable of punching through the armour of contemporary NATO tanks (M-60, Leopard, Challenger), so no, I don't think these missiles were "rather light" at all.
 
 "Also a bit off this mini topic; but with the Soviet political rhetoric ?that they would not attack NATO? why were their tanks designed to be optimised for attacking and not defending? "
 
Well it's a combination of bluffing the enemy (if he thinks that you're about to turn thousands of tanks loose into his rear he's less likely to harbour offensive designs towards you) as well as the basic military sense that if war were to occur, it is far better for the fighting to take place in enemy rather than friendly territory. The Soviet Army has always been a firm proponent of the attack, so much so that defensive operations were seen as purely temporary while a counter attack/offensive could be organized.
 
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Herald12345       1/18/2008 12:16:28 AM

When looking at the M1 and T-72/90 in the context of a Central Front conflict, the M1 seems to me as being more defensively orientated than the T-72. I say this for several reasons:

I say that both are offensive in design purpose, but that Russian tanks are SWARM tanks. The thing that makes a T-90 a swarm tank is that its supposed to flood an enemy defense by flowing through it like ants. No defense is perfect. If you can put enough units on the march and attack everywhere, you are going to find a gap in the line. Once you find the gap you push through and you roll the line up. The Russians designed to this purpose in everything they built from the basic infantry rifle all the way up to their rocket forces. Cheap, numerous, and good enough to get the job done was the mantra..The T-90 reflects this.

What was the US counter? Was it the static tank, as the slightly mobile pillbox? [Challenger 1 and Centurion]. No. it was the Abrams. Heavy armor was a must, as was an antitank gun. But speed and ground crossing was emphasized. The heavy mass was necessary because facing Zerg tactics the Russians would get close. That was inevitable. What was also inevitable that a sitting tank would be hit by enemy airpower and ATGMs from overwatch. So you shoot and move. You do that anyway when you counterattack into the shoulder of a penetration. So you design for it. The Abrams sacrificed some flank armor for speed and it sported the state of the art direct fire control system at the time of its introduction. You don't design a shoot while moving tank if you just plan to sit there, B.  How a tank is used determines how it is designed.  US  armor tactics are NOT European. Think of how the Germans fought in defense and then think of how the US fought in defense.  We burned up infantry to hold ground, slow the enemy down and conserved tanks to counterattack an enemy. That is straight US Civil War cavalry experience as well as the Native American Wars.  Germans or Russians tended to burn up tank forces trying to hold ground in defense or to attack. When you are tank  oriented that makes sense to you,  but when you are infantry/artillery oriented,  you tend to see your armor as an exploitation arm or counterattack force to augment what your infantry just won, and so you design tanks to that requirement..

I. Weight Class. It's been mentioned a million times before that Soviet vehicles are lighter and hence optimised for attack, but I haven't really seen anybody mentioning why this is the case. A primary concern for the Soviet Army was the drainage pattern of Central and Northern Europe, and the ability to cross water obstacles is obviously very much more important for an attacking force than it is for a defending force.

Soviet vehicles are lighter because the ground in Eastern Europe is soft and the roadnet is not designed for anything over fifty tonnes. That includes rairlroads by the way. Russian vehicles work in RUSSIA. They are no more designed for the European plain than any other machine. They are designed for the Russian steppe and the plains of Poland.  

Soviet Army vehicles (IFVs and APCs in particular) place amphibious capability at a premium, unlike their NATO counterparts. Heavier vehicles (i.e. MBTs) are obviously unsuited to amphibous crossings, but the lighter vehicle is able to take advantage of a greater number of bridges than the heavier one, and is less demanding for engineers when it comes to creating crossings, thus creating a greater number of potential aveneues of advance.

 Russian vehicles are no more capable of crossing a blown bridge than anyone else's. Furthermore, the inclusion of so many snorkel tubes among the Russian armor force did not indicate that the Russian AFV fleet was capable of fording any better than the similarly equipped Bundeswehr formations. Americans dispensed with that nonsense because any tank  swarm trying to ford a river under those conditions was going to be mined and bombed as it tried to cross.

II. Firepower Configuration. The NATO tanks are wholly optimised for the antitank mission whereas the Soviet vehicles are primarily HE throwers. The strong numerical superiority of the Red Army explains the emphasis on antitank capabilities found in NATO tanks, but the fact remains that T-72/90 tanks are much better at tackling the soft targets likely to be encountered in the breakthrough and exploitation phase of an operation (espeically with airburst ammunition) whereas the M1 is much better at engaging advancing enemy
 
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FJV    This is what I make of it.   1/18/2008 2:51:53 PM
When viewed from a tactics point, then I see how you could define the M1 as an offensive tank.

At that level the M1 attacking an enemy position or frontline dishing out the pain with it's large gun and absorbing hits with its heavy armor, while manouvering for advantages in the terrain and in the immediate area. And precisely because of it's larger weight , better armament and faster top speed a single M1, when opposed, can attack much further than a T90 could. To achieve the same results tactically as a group of M1's you would need a group of T90's much larger than that a swarm so to speak.

So when you look at the M1 at the immediate tactical level, then yes, I can see why it can be considered an offensive tank. This changes when I view the M1 on a larger/higher level. For instance what happens after you breach the enemy lines when it's time to hit the enemy's weak spots/decisive points as fast as far and as often as possible and you can get away with having less firepower and armor.

When I look at the M1 from an operational or strategic level the M1 becomes more a defensive tank in my opinion.

After having breached the enemy frontline, I want to maximise as much as possible that succes. I want my broken through tanks to operate as fast and as far as possible in the enemy's rear for disrupting supply, intercepting fleeing enemy, disrupting command and control, attacking mobilisation points, attacking depots, striking a decisive blow to the enemy leadership, etc.

This is where the M1's characteristics compared to a T90 are less suited for.
- The M1 goes 185km less on a full tank, this means that the area a M1 can exploit after a breakthrough is 185km. After that it needs to stop and be refuelled, which wastes time and is also a dangerous moment for counteratttack.
- The M1 weighs more, this means that the number of roads and bridges a M1 can travel over to exploit after a breakthrough are less. So after a breakthrough there are less places a M1 can go to and less ways how a M1 can get there.
- The M1 uses more fuel per mile, so after the breakthrough when you need to refuel the M1 it either takes longer or you need special pumps to force fuel more quickly into the M1, this is in addition to hauling all that extra fuel needed through breached enemy lines.

For instance in an USSR invades Europe scenario, the M1 would be very well suited for defending Europe and even pushing the USSR forces back behind their starting line. But should we after that point decide to really go on the offense, really attack*1) and drive all the way to Moskou, a large number of Russian bridges and roads would be an obstacle for the M1 and slow the offence down. Also the larger amount of fuel that needed to be moved would slow things down even more. With the number of places a M1 can go reduced you would also have chokepoints which the USSR could exploit defensively.

*1)  Realisticly this is a non-starter. Even when the offense would be succesfull you ran the risk of the USSR using nukes and escalate a conventional war into a nuclear one, which gives you a bigger problem. Of course if the USSR had used nukes in the invasion of Europe before that, then we would be talking about whole different scenario.
 
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FJV    Sorry for the typos   1/18/2008 2:54:18 PM
Make that 185km less area to exploit.
 
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Herald12345     Bulldozerkrieg.   1/18/2008 3:34:08 PM
The counterattack you envision has one problem. The encirclement battle would be in place and the poor Russian  Group according to the doctrine of the time as the American and Western operational concept combined would be cut off, and out of supply. Exploitation by Wesgtern forces might go as deep as Poland and you might have to refuel maybe three times to the Russians two, but then consider.

The average refuelings of the Sherman tank between runnings was about 150 kilometers. The  average for the T-34 in that same war was about 250 kilometers.  Results in offensive operations against the same type enemy in the attack? American armor moved as fast and covered as much ground over the same period of time. No tactical or operational difference. The exploitation distance from the eastern Polish border and the Normandy beaches-about the same 1000 kilometers.  The time  nine months. Ther Russians had nowhere near the logistics capabilities of the Americans, but then they didn't have Monty and the one channel port bottleneck or an ocean to cross.

How did the US do with its short-ranged Sherman? Quite well actually. The American tankers had to refuel obviously, but they never refused battle or stalled when they had gas in plenty like some people did outside Warsaw.

Herald.
 
 
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boris the romanian       1/18/2008 5:39:08 PM

When looking at the M1 and T-72/90 in the context of a Central Front conflict, the M1 seems to me as being more defensively orientated than the T-72. I say this for several reasons:


I say that both are offensive in design purpose, but that Russian tanks are SWARM tanks. The thing that makes a T-90 a swarm tank is that its supposed to flood an enemy defense by flowing through it like ants. No defense is perfect. If you can put enough units on the march and attack everywhere, you are going to find a gap in the line. Once you find the gap you push through and you roll the line up. The Russians designed to this purpose in everything they built from the basic infantry rifle all the way up to their rocket forces. Cheap, numerous, and good enough to get the job done was the mantra..The T-90 reflects this.

Yes, this sounds right.

What was the US counter? Was it the static tank, as the slightly mobile pillbox? [Challenger 1 and Centurion]. No. it was the Abrams. Heavy armor was a must, as was an antitank gun. But speed and ground crossing was emphasized. The heavy mass was necessary because facing Zerg tactics the Russians would get close. That was inevitable. What was also inevitable that a sitting tank would be hit by enemy airpower and ATGMs from overwatch. So you shoot and move. You do that anyway when you counterattack into the shoulder of a penetration. So you design for it. The Abrams sacrificed some flank armor for speed and it sported the state of the art direct fire control system at the time of its introduction. You don't design a shoot while moving tank if you just plan to sit there, B.  How a tank is used determines how it is designed.  US  armor tactics are NOT European. Think of how the Germans fought in defense and then think of how the US fought in defense.  We burned up infantry to hold ground, slow the enemy down and conserved tanks to counterattack an enemy.

But how effective would this approach have been in a Central Front scenario? Soviet tanks are precisely optimized for attacking entrenched infantry, and the T-90 in particular reflects this by the introduction of Ainet fuzes. You obviously know more about American doctrine than I do, but I don?t think relying wholly on entrenched infantry and artillery will be sufficient when the enemy is attacking with massed armour with artillery support when the air-battle is contested.

That is straight US Civil War cavalry experience as well as the Native American Wars.  Germans or Russians tended to burn up tank forces trying to hold ground in defense or to attack. When you are tank  oriented that makes sense to you,  but when you are infantry/artillery oriented,  you tend to see your armor as an exploitation arm or counterattack force to augment what your infantry just won, and so you design tanks to that requirement..

Germans and Russians used tanks in defensive roles out of necessity precisely because there was a danger that entrenched infantry could not hold the position vs massed armour. Both armies emphasized the need for an armoured counter-thrust, but neither were shy about using some of their tanks in dug-in defensive positions.

I. Weight Class. It's been mentioned a million times before that Sov
 
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FJV    Re Bulldozerkrieg   1/19/2008 8:08:59 AM
I consider the US army logistics as one of the war winning capabilities of the US army. The US army did so well with the Sherman tank in WW2 which could be considered a swarm tank when comapred to the German Tiger, because of superior logistics. There's even a nice article about this on the internet: "http://www.qmfound.com/pol.htm".

I have no problem with the statement that superior logistics will make up for the less range of the M1. However by making that statement you move away from considering the M1 as an isolated weapons system and start considering the M1 as a part of a combined weapons package, which is a whole different discussion. Because if you can add logistics units to the M1 to cover up for shortcomings in range, then I could add combat units to the T90 to prevent encirclement and keep the breach open. Before you know it each one will be adding weapons systems to cover the weaknesses of other weapons systems which is the whole idea of combined warfare and doctrines.

Then it becomes a discussion of from which set of weapons systems and doctines a person can design the best weapons/forces package for a given situation or a general situation. To really do this right is a full time job. I'm not going to do that, I'm unwilling to put in that much time.

PS
You could also consider Egypt, who have M1 tanks, but don't have the superior logistics.
 
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Herald12345       1/19/2008 8:26:04 AM

I consider the US army logistics as one of the war winning capabilities of the US army. The US army did so well with the Sherman tank in WW2 which could be considered a swarm tank when comapred to the German Tiger, because of superior logistics. There's even a nice article about this on the internet: "http://www.qmfound.com/pol.htm</span>;" .="">

I" target="_blank">link have no problem with the statement that superior logistics will make up for the less range of the M1. However by making that statement you move away from considering the M1 as an isolated weapons system and start considering the M1 as a part of a combined weapons package, which is a whole different discussion. Because if you can add logistics units to the M1 to cover up for shortcomings in range, then I could add combat units to the T90 to prevent encirclement and keep the breach open. Before you know it each one will be adding weapons systems to cover the weaknesses of other weapons systems which is the whole idea of combined warfare and doctrines.

Then it becomes a discussion of from which set of weapons systems and doctines a person can design the best weapons/forces package for a given situation or a general situation. To really do this right is a full time job. I'm not going to do that, I'm unwilling to put in that much time.

PS
You could also consider Egypt, who have M1 tanks, but don't have the superior logistics.





Since the M-1 was designed as one element of a family of five weapon systems in its generation when the US Army retooled why shouldn't I consider it inside the total American package?

Not many people who try to design an element in an industrial process [war] [well maybe the WW II Germans] ignore the big picture when they put the jigsaw puzzle together.

Bradley, Blackhawk, Apache, and Abrams [I forget the fifth one] were all designed around the same time and were to modernize the Reagan era army. Each was designed to work with the others in a combined arms package.

Each without the others made no sense.

The T-90 in its context I would treat the same way. [CREF above]

Herald
 
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