Ok here i see you have the reinforcments coming.

 

GeorgeSPatton, im not going to use words like "idiot etc to you" because you havent been same way to me here yet. The reason why i started saying that to those people is because of their racist dirty and improper attitudes to another nation. And, if you will scrollback carefully and read what they wrote, especially Kevbo, Buzz, you will understand everything.

 

About tanks, i already explained alot, and i actually didnt and dont read wiki. Im just using logic, and i already agreed that loader is slower than human, but there are still good reasons for it, and in a whole many people/tank crew prefer to have this thing. What else... T34? well it is actually considered the best tank of that class at that age, according to quality/ease of manufacturing repair, mobility, armor, and had good gun (its 2nd modification especially)... however, of course some german tanks had some specific characteristics better, especially comfort of interior... but... on average T34 was still excellent tank which did the job. Especially on the biggest tank battle on Kurskaya Duga.

 

 

now... if you gona be like those people here and try to prove me that you westerns are advanced, and we are so stupid and primitive...then... i dont know if its worth it to talk to you. 

 

Im just a honest person, and i dont look at world with pink glasses as some do.

The reason why i started saying that to those people is because of their racist dirty and improper attitudes to another nation

Now, there is absolutely no reason for that at all no matter what he said to you.  It reflects poorly on you and subverts whatever points you were trying to to make.

 

 

I have absolutely no quarrel with the Russian people.  During the Cold War Soviet tech was nearly on par with that of NATO and the rest of the world.  For years they made due with less advanced devices to achieve the same as or greater performance than Western devices, the MiG-29's cable control surfaces vs the F-16's fly-by-wire is an excellant example of this.  Your people are far from stupid and primitive.  I have great respect for them.

However, in certain areas the Russians lag behind their Western counterparts, and have done so for years.  Some of these have already been pointed out to you by the others on this board.  Right now, electronics and armour are the most important ones to consider.

These two components are extremely important to having an effective main battle tank, as without efficient electronics your tanks cannot talk with one another or with their HQ, and they are not able to effectively see and engage their opponents to their best ability, especially in smoke or darkness.  Without effective armour, your tanks will not survive long enough on the modern battlefield to be of use to anyone.

 

Now, you say that we cannot know for sure what the capabilities of these two tanks really are, and you are correct, partly.  Several of the posters on this site have served in the military, have been in combat situations, and do have knowledge of the relative capabilities of their tracks.  We know approximately how well protected the Abrams is, how far it can shoot, how well its various systems function and how easily its crew can coordinate with the other members of their unit as well as with their HQ.  All of these things have been tested in actual combat situations.

Ok, now you say that the capabilities of the T-90 such as armour quality, electronic systems, etc. cannot be known by any of us here.  Ok, fair enough.  Correct me if I'm wrong anyone, but I think we can assume it is pretty unlikely that any of us here have been inside of a T-90 or know conclusively what its full capabilities are.  Now, what we can do is make judgments based on what we know about the T-90:

 

1) We know the T-90 design is an overhaul of the T-72 design.  This has been confirmed by the Russian governmentitself.  http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20100326/158321797.html

 

2) We know the T-72 design has been outclassed by the newest generations of Western tanks.  This was confirmed in both Gulf Wars.  And while yes, it's true, they were export versions with out-of-date ammunition, the recent performance of the Russian models in Chechnya and Georgia have been telling.  http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/rusav.htm

 

3) We know the Russian T-90 relies heavily on Reactive armour and APS for defense against enemy weapons.  Based on this and the design it is based upon, we can logically infer that its current armour is not up to the standards of Western Chobham/Dorchester Armour.

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The T-34 had plenty of chances to go on the offensive after 1943.  After Kursk the Germans didn't do very much advancing at all on the Eastern Front.  So, the T-34 was able to prove itself in quite a few offensive operations from then on until 1945.  It was still a 'good' tank, and the Russians used it effectively even when attacking the technologically superior German tanks.

I agree with you entirely about tanks used on the offensive.  An advancing tank becomes vulnerable to all kinds of dangers, not least of which are the fact that it instantly becomes very visible to all kinds of fun devices that are designed to kill it.  Like the Firefly hidden in the woods or the PaK/40 behind the hedgerow, or even Private Schmidt in the foxhole with the Panzerfaust.

The T-34/76 was a very "OK" tank...better than the Pzkw-II's and III's that made up the bulk of the German Invasion forces, but hardly a world beater.  It had no radio and a two-man turret.  The result was that the T-34 was hard to 'fight"....A Platoon leader had three jobs, Loader, TC, and Platoon Leader, and no way to effectively command his platoon, lacking a radio, to give or receive commands....plus loading the 7.62cm gun.  It was BETTER than it's German counter-parts in armour, firepower, and mobility, but not that great a vehicle.

 

The T-34/85 was a much better vehicle, better weapon, three man turret....though I can't recall if they began to issue radios out.

 

The T-34 was the first "universal tank"/MBT...and that makes it a ground-breaker.

 

Pzkw V is way over-rated, as a final shot....again and again I say if the Allies or the Soviets had the Tiger, its reputation would be far different.  It could never perform its design mission, heavy break-thru tank...it "lucked" into its best role, lurking ambush tank.  When the Germans tried to use it, as intended, outside Leningrad, Kursk, the Ardennes, it failed, due to low speed, mechanical unreliability and the like...it only gets its good reputation because it sat on the defense, mostly.  had it been attacked tot he Offensive Powers, post-1943, it would have been quickly determined to be a "loser."

 

Just to "tweak" coldstart, the Soviets/Russians haven't produced a GREAT tank since the T-54.  The T-62 was merely a less successful upgrade of the T-54, the T-72 has been vanquished worldwide, the T-64 was pretty much a failure from the get-go, and the T-80 as well.  The T-90 is an upgraded T-72, it's a good follow-on vehicle, but nowhere near what the T-54 was to world when it was introduced.

I was speaking mainly about the T-34 being superior to the majority of the M4s we used in Western Europe, not the late-war variants which gained added armour protection and more powerful guns.  The 'Easy-Eight' was hardly the same Sherman as the ones we used for the majority of the war.

I would think that the advantage the M4 had in Korea was due to its better optics and gun stabalization more than anything else.  The /85 could still kill the Sherman as easily as the Sherman could kill it, the M4 was just able to hit its target more reliably than the /85.  This didn't make as much of a difference in Western Europe, as most of the time their shots simply bounced off of heavy German armour.

 

You know, thinking about it, in some ways you can draw a comparison from the M1A2 and the T-90 to the Pz. V vs the Sherman.  The Abrams, like the Panther, is geared more towards the AT role, while for the T-90, like the Sherman, there is a greater emphasis on engaging soft targets like AT Teams and rear-echelon elements following a breakthrough.  If the Cold War had gone hot, a Russian attack would be in a very similar situation to the American and British advance in 1944-45.  They would need a tank capable of engaging both infantry and armoured targets, and fast enough to exploit a breakthrouh or flank defending forces.  If you have enough of them, they don't need to be as good as your opponents' tanks, they just need to be good enough, which it what the Sherman was, and look who won.  We learned a very different lesson about armoured warfare from WW2 than the Russians did, and we decided that we needed better tanks to fight the next war so the terrible losses we endured during the drive to Germany wouldn't happen again.  The Russians learned that they could continue to make 'OK' tank designs and swarm their opponents with them and still win.  This sounds really familiar and I think something similar to this may have already been posted here somewhere.

 

Incidentaly, why is it you would consider the T-64 such a big failure?  Once they had the mechanical flaws mostly sorted out it was a close match with any of its contemporaries (Leo 1, M-60, Centurion).  It was at least the closest thing to a parity there has ever been between Soviet and Western tanks.

You know, thinking about it, in some ways you can draw a comparison from the M1A2 and the T-90 to the Pz. V vs the Sherman.  The Abrams, like the Panther, is geared more towards the AT role, while for the T-90, like the Sherman, there is a greater emphasis on engaging soft targets like AT Teams and rear-echelon elements following a breakthrough.  If the Cold War had gone hot, a Russian attack would be in a very similar situation to the American and British advance in 1944-45.  They would need a tank capable of engaging both infantry and armoured targets, and fast enough to exploit a breakthrouh or flank defending forces.  If you have enough of them, they don't need to be as good as your opponents' tanks, they just need to be good enough, which it what the Sherman was, and look who won.