Delta Force
Banned
I'd not heard that - I only thought that the 'issues' with T64 was that it was too expensive to mass produce in the number that the Soviets believed was needed and was a more complex tank than they had used before leading to training issues. It pioneered a lot of tech that would be seen in later Russian tanks and like all new equipment has teething issues - mainly with the new engine and auto loader in the T64s case.
Another issue is that the T-64 featured an autoloader, so it had only three crew members assigned to it. The tank commanders apparently spent most of their time in meetings, leaving only two crew members to do maintenance and guard it. Also, it had a difficult teething process and representatives of the Kharkiv factory apparently were integrated with the units during their early service.
The "monkey model" export versions actually would have been standard production to replace losses in the event of a major conflict. It also worked to spread disinformation about the capabilities of the full versions.T72 as I understand it was originally designed to be frontally impervious to the British L7 105mm gun at battlefield ranges - and used a composite armour with a relatively low silhouette.
The later versions used by the Russian army are effectively a different tank to the one seen exploding spectacularly in Iraq which apparently are 'monkey' export versions.
Hence why the Americans and Germans developed the big 120mm dart thrower and the British improved their existing 120mm rifled gun
The 125 mm gun used on later Soviet tanks was quite potent too. At the same time, the Soviet Army variants of the T-72 were quite difficult for NATO tanks to penetrate in tests conducted after the end of the Cold War.
Actually, a large amount of United States Army costs and its logistical supply train are for M1 Abrams fuel.It is very interesting to note that despite the popular image of the M1 Abrams being a fuel hog (which it certainly is but not quite as bad as people make out) in US service in the large scale and relative long distance battles that they have fought in - its not really been a problem for them.
And despite having 2 'drop in' replacement engines (1 a more efficient gas turbine and the other a modern 1500 HP Diesel) developed over the last decade - the US Army has been a bit 'meh' about making the change and all they have done is fit a better and smaller more efficient and better placed APU (so the main engine can be shut down more often).
So I have to conclude that its not as big an issue as people think!
One issue might be the fact that the T-64 and T-80 were built at Kharkiv, which became Ukrainian after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Ukraine has maintained and modernized their T-64 and T-80 fleets and has secured export orders for improved T-80 and T-84 series tanks. The T-72 factory was in Russia, so it makes sense that Russia would work with what it had.The T80 was also like its predecessor the T64 a more complicated tank than the T72 and has as a result of this been retired from the Russian army in favour of the later T72s and T90s