Different Soviet Tank Development Post WW2

Dure

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burmafrd,

I am surprised by your statements. Can you please confirm the following:-

1) The Chobham/DU armor of the M1A2 can stop any known tank rd. including those fired by Chally I and the lastest Leopard II? At what range?
2) While our DU rds can penetrate the frontal armor of any known tank approx 60% of the time on the best of what the rest of the world has to offer. Again inlcuding Chally II and at what range? What about the reactive armours on T-80 and 90?
 
also a smaller crew is less versatile in the face of an injured crewmember. If a 4 man crew has an injured or dead driver, then the loader can switch over to driving, the gunner can load as well and the commander is still free to do his job, the only real problem now is that their rate of fire is slower, but the tank is still capable of fighting. Meanwhile with only 3 crewmembers, if the driver is injured or killed, then you have the issue that now you have only two people to do the job of three, a much bigger loss here. And you still have the problem of something that is more likely to break down due to having extra parts and having it be much more difficult to do field repairs.
 
The funny thing is, the Flogger is the one Soviet aircraft I probably have the most against. And for the same reasons I was lambasting their tank design: bells and whistles.

Swing wings? Really? Like the USSR didn't design fixed wing aircraft before and after that that were more functionally stable and powerful and didn't have moving parts in their wings that could break at any moment?

Now, the MiG-27 Flogger, I can understand. A swing-wing ground attack plane is understandable. But there's no reason to make a fighter version, then. We don't have some "F/A-10 Thunderbolt II."

Maybe it was due to the Mig 27, being derived from the earlier Mig-23 fighter, itself designed to be operated from roughly prepared airfields near the battlefield...
(Note: Some early Floggers were sold in export form as Mig-23's, & still retained the Fighter version's engine, afterburner & related variable inlet geometry, making it a potentially very useful Nuclear capable strike bomber...).
 
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Or in Vietnam, North-Vietnamese Soviet equiped forces drove into Saigon against an American equipped army.

The ARVN was limited to 40 shots and one grenade per soldier in the 1975 invasion; I don't think the word 'equipped' could be applied to them.

Agree completely on the Indian-Pakistani wars.
 
A couple of nice articles on Soviet tank development

Here are links to a pair of articles that seek to explain Soviet development. I found the articles enlightening. The articles basically argue that Soviet tank development wsa driven mainly by political considerations rather than by military needs.

A warning--these link lead to PDF type downloads.

The first directly addresses how the USSR ended up with three MBTs--the T-64, T-72, and T-80.
https://www.knox.army.mil/center/ocoa/armormag\backissues\1990s\1998\ja98\4sewell98.pdf

The second reviews the politics and capabilities of the Stalin series of heavy tanks.
https://www.knox.army.mil/center/ocoa/armormag\currentissues\2002\ja02\4redstar02.pdf
 
Re: last post
Be careful folks, as the site has a invalid security certificate, according to the latest version of Firefox...
 
It's based on the fact that in every field of combat, from South Africa (Centurions vs. T-34s, T-54s/55s, and T-62s), the Middle East, and Korea, Western armour has always proven to be superior.
You are forgetting about quality of crews. Israeli smashed Jordanian Pattons and Centurions in 1967 using WWII vintage Shermans. Yay! I just proved that Shermans were better tanks than Pattons and Centurions.

Every time the Russians make a bigger gun, it's overall accuracy goes down. By the time they got to 125s, they couldn't hit the broadside of a barn. The Threat: Inside the Soviet War Machine by Andrew Cockburn actually talks about this stuff a lot.
This cold war propaganda had 2 very separate objectives: scare parliaments into giving army all kinds of monies and resorces to prepare for fight and to convince future conscripts that the don't have to be scared shitless, as Soviet tanks "couldn't hit the broadside of a barn".

MacCaulay said:
I've only got experience with the Canadian army, and we did fine without it.
That explains your leaning toward "Soviet tanks are crap" position. You weren't seriously expecting your superiors saying "you would be blown apart in 1st 30 seconds of the encounter", were you?

Soviet tanks were not as superior as your generals told to MPs, neither were they as crappy as your company commander told you.
 
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If a 4 man crew has an injured or dead driver, then the loader can switch over to driving, the gunner can load as well and the commander is still free to do his job, the only real problem now is that their rate of fire is slower, but the tank is still capable of fighting.
As far as I know it is virtually impossible in any modern tank to get from crew compartment to drivers' seat without exposing oneself to enemy fire.

P.S.: www.waronline.org claims that Israeli picked 4-crewmember design for Merkava over an autoloader was that 4 peoples can clean barrel of tank's gun. 3 can't.
 
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Be careful folks, as the site has a invalid security certificate, according to the latest version of Firefox...

Given that it's a .mil site I wouldn't be too concerned. Also the URLs appear to work fine if you change https:// to http:// in any case.
 
However, it does make sense to go to a larger caliber. Afterall in blue-on-blue incidents in Iraq and elsewhere, M1A2 Abram's with 120mm Sabot rounds have a great deal of trouble with punching through their own armor at nearly point blank.

Does it?

By going larger then 120ish you get a few problems because the rounds are getting too big;
1) A round can't be lifted by the loader. Most likely the round will be in two pieces, slowing loading down a lot.
2) Your tank would only be able to carry 2/3 of the rounds it now can.

Generally this is why larger calibres aren't seen as such a good idea.
 
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Be careful folks, as the site has a invalid security certificate, according to the latest version of Firefox...
Fiendish, I appreciate your concern for safety but I think it is misplaced.

First, my Firefox does not show that the certificate as expired. Of course, it may have the first time I accessed the articles and the expiration notice no longer clicks it up. Still, my AVG tool bar lists the first link as safe sites when I googled it.

Second, if you check the url, you will find that the site is run by the United States Army. The articles are from Armor Magazine, a publication of the army. The url for this is https://www.knox.army.mil/center/ocoa/armormag/
You can go there, and find the articles by searching the author's last name, Sewell.

Still, if you are still feeling paranoid about the website of Armor magazine, run by the US Army, you can put the first sentence of each article and search, then read the google cache of the first article. I haven't been able able to find a cache of the second one.

The first sentence of the article on why the Soviets had three tanks is:
Why the Soviets eventually produced three different tanks to what appeared to be the same requirements


Anyway, I think the articles are worth reading. They an explanation as to the forces involved in Soviet tank development.

And, of course, the thread is about Soviet tank development, right?
 
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also a smaller crew is less versatile in the face of an injured crewmember. If a 4 man crew has an injured or dead driver, then the loader can switch over to driving, the gunner can load as well and the commander is still free to do his job, the only real problem now is that their rate of fire is slower, but the tank is still capable of fighting. Meanwhile with only 3 crewmembers, if the driver is injured or killed, then you have the issue that now you have only two people to do the job of three, a much bigger loss here. And you still have the problem of something that is more likely to break down due to having extra parts and having it be much more difficult to do field repairs.

You could argue that a tank with an autoloader is less likely to suffer casualties due to better protection.


Protection is all nice and dandy but things can break down in a tank without combat as well and even if things don't break down the various parts still have to be serviced. Add to that the watches and other tasks every crew has to do. Cutting one man seriously hampers that.

Well, that is a valid point, but obviously the soviet designers thought that a smallar tank was worth it.

Consider that by reducing the crew of each tank by one, you could use the people who would have been loaders as people attached to the unit who do other tasks. That way you're both a smaller tank, and have more people available for some tasks than one with a larger crew.
 
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Does it?

By going larger then 120ish you get a few problems because the rounds are getting too big;
1) A round can't be lifted by the loader. Most likely the round will be in two pieces, slowing loading down a lot.
2) Your tank would only be able to carry 2/3 of the rounds it now can.

Generally this is why larger calibres aren't seen as such a good idea.

That is of very little concern if your rounds are innefective.
 
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