No Soviet Autoloaders...

I disagree. The idea of "crude, simple, replaceable" tanks to be used in a war involving full industrial mobilization was what drove the Soviets to keep building T-55 variants into the 1970's. It was predicated on basically re-fighting Operation Bagration in Western Europe. An industrialized nation was building tanks to be run by farmers and built by collective farm girls- which is absurd in the 1970's. Look at Soviet education. For all their faults, Soviet schools turned out great math and science students. They had good talent and a fair industrial base. Sure, they would have had to make shortcuts, and they were used to doing so, but if they saw "The Threat" differently, they could have fielded a force of better than OTL quality.


As time went on, they did plan for more of a "come-as-you-are" war, but equipment production was inflexible, mandated by the Soviet military-industrial complex, and tied to a doctrine which was deep-set in the military.
When they finally realized very very late in the game that quality does beat quantity they produced some pretty impressive pieces of kit, but even then their system had the final word, and promptly collapsed.

I look at the idea of bargration in western europe as unrealistic because someone somewhere is going to pull the nuke trigger and render it mute. the tanks get used in third world conflicts and sold to third world clients hence they should be stupid simple to operation because for the most part (except for actions against Israel) they are not usually coming up against the superior quality western tanks
 

Stalker

Banned
I look at the T-34 and say this is how the Russians should make tanks, crude, simple, flexible and effective in numbers just like the AK47 or RPG-7. They designed so their average peasant soldier could use those systems... it was when they got away from that idea and tried to overengineer their systems that they stopped being the best
There's much of simplification but it'll do.:rolleyes:
However. since mid 20th century much water has flown under the bridge. The urban population of the USSR before its collapce was about 70% but the truth is that the Soviet tanks were designed simple in operation so that a conscript could learn to operate them in half a year training. That concern all other areas of Soviet military doctrine. That is my opinion - an opinion of a man who served in Soviet Army back in 80s and was prepaing to fight back any imperialist NATO agression in the first echelon of Soviet Air Defence.:cool:
 
There's much of simplification but it'll do.:rolleyes:
However. since mid 20th century much water has flown under the bridge. The urban population of the USSR before its collapce was about 70% but the truth is that the Soviet tanks were designed simple in operation so that a conscript could learn to operate them in half a year training. That concern all other areas of Soviet military doctrine. That is my opinion - an opinion of a man who served in Soviet Army back in 80s and was prepaing to fight back any imperialist NATO agression in the first echelon of Soviet Air Defence.:cool:


Tom Clancy described it best "organized anarchy" 6 months and your an instant sergeant
 
Tom Clancy described it best "organized anarchy" 6 months and your an instant sergeant

So maybe another factor was the relatively unprofessional Soviet Army? Instead of having a professional NCO corps in addition to a professional officer corps, they just made everyone an NCO, and everyone left after their term of service. So, there was never really anyone with a great deal of experience around to teach conscripts what to do and what not to do. This was then exacerbated by institutional problems that included very bad hazing and a greater focus on appearances than actuality.
 
When they finally realized very very late in the game that quality does beat quantity they produced some pretty impressive pieces of kit, but even then their system had the final word, and promptly collapsed.

This is where the sadness lies. Flankers are so aesthetically superior to any other jet. :(
 
I look at the idea of bargration in western europe as unrealistic because someone somewhere is going to pull the nuke trigger and render it mute. the tanks get used in third world conflicts and sold to third world clients hence they should be stupid simple to operation because for the most part (except for actions against Israel) they are not usually coming up against the superior quality western tanks

Nuclear weapons wouldn't render it moot. They might make tank use problematic by destroying the production and fueling centers and tactical nukes would of course destroy lots of tanks, but whoever's got the last tank standing wins, even if they're lord of something resembling post-30 Years War Germany only with radiation.
 
Nuclear weapons wouldn't render it moot. They might make tank use problematic by destroying the production and fueling centers and tactical nukes would of course destroy lots of tanks, but whoever's got the last tank standing wins, even if they're lord of something resembling post-30 Years War Germany only with radiation.

just what you would want to occupy with your t-72... a pile of irradiated volkswagons and bmws
 
Nuclear weapons wouldn't render it moot. They might make tank use problematic by destroying the production and fueling centers and tactical nukes would of course destroy lots of tanks, but whoever's got the last tank standing wins, even if they're lord of something resembling post-30 Years War Germany only with radiation.

Kind-of hard to occupy anything when your societies collapsed from the nuclear devestation.

That's the real killer behind total thermonuclear warfare. It is not the amount of people they kill within the first week, it's the utter destruction infrastructure that would have otherwise kept the survivors alive and in contact with the central government. Famines and anarchy ensue.
 
Certainly. I'd be interested to hear if the Finnish military found they did have to do much fixing-up of the tanks they got before putting them into service.

The fixing up was pretty rudimentary mostly concerning firefighting equipment in which one inert gas was replace with another. As for "safe" Western autoloader, take a look at PzH-2000 from this piece of video, for example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-nnUiMgE24

It's not an arm eater, it's a leg eater! Or is it?
 
It's not a uniquely Soviet problem either. Every armored vehicle has its issues and tradeoffs. Look at how much freaking fuel an M1 burns... and there is nothing so vulnerable on the battlefield as a fuel truck.

And how about the supernova-style heat signature?

Umm...there's still the matter of the longer range, the better armor, and the better sights.

And that's why the Allies lost the Second World War against German übertanks... What really matters is communications, training (including proper drill) and use of combined arms ability. Whether a tank is better or worse is mostly irrelevant, although better tank sure does help.
 
And that's why the Allies lost the Second World War against German übertanks... What really matters is communications, training (including proper drill) and use of combined arms ability. Whether a tank is better or worse is mostly irrelevant, although better tank sure does help.

I thought a lot of the ubertanks, like the King Tiger, had mechanical problems out the ying-yang.
 
The fixing up was pretty rudimentary mostly concerning firefighting equipment in which one inert gas was replace with another. As for "safe" Western autoloader, take a look at PzH-2000 from this piece of video, for example

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-nnUiMgE24

It's not an arm eater, it's a leg eater! Or is it?

It looks like you ram the charge into the breach, then if you don't pull out the arm within half a second it is guillotined off.
Or was he pressing a button to close the breech with the other hand? The video quality is not the best...
 

MacCaulay

Banned
MacCaulay, why are you being so combative? I was merely pointing out to MerryPrankster that Finnish T-72s were all export models, not natively manufactured.

I apologize if I was coming off as a jerk. Once this discussion gets hashed out too many times, I kind of go into automatic mode when certain points are brought up. I didn't mean to be that way, and I hope you don't think I meant it personally.

I hope my point is clear enough- the problems were with institutional culture and were not logistical. It's pretty obvious the Soviets didn't really see a problem at all. I'm talking out of my ass about a lot of this, but my gut tells me small engines were not a driving factor- I mean, making large beastly machines was basically all the Soviets ever did, and they were, what, the second or third biggest economy?

Well, the institutional trouble that resulted in bad equipment is the same thing that resulted in the underpowered engines. A design flaw is a design flaw, whether it's in a plane that can't handle a 3-G turn or a tank gun that wears out too fast or a transmission that begins throwing gears on it's own after 50 miles.
They all result from the same thing: attention to quantity over quality, and that was a problem that just seemed to bite them over and over again.

It's not a uniquely Soviet problem either. Every armored vehicle has its issues and tradeoffs. Look at how much freaking fuel an M1 burns... and there is nothing so vulnerable on the battlefield as a fuel truck. The Bradley suffered from being designed to do too many things. Portholes were put on bmp's even though the soldier inside didn't have the necessary visability to orient his sighting. there is no perfectly constructed tank

Totally. You're exactly right. Oddly enough, it seems the Soviets got the whole IFV thing down even though their tanks never quite made it. Perhaps that was because they managed to make fairly good AT missiles like the Sagger and Sniper to arm their BMPs with.

It's worthy of noting that the Soviets were way, way into military academia and doctrine. I love studying Soviet academia for this reason- they always were going off and making up whole fields and then exploring them with a good amount of intellectual vigor for such a stagnant society.

A very good book on that subject is The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought And Lost by the Russian General Staff. Two guys from the University of Oklahoma (one of them an ex-Russian NCO) translated it. It's a pretty amazing book, and sheds alot of light on Soviet tactics.
 

Nikephoros

Banned
Against the toughest army the world has ever seen...

Well, if it was such a weakness, why couldn't it be exploited.

Simply put, next to the Challenger 2 the M1 Abrams is the best tank in the world. I'd like these studies that show you that this is an easily exploitable condition.
 
From what I've seen they only put 2 guns on them and stick with Everything else being MREs and Spares.
Now Merkava Crews pile on the firepower. Observe:

The Israeli armor tactics and design stem from the operational use of their tanks; either deserts or densely populated urban areas ,where the main opponents are militias armed with hand carried RPGs at best .(Coupled with its high vrew survivability, it is a quite handy APC as well) . A machinegun is handy against infantry .
 
In fact, that's so much of a weakness for the M1 that we lost hundreds of them during the Gulf War.
Let's see the M1s be used en masse against militias consistently armed with Kornet RPGs and we'll talk again . It was designed the same way the U.S design their automobiles, which,while not in itself deficient , is why it is less than popular with european militaries .
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Let's see the M1s be used en masse against militias consistently armed with Kornet RPGs and we'll talk again . It was designed the same way the U.S design their automobiles, which,while not in itself deficient , is why it is less than popular with european militaries .

Considering the fact that Chobam has already withstood salvos from waves of Saggers in Iraq and other types of reactive armour have done the same in the Gaza Strip, I'm going to have to put my money on the Abrams.
 
Let's see the M1s be used en masse against militias consistently armed with Kornet RPGs and we'll talk again . It was designed the same way the U.S design their automobiles, which,while not in itself deficient , is why it is less than popular with european militaries .

Ironically, all the M1 kills I'm aware of (there are so few each one has a Wikipedia entry) were from RPGs or mines. I don't think another tank has ever successfully killed one, or if one has, it was only once or twice.
 
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