No Soviet Autoloaders...

MacCaulay

Banned
I'd somewhat disagree on this. Older the ATGM, more training and care it will require. Newer ones are more easily storaged for a longer time and the guidance is made easier by the fact that one does not have to guide the missile itself but merely choose the target and the missile flies itself to it.

I saw some really crappy weapons pulled out of houses in Afghanistan. Oddly enough, alot of the problems (as you point out) are with storage. The Egyptians had a huge stockpile of Soviet weapons that they let go to pot because they stored them poorly. So did the Mujaheddin and later the Taliban.

Had every weapon the Taliban hid in those caves and bunkers stayed in shape, things would've been much worse than they are.
 

Stalker

Banned
There's just a short fragment of comparative analysis between Leopard-2 and T-80U in the article of one of Russian army experts published in 1994.

The design and characteristics of tank guns are equal. Both 120-mm gun RhL44, and 125-mm 2A46M are shielded against heat, have quick-coupled joints between the barrel and breech, symmetric recoil brake and semi-wedge breech-locks. Maximum muzzle energy is also the same: 2A46M - 93,16 MJ and RhL44 - 92.18 MJ respectively, which provides them with a comparable muzzle velocity of the shell.
Armour-piercing projectiles (APPs) are respectively 1715 m / sec and 1600 m / sec. Penetration power of the German APP, type DM43 is about 450 mm to 2000 meters, but Russia's new export APP type BM32 punches up to 500 mm at 2000 m.
There are equally good sighting systems: both EMES15 in "Leopard-2 and 1G46T in 80U have similar characteristics. At 12-fold magnification, the field of view is widened 5 times and "is stabilized in 2 dimensions, and laser range finders provide a quick and qualitative measurement of the target range on the real battlefield distances with an accuracy of +10 m.
Moreover, in terms of firepower, the T-80U has a number of advantages - it is a wide range of munitions used as well as the guided weapons system. As we know, all attempts in the West to create an acceptable guided missile system for a tank have so far failed. The guided missile system as part of T-80U’s ammunition significantly enhances its ability to combat especially small-sized targets at a distance of 5000 m. There are, however, nuances that relate to continuously improving tank protection. Contact missiles with shaped-charge warhead of about 700 mm armour penetration is not so dangerous to modern tanks any more. There is the active defence system soon to be introduced, that can effectively destroy the slow flying guided missiles. At the same time, severe restrictions on the calibre and length of the missile make it difficult to improve.
Finally, the T-80U has the automatic loader (AL) with 28 rounds in the pipeline, which provides a rate of around 7-8 rounds per minute. "Leopard-2, despite the long-running works in that direction, doesn’t have AL yet, and ammunition of the first line, located in the rear niche of the turret is in total only 15 shots. And this again demonstrates a different approach to the creation of combat vehicles. Recognizing the benefits of AL, Western experts, however, point to certain shortcomings AL with a conveyor in the casing. First, such a placement of ammunition does no good to ergonomic conditions for a crew that should correspond to Western standards, and secondly, despite the deployment of ammunition in the least vulnerable area, it, however, can not be isolated from the crew as is done in the "Leopard 2". And here we come close to the issue of security, to the tangle of interconnected problems, even more eloquently, describing the difference in approaches to tank-construiction in the USSR (Russia) and in the West.
The full article (in Russian) is here: http://armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/Modern/T80/T80vsLeopard.php
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Finally, the T-80U has the automatic loader (AL) with 28 rounds in the pipeline, which provides a rate of around 7-8 rounds per minute. "Leopard-2, despite the long-running works in that direction, doesn’t have AL yet, and ammunition of the first line, located in the rear niche of the turret is in total only 15 shots. And this again demonstrates a different approach to the creation of combat vehicles. Recognizing the benefits of AL, Western experts, however, point to certain shortcomings AL with a conveyor in the casing. First, such a placement of ammunition does no good to ergonomic conditions for a crew that should correspond to Western standards, and secondly, despite the deployment of ammunition in the least vulnerable area, it, however, can not be isolated from the crew as is done in the "Leopard 2". And here we come close to the issue of security, to the tangle of interconnected problems, even more eloquently, describing the difference in approaches to tank-construiction in the USSR (Russia) and in the West.

That might very well be the most important part of the whole thing.

This shows in great detail the difference in warfighting between Soviet and Western planners. The Soviets/Russians were/are definitely aiming for as close to clockwork precision as possible with the autoloader, and for all intents and purposes were planning on NATO sticking to the whole "four or five rounds a minute"-standard that was expected, when in fact most crews (even when I was in which was a long time after we were at our best) could get 4 off in the first 30 seconds and have them all be on target.
The Soviet/Russian strategy is amazing in that it shines through in just about everything they do: apply measured force in every last detail.

Also, before anyone jumps to conclusions with that whole "Recognizing the benefits of AL" thing, that should probably be explained: while no NATO powers except France (and possibly Italy?) use autoloaders in their MBTs, a number of tank-killers have been put forward that have them, most importantly the American M8 AGS which was armed with a 105mm gun fed by an autoloader and the Canadian LAV tank-killer variant, which had the same gun as the M8 mounted on an external turret.

In those two cases, I would be willing to concede the point of the autoloader but only because it is well away from the crew. In the case of the LAV tank-killer variant, it's completely outside of the vehicle.
 
Also, before anyone jumps to conclusions with that whole "Recognizing the benefits of AL" thing, that should probably be explained: while no NATO powers except France (and possibly Italy?) use autoloaders in their MBTs.

The Ariete has a conventional four man crew.
 

wormyguy

Banned
Really? Got a link for that? I'd like to know more. I'm not doubting you, it just seems like Hezbollah would've had to have gotten them into a really tight corner.
On further investigation it appears I was mistaken - two Merkavas had their front armor penetrated by RPG-29s and the crews suffered from mild smoke inhalation, while a Challenger 2 was hit in the belly armor in Iraq and the driver lost some toes. One also managed to pierce the front armor of a M1 in Iraq, but the crew was unharmed. So far the RPG-29 has not actually knocked out any tanks, but these incidents show that it could, if the shot were well-placed.
 

Stalker

Banned
Well, of course, the tank-figtin abilitues of modern infantry are not limited to light AT complexes like RPGs, and RPGs are probably all the Western tank have encountered untill now because of specifics of semiguerilla war in Afghanistan and Iraq. The infantry frontline AT weapons the opposing to NATO powers might also include such heavier but still portable infantry weapons as PPRK "Fagot" (ППРК 9К111 "Фагот" / AT-4 Spigot by NATO classification),PZTRK "Reflex-M (ГРАУ 9К119М/ AT-11 "Sniper" by NATO classification), PTRK "Metis-M", PTRK "Malyutka", PTRK "Kornet" (the Palestinians from 'Hesballah" claim that they had hit with it 164 "Merkavas in 2006 in Lebanon :D). The same concernes heavy infantry TOW systems adopted by NATO ("Milan" TOW-1, TOW-2, ERYX etc.). Seems like infantry is now may become the main tank-killer.:rolleyes:
 

MacCaulay

Banned
...Seems like infantry is now may become the main tank-killer.:rolleyes:

Well, I think that's just where the magnifying glass is pointing right now. The Cold War strategy was one of primarily mechanized warfare. This requires infantry forces to have a significant tank-killing capacity, so you wind up with vehicles like the Bundeswehr's cute little whup ass machine, the Raketenpanzer, or Jaguar 1:

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The idea was always to provide the mechanized infantry with a modicum of tank killing ability even when a tank wasn't around, so as to negate the ability of enemy armour to counterattack or breakthrough.

The tank, though, has many advantages over the tank-killer. Most later-generation tank-killers, like the Jaguar 1 in the Bundeswehr, the BRDM-AT, and the Bradley, use Anti-Tank Guided Missiles, or ATGMs. It's different ones for each, the oddest possibly being the BRDM, which according to Jane's Armour for 2005 actually uses the Spandrel in a quad-mounting on the top of the vehicle.
These missiles, while deadly, require a certain range before they become active and so they are at a decided disadvantage in urban combat. The tank, however, has the ability to fire point blank with no worries about this factor.
 

Stalker

Banned
I know we are starting a little off-topic here but it's interesting all the same
Yup, that Bundeswehr creature is small and cute but you cannot always hide it in the thickets or in bush or in a ditch like an ambushing infantry team serving the tiny rocket louncher and waiting when the armoured monster approaches to the distance of a simple and straight kill with no chance for it to survive (although online sattelite picture of the battlefield and ultra-sensitive IR-detectors calibrated to detect the heat of human bodies may once make that task extremely hard).:cool:
Maskirovka is what we Russians had learned hard since fighting Wehrmacht in WW2. :)
 
Yup, that Bundeswehr creature is small and cute but you cannot always hide it in the thickets or in bush or in a ditch like an ambushing infantry team serving the tiny rocket louncher and waiting when the armoured monster approaches to the distance of a simple and straight kill with no chance for it to survive (although online sattelite picture of the battlefield and ultra-sensitive IR-detectors calibrated to detect the heat of human bodies may once make that task extremely hard).

The ATGM carrier does not have to be at line of sight on the target at all nowadays, in ideal situation one can launch tactical UAV or rely on a spotter team etc. which tells the ATGM vehicle maybe even some 8km's away where to fire the missile. There has been no conflict yet where modern ATGM's have been pitted against modern MBT's, but the results may be quite surprising.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
I know we are starting a little off-topic here but it's interesting all the same

Very much!

Maskirovka is what we Russians had learned hard since fighting Wehrmacht in WW2. :)

There has been no conflict yet where modern ATGM's have been pitted against modern MBT's, but the results may be quite surprising.

One thing to point out is that the Russians have incorporated ATGMs into their Main Battle Tanks in a much larger way than NATO ever did. Where the West pretty much just had the M-551 Sheridan with the Shillelagh missile/gun system, the Soviets have been fielding guns that also fire ATGMs for at least 30 years.
The current crop is the AT-11 Sniper, or in Russia: Reflecks. That is the missile built into the T-80, and if I'm not mistaken it's also in the T-90 and some T-72 variants.

This says something about Soviet/Russian gun design, at least in regards to the missile/gun problem: they actually seem to have figured out how to make a reliable gun/missile combination, where the US pretty much gave up. Yes, the Sheridan apparently did fire shots in anger in Desert Storm and it acquitted itself admirably. But it didn't end up being worth the trouble.
The Soviets did seem to have very good ideas when it came to ATGMs, and somehow were able to construct breech and gun combinations that could handle the force of a missile blast, which is where the problem was coming from with the American Sheridan.
 

Stalker

Banned
The ATGM carrier does not have to be at line of sight on the target at all nowadays, in ideal situation one can launch tactical UAV or rely on a spotter team etc. which tells the ATGM vehicle maybe even some 8km's away where to fire the missile. There has been no conflict yet where modern ATGM's have been pitted against modern MBT's, but the results may be quite surprising.
Yes but unlike embushing infantry that had taken all necessary precautions AGTM-carriers my become an easy targets for helicopters tank-hunters. Once I saw documentary showing the maneuvres between the US air force (the wing of Hue Cobras) and Bundeswehr panzer division equipped with Leopards-2 back in 80s. All were equipped with lazer shot-simulators. The Americans won with final score 18 or 16 to 1. One Hue Cobra shot down went for 18 Leopards! that proved once more the effectiveness of copters tank hunters. And the Soviets took that seriously! I remember one friend of mine who served as the commander of T-72. They were drilled hard to put their tanks in a defensive position, entrenching them, covering them up and using special means to ensure that IR radiation was minimal. And, of course, protected by ZSU-23-4 "Shilka" and 9K31 "Strela-1". Nobody of course, had rejected the idea of using tanks as the assault weapon simply because a tank several times as cheaper as a military copter but all the precautions to make it les vulnerable from the air attack were taken.
One more detail of Soviet autoloaders. The on-board computer the Soviets utilised in modernised T-72s included ballistic calculator and possibility to guide the rocket launched from Reflex-M (Sniper) but also it programmed the feeding shells into the main gun: HE-shells, armor-piercing, subcalibres. So, knowing the disposition, the tank commander could program his autoloader in advance. We all know, however, that when an enemy arrives on the battlefield, all plans go directly to hell, so i see no point in advance programming of the autoloader.
 
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The Soviets did seem to have very good ideas when it came to ATGMs, and somehow were able to construct breech and gun combinations that could handle the force of a missile blast, which is where the problem was coming from with the American Sheridan.

I thought the problem with the Sheridan was too much gun for too little weight(although I suppose this could apply to the breech/gun assembly as well) . How well did the M60A2 fare with the Shilleagh?
 

MacCaulay

Banned
I thought the problem with the Sheridan was too much gun for too little weight(although I suppose this could apply to the breech/gun assembly as well) . How well did the M60A2 fare with the Shilleagh?

They didn't even get that one into the field operationally. I think the M60 one was probably a better show of what the Army thought because you had a gun/missile combination in direct competition with a regular gun on the same tank.

The Army chose the gun model (from what I've read) because the shock of the recoil from shooting the gun would knock around the missile components too much, causing a bunch of misfires. In the end it just wasn't worth putting more money into it when there was a perfectly good tank using proven technology.

Obviously, the Soviets were able to do it. I'd really like to know how. I've got a book on the T-80 on order, and that might be able to answer some questions. However, the stuff I'm looking at on the shelf right now doesn't have much information into the actual design or construction of the breach/gun combinations of the T-80s.
 
As a response to Stalkers post critiqueing Jukra. Quote function was acting weird and not working for me.

Not that what you said about missile armed Panzer-Jager isen't true but I think you're overestimating the how well missile armed infantry would survive. They can hide better yes but once an opponent figured out what they were doing any positions in front of an armored unit would either get the crap shelled out of it or have close infantry support.
The ending phase of the Yom Kippur War in the Sinai is an example of both being used by the IDF to counter Egyptian missile teams.
 
The ending phase of the Yom Kippur War in the Sinai is an example of both being used by the IDF to counter Egyptian missile teams.

Yom Kippur War was 36 years ago. Modern missiles can be fired without large smoke cloud of Sagger and even more importantly, from retrograde positions.
 
Yom Kippur War was 36 years ago. Modern missiles can be fired without large smoke cloud of Sagger and even more importantly, from retrograde positions.

Good point but the IDFs artillery response worked regardless of whether the missile teams could be seen or not. It involved plastering any known or possible missile team areas and Egyptian lines in general. Shrapnel dosen't care if your well hidden or not.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
Yom Kippur War was 36 years ago. Modern missiles can be fired without large smoke cloud of Sagger and even more importantly, from retrograde positions.

Good point but the IDFs artillery response worked regardless of whether the missile teams could be seen or not. It involved plastering any known or possible missile team areas and Egyptian lines in general. Shrapnel dosen't care if your well hidden or not.

Well, just to put the Israeli/general Western response into it, you normally would start hitting them with air power.

The M109s the Israelis used to hit them in Sinai were kind of...a fluke. The normal Israeli support arm: the IAF, was busy just maintaining air superiority so the M109s had to do what the A-4s and Ourogans would've normally done.

But yes, the artillery was effective. That's sort of why the mechanization is the key here: an M113 or Jaguar can fire, then pack up and move and stand a fair chance of being gone before any artillery barrage hits it's last location.
 
Well, just to put the Israeli/general Western response into it, you normally would start hitting them with air power.

The M109s the Israelis used to hit them in Sinai were kind of...a fluke. The normal Israeli support arm: the IAF, was busy just maintaining air superiority so the M109s had to do what the A-4s and Ourogans would've normally done.

But yes, the artillery was effective. That's sort of why the mechanization is the key here: an M113 or Jaguar can fire, then pack up and move and stand a fair chance of being gone before any artillery barrage hits it's last location.

Good point on the airpower i'd forgotten about that. I remember reading a history of the Isreali invasion of Lebanon in the '80s that said they had far more tube artillery because the lack of it and the loses of aircraft doing close air support in '73 had been a nasty shock.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
If anyone's interested, I was doing some reading, and apparently the PT-91 (the Polish T-72 variant) is able to fire an ATGM as well. There's alot of retooling weapons out there so older systems can get a higher level of lethality.

This is especially useful with countries that may be buying T-72 export/upgrade models like the Polish PT-91, Czech T-72 CZ, former Yugoslav M-84, Ukrainian T-72M2 and MP.

The first of the next generation is already on the way: the T-84 is a Ukrainian variant of the T-80, built with completely Ukrainian parts.

Some of these vehicles, like the PT-91, T-72MP, and T-84, are capable of firing ATGMs and come with comprehensive parts packages to make up for the fact that they're not coming from Russia or America.

But these countries do find ways of making up for it. The Ukrainian T-72MP is a joint venture with France and Hungary, resulting in a French engine and Hungarian targeting technology that was used on their T-55 upgrade program and that has been used in battle in Africa.

Overall, the chances are very good that NATO will probably face one of these 3rd Party tanks in battle long before it faces an actual Russian- or Chinese-built vehicle.
 
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