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T-72 - what's the verdict?


LtGeorge

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You cannot really compare the T72 with the latest tanks ... however when you take it to its proper era, it was a beast (not to mention T64 which west did not know about at all).

The biggest error folks make is to put these tanks into an environment which would not be met in real life night operations... the battlefield would be flooded with illumination and other massed arty strikes combined with tank assaults on mass. TIS or no TIS you would been on a fighting retreat in a western tank :)

Hi Vati.

I agree with you.The T-72 was not built to take on modern western tanks.

It was designed for massed attacks and to overwhelm.NATO ground

Forces of the seventy's era.but the fact is if you were a soviet tanker even in the early eighties you would of Had to face Tanks equipped with thermals.yes the soviets had better tanks for the task.But the vast majority were T-55/T62/T72 in that era.Also the soviet and Warsaw pact countries had a vastly Superior amount of artillery but a lot of it was towed and not very mobile.and if as expected NATO would have had air superiority.that would not have been the case for long.

Edited by Marko
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You may have a chance in good light.no wonder western army's place so much training for night fighting.any advice on how to improve the odds in a night fight would be greatly appreciated.

You already wrote it, actually. What is needed is battlefield illumination, star shells. Getting it done right beyond the mere visuals is going to be the tricky part. Night combat cannot be completed over night, pardon the pun.

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You already wrote it, actually. What is needed is battlefield illumination, star shells. Getting it done right beyond the mere visuals is going to be the tricky part. Night combat cannot be completed over night, pardon the pun.

Star shells were the first thing i thought off.but i figured there was not much point Mentioning it yet till the next inevitable discussion about the next upgrade starts. i did find one thing i liked. the anti aircraft gun and sight.is useful when taking on infantry.

I can now see why the soviet doctrine emphasised speed its your only chance over flat Terrain.

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IMHO, awesome. I admit I wasn't heavily into the crewable T-72 camp, but now it is here, it is enjoyable in a masochistic way. It took some time in the wiki to figure out how to handle the gunner's position, and it is definitely a step back from the Western tanks. The restrictions on the IR sight, traverse speed, and operation in general reveals how much thought has been put into Western tanks to make them effective from a gunner's and TC's standpoint.

Hearing the autoloader in action is great. Have to get used to manually queuing up the next round myself.

Thanks SB! Great work! :biggrin:

Totally agree with relearning round selection manually.... threw me at the range when I took her out the first time.

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I have been experimenting with this russian bear of the battle-field. And despite of the bad reputation i actually get along quite well with the t-72 . Its not a m1 of a leo2 but still it has its kick. I cant help mentioning that it gives me this motion picure "The beast of war" kind of feeling somehow. It thing Esim has delivered 200 % with the t-72 and at the same time totally knocked out any competition in the tank sim software .

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The T-72 is really being a challenge, or it at least makes you think realistically about what you can and can't do. I've been knocked out by T-55s, T-62s, BMP-1s, and infantry like nobody's business - and all from the front quarter, too.

I'm learning more about the Russian method of armor protection. When you get familiar with the T-72, you find that the main turret armor band is just in the front of the circle and isn't tall by any means. Sure, it will deflect a good shot, but the coverage area seems miniscule. The glacis isn't so great and the turret roof gets caved in easily enough. Hits to the running gear seem to be more common since they take up a large proportion of the overall aspect.

You can definitely tell the armor coverage is a bare minimum and hope is placed on being a small target overall, and that you have hordes of comrades behind you to carry on after you get your turret popped. That is more likely since the T-72 is a low cost design.

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But the T-72 keeps you honest. In the real world, if you were told to hunt and kill a couple T-55s over the hill, would you do it differently in a M1A1(HA) or Leo2A5, as opposed to a T-72M1?

Your answer, I would think, should be no - you should not trust your armor to just stand up in front of an enemy tank company and start blazing away, but rather use the elements of maneuver, surprise, superior firepower and combined arms to do the job.

In SB, you'll probably be ok if you just crest the hill in your Abrams blast away, and maybe take some damage, and be ok overall and you'll walk away from your computer in good enough shape. If it is real life and your own life is on the line... ?

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But the T-72 keeps you honest. In the real world, if you were told to hunt and kill a couple T-55s over the hill, would you do it differently in a M1A1(HA) or Leo2A5, as opposed to a T-72M1?

Your answer, I would think, should be no - you should not trust your armor to just stand up in front of an enemy tank company and start blazing away, but rather use the elements of maneuver, surprise, superior firepower and combined arms to do the job.

In SB, you'll probably be ok if you just crest the hill in your Abrams blast away, and maybe take some damage, and be ok overall and you'll walk away from your computer in good enough shape. If it is real life and your own life is on the line... ?

So true... rehearsing your skills in "bullfighting" is refreshing. Myself I often take a random map. Add a platoon of T-whatevers and try to take them down with a platoon of CV90´s.

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Remember also- they can be dangerous without ever firing a shot. They can artillery, at higher echeleons, a whole grid square might be pasted while the Soviet tanks look to break through at the weak joints in the line. Platoon level antics- of course they have disadvantages, plus small units didn't expect to receive the same level of support as their Western counterparts. But when you mass them, the effect is much different than the scope of many SB single player scenarios.

Enemy infantry in many cases give me more to worry about than enemy armor in the T-72. They are much harder to detect, the T-72 can burn through its machine gun ammunition very quicky. A few AT squads from cover are in many cases harder to deal with.

It's been said the concept of the T-72 is an all purpose MBT vs. the Western tank-killers, look at the fact of the 125 mm HE shell that they carried. They were designed offensively to operate in the enemy's second or third tier echelons and make a mess rather than to pick off incoming tanks and fight from the retreat. That's why the reverse gear is nearly useless in the T-72, it wasn't designed to retreat. The design was intended to end a war quickly before NATO could turn the tide in the Atlantic and bring in reserves, you lose some T-72s in violent operations, that's ok- you can afford to, you keep going.

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It's been said the concept of the T-72 is an all purpose MBT vs. the Western tank-killers, look at the fact of the 125 mm HE shell that they carried. They were designed offensively to operate in the enemy's second or third tier echelons and make a mess rather than to pick off incoming tanks and fight from the retreat. That's why there reverse gear is nearly useless in the T-72, it wasn't designed to retreat.

When I was in the Dutch army in the 80's we were told (and were afraid of) it was going to be a fight between western quality vs eastern quantity, wheter it be tanks or fighter aircraft etc. I'm interested to know what the outcome will be if for instance 4 leopards meet a couple of dozen T72's.......

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One should not forget that in the early 80s the dominance of the western tanks was much smaller. M1s became available in small numbers in 1982. the Leopard A4 came in 1985, the earlier models had less protection and not all were equipped with night sights.

Conduct an early 80 scenario with Leopard1s, M60s and just some M1s or Leopard2s and you will get a quit different picture.

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Thats right, the first batch (A0 w/o TIS but with PZB 200) were introduced 1979 - 1982

Second and third Batch (A1 with TIS) came in 1982 - End of 1983. In the same Time all A0´s were upgradet with TIS as Leop 2A2.

So we have a account of ca. 1.200 Leopard 2 with TIS at the End of 1983.

4th Batch came in 1983/84.

Leop 2A4 was introduced as Batch five End 1985 - 1987.

But as far I understand, you mentioned:

the Leopard A4 came in 1985, the earlier models had less protection and not all were equipped with night sights

And that´s wrong !

Up to Leop 2A5 all Batches have the same armor protection. Only difference is, with Batch 5 the Ammunition Hatch was closed.

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Between December 1985 and March 1987, 370 vehicles were delivered, with 190 being built by Krauss-Maffei (chassis nbr. 10789 to 10979), and the remaining 180 by MaK (chassis nbr. 20645 to 20825). In this batch, the fire control was fitted with a digital core to facilitate the use of new ammunition, and to improve the crew's survivability a fire and explosion suppression system developed by Deugra was installed. The return rollers were repositioned. The turret protection level was increased to more than 700mm for KE and 1000mm for HEAT. The vehicles of this batch were designated Leopard 2 A4 .

Danke!

If i remember correctly they improved the armor inlets, the turret cavities remained the same.

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That´s a never proven rumor.

With 5th Batch they install Spall Liners that should increase the Armor.

If you scrawl down a bit, you will see a List with protection Data RHA against KE and HEAT Rounds.

With the "new" Track Protection (Kettenschürzen) they increase the Protection for the Hull

690 mm RHA at the Turret against KE Rounds is the official Data for all Leop 2 up to A5.

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