Why the Russian Army T-72 Tank is Worse Than You Think
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- Опубликовано: 27 апр 2022
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Why is the Russian Army's T-72 seem to be having all kinds of problems in Ukraine?
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I will keep on requesting some videos for the Japanese type 10,type 16 and the type 87 arv.
You forgetting a big reason why russia fail...and that is.......MERCENARIES.
Even Macchiavelli in his Book "The Prince" talked how inefficient are Mercenary, fearless in peace time and cowards during war (cit. Macchiavelli).
And there is the problem with russia army. Russian Pro-Soldiers are the mercenaries, th only one with war-experienced, but like every mercenary has no loyalty, no courage and are not willing to sacrifce for the war...and everyone can see/hear the problem between common russain soldiers and the mercenaries like Kadyrovites ( ruclips.net/video/nNIz6chXVB0/видео.html ).
The other problem with this kind of mercenaries is that they are not war-hardend soldiers, but pussy cowards "fighting" against rebels, which in the most cases are not well-equipted, trained and supported like the mercenary (example Syria).
And there is the main problem (for my opinion) that russian goverment rely in stupid incompetend criminals, who are only good in torturing people, but in fight and war incapable of doing shit...if anyone imagine that an goverment army with warplanes, tanks, gas weapon, any weapon possible and their mercenary won after 5years long brutal war (well not even completely victory) against a rebel groups armed with at least machine guns....
And I think here is the big difference between Ukrainian Army and Russian Army.
Ukranian army composed by "normal" citizen ready to die for their cause...and russian army composed by stupid thugs just there for raiding...
Russia's Doctrine is with our Artillery, not our Tanks.
Also, u ever heard of a T72b3m? It's a T72 close to the standards of a T90m. Not same, but close.
FAKE NEW, there is no CENTER News, they are all left wing aka socialists. Look at their owners.
Thanks for trying to stay non-biased
Hello from Ukrainian-Canadian 🇺🇦🇨🇦
Believe it or not, I'm with Russia🇷🇺 in this conflict
They didn't want this war but they had no choice
In 2014 Ukr gov't declared ATO on its own citizens and started shelling them in Donbass
It's a long story, I can't say much bc my comments get removed
To be fair to the T-72, it’s unlikely that nearly any modern tank without APS could survive a top attack ATGM like the NLAW or Javelin. The only big difference is that a Western tank crew has a better chance of surviving while T-72 operators are almost guaranteed to be cremated due to the ammo storage.
Yes the US M1A2 Abrams never faced third generation anti-tank weapons like Javelins and NLAWs in Afghanistan and Iraq.In fact the US didnt face in both Afghanistan and Iraq an enemy that was being supplied by modern weapons by top nations.
@@pinyaposka9671 They almost never faced ATGMs either.
@@pinyaposka9671 most guys forget about it . They look Afgahnistan and Iraq. Imagen Taliban, al-Qaida or ISIS had this modern AT weapons.
I agree. Many shit on the Russians nowadays....(I wonder why that is) but the T72´s overall idea is a really good one.
Do you really think that your head will survive an explosion and massive overpreasure of NLAW or Javelin if you are in abrams? I don't believe that NATO tankers heads are made of composite armor.
The T-72 wasn’t originally intended as a replacement for the T-64. The T-64 was supposed to be the main Soviet tank. The T-72 was built to be a cheaper alternative that could be built in bulk both for export and to bulk up the tank numbers. But because the T-64 was pretty much a barracks queen the T-72 became the default main Soviet tank so they had to keep upgrading it to try to keep it relevant. Then when the T-80 and T-90 also didn’t work out so well it wound up getting upgraded even more. Which didn’t help it all that much as it is a 1960s design trying to be run by unskilled conscripts.
You are right
T-64 was in fact ahead of its time. It was the first tank to have layered armor, it was the first tank to have an autoloader and even night vision system. But it was just too expensive thats was the only real problem
This is the issue when you have 10 different tank types to maintain and very few of them have interchangeable parts.
Meanwhile a desert storm Abrams can just be scrapped to get parts for its newer counterparts or receive a defense package quite easily.
Back in the day this average infantryman got repeated S2 briefs about the scary T64 because we knew nothing about them. After the wall fell and Ft. Knox got hold of a few they were surprised how advanced it was. We got very lucky our old M60s never had to face that armor. 120s for the M1 fleet were fast tracked.
@@u2beuser714 Correction it's not the first to have an Auto loader the French early Cold war tanks had Auto loaders before T64 also M60 already has the capabilities of night vision before the T64 did But really the first tanks to have night vision were the German Panther tanks in mid 1943. T64 did have the first composite armor that was actually Apart of the tank
I was a tank turret mechanic in 1991 during the Gulf War. I talked to some US tank crew members after the fighting was over who actually went inside an abandoned Iraqi T 72 tank. One glaring weakness they noticed was the poor fire control system compared to the M 1 tank.
a tank from the 70s has poor fire control. what a shock
Those were T72 Ms as well, so they had even worse systems than standard T72s.
@@marcusfiero3724 it used T-55 gunner sight without any computer balistics but just vertical stabilised TBK-2 from T-55.
@@boocomban That is quite bad. Where did you find that info?
@@boocomban That may be more a characteristic of the export version than the ones used by the Soviet army. The Soviets often supplied what they called “monkey models” of their top weapons to untrustworthy clients- I.e., everyone- according to Viktor Suvorov.
Actually, T-64 was a more advanced vehicle equipped with the best technology of the time and therefore more expensive. The whole reliability issue was resolved to the best of their ability in the many different versions of the tank. Ukranians keep driving around in T-64 to this day and nobody complains. T-72 was supposed to be a cheaper, war-time version of T-64 designed to be produced during WW3. This is why the main production center for T-72 is in Ural Mountains region while the main plant for T-64 was in Kharkiv.
Exactly. Classic Spare part army mistake. Saw few on previous videos....
But hey,still love this channel
The T64 was a major reason for anti tank research like better guns and tanks in the west. By the information available at the time the widely used 105mm L7 rifled gun was insufficient to combat the T64 at longer ranges.
*Kharkov
@@SimpleHuman-ug8fk Kharkiv.
@@olexiiyeskov5480 wrong
The T72, a tank that is designed to be used with several hundred at a time is currently being used in penny packets with 10 per battalion. The British gave up on that as an operating method by 1917.
Battalion tactical groups are a bad way of using tanks?
@@longyu9336 Most people don't know what they are talking about on most topics even when they happen to be right.
So did the French. Too bad for them that the Germans did not give up such tactics in 1941.
@@longyu9336 yes
This is simply a myth
if someone is interested in T72 - this is a simpler and cheaper version of T64. 64 has a better control system, suspension and survivability while t 72 is easier to maintain and manufacture. T64 stood together with T80 on the border with NATO and T72 went to the reserve. After the collapse of the union, Ukraine received 64 because the plant in Kharkiv and Russia 72 for the same reason but in Tagyl
The T-72 was also built in Malyshv plant in Kharkhiv during the cold war
Well yes but no
T-72 has better armour tho, and fire control system argument is definitely valid for the original versions. However, one should understand that modern T-72B3's fire control system is better than T-64BV's.
had. was. been.
@@plumbpudding8982 so it was but in small volumes and it was rather a large assembly. Another interesting fact is that T72 turret flies into the sky much more often due to its more compact size and position - "better" autolouder
I've never been a Tank Company Commander, but having talked with a couple you realize that they won't go far without their supply line. And they're super focused on fuel. Overwhelming numbers with this tank might be a detriment. But I'm sure a concentrated attack would be devastating by this kind of a force. It's just as described in the doctrine, quick and decisive blow through the weak point.
Who ever said that the Russian army has little supply, why do you believe in this fake, Please open the map and see how many kilometers from the front line to the border of Russia and Belarus
@@lolimancer3092 🤡
@@lolimancer3092 I didn't say the Russians had little supply. They do choose to use it differently. I guess I should have specified Army Armor Officers when I mentioned the discussions I had with them about their logistical support planning.
Still, a large maneuver force requires a large sustainment force as well. There is only so much the Russian Army can do with what they are given. They choose to amass forces and then attack. Reconsolidate, and then repeat. The best way I can explain is the Russian Army fills a bucket of water and dumps it and waits until the bucket is full again before dumping. That's their style that they've decided to use.
I'm getting troll commented by somebody named Loli mancer 🙄
@@lolimancer3092 cope harder
@@lolimancer3092 If that's true then it doesn't seem to be helping them not get absolutely destroyed by a much smaller and supposedly inferior defending force. The problem is the tactics are shit, outdated and damn right stupid. Lack of morale from these conscripts who don't really want to be there doesn't help things either, or the poor treatment of them by their own side.
The USSR was afraid of USA invasion, they developed military hardware with this in mind. Road bridges were built to collapse under the weight of heavy American tanks. Soviet tanks were therefore required to be lightweight. This severely limited the capability of Soviet tanks, but gave a theoretical tactical advantage if faced with a US invasion. (Soviet tank can cross bridge, US tank cannot). Their military planners never seriously considered a Soviet attack on USA, so they developed a defensive asset.
If that is true, that is a very narrow and specific parameter to limit tank design over all the other factors.
I find it far more likely that cost considerations and a low profile were prioritized.
That’s an interesting single purpose for developing light weight tanks . Seems the historical effectiveness of strategic bridge demolition perhaps was determined obsolete.
@@TheSchultinator Well I did see this on a TV documentary a while ago, but now you mention it. It would make more sense that they designed a cheap light tank, and then decided to build bridges that couldn't take the weight of the heavier American tanks. Can't always trust what you see on TV.
That's why in turn we developed and adopted the M1 Abrams as a response since heavyweight vehicles especially tanks have disadvantages over certain terrain like for example hills and bridges.
Smaller tanks are less expensive and they can build more of them for the same amount of money.
Quantity
Quantity
Quantity
The T-64 wasn't bad or anything like that. The problem was that it was too expensive to produce for all units. Thats why the T-72 was created.
It was bad. It required a ton of maintenance, that the poorly trained and equipped soviet engineers couldn't keep up with. In ideal circumstances sure it's a great tank, but it's reminiscent of the tiger or Panther in actual performance.
@@thelordofcringe The only problem that the T-64 has / had (depends if the tank was modernised) was the engine, which was prone to failures. Nothing else is particulary bad about it. Obv., it is quite old now
@@fleekrushyt9410 Which is a crippling problem when your maintenance isn't up to the needed standard. They don't even really have an excuse for the engine and repair problems, T-55 was okay, later T-34s had been great. Russian mechanics just seemed to get worse after ww2 and I don't see any obvious reason, considering how good their airplane/jet engineers became.
The t64 had superior composite armor and gun compared to western tanks. It negative was a unreliable engine and more expensive to manufacturer. The engine problem was solved during its service life. Hence the reason Ukraine uses them to this day.
Tank from year 1972 being destroyed by missiles from 2020 seems quite reasonable to me.
💯
The Javelin entered service in the 1980s.
@@ChucksSEADnDEAD
But most of the warheads their using are pretty modern redesigns to face modern Russian assets like T-90MS, much as I love T72s, their out of date & opening them like a can of tuna.
@@tristanbackup2536 Uh, okay? They still work the same, they fly up, come down, explode on top. It's impossible to armor the top of the tank against a large tandem warhead so it doesn't matter if the current warhead can penetrate 15% more than older ones could.
And T-72s have been upgraded too, the T-72B3M standard or whatever is from 2016.
Also, first in first out. The old stock gets sent first. So Ukrainians are probably firing Javs from the 1990s and 2000s while the US keeps the modern ones in their own inventory.
The Leopard 2 is technically from 1978
The Leopard 2 was also designed to be used by a conscript army.
Conscript armies can very well execute sophisticated tactics and manouvres, its just a matter of training.
Competent leadership helps too. Much of the Russian military is run by massively corrupt people who got there through loyalty to the guy in charge rather than any real sense of skill. Just like most of their economy is run by (literally) the mafia, having taken over during the power vacuum when the Soviet Union collapsed and all of those things once run by the state no longer had a state to run them. This is where all of the oligarchs came from.
I too was Infantry. A long time ago now. Even then, we knew that the T-72 wasn't as tough of a tank as it looked. This was back in the day of the DRAGON II and when the AT-4 was new. It's mobility was good and their doctrine of use in numbers made it a bigger threat... Individually they were vulnerable.
The T-72 like most soviet tanks, has the major flaw of not valuing the most important asset in the tank, its crew. Good tank crews are more important for armored combat than good tanks. by allowing the ammo to be exposed in the crew compartment, they accept the loss of the entire crew for any penetration. As Russia continues to lose tanks in Ukraine, even if they replace the tanks, they won't be able to replace the crews. NATO tanks like the M1 are designed to keep crews alive even when damaged, which means crews can learn from mistakes, and be confident in advancing in combat, knowing they won't all be killed if they are hit once in the side.
"In Soviet Union, labor cheap and capital expensive." - Stalin
@@lashlarue7924 fine for 50s/60s
not applicable in 70s/ 80s
just stupid in this century.
The Soviet Union not caring about human lives, I'm absolutely, shocked, shocked, I tell you.
@@paullakowski2509 with a declining birth rate, russia should not try human wave tactics anymore
They did solve many of these issues in the T90 which is just a modified T72
In the beginning of 2022 I had a talk with Russian veterans, they have served in the 70s and 80s and in different military districts: some were from ГСВГ- Группа Советских Войск в Германии (forces stationed in the East Germany), some were from Black sea fleet (Odessa city one of them said), one of them served in Afghanistan. They were from various branches: one tanker (mechanic-driver of T-62), several infantrymen, RPG team member, and so on
I was mainly asking about their stories and so on. In the end, I asked what do they think about current army's state, and they all replied "shit".
One of them said: "the army died with the state, what they have now is a fucking shadow of what it once was".
Also it is very interesting to note that all what they mentioned as especially shitty turned out to be true.
They mentioned: training, vehicles, food (supplies), medical teams, connection between groups, absence of sights, and so on.
I wander what happened to them.
It's a tragedy that brother countries are fighting.
Russia was created by Ivan the Terrible=Grand Prince of Moscow=promoted as a kid by his guardians/Moscow nobles to the rank of Tsar of all Ruthenia=>fake it until you make it...
Ivan was so amazing as an adult that people started to run awey from his part of Ruthenia, and that was the only logical option for both the nobles and the pesants.
The whole idea about Russia was always to enslave and exploit everyone for profit of few in Kremlin...
Soviet army was an army of helpless slaves in the Soviet era and nowdays it is army of people that have no idea how freedom looks like and mother nature hates vacume, the new owner came and they are not ready to do anything to stop him...
Russia was not attacked, the Russian army is not the problem for Russia... complete lack of interest in using all that land end resources to actualy build something is the problem, they prefer to invade Ukraine to steal the land and resources and Russia is the biggest country in the world and have all the resources she needs to be successful... but you need man wiling to work for it and instead they have gready and brutal owners in Kremlin and not many in Russia see it as a problem!
The sights should be new on 3M and 2M versions of T72's.
I wonder what he meant by this.
@@maxmagnus777 probably the fact that the typical Russian infantryman has no optic on his weapon.
Ukraine is not consider themselves in any way comrades to the Russians. Historically, the Russians abused and starved the Ukranians and have bullied them through covert operations like setting up puppet governments and inserting Russia friendly leaders in areas they want to exploit for resources.
Modern day Ukraine has its own culture and values and is far and away superior to Russia, which is still clinging to its Soviet past.
Ask a Ukranian who they consider themselves similar to and they'll tell you that they're Eastern European, NOT Russian. Even their language is more similar to Polish than Russian.
@@Bigweave74 calling Ukraine and Russia brother nations would be like calling India and Pakistan brother nations
Brother! Your content continues to improve, great stuff. Ive gone from occasionally watching your channel, to now having you in my permanent rotation and impatiently waiting for new vids on top of that.
That price difference really explains why Russia has the largest quantity of tanks in the world by a wide margin. They went for numbers and every other consideration was secondary.
One big advantage is that it's mobile though, if it had proper infantry support and was used carefully to minimise it's weaknesses it would do better, along with logistics issues that prevent the supply trucks from moving across country to keep up with the tanks, they're reduced to trundling slowly along road routes into ATGM ambushes, rather than their original intent to strike deep and quick and encircle.
"Quantity has a quality of its own" - Joseph Stalin.
I feel the tank has abilities that the army is not capable of useing. It is mobile and can be used to surround and cut of enemy forces. If it was supported by mobile infanry and supplies. But those last two things do not seem to exist.
@@TalesOfWar not always work.
If it was Ukraine who has a thousand T-72 tanks, it will be praised and Kiev's army will be called a very very very powerful army.. but since its Russia , then its sh!t
@@TsarOfRuss They honestly might at the rate Russia is abandoned them.
The T64 was ridiculously good for its time, and expensive, so good infact that whilst the Soviet Union was exporting thousands of tanks to every despot and third world dictator with roubles they NEVER exported the T64. The 72 was to make up the numbers (i.e. lots of numbers), cheaper and more easily available. One of the reasons I think the T72 has done so badly is a mixture of poor training/tactics and also the simple reason that those tactics are soviet - are known and also that it simply IS the T72 - it is what all the NLAWs and Javelins were specifically designed to take out. Simply time has moved on and the T72 is pretty much (albiet with some upgrades) stayed the same. You're absolutely correct that a lack of communciations, conscripts/lack of training and corruption will also have played into it all falling apart. To be fair too put an M60 up against a T64 or even a T72 and it's not looking so bad...
Also to be fair, modern M1 Abrahams get wrecked by the Huti with Milan as well so I don´t think more modern tanks would fair any better with this kind of tactics etc.
That is true. Even though people shit on the T-72 especially during the Gulf War, it was one of the most advanced vehicles available to import at the time. A T-72 would be able to take on most common tanks at the time, the M60, M48, Centrurion, T-55/54, T-62. The T-72 performed so poorly due to the fact that it was an export variant with obsolete(for European standards) steel ammo, going up against the US who had been gearing up to take on the Soviets for nearly a half century.
@@sierraecho884 And against the anti-tank weapons used in the Ukraine especially. The top turret armor, as well as the driver's upper hull armor on the Abrams is quite thin, it definitely can't protect the crew against the NLAW or the Javelin. And I know active protection systems are thing now, but the Soviets / Russians knew about the western top-attack missiles for decades and because the turrets of their tanks are tiny, it wouldn't make their tanks (namely the T-90 and the T-80U) much heavier if they gave them some proper thick turret top composite + ERA to defeat those missiles. Would probably land them below 55 tons which their chassis could still take with modifications whereas the western tanks, with their roomy turret interiors, would balloon up to ridiculous numbers if they were uparmored like that.
Firstly we gotta keep in mind, T-72 was designed with mass tank armies in mind. Soviet union had 40k tanks and they were pretty much capable of manning 80-90% of them back then. You don't really need much tactics with 30-35k tanks crossing the iron curtain.
Secondly when coalition forces invaded iraq in 1990, they had so many tanks. US alone had 2000 tanks(operational ones mind you, 1000 were in reserve). Think about that for a second and now compare that to the measely 1200 tanks that russia committed to ukraine (and lost half of those).
Abrams were used in concentrated force, 30 years ago without all these fancy anti tank technology. T-72s in half the size against a country much better equipped and widely dispersed isn't gonna do shit.
Back to the point 1, T-72s were designed to be used in mass numbers. They are simply out of their design principle to be used this way.
@@JAnx01 this
To be fair, there are upgrades of the T-72 with a new turret design where ammo stowage is in an exterior bustle but I think they just grossly underestimated the opposition the Ukrainians could muster. I mean, Turkish Leopards got hit pretty hard in Syria, and one would expect Russia to have learned something about the price of poor training and tactics.
No, they forget and relearn everything after every war.
#Task&Purpose @Task & Purpose Kudos for a no hype, no BS evaluation and short history of the T72. I really enjoyed your presentation style. Thank you very much! Oh... and I subscribed.
Dear Task & Purpose, I really like your videos and articles you post on your website. Keep up the great work!
This video kind of explains it from a Western perspective, where there's a main battle tank, and when you get a better tank, you end up slowly replacing the previous one. This explanation doesn't work for the Russian tanks. The Russians did it differently, they had two "main" battle tanks. So, it's more like they had a primary and secondary battle tank, instead of a "main". One was expensive, while the other one was cheap.
The T62 and T72 were the cheap tanks. They used them for infantry support, reserve units and export. Upgrades for these tanks came last. They basically used them to inflate the numbers for areas where you don't need the best.
The T64 and T80 were the expensive tanks. They used them for dedicated tank units. They had better everything and received upgrades first. When these tanks came out, they were the most high tech tanks for their times. They were stationed at the Western "front line".
These days, it's hard to figure out what the hell Russia's idea is for the "main" battle tank. They got T72s that are really old and T72s upgraded with some modern things. They got various old T80s models. They got various T90s models. They got the T14. So, it's a mess. Maybe they are still using the primary and secondary battle tank doctrine, but I'm not sure. This might simply be the result of lack of funds to replace old models.
Well, it's just Russia in a nutshell.
They have never been famous for very bright minds and strong logic. Their "tactic" is simply to try to overwhelm the enemy with more units than enemy has. If it doesn't work, they will try it again with a bigger wave. If it doesnt work again, they will do it until either they or the enemy will run out of troops/tanks/whatever.
Check out the situation in Ukraine. That's your "second best army in the world".
@@josedorsaith5261 I've lived my entire life in the country next to Russia and with a lot of russian people in the society. They will even fight on the street in the same way. If you're walking alone in the night, just one gopnik will never mess with you. If theres 2 or 3 of them, well, better hit them first or just run. Its the russian orc's mindset. They're very primitive creatures in general.
All that tank money went to building superyachts. Whatever is left was spent on piecemeal upgrades and half of that equipment is probably stolen by now.
I suspect the PRIMARY issue is the lack of funds. The oligarchs wanted to live fancy lives AWAY FROM RUSSIA, and the generals just want as much money as they can to make their miserable existence a bit more comfortable, so here we are.
The T-90 is a consistent development of the T-72, with the inheritance of the body from it, therefore, in terms of price and production technology, it is just a new modification of the T-72
You spend 500k on a tank, you get 500k problems. Soviet-era equipment was considered to be disposable, as are their soldiers. You make a lot of tanks you don't really intend to have to do much maintainance on, 'cause their crews are likely to be dead even if they knew how to maintain them in the first place. Conscripts are cannon fodder, so they made a cannon fodder tank. Tank gets penetrated, the crew likely dies. Next cheap tank up, comrades!
Absolutely
Not really since at the time of the release of this tank the t72 was the best tank on the planet
@@cassu6 The T-64 was better lol
@@redReiRei are kidding me the t 64 is probably one of the worst tanks ever built. You should read more about that tank please. I would strongly argue that the m60 was way better than the Soviet t 64
@@dihell2144 The T64 has insane amounts of room for modernization, and it wasn't your transmission that caused you problems, it was your road wheel surface area and insane front heaviness mixed with very stiff suspension. The T72 and T80 had the same exact suspension (T80 had a slightly different final drive) and never had the issues of the T64, the only reason why it did have so many is because of its emphasis on small sizes. The engine can easily be upgraded to the 6TDF, as there is still LOTS of space in the engine compartment to do so.
from someone who is in Ukraine right now, I can tell you that it is a combination of things: human error, terrain, refueling logistics, anti-tank weapons ... and, of course, the Ukrainian soldier
Which is why Ukraine has lost 90%+ of its own AFVs and is getting old crap from Australia and Poland. LOL.
@@margaret9314 you must be pro-Russian 😂
stay safe @A Kushnir.
@@ws2940 thank you, will do 🇺🇦🇺🇸
@@DmitriyKushnirTV You must be pro-MAP.
If you can't argue the point and can only assert some nonsense about what I "am" then you've already lost the argument.
The T-72 was obsolete in 1991. Our Abrams rolled through them so fast the Iraqis thought it was aircraft.
There's a to yt vid of that I remember
@@NewmaticKe Actually Greatest Tank Battles! Love that show :) the battle of 73 Easting
Didnt the iraqis have the shite ones too?
A major problem is their doctrine and the Battalion Tactical Group. A fire heavy group with 1000 soldier seems great for flexibility and mobility, but it only has 200 infantry. That's enough for guarding a base, but wholly insufficient for combined arms. Once the infantry is combat ineffective, the tanks are on their own, and then that's the ball game.
It's obvious why Russia decided against urban combat, they would have ended up littering the city streets with tanks and BMPs.
The problem is, they were not expecting the order to invade, so they were on the peace time type of organisatiopn which implies much less infantry.
@@quik478 I made a error in that BTG has 600-800 men total, but still just 200 infantry. These numbers are for fully manned BTGs, NOT peacetime cadre-only strength.
And only 10 tanks & 40 APCS were attached to that BTG group.
We have 14 in a tank company and our mechanized units possess more firepower per unit because of that.
Russians maneuver to fire, not fire to maneuver. This is why the "BTG" has a whole battalion of artillery. It is more proper to say that the BTG is an artillery battalion augmented with infantry and tanks.
@@jimmbswu Yes, BTGs have in effect a battalion of fire support, ie two self-propelled, tracked, armored 152mm howitzer batteries and a 122mm Grad multiple rocket launcher battery. Plus two air defense batteries and an anti-tank battery.
But deficient in armor and infantry.
The strength of the T-72 is that it fits into Soviet doctrine perfectly. The weakness of the T-72 is that it's so specialised for that doctrine that it does poorly if you're _not_ using that doctrine, and what wins modern wars is _flexibility._ The Abrams was built to defend against attacking Soviet forces in the North European Plain; nobody expected they'd be launching an offensive in the desert against an entrenched enemy, but the men and the gear were flexible enough to do it. Nobody in Britain thought they'd be fighting a naval, air, and ground war eight thousand miles from home in the Falklands, but the men and the gear were flexible enough to do it. (Incidentally, in case anyone thinks I'm just ragging on the Soviets - the Royal Navy fell right into the same trap; the RN in the 80s was designed ONLY to fight as part of NATO in the north Atlantic, and was optimised for anti-sub warfare. Same problem).
The T-72 would've done fine in its designed role, but it was never used in its designed role, and it wasn't flexible enough to really excel in other roles.
The T-72 if used in mass would be very effective. An M-1 company could be overrun by a head on attack by a supported Russian armored regiment. The way the Russian tanks have been used in the Ukraine has been less than optimal.
Plus, the proved incapable of actually executing that doctrine.
@@jeffreybromfield2279 A simple change of doctrine. True combined arms. With the Tanks integrated with infantry who would dismount and engage against Manpads. That one change would have improved survivability and would have kept more Russian armor in the game in Ukraine.
Every time I've seen tank kills in Ukraine I've either seen no infantry at all, or the infantry dismounting and running away from the fools with manpads, letting the tanks take the hit. I've yet to see the Russian infantry properly engage to protect their tanks (even in propaganda released by Russia), and that for me is the most frustrating bit... But never correct your opposition when they are making a mistake.
@@garrickparsons9077 The Russians are probably suffering from a shortage of infantry. Clearing out entire cities back to back would require WW2 quantities of infantry. I don't know, NATO probably has the same problem (lack of enough infantry).
@@garrickparsons9077 m8 you've conflated MAN Portable Air Defense System (MANPADS) with Anti Tank Guided Missile (ATGM) but I do agree with your assessment.
With the current new designs of anti-tank smart missiles, drones, etc. I think the mass use of heavy tanks are going to become more obsolete in modern warfare. Not that they're going away, but with the technology of new modern smart smaller missiles and drones, they're changing modern ground warfare. Just my thought.
Only worse than T-72 is Javelins and NLAWs
@@so_zemlji ??? You must be a troll, or highly uneducated? Which is it? Can you elaborate more on your comment please?
It's bit like the use of heavy armour by soldiers and the development of gunpowder - until a new metallurgic or technological development occurs, tanks will be sidelined into specific offensive roles, as opposed to being the cornerstone of military tactics.
People used to laugh at Starship Troopers for not using tanks, but we may be getting to the point where tanks are reserved as more of the niche item as infantry carry extremely lethal man portable AT and AA missiles.
Need high tech tanks dedicated to active protection and electronic warfare to cover for platoons of more traditional tanks.
You’re good people man I like how hard you work to find the actual truth not just the one sided bs we are bombarded with daily.
From what I have learned the T72 stores the ammo in the turret with no regard if the ammo was ignited. So a survivable hit turns catastrophic when the ammo lights off. In the Abraham the ammo is stored is a separate compartment that has a blow out door so the ammo does very little damage to the tank.
That's the main bit, the russians put survivability about 2 or 3 items down on their list of priorities (in true soviet fashion). The ammo being directly under the turret insures that any hit results in a very high likelyhood of sending that turret into space. And that's the reason blow-out panels are such an essential component to the Abrams high survivability. Ammo and crew are only ever in direct contact when the gun is being loaded.
They were designed, when the most common threat to a tank was a projectile or a missile heading almost horizontally towards your tank (ok, ballistic has to be mentioned). The turret and chassis are well enough armored and comes with a low silhouette, to deal with these threats. Even artillery wasn't that precise back then, to specifically hit a turret roof. Only (very) lucky hits could have been a problem for them.
Then more advanced technologies were developed and army doctrines were adjusted. Now the turret roof is a weak spot, that can successfully be exploided.
It needs a new turret and maybe additional counter measures, but more importantly, a new military doctrine on how to use these tanks.
@@dnocturn84 new turret wouldnt be enough with tandem warheads ect ect they can penetrate thicker steel then you could reasonably put on a tank so what you would need is active protection systems
@@n3v3rforgott3n9 Yes, agreed. That's why I've said "maybe additional counter measures".
Only spare ammo is stored in the turret. Anyone who says the main ammo is stored there is wrong and has never seen a t72 autoloader. Its in the base of the hull with a armoured cover. If the russians removed the spare ammo from the turret the tanks would suffer far less ammo related issues. Even the russians did a survey on this and came to the same result. The autoloaders fine.
As a TOW gunner in the 1970’s we believed in the ‘ten foot tall Russian’ syndrome. We thought the Russian T-72 and BMP were the most advanced and high tech war winners compared to our M-60’s and M-113’s. When information slowly came out, the auto loader was called an “arm eater”, we began to wonder. Still the T-72 had a lower profile, after and with a bigger gun than the Patton.
Cappy, great video. Other flaws that I see with their tactics, is failure to embrace air/land battle doctrine. Think about it, the Battalion Tactical Group is like mini brigade. Yet their tactics are sluggish and at best uncoordinated. You have 10 tanks and 8 cannons, not mention Infantry and engineers. Yet their Field artillery sets up like it is in WWII still. Armor tactics are less than stellar as no one has the mentality to get out of a kill zone once the trap is sprung. The lack of a good NCO Corp to push their soldier further hampers their overall effectiveness IMHO.
Lack of trained NCOs and lack of infantry leave armor open to small anti tank squads
Russians have always sought to create an illusion in the West about the poor training of Russian soldiers and bad Russian military equipment and bad Russian command of armies.. At one time, Napoleon, Hitler, and today NATO fell for this fishing hook
T-64 was developed in my native town, so I can't stand that this is a bad tank :-)
It was designed from scratch, in order to be very small. All it issues were due to this task, it was very complex and very innovative. It is the first tank with a combined armor, the biggest gun so far, and pretty advanced electronics (for 1963). It isn't so bad, but T-72 is the next tank after T-64.- There are almost 10 years difference between both :-)
I'd better shut up :-)
The t72 was a cheaper T64
@@iplaygames8090 That was a whole reason to create it, yeah. But it is 10 years yanger and made under different concept as mobilizationn tank - cheap, simple (relativly, ofcourse) and mass produced.
@@user-np4gi1pq6o that an argument but to be honest UVZ can’t produce engine as Kharkiv factory can. Kharkiv even try to teach them, by the way, UVZ decided to change a lot. It’s not only cheaper, first version of t-72 is much worse than first t-64 even with 10 years of difference
@@jackjones7275 That one I like! I'm not sure Malysheva's plant can produce engines either, but HTZ defenetly can. Same letters - different alfabet
да уж... лучше молчать, чем писать такие аргументы... Если уж есть что написать, так и напиши, что не согласен, потому, что...
Thanks for the video!
Before watching, the Russian T-72's main problem is that they are utilized wrongly the second problem is that they have been poorly maintained for years, and thirdly that most have not been upgraded to an acceptable level.
They're also operated in the context of the BTG, which has only 200 infantry -- not nearly enough to shield the armored vehicles from modern weapons.
They are beyond upgradeable, the tank is like the US M48, fine for 3rd world skirmishes, but take it into a modern battle field and you're sitting in your own coffin waiting to get cremated alive. This problem has been well known since Gulf War I when US M1A1's were popping the tops off Iraqi T-72's, even US Bradley's were doing the same thing to them with wire guided TOW missiles
Manely its old
The fourth problem is corruption in russian. Most of russian command had never believed in full scale conflict before the war so they were stealing money given on modernization.
One problem is ammo storage, in all Soviet Era tanks cooks off. Western tank have a separate compartment with blast doors, and blow out panel. These features contain any ammo cook off out of the crew compartment, when closed. Saves the tank from additional damage.
The T-72, like its predecessors the T-54/55 and T-62, were designed around a Soviet Blitzkrieg, thundering out of the Fulda Gap and/or across the Northern German plain, to zerg rush NATO (mostly combined US Army and West Germans, with some armor with the British Army of the Rhine around Hamburg) and reach the Rhine, overrunning critical NATO bases before they could be reinforced from the UK, USA, and western nations of NATO (REFORGER). This actually reflected pre-WWII ideas called "Deep Operations Battle", and just as even with the primitive "BT" tanks of the 1930s, so the Soviet Army was built around a fast-moving offensive to overwhelm the enemy before he could regroup and counterattack.
Therefore, quantity, rather than "quality", or at least, heavy tank hitting power and/or protection, was sacrificed, SOMEWHAT, for SPEED. Yes, advancing Soviet Tank "Guards" divisions would suffer terrible losses from US and West German tanks, but their numerical superiority would carry the day, much as they had against the Germans in the "Great Patriotic War", what they term World War Two. But it wasn't just tanks that would be involved; the Soviets were well aware of the "combined arms" concept, and planned to send infantry in the BMPs and, their new attack helicopters, especially the lethal Mi-24 "Hind" when it first came out.
I'd say that the big problem for the Russians is that they never really got to fight the war that their T-64s, T-72s, T-80s, and T-90s were designed for. In particular, the T-72, being essentially a cheapened version of their much-more capable T-64, which was found to be a "clanking science fair" and utterly terrible, was intended for their second-rate tank units and the tank battalions that were part of their "motor-rifle" divisions. The really "third rate" stuff was meant for the older reservists and the non-Russian "ethnics" which the Soviet leadership, being mostly Russian anyway, never really trusted, so this is where you'd find the T-54/55 and T-62s. A great deal of the equipment was simply left to sit in various depots, as they couldn't afford to keep them all running! About half the Soviet Army's older tanks were effectively junk, being mainly a source of spares for what still ran. There were also the same problems, mainly with the T-72s, just not quite as bad.
Still, it's hard to say if the reasons for the lack of success in the current war against Ukraine are due to defective or out-dated equipment, poor leadership, poor motivation, poor training, and, most likely, poor LOGISTICS. I'd say it's a combination, in varying degrees and mixtures, of ALL of them. Keep in mind that the Ukrainian Army has much the same equipment and problems themselves, save for the motivation! So is the T-72 really that bad a tank? No, I'd say it's suitable for what it was ORIGINALLY designed to do, but the mission has changed, and so has what would be considered acceptable losses. Tanks, and that goes for ANYTHING in the NATO inventory, our vaunted M1 Abrams series, the German Leopard 2, the UK Challenger II, name 'em, are effective when PROPERLY employed, but none of them are absolutely invulnerable. We got spoiled in two wars against Iraq by piss-poor use of a "monkey model" version of this same T-72, let alone Chinese-made knock-offs of the older T-55 (T-59). Of course the US Army's armored regiments absolutely massacred the Iraquis, included their vaunted "Republican Guard", especially at the Battle of 73 Easting. In retrospect, it was destined to be nothing other than a curb-stomp, but it doesn't mean that if we'd been going up against the best the then-Soviet Army had to offer that the outcome would have been the same. I suspect we'd have prevailed, but the cost in equipment and men would have been a LOT higher.
Fulda gap was a myth
I cannot but agree: any tank can be blown out of the field Tanks should be supported by infantry and air support (and more modern defence systems). A lone tank, or a tank in a long straight line of tanks on a road, is a sitting coffin.
The Ukrainians use T-72's too, but have lower losses, because they use them more intelligently, better tactics.
And indeed, not just Russian tactics, but Russian logistics were dismal, and that is the most important thing. I think this is because they thought they would overrun the Ukrainians in days. They didn't organise proper logistics for more than a few days, for a more protracted war.
The Russians did the right thing (militarily speaking) to retreat from the north and concentrate on more limited objectives and better logistics. At present (in the east) their supply lines are much shorter. And the terrain appears to be more tank-friendly.
Still I think modern anti- tank weapons the Ukrainians have at their disposal will make it an uphill battle for the Russians to make significant gains. I think (and hope) that the Russian Southern and Eastern offensives will run out of steam in 3-4 weeks. Improving their logistics and tactics from absolutely dismal does not make them good.
@@nicolaasstempels8207 Armored offensives against any opponent with decent anti-tank capability tend to be very costly. On the defense, a tank can keep its most heavily armored front facing the enemy. In attack, its vulnerable parts will be exposed to enemy fire. That's not changed in the past century, and won't in the next one.
The Russians have obviously forgotten the cruel lessons of logistics that both their immediate predecessor, the Soviet Army, had to learn in WWII, both for themselves and what their popponent, the Heer, had to learn. Barbarossa unmasked the logistical weaknesses of the German military, due both to the vast distances involved, the primitive condition of the Soviet Union's "roads" (many nothing more than cart trails), and the Russian rail gage, which, for German rail stock to use, had to be changed over, piece by piece. The Heer had to press captured British and French trucks into service; with obvious issues of parts and maintenance, and requisitioned as much as could be had from the civilian sector, and that still wasn't enough! There wasn't enough fuel to run them all anyway, and the nightmarish roads wore these vehicles out. As Germany would later find out in April of '45, the ENEMY could make use of an excellent road network, too, as the US Army rolled almost all the way to Berlin on the newly-built Autobahn! So much that it inspired "Ike" to push for construction of the US Interstate Highway System in 1956. In December of '41, the German soldiers on the "Ostfront" were freezing and hungry, not in small part because, although there were winter clothing and foodstuffs available, the hell of it was getting them to the front lines! Later in the war, Soviet offensives likewise petered out or they got slammed by German counter-attacks, typically because they'd outrun their supply lines! By 1944, however, this was largely alleviated by a huge "secret weapon"...the American-built, sent by Lend-Lease, Studebaker truck! Most of the success of "Bagaration", and that, although that too was blunted by timely German counter-attacks in Poland that saved them from utter collapse at the time, was the ability to move supplies on those trucks, or transport soldiers, and not wear them out with long marches. Of course, the "Studie" was employed as a rocket launcher, and the ability to "shoot and scoot" with their BM-21 "Katyusha" rocket batteries enabled the Soviets to unleash hell on German positions. But even though Soviet logistics did improve a lot, while Germany's more or less broke down, due mostly to lack of fuel, it still had "glitches", as the August 1945 Manchurian Strategic Offensive against the Japanese revealed. Although the Kwantung Army did resist, bitterly, it was a shadow of its former self, as the lopsided casualty figures of that conflict show. Still, the biggest trouble for the Soviets, especially bringing the Transbaikal Front across the frontier in Mongolia, was logistics, with columns of T-34/85 tanks often stalled, waiting for the fuel trucks to arrive! Sound familiar?
Not unlike the overconfidence of the Germans in 1941, so it appears that the Russians were likewise not expecting the Ukrainians to put up the fight they did, and also they were way overconfident in their capabilities.
"Primitive BT tanks" this is laughable, which is why I'm going to stop typing on it and laugh.
@@TheArcticFoxxo By modern standards, they ARE. They were fine in the 1930s when conceived, but were rendered obsolete by even the T-34, let alone subsequent Soviet armor. Of course, look at some of the early German panzers, and they sort of belie why they even went to the "Big Cats" later in the war, and had truly monstrous designs on the drawing board. Let alone the original British Infantry Tank, the Mark I Matilda...named after a cartoon DUCK, that should give an idea of how 'fearsome" it was.
But you have to credit ol' Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky for what he intended to USE those "primitive" BT tanks for...namely, an attack upon Europe, with their capability to switch between tracks and wheels (turned out to be mechanically questionable), so they could use their speed capability on excellent paved roads in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and GERMANY to full advantage. KGB defector Vladmir Rezun, self-styled as "Viktor Suvorov", points this out how the Soviets were actually planning an attack of their own in 1941 when the Germans struck, with things like the BT tanks suited for it. The Soviet Army, with its own reorganization in wake of the disastrous Winter War against Finland, was simply caught woefully unprepared. As for the Marshal himself, another victim of the 1937 purges, as Stalin interpreted his conduct of tank maneuvers in the Moscow Military District as a cover for a coup, and had him arrested, tried, and shot.
@Task & Purpose Just want to point out that the price of T72 starts at $500k (which is the most basic of basic versions made back in 1974) - there are many versions of T72 - like T72A/B/B3/M/BU etc... The most modern version can cost even $4 mil.
Hey man, I love your videos. You should talk about the progress of the conflict more. You do a really good job and if you get stuff wrong then just correct yourself in the next video. But you should definitely keep talking about it.
Cappy some errors:
1) Primary issue with the T-72B3 (which is the most common variant) is the lack of good optics and good comms. 500.000 USD price tag means they ain't gonna have the best.
2) Soviet "Fulda Gap love session" Tactics involved tactical nukes. Full stop. This means the numbers game is meant to be like "you murdered half of us with a davy crocket but we're still 1.5x your number. Before you took the nuke to the face too.". The manual you cite is out of date, I think it even came out before the wall fell.
3) T-72 is based on the T-64. But made to actually work and be affordable. The T-62 was a stopgap measure made to hold over the USSR until the T-64 came out in sufficient, and reliable enough, numbers. Morozov was actually the man behind the T-64 and he considered the T-72 a cheap knockoff. The T-72 is the design that won, from UVZ, the competition that was held for something that actually worked rather than the T-64 which, mind you, until the T-64A still had the 115mm.
4) Fun fact: The T-72 was never given to Romania because we were too western friendly. The T-125 is a reverse engineered and improved T-72, if I remember right, Ural. Shame it never went into mass production... we wouldn't have the most notorious deathtraps in NATO rn if we made at least 200 of the 125s.
5) Svinets would go straight through the side of the hull on the M1A2 Sepv3 Cappy. The Abrams is a well armored tank but it's not got more than 100mm effective on the side of the hull. Heck even old Mango rounds could go through which is why in Desert Storm US armor never engaged in any action where they risked taking hits from the flanks.
6) A complete redesign of the T-72 was needed? Yeah, it's called the T-90. Which is basically a T-72, vastly improved in many ways, with a fair amount of tech from the T-80.
You should check out the T-90AM for an idea what they're doing in terms of improving their tank force but... well the T-90AM was ordered, first, like a few years back and most of the units with those tanks are being held in reserve in case NATO goes Leeroy Jenkins.
Ha, Soviets hated Romanians. Regarding the T-72, it's trash, period, and even T-90's are mediocre. The gap between NATO and Russia widened because, well, in 1982-1985, US citizens had 10mil+ Mac's while the Soviet Union had ~200.000 computers( 1992).
I simply don't believe Russia is holding the T90s back for NATO - there have been T90s knocked out in Ukraine in apparently higher numbers than reprsented in the inventory (although that may simply reflect that the newer stuff is newer and therefore less likely to be broken...
@@leme5639
"Regarding the T-72, it's trash, period, and even T-90's are mediocre."
The T-72 had no rival in the western arsenals when it was released. The Iran/Iraq war showed how brutal a tank it was when it wasn't being fielded against more competent foes.
The T-90 is based on the same tech as the T-80BV which was, fun fact for you I imagine, impenetrable to the M1A1 (120mm armed) Abrams until the first iteration of anti-ERA APFSDS. It was an o shit moment for the US which they learned from.quite quickly actually.
@@tomriley5790 T-90As and T-90s were fielded in Ukraine but no T-90AMs. They're very distinctive from the As and first T-90s. By a fair margin.
And I'd take Ukrainian combat claims with about as much salt as unsubstantiated Russian ones. Russians are actually releasing documentation now for their claims (be it pictures or actual paperwork captured from killed or captured POWs).
thanks for sending that information ! there's a lot of great counter arguments against what I've said here I dont doubt that for a second. While the manual might be out of date I think it's a good reflection of the strategy currently being used by the Russian army to this day. I could be wrong though I definitely grant that. The When I said a complete redesign I meant like the T-14 not like the T-90 which as you say its a vastly improved T-72.
I could see where I might have been a little too negative in this video but we don't get to have great conversations like this in the comments section if I don't take a stab a trying to explain things haha
Thanks for the feedback it's greatly appreciated and I'll consider this info next time I do a Russian tank video !
One of the things that is not talked about much is the weather. It was warmer than expected. This thawed the mud so the tanks could not drive cross country. This meant the Ukrainians could and did set up ambushes on the roads. This hurt the Russians a lot.
it's a bit of a bad look for a tank not to be able to negotiate mud tbh.
Even construction diggers can bog down. Do tanks levitate m3ph?
Funny. This weather deal sounds a lot like the problem Hitler's Panzers had in Ukraine and Russia. Didn't Vlad study history?
@@M3PH11 it's not just any mud. It's one of the most fertile and turns to silt
stop talking bullshit. tanks moving on the roads.
During the cold war, the West had superior heavy tanks. Bridges in the Eastern block were designed to withstand 45t and the Soviet tanks after WWII always weighted around 40t. This doesnt play a role in the Ukrainian war, but every bridge (except for the main ones) in the former Eastern block is a death trap for Western heavy tanks but Soviet ones could easily pass through everywhere. Not that it plays a role anywhere now, as after the fall of Soviet Union everyone is building bridges more sturdier, but Russians still did not catch up and still dont have a tank with heavy armor.
I remember hearing or reading about this somewhere. They are light weight to cross their bridges.
Tell that to the Iranians in their British made chieftains coming up against the Iraqi T72s.
Speaking too a Latvian when i was working in Latvia pointed the same thing out too me about their cities. He made a point how all their soviet era buildings have thick walls, small windows that could double up as perfect sniper and machine gun positions, and that the reason why soviet city roads are wide is because you can get large tanks down those roads and they can double up as landing strips for aircraft. The idea was let nato forces role into the cities practically unchallenged then once their in encircle the entire city using a pincer movement and then decimate nato forces using entrapment. Cut off from outside they would quickly suffer with lack of ammunition, food and basics to keep a army going. basically Stalingrad all over again. Only what i was told so dont quote me on that, but make sense from a military point of view.
Hello, I want to say that you are mistaken in your judgments. Alas, the modern realities of combat, they say that heavy armor is a big problem in passing rough terrain. Heavy armor has large dimensions, it is impossible to infinitely increase the thickness of the armor, and therefore the way out is to use dynamic and active protection systems, since the main striking means for the tank are portable and manual complexes with a cumulative component.
There is no such thing as a "heavy tank" in the cold war
Well done, smooth & informative.
The T72 is on paper a very good tank. It has a number of flaws though. These flaws are actually similar to that of the flaws seen in the T34 the ability to see and engage the enemy fast. The T72 is fast has a good gun and adequate armour. just like The T34. However its cramped and provides the crew little room to move. It has no hunter killer capability (this is were the commander can individually identify and mark targets for the gunner) and it has no real way of sharing targeting information with other tanks.
The fact they made it simple is actually a detriment to the tank as the crew need to be of a higher skill level to get the most from the tank. Crews need to actively and continously share data using out dated radios that have poor encryption. commanders need to be exceptionally skilled to identify targets and properly relay that information to the gunner and the gunner needs to be skilled enough to effectively place rounds on target while the driver works with outdated manual controls.
compared with a NATO tank that has advanced communications and datasharing capabilities coupled with fast intuitive targeting systems with commander independent targeting(allowing the commander to que multiple targets for the turret to automatically swing to). All driven by a complex but intuitive automatic gearbox that uses digital control imputs from the driver to maintain a relatively smooth ride.
Even against infantry the ability to identify and react to targets its the first and most effective defence for a tank.
Yup but in a war...more complex of machine will lose out to a simple machine. Trust me thousand an one thing can go wrong in modern machine.
It's also possible the Soviets designed their tanks with less sophisticated electronics to better survive an EMP.
@@truthful3777 Not when you have the logistics to keep the sophisticated machines running, which most NATO countries have, Logistics have a very, very high priority in many of these countries doctrine
Look at the 2nd Gulf War and its corresponding war reports. The Abrams, Bradley, Challanger etc were doing more than just fine
Now look at the first weeks of the Ukrainian war. Russia suffered massive losses, mostly due to their terrible logistical solutions and guess what, it didn’t matter how „simple“ and numerous their units were
If anything, it messes more with your fighting capability when you have to deal with a massive amount of „barely running“ equipment
Very well put. I think you got the main weaknesses down here.
Except the T-34 armor was almost worth nothing due to trash metallurgy and welding and it wasn't even fast due to nobody being able to shift up the gears to reach the top-speeds lol.
T-72 at least has the basic things work somewhat as advertised.
Back in WWII, the Soviets deliberately made tanks that were cheap, easy to replace, and got the job done so they could mass produce them. Crew safety and ergonomics sucked and reliability was terrible, but the tanks weren't calculated to last that long, so they made them cheaply in order to drive costs through the floor and simply win through attrition. It was cold-blooded and heartless, like much of Soviet doctrine, but it also worked. Not saying it was right or that there weren't other ways of doing it, just that it worked. The philosophy still remains in some fashion.
I agree, but I’m sure you’ll agree that kind of hardware is MUCH less useful in a war of aggression and conquest in urban conditions
Everything is a compromise.
America did the exact same thing in world war ii, with the Sherman tank.
50,000 of them were built.
A lot of crews died because of how poorly they were built.
but that doesn't change the fact that if they had built a great tank, they may have only been able to build say 10,000.
And the number of infantry that would have died from having 40,000 less tanks helping, massively outnumbers the extra tank crews that died because of the weaker tanks.
@@SonofKiernan hmm, but they did get deep into german land and obv they fought in urban
During ww2, they did not design tanks to be cheap. In fact, the t34, if built to specifications, would be as expensive as a m4 Sherman, except the sherman had better reliability, repairability and crew comfort. What happened was that t34s and other tanks were built not to specifications, but with shortcuts. Engines would break down extremely fast, seats were not included sometimes, things like tracks would fall off for no reason. During ww2 the soviets were building normal cost tanks cheaply, not that they designed them that way.
@@lordgarion514 The sherman has one of the lowest crew death ratio of any tank in ww2. The Americans had built a good tank. It would have been impossible to ship heavy tanks like the tiger 2 or panther halfway across the world, and compared to the panzer 4 the sherman was very favorable. Most of tank combat is not agaisnt tanks, but agaisnt anti tank guns and infantry. Indeed the largest cause of death for tanks on all fronts is simply towed antitank guns, mines and infantry carried at projectiles. Something the sherman was well equipped as a tank to deal with.
I was under the impression that the T-64 was not widely used due to it's engine performance in high altitude but the T-72 however was the tank that had issues with transmission and drive shafts which is why neither were used in Afghanistan
Tanks are supposed to be infantry support vehicles. It is infantrys job to scout targets and cover the tank flanks. In the absence of infantry, like what we saw with Russia, the tanks don't stand a chance.
I've always wondered why the Soviets went the road of the auto-loader. It's not like they had a lack of soldiers.
😆
I may be wrong but wasnt it because of the tank can be smaller and lower? You don't have to have one more guy in the tank.
autoloader = smaller turret = smaller target for rushing into the plains of western germany. US and NATO also have their own autoloader designs, but not in their main battle tanks.
They can hardly train 3 crew members, now you're asking them to train four? Plus Russia really doesn't have a large population anymore, on top of a massive Brain drain over the last 30 years, unknown scores of Russians migrated out of country and those left behind outside of being habitual drunks, don't produce many offspring.
@@rostokk2706 There are some NATO MBTs with autoloaders, just not the carrousel version like the Soviet/Russian ones.
The T72 was meant to be a cheaper version of the T64 wich had problems with with reliability and being expensive. The T62 had nothing to do with the development of the T72. It was as a reaction to the british Chieftain and the american M60 wich had greatly improved armor so as an interim solution the soviets basically put the 115mm smoothbore gun into what is basicall an enlarged T55. T72 only used some parts of T55 to make it cheaper than T64.
Also all current tanks have weak toparmor. T72 isnt unique in that way. And claiming that the T72 is not able to penetrate the side of M1 is absurd. The sides of MBTs are very thin compared to their frontal armor. Maybe within a 60 degree cone but not more than that.
A more significant factor that contributes to more losses is the fact that it is russian doctrine to fight with closed hatches wich western tanks only do when there is a direct threat from above like in urban areas. This means that you have to rely on optics to get a picture of the situation. No optic will ever allow you to get the same feel for what is going on compared to your own eyes.
USSR had several "competing" tank lines and manufacturing concerns, which the government supported. After the break up of the Soviet Union, certain lines were "reduced" due to impracticality and a move towards a universal chassis, which is still in progress.
Also don't forget that the t72 is a relatively cheap tank.
"WHAT WENT WRONG?" reads the splashscreen... Oh, that the the easy one - just one thing, and that is "EVERYTHING". No need to thank me... ;-)
Cappy, love this and the spare parts army generally. Related anti- tank question. Wht do u make of the Aerovinmont switchblade (in its various incarnations)? It seems like a great product, bt perhaps useful quantities r being held bk by components issues?
I was part of a joint task force with a German infantry platoon back in '96. We had taken shelter after a four hour firefight and one of the German privates said "T'anks" and I was like "Oh hey, don't mention it". He said "No, t'anks!" and I said "I know, you're welcome" to which he said "No! T'anks!!" and I got upset at him and was like "You're fucking welcome!!". So then he grabs my helmet, turns my head and I see enemy tanks coming out of a farmer's field towards us and I was like "Ohhhh, tanks".
I felt like such an asshole.
From the radio chatter I've heard of intercepted Russian military traffic, it looks like all their brigades were understrength. We are talking about brigades that are supposedly having around 500 soldiers but instead having less than 100 in reality. So on paper, they were supposed to be full strength, but in reality only a small fraction was sent to do what needed full strength units.
And that's a bad thing ?
How do you do that? Aren't there supposed to be headcounts?
from the looks of things, the invasion was a clusterfuck. Russians attacked without proper preparations- attacks started in February during the spring melt when mud would keep that vehicles road bound.
@@MrChickennugget360 they thought it was an easy win. Likely coasting on their reputation, not their skill.
@@mattpatasnik1195 Without enough NCOs, the commanding generals just tell the officers of the brigades, who are as green as the soldiers under them, to congregate at a staging area and then move forward.
I am absolutely in love with the exterior design of this tank (ERA included), but the complete lack of a human loader simply turns it into a rolling turret launcher.
The tank is only is as good as it's crew. The problem is poor tactics and battlefield doctrine. Tanks are not meant to be used in urban warfare. They were meant to be used in open country. Tanks are still relevant on the battle field how ever how they are implemented is everything. Just like any weapons platform on the battle field.
The amount of armored warfare scholars and experts showering us with their massive knowledge and sharing the many tank x vs. tank y encounters outcomes is just astonishing. How come folks still make bad decisions in design and application of tanks and other armored vehicles or self propelled guns?
Nice video again Cappy, good production value and weighted in considerations. Keep up the good work!
Money and politics
Because a lot of those generals, politicians and decision makers have no idea about tanks, while many people here grew up playing World of Tanks and other similar games, the average gamer probably knows more about tanks then Putin for example...
In the sixties when the tank was designed nobody would predict the AI driven targeting system of NLAWS. Also in the sixties they would be surprised that their designs would be in active war duty 70 years later.
Everything is a compromise.
Russian tanks explode and killed a cruise easier. But they require a third less crew, and they shoot faster. they're also quite a bit shorter making them a little easier to hide.
of course none of that matters when your troops aren't trained properly,and don't use proper tactics.....
Dunno, ask those trying to improve (and failing) on the Warrior IFV
Seems the T72 comes from the same design philosophy as the Slava class cruiser. Lotsa big badda boom if it's on the offensive. But if ya take a single hit, I believe the term is "kablooey".
it didn't think (edit: sink is the word) tho... it just submerged
A single hit from what? And where. The T-72B3 obr. 2016 is one of the better protected tanks in service right now.
"... 'Human Error' was my nick-name growing up. ..." (very funny, really cracked me up)
Impossible, I already thought it was crap.
The story of the T-72 has almost always been "Well it would have done better BUT."
If your piece of equipment is never good, but would surely be if things went differently, yea that is not a good piece of equipment.
The best equipment is largely effective and friendly to training and constant use.
It continues the time honored Russian tradition of expensive machines made cheaply. To the detriment of the users.
Tanks are great at stopping small arms fire, nearby explosions, and other extraordinarily dangerous ground conditions. They're okay at stopping other tank and direct fire large caliber rounds. And they're really bad at stopping air attacks, bombs, and missiles. Nothing will change that short of a magical metal that somehow is cheap and light enough to throw at a tank. Tanks need infantry support, and ideally air support, they're merely a (very useful) peice in a complex and fast moving environment. Trying to use them as an individual element is a good way to lose them fast. Pretending you're impervious inside a tank is the first step to becoming a two part space program
A tank based anti air laser system could work. The F-35 uses a laser to blind and burn out sensors in missiles
@@saltyfloridaman7163 F35 doesn’t. The closes thing to “lasers” is dazzle for soft active protection against laser guided targets
T-72 was designed to be a disposable can with a cannon to overwhelm enemies with their numbers. "Quantity has its own quality". However, it is still a very capable tank as long as the enemies don't have anything to counter it. NLAW and Javelin were produced exactly to counter these tanks.
It was a really good tank when it came out. Howevery, my gaming PC was a really good PC when it came out ...in 2013....
@@sierraecho884 You can upgrade your PC to run modern games just like you can upgrade T-72 to modern warfare.
@@danildyachkov2566 And watch it fail the same even after upgrading. :D
You'll basically get a T80 or T90 then, but at some point you even have to replace the case.
Then you get something like the T-14. Whats left? The concept of the gun propably.
@@danildyachkov2566 One can upgrade something only to a certain extent. For instance, new parts don't fit old motherboards
@@CGGreatto you can literally change the motherboard.
All things aside, tanks look flippin awesome, and I love building them in space engineer.
There's actually a T-72 that made it all the way into Central Israel - it's an exhibit at Yad La Shiryon , Israel's memorial to the (IDF) tank corps and one of the most diverse tank museums in the world
I think its quite clear that they would have done better with more training. Or said differently - I'd rather have an American tank division with T72 than a Russian one with the M1. But at the same there really seems a lot that could be done with the tank. It seems to sit between the modern generation of western tanks and the M60 era, closer to the M60. I'm sure they could have designed a new tank based on the T72 and brought it to modern standards, much like the T80 vs T64 (in its day). But really the issue always comes back to expectations. People have long viewed Russia as a competitor to American military might, but I've long argued that just glancing at the money spent suggests they are below a lot of european nations let alone touching America. Beyond that, a lot of that money is spent trying to keep the huge outdated gear alive, so in reality they've always been below even that. I'm pretty happy this invasion has demonstrated exactly that point.
It's all about the training and the tactics. History has shown that well-trained and disciplined troops can still often wind up on top if they have inferior equipment. The Ukrainians using the T-72 have performed just fine.
@@revanofkorriban1505 I do think there are some instances where equipment can make a decisive difference. But its long been held in my favourite (air warfare) that skill trumps hardware unless its an extreme difference. I think Ukraine has demonstrated that holds with tanks, with ships, with a lot of other areas too. Frankly it has given a pretty strong argument against conscription too. I don't believe conscripts are part of the Russian ground forces in Ukraine right now (just mediocre trained professional soldiers), but certainly the navy has a huge reliance on them and soldiers even worse trained than the ones on the field today would probably be a hindrance not an advantage.
A youtuber named Perun made an entire video about that point and how the Russian army mismanage its funding.
@@demonboy7777 I've watched a few of his videos. He seems to have a surface understanding but this conflict really needs a few steps deeper to actually understand. Some of his points can be useful but a lot of them miss what is actually happening.
@@olivialambert4124 agreed. His understanding of technicals ks good but the economics is just laughable. “Russia needs to sell oil and gas just as bad as Germany needs to buy it!” Uh, no. Russia for sure has an advantage being able to turn off a competing nation’s power.
I think the main problem is the fact that russia needs a lot of tanks for every front possible and they can't field expensive tanks in such big numbers like the T 90M and T 14 armata. They can't use expensive tanks in such a big number because they just won't have enough. America has the possibility to field expensive tanks because they are separated by a giant sea and they can't really be invaded, while russia needs those basic tanks to protect their homeland with a lot of tanks.
they have like 12 t-14's and all of them are prototypes and not battle ready, so they don't coun't
It’s crazy the world is debating on a tank that’s older than me. The shit is outdated due to collapse of ussr not much to say after that.
And Russia is far poorer than the US. The most likely cant even afford to produce and maintain a large number of expensive, modern tanks
The majority of Russian T-72s are T-72B or T-72B3s, from the 1980s. Contrary to popular belief, the majority of US tanks are M1A1s (in storage), which also date to the 80s. The US just hasn't used nearly as many tanks, so they've been able to field their best stuff, the M1A2
Another problem is the lack of Infantry support.
You make it sound like that Top Attack vulnerability is such a difficult defect to fix ~ what nonsense, all they gotta do is hang a sign on the turret that says "kindly, shoot only from side"... there, invincible again! 😙👍
" Human error was my nickname when I was growing up " 😆🙋♂️🤪
The T72 variants are known for having their entire 5ton turret pop off and fly 10 feet away when hit with a successful round. The ammo they carry isnt protected behind any kind of blast shield like our modern Abrams, Bradleys and so on.
Yes, thats a design choice they made to make the tank lighter and smaller
Tanks in general seem like they're being pigeonholed into more and more specific roles (and conflicts) due to the advent of cheap man-portable weapons and attritable aircraft. It's interesting to see the historical ebb and flow of utility of systems like these and I wonder if or when it will pivot in a big way. Maybe it's now?
We had plenty Man portable weapons and aircraft in world war II.
the biggest problem with the Russian tanks, isn't the tanks.
the biggest problem with the Russian tanks is that they are using them like they've never owned a tank before.
Tanks have never been their own independent weapon system. They are part of an integrated system.
Except in Russia apparently.
Check out the video by The_Chieftain titled "No, The Tank is Not Dead" - link: ruclips.net/video/lI7T650RTT8/видео.html In brief, there's nothing that can do the job a tank can do as well as a tank can. We're probably also getting an inaccurate picture of exactly how effective the ATGMs have been in Ukraine, given that the guys who set up their ambush with their Javelin, take their shot, and miss...don't live long enough to put up videos on TikTok.
tanks are cavalry, and cavalry never dies, its mobility is its main perk
Cheers buddy!!! I just "auto loaded a shell into my smooth bore cannon" then was asked to put my clothes back on and leave the branch of Starbucks I was in...
Light weight? Yes. Very fast moving? Well.. Not really. Even much heavier tanks like Abrams or Leopard can go faster simply because of having higher power to weight ratio. Anyways, great video.
The "Jackov in the Box" wasnt designed for crew protection.
Ah, welcome back to an episode of :
"Cappy roasts military hardware"
There's a RUclips channel where a Scottish tankie totally roasted how awful the Russian main battle tank was, made over a year ago. He got mostly abuse from "experts" aghast at his evaluation.
Now that video is doing the rounds again, getting (rightly) the plaudits it deserves
The T-72 was designed for total war. It is still good enough for fulfilling the roles and tasks a tank has to fulfill but I think the crew survivability not being prioritised is a massive handicap
You can all say that something was created for different role but that doesn't change the fact that it is outdated for the modern battlefields.
That's just a weak excuss of a weak poor state that threatens everyone to step back like a stray ill and starving dog that can't longer offer the same resources and minds into the development of the new technologies. I don't even understand that massive russophilia that so many people have.
@@diabelgrogaty1963 I am talking about tanks only and tanks do not have political alignments. I am only stating the merits of the T-series. 1 on 1, NATO tanks are far better for the contemporary battlefield but T-series still have enough firepower to be relevant.
@@cloroxbleach9222 Yes that's obvious that they aren't complete trash and in their times were really good but that's just a remnant of the old soviet technological and industrial might.
Today's russia/RF doesn't have the same resources and nowhere near the same manpower to be a world power. You can't just forget about all these years of stagnation after the fall of the USSR and the state in which this country was.
They are constantly saying that their new weapons in development will totally blow away NATO from the map...but they are saying that repeatedly that for many years and the recent ideas like the T-14 Armata or the SU-57 are just on paper and with the recent sanctions the development of any advanced weapon would be near impossible thanks to the lack of critical components and foreign technologies.
But some people still say that russia has some "Wunderwaffe" up in their sleeve or are just mumbling about the nuclear weapons like NATO don't at all have nuclear weapons.
Getting shot at with RPGs three or four times in rapid succession sounds like a really, really shitty time.
The flaws with the Russian military are rooted everywhere. We've seen alot of footage of lone Russian tanks getting picked off by Ukrainians. Like where is the supporting infantry screen? Alot of this is down to their battalion tactical group formation which is heavy on vehicles and low on infantry manpower. A BTG has about 40-60 vehicles with 600-800 men. However only 200-300 of these are combat infantrymen, the rest being the vehicle crews and some logistics. Such a low number of infantry personnel relative to the formation size means the BTG has very weak infantry screen which has allowed the Ukrainians tank hunter teams to take out the Russian tanks.
Almost all of the tanks in that “lone” videos not a russian regular army’s tanks but DPR’s/LPR’s militia tanks.
@@PhilippSeven People seem to forget that they are apart of the war to.
The main flaw is that it was designed over 50 years ago. Here in the west, we call that "obsolete."
What infantry they have is staying in the apcs. It doesn't look like they are moving fast enough to not have accurate artillery called down on them. Accurate artillery is death to infantry in the open. Infantry in the apcs though is death to their tanks. When they are moving fast enough to avoid accurate artillery they are on paved roads and are sitting ducks for the atgms.
Add in the already terrible morale and it isn't a surprise their forces are doing so poorly. If they were smart they would stop with the random arty strikes on civilians and start doing rolling barrages on anything in front of the tanks. Get the infantry out of the apcs and have them moving up behind the barrage with the tanks supporting them. As it stands though they are basically screwed. The Ukrainians appear to be far better at using their equipment to maximum impact.
Hopefully the Ukrainians can keep it up and eventually drive these nuts out of their country.
@@goodbodha "The Ukrainians appear to be far better at using their equipment to maximum impact. "
Russia use very limited active forces in this operation. Ukraine on the other hand have superiority in manpower and excellent fortified areas. Despite all this, they are still slowly losing their positions. Russia slowly advanced day after day all over the front line.
"Hopefully the Ukrainians can keep it up and eventually drive these nuts out of their country."
More and more units of the Ukrainian army are surrounded. Ukraine has not yet recaptured at least one of their settlement with a counterattack.
Hey there, just want to say I greatly appreciate and enjoy ya'lls commitment and execution when it comes to histoircal rigour/historiography/etc. You do it well, you make it engaging, and engage with the ongoing conversation/dialogue of the topic and add to it (meaningfully). On vids like this that are a homerun in the history department, you make me feel right at home - and thats as a degree holding historian with an appreciation for military history...but no military experience! XD
In short, keep it up!
I'm surprised you didn't bring a major *design* of the T-72: it is operated by 3 crewmen only so if one crewman becomes disabled the tank can not perform its operative role while in a 4 crewmen tank, the commander can load the canon if needed and generally troops can switch roles.
I have the same problems: a need to penetrate the enemy from the rear while exposing myself. Thanks, I'll show myself out.
Because NLAW and Javelin. To be fair, i think no modern tanks today cant survive a good javelin or nlaw hit.
Unless the tank uses active protection not.
Fundamentally, the design has its downsides, but from the videos coming out of Ukraine, it really seems like the biggest problem facing the russian tank units is the same problem almost all of the russian invasion force has; a stark failure of unit coordination, failure to adhere to long established doctrine, and intelligence failures. Over and over, the footage made something pretty clear, and that was that the russian ground forces were acting like they had air supremacy when they didn't. Tanker 101, for us as well as russia and virtually every other military around the world with tanks, is that they should be deployed with dismounted infantry screening ahead of them. Yet, time and again during the early stage of the conflict, we've seen them rolling through ukraine with no infantry. It's not just weird mistakes with the tank units either. They dropped para-infantry brigades, arguably some of their best trained and equipped soldiers, in to areas where they didn't have a secured LZ. They didn't have air support either, and it is a testament to just how good those soldiers are that any of them were able to make it back to russian held territory.
With the now former head of the 5th Intelligence Service being sent to a prison considered worse than being sent to Siberia, it seems like he wasn't being honest about there being a lot of pro-russian partisan fighters outside of the regions in the east.
the Russians use WWII-style mass attacks
in addition, the army consists of conscripts who are not sufficiently trained or prepared for this war
I'm sure most 70% of tank crews barely had 10 grenades fired before the war
they don't even know how the tank works and how reliable it is
Would love to hear you opinions on other tanks like the Challenger, Leopard or Type 90.
Makes sense, it's basically an elaboration of the cavalry tactics of world war 2 that they had a lot of success with. Punch through the enemy line with fast moving cavalry (literal horse cavalry in ww2, tanks/armoured vehicles replaced horses in most modern theatres), then move laterally to take advantage of being behind enemy lines and disrupt supply lines and otherwise sabotage their efforts. Looks like this might be the beginning of the end of heavy cavalry/heavy tanks for the forseeable future. Pretty impressive it was the dominant wartime land technology for almost 100 straight years despite all our innovations though.
One might wonder if the widespread Russian corruption also effects the "paper values" of the T-72.; armor quality, armor thickness, ammo quality etc. Maybe even the old Leopard 1A5 is a good match for it?
On a pure armor Vs 105mm gun, no.
When Germany reunited, they got a bunch of ex-DDR 'true' T72 with soviet composite armor - not the export version sold in the middle east with an older mix.
Many countries bought a couple to test them as target.
And, ops, most 105mm ammo coudn't penetrate the frontal armor.
Few of the newest (at the time) 105mm tungsten/DU sabot could barely get thru.
Great analysis and I leaned something new. I think the key point you brought up is that it’s not a Heavy tank like the M1. It’s a medium tank with the gun of a heavy tank. It’s cheap to make, it with it being a medium tank they couldn’t put tones of armor on it. And as you say, that matches up with Russian war doctrine, which is different from NATO. It’s kind of unfair to compare it to the M1, which is 20-30 tones heavier and costs 16x more. It’s like comparing a base model Hyundai with the top end German BMW. They are both cars and get you from point A to point B, but it’s not fair to compare their specs.
It wouldn't matter if you had an "ultra-heavy tank" that ran on nuclear power and never needed refueling. There's no practical armor modern Anti-Tank missiles can't penetrate. There's no practical gun that outranges the best Anti-Tank missiles. Ukranians aren't a "perfect coordinated army". They just can use 1 man to kill 3 men inside expensive cars from far away...or hidden spots that might not be able to fit 3 men.
Repeat after me: using ammo as your gamer chair is a bad idea
The T-72 and the T-90 will both be formidable war machines if the T-72 is fitted with Relikt ERA, given a new welded turret with a bustle for ammunition storage and a new drivetrain, like the one developed by RENK for the T-72 and the T-90, that gives it a fast reverse speed comparable to Western MBTs.
A good overview of the history of its initial development, but I'm sorry - too much Discovery channel-like nonsense in the video.
1. The original T-72 Ural didn't have composite armor. It was like a T-64 made with 1950's technology and focus on absolute simplicity (minus the autoloader). The first T-72 to adopt composite armor was the T-72B in 1985.
2. The T-72, and Russian tanks in general, aren't less armored because they're lighter. They're lighter because of having 3 man crews and much less interior volume which simply takes less mass of armor to protect to the same level as western tanks with 4 man crews and roomy interiors. Look at the performance of the T-90, an evolution of the T-72, but basically the same shape/design, whose frontal armor was eating TOW-2's for breakfast in Syria. Meanwhile, an M1A1 was frontally penetrated by a Chinese HJ-8 missile (a copy of the TOW system) in Iraq, 2017.
3. The T-72B3 obr. 2016 is a decently protect tank overall, owing to the Relikt ERA on the manlet and the turret, and the Relikt sideskirts that can even have another layer of ERA strapped to them. The rear side of the turret have much less protection than the Abrams and no composite armor, but the obr. 2016 variant also reinforced this area with ERA. The designers in the 70's and 80's didn't realize that tanks in combat would be getting hit by infantry all over the place, not just from the front.
4. The T-72s, just like every other armored vehicle in Ukraine, are not getting destroyed not because they lack armor overall, but because they lack turret top armor (just like every other tank ever) and Ukraine is being supplied by the west with many top-attack missiles like the NLAW or the Javelin. They're just getting hard-countered by these weapons, but that doesn't make them bad tanks. It only means that they'll absolutely need active protection systems in the future when dealing with top-attack ATGM' which btw. were offered in the obr. 2016 upgrade program, but weren't procured. Look at what happened to the Turkish Leopard 2A4's in Syria after encountering 2ng generation ATGMs. T-72Bs the that situation would probably end up with the same fate, except the economic damage would be less because of how cheap they are. The T-72B3 obr.2016 would probably fare better because of their advanced ERA.
5. The bit about the T-72 not being able to penetrate the M1A2's side armor is a joke, right? It has to be. The APFSDS projectiles compatible with the T-72's gun can penetrate 650-750mm at 2 km of RHA. The M1A2's turret side armor is first and foremost designed to protect against HEAT rounds. Its protection against KE projectiles is less than 300mm and that's only the turret, the lower hull only protects up to 150mm and the parts with fake thin sheet metal side skirts even less than that. Not to mention that all you need to penetrate the engine area or the ammo compartment is an autocannon. Nothing but thin steel plates there.
6. You forgot to mention the idea of having a smaller, low profile tank, is that it's harder to spot and harder to hit. While this becomes less important with the 3rd generation ATGMs, it's still a huge factor whenever the tank is getting shot at by unguided weapons, especially when moving.
We had the M60 tanks. They had the T-72 Tanks. We were smart enough to realize that they both sucked for modern warfare and we now have the Abrams platform which is amazing. They decided that their troops surviving was not important and they would just keep an outdated tank and hope that quantity would be sufficient. Wrong choice for the ruskies. Now their turret are laying all over Ukraine.
The M60 was inferior to the T72 and T64. Which was proven during the golen heights
@@huntergatherer7796 I tanked on M60A1, M60A3, M1A1, M1A2SEP tanks. You are 100% correct. I promise the 60 was a POS tank. It couldn't make a 10k road march without blowing a jug and needing the engine pulled.
@@huntergatherer7796 and then disproven by the marines in the gulf war
It worked during ww2 they said let's do the same again they said.
Guys the tanks and history of this stuff is older than most of us. It’s not that simple and they didn’t choose to keep the t72 the country collapsed.
I’ve also seen a huge lack of infantry screens for tanks in urban combat, that’s like a basic aspect of modern armored warfare.
I see another point. Soviet Tanks were designed to capture land that isn't properly equipped with defensive tech and it was mainly backed by the sheer size of the soviet army as well as nuclear deterrent. Western tanks had the intelligence and the tech to develop Tanks specifically designed to conquer soviet tech and tactics, as there is nothing else to defend against. IMO soviet tanks aren't really badly designed or used improperly (they are on top of that), but the main thing is that they have to attack against something that is specifically and very well designed to counter them.
I believe it was Stalin who said quantity has a quality of its own.
@CLOV4R713 That was their undoing.You can get only so much trained personnel until you get to amateurs!
Do not believe everything you read online
-Gandalf
When this tank entered service with the Soviet army 50 years ago it was one of the best tanks in the world , but 50 years is a long time and due to the break up of the Soviet union 30 years ago which led to economic collapse no real attempt has been made by Russia to design a state of the art tank , designs for the T-14 Armata were layed down in the late 1980s , but lack of money delayed its development until the 2000s , all the Russian government could afford to do was upgrade its existing tanks t-64, t-72 and t-80s yes the designers came up with the t-90, but its only really a t-72 with a big upgrade, its just like a 50 year old man who has a face lift and looks ten years younger, but he still has the same limitations of 50 years of life , the same with the t-90 or other upgraded t-72s , add to that the fact that anti-tank missiles are vastly more superior than the ones that were around 50 years ago , then if you think logically its no surprise that the Russian tanks are being well slaughtered , that might be the wrong word to use but you get the point. Russia looks very powerful on paper , but in real life its not , lack of spending on the military for years a conscript army , lack of maintenance , its appalling logistics and seemly incompetent leadership has left it looking like a joke , its only its massive nuclear force that maintains it as a grade 2 super power.
T-72 was never a good tank. The Marxist idea was that quantity has a quality all its own. But now they're not used in quantity.Plus, outdated of course. Autoloader and in-turret ammo storage are idiotic.
@@johntillman6068 That's just wrong.
The T-72 outgunned any Western tank, untill the mid 80s.
Infact it litterally forced the west to develop the modern ammunition, that we currently use.
What's more, the autoloader and in turret ammo is a fine, if you use proper tank tactics.
@@Orcawhale1 Nope. Rheinmetall 120mm gun entered production in 1974. It was a response to Soviet armor improvements, not to the smoothbore 125mm gun. T-72s were made from 1969. Their main armament was meant to counter the new armor of NATO tanks.
@@johntillman6068 Which i never claimed, infact if you read the next line, it's very clear as to what i mean.
You got anything more brilliant to say?
Lol obsolete T72 tanks destroyed Super Modern US tanks in 1991.
Oh and let’s not forget Russia won the war from the US in syria.
"penetration leading to the enemies rear" oh ha ha !!
. THIS is one of the better breakdowns of 'the T72' problem I've seen. Haven't seen anyone go into the finer points of (old) Soviet military philosophy, strategies and tactics, and how they continue to affect the way things look today, not to the extent this video does.
Pretty cool, and informative for the 'layperson'.
The T72 is just an infantry support tank, never designed for frontal regiments, it's designed to operate with infantry. The M60 would perform equally as bad if up against newer MBTs or AT rocket firing infantry.
Which is why they don’t use it anymore unlike the Russians lmao
4:20 - Chris youre wrong. T-72 is an offspring of T-64 project, which was back then very revolutional and has almost nothing to do with previous soviet tanks.
Ironically enough, your “cannons” are actually rifled
There are two problems with the t-72. It was designed more than 50 years ago.
Second, the Soviet Union’s defense was always centered around stopping the type of invasions they had experienced, which is from central or Western Europe mostly on a flat plain. SU didn’t really deeply military outside its borders so it didn’t need weapons that could fight for long distances or carry much.
There were also large structural changes in the SU during that period that ended a long period of economic growth and innovation. The SU after 1970 was a different country than the Stalin-Khrushchev era. The fall of the SU was really Brezhnev.
T-72 was just cheap temporary solution for mass production of tanks. And as all "temporary" solutions, it became permanent solution. It uses absurdly outdated engine and has only 30mm LOWER side armor plate and its optic equipment is even today, after numerous updates, inferior to western standard tanks. Today good old T-72 is still in production in Russia. It is called now T-90, after T-72's total fiasco in Gulf war.
Fun fact: T-72 (and T-90 also!) uses good old T-34 B-2 engine. Honestly, if someone needs a new spare parts to T-34 engine, they can just order those from T-72 spare part warehouse.
You're right but it's a very much improved B-2) It's like BMW motors you know) Our country now doesn't produce any T-72 and only improves them to T-72B3 and also T-90M versions which are like Leo 2A5 and the second one is as good as 2A6 and maybe close to 2A7 because of it's APS and new ERA and also explosion relief panels like those you use on your tanks. But your joke of B-2 is a good one)
@@aZachemPseudoname No, T-34/T-72 engine is actually old Cummings diesel from 1930ties. If you must compare T-72 to western tanks, it is more like up-armed Leopard 1. With thin armor, optics from 60ties but with upgraded cannon. All variants of Leopard 2 are superior to that glorified pressure cooker family.
There is no T-90 in real life! This is a marketing gimmick for export. After Gulf war soviet tank sales plummeted heavily and something had be done to save export markets of T-72. Therefore, new upgraded version of T-72 where renamed as T-90. That the whole trick. T-90 so called APS and ERA are propaganda, all that is just fraud, like the entire Russian army.
T-72 and this joke of T-90 are both using old B-2 engine (little upgraded versions - Turbos instead of compressors etc.). That is fact! T-64 and early models of T-80 are using different engines. T-64 uses flat opposite piston 6-cylinder engine and T-80 early models are using turbine engines, like Abrams M1 tanks. Later T-80 are using B-2 engines.
Fun fact about T-90 - It’s active protection laser designation sensors, what must trigger turret traverse to point main gun to threat wat is illuminating tank with laser designation system… are working in only in band what are used by soviet design laser sights. Western laser sights are using different band and therefore T-90 active protection system is absolutely useless against western AT rockets and do not make a move, when western tank is targeting T-90.
P.S. I have seen Kubinka tank ground mechanics take spare parts for a T-34 engine from a T-72 engine. It was not a joke.
Nowadays our MBT in mass production is T-72B3 and it has 1130HP engine. I dont think that it is non-improved 500HP B-2 with only a turbo. And if it is I wonder what a compressor grants freaking 630HP) Also T-72B3 is better than T-90A. But I only talked about T-90M which is now at service and really has APS similar to T-14 prototype. Not that 90-s zilch you mentioned. And it's number is like Germans Leo 2A7 at service. Russia doesn't try to surpass USA (Because it is China's part) but it can withstand and maybe surpass several greatest European Countries at once without using nukes if we're talking of tanks and anti-tanks measures.
Also you mentioned later T-80 (T-80UD). I think it was put out of army decades ago. Now we have only gas turbine ones. And don't say T-80 is using gas turbine like Abrams. Because it is Abrams that is like T-80 (Abrams was mass produced only at early 80-s. However T-80 was mass produced since 1976 and was the very first tank with gas turbine).
And you're right about T-72 diesel is a child of B-2. I said it once and I say it again. I knew it before I saw your "P.S."
@@marttoom5903 P.S. USSR once invented APS. Don't forget about that funny fact
@@aZachemPseudoname Are you aware that there is a war in Ukraine right now and it turned out that all glorious Russian technical inventions what you are praising here are just silly propaganda, nothing more? There are no Russian super tanks with 1000hp engines and there is not any Sci-Fi APS on Russian tanks. By the way, APS was invented by the Germans in the 60's. Russian Drožd and Arena are just gimmicks never used on tanks. Russians did not invent APS, it’s just propaganda for internal use.
The T-80 is old junk that was "produced" by reviewing old Soviet-era tanks from warehouses. Only very few of them have French nigh visors installed, most of T-80 in Ukrainian war frontlines are completely blind by nights as original T-80 were. And no T-80 was developed, when US rolled out Abrams. For some reason Soviet leaders had a error in their heads that forced them to replicate all of America's technical achievements with the Soviets' poor technical capabilities. Result was always some kind of glorified pressure cooker, which was then presented by soviet propaganda as a technical achievement with no analogues in the world.
The T-14 does not exist in reality - those few specimens on display at the parades on Read square are literally the entire T-14 “force” that the Russians can display.
War with NATO would end to Russia losing in 2 days all of its air force and then it would be some 30 days of tank hunting in in the ruins of Russian cities. Russian fleet would perform only heroic escape and self-drowning at its bases. The balance of power is so much in the West's favor. And if Putin even thinks about touching that Red Button, Russia would be reduced to nuclear aches... and this is not empty threat by some narcissistic TV-promoter, it is real threat and Putin knows that.
Even Poland or Finland can successfully repel Russian attack alone today, when 70 % Russian regular army is dead or incapacitated in Ukraine war.
It has more to do with training and doctrine than anything else I think. The many Abrams and Leopard tanks lost in the Syrian conflict are a great example of this.
I am astonished by the lack of tactics and infantry support displayed by Russian tanks in Ukraine, they are losing tanks by the hundreds.
I wouldn't be too worried though, as both sides of the conflict have over 10000 tanks.
@@dihell2144 Russians have a lot of relatively cheaply upgraded tanks, the most of their tanks sent to Ukraine were medium cost to low cost variants, T-72B3 for example is a relatively cheap upgrade. The most expensive tank produced in USSR was T-80U, they have sent some of these, but not that many. We also know that they have a not insignificant number of basic T-72A in Ukraine, which are the oldest model of T-72 in their service.
If I was a Russian commander I would prioritise sending medium cost to low cost tanks, since even if they get attritioned by ATGM, then these models would still have to be replaced and written off if the army is to be modernised. NATO is actually doing a similar thing with sending Ukraine the older tank models.
On one hand NATO maintains an official line that they want the Ukraine war to end and for Ukraine to win, and it would be beneficial for them, but not before the war in Ukraine lasts long enough so that Ukraine gets destroyed enough, and NATO has to send enough help so that Ukraine will become completely US dependent, which it will, whatever remains of Ukraine will become completely US dependent.
@@dihell2144 That's definitely not true, Russian army also has used I believe T-80BV in significant numbers, it also uses T-72B and other T-72 models. I do believe some Russian T-72A were seen on footage, for one I believe that to be more likely than them being Ukrainian, as Ukraine operates a very small number of T-72 tanks compared to their overall tank force, which is comprised mainly of T-64 tanks.
There has been seen footage of T-80 tanks as well as their wreckages, that includes at least one T-80UK, and some T-80U tanks. I believe Ukraine doesn't operate any T-80 tanks, or maybe it operates very small numbers. It's 100% not true that Russia does not operate T-80 tanks in Ukraine, as there have been seen wreckages of T-80 models that are only in Russian service.
There was a report of a single T-90MS seen in Ukraine.
@@dihell2144 Ukraine has created many modifications, like the various versions of its T-84 tank that are actually pretty good, the most advanced being the T-84 Oplot, but it has developed no new ammunition, which is a major problem for their tanks. It really has no budget to field these tanks though, and instead it relies on T-64s. I'm not surprised Ukraine would use some of its many T-64 tanks as minesweepers. Their mostly used tank, the T-64B, is obsolescent.
Ok, I'm not saying I don't believe you, you seem to have first hand experience of the conflict, I respect that.
@@dihell2144 I have heard that also Ukrainian military spending was cut significantly. They have designed successful tank upgrades, but in the end they are hampered by their guns and ammunition the most.
That roman candle(cook off) effect is called deflagration. Rapid burning 🔥 rather than explosion.