Are T-64/T-80/T-84 series tanks outperforming T-72/T90 series tanks in Ukraine War?

[alimobin memon]

I think the best solution is to abandon the carousel auto-loader in favor of western style auto-loaders as seen on French and Japanese tanks. VT-4 hull is great mechanically....much better then T-90, IMO. Personally I think HIT should develop a new turret with western style auto-loader as part of the "Al-Haider" tank project.

I prefer manual as abrams

 

[CrazyZ]

I prefer manual as abrams

Based on the current conflict......most important aspect of a tank transmission is the reverse speed. T-72/T-90 series tanks have very slow reverse gears. Internet is packed with vids of Russian T-72/T-90 series tanks firing and staying in the same spot. In modern warfare its best to shoot and scoot, IMO. Infantry ATGM hunter killer teams can very easily destroy a tank that fires and remains stagnate.

 

[Paul2]

Based on the current conflict......most important aspect of a tank transmission is the reverse speed. T-72/T-90 series tanks have very slow reverse gears. Internet is packed with vids of Russian T-72/T-90 series tanks firing and staying in the same spot. In modern warfare its best to shoot and scoot, IMO. Infantry ATGM hunter killer teams can very easily destroy a tank that fires and remains stagnate.

That's they key advantage of hydromech transmission. You can reverse it even at full forward, and it will work as a brake by itself. No risk to bust the clutch.

Ukrainian Kharkiv tank factory has developed a mechanical automatic transmission which does everything hydromech does, but now they lost the advantage of mechanical transmission being simple, and compact.

 

[Paul2]

I feel that would be the solution as well, or DU armor.

A recent assessment from the Pentagon is that the more significant anti-tank missile threat to any US vehicle is from top-attack types.
They are preparing for more funding to develop solutions to counter this threat.

Russian armour losses to artillery, and mines FAR outnumber ATGM kills, the Javelin did score tons of kills at the beginning.

I think even field guns managed to destroy almost the same number of armour as all non-Javelin ATGMs in use there taken together, but kills from field guns are too boring to brag about, and the media largely ignore it.

The tank-on-tank warfare been extremely rare. Far more often, tanks were turkeyshooting lighter armour, and infantry. Even Russian officers know it's a rock, paper, scissors game, and almost never send their tanks against a known peer opponent, picking known better tools instead.

 

[Oldman1]

Are T-64/T-80/T-84 series tanks outperforming T-72/T90 series tanks in the Ukraine War? By external assessments.... losses of T-72/T90 series tanks is significantly above losses of T-64/T-80/T-84 series tanks in this war. Some of this may be due to tactics and advanced anti-tank missiles supplied to Ukraine. Any thoughts?

How are they outperforming them? You see pics of T64 to T90s being captured or destroyed by the dozens or hundreds. Its pretty much just tactics.

There is a limit to how much armor can be added to the top and I don't think APS is a magic solution. Lets see what they come up with. I think some sort of next gen spaced armor on top is the best solution.

Better than cope cage. Even before the war in Ukraine, the Ukrainian military were testing the Javelin against the newly introduced cope cage that the Russians were planning to send tanks with prior to the war.

 

[jhungary]

Are T-64/T-80/T-84 series tanks outperforming T-72/T90 series tanks in the Ukraine War? By external assessments.... losses of T-72/T90 series tanks is significantly above losses of T-64/T-80/T-84 series tanks in this war. Some of this may be due to tactics and advanced anti-tank missiles supplied to Ukraine. Any thoughts?

As a former 19A myself. I can tell you it's NEVER about which tank you use, its about the people and the team behind those tank.

There is a famous saying when I was in tanker school. "You are the one that make sure your tank is safe, the tank won't do it for you" Then when you look at how the Russian use those armor, they act like a bunch of morons who either go into battle alone, naked without infantry or disregard any formation and ram their tanks in a beautiful line or column.

If you are trained with Armour Warfare, the term you will use on most of the Russian Armour ambush video you see on YouTube is "Russian lack of tactical discipline" more often than not you see tanks that line up in a perfect "Parade Formation" getting ambush and Ukrainian manage to get close and have time to place well aim shot and destroy them one by one. Or travel alone like they got lost or something. You never travel in a hot zone in a neat formation, there are rear security, flank security and mutual support stance you have to consider. None of them are followed thru by the Russian. A neat line or double line column is great on Parade when you want to salute your general, it's not great for Battlefield movement. Because you are basically blocking each other view and it takes minimum reposition to destroy all your tanks, because frankly, you are helping your enemy by presenting your entire Unit in a neatly packed formation.

If that don't change, then I don't really care whether or not Russia uses T-90 or Any tank in the world, We can give them Abrams and it will still be the same. The person behind that tank is an idiot, it have nothing to do with which tank they use.

 

[serenity]

As a former 19A myself. I can tell you it's NEVER about which tank you use, its about the people and the team behind those tank.

There is a famous saying when I was in tanker school. "You are the one that make sure your tank is safe, the tank won't do it for you" Then when you look at how the Russian use those armor, they act like a bunch of morons who either go into battle alone, naked without infantry or disregard any formation and ram their tanks in a beautiful line or column.

If you are trained with Armour Warfare, the term you will use on most of the Russian Armour ambush video you see on YouTube is "Russian lack of tactical discipline" more often than not you see tanks that line up in a perfect "Parade Formation" getting ambush and Ukrainian manage to get close and have time to place well aim shot and destroy them one by one. Or travel alone like they got lost or something. You never travel in a hot zone in a neat formation, there are rear security, flank security and mutual support stance you have to consider. None of them are followed thru by the Russian. A neat line or double line column is great on Parade when you want to salute your general, it's not great for Battlefield movement. Because you are basically blocking each other view and it takes minimum reposition to destroy all your tanks, because frankly, you are helping your enemy by presenting your entire Unit in a neatly packed formation.

If that don't change, then I don't really care whether or not Russia uses T-90 or Any tank in the world, We can give them Abrams and it will still be the same. The person behind that tank is an idiot, it have nothing to do with which tank they use.

This is quite accurate. The Russians are commanding their forces in a strange way when it comes to armored vehicle use. But they learn and adapt.

As for tanks being destroyed, Merkava has never been tested to the same degree those old Russian tanks and the few newer ones are being tested in Ukraine. Tanks don't only need to worry about APFSDS from other tanks and mines but guided artillery and drones. APS is not magic when it has no more APS projectiles to shoot at an incoming anti-tank round. Artillery should be effective against APS which are designed mainly to target ATGMs.

Israeli tanks were lost in the hundreds in Yom Kippur even if many of those were simply mission kill rather than total destruction but such a scenario is the similar level of being tested for Russian tanks. Merkava's modern performance against barely an adversary is not comparable to the Russian war. If we swap out T series Russian tanks with Merkavas, they would not be performing so much better (although surely would be performing better than Russian T series) as the Merkavas have performed against Hezbollah and Palestinian people with rocks.

 

[serenity]

As for carousel autoloader, it is indeed a troubling design for certain reasons but people are forgetting one important aspect. In cases where turret is blown off, the crew wouldn't have survived the attack even if the autoloader system is bustle style like Leclerc, K-2, and Type 15 use.

Autoloader is better than manual loading for most MBTs and armies. M1 upgrade will feature autoloader. The newest MBTs are K2 and Type 10 and both use autoloaders. Type 15 uses bustle style autoloader (better than carousel). Why is it better than carousel? Because it allows for one long piece ammunition. Has much less to do with blowing off the turret.

A round that goes through an M1 tank that doesn't blow the turret off because it doesn't cause the propellant to explode, is still a round that kills the crew unless it penetrated the ammo storage compartment. This is a probability game then. For autoloader tanks, if the round goes into that ammo compartment, then it wouldn't have killed the crew if blow out panels are designed for the tank. The main real drawback of carousel style loader is the quality and capability of the ammunition piece. It has some crew survival factors too but it's a probability distribution rather than a 1/0 where carousel = 100% crew killed vs bustle autoloader or no autoloader = crew survives.

 

[CrazyZ]

As a former 19A myself. I can tell you it's NEVER about which tank you use, its about the people and the team behind those tank.

There is a famous saying when I was in tanker school. "You are the one that make sure your tank is safe, the tank won't do it for you" Then when you look at how the Russian use those armor, they act like a bunch of morons who either go into battle alone, naked without infantry or disregard any formation and ram their tanks in a beautiful line or column.

If you are trained with Armour Warfare, the term you will use on most of the Russian Armour ambush video you see on YouTube is "Russian lack of tactical discipline" more often than not you see tanks that line up in a perfect "Parade Formation" getting ambush and Ukrainian manage to get close and have time to place well aim shot and destroy them one by one. Or travel alone like they got lost or something. You never travel in a hot zone in a neat formation, there are rear security, flank security and mutual support stance you have to consider. None of them are followed thru by the Russian. A neat line or double line column is great on Parade when you want to salute your general, it's not great for Battlefield movement. Because you are basically blocking each other view and it takes minimum reposition to destroy all your tanks, because frankly, you are helping your enemy by presenting your entire Unit in a neatly packed formation.

If that don't change, then I don't really care whether or not Russia uses T-90 or Any tank in the world, We can give them Abrams and it will still be the same. The person behind that tank is an idiot, it have nothing to do with which tank they use.

I think part of the poor tactics is being driven by the muddy conditions (forcing Russian tanks to use high ways), lack of manpower (hence no Infantry protection), and technical limitations of the tanks.

How are they outperforming them? You see pics of T64 to T90s being captured or destroyed by the dozens or hundreds. Its pretty much just tactics.

Tactics are a huge part and no tank is invulnerable but the numbers indicate the T-72/T-90 tank series are performing worse then the T-80/84 series in this conflict.

Artillery should be effective against APS which are designed mainly to target ATGMs.

I think the Russian tanks with APS that was knocked out....was hit by Ukrainian artillery. Can't say for sure but it looked that way in the pic. Artillery has knocked out a lot of tanks in this conflict.....as much or more then ATGMs based on some reports.

 

[Paul2]

100% crew killed vs bustle autoloader or no autoloader = crew survives.

In T series tanks, gunners, and commanders are far more frequent fatality than the driver, and remember most tank kills in Ukraine are not from ATGMs/LAWs.

From the late, the protection is relatively good all around, unless the famous carousel magazine hit.

I would say, if T-72 had a bustle magazine, they would've got at most 10% less casualties (which is still huge,) but they would've saved more than that if the side armour in between turret, and threads wasn't weak to the point it's vulnerable to artillery shrapnel.

 

[jhungary]

I think part of the poor tactics is being driven by the muddy conditions (forcing Russian tanks to use high ways), lack of manpower (hence no Infantry protection), and technical limitations of the tanks.

It is not about muddy condition or using highway, it's about they don't use tactical formation.

First of all, you ALWAYS travel in an echelon in a combat zone, you can peel off and the tank in front of you don't block your vision to the front and both side, I have yet to see any Russian tank in Ukraine travel in an echelon in Ukraine. Always a single or double file or in a straight line.

Second of all, you ALWAYS approach a city in different route, you have 4 tanks in a platoon, you use one tank as a base of fire and suppress any enemy movement, and the other 3 maneuver individually to cover different approaches in the city. This way you distributed your enemy firepower which mean instead of staying at one place, they will have to be in 3 or 4 place to meet your tank. Instead the Russian travel in a single column along the same road, a single AT team can take out the entire convoy.

All these are very basic thing you are being taught in Tanker School, and none of these are shown to be used by the Russian in this conflict...

 

[Paul2]

Another thing spoken by UA crews is that t-72 line have SERIOUSLY HORRENDOUS crew ergonomics.

T-64 is a smaller tank, but your risk banging your head inside it is much lower.

I would attribute much of "T-72 drove into a ditch" photos to it using levers for steering.

 

[alimobin memon]

Based on the current conflict......most important aspect of a tank transmission is the reverse speed. T-72/T-90 series tanks have very slow reverse gears. Internet is packed with vids of Russian T-72/T-90 series tanks firing and staying in the same spot. In modern warfare its best to shoot and scoot, IMO. Infantry ATGM hunter killer teams can very easily destroy a tank that fires and remains stagnate.

Pak tanks havw good reverse speed. Protected ammo boxes for low chances of ammunition exploding. Then i guess with previous few posts its not that bad as russians.

 

[kingQamaR]

Tanks are optimised for longer-range engagements, where they can better control the orientation of their armour to the enemy, among other factors. Tanks can still be decisive in urban engagements, but against capable defenders, they’ll need more infantry support than in other environments.

 

[Bossman]

Russiab people said the Merkava is garbage when only 5 Merkavas were destroyed in 2006 war, now 2700 Russian tanks got destroyed in the Ukraine war

2006 war? Which country was Israel fighting against? Palestinian women and Children?

The design of T80/84 is fundamentally different from the T72/T90 series. USSR did not pursue further development of T84s due to cost issues. T84 is better.