PA TANKS comparison with contempory tanks

[satishkumarcsc]

After I got out of the army I drove truck for a living for about 5 years. I liked to take country roads around big cities to avoid traffic. One time I am cruising along and suddenly up ahead a motorcycle cop makes me stop and pull off the road. I could see power crews working to loosen the power lines and eventually here comes this massive generator turbine on a similar set up. I think I counted 28 axes. Biggest thing I have ever personally move on land.

Wow...that must be a ROAD TRAIN

 

[zraver]

Wow...that must be a ROAD TRAIN

Nope, it had one puller and one pusher tractor but only 1 trailer plus the convoy of support vehicles and escorts. Road trains as I understand them have 4 or more trailers.

 

[Tang0]

I think I may have seen some 18 wheelers in Karachi. The usual cargo load on a truck varies between 100 and 150 tons, since I've seen kaantay (weighing pads) for trucks with scales going upto 150t.

Really? Surprising considering the max allowable weight for most semi trailers in Europe and the US is around 60 tons.

Modern bridges are mad made of steel, concrete or some combination thereof. Neither of these things usually fail in compression. Long metal beams buckle under compressive loads, but usually upright contiguous metal beams are not used as bridge supports. They fail because of high tensile or shear stresses that are generated by induced moments. Bridges in Albania had to be reinforced to move US armor. Bridges in Germany had to be reinforced during the cold war to move US armor. These are facts.

Anyway, this is all ancillary to the point. The diffrence between 47 and 67 something tons is not large enough to put that many more bridges out of the useful range to justify not choosing the M-1. They didn't want to be dependent on spares. The M-1 didn't have a combat record at the time. They made their choice. A tank's weight does effect how and where you can use it. More mass takes more energy to accelerate it. More weight implies more cost in materials to build it, more cost in fuel to move it, and yes, more cost in infrastructure. The M-1 is more expensive to build, maintain, and use than a t-90 or Al-Khalid. I don't know enough to for certain say it requires a larger logistical train, but I certainly would not be suprised. That was the original point.

 

[zraver]

I don't know enough to for certain say it requires a larger logistical train, but I certainly would not be suprised. That was the original point.

Yes it requires a larger logistical train, its fuel guzzler. But it has its advantages as well. You can change out the entire power pack in 45 minutes (engine and transmission), the 4 man crew offers superior combat and maintenance performance over a 3 man tank with the same technology etc.

 

[Tang0]

The ability to change out most of the powertrain in 45 minutes is certainly nifty, but for that to actually be useful, you would need a spare engine and transmission to exchange it with... Which brings us back to the original point. I don't think you are going to get much argument that the T-90 or type 99 or whatever is a "better tank" than an Abrams. You will get plenty of argument that a T-90 or Al-Khalid has a better Performance/Cost ratio than an Abrams. A Mercedes is always going to outperform a Toyota, but is that last 20% worth the 4x price tag? Depends on how much money you have to spend, and if you are a skilled enough driver to take advantage of that last 20%.

 

[zraver]

The ability to change out most of the powertrain in 45 minutes is certainly nifty, but for that to actually be useful, you would need a spare engine and transmission to exchange it with...

The US does

Which brings us back to the original point. I don't think you are going to get much argument that the T-90 or type 99 or whatever is a "better tank" than an Abrams. You will get plenty of argument that a T-90 or Al-Khalid has a better Performance/Cost ratio than an Abrams. A Mercedes is always going to outperform a Toyota, but is that last 20% worth the 4x price tag? Depends on how much money you have to spend, and if you are a skilled enough driver to take advantage of that last 20%.

The latest Abrams is about twice the price of a T-90. But in some areas it is significantly more than 20%. The FLIR and battle management is the bes tin the world, much soother ride and a higher gunnery envelope 0-45km/h compared to about 12-25km/h for the type of suspension used on a T-90/Type 98, 25%-33% reduction in crew maintenance times per man.

 

[Tang0]

The latest Abrams is about twice the price of a T-90. But in some areas it is significantly more than 20%. The FLIR and battle management is the bes tin the world, much soother ride and a higher gunnery envelope 0-45km/h compared to about 12-25km/h for the type of suspension used on a T-90/Type 98, 25%-33% reduction in crew maintenance times per man.

Crew maintenance times are important, but a large part of that is mitigated by the fact that personnel costs in the PA and IA are significantly lower. Also, how much more specialized knowledge is required to work on an Abrams with its gas turbine engine vs. diesel engines? Diesel mechanics are a dime a dozen. Pakistan has the capability to manufacture diesel engines, can it make gas turbine engines?

When purchasing equipment, it is just as important to look at the lifetime cost of ownership as the original output. How much more does that gas-guzzling Abrams cost over its lifetime?

Thanks for all the info, and my questions are more than rhetorical, if someone could answer, I would like to know.

 

[Hellfire]

Crew maintenance times are important, but a large part of that is mitigated by the fact that personnel costs in the PA and IA are significantly lower. Also, how much more specialized knowledge is required to work on an Abrams with its gas turbine engine vs. diesel engines? Diesel mechanics are a dime a dozen. Pakistan has the capability to manufacture diesel engines, can it make gas turbine engines?

When purchasing equipment, it is just as important to look at the lifetime cost of ownership as the original output. How much more does that gas-guzzling Abrams cost over its lifetime?

Thanks for all the info, and my questions are more than rhetorical, if someone could answer, I would like to know.

actually tango the rationale for heavier tanks not being introduced was cost of operating as you rightly pointed out rather any other factor. If you can get the same thing in a diesel variant then all the more better. in addition the fact that PA was forced into not accepting Abrams (retrospectively a great stroke of luck looking at the F-16 saga) due to its poor performance at trials played a key role in determining the tank deployments in south asia as to counter T-72s purchased by IA PA went for T-80s which subsequently led to IA dumping Arjun for T-90S as PA is the only country where IA may employ tanks in large numbers (Tibetian plateau also has few tank squadrons deployed by india in north sikkim) but that is very limited in scope of operations ....

 

[Hellfire]

very informative discussion .

mughaljee you are welcome with inputs of your own .... yes its an eye opener as long as nationalistic BS is out

 

[sweetboy]

the improved arjun version is pretty interesting though

I only hear about arjun not seen this tank

 

[zraver]

Crew maintenance times are important, but a large part of that is mitigated by the fact that personnel costs in the PA and IA are significantly lower. Also, how much more specialized knowledge is required to work on an Abrams with its gas turbine engine vs. diesel engines? Diesel mechanics are a dime a dozen. Pakistan has the capability to manufacture diesel engines, can it make gas turbine engines?

When purchasing equipment, it is just as important to look at the lifetime cost of ownership as the original output. How much more does that gas-guzzling Abrams cost over its lifetime?

Thanks for all the info, and my questions are more than rhetorical, if someone could answer, I would like to know.

Sorry my net died, so I only had limited access at school, I am back now.

Crew maintence times are not mitigated by crew costs. As I said when talking about the advantages of a 4 man over a 3 man crew the only benefit is personnel and associated costs not combat related. Crew maintenance times is a combat related field. Lets say a tank needs 8 man hours a day of labor to keep: fueled, working, camouflaged, briefed and armed, and that in combat ops the average tank runs for 16-18 hours. So for a 3 man crew who can only devote 2 men to the tasks we get them each working 4 more hours so the total time spent on mission, or supporting the mission is 20-22 hours a day. Add in the 4 hours of sleep assuming the crew will eat while it works adn you get 24-26 hours per crew per day. There is a problem 26 hours is more than a day. Even 24 is unrealistic because the crew needs some minimum of time for personal care other than sleep. For a 4 man crew with 3 working the time goes from 16-18 + 2.33 to 18.33/20.33 At the minimum there is at least enough time to get everything done. You can run on 3 hours sleep longer than you can run on no hours, even though your body and mind will break down. On a best case, 7.66 hours exist for crew care. They enter combat fresher with more sleep, better hygiene (and thus better morale and healthier) are more alert etc. This translates directly into combat performance.

As for the cost of the Abrams over its lifetime. I am not sure how you would quantify it. Assuming just the 10 years between rebuilds the tank was designed to go 5000 miles. As combat in Iraq proved it can do 5 times that, but that is not what was intended. 3 gallons to the miles= 15,000 gallons on fuel of $30,000-$60,000 in fuel costs and another couple grand in other POL costs.

However if we compare a T-72 type tank and a military with PPP equivalent life insurance. Every time an Abrams is destroyed but the crew walks away the US Army saves 1 million on the replacement cost in life insurances payments alone. Not counting the 50K- to 1 million per crew member in training and support depending on how long they have been in and what rank they are. lets says the average American crew costs 2 million. A T-72 that saved 15-30,000 on fuel costs but bar-b-ques its crew and cost the government the equivalent life insurance benefits and crew replacement costs is suddenly a lot more expensive.

 

[Tang0]

How does crew training compare? The Russians are famed for the ease of operation of their equipment, does this follow for tanks as well?

Does anyone know anything about reliability and uptime? BAE Land Systems claims that the challanger 2 is "The most Reliable tank in the world" Products & Services - BAE Systems

Where are they getting their info? It seems to be marketing tripe, but is there any public source detailing tank maintenance for diffrent systems?

zraver are you sure you aren't on General Dynamics marketing team? You are beginning to convince me.

 

[Hellfire]

How does crew training compare? The Russians are famed for the ease of operation of their equipment, does this follow for tanks as well?

Does anyone know anything about reliability and uptime? BAE Land Systems claims that the challanger 2 is "The most Reliable tank in the world" Products & Services - BAE Systems

Where are they getting their info? It seems to be marketing tripe, but is there any public source detailing tank maintenance for diffrent systems?

zraver are you sure you aren't on General Dynamics marketing team? You are beginning to convince me.

tango I agree with zraver's assessment about the tank crew survivability aspect. it takes I think on an average about rs 10-12 lac to train a crew member today in IA and that means if we are to take just the training costs and not the maintenance to be paid out in case of fatalities (in terms of inputs to work obtained a purely economist jargon) then also its a whopping 32-36 lacs per tank which is a high price nevertheless.

also the survivability of T-series has been deemed suspect at best although Georgian conflict can be an eye opener in certain terms. T-80s suffered heavily in first chechen war and the cost of operating the tank to deriving advantage from it was a pathetically low figure.

introduction of features like blow out panels has enhanced crew survivability in terms of 'cook-off'

 

[Penguin]

RAnyway, this is all ancillary to the point. The diffrence between 47 and 67 something tons is not large enough to put that many more bridges out of the useful range to justify not choosing the M-1. They didn't want to be dependent on spares. The M-1 didn't have a combat record at the time. They made their choice. A tank's weight does effect how and where you can use it. More mass takes more energy to accelerate it. More weight implies more cost in materials to build it, more cost in fuel to move it, and yes, more cost in infrastructure. The M-1 is more expensive to build, maintain, and use than a t-90 or Al-Khalid. I don't know enough to for certain say it requires a larger logistical train, but I certainly would not be suprised. That was the original point.

M1 (and Challenger and Leo 2) were all developed as high end products whose purpose, together with attack helicopters (AH-64) and ground attack aircraft (A-10), was to deal with a numerically superior but technically inferior Warsaw Pact tank force. They had to be better in order to kill more before being killed.

In terms of investment and cost of an armor force, if you need say 5-6 of one tank like the T-90 to beat an opposing tank like a M1A2 (either because that's a better tank, or because artillery, helicopters and attack aircraft pick off your tanks before you can get to his) then what's more expensive, really?

 

[zraver]

zraver are you sure you aren't on General Dynamics marketing team? You are beginning to convince me.

Nope, but I served in their product.