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Subject: top 10 tanks in the world!!!
Hong-Xing    8/12/2003 9:07:05 AM
i think it would be this t-90 (rus) m1a2 (usa) t-98 (chi) m1a1 (usa) Challenger 2 (bri) t-95 black hawk (rus) al khalid (chi) merkeva (bra) arjun (ind) t-90||| (chi)
 
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AKS    RE:tank silhouette   1/19/2004 12:03:54 AM
yap S has an excellent silhouette, but the design is not practical.
 
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mike_golf    RE: Northern guy on Russian soldiers   1/19/2004 12:04:22 AM
AKS, I will grant you that Soviet units were reasonably well trained. By Russian standards anyhow. But they completely lacked in iniative, including their junior officers. The strengths of the Russian soldier is not their ability on an individual level. It is a different mentality than the Western armies. To quickly answer your "silhouette" question, which is one way people who like Russian tanks try to win the "best tank" argument, the T-90 silhouette is better than the M1 or Challenger. However, that is one small component of the protection design. Anyhow, moving along. In 1980 or so, I was a young tank commander in the 11th ACR, facing a Soviet Guards Army. I was scared of them crossing the border, but not because I felt that their tank crews or tanks were superior to ours. It was because I knew we would be fighting an entire Soviet Motorized Rifle Division with one Cavalry Regiment. Russia's advantage has always been quantity over quality. That and their soldiers will endure privation and hardship that no western soldier ever would. Even in 1945, when the Red Army rolled into Berlin, man for man they were no match for the German veterans. I won't deny that Russia is, and always has been, a major player in Europe and in the world. But not because their officers are better, or because unit for unit they are better. Pay more attention to history. As to the Russian officers are better because they had military academies before the US existed theory. That's pretty silly. What matters is the quality of the training, not how long the academy existed. Besides, the vast majority of the professional officers in the US Army did not attend an academy. I'll be happy to point out the flaws in the US system too. I have before and I'll do it again. But you are trying to compare the Russian Army to Western armies in a fashion that simply pits Russian weakness against Western strength. Take a lesson from Mao. Play to your strength, retreat from the enemy's strength.
 
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mike_golf    RE: Northern guy on Russian soldiers   1/19/2004 12:12:05 AM
Oh, one last comment. With high quality soldiers who understand tactics, have excellent training standards and exercise tactical iniative you can take on the enemy with inferior equipment. It's why the Germans kicked the Red Army around so hard in 1941 and 1942. The Red Army outnumbered them and had superior tanks (T-34) and artillery. But the German tactics and operational art and higher quality soldier more than made up for it. The Russian soldier of today is handicapped by both poor equipment, comparatively, and poor training. Their only advantage, mass, is gone as well, for the time being. Russia is in tough position right now. There is no way you will convince anyone here that a typical Russian tank crew in a T-90 could stop a typical American tank crew in an M-1, all other things being equal.
 
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gf0012-aus    tank silhouette - AKS   1/19/2004 12:27:01 AM
mate, I didn't say it was a good tank, just a good silhouette... ;) it wouldn't get through a lot of mike_golfs selection criteria in todays environment... ;)
 
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swhitebull    RE:tank silhouette   1/19/2004 2:00:51 AM
..RE:tank silhouette 1/18/2004 11:41:45 PM So guys which tanks have a better silhouette ... Jolene Blaylock in the tank top on the deck of the Starship Enterprise wins MY vote ANY day for the best tank(top)silhouette! Any one want to dispute THIS one? Bring it on! END of DISCUSSION- case closed! swhitebull ;-P
 
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Thomas    RE:Summarizing a few things MG   1/19/2004 2:56:05 AM
I generally agree with your evaluation, but have a few comments. Mobility: One thing is the strategic mobility. The M1 can do the job and may not be that much more difficult bringing into place overseas than others; but it is a very demanding tank on the supply lines. A tank with no fuel and no grenades is not a tank. This banality reflects a more serious issue: Getting a larger army, to solve the problems around the world, is not just a question of getting more tanks and train their crews. You also need more supply trucks and their crews, You need more mechanics with their expensive equipment and spare parts, You need more field hospitals, because the supply people have a tendency to make road accidents, You need more light troops to protect the supply lines. Any increase in the shap end whiplashes backwards. If you insist on a tank that needs to pampered like a primadonna, you muliply an already high multiplication factor. This in turn moves the goalposts for the assesment of what is a vital security need, as the expense of moving into action skyrockets. Overwhelming firepower is a nice notion - if you can afford it - but someone has to carry all these shells. PGM help to some extend, but I do not believe it to be a pancea for all problems, as you cannot count on the opponent being as incompetent as Saddam. This is why I (with scant success) have tried to raise the question of the Medium - or even light tank (though a Sturmgeschütz of German pattern/HMMVV with missiles might be better bet). To me the important point is not the best MBT (there isn't much to choose from among the better ones), but the best ADEQUATE tank. Not that I would go without the MBT, but reserve it for occation where nothing else will do. The Abrams uses 75% more fuel than a Leo2, will it be possible to build a tank that uses 1/3 of the fuel of an Abrams with a 105 mm gun and enough armour protection to cope with all but the most serious opposing tank? To paraphrase you MG: The only thing more expensive than the best MBT, is to few MBT's - or there is more ways to kill a cat, than drown it in cream.
 
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Fedaykin    Wishful Thinking   1/19/2004 4:33:15 AM
Stating that Russian soldiers are better trained than western ones is just wishful thinking. The current parlous state of the Russian millitary is well documented. In many ways the officer core is part of the problem with senior officers resisting any true modernisation. I will digress off tanks for a bit now onto pilot training but I feel that this will help clarrify the situation... Western Air forces pilot training is usually maintained to a fixed NATO standard. This covers the training syllabus and the amount of required flight hours per year. On top of this each air force will usually participate in several training exercises a year often with other air forces. Also older and more experienced pilots are encouraged to mentor newer pilots passing on the anecdotal skills often not covered in a normal training syllabus. This practice is particularly prevalent in the Israeli air force which has a very good combat recorded (Ignoring the politics of the present situation). In a recent combat air exercise between the Israeli air force and a Mediterranean based USN carrier wing the Israeli air force managed to get a 40 - 1 kill ratio. This is a useful example as it shows a real combat scenario between two countries fielding virtually the same equipment. In that case Israel with an air force that has seen near constant operation for 40+ years the skill showed. The fact is in the end whatever the Western air force their is a principle of developing a core of pilots who meet an average of skill across the board rather then have a large skill disparity. In the case of pilots trained in the eastern block things are a bit murkier. Obviously the pilots who appear at various western air shows are very good performing many impressive maneuvers like the cobra (invented by the prolific Russian test pilot Viktor Pugachev) but it is important to note that these pilots were either company test pilots or senior air force pilots. In the case of the average eastern block pilot things are different. It is well known that flight hours are low in the eastern block, the Russian air force itself has stated that this is a problem. Training in the eastern block is also based on Ground Control Intercept or GCI, something that in the west is regarded as outmoded and inflexible (It is worth noting that Western airforces do employ GCI in certain situations). There are two examples that I will pose to give a better idea of the state of training in the eastern block; firstly with the reunification of West and East Germany the Luftwaffe gained access to the former DDR's air force including the much vaunted Mig29. It was decided that the Mig29 would be placed into a new squadron formed around a core of ex Phantom pilots. Whilst in the BVR arena they found the Mig rather poor in comparison to western types in the close combat environment they found it to be superior. In the meanwhile the ex DDR pilots were tested to see their quality. It was found that they were very poor, the Mig29 whilst being flown by them lost all its advantages and was easy to engage and theoretically destroy for the Luftwaffe pilots. This was deeply worrying for the Luftwaffe so its was decided to place the ex DDR pilots through basic training. Most of them washed out and never flew a military jet again. The other example comes from the 1980's and the Iraqi air force which had decided to purchase the Dassault Mirage F1 and the Mig29. A number of Iraqi air force trainees were sent to France to train on the new type with the French Air force. A high number of these students did not meet the minimal quality standard and were sent home. These young men were then sent to Russia instead to train for the Mig29. In the case of Russia they did meet their standards and passed much to the surprise of France. In conclusion it is fair to say that the average eastern block combat pilot is not as skilled as the average western pilot, this is in no way should be read as an insult to the people of these countries.
 
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Heorot    RE:Summarizing a few things mike_golf   1/19/2004 5:47:30 AM
Thomas raises an interesting point about the logistic trail and it made me think about something Mike_Golf said. He made the point that major work could be carried out on the Abrams in the field rather than returning it to the depot. I wonder if he could tell us what the logistics penalty is for that facility. By that I mean, how much extra manpower is required for this, how mush additional equipment is needed and what the fuel penalty for this support is. As I see it, if you have no logistics for this, as has been suggested for the Russian model, your tail is much reduced. I will concede that damage that is beyond local maintenance means the loss of the tank for the fighting, but given the overwhelming superiority and general reliability of the Abrams, would this be a problem? Or is the ability to maintain a high service level a reflection of the larger logistic tail? And if so, is the tail significantly worth the expense.
 
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Thomas    RE:Summarizing a few things Heorot   1/19/2004 6:23:12 AM
Interesting point! If you have enough tanks, but not enough crews: If your tank gets a little dent take a new one from the pool, and let the transporter take the empty one back to the equally empty transport ship.
 
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gf0012-aus    Summarizing a few things Heorot   1/19/2004 6:53:42 AM
[Or is the ability to maintain a high service level a reflection of the larger logistic tail? And if so, is the tail significantly worth the expense.] Isn't this a very fluid dynamic? If you look at GW1 the US learnt very quickly from that and applied change to the warfighting method for GW2. I would imagine that the logistics model would already have changed. Outrunning the tanker line is one issue that I would suspect they won't do again. Wouldn't an over resourced logistics mech support train be somewhat pruned the next time around - if this time they were a bit short on work??
 
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