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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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mike_golf    RE:top 10 tanks in the world!!!   11/21/2003 10:45:04 PM
cerbere wrote: "In addition to its frightening gun of 120 mm, Leclerc has the property to draw moving in any ground at the speed of 40 Km/h on a target located at 4000 m and it even moving to 60 Km/h. To judge this performance, let us announce that the tanks Léopard 2 and M1 Abrams can only draw works from there (15 Km/h maximum) on a good track and against a target with the stop located at 3000 Mr. the absence of automatic charger oblige them to stop to manually reload the door and cumbersome ammunition of 120 mm." Man, you are way off the mark. First off, I have combat experience as an M1A1 tank commander and master gunner. My tank did NOT stop to reload. In fact, we loaded on the move while acquiring targets at speeds up to 50 km/hr, that being about the fastest that a tank battalion can move an maintain cohesion, even in open desert. Second problem with what you are saying. In an M1A1 Heavy (i.e. mark 2 of the A1 series) I engaged and hit first round, while on the move, at 3400 meters. This is while under fire from T-72's, artillery coming in danger close and infantry with RPG's all over the damn place. So much for your theory that the M1 can't engage past 3,000 meters. Next time try finding out the reality before you post.
 
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mike_golf    RE:top 10 tanks in the world!!!   11/21/2003 10:53:30 PM
Couac_Attack wrote: "I think its about the M1A1, but think that an autoloader permit to reload on every type of ground at every speed, whereas you must consider the main stabilization of the tank and be carefull on your driving with a human loader. So that why you get a clear advantage with the Leclerc on this point. Then the suspension of the Abram dont permit to get a good stabilization on bad ground, whereas the Leclerc's one can easily." God, where do you guys get these "facts"? First off, the M1 stabilizes quite well on rough ground. I am stating this based on my own personal experience with M1's. I hit T-72's on the move across desert terrain with one shot one hit consistently, even at ranges in excess of 3,000 meters. This is in combat, not on a gunnery range. On a gunnery range I have hit targets first round at 3700 and 3800 meters while in the National Training Center in the Mojave Desert (even though the M1A1 is not rated to be accurate beyond 3,200 meters, this is, as usual with most American weapons systems, very conservative). Secondly, the M1 has the ability to disengage the vertical stabilization of the main gun while continuing to stabilize the sights vertically. The gun locks into a level position, the loader loads a round, recouples the gun, which slaves back to the sights and the gunner is ready to fire. There is no need to stop. Eric, SSG, US Army, Ret. (medical)
 
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mike_golf    RE:top 10 tanks in the world!!!   11/21/2003 10:57:29 PM
oldbutnotwise wrote: "smoothbore vs rifled? what??? a rifled gun is always superior to a smoothbore of the same caliber, there is no advantage to the smoothbore" Actually, not true. The advantage to the smoothbore is with hypervelocity ammunition. The spin imparted by rifled guns destabilizes the ammunition at high velocity, reducing accuracy. At lower velocities the spin keeps the round stabilized. The US Army tried to counteract the issue of spin in its 105mm APDS by introducing a rotating collar to allow the sabot to spin while the dart itself did not. This was only semi-effective.
 
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mike_golf    RE:top 10 tanks in the world!!!   11/21/2003 11:07:19 PM
MikkoLn wrote: "Anyway, even here, I think T-series has suffered a bad inflation because of elder Iraqi tanks failure and the whole series is seen much inferior to western tanks. Without a single good reason." Except for the testing done at Aberdeen with T-64 and T-80 variants after the fall of the Soviet Union. Tanks were acquired in various ways by Western intelligence agencies. The T-64 was excellent for its generation and certainly better than US equivalent generation M60. But not in the same generation by a long shot as the M1, Challenger, Leo, etc. And the T-80 was basically an upgrade of the T-64 with reactive armor and better fire control. Same gun, same chassis, same passive armor. Result of a M1 vs. T-80 would be the same as a M1 vs. T-72. One M1 shot fired, one T-80 catastrophic kill.
 
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mike_golf    RE:top 10 tanks in the world!!! M1A1 armor vs. KE penetrator   11/21/2003 11:29:59 PM
While Im here; is there anyone who has good info on the top tanks that can give me an estimate on M1A1 armor (both kinds) against KE? I can categorically state, because I saw it happen, that an M1A1 Heavy, which had armor upgrade over the original M1A1, can take a KE hit from the Soviet/Russian 125mm main gun at a range of roughly 1100 meters with no significant damage. In fact, the M1A1 Heavy can withstand a hit from another M1 against its frontal armor. This happened in 1991 during an attempt to destroy a disabled tank that could not be recovered by maintenance. The original M1 was rated as having the equivalent of 1000+ mm of rolled homogeneous steel, although it's composite armor on the front slope was only 550mm, I believe. I might be off by a couple mm on the front slope of the original M1. That said, it turned out that composite armor (also called chobham) was very effective against long rod KE penetrators although it was originally designed to defeat HEAT and heavy ATGM's.
 
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desertowl    RE:top 10 tanks in the world!!! M1A1 armor vs. KE penetrator   11/22/2003 12:40:47 PM
how thick is its turret roof? the days of tank VS tank are gone (look at he last conflicts). ATGM's are now top attack. what will the tank developers do? add more armor on top? this will cause them to put a bigger engine and transmission , making it even heavier. all the ATGM's developer needs to do is put some extra RDX or a 3rd warhead...
 
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mike_golf    RE:top 10 tanks in the world!!! M1A1 armor vs. KE penetrator   11/22/2003 2:13:26 PM
desertowl wrote: "the days of tank VS tank are gone (look at he last conflicts). ATGM's are now top attack." First off, if you read my post, I was responding to someone's very specific question as to how the M1 performed against Kinetic Energy weapons (i.e. discarding sabot long rod penetrators), which I answered with a first hand account. I also provide d some basic, unclassified statistics about the M1 tank's front slope armor. You are absolutely correct that the front slope does no good against ATGM's today. What you fail to understand is that armor/cavalry tactics take this into account. Cavalry is the fast moving force that gets onto the enemy's flank and rear and disrupts their supply and C3I and defeats the enemy in detail. Cavalry is not intended to go head to head with dug-in infantry, any more than infantry could successfully assault armor by themselves. If they tried the cavalry commander would simply flank the attacking infantry with fast moving units, most likely helicopters. A tank's single biggest advantage, both tactically and operationally, is its mobility, not its armor. Tanks are not used where the enemy is strong, but rather where he is weak. The greatest cavalry leaders (Sheridan, Rommell, Guderian, Patton, etc.) understood this. The infantry of WWII were as capable of defeating armor if they were dug in and the armor performed a deliberate attack as infantry is today. If you study the campaigns of these men you find that they used proper cavalry tactics. You are focusing far too much on the technical aspects and far too little on the operational aspects. You also assume that the tank is operating alone, rather than in concert with the other combat arms. If so, the commander deserves what he gets, which is defeated.
 
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desertowl    RE:top 10 tanks in the world!!! M1A1 armor vs. KE penetrator   11/22/2003 2:57:28 PM
forgive my tendacy to become rather technical , i guess it comes with the trade. in a balanced conflict and in convetional scenario i agree to every word you wrote. lets take the last conflict in iraq as a test case: say, if the iraqies would fill the desert with sporadic AT stakeouts , combined with portable SA's , it would be ten times effective then the convetional deployment. beeing a state that is sentanced to fight a superpower with inferior to none airpower and infirior tanks , i think its the way to go. we can see examples for the efficiency of that technique as we read almost daily of another black hawk beeing shot down , usually by a low tech weapon as the RPG 7. my point is that we need to read the face of the new battlefield. do you realy belive we will live to see great armies march to war one against another?
 
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mike_golf    RE:top 10 tanks in the world!!! M1A1 armor vs. KE penetrator   11/22/2003 3:13:14 PM
Look at my handle, mike_golf. In a tank company that is generally how the master gunner is referred to. I'm as technical as they come. But I also understand that technical match ups only explain part of the story. On paper the Wehrmacht should have beat the US Army tank for tank, and their infantry with the panzerfaust should have as well. In 1940 the French and British should have beat the Germans in May, looking only at how many soldiers they had, how good their equipment was, etc. What it came down to, what won the campaigns, was superior operational art. That of Rommel, Guderian and Von Rundstedt in 1940 and that of Patton and Bradley in 1944. And yes, I believe it is possible that we will see large armies in combat in our lifetimes. Every generation since WWII has said that the day of the ground pounder and the tank was numbered because of ATGM's, or nukes, or whatever. And each generation was wrong. In 1989 we supposedly wouldn't need a large standing army anymore because of the fall of the Iron Curtain and the Soviet Empire. A year later we engaged in the largest armored campaign since Kursk. The problem with your proposal (which is really Rumsfeld's as far as I understand what you propose) is that it is too narrowly focused. The key to military success is to have a generally capable military with specialty units for the narrow focus needs.
 
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Yamauchi    RE:top 10 tanks in the world!!!   11/22/2003 10:30:06 PM
I'd put the Japanese Type 90 in there, personally.
 
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