curt@uunet.UU.NET (Curt Fennell) (08/31/90)
From: fmrco!curt@uunet.UU.NET (Curt Fennell) With all of the discussion about the relative quality of the ground forces facing each other in Iraq/Saudi Arabia, I looked up the T-72 in my references at home and came up with the following information: GENERAL; The T-72 tank was another in the long series of tanks that began before WWII and began to approach it's present form with the emergence of the T-55. The T-72 was a major departure from it's predecessor, the T-62 (I include the T-64 as a subset of the T-72) in that it contained a different engine, a new suspension and a larger gun. However, it continued the basic design philosophy of short, relatively light (when compared to western designs) tanks that are built in large quantities. ARMAMENT: The tank has a 125mm, auto-loaded smooth-bore gun that relies on a fin-stabilized projectile to achieve accuracy. The auto-loading system has been commented on before: every reference I read said that initially, the autoloading system did tend to load various body parts of the gunner. In "The Threat", by Andrew Cockburn, it is mentioned that as late as 1982, Soviet forces were told to load the gun by hand to avoid this problem. Presumably, that problem has been fixed by now, but the Iraqi tanks are probably not the latest versions. Tactically, the autoloader requires the gun to be elevated/depressed to a certain position so that the rounds can be loaded. This means that the gunner has to reacquire the target after every shot, which partially negates any speed advantage obtained by autoloading. The gun's anti-tank ammunition is of the Fin-stabilized discarding sabot type and is made of low grade iron. It shoots at very high muzzle velocities (> 1600 meters/second) and has a very flat trajectory, making it very accurate at shorter ranges. At longer ranges (over 2000 meters), the round is not very accurate. The round can defeat all older tanks at all ranges - but might have trouble penetrating the most advanced armor on the M-1 at longer ranges. Older versions have Stereo Coincidence range finders, while newer models may have laser ranging. ARMOR: The tank hull is made of rolled homogeneous steel and modern versions have add-on reactive armor plates. During the tank battles in the Beka Valley in 1982, Israeli tanks destroyed a number of T-72's with the old reliable 105mm main gun. During one engagement, all of the T-72's that were hit (9) were seen to explode, killing all the crewmembers. This hints at the old soviet design of storing the ammo and fuel close together in exposed locations within the turret. AUTOMOTIVE The T-72 has a new replacement for the old Christie suspension, probably a torsion bar arrangement. The engine is an upgraded version of the Diesel used in the old T-34/85. Various assessments of the automotive reliability range from ok to terrible. The soviet defector Suverov (sp?) stated that tank troops in Eastern Europe initially loved the new tanks, but that the engines wore out at an alarming rate and that they were not a significant improvement over the T-62. It looks as if the T-72 is roughly equivalent to the M60, but should prove no match for the M-1