M1A1 Abrams vs Deep Muddy Turn on Dirt Road

A place to talk about all things military, paramilitary, tactical, strategic, and logistical.
User avatar
308Mike
Posts: 16537
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 3:47 pm

M1A1 Abrams vs Deep Muddy Turn on Dirt Road

Post by 308Mike »

POLITICIANS & DIAPERS NEED TO BE CHANGED OFTEN AND FOR THE SAME REASON

A person properly schooled in right and wrong is safe with any weapon. A person with no idea of good and evil is unsafe with a knitting needle, or the cap from a ballpoint pen.

I remain pessimistic given the way BATF and the anti gun crowd have become tape worms in the guts of the Republic. - toad
Aesop
Posts: 6149
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:17 am

Re: M1A1 Abrams vs Deep Muddy Turn on Dirt Road

Post by Aesop »

It also amouts to a pretty good briefing on how to disable a tank or construct a suitable terrain obstacle for the uninitiated.
Purely for informational purposes, you understand. 8-)

Reminds me that I must pester Baby Brother for his picture of an M60A3 he did a barrel roll in whilst driving.
Apparently when they pogo over a snapped shock absorber strut at speed, they don't maneuver as well when driven in a turret-down attitude.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
User avatar
Jericho941
Posts: 5180
Joined: Sun Aug 24, 2008 8:30 am

Re: M1A1 Abrams vs Deep Muddy Turn on Dirt Road

Post by Jericho941 »

What is it with Russian kids on Youtube showing up to every tank video to proclaim the superiority of the T-90 over the Abrams? We need to stop making video games with Russians in them (bad guys or otherwise); it's clearly gone to their heads.

Yeah, I know, CoD: Ghosts strained credibility to the limit by having the US invaded by Brazil or some such nonsense, but at least it wasn't feeding Ivan Junior's delusions of relevance.
Aesop
Posts: 6149
Joined: Sat Apr 27, 2013 9:17 am

Re: M1A1 Abrams vs Deep Muddy Turn on Dirt Road

Post by Aesop »

They forget to read the fine print wherein it's stated the nominee tank must actually be running. Rusitng on blocks doesn't count. :lol:
Kind of like proponents of Soviet communism, they want to compete with the idealized version that exists in their head, rather than the actual on-the-ground reality version.
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy." -Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"
User avatar
HTRN
Posts: 12397
Joined: Wed Aug 20, 2008 3:05 am

Re: M1A1 Abrams vs Deep Muddy Turn on Dirt Road

Post by HTRN »

Jericho941 wrote:What is it with Russian kids on Youtube showing up to every tank video to proclaim the superiority of the T-90 over the Abrams?
Well, it is something like 18 tons lighter... ;)
HTRN, I would tell you that you are an evil fucker, but you probably get that a lot ~ Netpackrat

Describing what HTRN does as "antics" is like describing the wreck of the Titanic as "a minor boating incident" ~ First Shirt
User avatar
PawPaw
Posts: 4493
Joined: Fri Jan 02, 2009 8:19 pm

Re: M1A1 Abrams vs Deep Muddy Turn on Dirt Road

Post by PawPaw »

HTRN wrote:
Jericho941 wrote:What is it with Russian kids on Youtube showing up to every tank video to proclaim the superiority of the T-90 over the Abrams?
Well, it is something like 18 tons lighter... ;)
I'll give it that, it is lighter. Whether or not it's a better tank is questionable. I studied tanks in some detail from '75-99 and from what I saw of Soviet armor, I wasn't really impressed, except in the numbers they could field. From my cursory review, the T90 series seems to be an upgrade/improvement on the older models. Those older models, particularly the T72 had a basic flaw in the design that made crew survivability problematic, in that the turret had a disturbing tendency to flip over when struck with an anti-armor round. Also, the old T72 also had a disturbing tendency to "light-up" when struck, with flames that looked like a cutting-torch. It's rough on the crew.

From what I understand about the T90, it's got improved armor, to include explosive reactive armor (ERA). I'm not a huge fan of ERA, because while it's good at breaking up the plasma from an explosive round, it offers very little protection against kinetics. Plus, when you're struck by a HEAT round, and your armor detonates, you've got two explosions, first from the incoming round, and second from your very own armor. I'll bet that would make the crew bleed from their eardrums.

So, on the plus side, we've got a lighter vehicle. On the minus side we've got the basic design flaw that lets the turret flip over, we've got the Sov propensity for building weapons that an illiterate peasant can operate (with the techological hurdles to overcome) and we've got a turret that when it's struck with a shaped charge, your own friggin' turret explodes.

Now,I'll grant that in all honesty, I've never seen a T90, never touched one and never taken one over a mobility course. It might be a damn fine tank, but what I've seen of its predecessors doesn't lead me to any great confidence that it's a better tank than the M1 series (or for that matter, the M60 series... especially the A3, which I consider one of the best battle tanks ever fielded).
Dennis Dezendorf
PawPaw's House
User avatar
mekender
Posts: 13189
Joined: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:31 pm

Re: M1A1 Abrams vs Deep Muddy Turn on Dirt Road

Post by mekender »

PawPaw wrote:I'll give it that, it is lighter. Whether or not it's a better tank is questionable. I studied tanks in some detail from '75-99 and from what I saw of Soviet armor, I wasn't really impressed, except in the numbers they could field. From my cursory review, the T90 series seems to be an upgrade/improvement on the older models. Those older models, particularly the T72 had a basic flaw in the design that made crew survivability problematic, in that the turret had a disturbing tendency to flip over when struck with an anti-armor round. Also, the old T72 also had a disturbing tendency to "light-up" when struck, with flames that looked like a cutting-torch. It's rough on the crew.

From what I understand about the T90, it's got improved armor, to include explosive reactive armor (ERA). I'm not a huge fan of ERA, because while it's good at breaking up the plasma from an explosive round, it offers very little protection against kinetics. Plus, when you're struck by a HEAT round, and your armor detonates, you've got two explosions, first from the incoming round, and second from your very own armor. I'll bet that would make the crew bleed from their eardrums.

So, on the plus side, we've got a lighter vehicle. On the minus side we've got the basic design flaw that lets the turret flip over, we've got the Sov propensity for building weapons that an illiterate peasant can operate (with the techological hurdles to overcome) and we've got a turret that when it's struck with a shaped charge, your own friggin' turret explodes.

Now,I'll grant that in all honesty, I've never seen a T90, never touched one and never taken one over a mobility course. It might be a damn fine tank, but what I've seen of its predecessors doesn't lead me to any great confidence that it's a better tank than the M1 series (or for that matter, the M60 series... especially the A3, which I consider one of the best battle tanks ever fielded).
So that kind of matches what I already thought, that in a modern tank on tank slugfest, the tank that fires a hit first will usually be the one that wins.
“I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.” - Norman Thomas, a six time candidate for president for the Socialist Party, 1944
User avatar
randy
Posts: 8334
Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 11:33 pm
Location: EM79VQ

Re: M1A1 Abrams vs Deep Muddy Turn on Dirt Road

Post by randy »

mekender wrote:So that kind of matches what I already thought, that in a modern tank on tank slugfest, the tank that fires a hit first will usually be the one that wins.
Which puts the advantage to the Abrams given the superiority of it's fire control system over Soviet designs, even improved with post - Cold War technology, as it will get the first hit, often before the OPFOR know it's been targeted, or even in a fight.

I'm not sure, wasn't my particular field, but IIRC the Abrams is much more likely to survive a main gun hit from Soviet tank than vice versa, and will defer to the professional tread heads on the forum.

Now going up against Leopards or Merkavas, that's more, shall we say, interesting?
...even before I read MHI, my response to seeing a poster for the stars of the latest Twilight movies was "I see 2 targets and a collaborator".
Langenator
Posts: 1155
Joined: Sun Jun 27, 2010 2:10 pm

Re: M1A1 Abrams vs Deep Muddy Turn on Dirt Road

Post by Langenator »

mekender wrote:
PawPaw wrote:I'll give it that, it is lighter. Whether or not it's a better tank is questionable. I studied tanks in some detail from '75-99 and from what I saw of Soviet armor, I wasn't really impressed, except in the numbers they could field. From my cursory review, the T90 series seems to be an upgrade/improvement on the older models. Those older models, particularly the T72 had a basic flaw in the design that made crew survivability problematic, in that the turret had a disturbing tendency to flip over when struck with an anti-armor round. Also, the old T72 also had a disturbing tendency to "light-up" when struck, with flames that looked like a cutting-torch. It's rough on the crew.

From what I understand about the T90, it's got improved armor, to include explosive reactive armor (ERA). I'm not a huge fan of ERA, because while it's good at breaking up the plasma from an explosive round, it offers very little protection against kinetics. Plus, when you're struck by a HEAT round, and your armor detonates, you've got two explosions, first from the incoming round, and second from your very own armor. I'll bet that would make the crew bleed from their eardrums.

So, on the plus side, we've got a lighter vehicle. On the minus side we've got the basic design flaw that lets the turret flip over, we've got the Sov propensity for building weapons that an illiterate peasant can operate (with the techological hurdles to overcome) and we've got a turret that when it's struck with a shaped charge, your own friggin' turret explodes.

Now,I'll grant that in all honesty, I've never seen a T90, never touched one and never taken one over a mobility course. It might be a damn fine tank, but what I've seen of its predecessors doesn't lead me to any great confidence that it's a better tank than the M1 series (or for that matter, the M60 series... especially the A3, which I consider one of the best battle tanks ever fielded).
So that kind of matches what I already thought, that in a modern tank on tank slugfest, the tank that fires a hit first will usually be the one that wins.
And that has a two part solution:

1) Who has better optics, and thus the (technical) capability to spot the other guy first? Even in daylight, most of the tank battles in ODS were fought at ranges at which the Iraqi forces quite simply could not see the US armor to engage them.

2) Once the enemy is spotted ( a variable dependant to some extent on #1 above), who can score a hit first? This mostly boils down to crew gunnery training, with some influence from the optics and other targeting systems and such.

Given this, a crew trained to US standards (assuming the budget gives the necessary funds) in a T-90 would almost surely defeat a crew trained to Russian standards in an M-1. This was probably shown most dramatically in the early Golan Heights battles during the Yom Kippur War, when better trained Israeli tankers in inferior tanks generally got the better of less well-trained Syrians who had better tanks.
Fortuna Fortis Paratus
User avatar
Rod
Posts: 4824
Joined: Fri Aug 15, 2008 1:08 pm

Re: M1A1 Abrams vs Deep Muddy Turn on Dirt Road

Post by Rod »

I agree with Paw Paw, the A3 was THE tank and still is a great vehicle. If I remember correctly (and PawPaw will correct me if I'm wrong), the A3 was actually marginally more accurate than the M1 when stationary. I also seem to remember most modern Russian tanks were a three man crew with autoloader that had a tendency to grab the nearest person and try stuffing them in the gun tube. I also seem to remember something like a 4500 meter (2.79 mile) kill of a T-72 by an M1 in the Gulf War.
one can be a Democrat, or one can choose to be an American.
Good acting requires an imagination; reality requires a person not getting lost in their imagination.
"It's better to have a gun if you need it". Felix's opthamologist
Post Reply