Originally Posted by bulldogg

Knowing what I do about Chinese manufacturing QC I will reserve judgment on their newest shiny penny till a few of them do a turn in head to head combat in harsh conditions... if the electronics and mechanical pieces can withstand more than 30 days duty I'd be shocked.

Ive always been suspicious on Chinese stuff.. I guess they are more focused on "Mass production" than "+30 day survival"

Originally Posted by SHERMAN

I think that a simple look at the fac that the IDF dpecifies the same weight for the Merkava Mk 2, 3 and 4 is fisshy. I never put an MK 4 on scales but I doubt it is "only" 65 tons. My guess would be 75-80.

At 75-80 you'd be busting down most bridges in Israel, fully loaded it might gain a ton or three but not 15.

A ton? Have you seen them standing next to each other? just the diffrence in gun, engine and size is worth more than a ton....Thats assuming the armopr was kept the same, which it was not.

Originally Posted by SHERMAN

A ton? Have you seen them standing next to each other? just the diffrence in gun, engine and size is worth more than a ton....Thats assuming the armopr was kept the same, which it was not.

Most of Israeli tank science comes from US, either handed over or spied out and most American knowledge comes from a joint German-American programme (that failed) i dont remember the name of the prototype, but the result is all of these (Merkava, Leopard and Abrams) roll along the same general outlines, dimentions included.

The Merkava has little to do with the MBT70(that is the prototype you refer to). Also Israeli tank design and doctrine is hardly bought from or spied from the USA, and I would like to know what you base that statment on...

Originally Posted by EladBell

i think that a shell loading is a Human Job! because i would trust a loader in my Tank more than i would trust an ignorant machine,that,as SHERMAN,said can brake down,there is not replamnet for a Human capability.
also the loader takes part on the Machine gun firing on the top of the turet isent he? so it is an added fire power against Infantry

Well, there's a little bit more going on than that. The Armerican M1 uses 4 different types of ammo depending on the mission set (I'm talking service ammo, not training). You have HEAT, SABOT, MPAT (including OR), and Canister. You can rapidly configure your ammo loadout to face your specific mission. The ready rack (excluding the hull ammo and semi-ready) only holds 17 rounds, so if you are moving to contact an armored force, you may want more SABOT, and if you are engaging mech infantry, you'd want more HEAT. It's quite a bit easier to just have the loader reconfigure what's in your ready ammo storage than to have a a machine trying to identify and switch between ammo on the fly. *Example* You are carrying a mixed load and have a SABOT in the tube (battlecarry). You see a hunter/killer team of a T-72 and 2 BMPs. HEAT is the round of choice for the BMPs, and the tank is your main threat, so you fire the SABOT at it. (fire command TC: "Gunner, SABOT, TANK and 2 PCs, TANK first" GNR: "Identified", TC: "FIRE, FIRE HEAT" GNR: "ON THE WAY") GNR engages the tank with SABOT, loader loads HEAT instead of SABOT, GNR indexes HEAT and contines on. At the conclusion of the engagement, the loader can load whatever the TC thinks would be most prudent, and when time permits, draw the apropriate ammo type from the hull storage. I can't imagine an autoloader giving you that flexibility without sapping the gunner/TCs time.

Originally Posted by Zastava-Arms

It is, Croatia just modernised it so it can compete with other tanks. The Serbian M-84AS is a extremely upgraded version of the Yugoslav M-84. Its more related to a T-90 than it is to a T-72 [It has the Shtora-1 defense suite = win]

EDIT - The Degman is still pretty good. Kuwait is planning to buy about 50-60 of them I think.

Sorry, but Degman will not be going to Kuwait, out of the 300 M-84 MBTs that Kuwait has only 50 are still on the active books, the remainder are in storage with the 50 active to soon follow.

Originally Posted by Titanium

From those, for what I know only can say about the Leclerc and Japan's Type 90 could be with the "Big 4", french one is a very fast tank, and what to say about japanese tech...

Don't know very much about the other, but K2 turret armor don't looks enough inclinate to withstand impacts...

I would say that the Leclerc and Type 90 are very under estimated, the Leclerc has some of the the best sighting systems in the world while the Type 90 was actually the first tank to come equipped with a auto tracking device, yes it was installed before Merkava 3 and Leclerc series.

Originally Posted by mmarsh

Eventually I would think so, but as it remains now their are reasons to keep the loader. Relablity for one. We had a member here named Cadet Seamen, he was a US tanker and though he was very knowledgeable he was steadfast against autoloading tanks, due to the early Russian (T-80)autoloaders attempt to load the gunner into the gun.

However there have been massive improvements in this area from the early generations. The Leclerc for example has a working and reliable auoloader.

Actually the T-80 series auto loader is the better one out of the bunch, it was the early T-64 MBT that had the tendancy to eat a arm or two, Russia actually has placed the T-80 auto loader inside of T-90 because of other concerns.

Leclerc, TYPE 90 and K2 all share the same designed auto loading system, it is that good of a French designed system. Future block upgrades for M1 series have also tested this design type while still leaving the fourth crew member.

Originally Posted by SHERMAN

I think that a simple look at the fac that the IDF dpecifies the same weight for the Merkava Mk 2, 3 and 4 is fisshy. I never put an MK 4 on scales but I doubt it is "only" 65 tons. My guess would be 75-80.

Good Lord man, 75 to 80 tons for Merkava 4. It is actually alot less, it has to do with that early neatly designed turret that affords you to bolt and weld some impressive armor packages to it.