Originally Posted by Yin717

I guess so but times have changed.

We had exactly 64 years or relative peace, after more then 1000 years of hardcore wars thats a bit early to say something like that.

Originally Posted by Yin717

That's not entierly true or fair. The Churchill was a rather remarkable tank,

By German and Russian standards the Churchill was an underarmed, underarmored and underpowered junk.

Originally Posted by Yin717

Also, America were way behind the British at the start of war on military technology. ,

Really? They had the best tank chassis, the most modern aircraft carriers, best light tanks, their first medium tank was also superior to anything Brits had.

Originally Posted by Yin717

The British had to lend some of their technological advances to America so they even start building weapons to assist the war effort.

Thats some new history right there, last i checked it was US that transferred technologies.

Originally Posted by Yin717

And also, the Sherman Firefly, the only tank that the British and Americans used that could actually do any effective damage to German tanks, was a british design. So I think you'll find this is not entierly correct

1. Americans did not use Fireflies.
2. Fireflies were basically a British gun squeezed into an American tank, hardly a revolution.

How is any of this relevent to the topic of the thread?

We have moved from extremely advanced and modern tanks to T-34's and Shermans.

Sorry for the double post, but I just though i should add this:

...There were other threats, as well. In one instance not previously disclosed, an American M1 tank was damaged by an RPG-29, an advanced anti-tank weapon.

So there is the point that the Abrams can still be damaged by a late 80's era RPG. I thought it would have had more armour but hey..

Edit: Forgot to add link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/21/wo...nted=2&_r=3&hp


Another edit:

During the 2003 Operation Iraqi Freedom, US troops encountered an unanticipated, and formidable, weapon in the Iraqi arsenal -- Russian-built Kornet antitank missiles. Iraqi soldiers used the wire-guided missile system against American tanks, but the US military previously did not know they possessed. It emerged as the Iraqis' most effective direct-fire weapon against U.S. armor in the desert of southern Iraq. Iraqi commandos traveling in three-man teams dressed in black civilian robes and riding in Nissan pickup trucks moved against the flanks of columns of armor from the US Army's 3rd Infantry Division and launched broadside attacks from several kilometers away using the system. Those attacks had disabled at least two Abrams tanks and one Bradley armored troop carrier in the opening week of the war. US military intelligence officials were extremely interested in capturing one of the missiles intact. They also instructed American soldiers who destroy one of the Kornet launchers to save the remains of the system for close inspection.

Link:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ssia/at-14.htm



And here we have a comparison of the Russian T-90 and T-80U against the Kornet ATGM, which managed to disable 2 Abrams tanks:

On October 20, 1999 extensive trials of T-80U and T-90 protection from various types of threats were conducted at TsNIIO 643a Testing Grounds. The tests involved firing large amounts of ordnance (including several versions of RPG ATGL, light and heavy ATGMs, and APFSDS rounds) at frontal projections of T-80U and T-90 MBTs both protected with Kontakt-V ERA and stripped of it.
T-80U and T-90 MBTs were represented by 3 vehicles each, one with Kontakt-V ERA, one with removed explosive packages and one reserve vehicle. For the ERA part of trials, knocked-out ERA packages were replaced after each shot.
One more T-80U MBT was used for special trials that focused on testing of Shtora-1 EOCMDAS.

The following weapons were used:

• Infantry ATGLs (fired at a distance of 40m)
  • RPG-7 (using advanced 105mm grenade PG-7VR with a tandem warhead, pen. 650mm RHA)
  • RPG-26 (disposable launcher, pen. >500mm RHA)
  • RPG-29 (advanced 105mm launcher, pen. 750mm RHA)
• ATGMs (fired at a distance of 600m)
  • Malyutka-2 (pen. >600mm RHA)
  • Metis (pen. 460mm RHA)
  • Konkurs (pen. 650mm RHA)
  • Kornet (pen. >850mm RHA)
• APFSDS (fired from T-80U MBT at a distance of 1,500m, the most likely round is 3BM42)

Each weapon was fired 5 times at each target, for a total of 20 shots per weapon. The total number of shots fired during the trials thus exceeded 150.


The trials yielded the following outcome:

• ATGLs
  • T-90: RPG-29 produced a total of 3 penetrations.
    No other RPG rounds could penetrate even the stripped target.
  • T-80U: RPG-29 penetrated 3 times with ERA, all 5 times without ERA.
    Of all other grenades, one PG-7VR penetrated the stripped target.
• ATGMs
  • T-90: No ATGMs could penetrate the ERA-equipped target. One Kornet ATGM penetrated the stripped target.
  • T-80U: 2 Kornet ATGMs penetrated the ERA-equipped target, all 5 penetrated the stripped target.
    No other ATGMs could penetrate.
• APFSDS
  • T-90: ERA-equipped target could not be penetrated. Furthermore, after firing the crew entered the vehicle, activated it and was able to execute the firing sequence.
    Without ERA, one round penetrated.
  • T-80U (data available only for stripped target): One round almost penetrated (3mm hole in the inner lining, no visible equipment damage); two penetrated to 1/2 thickness; one missed the target completely; one hit the gun.

As show here, a T-90 with Kontakt 5 ERA armour could NOT be penetrated by the Kornet ATGM, and without ERA only 1 out of 5 of them managed to penetrate it. The T-80U didnt do as well [Predictably].

Link:

http://fofanov.armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/TRIALS/19991020.html

with the abrams, you go to war with one foot in a bucket, and had the iraq's simply waited for the HUGE line of fuel trucks behind the M1's, they could have severely damaged the war effort, in a large scale war with say russia, china, or maybe the EU, just an example, those fuel trucks would become a major liablity, becuase, either you have complete air supierority, or you commite large amounts of AA system to protect those helpless fuel trucks, a T-90 used close to half the fuel the abrams does.

Originally Posted by Bacara

with the abrams, you go to war with one foot in a bucket, and had the iraq's simply waited for the HUGE line of fuel trucks behind the M1's, they could have severely damaged the war effort

From open sources, the range of the M-1 is about twenty percent less than its competitors. In a fuel train, a M-1 would need five fuel trucks as opposed to four fuel trucks for its competitors. Yes at the end of a conflict, that is many more gallons/litres of fuel but, at 20% less, instead of a two and a half mile supply train, the other tanks will only have a two mile supply train. Either way those are large targets for CAS aircraft.

Originally Posted by Bacara

in a large scale war with say russia, china, or maybe the EU, just an example, those fuel trucks would become a major liablity, becuase, either you have complete air supierority, or you commite large amounts of AA system to protect those helpless fuel trucks, a T-90 used close to half the fuel the abrams does.

Anything less than air superiority (air parity, etc.) is going to cause massive casualties on your ground forces, your CAS aircraft, etc.

Am I missing something with my perspective or over simplifying the problem?

Originally Posted by Panzercracker

Really? They had the best tank chassis, the most modern aircraft carriers, best light tanks, their first medium tank was also superior to anything Brits had.


Thats some new history right there, last i checked it was US that transferred technologies.

Oh trust me, this is true! Unless of course your telling me that historically correct documentaries that were researched and presented by one of the most respected political historians in Britain got it wrong? I'll search around for it on the BBC news, or even find a clip of it on Youtube.

However to get back onto topic, since both were part of the NATO project could they in anyway be similar? (I am going to slaughtered now.)

Originally Posted by Panzercracker

We had exactly 64 years or relative peace, after more then 1000 years of hardcore wars thats a bit early to say something like that.

Europe will not have any great war.

The wars in the past occurred when the interests of great powers clashed. Today it is not profitable for governments to make war and the European governments are not the most powerful in the world anymore.

Until the first world war Europe had the 3 most powerful nations in the world one very close to the other: France, Britain and Germany. It was only a question of time before wars erupted on the continent. After WW1 France and Britain were finished as world powers, however, Germany was still strong. It took WW2 to finish Germany as a great power, so, after the world wars the center of the political world moved to the US and the USSR. And these countries didn't enter in war for 2 reasons: They are thousands of kilometers away from each other and they had nukes.

Really? They had the best tank chassis, the most modern aircraft carriers, best light tanks, their first medium tank was also superior to anything Brits had.

But the British had better doctrine and more combat experience. Also, the British had better aircraft at the start of the war.

Originally Posted by Guaporense

Until the first world war Europe had the 3 most powerful nations in the world one very close to the other: France, Britain and Germany. It was only a question of time before wars erupted on the continent. After WW1 France and Britain were finished as world powers, however, Germany was still strong. It took WW2 to finish Germany as a great power, so, after the world wars the center of the political world moved to the US and the USSR. And these countries didn't enter in war for 2 reasons: They are thousands of kilometers away from each other and they had nukes.

Now that is not entierly true! If anything. Germany became the weaker power. Highest unemployment, unstable government everything. It was Hitler that made it strong again, after a little assistance from Stressemann during the Golden Age. But no way was Germany a superpower after WW1. Only during the 1930s really could it classified as one. Britain though was defenatley a superpower and still is. The war did not stop it. It still owned a majority of the Empire and was trading much more than the US. if anything Britain was bigger than the US before WW2. It was probably the WW2 that gave the US the edge. No, Britain was still a superpower.

Originally Posted by Guaporense

But the British had better doctrine and more combat experience. Also, the British had better aircraft at the start of the war.

Now that is certainly true!

I saw to fight each other in the training field. Abrahams won but the Leopards’ crews were conscripted soldiers.