guess ive seen it all now!

Is there any russian tech that you would want a western country to have?

For M-16 reliability like Ak-47 just that....
If I think of something else, I'll post....

Originally Posted by Uncle_Sam

What do You say now? Huh?

It doesn't have jet propultion :P

Originally Posted by Kozzy Mozzy

The Abrams is maneuverable, it hits a top speed of 45 mph...pretty fast

It has a manuel ammunition load...so? A good loader slams a shell every 4 seconds riding in rough terrain, the auto-loader on the T-90 takes about 8. The loader can help with maintenence and help watch for enemies and also fire another machine gun. Auto-loaders can break.

The engine is reliable, 90% operation rate in the Gulf War.

Saying that a conflict is not an accurate judge of a tank because there were no tank to tank battles is wrong. A tank's job is not necessarily to fight other tanks, tanks fill the role of heavy cavalry, to exploit a breakthrough in the enemy line.

Not to mention the M1A2SEP has the most advanced fire control and optics of any tank.

That said, the problem with most Russian equipment is not the design, it's how well made and the workmanship involved that's the problem.

Ok. Abrams uses gas turbine engine. Fast, nice, light and powerful. Less reliable, needs a frigging lab for maintenance and gets screwed in dusty and sand conditions. Also has lower range and 90% of army machinery works on diesel, thus in time of big conflict there might be trouble with fuel.

Autoloader vs Manual. You said that loader can slam shell every four sec. Can he slam 24 shells in a row with that pace? Are all loaders in US Armored Corps that good? Autoloaders can load shell in 8 sec on every tank, also in big scale conflict (say, US-Russian war) tanks will get destroyed very fast. I believe US in a time of conflict can produce shit loads of tanks, but can it train a shit loads of loaders?

T-80U has TShU-1-7 Shtora-1 optronic counter measures system, which is considered to be the best counter measure system in the world.

On the downside of T-80, it has gas-turbinel engine.

Originally Posted by rovai

Ok. Abrams uses gas turbine engine. Fast, nice, light and powerful. Less reliable, needs a frigging lab for maintenance and gets screwed in dusty and sand conditions. Also has lower range and 90% of army machinery works on diesel, thus in time of big conflict there might be trouble with fuel.

Autoloader vs Manual. You said that loader can slam shell every four sec. Can he slam 24 shells in a row with that pace? Are all loaders in US Armored Corps that good? Autoloaders can load shell in 8 sec on every tank, also in big scale conflict (say, US-Russian war) tanks will get destroyed very fast. I believe US in a time of conflict can produce shit loads of tanks, but can it train a shit loads of loaders?

T-80U has TShU-1-7 Shtora-1 optronic counter measures system, which is considered to be the best counter measure system in the world.

On the downside of T-80, it has gas-turbinel engine.

Uhhh....the Abrams uses diesel, it can take more kinds of fuels then a diesel engine. Also the turbine is much much quieter then diesel engines, so much it earned the name "Whispering Death" from Canadian tankers during wargames. The engine doesn't need a lab for maintenence, ask any US tanker about that. The Abrams' range isn't significantly less then other tanks, and fuel only makes up 5% of an armored battalion's operating cost. How does it get screwed in dusty conditions? it maintained a 90% operating rate during the Gulf war, that is very high.

Yes, all loaders in the Armored Corps can slam a shell in under 6 seconds. He can slam those shells 24 times in a row. But it's not like he'd have to, in a tank battle targets would rarely appear that fast where he would not get rest between loads. Even if they did, he'd have 3-5 seconds of rest between them while the gunner is firing. It's called PT, the army does a lot of it.
Not to mention the carousel auto-loader on Russian tanks is the dumbest design idea in the history of tanks, it puts the ammo in a circle around the turret. If the turret is penetrated, BOOM, bye bye tank. On the Abrams, it's separated from the crew, there has been plenty of incidencts where an Abrams' ammo explodes, and the crew survives. I beleive there was one instance in the Gulf war, where a T-72 hit the flank of an Abrams and blew it's ammo (only tank penetrated by direct enemy fire). The Abrams swung around and killed it's attacker with the round in the tube.

Yes, the US army can train loaders that fast. It's not that hard, bang knee against switch, door opens, pull correct ammo out, put ammo in breech, close breech, turn safety off, yell "Up".

The M1A2SEP's optics are also the best in the world, a x50 FLIR channel for the gunner means he can see and ID targets before any other tank out there, especially the T-80U or T-90M. The T-90 and 80 has an identification range of less then 2km, while the Abrams can ID them from almost 4000 meters away.

The M289A3 APFSDS round is also best long rod in the world.

That said, all western tanks, the Challenger, Leclerc, Leopard, Merkava, outmatch Russian tanks. Thats why Russia has a lot of them, their doctrine states "quantity over quality"

You're right about Shtora though, I'd like to see something like it added on the M1A3, which I believe it will be.

I though that most gasturbines used a mix of diesel and kerosene?

Gas turbines can take pretty much whatever you want. The Army just uses diesel to simplify things.

Question:

I heard somewehre that Abrams can easily catch fire. Indeed there were quite a few pictures from the recent war in Iraq of them in flames. And the Iraqis didn't have that good AT weapons.Why is that?

not really yurry...here a paste from the FAS site on the fire system of the tank

The stowage for the main armament ammunition is in armored ammunition boxes behind sliding armor doors. Armor bulkheads separate the crew compartment from the fuel tanks. The tank is equipped with an automatic Halon fire extinguishing system. This system automatically activates within 2 milliseconds of either a flash or a fire within the various compartments of the vehicle. The top panels of the tank are designed to blow outwards in the event of penetration by a HEAT projectile.

doesnt mean that you cant find the fuel tank or ammo but at least these are compartmented off to allow the crew to live.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m1.htm

Originally Posted by yurry

Question:

I heard somewehre that Abrams can easily catch fire. Indeed there were quite a few pictures from the recent war in Iraq of them in flames. And the Iraqis didn't have that good AT weapons.Why is that?

The Iraqis probably volley fired a bunch of RPGs into the engine deck. Fuel+RPG=fire.

That said, the turret compartment is very unlikely to catch fire because of what's mentioned above. The Abrams has had it's ammo cook off (40 120mm rounds with explosives and propellent) and it's crews keep fighting.

About the Iraqis not having good AT weapons, the RPG-7 and it's upgraded versions are extremely potent against all tanks. The T-90 has about 600-700mm of armor over it's front with ERA, the RPG-29 penetrated that in Russian tests. This means the Abrams is very vulnerable over the side to it, as are all tanks.

If you want tanks that catch fire easily, try the T-72 and T-90.