Hi MontyB,
Hm! Trouble is, and this is the point you all seem to be missing, it’s not the Russian military who keep trying to tell you how good the T-95 is, it’s people outside the military.
You never found it strange or perhaps you didn’t even notice, that shortly after Marshal Igor Sergeyev made his somewhat indiscreet, comment, about Russia now having an MBT in the T-95, that was so superior to everything else, the rest didn’t matter, that he was shortly after this and very quietly, replaced as Russian Minister of Defence.
Ever since Igor Segeyev’s little speech, the Russian military and government has done everything it could to publicly discredit everything to do with the T-95 program. Perhaps you also missed the comments where they claimed the T-80U M2 “Chiorny Oriol” demonstrated at Omsk 97, was an incomplete prototype; amongst other things, claiming the T-80U M2, as demonstrated, had an empty shell for a turret. Funny thing is, the footage of that demonstration shows the gun to be fully stabilised and what do you know, there is other footage available on the web, of this very same tank, firing rounds out of it’s “dummy” gun on a gunnery range or two. And everybody swallowed the line hook line and sinker.
I’m not going to go through all this again, but the development series goes like this T-80U M1 BARS TANK, systems technology proving platform for the hydraulic driveline and a few minor associated sub-systems. T-80U M2 first prototype fully functional MBT with the X-form hydraulic engine, driveline and integrated suspension. T-95 fully functional final format MBT with the same X-form hydraulic engine, driveline and integrated suspension; the first of the Next Generation Land Warfare Equipment of the Russian Army.
What the hell do you think made them take such a radical departure from their previous practice of multiple MBT types and powering formats, and go to a single platform scenario, for all future tracked combatants in a program now called “Armata”, and more recently, decide to do an equivalent single platform scenario for wheeled equipment as well? All of this was in the original documentation they evaluated in 96/7; it’s not new, it’s just progressing as per the original proposal and fellas, you’ve got no idea just how good the total Armata program makes the resulting mobile assault group.
Tell me, if you now had an MBT that could reliably fight from Russia into Germany, without re-fuelling, wouldn’t you want to keep it a secret too? How many times would you have to refuel an M1A2 Abrams to do the same distance? Last I heard, that great big lump of iron takes 8 gallons just to light up the power plant.
I must be missing something here. Where exactly, did you see a late model Russian tank, with a Russian crew, a smouldering ruin on a battlefield?
You’re just lucky Putin stepped in and classified this work when he did; even so, they had enough information to make big advances in these areas and if you know what to look for, they certainly did. How is it you can so easily condemn Russian engineering, when even the American Navy is still only talking about Titanium hulled vessels; the Russian’s have been routinely building submarines with Titanium hulls since the early sixties or don’t you remember those little Alfa (NATO designation) SSN? It took the CIA 15 years to convince the American Navy Russian shipbuilders could build Titanium hulled submarines in a ship building environment, simply because Navy wouldn’t accept, the Russian engineers could do something the American’s couldn’t; they still can’t, for that matter. By the way, where do you think Kelly Johnson got the Titanium to build the SR-71 Blackbirds? Russia. I also remember, must’ve been way back in about 1980, when I was fooling around with helicopters, the Russians were building at least one model of Mil Attack Helicopter, with a single piece ceramic lower fuselage for ballistic protection. Say what you like, but pray you never end up in a shootout with current technology Russian equipment, crewed by Russians.
Low tech troops with high tech gear? What do you think is the average educational level of American Tank crews? I doubt they’re a bunch of rocket scientists.
nero1234