Other tanks with major issues include India’s Arjun, which was been in development for over 20 years and is just now entering series production – twenty years behind schedule. It’s also turning into a maintenance nightmare, requiring more maintenance personnel than the T-72s already in Indian service. It is also proving to be incompatible with current tank transporters in the Indian Army. It is also overweight (at 58.5 tons), and the Indian army still cannot get a decent engine for this tank. To be fair to this tank, it is still in development. However, the chances of these problems being fixed can only be described as slim.The French AMX-30 also has had issues. In combat it did reasonably well (destroying 50 Iraqi tanks in Desert Storm), but one also needs to note the problems. The AMX-30 often was a third choice when countries could not acquire German Leopards or American M60s. The Saudis have generally kept their AMX-30s in depots, hardly using them. It should be noted the French have had a hard time selling their used AMX-30s – a problem that Germany and the United States are not having. Often countries with the AMX-30 are discarding them for used Leopard 1s (which had some issues with armor protection).The winner of the worst tank competition has to be the T-72. This is a tank that not only has serious design flaws, but it also has a very poor track record in combat. The T-72 is a compact tank, but the compactness creates serious issues in the area of crew survivability. Often, the ammunition is stored next to the fuel tanks. The autoloader often requires the presence of a live round in the crew compartment. In other words, if the tank is hit, it is going to blow up, and it will probably kill the crew in the process. Oh, and production quality is highly iffy, not only for the tanks, but for the ammunition their main guns used.Desert Storm proved that those faults matter on the battlefield. In essence, battles like 73 Easting were one-sided turkey shoots – where larger numbers of T-72s would be wiped out by smaller units of M1A1 Abrams tanks. Conversely, T-72s were unable to do much – shells were known to have bounced off the Abrams despite being fired from as close as 400 meters. T-72s were often blown apart at the welds when Hellfire missiles hit them, and on at least one occasion, T-72s were destroyed by American 120mm tank shells that had passed through obstacles (a sand berm or another T-72). Often their crews were taken out with them. In Iraqi Freedom, the story did not change much, despite the acquisition of systems to upgrade these tanks. In essence, unlike the Arjun, AMX-30, or M60A2, the T-72’s faults have been shown decisively on the battlefield, making it the biggest lemon in the world of tanks.
