A defensive battle fought by T-72s...

[mainerjohnthomas]

Thought-provoking question - if the Americans had T-72's and the Iraqis had the M1 Abrams and M-60s, who would have won?

(hint: your answer may betray your ideas on the people-ideas-equipment construct)

    Having spent a fair portion of my life training to fight the Red Army (way back when), I studied up on its strategy, tactics and armaments.  The T72 was individually inferior to the M1, but that reflects the design philosophy of the Soviets.  The T72 was the backbone of the heavy tank regiments designed to exploit breakthroughs forced by the lighter Motor Rifle divisions.  The soviets planned on accepting disproportionate losses along the line of contact, not re-enforcing stalled or defeated formations, but throwing the weight of the reserve independent tank regiments through the first breach in our lines.  The Soviets relied on heavy superiority in artillery (tube and missile) and heavy tactical air support (both fighterbombers and Hind gunships).  It didn't matter how effective the tanks were one-on-one, they mobile firing platforms, cheap and plentiful, able to quickly exploit any breakthrough with mass attacks on flanks and rear.  To be honest, the Americans could have used T72, or even T55 and still rolled the Iraqis up (higher casualties, but still overwhelming victory) because they had what Soviet doctrine called for; unquestioned command of the sky, of the electronic battlefield, superior scouting forces, and an overwhelming advantage in firesupport.  Battle is not won by the tank, battles are won by armies, and armies are the sum total of all the weapon and information systems, and the training and doctrine of the people that use them.  The novel Red Army is a good examination of Soviet doctrine, the philosophy that created the Red Army does not look at the role of armour/infantry the way we do, because they do not look at casualties the way we do; but quantity has a quality all its own.

 

[mover1]

Exactly the point I was trying to make.

 

[DG-41]

There's a book out there written by a WW2 Soviet tank battalion commander talking about his wartime experiences.

What make this one sort of odd is that his unit was equipped with lend-lease Shermans instead of the home-grown stuff.  No T34-85 for you!

There's some stuff in there that makes one appreciate the power of creative thinking, and how often brainpower trumps raw firepower.

For example, a pair of Shermans could kill Tigers, if they could get it moving. One tank acts as a lure, and when the Tiger starts chasing it, his wingman blows off a track. The Tiger suddenly slews to one side (sometimes spinning 180 degrees) and the "lure" puts a round through the now-exposed side/rear armour. Neat trick eh?

Equipment is only part of the story. The proof of the pudding is how it is employed.

DG

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

My speculative history is a bit weak, but I would give "victory" to the Red Army in 1979 and NATO in 1989.  The US Army went through a huge transformation in the 80s, coming out of its post-Vietnam funk with vigour (spurred in part by the Iran hostage crisis and Reagan's vision/support).  The M1, Apache, M2 and MLRS combined with the F15, F16 and A10 (and of course NATO's forces) would have been a tough nut to crack in an old-school heavy metal knifefight. 

I think that what the Soviets could have gone for was a limited victory.  Seize a strip of West Germany and then dig in, using it for leverage to favourably resolve whatever crisis started the conflict.  While I think that NATO could have stopped the Soviers short of the Channel, taking back a defended belt of terrain would have been another matter.  The Soviets might well doubt the US's resolve to go nuclear in this case.

M1s can kill T72s from all aspects, while the T72 could be killed at battle ranges.  Add in the huge advantage of thermal sights.  I would hate to go after an M1 if I were in a T72, even if my crew had vastly superior training.  Your best bet would be to run and hope that the M1 ran out of fuel first (and that the USAF didn't get you).

2B

 

[12alfa]

M1s can kill T72s from all aspects, while the T72 could be killed at battle ranges.
2B


are you sure?

If we are debaiting about a M1 only and a T-72M ( export model) it would be close:

M1 turret armour at 400/700   (Ke/Ce), firing a 105mm round M-735 (Tu) penterating 350mm @1 Km (est) in or around 1978, M-774 (Du) 375mm@2Km in or around 1981

the same time frame....76/84 firing Ke

T-72M turret armour at 350/410 (Ke/Ce), firing a 125 round BM-22 (Tu) 420mm @ 2Km, BM-26 (Tu) 437mm @2 Km, and   a Du round BM-32 "Vant" , 510mm at 2km (1984)

So a M1 firing standard ap ammo (for the M1 vs T-72 time frame in which they became operational) will have a hard time overmatching the T-72' armour , would it not?

M1s can kill T72s from all aspects is not a acurate post.

the T72 could be killed at battle ranges, think you wanted to say it can kill only at it's battle range, which is mostly correct, if you play the odds, and this is dangrous with APFSDS I would think....

If we are talkin about M1A1HA vs T-72BM :

M1A1(HA) turret armour at 900/1620   (Ke/Ce), firing a 120mm round M-829A3 (Du) 960 mm @2Km


T-72BM   (latest) turret armour at 700/1070 (Ke/Ce), firing a 125 round BM-42M (Du) 650mm @ 2Km, or the Ukraine round at 760mm @ 2Km

Then there are thouse peskey ATGM's from 5+ km, who has the wepond over-match now?
Add active protection, and ERA......

Crew trg'ing is the biggest winning factor, along with who spots the other MBT 1st, but armour and ERA never hurts does it?

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Re-reading my post from a few weeks ago and I realize that putting "while" in the line was some rather weird grammer.  I also mixed tenses in the same sentence.  My English teacher would not be pleased...I also addressed several points in one short post without laying out my argument in full.  My Poli Sci prof would not be pleased either...My apologies.

What I should have said (and was thinking) was that the M1A2 can kill the T72 from all aspects at battle ranges.  My final paragraph was aimed at the original poster asking about taking T72s against M1s.  Perhaps I should have added some variant designators, but I was writing in the present tense (at least initially).  I was thinking 120mm and the latest armour package.  I used "battle ranges" not in the Canadian gunnery context but in the sense of typical ranges in an engagement. 

Even if we talk about the original M1 (with the 105mm), the Israelis were penetrating Syrian T72s in Lebanon (circa 1982) with the 105mm gun.  Include fire control (including TI) and the original M1 was still a very potent machine.  I am a little skeptical of open source gun/armour data since the real numbers are closely guarded.

As a tanker I agree that crew training and tactical considerations play a big factor.  I also know that the tank is only one part of the system of systems.  That being said, I would still not want to take a force of T72s against a force of M1s (A1, A2, or otherwise), even if I had an advantage in crew training or tactical systems. 

Are you perhaps arguing against my assessment of how a WWIII would have turned out?  Its anyone's guess and all good fun, but you'll note I gave 1989 as a year for NATO "victory", allowing for the key US (and NATO) combat systems that came out in the late 70s and early 80s to reach maturity.

Cheers,

2B

 

[12alfa]

Agree, ref the t-72 and the IDF, I think, and will check, but if memory is still working , they were not using the US rounds to overmatch the T-72's armour, but rather their own home grown rounds, which are better.
Also it was again poor crews and tatics that led to there defete, not the wpn systems .

I think it is unwise to say the T-72 and its many mods are a poor MBT baised on the gulf war or books of fiction .

The data does not show this, and their own firing tests show that they can and do withstand   damage that we tend to discount baised on the reports from the gulf wars. Armour cavities (empty) with poor amour and rounds made of steel in lue of Du is not much of a real test of the system, and crewed by conscripts who wanted to defect , would you not agree?

True the M1A1 up to the HA version can kill most of the T-72's, (the A2 is the same gun and ammo of the A1) I would think the T-80 is a better comparison for this time frame however.

Open source data has been used for many years now. It has been put throught the ringer and has evolved into what we now know and many countries use to base there current and new wpn systems on. There is also many papers written on armour and Ke wpns and the effects upon such systems. They are however very boring, but the data is there if one looks.

Not knockin the M1, but not discounting some of the T-72's out there also, that would be a mistake.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

I see crew training, tactics, numbers, morale and technical factors as all having an impact on victory or defeat in a given engagement.  This, of course, is nothing revolutionary.  A deficiency in one can be compensated with superiority in another.

The German tank experience of the early war years shows how crew training, tactical systems and morale can make up for having at times "inferior" tanks and inferior numbers.  I believe, however, that they worked fevourishly to make better tanks once they met the KV and T34, not content to rely on training and tactics. 

M1s (a variety of variants) did fight T72s in the Gulf War, and the T72s were completely overmatched.  We can dismiss the motivation and training of the Iraqis, but we shouldn't completly write off their soldier skills and export tank quality to make the combat record invalid. 

I would argue that as long as the M1 was maintained properly, it could be deadly in the hands of "concripts". 

I do not see the M1 as invulnerable, but it certainly has an enviable record in combat.  Numbers are one thing, but battlefield results are another.  The T72's combat record is not so hot, and even Russian armour in Grozny did not fare too well.  I'd hate to take any T72/T80 series of tanks against M1s (especially today) even if I felt that I had an edge in crew training.  I would have no confidence in my own gun's ability to take out my opponent while knowing that the he could certainly send my turret flying.  Even concripts can have a good day.  I'd like to hedge my bets with technical overmatch.

How is this different from what I was facing as a tanker on a Leo C2?  I didn't like to default to the "we'll get M1s if we go to war" and tried to focus on training for war in a C2.  If it came to a war I figured I would be facing T72s and T62s/55s.  I knew that I most likely couldn't take a hit, but at least I had some confidence in my own gun's ability to kill those targets with the right ammo.  Add to that crew training, tactics, supporting arms and the great TI on the C2 and I could at least contemplate facing those types of opponents.  Contemplating facing M1s would have been a rather different matter.  People may snicker at my thinking about such things but for a little while a couple of years back it looked somewhat possible.  Our training in Nov/Dec 02 certainly had a air of reality about it. 

Still, soldiers must always beware of the dangers of hubris, and I grant that thinking you are invulnerable or that the enemy will be a cakewalk is very dangerous indeed.  Tankers should always study Crecy and Agincourt.

Cheers,

2B

 

[a_majoor]

The real acid test is the performance of the equipment in the field, and even considering the poor tactics and crew training (which are obviously a huge factor), the T-72 has come out short on every occasion it was taken to battle. Fighting Israeli tanks, American all arms formations, Muhajadeen in Afghanistan or Chechnyans with hand held anti tank weapons, the results were depressingly the same.

We do know by historical analogy that arms do not make the man, WWII Sherman crews can attest to that. In France, 1940, the French army fielded more and better tanks than the Germans, yet the German all arms doctrine and crew training allowed them to prevail. (Consider a PzKw 1 and II were essentially machine gun carriers, and the PzKw III  was the only tank in the stable with any real anti-tank capabilities). Shortly afterwards, the Russians shocked the Germans with the T-34, but many were initially captured or destroyed because they were poorly handled by untried crews, and the Russians were not using Mikhail Tukhachevsky's "Deep Battle" doctrine in any event. A swing of the pendulum later, and the Germans, with their mighty PzKw V "Panther" and PzKw VI "Tiger" discovered that quality alone was not enough, individually a Panther or Tiger was more than a match for any allied tank, but the Allies now had improved doctrine, TTPs and a massive logistics advantage....

Currently America has the enviable position of having the best of all possible worlds; great kit, good doctrine, tested TTPs and troops and the mightiest logistics train in history. If their kit doesn't meet the standard (i.e. HMMVW's pressed into service as combat vehicles), the other factors still give them a giant edge over the opposition.

 

[reccecrewman]

It should also be raised that in the event of an all out battle royale during the Cold War, the Soviets also had their "Phantom Divisions"  The Soviets had a penchant for mothballing MBT's & other war equipment that were replaced by newer models as well as huge stocks of pers weapons & artillery pieces etc.  The idea being that after a man had done his time in the conscript Red Army, if the Motherland needed him again, he was at her beck and call.  Rather than waste time and resources re-training him on new equipment, he could be given his old T-62 that he'll only need a refresher on. This practice essentially gave the Soviets in excess of over 150 Divisions in infantry, armour, artillery that on paper they didn't have.  Hence they were their "Phantom Divisions"

 

[mainerjohnthomas]

It should also be raised that in the event of an all out battle royale during the Cold War, the Soviets also had their "Phantom Divisions"   The Soviets had a penchant for mothballing MBT's & other war equipment that were replaced by newer models as well as huge stocks of pers weapons & artillery pieces etc.   The idea being that after a man had done his time in the conscript Red Army, if the Motherland needed him again, he was at her beck and call.   Rather than waste time and resources re-training him on new equipment, he could be given his old T-62 that he'll only need a refresher on. This practice essentially gave the Soviets in excess of over 150 Divisions in infantry, armour, artillery that on paper they didn't have.   Hence they were their "Phantom Divisions"

    Soviet doctrine accepted loss ratio's that would get a NATO general court martialed for suggesting.  They never tried to be as good as us, they tried to produce a superior effect with the resources they had.  They could not match our sophistication, so they went with simpler designs that were also cheaper to produce, and simpler to employ.  They had short term conscripts, so training was simple, and tactics were kept very simple.  They had the ability to divert huge resources to arms production, cycle every able bodied man through military training, and accumulate enormous stockpiles of conventional arms.  The result was a standing army that could never stand against us 1:1, or even 3:1, but that outnumbered us 10:1 in Europe, and with reserves they could mobilize at least as fast as we could re-enforce from North America, and with a depth we could never match.  Even at the end, the Germans were never impressed with Soviet quality, they were scared spitless of the willingness of the Soviets to soak up whatever punishment they had to and just keep comming.  Take a look at the loss figures from WWII on the Eastern and Western fronts; we both beat German armies, but the Soviets did so by taking casualties that would have made our loudest hawk cringe.  Our methods are superior, but their methods work too; a fact China has paid close attention to.

 

[a_majoor]

Those days are long gone, fortunately.

Soviet doctrine didn't work out so well for them in Afghanistan, and Russian doctrine is still well behind the curve in Chechnya. Their approach is still very different from ours, Russian soldiers are brave (or fatalistic) and their generals are ruthless, so hammering city blocks with artillery battalions still seems to be their idea of counter insurgency, as opposed to our ideas of precision use of force.