T-72 ΜΒΤ modernisation and variants

So the Russians are idiots and are ignoring the obvious and are not making any changes because?

Another issue is gun depression and they know all about that problem too, but the solution is a deeper turret with a higher roof to give the space for the breach of the gun to have more room to go up and down, which would require changes to the gun mount and stabilisation system and of course the auto loading system... they could modify it but they don't.

Every design decision has implications and also costs and any design is a compromise of performance vs cost.

The fact that they have not added a few extra reverse gears suggests they don't see it as a significant enough problem or perhaps there are other reasons for their decisions.

If you think about it having a slow reverse speed is only a problem if there is somewhere safe to go to very close by... most Orc platforms would struggle to penetrate a Russian tank from the front when properly fitted out with full armour packages and ERA panels so the fact that you are reversing slow is not so important because you are protected as you reverse.

If the enemy can penetrate you from the front then it makes more sense to turn and leave the danger zone as fast as you can... even if that means exposing more vulnerable angles because you would not be safe from the front anyway.

A moving target is harder to hit in a weak spot than a reversing target.

diabetus wrote:

Sure you can, other t-72 operators managed to figure it out years ago. If not, great, you'll keep losing them when they turn around to escape artillery and are then hit in weak armor.

Stop right there....first Russians also make auto transmisions on their T-72B3Ms, as they have it on T-90M. So they can and they do it in past. Today biggest problem with reserve T-72s that they need to much time to repair, because most of modernized T-72s in past was in good shape so they made from them T-72B3 obrazac 2014 or T-72B3M obrazac 2016...so today they used unfortunately tanks in bad shape to repair them and send them to the front. Many of them are just repair not modernized and send it to the units. Because they to not have time to do everything on them to be modern tank.

second Russia today can modernized only 25-30 tanks per month it is deep modernization so they almost made a new tank, only they use its tank hull and turret rest are brand new...so it is new tank..

third Russia can make in their best only 250 new tanks per year T-90Ms, maybe 300...You will say Americans can more...no mate they cannot made more then Russians ~250-300 M1 per year...Germany can make less 100 per year, French can make 0, British can make less then 50 tank per year..only South Korea can make more the 300 per year..and thats it....I didnt mentioned China..because he is right now on Russian side....India too....So Russia can make more tanks per year then all NATO countries together...

diabetus wrote:

galicije83 wrote:

diabetus wrote:

A modern transmission isn't a super expensive addition.

Well you can put just modern transmission on engine compartment.. You need to change it, and that cost most time, you do not have it right now....

Sure you can, other t-72 operators managed to figure it out years ago. If not, great, you'll keep losing them when they turn around to escape artillery and are then hit in weak armor.

Agree, T-72s are forced to move in a carousel fashion rather than shoot and scoot.

At least, in this war, gun depression is shown to be very unimportant.

No i am not kidding. Russia can modernised ONLY 25-30 T72 per month if they work in 3 shifts, because in past before SMO they modernised around 12-15 T72 per month. T80 even less, because OMSK is kaput, so they used if i dont mistake zavod 46 in St. Pitersburg for modernization T80BV to M standard. Nost od T80BVs now in war time was just send from reserve to front with minimal maintenance...they do not modernised them at all...this tanks are from fking 80s with no thermal sight..yeah they are great foe modern battlefield...

Yes yenkees do one M1 per month, because they do not need them...now they can do same as Russians around 25-30.

When we talk about new one made, as i said Russia can made in their best 250-300 and that is all and if they stop making tanks for their partners...so that is their maximum...if we say they made 300 new, 360 moderinsed T72s and around 100 T80s BVMs that is less than 800 tanks modern tanks made in one year...its lot of less what they lost in 9 months of the SMO...so they cant replaced this tank with this rate of making new ones

I don't know where did you get that Omsktransmash is kaput, as they are still building tanks and TOS among others? Actually, since UVZ took over they modernized part of the plant.

Well this factory cant make new tanks, only can modernized T-80S partially because Zavod No 46 in St. Petersburg first work on T-80 then they send it to the OMSK...TOS isn tank its self propeled artillery.

Only UVZ made new tanks T-90M and T-14 in their new plant...So yeah Russia today per one year can make only 750-800 tanks per year ~300 new rest are modernized in best scenario. Russia isnt USSR and she cant made so many tanks per year...first she do not have electronic industry as USSR have it, next is man power...next problem is factories...only UVZ work in past they have OMSK, Harkov and lot of Zavods who made lot of stuf for new tanks ...today many of then do not work...So yeah...this is maximum for Russia today....

Rest world is even worst...Germany can make maybe 100 LEO2s per year...France are kaput for AMX...UK maybe 40-50, Korea South 300-350...China inst enemy of Russia so i do not count them as treat in tank power for now....

Who cares about tanks. They need to be able to produce hundreds of lancet per month and maybe 50 Geran-2 per month as well as tactical missiles.

Those proved to be able to take out key targets as well as any vehicle on the front.

They destroyed more ukro tanks and bmp in the last months than any t-90 or t-80 during the whole war.

Still tank have key role when you wanna take some point of fortifications. With out tanks this will be much heavier to do it. So for now non of the armored vehicle can replaced tanks on battlefield...Yes Lancet and similar drones are vital for the war, also they are game changer but tank is still tank and no one can replaced him on battlefield...

They don't build new tanks from scratch,at this time, that is true. Considering what has been happening to this company (bankruptcy, general director went to prison for stealing) things are looking much better than what they were 5 years ago. I doubt they could do even deep modernization of T-80 like they are doing today. It looked like they will end up like Volgograd tractor factory.

With all those unemployed people from the St. Petersburg area now that the foreign car manufacturers are gone maybe they should just restart Kirov Plant there again. Even if they have to build all new facilities for it. You claim there are no workers left. There are many thousands of recently unemployed civilian car plant workers in Russia. Most of them in St. Petersburg area. There are your workers.

Anyway you are being way, way pessimistic. US closed its other tank factory a long time ago and their only one left over is working at half gas. Russia has two tank factories, one at Nizhny Tagil and another at Omsk. The Soviets also had plants at St. Petersburg and Kharkov. But that was when they produced tanks in tens of thousands. Your talk about 300 South Korean tanks a year is untrue. They have produced like 50 K2 tanks a year at best. Even when they are making the K1 in large batches in the 80s and 90s they made 100 tanks a year at best. So the whole of South Korea is basically competing with Omsk at its worst performance. And this is the leading Western aligned tank producing nation right now. France and UK tank production is basically gone. The UK wanted to replace tanks with lightly armored vehicles. And France has to buy assault rifles from Germany let alone tanks. As for Germany, they cannot even produce parts for a smidgen of Polish Leopard 2PL tank "production" (10 tanks a year) and you think they can make 100 tanks a year. Yeah good luck "making" even 50.

The US seems to have lost the ability to even design small arms. They are buying pistol designs from Germany and rifle designs from Germany and Belgium. Even when they made the M1 the tank's gun design was imported from Germany. And now their latest upgrade is basically adding Israeli Trophy APS to the tank.

Western youtube bots changing their tunes because they don't want to be obviously wrong when their Nazi heros stop making any progress and perhaps even start losing lots of territory as locals turn against them.

Actually RedEffect is a Serbian guy. I do not think he has anti-Russian bias. He is just really picky about which tanks he likes or not. He is one of those guys who think tanks should have all the gizmos piled on top of them and does not take cost effectiveness into comparison really.

Actually RedEffect is a Serbian guy. I do not think he has anti-Russian bias. He is just really picky about which tanks he likes or not. He is one of those guys who think tanks should have all the gizmos piled on top of them and does not take cost effectiveness into comparison really.

What kind of tool do you have to be to claim that the T-72B3 was the 'most numerous tank, at least before the war started'?

What, so Russia has lost hundreds upon hundreds of them?

Or to claim that Russian tanks have performed poorly in this conflict.
In comparison to which other tanks in such a conflict? The M1 Abrams and Leopard 2s that the Ukraine is using against them?

Afraid he's just a NATO bot

@lancelot

do you think that worker who work on civilian program car in this case can easly start working in military factory on TANK...ARE you serious? Tank is one of the most complicated vehicle to made and its is imposible for civilian worker to go and just start working on it...

Yes SK can make 300 K2 if they want and if they need and that is maximum for them...

Russia for now CANT make more new tanks...Do you know why they cannot made more the 300 tanks per year?

Well they have big problem with their electrical industry witch isnt able to produced needed electric for more then 300 new tanks per year and rest for modernized ones...body and steel work isnt problem at all...

If Russia stop modernized old T-72s, then she can produced more new tanks, but unfortunately they do not stop modernized old T72s... They have chance to made lot of T-90M years ago instead of an old T72Bs modernized to 3M, they choose this cheaper variant with lot of downgrades...as they do on many their vehicles...

Instead they build their military temple who cost state more then 80 million of dollars, for that money the could instal for BMP-2 around 400 epocha turrets...or even batter they can put Arena M on 600 tanks... so yeah it was good investments....

They fucked up really bad in their modernization of tanks....and they know what was greatest enemy of the same and that was ATGMs...so what they do, put ERA block on tanks on some parts of them, most of the top of the turrets are not protected and because of that they have great casualties in first days of war....with ARENA M this will be reduced to small numbers...btu what i know...Russians do not make mistakes...

APS is bleepin expensive. They can probably upgrade two tanks for the price of one with APS. You basically need to add radars to each tank to make APS work. Given the huge amount of ATGMs that were given to Ukraine how many hard kill reloads do you think would be necessary for each tank? The T-72B3M is like a third of the cost of a new T-90M. So would you rather have three T-72B3M tanks or a single T-90M? I know what I would want.

That is why I said people like RedEffect do not take cost effectiveness into account.

Many tanks were lost due to bad tactics, especially, during first month of the SMO, when they were constantly ambushed and also many were abandoned due to technical problems.
Where I completely agree with galicije83 is that temple was completely not needed and that money could've been spent in better way.
But, Russian government likes to spend money on vanity projects. That's not a news anymore.

From 2008 to 2022 SK produced only 260 K2, and intends to deliver 180 K2 to Poland from 2022 to 2025, 14 years of production they don't even have 300 tanks let alone the capacity to produce 300 a year.

It wasn't bad tactics. The first months they had to push into ukrainians lines which of course leads to many casualties and lost equipment.

Tanks are not perfect. Hit the side and it goes boom. Atgm in general are quite good at destroying tanks no matter if it is western or russian or chinese. The HEAT charge will go through if it hit unprotected sides or top. Only frontal armor or ERA can sustain them.

@lancelot

do you think that worker who work on civilian program car in this case can easly start working in military factory on TANK...ARE you serious? Tank is one of the most complicated vehicle to made and its is imposible for civilian worker to go and just start working on it...

Yes SK can make 300 K2 if they want and if they need and that is maximum for them...

Russia for now CANT make more new tanks...Do you know why they cannot made more the 300 tanks per year?

Well they have big problem with their electrical industry witch isnt able to produced needed electric for more then 300 new tanks per year and rest for modernized ones...body and steel work isnt problem at all...

If Russia stop modernized old T-72s, then she can produced more new tanks, but unfortunately they do not stop modernized old T72s... They have chance to made lot of T-90M years ago instead of an old T72Bs modernized to 3M, they choose this cheaper variant with lot of downgrades...as they do on many their vehicles...

Instead they build their military temple who cost state more then 80 million of dollars, for that money the could instal for BMP-2 around 400 epocha turrets...or even batter they can put Arena M on 600 tanks... so yeah it was good investments....

They fucked up really bad in their modernization of tanks....and they know what was greatest enemy of the same and that was ATGMs...so what they do, put ERA block on tanks on some parts of them, most of the top of the turrets are not protected and because of that they have great casualties in first days of war....with ARENA M this will be reduced to small numbers...btu what i know...Russians do not make mistakes...

Why invest a huge of money into producing newly built T-90Ms (itself part of the T-72 family), with the T-14 around the corner, and there are so many T-72s that can be upgraded to achieve much of the same potential?
The T-90M is basically needed to test systems and technologies for the T-14, and to have this sort of Praetorian core for the most experienced of Russian tank forces.

And why yes, putting ERA blocks on tanks is what you do.
You can even replace older ERA bricks with ERA bricks of a newer design

Russian tanks are fine, even the older ones. There are other things that require investment. The Navy for example.

You're not making any sense.
Would you also be advocating the Germans in 1943 to pour all their resources into producing Tigers and Elephants?