T-72 ΜΒΤ modernisation and variants

For reverse speed lovers, apparently all T-72B3 tanks delivered since 2017 with V92S2F engines with 1130 hp have a new automatic gearbox that allows them max reverse speed of 15km/h.

Wonderful... not because I think they need it, but because people will shut up about its poor reversing speed...

The issue was fixed in 1979 with the T-80 reverse speed, but the T-72 was never replaced by the T-80.

The T-80 and T-72 are more like the Su-27 and MiG-29, and should not be replacements if possible.

A tiny country might go for one or the other but not both but for Russia a high tech more capable vehicle with the best they have can't be deployed in the numbers needed for a country the size of Russia so the T-72 has a big gun and decent armour and good mobility... not because it has a super powerful engine, but because it is not heavy for a tank of that type... it is a good enough tank.

Just the same as the MiG-29 was a good enough fighter... the helmet mounted sight and R-73 missiles as well as R-27 SARH missiles made it relatively formidable in the 1980s when its main opponents were F-16s that had only sidewinder missiles.

Yeah Garry we will shut up when t-72 and t-80 (because it has a pathetic reverse speed too) drivers stop turning around to flee artillery.

Even if they could reverse at 30km per hour if you are fleeing artillery then that is not fast enough... it makes more sense to turn around and drive out of the area at much faster speeds... just don't drive straight...

Abrams and Challenger can. (Abrams reverse speed is approximately 45 kmh)

So what? Which battles have they won by reversing?

Correct me if I am wrong, but the reverse speed in one gear is mostly due to gearing ratio?

Diesel engines get their best power between about 1,800 and 2,200 rpm... if you want to go faster backwards you could have a two speed transfer case where every gear has a high and low power ratio, or you could simply run it with two reverse gears... if you want to stop the engine most diesel engines will actually run backwards as they do on ships so you could have one set of gears... first to seventh and use them going forward or going backwards... there are clearly lots of solutions and the fact that they simply have not bothered to implement any of them to change the situation tells me they don't give a **** about this made up problem that bothers so many here.

The Japanese Type 10 tank can go backwards at the same speed it can go forwards. But then again it has a CVT. Probably most advanced transmission on a tank right now.

CVT transmission? Like what they use in Nissans?

Man, I had one of those. They were abysmal for maintenance. Performance was OK but the real killer is maintenance. CVT transmissions have a tendency to fail quite a lot and easily. And then made it as a prevention maintenance was doing a transmission fluid change every 50K km. Never had to do a transmission fluid flush and fill on any of my vehicles and they lasted to about 300K km average.

Iraqi Abrams didn't get penetrated from the front.

American Abrams got penetrated in the side of its turret which is its weakest and most vulnerable point by Konkurs... the direction of the hull and its speed didn't make any difference at all.

Uh yeah it's much better than going less than half that speed

Double the speed means exposed to enemy fire half the time so yeah, faster is better... slower means twice as long exposed to enemy fire... which is bad.

You always want the thickest armor facing the enemy.

You said when fleeing enemy artillery, which means the enemy threat is coming direction downwards from the sky... how the **** do you point the front of your vehicles heavy hull armour and turret front armour straight up? Do a wheelie?

Looks like you didn't learn from the German'd mistakes operating heavy tank destroyers towards the end of WW2.

A modern ATGM would penetrate such vehicles from any angle... so keeping your nose pointed at such vehicles would be a total waste of time... and expose your tank to enemy fire for a much longer period than just turning around and driving away.

They would have taken way fewer losses since they could keep their thickest armor facing the enemy.

And during those battles do you think each force lined up like the British and French fighting with Muskets 100 paces apart firing in turn when ordered?

Take any picture from the current conflict and tell me which direction is the enemy and therefore which direction the hull must be pointed at all times because a tank can only go forwards and backwards... it can't slide sideways like a crab.

I'm not sure why this concept continues to elude you and you don't think it's important.

I don't understand why the concept of ambush and flanking attacks escape your vocabulary and that once a battle has started you can receive fire from any direction and thinking you can spin around on a coin with your hull armour pointing at anything that fires in your direction is just really cute and very naive...

In theory you are right... it is the commanders job to order the driver to move from cover to cover or at least concealment to concealment with the hull armour pointed at the greatest threat and the gunner firing at the greatest threat and then the next greatest threat etc etc, but when the two greatest threats have the same missile and are on opposite sides of the enemies battlefront and are therefore 50 degrees apart by angle I would be interested to hear how you are going to keep your vehicle front armour pointed at both... and more importantly how your gunner is going to fire at one while keeping the turret pointed at both because on a western tank the turret side is horrendously vulnerable to penetration and that is where the ammo is making it a devastating shot if you can make it.

If the two threats are Kornets it probably doesn't matter because both will likely penetrate your vehicle frontally... 1.2m of penetration will do that... but if the targets are Russian tanks with 125mm guns firing APFSDS rounds moving at 2km per second one is going to penetrate the sides of your turret when both fire at once... how is your reverse speed doing now?

Recall also that artillery generally isn't going to penetrate your armor,

85mm artillery and 76.2mm artillery probably wont but 152mm and 203mm and 240mm artillery the Russians are currently using can...

Abrams tanks were destroyed by 50kg IEDs in Iraq, do you think a 45kg HE round applied to the top armour of a tank would not do damage?

To really dumb it down, think of the claymore mine. Front towards the enemy. Do you have any practical experience in a military? Just out of curiosity. Usually, and especially in this conflict, not every tank is surrounded by the enemy all the time.

When placing Claymore mines you generally have an idea of which direction the enemy is coming from to help you decide which direction to point it in.

MON-300 claymore mines often were not pointed at the direction the enemy was coming from but to the side firing across the path of the approaching enemy force...

Taking one component on its own often does not make sense... for instance... one approach to your position you might cover heavily in anti tank mines but you stagger the front line of mines as the enemy forces approach because tanks often traverse terrain in a line, but when they reach the front line they spread out and move forward in line abreast so all of the tanks can see and fire upon the enemy positions... which makes them vulnerable to a minefield unless they are all fitted with mine rollers.

If you use a lot of mines and get creative they might stop their advance and turn to find a gap in the minefield... how do they do that while keeping their hull armour pointed at you?

A common tactic during WWII was to reverse your tank back into a building so as it collapsed around you it hid your shape as a tank but hopefully didn't cover your gun or your optics... you fired a shot and then drove out of there after revealing your position by firing.

Modern Russian tactics include using ramps to drive up and expose the turret and fire and they roll back and drop back down the ramp into cover and concealment over a distance of maybe 3-5m.

If a tank is in a situation where fire can come from any direction, then thats a sign of incompetence of use.

A tank can be used in attack and defence... in attack you drive forward towards enemy positions but you never see all the enemy... some might remain quiet and let you pass and then shoot you up the arse with an RPG... how can that be incompetence... how were they supposed to see that?

Plus the front is about 60 degrees... outside that the sides of the tank can be seen and fired upon.

By your logic, why should tanks have thicker front armor at all, if they "could" get destroyed from the side?

The only tank I have heard of that even attempted all round armour was the German Maus which had about 250mm protection from front, sides and rear... and it was a dog... too slow, too heavy, too expensive, too vulnerable to aircraft delivered bombs.

Having heavy frontal armour is not so it can dance around the battlefield pointing its heaviest armour at the biggest threat... when fighting Russia most anti armour threats can penetrate your frontal armour so pointing your front at them and reversing at 15km/h does not help because the threats heading for you will cover that distance much faster than your tank can cover that distance. Your best chance of survival is to move fast from cover to cover firing at the greatest threat to your vehicle as you go...

Why should a tank even be able to move more than 4km/h forward too, if its impossible to dodge shells already fired at it?

If reversing speed mattered that much why not go with all light tanks that can zip around the battlefield at very high speeds?

You're engaging in intellectual dishonesty here. A tank wont be already shot at before moving out of cover. It'll be targeted, then shot at. If it drives back into cover fast enough, that drastically increases survivability because, it reduces the time for it to be spotted and targetted. This should be completely obvious, but you instead choose to propose these dumb scenarios in order to deny a major issue.

Under fire from artillery means it is either leaving an impact zone or is being targeted direction with a drone to mark the tank they are in... with the former turning around and speeding away makes sense... getting out of the registered impact area makes sense... with laser guided shells you would be better to just pop smoke and move a little bit.

The scenario was not mine, I was just responding to someone elses comment.

If you look at Russian tanks training they often have prepared positions with ramps where the tank drives forward up on to the ramp exposing their turret (optics and gun) to find targets and fire and then drive back a couple of metres down the ramp where their turret is no longer exposed to enemy positions.

We are not talking about reversing all the way off the battlefield, but more likely back around the corner they just poked their nose out of... 15km/h would be fine, but if it isn't then you are moving slower so you present your nose to the enemy a little longer but a you say it is your hardest armour so extra seconds of hardest armour is better than turning and exposing softer side or rear armour... but whatever the situation the commander can decide what he orders the driver to do in that situation.

Actual russian tank manufacturers increased the reverse speed of the T-72B3, the armata has very high reverse speed. You're so desperate to claim every every thing in russian tanks is perfect, that you look ridiculous trying to defend shortcomings that actual russian tank designers have tried to correct.

They introduced a more powerful engine which presumably required a new gearbox and transmission.

But it won't work. Kornet has the absurd 8 km range requirement that can easily be waived in favor of a larger and more effective warhead - if only to make the situation even more hopeless against NATO MBTs.

Which means the Kornet can pretty much come from any direction launched from the ground or by drone or helicopter or aircraft at supersonic speeds with little warning.

1.2m penetration is pretty good already... the HE Frag warhead is lighter and more compact and that model reaches 10km.

Compared to regular HE artillery shells, the chances of being hit by a guided round is incredibly miniscule.

Funny, because I would say the opposite... a guided HE artillery shell is very likely to get a hit... over 90% in combat experience... that is why they spend the extra money to make them guided.

Russian artillery can deliver all sorts of munitions including HEAT top attack, and even sensor fused self forging fragment top attack munitions with MMW radar and IR sensors out to over 120km these days.