T-90 Main Battle Tank #2

It takes years to build new facilities. The need for more tanks is too urgent for that.

If you wabt to stop a modern apfsds you need heavy material and a lot of it.

Or you intercept the APFSDS and make it yaw before impact and it is like swinging a hammer so hard it goes into the wood with one hit... but if the nail is at an angle all the energy of the hammer goes into bending and crushing the nail and it does not go very far at all into the wood...

The M1A2 has uranium tiles on its side. The tank weighs 55 tons.

Which model Abrams is 55 tons?

The M1 with the 105mm rifled gun was about 55 tons but the M1A1 was 65 tons and the M1A2 is about 73 tons.

Nato tanks can't even get to the front to fire their rounds.

Very true... suicide drones and land mines are probably more important in this conflict than APFSDS rounds, but the currently used Russian APFSDS are probably good enough. The distances we have seen tanks firing at each other seems to suggest most tanks can defeat most targets anyway.

Wonder what happened to the Challenger? Really thought it was up for the challenge

I seem to remember the British "suggesting" that their tanks not go anywhere near the front lines because of the risk of their capture.

Unlike most of the other tanks supplied that seem to come from stocks, these British tanks are probably front line vehicles with the super secret stuff removed, but still front line things they likely don't want the Russians to get their hands on.

Sending tanks was a gesture on their part but they don't want to risk their tanks reputation... much like the US dragging its feet with Abrams deliveries.

Just saw an article on RT where Zelensky basically said he needs a victory before a HATO meeting on July the 12th or 14th or something to justify continued funding and support from the west, so that is interesting.

Another article mentioned that this big counter offensive was supposed to push the Russian forces back so far they can move artillery up and threaten the Black Sea Fleet HQ in Sevastopol so they have some leverage going into peace talks...

https://www.rt.com/russia/579038-ukraine-battlefield-results-nato-summit/

https://www.rt.com/russia/579018-ukraine-crimea-hostage-plan/

And now they are demanding membership in HATO....

https://www.rt.com/russia/579062-kuleba-nato-merkel-ukraine/

Which is great... it means Russia cannot leave the current idiots in power no matter what tiny sliver of land is left.

You are mixing the ton(n)s and models.
M1A1 weight is approx. 57000kg, while M1A2 - 62000.
US materials are addressing a TON, that is 2000lbs.
And there is a tonne which is 1000 kilos.
Both are not equal. A tonne is 907kg only.

You are correct, but in my defence when you add the four man crew they get much closer to my figures than to yours...      

Gerashimov said on two successive occassions on national TV that Russian tanks are vulnerable to APFSDS rounds.

All tanks are vulnerable to APFSDS rounds when fired from close range. The goal of tank designers is not to make a super tank that can't be penetrated by anything... that would make it too heavy and too slow which would make it rather more likely to be hit.

The goal of most traditional tank designers is the front 60 degree angle to stop the main gun rounds of the enemy tank, the sides to stop the main calibre auto cannon rounds of the enemy and for the rear to stop HMG rounds.

They don't always achieve this performance.

Remember the 30mm cannon on the A-10 can penetrate most tanks because it generally hits the roof of the turret and the engine deck so a 30mm AP round has a chance to penetrate from the top.

That doesn't mean the best gun for a US tank is the 30mm gatling on the A-10 because mounted on a tank it will be trying to penetrate the front or side or rear armour which is thicker than the roof armour.

The 30mm round of the A-10 is only slightly more powerful than the standard Soviet 30 x 165mm, the A-10 round is a 30 x 173mm shell. In comparison the Soviet Navy had a 30 x 210mmR cartridge on their old CIWS mounts. It had two separate barrels but otherwise looked like the Dalek guns.

Since an APS is not available yet the Russian MoD will have to think about novel ways to intercept APFSDS rounds.

Or they could take advantage of their superiority in air power and drones and when enemy tanks are spotted they could use ATGMs to destroy them or work out which roads they are going to be driving down and launch minefields in their path and behind them and either side of their position so the enemy tanks never get close enough to even use their APFSDS rounds... they can also use suicide drones to destroy them well before they get to use their main guns too... and if they decide to stop with minefields all around them afraid to move then a Grad or Smerch battery can shower them in HEAT warheads from the sky.

IDK to what extent an APS will be successful, because Israeli tanks had APS and yet took hits from ATGMs, obviously they can't stop APFSDS rounds.

No APS system is perfect, but once they get them into service they can work out the bugs and improve them and make their armoured vehicles even better and safer... but there is no such thing as absolutely safe in war.

NATO is actually on record that even their best shells have trouble piercing Russian armor. And they're not supplying Ukraine with their best.

The British supplied DU APFSDS rounds because that was the only type they had and their HESH are useless against any vehicle with add on armour with any cavities... which would include ERA blocks.

You can give Ukrainians T-14s and it still wouldn't change the outcome. Its that one-sided at this point.

Which makes western claims so amusing... oh if we give them Leopards it will turn the tide and they can win... or Javelin, or Brimstone, or Storm Shadow, or MLRS, or HIMARS, or M777, or NLAW, or Stinger, or Starstreak, or IRS-T, or NASAMS, or Patriot, or F-16...  if they had a free press it would have mentioned the fact that all these game changers have just led to more Orcs dying on a battlefield they can't win... even if their planners had some idea of what they were doing...

I have a feeling that in the next few decades the exPAT Ukrainians will talk about this conflict the way the Aussies and Kiwis talk about the quality of British military minds during WWI... and if you don't understand that try watching the entire Blackadder goes forth series... it is very educational... isn't it sad where the truth can only be shown in a comedy.... in the UK and US...

Good to know nato tanks are safe from apfsds and have their own physics that applies only to them.

Reminds me of a comment my friend made... he said when he was on holiday in Australia he asked a local if there were any sharks where he was intending to go for a morning swim. The Aussie had a big smile on his face and said this far up the river there are no sharks at all... because the gators eat them...

Western tanks face all the full range of Russian and Soviet weapons designed to destroy them, but also the mud and the fact that each type of western tank has different engines and wheels and guns and ammo and spare parts, none of which is compatible and how much support equipment did they send and is that safe from a visit in the night by Kh-101s because Russian satellites notice damaged western tanks keep getting sent to this large building in the west of the Ukraine... and then come back out headed to the new eastern front...

The point that Gerasinov made to Россия-1 was interesting because he said Russian tanks have had the better of Ukranian tanks throughout the conflict but now western MBTs capable of firing APFSDS rounds and an increase in Ukro ATGM units launching top attack ATGMs does call for Russia to change tactics and adopt novel technologies.

Equiping T 72s with a roof rack filled with ERA tiles is probably one such novel technology. I suspect we will see similar technologies designed to nullify APFSDS rounds.

Russia has quite a few different APS systems and together with ERA and NERA and other technologies as well as composite main armour Russian tanks are probably potentially the best armoured vehicles on the planet, but the fact that very few APS systems are deployed on Russian vehicles means this is theory and not reality.

Certainly the threat of western vehicles and their supposed superiority would require Russia to step up what they send to combat, that is just common sense, but the best solution to enemy APFSDS is to destroy enemy armour before it reaches the point of contact with Russian vehicles... so suicide drones and ATGMs launched from aircraft and of course the humble mine which can destroy the best armoured vehicles very easily and cheaply.

Russia has an enormous range of land mines that can be delivered by rocket or bomb that sits and waits till it detects targets and actively launches towards them and attacks them with top attack munitions...

...like this:

The one that will be used as a roller, and nothing will stand after. It is a matter of political decision only, and acceptance for increased casualty rate.

Continued escalation by the west will eventually make that necessary, but in the mean time there is a chance for a massive blood bath after a failed mass offensive that the people of the Ukraine might decide they need new management and new international patrons that even if they don't give a shit about them at the moment, at least are human... and wont trade the lives of Ukrainians for MIC profits.

The irony is that Russia has better uranium processing technology so give them 1,000 Abrams tanks with DU armour suites and Russia could make them much lighter and also power American houses for a couple of centuries on the useful Uranium they can extract.

They will have breeder reactors that can enrich the DU and make it usable fuel rod material again... that will be essentially fully recyclable and vastly more valuable as an energy resource than as an armour plate or round of ammo...