T-90 Main Battle Tank #2

galicije83 wrote:In Russia they have OMSK Mash they can build T80 tanks...in UVZ, they have 3 line for tank production,one they use for made T90Ms, one for rebuild and modernized T72tanks and third one they made what they want...its amde for T14, so probably they also made T90Ms on this line...

OMSK also have two lines for made 80s, but for now they just modernized and rebuild old BVs they have it almost 2500 in stock ready for quick modernization and rebuild/repaire....and probably ~1000 witch they can use for easy spare parts for BVs who just go for rebuild/repair not modernisation...

I don't think Omsk has made any new tanks since the 90s or even the Soviet period, so I'm not sure they have the capacity to build new ones from scratch, at least not without all new equipment, investment and so on.

Besides which the T-80 series has not particularly stood out in this conflict, the whole range from the T-80Us in service with the Kantemirovskaya division to the latest T-80BVMs seem to have gotten regularly disabled or immobilized and abandoned throughout the conflict, although presumably preserving their crews and that's definitely a plus.
Still, to me the most survivable tank seems to be the T-90M, and given its considerably better value for money than the T-14 nevermind any of the NATO-standard tanks - it's the best tank of the war so far. Offloading extracurricular activities from Uralmash such as building trams and rolling stock to make way for more T-90M production and T-72 upgrading makes perfect sense.

ALAMO wrote:This conflict gives us the impression that the western tank building school is fuked up for real.
And it is not my private opinion, but a professional one.
All of them are way too heavy, bulky, and overcomplicated for war.
The logistics effort is enormous. Even planning a simple route is a challenge.
Too heavy for Ukrainian soil in Spring. - that would be a great joke, if not talked seriously.
Too heavy for Ukrainian soil in Autumn. - yeah, very funny, but why do you repeat that again, my two stars friend?
Perform bad in Winter, tracks get frozen to the ground. Like fukin serious?
Cooling system is ineffective and engine overheats in Summer conditions. No fukin kidding me!

And here comes T-72B3M and gives a fuk if that is Summer, Winter, Spring, or Autumn. Just drive&shoot. Magic!

It's not. If for no other reason than that at the time these tanks were all designed, the Western tank building school and wider NATO was definitely still sane and grounded in reality.
These tanks are designed for use as mobile bunkers facing one direction and with their superior thermals/optics allowing them to target advancing Soviet tanks at longer ranges, as well as targeting helicopters and all sorts of things. They have good reverse speeds so that they can leave these prepared positions when it becomes necessary without exposing their sides and back. They would have spent most of their time dug in or concealed and not moving about everywhere and becoming obvious targets for artillery and helicopter gunships.

That's the scenario they were designed for, and that's what they're going to be good at. Highly good at in fact.

Not for mobile warfare, long range travel over bridges and roads and everything else, all-seasons use, long periods between maintenance, moving around in conditions of fuel-economy, or fighting in Russian/Ukrainian terrain.

The Iraq experience kind of spoiled NATO war-planners as it convinced them that their hardware was really just that much more superior than the Soviet one and that it can be used well outside its actual use-case and that it could even act as a game-changer when pitted against Russian armour. And that things such as monstrous fuel-consumption and logistics costs were taken for granted too as the US simply had the resources to cope with it in Iraq, or in Afghanistan where the resources were all shared to other NATO members. Not a thought was spared for smaller players trying to go it alone independently of NATO's infastructure, such as the Ukraine.
Now they've been humbled and brought back to reality

The Kord is attached to the pano sight for the commander on the T-90AM so would be even more useful for being able to shoot what you see straight away without needing to turn the turret.

The T-80 is not as good as the T-90AM or T-14 but that does not make it a bad tank and in some situations it is a rather good tank... I would say in cold conditions the gas turbine would be rather better than a diesel.

It would burn a lot of fuel, but tanks are not known for not burning a lot of fuel.

The mesh screens would be excellent for stopping drone dropped hand grenade type weapons from getting too close to the crew hatches or inside the turrets... modelling it so APS systems still work would be a good thing too, but nothing is going to be perfect... no matter what defence you install they will come up with something else... ground based remote control vehicles with land mines for instance...

Suffice to say Russias problems with Armour are much smaller than HATO problems with their armour... which are not particularly bad either, but they are facing excellent anti tank defences and failing to the point of making them ineffective.

Equally Russia struggles with enemy drones, but everyone does and Russia has the advantage of having decent widespread air defence capacity and ground forces that don't expect their air power to solve air threat issues for them.

Reverse speed is critical as proven in World of Tanks and War Thunder because everyone knows if you can zip backwards at 20km/h you can hide behind a building that will stop any AP round known to man.

I mean obviously driving down a long straight road that runs along side trees on the side of the road your main priority in tank design is to be able to roll back up that 1km long road at a slightly faster speed of 20km/h because that will save you.

When the enemy have ATGMs that penetrate your frontal armour then presenting your frontal armour is no protection at all...