How Chieftain tanks fought against the Soviet T-72s?
Iran recieved 908 Chieftain tanks from Britain during the 1970's. Kuwait took delivery of 143. The Chieftain had a rifled, not a smoothbore gun as it was designed to fire APDS and HESH natures of ammunition, both of which require the spin imparted by rifling for stabilization. Several hard drive crashes ago I had a number of photographs of battle-damaged Iranian Chieftains. What exactly they were hit by was hard to say other than there were numerous penetrations from APFSDS rounds. These however were much more likely to be from 115mm rounds fired by the T-62 than 125mm rounds fired by the T-72. http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/9646/... http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/2821/... The T-72 did not appear in numbers until very late in the Iran-Iraq war when most Chieftains were already out of service due to poor reliability and a lack of spares while the Iranian Army which operated them had been pushed aside in favor of the politically more reliable Pasdaran. The T-72 was used exclusively by the Iraqi Republican Guard, the T-62 being the backbone of the regular armored divisions throughout the war. Both sides showed a consistent lack of competence in the handling of large armored forces so what lessons can be taken are questionable. Several hundred Chieftains were captured by the Iraqi's and a number of them (about 70 I think) were donated to Jordan who found little use for them. The Kuwaiti's fought only one major tank engagement - the Battle of the Bridges where an understrength Chieftain battalion fought an Iraqi armored column from favorable positions. Kuwait was quick to replace the Chieftain with the T-72 derived M84 once the country was liberated. None of this is enough to draw any particular conclusions. Theoretically at least the L11 gun on the Chieftain firing APDS was marginal against the T-72 at best while the 125mm gun on the T-72 had been designed specifically to deal with the Chieftain.
What are equipment and vehicles used by the Soviets in afghanistan?
"The Soviet war in Afghanistan lasted nine years from December 1979 to February 1989. Part of the Cold War, it was fought between Soviet-led Afghan forces against multi-national insurgent groups called the Mujahideen. The insurgents received military training in neighboring Pakistan and China." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war... So my question is what are the equipments and vehicles used by the USSR during their Afghanistan War? Specifically I'm curious as to the logistics as well as fighting vehicles used by the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. For example did the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan used Ural-375D or did the Soviets exported them another truck type? And most definitly Mi-24 Hinds were used as they were made famous during the Soviet war in Afghanstan but what are the Mi-24 Hinds that were actually used armed with? Of course there is the Ak-47 and the MANPADS (Sa-7 for one, maybe others) that the Afghan freedom fighters stole and used against the Soviet. Overall, please provide the complete list of vehicles used by the Soviet Union and their Democratic Republic of Afghanistan allies during the War in Afghanstan.
Soviet tanks not as bad as we think?
The quality of the tanks isn't really the issue but rather the quality of the soft pinkish things inside them. Because we in the west tend to get only the Isreali side of the story the combat experiences particularly in 67' and 73' tend to be told in a very pro-Isreali light. Thus they emphasize Arab losses and tactical blunders while glossing over those of the IDF, who did manage some monumental mistakes and suffered huge losses of their own. Superior night vision equipment on Arab (particularly Syrian T-62) tanks in 73' certainly gave the IDF fits. But in the end it was tactical errors and the inherent problems of centrally controlled armies of short-term conscripts that determined the outcome, not the quality of individual tanks. And of course even less is know of the performance of Iranian western tanks (Chieftain, M47M, M60A1, M48A5) vs. Iraqi T-54/55, T-62 and T-72M. The Iraqi's in 1991 were well equipped, trained and experienced by regional standards and could have been a formidable opponent to anyone in the region. Being a conscript army in an autocratic regime however they were capable of only set-piece operations at brigade level. The rapid pace at which western forces were able to move and at divisional and corps level while of course enjoying complete air superiority was something completely foreign to the Iraqi's. Again, not a failure of equipment, they were just playing at a whole different level.
During soviet-afghan war, why soviets used T-62 tanks instead of T-72?
Some made it to Afghanistan ,but the T-72 was supposedly not as well suited to the terrain of Afghanistan is one of the reasons and probably because afghans had no armor of their own so the soviets figured that they did not need to send a better tank there. The T-72 was designed for the plains of Europe from what I have heard so when they made it to Afghanistan they were found to have problems. The equipment and logistics were already in place to maintain T-55 ,and T-62 tanks . There were probably more reasons why they were not really used in Afghanistan.
If Israel used Soviet/Russian hardware and the Arab countries used the US/Western equipment, would the outcome of the wars between them have been different?
That’s easy - Israel would still win, but with more casualties. Because in most weapons (except for a few types of weapons such as the AK-47 rifle, or the T-72 battle tank) the Russian hardware is inferior to American ones; not because the Americans are smarter, but because their industry was free market, and used competition to come up with better ideas. Israel didn’t win just with American hardware, but with its more motivated soldiers, better strategy and tactics.How can you conclude this? simple. In most wars between Israel and the Arabs, Israel was outnumbered about 1:4 in everything - tanks, planes, soldiers. American weapons alone don’t help you, if your fighting force isn’t more efficient than the other side and you are outnumbered.Secondly, Israel was only using American weapons after 1967; before this, the US didn’t sell Israel offensive weapons due to its “embargo” policy on the Middle East, only France did (and some other countries such as Germany and Britain).During that period, Israel won its greatest victory - the 1967 Six Day War - against Syria, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq. At that time, Israel had mainly French weapons - Mirage jets and boats, British tanks and submarines (Israel did have some very old American Sherman tanks from World war II). These weapons were not much better than the Russian weapons (then: Soviet) that the Arabs had - top of the line MiG-21 fighters, T-62 Tanks, etc. In that war, both sides had more or less the same quality of weapons, and Israel still won.
Were Iraq’s (Lions of Babylon) T-72 tanks up to par with the Soviet Union’s T-72 of that era?
No, in more ways than one.Firstly, all the T-72 used by Iraq were export versions. Even the fabled “Lions of Babylon” would have been created out of export parts of the T-72, given it was mostly from Poland. This meant that the newest features are not necessarily in the tank or those modified from Russian specifications. These features can range from NBC protection, the type of sights, thermal sleeves, smoke grenade launchers, and even the fancy composite armor in the turret (glacis plate armor had them in all variants though). So already, we can see that the Iraqi’s T-72 exports were not exactly contemporary to the Soviet Union’s.Another reason was the ammunition. The Soviets did not give out their best ammunition to the export T-72. For example, in the Gulf War 1990′s, the Soviet Union already had the 3VBM-13 Vant APFSDS rounds with a 3BM-32 DU penetrator that is estimated to penetrate 560 mm at 2 kilometers away. The Iraqis were still using the 3VBM-3 ammunition with a 3BM-9 penetrator that was built of maraging steel, which could only get about 290 mm in the same conditions. The best round the Iraqis had in their inventory was the 3VBM-7 with the tungsten carbide 3BM-15 penetrator (though it could be the all-steel export version, 3BM-17), which only gave up to 340 mm.There was also the fact that the Iraqi T-72 had more wear and tear than the typical Soviet units. The Iraqis have been fighting in the Iran-Iraq war with the T-72, and so the tanks were heavily used in the fighting. The Iraqis did not practice the level of maintenance or mechanical overhauls that the Americans had with their tanks, and so when practically new M1 Abrams came blazing through the deserts, they fought against T-72s that were practically a decade old and constantly used war machine.With all these in mind, the Iraqi T-72 and their Lions of Babylon were simply not up to par with the Soviet’s own T-72 tanks.Source: Steve Zaloga’s book “M1 Abrams vs T-72 Ural: Operation Desert Storm 1991”
Why does the Russian military have so many tanks?
Land Warfare Doctrines.The Russians, then the Soviets, now the Russians again, have a long long military tradition built upon their successes against Napoleon so many years ago. The primary doctrine that they have employed since then is to simply accept higher casualties than their opposition.This tactical doctrine has lain at the heart of their land forces for that long. Thus, they try to build robust, less sophisticated equipment that can be mass produced very easily. All in the light of maybe needing to bury their enemies in corpses, and burning equipment. For instance Russian armor doctrine for breaching a mine field is to run armored companies through the minefield “in column” simply pushing the blown up tanks out of the way. You need a lot of tanks to pull that off. An insight into Soviet Combat doctrine, which in this one instance can also be called Russian Combat Doctrine, is this book.Inside the Soviet Army: Viktor Suvorov: 9780425071106: Amazon.com: BooksOf particular interest is the account of how he led his tank company out through the motorpool during an alert drill, when the front gate got grid locked. He literally went THROUGH the motor pool buildings into the street beyond. For this he was decorated and promoted. Good book.This doctrine has only failed them once. Afghanistan.But, historically, it seems to be a doctrine that only the Russians can make work! If you look at any country out there and that country is using Russian Tanks, in all likelihood they are Russian Trained. THOSE Russian Trained Clients have all died like dogs in dozens of different situations. It seems that not every nationality has the “testicular fortitude” to pull off what Russia has been doing successfully since Napoleon.The classic example is Desert Storm I. The only land campaign in human history measured in hours. U.S. casualties, killed AND wounded around 137. Iraqi casualties was close to 1,000,000 total, The U.S. captured nearly 500,000. All of that in a single 100 hour stretch.So… maybe if faced with the American battlefield mindset the Russian model may not work so well, but … The Russian’s build a lot of stuff! Because they expect and calculate for incredibly high casualty counts. But they do NOT build any where near as much these days as they did in the Soviet Era.