For those unfamiliar with the T-64, the flimsy suspension was due to strict weight limits imposed on the design team. In service, the suspension was subject to frequent breakage, very un-Russian.
But the real eye-opener is the T-80’s capability to levitate and bore through the earth’s core and emerge undetected on our bourgeois doorstep! We decadent Americans shake with fear in our capitalist pajamas! [:O]
(BTW, I do have a keen modeling interest in the Kharkovite T-64 tractor-that-doesn’t-work. It was a 1970s-era Cold War boogeyman tank! [:P])
Yeah, that was a good one! Plus - it just goes to show how obscure that T-64 really is. I have only heard about it but I have never actually seen it. Thanks for sharing and have a nice day
I’m glad you guys enjoyed the read. Sharing is caring. Say, isn’t sharing a basic principle in Communism? [:P]
When I was growing up in the 1970s, information on the T-64 was very thin on the ground. I had the impression at the time that it was the new Soviet super tank that was going to face us down across the East/West German border. For some reason I thought it had a gas turbine engine, so I was rather surprised to learn many years later that the T-80 was the first Soviet tank to be so equipped.
At least now I know a little about how to tell the T-64/T-72/T-80 from one another!
Now excuse me as I must go and spew some Capitalist particles into the air and buy some shiny things that I do not need…
Yes in the early 80s when I was learning my trade as a TOW gunner, there still was not much to be seen of hard info on those boogeymen. At least not for us grunts. Just some very grainy odd angle photo stuff, that I later found out were satellite photos… ah the good old days of Coms and Yangs…
Yeah, I remember reading an article during the Reagan years about the US’ efforts to determine the T-72’s gun size. They were trying all kinds of elaborate indirect ways to figure it out, including studying satellite photos. It was then that a French delegation who were shown a T-72 simply said that it was 125mm. Such was Cold War intrigue.
And outside of the Star Trek universe, I’d bet money that some Americans don’t know the Pledge of Allegiance. [:O]
You were a TOW gunner eh? I read that controlling the missile in flight was like walking a small dog with a full bladder down a street with a 40 foot leash! Wasn’t the Cold War “fun”? I lived through the 1980s believing that we would all die in a bright flash of light. My dad didn’t help by mentioning that Soviet SLBMs had a CEP of around 10 miles - I live 11 miles from Pearl Harbor.
At least now the threat of MAD is somewhat lessened, and we can build more accurate models of Soviet tanks! AND we get to read fun stuff from guys like that T-80 fellow! [:D]
Nah, “flying” the TOW goes against training. Just keep your crosshairs center mass of the target and the computer guidance box & missile do the rest. It just requires a steady hand with a feather touch to keep a moving target centered. Especially at longer ranges. With the groundmount system it’s like hugging a fire hydrant while looking thru a camera. On the ITV hammerhead, it was like playing an old Atari arcade game with your eye against that camera. And at maximum range that 16 second flight time sure felt longer…
I’m glad you understood my Star Trek reference to the Cold War… the pledge is one thing, but how many kids today can quote the preamble to the Constitution even just a line or two? today’s madness makes me nostalgic for those times. There was a certain stability in MAD. I lived a few miles outside that CEP for Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station, but there were enough other targets in the area (a SAC base, MAC base, two MCASs, aerospace plants, refineries, Long Beach Naval Shipyard, etc…) to really desire for the quick end rather than the lingering aftermath
And yes, I am absolutely loving the commie armor kits now available… made by those capitalistic communist Chinese… now there is something to ponder…
one day I’ll have all those types in a Guards motor rifle regiment or tank regiment that were on the other side…
I, too, lived through the late 1950’s and 1960’s. My neighbors built a fallout shelter in their back yard, and we practised air raid drills during school! Then, Barry MaGuire released Eve of Destruction in 1965, and we all knew we were doomed to go up in a flash of light and a mushroom cloud.