Man, I’d love to read THAT story!
Yeah there were some Syrian bull dozers trying to divert a river to stop it from entering Isreal if I recall. They built a ramp of dirt and drove up the ramp to increase the angle of trajectory and fired like an artillery piece with a spotter. A few rounds later it was all over. Greg
If I recall the T 90 is a renamed revamped T 72 and we all know how well they did. If the hull is penetrated then often a catastrophic event occurs. T 72’s were easily penetraited in desert storm and OIF.
That argument is invalid at worst, specious at best. You are attempting to evaluate a near-current generation MBT’s performance using a 30-year-old export model’s performance as a basemark. You may as well compare the overall lethality and survivablity of today’s M1A1HAs with DU armour and a 120mm cannon to the M1 of, say 1984 with an estimated half the effective armour value, and a less effective gun. I will not go as far as to say that T-90 is a wunderweapon, the carousel arrangement alone is a known liability, but I submit that you are not giving it anywhere near the respect the design deserves. I would also be surprised if the Russian design bureaus didn’t take a little note of the events of 1991 as well, and try to impart some form of protection to the ammunition in the hull. Having the ammo in that location isn’t so much of an issue, otherwise it wouldn’t be the case that M1 is the only tank not to store ammunition or propellant in the hull, as much as ensuring that it doesn’t explode.
The max range for a KE round is suprisingly far because of their high velocity.
I would not be surprised if Larry’s figure was on the consirvitive side. As an indicator look in the gunnery manual at the suggested safe limits for the backside of a tank range.
The danger zone for a .38 calibre revolver is on the order of 5,500 feet, somewhere near a mile and a quarter. I would submit that just because the round can travel that far, it doesn’t mean to say that it’s reasonable to expect that you can hit what you want it to aim at. All the tank range requirement reflects is the fact that the round can theoretically travel the distance, and it would be unfortunate for some poor schmuck and his HMMWV in the unlikely, but statistically possible event that a round, even if travelling at a mere 300mph at that point, were to strike him.
Man, I’d love to read THAT story!
I’m not conversant with the exact details, but apparently it was one of the upgraded Shermans sitting somewhere in the Golan Heights shooting off HE rounds in a semi-indirect mode. One round landed close enough that the blast had an effect on the soft target.
NTM
WOW, I know how to reallllly get people started on this forum now. Since we hace discussed the physics of the tank lets talk about the psychology of the tank. VROOOOOM LETS RUN SOMETHING OVER. I WANT TO SHOOT SOMTHING. I think that about covers it.
Sorry looooong day brain not be serious any more
Grizz
Yup Manic Moran is definitely right. And to call it merely revamped is kind of an understatement. It has additional passive armor everywhere and the extra Kontakt 5 ERA. It has a different powerplant than the T-72 giving it better mobility, it has shtora jammers to eliminate (or nearly so) the threat of ATGMs that rely on infra-red guiding and it is not a 30 year old export model firing downgraded hardened steel sheels instead of tungsten ones…
T-72: 
T-90: 
I think i saw this video too, soldier is on fire?? and the turret bursts into flames?? I always thought it was a mortar attack, so i tried to find it again and cant. From what i remember there was also an explosion to the left of the tank…but then again i might not be talking about the same clip…sasarchiver
You have no idea how close to reality you are. I was always the bad guy, telling my troops ‘No, you may not blow that up.’
Of course, I had to relent on occasion…
http://www.primeportal.net/movies/nlm/gunrun.mov
NTM
Nope, thats my story and I’m going to stick to it! The max range fo a 120mm APFSDS is IMPRESSIVE. However the max range is obviously not the max effective range. Much over 3000m and I would leave the sabot in the bin and use HEAT where volicity is not an important factor.
I still say the T 90 is a revamped T 72. Who among us thinks an DU APFSDS is not going to slice through it like hot butter. Due to the internal carosel and the self combusting case the internal catastrophic explosion following a crew compartment penetration is still a real probability. Oh I’m sure a fire supression system has been installed to help sales. The M1 series opted to desigh the turret for catastrophic events. The soviet design did not. There is no under hull blow out pannels on the T90 for the carosel in case of explosion. If I’m not mistaken the T 90 still uses the same basic hull, turret, gun, loading system, and suspension as the T 72. Yep,Kind of like compairing an M1 and an M1A1 HA if the M1had a 120mm. Greg
Turret- nope. The T-90 uses a different turret even after the “dolly parton” uparmoring you see on some T-72s. Furthermore, the T-90M uses an all new welded turret nothing like the T-72’s. Suspension yes- if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. [:)]
this ones different, theres no explosions going on.
Any t-90 experts, just out of curiosity, has any T-90 seen combat yet?
By the way, who makes a decent T-90 kit? [:)]
Jim
No, T-90s not seen action anywhere. India/Pakistan might have a chance to give us an opportunity for viewing though, I’m sure we’ll have something in a few years… Aren’t they about due for another war?
NTM
None out there. Zvezda had announced one, but it hasen’t materialized yet. It also was speculate that it would be the old, innacurate DML T-72 with some new bits added as well. Zvezda and Italeri hav both reboxed and market/sell DML kits in Europe.
No one does. I’m doing a T-90S conversion right now with the AEF designs conversion, email me if you want more info.
We came very very close. We should’ve crushed them after the terrorist attacks on Indian Parliament in 2002. I’d like to see the T-90S dismantle some of their secondhand chinese trash (not that modern chinese mbts are bad) anyway. But we digress…
One VERY VERY important fact that people always miss is that Indian and Russian T-90 tanks are completely different. Indian tanks use French and I believe some Israeli electronics equipment. Russian T-90s are, well, all Russian. Also, Indian T-90s lack the shtora IR ATGM jammers on either side of the main gun. I’ve been researching the T-90 for the past year now so forgive me if I give too much info. [B)]
Remember reading after OIF started that the Russian Army had developed a new round to stop the M-1. This was done after ODS and the dismal preformance of thier rounds against the M-1. Whether this is true or not I really din’t know and I do not know if the Iraq Army got any of those rounds and how the preformed.
The best Iraqi ammo was considered to be about good for training ammo by the Russians. I can’t recall the correct designation, but the US was not exactly up against top-of-the-line stuff.
That said, I’d be fairly confident that even the latest Russian pentrators wouldn’t go through the front of an Abrams, assuming the Iraqis ever managed to hit one.
NTM
Ok, thanks for the correction. Those numbers were what I have read.
Yes. Read some accounts of Soviet-designed tanks in battle. They explode very, very easily. Even when they are not penetrated, it’s very easy to get them to explode, based on design considerations. The tanks have a maximum size requirement based on the limitations of transport in Russia. But as they have attempted to keep up with advances in Western tank design, they have become increasingly cramped, so that everything is all crammed into a tiny space. Zaloga writes on this topic at some length.
I could see an air-launched Hellfire, a Javelin or another top-down impacting missile taking out an Abrams. Even 30mm fire from an A-10 or AH-64 would probably penetrate the roof armor on an Abrams. The TOW-2 from what I know does have some pop-up capability, but its an obsolete missile anyway, so that doesn’t much matter!
I would like to see how a T-90 would stand up against a modern Western MBT. There should be a competition or something… we have the technology to make em remote control, right?!