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Similar situation Mobhack describes was with T-35 heavy tanks already before WW2 - their units were training on T-26's and T-35 was being fired up just for parades.
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Apart from the future planned conversion to SPA, looking good on parades was pretty much the only good thing that "thing" was good for.
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Thier problems always seemed to be poor build quality
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My father's Brezhnev era export Belarus tractor would probably disagree that.Very reliable, rugged and easy to repair.The casting of some components is a sight to behold. Just an anedocte, mind you, but at least a bit more relevant to the matter of quality of soviet mechanics than shotgun shells.
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Red Army was impressive force on paper, but situation on the field would be different. Most of the equipment was just cannon fodder,mayority of tanks used were still T-55,T-62.Later after 1986 they had more T-80B but there were Leopards-2, M1A1 and Challys.
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As I noted previously timing is critical. Broadly speaking with the T-64 and the T-72 the soviets aquired an half generation lead over NATO, introducing the 125mm gun and composite armor while the west was still using 105mm guns and conventional cast/rolled armor.In its days the T-64A was the best tank in the world, by far.By the time western 3rd generation MBTs came online there were a lot of them in service, even if the bulk was still T-55/T-62.I would note that cannon fodder is a relative term. The Leopard 1 had less armor than a WW2 era Panther and a Leo1 driver I know was pretty explicit in telling me that they harbored no illusions about their fate had they been hit.A T-62 would have killed them just fine.
During the 80's the soviet were stuck playing catch up.