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Marcello said:
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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Definitely
The TR-28 was, OTOH, rather combat-capable as it seems, esp. the uparmored version...
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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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OTOH ammo quality is closer to mil affairs
As for Belarus tractors, found also diametrally different reviews, anyway here they were absolutely ignored in comparison with our industry
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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.
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Upon its introduction T-64 would have a counterpart in Chieftain, designed with defensive battleas against vast numbers in mind, whose gun would do a nasty thing to T-64. Later on the T-64 would be faced with modern 105mm ammo, losing many advantages.
As for Leo vs. T-62, true Leo's armor was weak in most aspects (though front turret, made to be enough to stop BM-20 in 1980's versions, would severely hamper also 115mm sabot performance) but OTOH 105mm gun was more than match for 115 in terms of penetration and accuracy and most of all ROF. Leo would outgun T-62 with ease.Add to that better FC and rangefinder... Think of it as comparison of WW2 Marder and T-34/76. Marder got better gun, but weaker armour. If Marder is on defense and 34's are on offense, Marder does excellently, but not so well when the roles will turn.
Edit: Re: Kuklinovsky, I recommend you to visit tank-net and search through "my **** is bigger than your" type of threads. You will find that many of things you take for granted weren't so, for example quality of 125mm AP ammo. There IS a reason why for a long time primary AT round in Soviet tanks was HEAT despite its crappy accuracy.