I don't think that is correct. The M1 came after my time, but IIRC, the fuel tank is amidships, between the turet backet and the engine compartment. Co-formal, I think, so the turret basket sort of sits in it. I'm looking for a picture or line drawing that shows the gas cap.
If there is one thing the Soviet Union was the undisputed champion at, it was propaganda. The 'Monkey' model export weapons is a classic example of that. Do you really think that some Arabs who grew up hageling with his mother over a teat is going to buy a monkey model? Or are you suggesting that the Arab in question didn't know it was a monkey model? Or maybe the Salesman from Britain or France or Germany, looking to sell some of their tanks would forget to mention that the Arab was getting the monkey model and if they wanted the real thing, buy from me? No wonder capitalism never took hold in Russia.
As far as being a new tank because it has a new turret, I beg to differ. The Germans put several new turrets of various makes of their Leo. Changed the engine, gun, electronics, almost everything over the decades. They aren't doing any propaganda about it being a "new" tank.
A new tank is one where you start with a clean sheet of paper.
Like the T-72. The Soviets would change the Hull, Engine, Turret and gun, then restart the cycle over. That is why I say they were trying to design the perfect WW2 ( Great Patriotic War) tank, since it was the T-34 that was the 'clean sheet' design that started that process.
And while everybody raves about the T-34, the Germans had a better then 20 to 1 kill ratio over it with Mk IV's, which the experts claim was an inferior tank. So much for experts.
My final point is that while Soviet/Russian tanks look good on papaer and make the experts drool, when the shooting starts, they explode and burn. What exactly will make the T-90 (T-72 Mk2/b) different? Unproven defense systems that have never been tried in combat?
Good luck with that! It takes more then propaganda to defeat a DU penetrator.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...ons/m829a1.htm
The USA isn't going to fight Russia in a conventional war.
I seriously doubt that America will honor it's NATO commitments, since NATO didn't honor theirs in 2001 (except for Britain).
So when Putin decides to take Europe away from the Muslims, America will yawn and go back to rooting against the Yankees.
So the Russians will be fighting the Krauts, again. And Russian tanks will be burning, again. So the Russian propaganda department will rename the next modification of the T-72, again and peddle it as a new tank, again. None of this will work any better then it did last time, again.
How do you say it in Russin?
поражено в колейности
"Stuck in a rut"