Quote:
Originally Posted by c_of_red
I still fail to understand how where the tank driver was born affects the ratings of the front hull armor. Maybe I'm just slow, but could you 'splain that over agains lucy. ;-)
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Fraid you are the only one who suggests such a thing, for neither me nor anyone else made such a statement. After all the birthplace of the tank crew is also of no effect - I bet large part of IDF tankers in all wars was born in Russia or even in Arab countries.
However what you fail to grasp is that a skilled crew might utilise their tank so well that thinner armor does maybe bother them, but does not doom them to your apocalyptic images of fields of burning wrecks. You want an example? What about the scores of T-34 vs PzKpfw IV? The latter tank got thinner armor and worse mobility.
You also can take a non-tank matter of say the Winter War. Finnish army, desperately outnumbered in manpower, airpower and artillery, managed to deal good enough blows to the Soviets that the plan to get a puppet govt to Helsinki failed.
What about IDF AMX-13s and M50 Shermans vs. T-55 and IS-3? Not only the Israeli tanks got significantly thinner armor (nearing paper-thin on AMX), not only AMX was really weird vehicle not all that suitable for a maneuver battle, but the 75mm French gun was too weak to penetrate T-55 from the front and IS-3 turret from all aspects... Yet the IDF won. Why is that? Was it because they grew extra two feet of armor on their tanks and used APFSDSDU? Or was it because IDF doctrine led the crews to aggressive maneuvering and initiative, as opposed to rigid Arab units led by not too brilliant officers and with bad overall knowledge about their equipment (search for an article "Why Arabs lose wars").
Or take the battle of Khafji: the only Coalition tanks fighting there were AMX-30, with guns rougly comparable with at most the 115mm of T-62s encountered and armor weaker than T-55. By your "weak armor" theory the USMC was even more pathetic as the heaviest vehicle used there was LAV-25. Yet the Coalition prevailed, and not only in defense, but also in assault.
Now let's just make a mind experiment - 1991, Kuweit, US forces have T-72M and M1 as their prime battle tank, Iraq has M1A1(HA). What will you see? Again a Coalition victory. With heavier losses of course, as the matchup of old model T-72 with 1960s ammo (Remember, Iraq used BM-15 APFSDS at best, AFAIK mostly BM-12 - that is roughly on par with M735A1 and M735 105mm) against M1A1(HA) is really pretty poor ('bout as poor as between Sherman M50 and T-55 I would say), but based on historical record of Iraqi army, the crucial difference will be in following areas:
-Iraqi M1A1s will hit desert mostly due to lack of regular boresighting
-Their electronics would not work and even if it does, the crews are not trained to do so.
-A third of M1A1s will be broken down by bad maintenance
-A third would be abandoned in panic
-The rest will either fight from stationary positions, will try to charge in parade groun d formations or will blunder aimlessly around the battlefield. Republican Guards might pose a problem, but then not unbeatable.
-The C3I structure of Iraqi army will crumble just as fast.
In the end you'll have lots of burning M1A1s and few destroyed US T-72s.
What am I basing this on? On experience of an US tanker who trained the Kuwaitis with M1A2s. And the Kuwaitis are still a bit better in this regard than Iraqi army was. What did he say (or rather write)? That the Kuwaitis neglected such petty unwarlike things as boresighting. That none of the crews fulfilled US gunnery standards and the single crew in the battalion that hit the target on 3rd try already was treated as wondermen and sharpshooters.
Similar things were also reported by our instructors teaching the new Iraqi army how to operate T-72. They said the Iraqis treated them with despect at first "What are you going to teach us, eh? We're combat veterans with war experience!". A quick demonstration incl. gunnery between Czech and Iraqi crew did effectively shut them up.
So here you can see enough examples, how where the crew was trained can mean pretty big shift in combat value of a vehicle, not by means of adding it armor or so, but by means of rising its combat effectiveness (or downgrading it).
To sum it all up:
The best tanks in the world will do you no good if the crew and their commanders do not know what to do with it.
Or, to paraphrase one important military saying:
Bad tanks and good tactics are the slowest and hardest path to victory. Superb tanks and bad tactics means just a lot of noise before the defeat.