Soviet tank crew survival.

[JaM]

Shadowcougar said:
Not every Iraqi crewman died in his tank during GW1.

No, but 99 percent of killed Iraqi tankers were those who served in T-72...
How you will survive, if your turret goes away? You have no chance. I read on tanknet that htere was one commander that survive this, becouse he was sitting in commander hatch, but he was critically wounded, he lost both legs... APFSDS DU rounds has much better killability than HEAT or Tungsten rounds.DU react with armor in pirroforic reaction and burn everithing in its way, so it is imposible for fire suppresion system to do something, and once ammo is cook off you will loose turret with both commander and gunner in it. It is highly unpropable that driver will survive turret blowout as he sit closely to autoloader too.

[Marcello]

"No, but 99 percent of killed Iraqi tankers were those who served in T-72..."

Now,do you have a source for that or are you just making it up?
The number you give would imply that almost everyone got off the hundreds of T-55/T-62 destroyed unscathed.Since this sounds extremely improbable I would like to hear a good source for that.

"DU react with armor in pirroforic reaction and burn everithing in its way, so it is imposible for fire suppresion system to do something, and once ammo is cook off"

Do you actually believe that with such process in action
on a T-62, with approximatively the same internal volume and 40 unprotected rounds stuffed around, everything would be fine and dandy? This would be the most ludicrous thing I have heard so far.

"How you will survive, if your turret goes away?"

How will you survive a massive overpenetration resuling in
overpressure, splinters and immediate fires in tank with unprotected ammo? Most likely you will not.That goes for the T-62 and the T-55 as well.The turret going away is not that important.It means that the ammo is going off and THAT is the problem for anyone inside.The flying turret is more of a side effect.Again, do you remember that burning T-55 with flames erupting from the hatches?
Do you think you would be fine in that?

[Marcello]

The M829A1 is rated, give or take, in excess of 600mm of RHA at battle ranges.Tanks like the T-62 or the M60 have an armor approximatively in the region of 200mm of RHA on the front once you work out the slopes etc.
Think about the implications of that when arguing about survivability on this generation of tanks.

[JaM]

Look, you can have penetration even 2000mm at 10km, but if projectile dont hit anything critical, tank will survive.Im telling that in M60 you have much better chance that penetrating hit will not hit critical parts than in T-72.I never said that T-62 is on pair with M60A3 with survivability. (As Andy said first M60 models had problems with flamable hydraulics,but after 1974 it was solved)

[PlasmaKrab]

Well, that makes for non-pentrating hits, this happens a lot. High-angled shots tend not to penetrate too (whatever your magic silver bullet, if you hit at 83° and have to cross 5 meters of equivalent RHA (that's with 600mm...).

Now about survivability, I think that things like flammable turret hydraulics fluids with internal tanks, or clumsy fuel tanks (think BMP-1 or M-113), maybe even aluminium armour should be integrated into the survivability rating, at lest for the worst cases. If that's posible at all with only 6 levels.
IMHO modern AFVs rise much too quickly to surv=6, which should be kept for targets with really high survivability and plenty of inner spaces like shelter bunkers or blue-water ships.
Just my opinion of course!

[Marcello]

"Look, you can have penetration even 2000mm at 10km, but if projectile dont hit anything critical, tank will survive."

Then, I am afraid, you have absolutely no idea of what you are speaking about.The projectile hitting something critical is just part of the equation (an important part but a part).Overpressure caused by something entering at massive speed into a sealed steel box is an other.Then there is heat and splinters to consider.

[JaM]

Sorry,but you have. If you remember there was an accident in Iraq where Iraqi insurgents fired an RPG that penetrated side hull and goes out at other (one crewmember was wounded) HEAT jet goes at much greater speed than APFSDS (jet, not projectile) so by your means all crew should be dead, but they were not. Similar things happened to M113A3 when APFSDS rounds get through one side to other and out with no effect on M113... Examples are quite numerous.