Red Army = most effective force !

[Marcello]

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.

Apart from the future planned conversion to SPA, looking good on parades was pretty much the only good thing that "thing" was good for.

Thier problems always seemed to be poor build quality

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.

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.

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.

[Marek_Tucan]

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.

Definitely The TR-28 was, OTOH, rather combat-capable as it seems, esp. the uparmored version...

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.

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

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.

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.

[Marcello]

"Vehicles were dumped outside in the open and left without maintenance to fester with the snow piling up in winter etc - only a few were actually fired up and used for training or some obsolete vehicles were actually used instead of the actual unit kit for training, so if the baloon actually went up then the conscript crews would have little clue about thier t-72s as they had trained on say T-54."

I don't know about that. What I have heard (second hand accounts from a tanker in the 3rd Shock Army, mid 80's) is that they trained frequently and on their T-64s.By then they were falling behind the west, and they suspected as much despite what the zampolit told them about western weakness. But the stories about tanks left to rot sound like Cold war era propaganda BS.Maybe some old junk in some Category C unit or some local screwup. I have seen pictures of T-62s with their own garage even when the type was already well obsolete.
As noted previously during the 80's the soviets tried to upgrade their 2.5 generation tanks to keep up with 3rd generation western MBTs that were coming online. As I understand things later got worse. By the time the Gulf war came around against M1A1 HA with M829A1 rounds the soviets could field only limited numbers of T-80U/UD with BM-32 rounds.The T-80s lacked thermal sights, Kontakt-5 coverage had lots of gaps and the BM-32 was nothing to write home about.The frontline tank fleet was mostly made of earlier models with light ERA at that point.

[Smersh]

yes, lets be careful to turn this into a cold war flame debate. nobody wants that.

by the time of the gulf war, the soviet union was at the edge of collapse, and the warsaw pact was disolved. Not exactly a time to be building up to date MBTs in large numbers.

But I agree, with Kuklinovsky.Througout most of the 80s, the warsaw pact held a definite advantage.

The large number of modernized t-55s and T-62s could still knock out much of the older armour in nato forces, which made up the bulk of nato tank forces. From what I have red, Kuklinovsky is right in saying the major threat soviet military planners feared was ATGMs.

[Marcello]

"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."

King Tiger clause applies: IF you can get it there. To be honest I have heard fairly nasty horror stories about early T-64 reliability but AFAIK it was reasonably debugged by the T-64A/B. The Chieftain had good armor and firepower, mobility was more problematic.The T-64 was more balanced hence why I gave it the "Best" rating. The Leo1 Marder comparison has merits but I would say that the Marder isn't the first thing that comes to mind if I try to come up with the opposite of expendable.

"There IS a reason why for a long time primary AT round in Soviet tanks was HEAT despite its crappy accuracy."

Against steel armor it had good penetration which retained even at the maximum range, it could be used against soft targets and was cheaper to produce. AFAIK at least for the 125mm gun HEAT rounds accuracy wasn't that terrible. Of course that meant that when NATO introduced very effective against HEAT composite armor the soviets had one unpleasant problem to deal with.

[Kuklinovsky]

I must add some explanations:

1. Some myths about Gulf War: US Amy fielded in Persian Gulf its brand-new equipment and arms like M1A1HA tanks with M829A1 ammunition. This weapon was relocated from West Germany or even hurriedly upgraded in Saudi Arabia because many of new stuff weren't in service until 1991! In contrary Iraqis had only downgraded export model tanks like T-54/55/59/69 of Soviet and Chinese origin and limited number of export T-72G "monkey model" without laminated armor and with ridiculous BM-12/15/17 APFSDS rounds withdrawn from Soviet service almost twenty years before!
Moreover during entire "1980s" time-period USSR had better APFSDS rounds than NATO. So there was no "crappy HEAT rounds" problem for USSR to solve. Simply Soviet regulations ordered to fire HEAT rounds against older Western tanks and APFSDS rounds at newer NATO tanks.

2. Soviet had advantage in armor up to the end of Cold War! They fielded T-80U in 1985 which was equivalent of US M1A1HA made five years later. Unfortunately well known Gorbatchev's military cuts prevented its wider deployment in GSFG as T-64B replacement. Anyway in 1991 Soviet T-80U had better armor than M1A1HA thanks to its second generation or "heavy" ERA and comparable APFSDS BM-42M round with almost identical penetration level like M829A1 (600mm RHA at 2 km). Also T-80U possessed long-range laser guided supersonic AT-11 ATGM designed to fight Western anti-tank gunships also. Its mobility was better than M1A1HA because of lower weight. M1A1HA was superior due to TI device but both tanks FCS were practically at the same level.

3. Maybe Chieftain was a match for T-64A BUT a small explanations is needed here: Britons manufactured a few hundred Chieftains and Soviets almost TEN THOUSAND T-64s!

4. As for older but modernized Soviet tanks like T-55AM/T-62MV: Simply compare them with older Western designs like AMX-30, Leo-1A3, M-60A1 which were in wide use during 1980s in many NATO countries. I am sure this balance won't be favourable for Western tanks!

PS. Mr. Tucan: You needlessly recommend me some amateurish tank forum to read. I prefer far more up front professional sources like declassified CIA, DIA and Soviet analysis or reports about above issues!

[narwan]

Oh no, not the myth of Soviet superiority again. People always seem to forget that the number of toys you have doesn't matter, it's the amount you can take to the party that counts. The thre most important elements would have been logistics, logistics and logistics.

Fact: WP forces would have to depend on only a couple of roads to advance into the west and more importantly, to support their advance into the west. Consequence of the Iron curtain. There were very few crossborder connections available to carry anything close to the amount of WP troops already in theatre and their supply. Take out those points at their bottlenecks and the party is over for the WP. No more fuel, ammo, food, water and bad tabbacco for the troops on the front. No more reinforcements, especially if you drop a couple of bridges in east-germany and Poland.
Personally I think WP forces would not have gotten very far.

Heard an interesting one about this recently, seems the westgermans had mined these chokepoints with nuclear demolitions. Seems they were prepared to take out these points permanently and stall the WP advance within a few miles of the border... Anyone got some more on that?

Narwan

[Smersh]

I've red reports of nuclear mines being used by NATO as well. No doubt, had WP forces come into contact with them, tactical nuclear weapons would have been free to be used on the battlefeild. Resulting in a much more destructive conflict.

I would love to have tactical nuclear weapons in SP

logistics of course always play a role in warfare, especially on the offensive. But I think its a myth to think that only a few blown bridges would have hindered a WP advance.

again, lets be careful not to get too aggressive and nationalistic on this thread.

[Marek_Tucan]

Smersh said:
logistics of course always play a role in warfare, especially on the offensive. But I think its a myth to think that only a few blown bridges would have hindered a WP advance.

Depends. Look at what problems did the Germans have during Market-Garden when they needed to get reinforcements to Nijmegen and weren't able to use Arnhem bridge. Or trouble with getting reinforcements to Normandy over destroyed railroad and road network. Sure the destroyed chopeoints won't prevent all reinforcements/stuff from coming in but it would severely slow down this and will create more chokepoints susceptible to air or TacNuke strikes.

Anyway, all too glad the Cold War didn't break into Hot one as it would be for sure bloody for both sides.

[Listy]

Kuklinovsky said:
2. Soviet had advantage in armor up to the end of Cold War! They fielded T-80U in 1985 which was equivalent of US M1A1HA made five years later.

Ok I'll bite, seeing as I just sprayed my breakfast all over the place in fits of laughter.

How is a 46 ton tank, better than one nearly twice it's weight? I'd also like to ask what evidence you bring to support this?