Re obat 70 Chechnya

Marcello · #1 August 5th, 2007, 07:04 PM

I think that the issue which needs to be dealt with first is what exactly these tanks are supposed to represent. Only the vehicles that were actually in Chechen service? Or even hypothetically captured ones?

Marcello · #2 August 6th, 2007, 08:12 AM

In any case I find the selection of available vehicles to be rather odd. To my understanding the chechens used T-72 and T-62 and possibly some T-55 and T-64.
In particular Unit 176 T-80U: AFAIK few of these were available and it is highly unlikely that they would have ended up in chechen service.The few T-80s that were used in Chechnya were T-80BVs and the like.
Then the chanches of an advanced prototype like T-80UM1 (unit 177) serving under the rebels are absolute zero.
These units should be deleted and replaced with more realistic vehicles,like the T-62M and maybe T-72AV. I think also removing the ATGMs from the others tanks would be a good idea.

Marcello · #3 August 6th, 2007, 10:30 AM

"I would think they would run out of ATGMs and other sophisticated AT rounds (sabot, DC-HEAT etc) pretty quick, whereas the USSR ammo depots they had access to would contain considerable amounts of 100, 115 and 125 HE rounds, so a shift towards more HE rounds would make sense to me, at least."

Well, it is likely that those tanks did not serve in combat long enough for any ammo shortage issue to manifest itself. IIRC they were taken out relatively early during the fights. However barrel fired ATGMs were a limited issue and several models required advanced training to be used, so I think that removing them may make sense.

Spike11 · #4 August 8th, 2007, 07:18 AM

"Well, it is likely that those tanks did not serve in combat long enough for any ammo shortage issue to manifest itself. IIRC they were taken out relatively early during the fights. However barrel fired ATGMs were a limited issue and several models required advanced training to be used, so I think that removing them may make sense."

I think your comments make sense, particularly re T-80U and ATGMs. However - and this is more of a question - isn't it likely that the Russians used more CS style tanks themselves? Afterall, they weren't expecting to fight a highly mechanised force, thus more HE rounds would make sense for them too (although very little made sense for the Russian army during the 94-95 Chechen campaign, so I might be on thin ice here...).

PlasmaKrab · #5 August 8th, 2007, 10:00 AM

Makes sense that the Russian troops would use more HE rounds against a guerrilla-type opponent. Now as you said, Spike, the level of preparedness most Russian forces showed in the first Chechnya war makes it hard to rule out that armored troops would have been rushed into battle with "standard" loadout, whatever this is.
By the way, does anyone have any idea of the standard loadout of cat.B/C (do they still use this classification these days?) tanks stationed in central/eastern Russia these years?

On the matter of gun-launched missiles, bear in mind that they could be of some help for taking out point targets like snipers, hidden AT teams, AA guns, MG nests...
I don't know if Russian troops have integrated that in their doctrine, since the only mention of a possible anti-personnel use of these weapons is in the OPFOR's WEG...

Marcello · #6 August 12th, 2007, 01:53 PM

"the level of preparedness most Russian forces showed in the first Chechnya war makes it hard to rule out that armored troops would have been rushed into battle with "standard" loadout, whatever this is."

Some sources I read a few years ago implied that this was indeed the case. But as I said it was few years ago and I may not remember it correctly.

"n the matter of gun-launched missiles, bear in mind that they could be of some help for taking out point targets like snipers, hidden AT teams, AA guns, MG nests...
I don't know if Russian troops have integrated that in their doctrine, since the only mention of a possible anti-personnel use of these weapons is in the OPFOR's WEG..."

I suppose that in theory you might fire one of them at a sniper but why? First of all they are horribly expensive to be fired at such sort of targets. Then even if you had some of them available, let's say a batch of "Kobra" nearing the expire date, setting them up is such a pain in the *** that would be hard to undertake with early 90's russian crews. Not worth it.

PlasmaKrab · #7 August 12th, 2007, 04:53 PM

Quote:

I suppose that in theory you might fire one of them at a sniper but why? First of all they are horribly expensive to be fired at such sort of targets. Then even if you had some of them available, let's say a batch of "Kobra" nearing the expire date, setting them up is such a pain in the *** that would be hard to undertake with early 90's russian crews. Not worth it.

Good point. I was more thinking about more recent weapon systems (even the early Svir-Refleks and Bastion were in limited service in the late 80s), and using them in coordinated support for forward troops a couple of kms in advance of said tanks. Other possibility is using missiles to plink long-range ATGM teams when in overwatch.
That's considering that these missiles are way more accurate than any HE(AT) tank round at ranges beyond 2km. And also that any guided missile round is way less expensive than a tnk and its crew.

I know the Russian way (particularly in the first Chechen war) would be more like "let's fall back and cover every square foot in a one-km radius from that damn sniper with one ton of arty shells", but hey.