T-90 Main Battle Tank #2

The subcaliber A4 is just the A3 projectile assembly with a new propellant. The A3 itself has a <700 mm DU penetrator and a 100 mm sacrificial steel tip. Ignore this moron who counts the steel tip and the tracer as penetrator:

There's a chink in the armor:

So generally DU prnetrators have a slightly better prnetrator than Tungsten?

The biggest advantage of DU is that it is a waste material, while Tungsten is expensive... DU is a byproduct of nuclear energy production and would normally be a disposal issue.

Of course if you give a shit about the territory you are fighting on then Tungsten makes sense.

Of course with the better nuclear technology of Russia they will have rather less DU because with their new reactors they will be able to reprocess the DU to make it useful fuel again for generating energy.

Tungsten is denser than DU.

Main advantage of DU as a material for AP rounds is that at the impact it tends to burn off leaving the impact point and going backward while tungsten carbide remain there slowing down the further advance of the shells itself.
It seems however that there is a way to design penetrative element in a way to replicate such self sharpening behaviour also with tungsten carbide.

Heavy metals are all dangerous, but DU material is far worse than any other types except probably Plutonium.

When DU is used as a projectile or as armour it generates a fine powder like talcum powder that gets everywhere... if you disturb it and breath it in or get some on your hands and eat it the body treats it like calcium and uses it in your bone structure where its mild levels of radiation that wont penetrate your skin can go to work on your bone marrow that is an integral part of your bodys natural defence against disease and infection.

DU is genotoxic... it destroys genetic material at the DNA level, so kids with deformities and problems and health problems for you for the rest of your life.

No known way to remove the heavy metals from your body...

And yet these tanks were not instantly destroyed.

It would take rather more than 40 seconds for an Excalibur or and other 155mm round to be used.

What you don't seem to appreciate is that the magic 40km/h you pulled from your arse is about 11m/s which is nothing for a guided round to still hit.

Do you think Kornets and Vikhrs fail when fired at targets moving more than 40km/h?

If igla can hit helicopters moving 5 times faster why do you thing moving at 40km/h in any direction would save a tank?

You do understand moving backwards at that speed is dangerous... Rolling a tank is no joke.

The very idea that being able to drive forward means you can never be hit in the rear is funny... Does that mean being able to drive forwards at 60km/h means your tank will never be hit from the front?

You seem to be strawmanning my argument in a childish way. I never said or meant that high reverse speed is needed to physically evade incoming projectiles like an aircraft or missile does. Higher reverse speed is needed to take cover and be exposed as little as possible. By your logic, an infantryman shouldnt care about how fast he takes cover after shooting, because nomatter how fast he moves, he cant evade a bullet.

Why dont russian tanks have a forward speed of 4km/h too if they cant evade ATGMs anyway?

>He's still on the god-forsaken reverse gear...

NATO tanks can't even utilize the vast majority of infrastructure in Easter Europe - no bridges, no tunnels, even the damn roads get torn to pieces whenever an overweight NATO hearse drives through. They go offroad the mud eats them and asks for seconds.

What use are they if their tactical mobility is so limited? And you have the gall to think the reverse gear a flaw?

NATO tanks can't even utilize the vast majority of infrastructure in Easter Europe - no bridges, no tunnels, even the damn roads get torn to pieces whenever an overweight NATO hearse drives through. They go offroad the mud eats them and asks for seconds.

Yet the ukraine has absolutely 0 problems driving and transporting pzh2000s, which weigh 55t, to the frontline. cope

It really is true what they say about morons and generalizations. But I digress...

55t is the combat weight of a T-14. NATO MBTs are 10, to even 15t heavier. Not that the limits are so cut and dry but being 10 or 15t lighter the is definitely a huge advantage.

You seem to be strawmanning my argument in a childish way.

Strawman and childish because I don't agree with you, when you can't accept that anyone can have a different view there is no discussion, it descends into abuse and ridicule.

I never said or meant that high reverse speed is needed to physically evade incoming projectiles like an aircraft or missile does.

I know exactly what you are trying to say... keep your heaviest armour pointed at the greatest threat and remove yourself from the area as fast as you can.

The problem is that when the threat is enemy armour with 125mm or 120mm smoothbores... how do you know the direction of greatest threat until they fire... a few RPGs or ATGMs from one direction will lead to your tank pointing its nose in a direction that will not help your vehicle when APFSDS rounds come in at over 1km per second from what is now a flanking direction... how fast do you think a driver can respond?

What I am saying is that no level of reverse speed would make you safer... fire smoke and turn around within that smoke so if any enemy fired at where you were they would hit empty ground... turning without turning on the spot is a good thing and simply reversing directly back means anything directly in front of you firing at where you were before the smoke deployed is probably still going to hit you... whether you are reversing a 10km/h or 40km/h makes no difference at all.

Higher reverse speed is needed to take cover and be exposed as little as possible. By your logic, an infantryman shouldnt care about how fast he takes cover after shooting, because nomatter how fast he moves, he cant evade a bullet.

Human beings, just like tanks, move fastest in their forward direction... moving from cover to cover in a forward direction makes the most sense because it reduces your exposure time to enemy fire.

Most guided anti tank weapons on the battlefield can't be outrun... no matter how fast you go... it mainly comes down to using cover effectively and you get to cover fastest by turning and driving forward... if there is a threat of enemy fire then use smoke.

Why dont russian tanks have a forward speed of 4km/h too if they cant evade ATGMs anyway?

Because they need to be able to move from cover to cover quickly and they can do that going forward.

If your frontal armour protects you from all the weapons your enemy has... why do you want to go backwards?

Tanks are used for all sorts of reasons and in all sorts of situations... many of the videos we have seen are likely individual tanks moving on enemy positions to see what opens fire on them... probing enemy defences... with drones looking for enemy positions and activity.

In perhaps five years time such a role will be taken by robot T-72s... I would not be surprised if they weren't sending robots now to do that sort of job... for testing.

Do we have any better production figures than those quoted in this long article?

When Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February the T-90M was the best but also rarest tank in the Russian operational fleet. Catastrophic tank losses – over 1,600 of all types – and limited assembly line capacity at Russia’s main tank manufacturer, the Nizhny Tagil-based Uralvagonzavod (UVZ), have forced radical measures. Just two tank types, T-72B3 and T-90M, are now being produced in three daily shifts and with convict labour. The numbers to date remain very small. The former tank is well-known in Western reporting, the newer T-90M less so. This article examines T-90M and the threat it poses.

https://wavellroom.com/2023/03/10/t90m-are-appearing-on-the-eastern-front/

JohninMK wrote:Do we have any better production figures than those quoted in this long article?

Wavellroom?  Dafuq?  1,600 tanks lost... convict labour... low numbers... Why not just quote the Ukies directly and cut out the middle man?  

We DEFINITELY need a facepalm emoji.

...and meanwhile the Abrahams, the Challenger, the Leopard 2 and the Leclerc (as backup) are rolling off the production line like toothpicks for the poor 404's under evil Putin's hammer and anvil.

If you're wondering what happened to Ukraine's anti-tank teams - here's your answer.

The LOS dynamic was bad enough. Russian tanks were just smoking hohol anti-armor squads left right and center from beyond their victim's vision through superior long range optics.Though of course sometimes the sightlines are limited to within engagement distance so they can try to get a shot in or two.

But even that is mostly gone. Just one UAV overhead and any Russian tank and artillery in range can shell your shit from closed positions with impunity - with exception: The urban sprawl terrain filled with concrete blockhouses. Not only do they resist immense amounts of punishment, its also extremely hard and inefficient to watch over the many vantage points. Probably why the scenes of heviest Russian losses were occuring jn urban settlements.

But regardless; this is a pretty huge development. The biggest problem Soviet armor faced in the Cold War was the persvasive AT threat posed by infantry in heavily fortified positions - a problem that was supposed to be addressed by chemical weapons. Now that shit's basic.