T-72 ΜΒΤ modernisation and variants

Still they do not put panoramic commander sight on this T-72B3M obrazac 2022...for frack sake why?

The upgrade has to be cost effective to apply to thousands of tanks, including upgrades of already upgraded tanks during overhauls.

Atgms from the 80s would be about what they need.

galicije83 wrote:Do you know what is situation awareness on modern battle filed? Gunner has only one job an that is to take out target, commander gave him. Wiht panoramic sight and thermal channel in it commander have 80% batter chance to find on time target and forward the same to the gunner. Especially at night when IR light is outdated in late 80s with its range.

I have friend who are commander on Serbian T-72MS1 tanks, before that he was commander on Yugo M-84A tank, with IR sight..the difference is huge in the time it takes to find targets, and especially in observing the space compared to the M-84 tank....quick finding of targets means quick destruction of them...he tells me that many times till day...still Russians do not upgraded ter T-72B3Ms with this sight for commander...

This is an outdated concept of situational awareness. The tank is part of a team - it doesn't operate on its own. The onboard sensors are less important as the cooperation with the rest of the unit.

In practice T-72B3s work as fire support for mechanized infantry. Most of the spotting would be provided by the troops through eye or drones or whatever. Do you really need that panoramic thermal sight then?

galicije83 wrote:
They are putting K1 ERA on side od turret...come on K1 ERA is outdated and work only against old ATGMS from 80s...they added great protection....

The best NATO ATGMs have trouble matching the penetration of old Soviet ATGMs. That and the onboard guidance for these 'advanced' ATGMs don't seem to hold up in storage so many missiles fail in the tube, and even more fail in flight.

They would be fine.

I guess the soldiers will pay for the corner cutting as usual.

There are no corners cut at all in the west... in fact they add corners to things that should be smooth and round... are they any better off?

Do you really need that panoramic thermal sight then?

Good situational awareness is always good, but you are very much on the money when you point out that this is a team effort that requires team work and coordination, and having a commander fixated on a small TV screen in his tank... perhaps it might create a disease... I hereby name it Pano Paranoia... zooming in and examining every little heat spot in the field of view...

The problem with shooting things as they pop into view is that you forget you also need to ID the targets, which can get lost in the process...

Lots of Deer shooters get killed every year around the world because someone was anticipating a kill and reacted on instinct instead of with their brains.

Western ATGMs don't seem to be shredding the Russian armed forces if they still use upgraded T-72s and T-62s, but of course there are lots of places you can use a tank and for different purposes that don't require all the best stuff.

Photos are foggy, but the film is much better.

https://t.me/SIL0VIKI/57782

All pimp ups applied, including new ERA blocks, additional armor on the turret front, anticumulative net, ERA blocks on the fenders, both front and back ... that goes fast.

Take a look at the additional ERA blocks - it os obviously neither K1 nor K5, so I suppose putting smaller K1 blocks was only an interim solution applied in field repair plants until something new arrived.
I mean not the big ones on the back side of the turret, but the small blocks attached in 4x section.
Actually the whole of the turret is covered with new ERA blocks, including the back. So top of it will be covered either.
The blocks on the fenders seems new in size and shape.
That would mean it is already a serial solution and will be produced and provided for further modernization.

Yeah that's some good pimpin' alright

But the main thing should be a battlefield management system. Perhaps in a later upgrade. This one is very much a quick stop-gap

The thing is more pimped up than earlier revealed B3M prototypes.
Much more.
We have no idea what was stuck inside, you know ...

galicije83 wrote:From my personal experience with the M-84 tank as well as with the T-55 tank, on which I served as commander of the same, I can only tell you this. In war, everything is much more complicated, it's not like in training, often tanks attack alone, without the support of infantry, and then all you have are your eyes, with which you look for targets and hand them over to the gunner. Now I can only imagine how much easier it is to spot a target with a thermal camera than through those small periscopes on the tank that the commander has or with his observation device, which does not have a thermal channel but only a simple magnification.

It would certainly makes things a lot easier, but I don't think a thermal camera can substitute for an infantry assault group on the attack.

galicije83 wrote:
Now you are trying to convince me that the awareness of the battlefield is not important and that there is no need for a panoramic sight for the commander, with which he will observe the battlefield much more easily!!!

I'm not. I'm simply stating that there are other, more effective measures of providing situational awareness aside from panoramic cameras. Things like drones, for example, can provide a birds eye view of the battlefield that is far more complete than what an optic mounted atop a turret ever can. More importantly, the Russians do have them in the field.

Did you feel yourself to be a failure as a tank commander because you didn't have thermal sights to make your job easier?

Did you get tempted to stick your head out the top of the tank for a better view?

Every design feature and piece of equipment on a tank is a compromise... adding cost or weight to the design, I am sure over time the cost of thermals will become more affordable and fitting them to every vehicle will become more practical, I can't tell you why they have not fitted panoramic sights to the T-72 upgrades, but they have been fitted to the T-14 and T-90 upgrades so they are probably on the way as an upgrade at some stage I suspect.

The airborne view of a drone would be even better than one fitted to each tank in terms of return on investment if the commanders of the vehicles can access that video footage in near real time... seeing over walls and houses is much more useful sometimes, but no angle is perfect.

The point is that the enemy will hear your tank and will likely actively hide from your view, but a quiet drone operating 2km up in the air will not be noticed most of the time.

galicije83 wrote:The reality is a little different and there are many videos from Ukraine, where tanks without infantry attack the fortified positions of the enemy. They are often completely blind because it is the commander who needs to spot the target, especially the one that is the most dangerous for him at that moment. If they had panoramic sights, it would all be different. Both sides, to be clear.

Nonsense. The gunner can spot his own targets just fine.

Not as fast as working with a dedicated CITV, no. But combat is rarely so down to the wire like you make it out to be.

Most combat action in Ukraine takes place in daytime as well so I don't see how the commander can fail to make use of his panoramic optical sight to spot for targets.

Again, target acquisition won't be as fast since the warm targets won't be highlighted against cold backgrounds, but its there.

galicije83 wrote:Yes, the use of drones is extremely important, but also what is lacking on the modernized T-72 and T-80, which is not lacking at all on the T-90M. I wonder why they put that on this tank if it's not supposed to have it?

Because the T-90M is supposed to be high end equipment arming elite soldiers who would be sent on the most dangerous missions. It has the larger budget to burn on stuff beyond the bare necessities.

The T-14 has a full electronic protection suite; why aren't people complaining about the T-72B3 making do without?

It doesn't help them against atgm and suicide drones as shown in Iraq and Yemen.

APS is more needed.

galicije83 wrote:Stop right there....only job of gunner is to destroy target gave him by commander. This is his only job, not to find target but to destroyed them gave buy commander...maybe i was teach wrong...or i am not...

Sorry but that sounds absurd to be true. So you're saying that all this time the gunner is just twiddling his thumbs doing nothing?

His is a full set of working eyes and hands and he has the equipment setup for it - why would you keep him from scanning the frontal sector at least?

galicije83 wrote:
So T90M was made.for super soldiers, and t72 still is made as second line tank? Its waist of money then, because as we see t72 is back bone of russian forses and he ia still made as it was in USSR cheap in large numbers, without many things witch are needed...but what i known...so for elite soldiers they made small number of good tank, but for majority of army they will get piece of crap as always...

And yet everyone seems to be doing the same thing. Top shelf equipment for the elite units, barely passing standards for the rest. Everyone should be wasting money then.

If even the hyper militarized USSR can't even outfit its troops with the best armor possible - how can you expect it of a Russia whose economy is just starting to be mobilized, and partially at that.

galicije83 wrote:
No mate, Russians are so **** up in corruptions and this is their biggest problem...

They do not made staff needed for army, for air force.. instead they go on their own way making what they want, not what is needed...

At least they make things.

In that time we do not have drones, still today with them commander must have his own panoramic sight because drones when weather is bad cant work, and in war you fight in good and bad weathers also.

A fair point. I am not suggesting they are bad by any means, but not every rifle needs a thermal telescopic sight with a ballistic computer either, it would simply not be cost effective to fit them all with such devices, so you look at the types of weapons and decide who would benefit most from such devices and supply those first.

I suspect the tanks on the front line will be T-90s, which seem to have them equipped, while other units would be better served with 10 T-72s instead of 2 T-72s with pano sight upgrades.

I don't know the details but seriously don't think they would be denying their tank commanders such devices because they didn't feel like it.

So yeah i stick my head lot of time, still when you have panoramic sight with magnification its much easier to do same thing with 0 risk something hitting you in your head. Yeah they fitted their lates T-90M and T-14, but this modernized version of T-80 or T-72 didnt get it for some reason, and still dont have it after all this shit happens to them in Ukraine...

Again, I appreciate the logic, and I am not trying to take the piss... reducing risk to crew is the entire concept behind the T-14 and indeed it is the T-14 design and the design of the other vehicles in their vehicle families (Armata, Kurganets, Boomerang, Typhoon, Arctic tractor) that have unmanned turrets that require pano sights as standard for everything... I suspect once they get T-14s fully into serial production that the sights developed for them can be retrofitted to other older vehicles over time simply because volume production is good for prices and maintenance likes commonality and standardisation.

Of course, the use of drones has improved reconnaissance in many ways, but I am still of the opinion that a panoramic device is a must for the commander. Of course, the fusion of everything contributes to easier finding and selecting targets and destroying them with minimal risk to you

The introduction of their new armoured vehicle families have unmanned turrets which necessitates pano sights because the commander in the hull can't really see the battlefield even if they open their hatch. Not opening their hatch is good protection from drones carrying hand grenades too.

No mate, Russians are so **** up in corruptions and this is their biggest problem...

How could corruption be a factor?

If they had APS and ERA that didn't work and they had Pano sights for the price of thermals but with no thermals fitted then I would agree that this was corruption, but lacking a technology is not corruption, it is spreading limited funding to get the best value for the available funds.

Sorry but that sounds absurd to be true. So you're saying that all this time the gunner is just twiddling his thumbs doing nothing?

The gunners optics have very limited angles of view and turns with the turret, the job of the commander is to look for targets and threats and direct the driver to drive from cover to cover or concealment to concealment, and to direct the gunner to destroy the most imminent threats to the vehicle first and then deal with targets as they appear... while the gunner is firing on the target given to him by the commander the commander looks for other threats and targets.

As the new vehicle families get into production across the board the new turrets will likely be adapted to older vehicles as a simpler upgrade and will include updates like the panoramic sight.

For all we know they might have found the sight arrangement for the upgraded T-90s is the best option over upgrades for T-72s and that this arrangement is too expensive at the moment to apply to the tanks... it might double or triple the price of the upgrade which the Army is not currently prepared to spend.

Over time the cost of the components and the performance of the components will go down and improve respectively, so will probably be something they apply in a future upgrade... which might be integrated into an APS system perhaps that uses optics as well as other sensors to detect incoming threats and automatically traverses the gun to the direction the threat is coming from while launching intercepting munitions or smoke depending on the threat type.

GarryB wrote:The gunners optics have very limited angles of view and turns with the turret, the job of the commander is to look for targets and threats and direct the driver to drive from cover to cover or concealment to concealment, and to direct the gunner to destroy the most imminent threats to the vehicle first and then deal with targets as they appear... while the gunner is firing on the target given to him by the commander the commander looks for other threats and targets.

The gunner's optic is functionally the same as the commander's though its fixed to the slower turning turret instead of its own turn table. The slower slew rate is not even an issue because as part of a combat unit the tank would be given its own sector to scan. You don't have to scan the entire battlefront to spot your target, that's just silly.

Aside from technical reasons, there's also practicality. The commander is also tasked with communicating with the rest of the unit. Its literally impossible for him to spot targets, provide directions for the driver, and talk to the battlenet chat all at the same time. That's why there's even attempts to reintroduce the radio operator by European tank designers. The workload is simply too much to bear for the commander and mind you NATO tanks have mostly 4 men crews. If theirs get swamped with stuff to do how much harder do you think would it be for the commander on the 3 men tank?

GarryB wrote:For all we know they might have found the sight arrangement for the upgraded T-90s is the best option over upgrades for T-72s and that this arrangement is too expensive at the moment to apply to the tanks... it might double or triple the price of the upgrade which the Army is not currently prepared to spend.

The T-72B3 and T-80BVM are basically budget builds to pad the numbers with tanks that have the bare essentials for modern armored warfare covered more or less. They're not there to compete with the best of the best, they just need to be better than NATO rabble.

The gunner's optic is functionally the same as the commander's though its fixed to the slower turning turret instead of its own turn table.

The commanders optics are attached to the cupola and turn with that 360 degrees, but they are not thermal so you can see what you can see really... in comparison the gunners sight normally has a field of view of 30-40 degrees in the direction the turret is pointing.

Driving along spinning the turret around is not good for you well being I would expect and could create nausea, or car sickness...

The slower slew rate is not even an issue because as part of a combat unit the tank would be given its own sector to scan. You don't have to scan the entire battlefront to spot your target, that's just silly.

Air or ground based threats could appear from any direction and will try to appear from unexpected directions on purpose to expose your weaker side and rear armour.

The workload is simply too much to bear for the commander and mind you NATO tanks have mostly 4 men crews. If theirs get swamped with stuff to do how much harder do you think would it be for the commander on the 3 men tank?

Their new tanks and vehicles don't just have panorama sights for the commander, but they also have cameras distributed around the vehicle with the images they gather in real time stitched together to form a virtual view of the outside of the vehicle, which can be used by any member of the crew for situational awareness of enemy or friendly troops nearby... the driver normally relies on getting full instructions from the commander about where to drive because his view of the battlefield is poor, down in the hull position, but in the new vehicles his view can be as good as the commanders so he can be more independent, but will still be told by the commander where to drive and where to point the frontal armour of the tank hull... of course in an Armata the three crew sit side by side but will still likely use the intercom for communications.

Each crewman will have control which could be interchangeable without changing seat, so if the driver was incapacitated the commander might order the gunner to become driver to get them out of there while he uses the machine gun and main gun to cover their withdrawal, or the driver might get sentury duty using the pano sight looking for enemy movement while the commander and gunner sleep.

They have a lot of things to test and explore and over time the new turrets will be used on older vehicles... with a reduced size turret basket one of the T-84s actually carried troops in waist positions behind the turret and in front of the engine... it is possible that that extra room could be used to mount an unmanned turret further back and free up the front hull position for two extra crew in a T-90 or T-72 upgrade... maybe even develop a vehicle with Bulat missiles for anti armour use and 100mm gun from the BMP-3 with new APFSDS ammo for anti tank and anti IFV use as well as HE rounds and HEAT guided missiles in an unmanned turret for older vehicles in second echelon and third echelon use.

The T-72B3 and T-80BVM are basically budget builds to pad the numbers with tanks that have the bare essentials for modern armored warfare covered more or less. They're not there to compete with the best of the best, they just need to be better than NATO rabble.

They are too good to scrap or give away and their upgrades are generally parts from the T-90M or newer tanks so putting such components on them improves performance and commonality... they are not as good as new models, but they make up the numbers and are good enough for many jobs that don't require the best.

The west used to boast about hitting (stationary) targets at 5km with their amazing tanks and amazing guns, well combat approved has shown the T-90 can do that too, but with its missiles it can also hit moving targets at 5km too, which western tanks without missiles can't do.