T-90A
Why would I pick a soviet piece of crap? Listen close, you might learn something.
Frontal armor, MBTs across the board all are about equal. Most western tank's bustle is exposed even at 30 degrees off the frontal arc, never mind
during turret rotation. T-90 has no such problem because the turret is round.
Silhouette is smaller in both horizontal and vertical profile. Smaller target means less chance you even get hit, better camouflage, and greater armor
density. All western MBTs have terribly exposed, flat roof armor. Basically giving the tank's greatest predator the greatest target. Plus ammo is
stored in the turret, a no no for surviving aerial attack. In case you didn't know, the majority of hits on MBTs are on the turret, why put the ammo
racks there? T-90A, and all soviet tanks descended from the T-55 have much smaller weakened roof areas. Frankly, someone needs to find a KBP engineer
and choke him out for not making a top attack munition like the Javelin.
diagrams and other goodies, nice size comparison
btvt.narod.ru...
T-90 has great mobility. Remember, mobility is not speed, but is defined by the ability to freely move around the battlefield. By having poor
mobility, heavy tanks severely limit deployment options. Being forced to only operate on hard compacted ground or roads makes it easy for ATGM
ambushes to be set up and for mines to be placed. Mobility is a major deciding factor in battles, always has been, and always will be.
Weapon wise T-90A comes out on top. Why? Because a tank's intended prey are not other tanks, but infantry and fortifications. Airburst HE FRAG is a
devastating round to both these targets. Before you bring up the M1's canister rounds, lets just say its a boilerplate solution to tanks lacking
effective anti infantry weapons, it was in WWII, and it still is today. HE FRAG is a far superior weapon, there's a reason certain nations are
scrambling to develop it. If a general screws up and puts MBTs against MBTs, gun launched ATGMs, specifically Refleks-M can reach out and cripple half
of a charging tank battalion before they even reach effective firing range for APFSDS rounds. It sounds like an exaggeration, but it's what the
soviets have been saying since the 70's. ATGM's seemed to work well against Merks in 06, so it seems they were right after all. Despite what the US
Army "believes", HEAT is not anti infantry, I don't understand why they just can't bring themselves to develop and field a plain HE round?
Before someone says Gulf War this and that, read up on Kuwaiti M-84 performance during the start of the war, it was outnumbered, but preformed better
than the Abrams, suffered no losses against the Iraqis, and had much less support. The M-84 was a actual modern soviet tank, not the monkey model
T-55, 62's, and the few 72's the Iraqis had.
All of these factors make the T-90A the most effective tank across the widest spectrum of armored warfare. I will not discuss fantasy tanks or
weapons, because they have no place on the battlefield as of now. My opinion may change when more MBT's are developed and fielded. I hope I didn't
offend anybody.
edit on 13/2/12 by ZIVONIC because: (no reason given)
