Armoured Vehicles Discussion Thread - Jan 12, 2012

[Fidel Guevara]

damn I thought it was canadian!

It was Czech from 1894 till 1965, and based in Canada from 1965 till 2002. Even now a lot of the HQ functions are managed out of Toronto.

[silod]

damn I thought it was canadian!

It was Czech from 1894 till 1965, and based in Canada from 1965 till 2002. Even now a lot of the HQ functions are managed out of Toronto.

That's right. Bata was founded by Thomas Bata who was Czech. The pricing of Bata footwear in India is always " X rupee and 99 paisa". A lot of us think that this is psychological pricing. This is not true. Actually Thomas Bata was the ninth generation shoe maker/ cobbler of Bata family. To remember him, Bata prices end up with .99.

[silod]

stallion is good for its role, but lacks the independent half axles of the tatras....which gives tatra a smoother ride across really harsh terrain.

Singha Ji,

In fact, Tata Motors was supposed to make some very good stuff for Armed forces. Any news on that? I am not sure why but I always prefer Tata vehicles over AL..... One of the reason could be that "Maine Tata ka Namak khaya hai".... Ha ha ha.

http://www.defencesolutions-tatamotors.com/

[Singha]

AL, Tata, MAN, AMW, M&M, Volvo all make sleek multi axle trucks in india now with great cabins vs the old "built up" cabins of wood and straw. some models have 2 front axles both steerable. plus BEML assembles the tatra models we like. vs the old Shaktiman trucks these are luxury sedans.

so trucks are not a limiting factor - its the fact we need 2000 Pinakas, 1000 truck guns and 100s of missile launchers ....

[nachiket]

so trucks are not a limiting factor - its the fact we need 2000 Pinakas, 1000 truck guns and 100s of missile launchers ....

And IFVs, lots of IFVs which are nowhere on the horizon.

[KiranM]

Interesting excerpt from DID - http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/alg ... #more-2024

Meanwhile, Russia is reportedly moving to upgrade its T-72 tanks as a cheaper alternative to new T-90s, while the army awaits a new tank design. Which means they’re looking to sell T-90 production abroad:

“In 2009, Russia’s defense export giant Rosoboronexport completed the delivery of 185 T-90C tanks to Algeria…. in the fall of 2011, Algeria signed another contract with Russia for the delivery of 120 brand new Russian tanks, the Vedomosti newspaper wrote with reference to its sources at Rosoboronexport and Russian Technologies…. In 2011, the Russian Defense Ministry stopped purchasing T-90 tanks…. Instead, the Russian tanks will be delivered abroad. Russia will soon catch up with China on the sales volume of this hardware. In the summer of 2011, Russia signed a contract with Turkmenistan for the delivery of 20 T-90C tanks. Russia is also in talks with Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Indonesia.”

An Army, that was once known for its mainstay of armour, not choosing to induct a new tank at hand and instead upgrade existing tanks is interesting to say the least.

[NRao]

An Army, that was once known for its mainstay of armour, not choosing to induct a new tank at hand and instead upgrade existing tanks is interesting to say the least.

It is not the same nation, so no longer the same army either. Sad.

However, it is not that Russia is a financially starved nation any longer. I have to guess that the processes are badly corrupted? Brain power is there - mostly? - R&D and way behind the curve - can catch up of given a chance.

[Singha]

the R&D manpower is perhaps only there in certain areas like yakhont or salyut-saturn or sukhoi that got funded in the dark years.
the rest have decamped for jobs in western europe and US. people with decades of experience in the field are very hard to replace esp when you are playing at the cutting edge of the country's scientific capability AND playing catch up with more well funded western cos.
a bunch of soviet eras best n brightest weapons designers also went to israel and joined the likes of elta , elbit, elisra, IMI , IAI and rafael it is said.

I met a ukrainian (ethnic rus) guy last year working in a chemical civilian job in the US after emigrating in late 80s, he had worked for decades in solid and liquid propellants for their space pgm launchers. such is the loss to the rodina...1000s of such veterans had no place to go and just had to feed their families.

[member_19648]

a bunch of soviet eras best n brightest weapons designers also went to israel and joined the likes of elta , elbit, elisra, IMI , IAI and rafael it is said.

You forgot China, some of the brightest and the best were offered top R&D posts in China, the reason why China has good back channel access to Russian tech through Ukraine and were able to reverse engineer some of them.

[keshavchandra]

a bunch of soviet eras best n brightest weapons designers also went to israel and joined the likes of elta , elbit, elisra, IMI , IAI and rafael it is said.

You forgot China, some of the brightest and the best were offered top R&D posts in China, the reason why China has good back channel access to Russian tech through Ukraine and were able to reverse engineer some of them.

USSR also offered India such deal to absorb a bunch of top class scientists after division. But some salary issue opposed the absorption and Nehru was also not in favour of this some-how. Later the same offer, USSR offered to china, which it accept with all favours and conditions.

[hnair]

^^^ Nehru came back from great beyond to shaft the poaching of Soviets after Cold War?

This story of "loose Soviet defense scientists of amazing brilliance" seems more and more like a NPA story, to beef up the Nunn-Lugar funding. These guys were "great" when the system they worked in was "great" and they were trained since babies to work inside that system. If anyone had a chance to work with the ex-Cold War rockstars of Eastern Europe, a large fraction of them will not fit in anywhere else in the world with ease. Not that they are not good, just that others cant figure out how to fit them in.

If Chinese got a few of them, well, good for the soviet engineers, that they found a rebound partner, who has money to spare

Any sustainable and adoptable tech advances need to be routed through their current government sources (as we are doing with various programs) or through their own private enterprises. Any fancy "super-science" some of these folks dabbled in, that stuff needs a crazy self-destructive system like USSR for support. Not for masala dosa sharing SDREs.

We should stop crying over milk that went stale after the Cold War refrigeration broke down.

[NRao]

the R&D manpower

How about the R&D data power? Young brains do not have to reinvent the wheel ............................ And, the ones that left could not have taken all that data in their heads.

India and China too has brains. But we all are data starved. And. perhaps equipment starved too to a great extent.

[Katare]

Russian tanks series is like M Night Shyamlan"s movies. The first one was best in the world while every succesive one are worse than it's predessasor.

T-34 is widely accepted as the best and most impactful tank of all times. T-55 was an able son and T-72 barely lived uo to those high standards. T-80 and T-90s are like Rahul Gandhi, they are great because they carry the family name.

[NRao]

Katare,

I suspect that the numbers had something to do with that. Cheap toys, in humongous numbers - to compensate for quality.

Not an easy topic to analyze over a few posts.

[Rahul M]

IMHO it is a disservice to disparage the T-34 as 'a cheap toy in humungous numbers', at the time it was ground breaking, simple yet effective. so much so that hitler asked it to be reverse engineered. in fact, they were happy to use many captured examples until the end of the war.

it had the best protection, the largest gun and one of the most advanced suspensions of the time. the T-55 too was top dog in its day. it was the overtly complex T-62 that started the slide. by the time of the T-72 others had started moving on while russians were stuck with 70's design.

[nachiket]

it had the best protection, the largest gun and one of the most advanced suspensions of the time.

Compared to its most widely available German counterparts the Pz.Kpfw III and IV, yes it enjoyed many advantages. But there are questions over its actual battle performance. This is a very detailed article regarding the actual performance of the T-34 in WW2: Link

What the article seeks to highlight is that while the T-34 is widely regarded as one of the best tanks of the war, it consistently produced a less than 1:1 combat loss ratio in battle and the lopsided results cannot all be attributed to inadequate training, lack of supplies etc. Even during the Battle of Kursk the Germans lost far fewer tanks than the Soviets did and many of those losses were due to mines and other well dug-in anti-tank defenses that the soviets did not face.
The greatest strength of the T-34 was undoubtedly the fact that the Soviets could manufacture more than 50,000 of those during the course of the war.

[Rahul M]

nachiket, the article looks dubious to me. for starters, 3000+ T-34's in 1941 ? when production started in september 1940 ? more when I complete the thing.

p.s. why should we give that much credence to a site dedicated to op barbarossa (german fansite ?) when even people like guderian are on record praising it ?

this wiki article is decent and has good references. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_enc ... d_KV_tanks

[Reddy]

This story of "loose Soviet defense scientists of amazing brilliance" seems more and more like a NPA story, to beef up the Nunn-Lugar funding. These guys were "great" when the system they worked in was "great" and they were trained since babies to work inside that system. If anyone had a chance to work with the ex-Cold War rockstars of Eastern Europe, a large fraction of them will not fit in anywhere else in the world with ease. Not that they are not good, just that others cant figure out how to fit them in.

If Chinese got a few of them, well, good for the soviet engineers, that they found a rebound partner, who has money to spare

Any sustainable and adoptable tech advances need to be routed through their current government sources (as we are doing with various programs) or through their own private enterprises. Any fancy "super-science" some of these folks dabbled in, that stuff needs a crazy self-destructive system like USSR for support. Not for masala dosa sharing SDREs.

We should stop crying over milk that went stale after the Cold War refrigeration broke down.

so true- to add to this:

In late 90's i met a head-hunter in singapore party. His speciality was to get top scientists from soviet union. At that time, there were quite a few head hunters of this nature but, according to my institute's HR guy, this person was supposed to be one of the more reliable one. Anyway, the story was, most of these scientists and engineers turned out to be very unproductive. Few of them hired by my institute were either sent back or had quit within 6 months.

It is not that these scientists were not good. In fact, some of them were brilliant, it is just that they could not deliver in the current system. As i see this, when we hire a big shot from west, we are also hiring his funds, contacts and network. Most of these big shots never work in the lab, they will be sitting in their office and managing and making things happen or, travelling, marketing and attracting best brains.

However, i believe that India at that time had enough contacts with Soviet to buy of whole system and network with the top scientists. But i guess, they did not want to piss off Russia by this aggressive move.

[nachiket]

^^Rahul da, it doesn't seem to be a German fansite. The main website looks to be started by a guy who has written a book about the early period of Operation Barbarossa. Here's the author's bio page: http://operationbarbarossa.net/Author-Nigel-Askey.html

Also the wiki article you refernced mentions this:

"Historians initially believed the new tanks were "scattered" among the army in small numbers,[11] but recent scholarship identifies the exact opposite.[12] The new tanks had been produced in large numbers, and concentrated into a dedicated type of formation, mechanized corps."

Although the numbers quoted are a lot less I agree. I don't know if they are considering the tanks produced during 1941.

They also mention that although direct tank vs tank engagements were few during the early period,
"n the first two weeks of invasion, the Soviet Union suffered the loss of most of its T-34 and KV tanks, as well as the loss of most of the older tanks....

...The number of non-combat losses was unprecedented."
This has to factor into a tank's operational effectiveness as well.

The T-34s should have dominated early tank vs tank engagements anyway since the early model PZ.Kpfw IIIs and IVs were hopelessly outclassed.


There is one incident reported during Operation Citadel that made me go all
From the Wiki article on Operation Citadel:

Despite the order to dig in many of their tanks, the Soviet units still had enough tanks to launch some counterattacks. On 7 July a German Tiger I commanded by SS Unterscharführer Franz Staudegger met a group of about 50 T-34s. In the ensuing battle, Staudegger knocked out 22 T-34s; he was the first Tiger commander to be awarded the first Knight's Cross

Astonishing if true. Here's the wiki entry on Franz Staudegger that describes the incident

[Rahul M]

I am still not quite convinced with that author. if writing a book made you an authority........

a much better source is achtungpanzer.

2 points here, firstly, the production standards of the initial T-34's were abysmal, SU still being a semi-rural economy only starting to become an industrialized one. most of the initial losses were due to breakdowns, soviet tanks were notorious for unreliability and the massive disruption due to the invasion didn't help. that changed completely in the later parts of the war, both due to better production standards and refined design.

secondly, the tiger and to a lesser extent the panther was certainly superior to the T-34. but they came later and were extremely complex to build. it is against these tanks that the strength in numbers concept was used. the panzers however were completely outclassed by the T-34 and its compatriots.

p.s. the T-34 in its initial days had similar experience against the panzers, like the one with tiger you described. at the end of it all it was nothing but simple give and take.

btw

[nachiket]

I am still not quite convinced with that author. if writing a book made you an authority........

I think you misunderstood me. I mentioned the book because that's where the name of the site came from.

[Singha]

did both the tiger and panther use petrol? very prone to burning...

[Katare]

Nachiket, you can find counter arguments against almost anything on net that is why I chose the wording "widely believed". No points in splitting hairs, the point was the declining status and impact of T series and that argument remains whether T34 was best or second best or N th best.

Point is that India needs to start to move away from T series of tanks, the line has come to an evolutionary dead end. There won't be a "world class replacement" available for T-90 to India. More over T90s don't give our army same capability/edge that T55s and even T72s gave in their times.

[rohitvats]

^^^Well, the people need to understand one simple thing about Soviet and German Armored/Mechanized warfare in WWII. There is no doubt whatsoever that the Germans were the masters of combined arms warfare. But what most people don't know that most of the literature on combined arms warfare originated in USSR. But when the WWII broke out, the USSR Army was bereft of good leadership courtsey the purges by Stalin. After the initial shocks of German invasion, it tried to get its act together in terms of Operational Maneuver and Deep Battle starting from 1941. It was not until 1943 that they managed to get some semblance of success in these battles....inspite of this, the German displayed far superior strategies and managed to hold with extremely lop-sided ratios in terms of forces and tanks. Most of the success and defeats of T-34 are also the result of these strategies. Just read about 1942 offensive - Operations Mars by Zhukov where USSR suffered tremendous losses. Yet, the same army managed to wrest advantage in Battle of Kursk in 1943.

[Mihir]

The important thing to note about mechanised warfare in World War II is, the portrayal of the Red Army as a bunch of barbaric hordes overwhelming a slick and sophisticated Wehrmacht with huge numbers do not do it justice. There is little doubt that German skills at the tactical level were without parallel. However, by the latter half of the war, the Soviets simply had no peers at the theater and strategic levels.

And as Rohit pointed out, the Red Army's leadership in the initial stages of the war was crippled by Stalin's purges, and their doctrine itself was in a state of flux and experimentation. Deep Battle and other military concepts pioneered by Tukhachevsky, Triandafilov, etc. were dismissed as "fascist", "bourgeois", and "revisionist" and then altogether abandoned. They started being resurrected only after the shock and defeats of 1941. The early counter-offensives were desperate mass-assaults and then virtual copies of German techniques Obviously, these were defeated by the people who invented them in the first place! The first true strategic counter-offensives began only in 1943 and were perfected in 1944. These things that influenced tank losses more than anything else.

But getting back to the topic, what made the T-34 so good was that it was a near-perfect fit for the Red Army. It was easily mass-producible in open-air factories in the Urals, simple and rugged enough to be operated by the Red Army conscript, and possessed the armour, mobility, and armament to take on and defeat the mainstay of the German Army - the Pzkpfw IV.

[Singha]

> The important thing to note about mechanised warfare in World War II is, the portrayal of the Red Army as a bunch of barbaric hordes overwhelming a slick and sophisticated Wehrmacht with huge numbers do not do it justice.

due to cold war and other reasons most american and british writers extended unconditional support to the german wehrmacht superiorist theories. and since these english works are what spread across the world, not russian or east euro pubs it pretty much became the std. hollywood also did its bit.

I view it as another facet of western writers and trainers praising the highly trained, professional, english speaking, killer instinct of the PA armour corps and PAF while the vast shambling turd world IA/IAF simply managed them beat them using numbers and soviet help

[Sanku]

Quite frankly, the T series is not good enough is also yet another of the white supremacist theories, for example, when mentioning the "oh so superior" performance of Abrahams in Iraq wars no one mentions that

1) The Iraqi Ts were from 70s while the US M1s were 80s/90s model. A far correct comparison for tank vs tank would be a 70s M1 with Iraqi Ts, or modernized 90s T taking on M1s. That point is hastily omitted to declare a late 90s T is same as worst phase in USSR/Rus history T. Not so.

2) The mythical M1s for all their technical advantage, still needed a massive artillery barrage to soften the Iraqi's before they made their moves, as well as complete air superiority and a fleet of attack heli's covering their head.

3) A lot of fighting was done by light vehicles such as Bradleys etc and they too, had similar or lesser losses than the M1s, are we then to conclude that IFV == tanks?

Clearly the reasons of performance had ceased to be the kind of vehicle but the massive force disparity in the system (force disparity != numerical disparity)

OTOH by 2005 at least 60-80 M1s were destroyed by an opposition which by then had figured out a fairly low tech solution to stop M1s, with RPGs and road side mines etc.

Clearly a lot of myth making combined with news suppression works in US world.

[Rahul M]

sanku ji, imagine, if 70's T tanks in 90's gave so much grief to the iraqis, what would 70's tanks in 2010's mean for us ?

p.s. army should organise a parade of T tanks (sponsored by gulshan kumar's T-series) and call it 'that 70's show'.

[Sanku]

sanku ji, imagine, if 70's T tanks in 90's gave so much grief to the iraqis, what would 70's tanks in 2010's mean for us ?

p.s. army should organise a parade of T tanks (sponsored by gulshan kumar's T-series) and call it 'that 70's show'.

Rahul M-ji, some senior Fauji's I know are so frustrated with current state of armor that they openly say that their only hope remains the Paki competence (to guaranteedly screw themselves despite everything)

There is no excuse for plain vanilla Ts in IA. The upgrades to modern electronics, night sights, ERA etc should have happened by 90s.

[Misraji]

sanku ji, imagine, if 70's T tanks in 90's gave so much grief to the iraqis, what would 70's tanks in 2010's mean for us ?

p.s. army should organise a parade of T tanks (sponsored by gulshan kumar's T-series) and call it 'that 70's show'.

Thats why the Army got the 90s. Duh.

--Ashish.

[shiv]

I am finding it very dificult to find statistics about tank kills in Op Iraqi Freedom.

But i found info about Gulf War I - Enduring freedom
http://www.csbaonline.org/wp-content/up ... ssment.pdf

There is agreement among military services that by March 1, 1991, coalition forces had destroyed a
total of 2,633 tanks, which means that coalition aircraft accounted for at least 43 percent of tank attrition by the time
the coalition suspended offensive operations. When tanks killed by the Marines and Arab participants are
eliminated, the Army’s share cannot exceed 49 percent, assuming that coalition aircraft killed no Iraqi tanks during
the ground campaign or in any of the Iraqi front-line units at any time. Thus, the belief that the Army was
responsible for 70 to 80 percent of these kills is impossible to square with the best available evidence. Nevertheless,
it appears that the Army and the Air Force are still unable to agree on what happened regarding heavy-equipment
attrition in the KTO more than a decade after the conflict ended. When two Services cannot agree on a fact this
basic, it is difficult to draw conclusive lessons from a conflict with any high degree of confidence. Hence the vital
importance of determining what really happened.

The US and "coalition ha ha! forces" had total air superiority and massed helicopters could be used with little risk of Iraqi air retaliation. So the Abrams versus T whatever argument becomes moot

[Pratyush]

Thats why the Army got the 90s. Duh.

--Ashish.

As in 90 being greater then the 72.

[Sanku]

Thats why the Army got the 90s. Duh.

--Ashish.

As in 90 being greater then the 72.

Its not about 90s alone, an upgraded Ajeya type with night sights, ERA and such, will be more than sufficiently potent to take on any tank force in a mechanized battle, other things being equal.

[Prasad]

Well Stalin acted like the pompous buffoon he was and switched Zhukov to the western theatre later and didnt back him enough in the early stages. Operation uranus sure did kick the germans down and out.

[P Chitkara]

Any news or updates on Arjun?

[nachiket]

Well Stalin acted like the pompous buffoon he was and switched Zhukov to the western theatre later and didnt back him enough in the early stages. Operation uranus sure did kick the germans down and out.

Well Stalin eventually did gain the good sense to defer operational planning decisions to Zhukov later in the war. He pretty much let Zhukov have a free hand in preparing the defenses and battle plan for Kursk. And it paid off. Hitler went in the opposite direction. Dismissing more and more opinions of his Generals (and the Generals themselves many a times) as the war went on, and paid the price.

This is getting way OT though.

[Kailash]

Armata instead of T-90

[SidSom]

I dunno why we are such big fans of T-90...... instead of promoting the Arjun (other than financial benefits to a few). Please see statements below

The Russian Defence Ministry has thus given up on its original plans to purchase T-90 tanks, which were previously criticised by high-ranking ministry and general staff officials for being too expensive (assuming that the T-90 is just an upgrade of the T-72 model, which was first delivered to the armed forces in 1973).

from http://indrus.in/articles/2012/02/29/ar ... 15001.html posted above

[Singha]

so we are stuck with producing upto 1000 T90 while Rus bhais are going the mini-Merkava way looking at the supposed Armata drawings.
and the unmanned turret T-95 also given a burial...

[Aditya_V]

So Russians have given up on the T-90, and we are ordering less Arjun which did better in the face off with the T-90 last year. The T-90 might be a good Tank, but I feel Arjun should be better and needs orders of at least 500, the pro import lobby in Delhi notwithstanding.