[dejawolf]

Originally Posted by Gorshkov

Maybe in your imagination, right? All those ridiculous Russian T-72/80/90 tanks armor estimates are false because they add ERA protection to basic armor thickness as some additional RHA armor equivalent. That is now fundamentally wrong because:

- those ERA are useless against tandem HEAT warheads
- those ERA are also useless against modern Western APFSDS rounds


So now Russian T-xx tanks have to rely on their too weak basic armor having about 550 mm RHAe thickness. Nothing can be done to improve this because their turrets reached maximum allowable weight limit and further increasings of its frontal armor weight would cause "barrel hits ground" scenario. Thus Russian T-xx tanks can be frontally massacred by today's Western APFSDS rounds and ATGMs. Those T-90A frontal armor values (850 mm vs APFSDS and 1300 mm vs HEAT) are only true for 20-30 years old anti-tank munition. Now ERA you can see on Russian tanks is pure virtual reality because it does not exist in practical terms!

Not "advantage" but unconditional superiority if you take into account entire "armor+ammunition" comparison.

did i ever at any point say that russian armour was vastly superior to US armour? of course Chobham is vastly superior to russian BDD+ERA, and M829A3 will likely punch straight through both K5 ERA and the main armour through sheer brute force.

in comparison the front turret faces on even the M1A1(HA) is impenetrable to any russian round. however, there's areas on the front turret of the abrams that is vulnerable, namely the turret ring and gun mantle.

Originally Posted by Gorshkov

ROTFL! T-90 has 25 years old 1A45 FCS robbed from T-80U tanks. Latest T-90 incarnations also have imported/license built French I generation thermal sights - not even close in quality to latest III generation thermal stuff with electronic zoom, auto-tracker etc. present in for instance M1A2SEP v.2 and Merkava IV tanks.

you don't consider the addition of a thermal imager an improvement over the 1A45?

it's far from as good as M1A2 SEP FLIR with 50x digital magnification, but it's a thermal. higher resolution makes the abrams able to ID targets through thermals, while low resolution of T-90 only allows it to detect a target.
but its better than trying to ID targets through a daysight.

Originally Posted by Gorshkov

This old LWR is part of ancient "Shtora" EOCMDAS - now useless because LWR cannot detect today's Western lasers working on different wavelengths than 1980s vintage Western lasers. Maybe Russian should import new Ukrainian "Varta" EOCMDAS to fix this issue.

BTW Abrams can be equipped with a bit similar MCD system.

Only theoretically, but in practice it cannot having blind sensors.

the MCD is not an LWR, its a missile jammer, and a fairly poor one at that.
to defeat a missile, you have to point the jammer directly at the missile, and track it for a few seconds.

the SHtora IR missile jammer is useless against modern western missiles, but the laser warning system should be good. LWR warns when your tank is lased, and traverses the turret towards the direction it was lased.

Originally Posted by Gorshkov

Pure BS! Russian Army has nothing like net-centric battle management environment, UAVs and similar reconnaissance stuff the US Army is full of. So old-fashioned tactics like terrain cover is now useless because US Army could detect and target Russian Army tanks from stand-off distances by aerial and artillery means. Also American tanks would have gigantic advantage fighting practically blind Russian armored formations with help of FBCB2, BFT, FTL systems. In 2012 those two armies are armies from two different technological eras...

UAVs are overpowering against insurgents in afghanistan, but they are sitting ducks against a battlefield saturated with SAMs like strela.

one advantage the russian tanks have over the abrams is range and fuel economy.
the abrams needs a huge fuel train behind them to operate. the turbine engine is extremely thirsty, and needs 1900 L to move 426km.
by comparison, the T-90 travels 650km on 1600 L of diesel.

if something were to happend to that fuel train, the abrams tanks become sitting ducks.