View Single Post
Old 06-15-12, 07:14 AM   #12
Oberon
Lucky Jack
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Posts: 25,976
Downloads: 61
Uploads: 20


Default

Quote:
Originally Posted by Stealhead View Post
They all appear to be T-72s in the shot August posted with a few T-62s in the mix the turrets are all pointed 180 aft as well making Id a slight bit harder and no good side views of the tracks if you could see the wheels you could ID one from the other easy the skirts say T-72 to me so does the main gun barrel.

You could ask an old T-72 crewman but you can not because one would be unable to properly greet a former T-72 crewman because his arms will have been sliced off by the auto loader.

I wonder this place is like the Anniston Army Depot where they rebuild M1A1a and A2s and all assorted parts actually all AFVs of the DOD get refurbished there.I have a friend that works there it looks sort of this Russian place only more organized and they take the ERA off but those in the Russian pictures likely had the plastic explosive removed you can do that with the ERA for the Abrams as well I have seen M1A1/2s inside C-5s and 17s and they had the ERA on them and the load master told me that they remove the explosives but leave the container on the hull.

They ship the AFV to Anniston Army Depot via train or flat bed truck and in all they get a layer of reddish rust on them while they sit outside waiting for refurbishment.

Russian depot yards are just very sloppy for some reason.
Yeah, the auto-loaders seemed like a good idea in theory. Still, we've lost a few loaders to getting in the way of the cannon over the years I'd wager.
Interesting to see T-72s in there too, presumably they can be reactivated in an emergency, like the US boneyards? Kind of lacking the whole protective environment though... Makes you wonder just how many are sitting in warehouses out in the Urals... You know how the Russians hate throwing anything away when it can still be used...

I didn't know M1A1s and A2s had ERA though, I thought they relied on the Chobham armour being one tough cookie to crack. I had heard rumours though, on the turret or around that area IIRC, to protect against RPGs.

Did Israel also have a ERA system which exploded before the grenade hit the hull in order to prematurely detonate it? I think there was also talk in the future of using hull point-defence lasers to hit grenades before they had a chance to hit the tank, I don't know how far ahead that is though. Probably around the same time as our chameleon tanks.
Oberon is offline   Reply With Quote