Tank Chats #110 | T-72 | The Tank Museum

thank you for watching the tank museum's youtube channel and don't forget to subscribe if you can support the museum please think of backing us on patreon or joining one of our membership schemes or if you watch to the end of this video you'll be able to see how you can help the museum by buying items from our online shop this tank chat is going to be about the soviet era tank the t-72 and what a story it is with the t-72 because we're looking at a tank that sees service with now over 40 countries it's still in use all around the world about 20 000 of these tanks have been made now we've already talked about the soviet philosophy post-world war ii how they wanted to use tanks what they thought they were there for and if a war had come the way they were going to use their massive tank fleet so i'd suggest if you're interested in knowing about that look at our previous films on the t-54 t-55 and also the but t-62 t-72 story is really a story that is based around a tank that unfortunately we don't actually have here at the tank museum that's a soviet t-64 now if i take you back the soviet union has at least five major tank plants post world war ii and within those tank plants there's a number of design bureaus and these design bureaus end up having what you can only describe as rivalries you know they want their tank their designs uh to get into service with the soviet army now what happens is morizov who's alexander morizov he's the main designer who works at the big karkov tank factory and he's been influential because he's been part of the t-34 then the t-44 that leads to the t-54 design team and he comes up with a tank that is called the t-64 and the t-64 is a bit of a breakaway from the usual soviet tradition of tank building instead of evolution making their tanks slightly better on the same sort of basis maybe the same engine maybe the same transmission systems but just getting better what he does is he does a radically new vehicle now the t-64 as that new vehicle it has a new suspension system it's going to have the 115 initially millimeter gun that's on the t62 but they're aiming for it to have a new gun that's in on its way the millimeter gun and morozov is very keen to get the t64 is as small and as lightweight and as compact as possible and he's going for advanced technology to help him do that so they get a brand new engine and inevitably there's problems with the t-64 but morozov has a a large following mainly in moscow of red army generals influential people who believe he's the man for designing tanks now the red army or from 47 it's actually called the soviet army the soviet army there's people within it some really like the t-64 because they believe that their forces should have the most advanced equipment and should be heading towards technology there's other elements in the soviet army that are thinking the t-64 is a bad idea because it's going in the wrong direction they've got a mainly conscript army they've got limited to a certain degree limited budgets here and there and we've gone for something you know with an engine that at this particular stage early on in its process very unreliable the mobility of the tank that is supposed to be better actually it's having problems with its transmissions it's tracks it's breaking down a lot and for many of those soldiers in the soviet army they're not going to know that the new armor protection that they've been putting on the t-64 is very sophisticated it includes a laminate um so all in all there's there's some mixed opinions within the soviet army itself about the t-64 now playing on this a rival design bureau that's blazed at nizhny tagal which is basically in the ural mountains um with its chief designer there leonard karczev he looks at they are slated to start having to build the new t-64 tank they are already busily building t-62 tanks now initially he looks at the t-64 and thinks he can make some simplifications and improvements on it and later he ends up using some of the ideas for the t-64 but some of these improvements he's coming up with but he put some on the earlier t-62 chassis now in 1967 he's visited by one of the senior ministers from moscow in their factory at disney nagao and what happens there is he's basically lambasted by this minister look you're setting up a rival project you're just scheming you're doing all the wrong things and kartsev says hang on a second calm down let me just show you what we've been doing and he shows off his new design and the minister is absolutely impressed because for example what kant says managed to do is get a new auto loader that is very smooth in its operation the t64 has an autoloader that's having a lot of teething troubles and caster shows off what he can do with also a traditional development of the original engine you know the v44 that we were seeing back in used in t-34 and in the t-54 is a developmental process because he knows there's a lot of problems going on with the t-64 engine so he puts that to the minister and the minister before leaving after one moment absolutely slamming on this project you know this is not what we're the way we want to be going he then agrees before leaving that they can make six test vehicles to see how this project might advance and uh kart sev quite rightly is he's calling this they end up calling it object 172 ural because that's where um disney nagal is as a place uh in the ural mountains so he wants to identify this as our project our tank this particular project now in 1969 when these five vehicles are actually demonstrated or trialled in front of a number of experts and people from the soviet army when they're actually shown off for the first time it's obvious that the vehicles with the most improvements uh with most of kartsev's ideas on it they are the ones that come out best and in the end what happens is the soviet authorities decide that this is a tank that is worth actually pursuing so in 72 they approve it officially for service 74 it starts going into limited production as a t-72 tank so why is that if the soviets already got this t-64 going which again as a tank is very sophisticated 67 when the first project is shown off is one of those indicators about why they end up going for another tank as well 1967 is a year where there's the big arab israeli fighting and the arabs basically afterwards go from the middle east to the soviet union to ask for tanks so 67 that crucial year start seeing the soviets not only providing tanks for their own army for the warsaw pact but now for an export market as well and there is nervousness in the soviet military hierarchy that the t-64 might take five or maybe even 10 years to get all these problems ironed out so we've got numbers and serious productions because again as we talked about earlier the soviets also want they don't just want that quality but they want large numbers of tanks and t-64s are having a very problematic gestation period initially and then in terms of production so even though they're going against their own sort of theories um you end up getting the t-72 at one point it was being called things like a mobilization model in other words we'll only build them if we look like we're going to go to war or something but hook or crook they end up getting it through and the t-72 starts going into production in those early 1970s so what's the difference what do you get with the t-72 um a t-72 in its first basic iteration it's got a three-man crew so you've got the driver down at the front of the vehicle he's got a tiller steer system in that traditional way he's got a periscope above him and he's got two smaller periscopes that are actually fitted on his hatch that goes above his position there um he's actually got an escape hatch as well underneath his seat just behind it should he get out but you know various people say you've almost got to be a contortionist to get through that escape hatch in the turret there's two further crew members you've got the commander and the gunner and the idea here is as with the t-64 they've looked at the idea of if we can make the tank as lower profile as possible you're less of a target for the enemy to hit and they also want to make it as compact as possible to keep the weight down in the end they're aiming for about 40 tonnes it comes in at about 41 tons in the production models so the idea here is by losing the loader who has to stand up to ram the ram ammunition into because of the weight of it they end up with the same as a t-64 a carousel system which carries 22 rounds and this is done on the horizontal plane what happens is below is the ammunition the projectile that's going to be fired above is the um the casing with the explosive in that's carried above in two two panniers and they move around very quickly it can go about 70 degrees of its circle in eight seconds so that's very quick to then have a two motion movement where first of all the ammunition round is rammed into the breach followed by the charge which is rammed in and as part of that process if there's a stub casing from the charge from the previous one that's ejected out and there's a hole in the roof at the back of the turret that that goes out of so they can get the firing operation done in about eight seconds which again is very impressive for an auto loading system if the auto loader breaks down for any reason they can hang crank it but then you're ending up getting about uh only two rounds off a minute rather than the eight rounds using um the actual carousel system it is a very very compact turret inside there people often if you climb in one certainly western tankers if they get in a 272 they can't quite believe how compact it is people describe it much more like a cockpit with the two crew members squeeze down either side of the gun i mentioned the fact 22 rounds in that carousel other rounds are carried in almost like cubby holes around inside the vehicle for reloading that carousel and the commander sits on two boxes of ammunition for the heavy machine gun that's normally placed outside on the commander's coppola and again differences between the t-64 which had a remote control weapon system on the turret actually this one they're trying to simplify with the t-72 some of the ideas from the t-64 um so that gunnery system the gun has to go to level for it to be able to be loaded and they did try and design it so this tank could fire this huge 125 millimeter it's called a dt81t gun in the early models they wanted to be able to fire it well the tank is on the move the truth is unless you're on very level ground and only going below say 20 kilometers an hour which is about it's just under half its actual top speed the chances of you firing accurately on the move are pretty useless now very early t72s have a traditional type of rangefinder in it later a laser range finder is fitted but the gunnery computer the system using this actually the gunner has to input things like weather conditions wind etc and the ammunition type the only thing the gun actually the computer does for the gun is in terms of stability actually feeding that into a gunnery computer there before the gun fires three main types of ammunition fired by this 125 millimeter gun so you've got armor piercing discarding sabo rounds are being fired out so metal darts coming out that way for firing at other tanks you've got high explosives fragmentation basically high explosive rounds for firing at infantry etc in the open and they also do a heat round a high explosive anti-tank in other words a basically a hollow charge type round as well so this gun when it goes into service at 125 millimeter you're looking on the t-72 and on the t-64 the largest gun that's in service uh anywhere in the world at the time so it's a very very impressive bit of kit with that gun there as well um the commander he's actually got the machine gun in front of him there's a pkt machine gun in the turret as well coax leave to fire again he has a coppola that gives him 360 view points but the truth is again t-72 when compared to many other tanks the visibility from a closed down vehicle once you're inside it is very very limited um so you know it is not a comfy tank and you know officially the soviet army at the time went up to about five foot nine for tank crewmen etc if you are five foot nine even that sort of height you're going to find it very compact in there there is no way you can stand up in the turret it is very very small because of that lowering of the profile torsion bar suspension big rubber road wheels you can see here again that same aggressive track that you'll see on the other soviet vehicle so you don't have rubber track put on there and as with so many of these soviet production vehicles very quickly improvements start coming along the line so the original t-72 very quickly we get the t-72a where extra armor is being placed on the front of the turret when nato observers saw this extra armor which almost gives a vertical front to the rather than the sloped rounded edge to the early t-72 turrets that vertical armor they nicknamed it dolly parton after the rather well-built country american country singer later when the b model comes out in the 1980s there's there's even a super dolly parton as even extra armor is put on the front of that turret that way so these are things that nato were using to recognize the different models of t-72 tank when they're going into service now those improvements mean as well that we get a more powerful engine is put in the back during its service life and with the t-72m is basically they're doing an export model sometimes they call it the m this is an m by the way here made in the soviet union but actually exported to warsaw pack trump tries they do a t72 s model which is a variant of the t72a the s model is for sales around the world and as a rule of thumb those vehicles that are meant for warsaw pact or selling on do not have the same specification in terms of armor quality and thickness as do those vehicles that are destined for the soviet army at the time um but this is an export success for the russians in the 1970s i mentioned this idea that uh the middle east in particular but other countries are coming to buy the t-72 and in the 1970s 44 of the hard currency earned by the soviet union is coming from tank sales um the only other thing that beats it is raw materials that they're selling at the time so this idea of another one of the reasons why sometimes the soviets have got more tanks in service so even as they're making the t-62 the t-64 and the 72 coming in they're still making some of those t-54s because they're mainly going for export at the same time so this idea of the parallel models in service so again the leningrad tank factories comes up with basically a souped-up version of the t-64 they put a gas turbine engine in the back that becomes the t-80 in the middle of the 1970s that leads to a new turret on this new t-80 tank the t-72 the b model is basically a souped-up version of the t-72 using some of that technology that has been so it brings it up to the same standard as that new t-80 tank so this is a vehicle that as i've said before with these soviet tanks go through not just a number of major changes but it also goes through a huge number of changes where it goes out and is manufactured locally so poland czechoslovakia they do their own versions manufacturing um iran iraq war these are being used and they're being sent out in kit form to being assembled so there's variations about what's being made you know at one point there's about six different countries either assembling or making t-72 tanks and their own development stories tend to go on into very different patterns as well especially after the fall of the soviet union in 1990 so you'll see the polish t-72s almost unrecognizable later they call them tuady but you know it's a whole nother same as the czechoslovakian ones etc it's almost a whole nother story looking at those national variations that were built on t-72 chassis now i mentioned this one's an m it was actually one of the ones made in the soviet union given to the east german army and the fall of the soviet union uh a number of those vehicles were left behind in east germany and they were distributed some went into service again this particular one it was passed on by the uh the then bundeswehr to the tank museum so we're very lucky we've got a number of t-72 here's and again when you look as i mentioned each of them has those slightly different features um very distinctive though when you look at it especially compared to the other tanks around here is that low profile the very deeply sloped glassy plate at the front there the v-bow wave uh in front of the driver to stop water just coming straight up it actually tries to push water back as it's doing that way but those also those lines coming up they're also to stop bullets hitting the front and skidding up towards where the driver might his head have his head out the hatch as well stowage and fuel down the sides as we can see and on this particular one as well we've got the 81 millimeter smoke discharges either side this vehicle can still put diesel onto its hot exhaust and make those big smoke screens in that traditional manner and also we fitted here that deep wading snorkel that we've seen on those earlier tanks going back to the t-55 so that again that idea if they're coming up against river obstacles or waterways with some preparation they can deep wade across um you're pretty nervous doing all that as you can imagine because i believe it's about six or seven seconds if you stall the engine before you can get it going or any otherwise you're going to flood so it's something the soviets did train a lot about was trying to do river crossings but not over the water going under the water using a snorkel system you can see the infrared sight on the side here on the right hand side as i'm facing forward again as part of those sophisticated improvements a new type of 125 millimeter gun is put in and at the end of the 1980s for the first time they're actually being able to fire a missile which then extends the range of this gun out to about five kilometers so it's called the severe missile svir and that missile system is fitted to uh in the end of the 1980s and as i've said on other models some of these t-72 goes back to the factory to get upgraded to a newer standard which makes it even more complex trying to tell the different models apart as they're going along um what happens in 1982 is an american uh built m-48 used by the israelis the israelis have put some of their new uh explosive reactive armor ero it's called armor those blocks of armor blocks that are put on the outside of this m48 tank is actually captured by the syrians and quickly handed over to the soviets the soviets have already started designing their own version of an explosive reactive armor but when the soviet army generals see this in use in the middle east see its advantages they insist that the new armor reactive armor that the soviets have come up with is actually put on the vehicle so from 1983 you'll start seeing t-72 tanks going into service with what they call contact armor on and they're those little blocks about 227 blocks per tank to protect the whole vehicle and the whole idea the principle there is for hollow charge rounds and later with contact five it actually has a good effect against kinetic rounds as well basically what's happening is when it's hit there's a sandwich of steel and explosives and that when detonated will help stop an incoming hollow charge round hot jet that's coming forward and as i say with the contact five it also helps uh slow down as it were or lessen the effect of a kinetic charge a solid solid ground that's been fired at the tank and those types of improvements you'll see go on vehicles uh throughout the 1990s soviet union collapses in 1990 but they are still doing some production vehicles for sale and some versions are still going into service with the soviet army at that time as well so a vehicle that is now in service uh all around the world about twenty thousand i was saying was was being made in the first place um so this is a vehicle when we're talking to british soldiers here when we're doing the training sessions etc this is the vehicle i say that they are most likely to meet in uh around the world on their service days because there are so many of them out there and they spread you know first of all we just say about middle east but then it was uh of course it was the ex-cold war the warsaw pact countries but then it's now they've gone to south america they've gone to the far east they've gone to such a huge number of places so still a very credible piece of kit and with so many vehicles with modern upgrades that take this from a second generation tank all the way further forward um you know this is a vehicle that is still a real threat and as we said about those earlier soviet tanks it's a very very real threat if you don't have your own tanks either so that's another thing that we try and uh bang on about all the time is yes a uh the height of the cold war nato tank individually may well have been a better one against one against the t-72 but actually a 272 in a country where there's very little armor to fight against this is going to be the biggest threat there and again sheer numbers mean that something like a t-72 could have swamped a better quality nato tank which is another thing that the russians were thinking about when they were building these tanks in such large quantities so a vehicle we're going to see carrying and improving carrying on going through rebuilds carrying on having upgrades and undoubtedly again another one of those soviet tanks that will be in service for decades to come if you're interested in the t-72 tank or other soviet era vehicles do have a look at our online shop we've got a range of books such as this sort of thing our hanes manual on the t34 tank a series of books on the subject you can also see behind me here a big range of different types of models so if you're a model maker we've got everything from simple wooden ones you can put together right the way through to the more sophisticated end of the modelers market so take a look at some of those ones there and if you are going on to the shop have a look we've got all those usual things we'll be selling for christmas if you buy from us of course that money helps us as a charity keep going and it helps us be able to produce online content such as we're doing here so think about things if you're going to buy someone a present we've got our christmas jumper we've got a calendar for next year with all images from the collection we've got jigsaw puzzles we've got beer we've got a range of items there so have a look please do try and buy something and support us so we can carry on doing what we're doing

Channel: The Tank Museum

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Rating: 4.972322 out of 5

Keywords: the tank museum, tank museum, bovington tank museum, david fletcher, david willey, military tank, the tank museum tank chats, soviet, t-72, t-72 tank, soviet tank, cold war, cold war tanks, post war tank, cold war tank, russian tank, russia, russian tanks, tank, tanks

Id: UMmdozyPgpU

Length: 26min 3sec (1563 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 13 2020