Was T-72 The Worst Soviet Tank?

soviet union operated with three major tank variants during the period of cold war t-64 d-72 and t-80 all three of them went through a lot of upgrades and changes over the years of their service where t-80 usually received the best treatment and t72 sadly was made to be cheaper for mass production in this video we will cover why the t-72 was inferior to its brothers on more of a technical level there were actually some pretty good things about it you can develop your own tanks in call of war colo 4 is a free online strategy game that gathers millions of players worldwide you fight up to 99 other players in real time in games that can take weeks to complete the game features world war ii historically accurate maps and units but allows you to create your own path and rewrite history your objective is to take over the world define your own strategy build powerful armies by combining dozens of different unity types such as infantry tanks planes and fight for world domination in a challenging pvp environment call of war is fully cross-platform use your diplomatic skills and forge alliances with other players on both pc and mobile devices with the same account i have set up a special game of call 4 for the first viewers that click the link in the description go to the website or app type my name in the search bar and enter the pass for the red effect the slots are limited so don't lose time and write effect viewers are getting a special gift click on the link below to get 13 000 gold and one month of premium subscription for free the offer is available only for 30 days so click the link in the description choose a country and fight your way to victory in epic real-time battles first d72 variant to enter service was t72 euro in 1973 it was made as nijinita guild's response to the problems that harkov's t64 and t64a tanks were facing mainly with reliability even though the reliability issues with t64s were mostly fixed d72 was liked for its simplicity and cost while also being very comparable to the already existing t64a the major difference between the two was really just the remotely operated heavy machine can present on t64a this is kinda important to be honest and to this day no t72 in soviet and russian service ever received a remotely operated machine gun this means that the commander has to expose himself to enemy fire in order to use the turret mounted machine gun a lot of it changed in 1975 when t72 euro 1 entered service the 72 euro 1 received better armor protection it got thicker turret armor and most importantly received a better hull armor composition while t64a and t72 euro had 80 millimeter steel plus 105 millimeter text light plus 20 millimeter steel the 72 euro one had 60 millimeter steel plus 105 millimeter text light plus 50 millimeter steel both angled at 68 degrees while the entire composition is 10 millimeters thicker the most important factor is the much thicker back plate which is much more effective at stopping the graded projectiles the 72 euro 1 also got laser rangefinder which is better than coincidental one used in t72 euro and t64a sometime during its production it should be noted that the new turret and probably the new hull armor appeared in 1977 and were used on later t72a variant but at the time when new armor appeared the 64b had already entered service t64b received a laser rangefinder it also got crosswind and temperature sensors another big improvement in the fire control system of t64b is the automatic lead automatically it calculates the speed of the moving target the sight can then move left or right staying on target while the turret turns to compensate for the target's movement making it possible to shoot at moving targets with pinpoint accuracy prior to that gunners had to guess where to aim and shoot to hit the moving targets but with automatic lead all you have to do is keep your sight on the target and the fire control system will do everything else for you you just aim wait a second for calculations to take place and shoot yet another improvement is the added ability to fire anti-tank guide and missiles which can also effectively be used to shoot at slow flying helicopters now the turret of t64b was improved compared to its predecessor but the biggest issue about the tank was that the hull protection remained the same as the one of t64a which means that the hull was less protected than one of the 72 euro one it should also be noted that t64s used 700 horsepower opposed piston engine which was inferior to t72's 780 horsepower v-shaped diesel this meant that t72 was more mobile two years later in 1978 um smash introduced the atb the atb pretty much had the same fire control system as t64b laser rangefinder crosswind sensor automatically then atgm ability the key difference being that the t80b used a gas turbine engine which was more powerful than t64700 and d72's 780 horsepower diesels being able to produce 1000 horsepower and later 1100 horsepower but it had armor pretty much comparable to the one of late d7201 which is of course better than the t64 b's armor together with new armor t64 b's fire control system and the best performing engine it was the best tank that they had developed but of course it came at a price a year later t72a entered service it wasn't really great it was really comparable to t72 euro 1 in performance it had the same armor sd7201 so the production was comparable to t80b which means t64b still had the worst protection out of all three but t72a still had the worst fire control system with no automatic lid no wind sensor and no ability to launch atgms i should say that d72a got a new gun but all of the variants were getting your guns as they were being upgraded i go slightly more in depth between the differences of the mentioned t72 tanks in my t72 spotter's guide video so make sure to check it out one important thing to note though is that the design of t72's out holder is much safer than the design of d64 and t80s outloaders d80 tanks practically inherited the same outward design from t64 but the designers of t72s had a better idea the 64's out holder has the charges placed vertically and the actual projectiles horizontally this means that the chances of hitting the charges is much easier if the tank is penetrated the 72 outloaded carousel has the charges basically on the bottom of the tank horizontally there is also a thin sheet steel cover covering the carousel in order for the crew to be able to stand if needed even though it wasn't really meant to protect the ammo it can actually serve as protection against small fragments this is a much safer design not to mention that the t72 has an ejection system for the spent dots while in t64 and t80 they are returned to the carousel which means that some of the remaining fumes enter the crew compartment d72 also had a lot of interchangeable parts with older models and even older tanks such as being able to use wheels from t-54 t64 and t-80 couldn't really pride themselves with such things after t72a entered service some very important events took place after 1982 lebanon war syrians sent captured israeli maga tanks together with m111 heads ammunition soviets were shocked to find out that m111 apf sds could penetrate their tanks since their goal was complete immunity from 105 millimeter apf scs and they didn't like what they saw so they first installed extra steel plates on the front armor but this was just a stop gap another important thing is that contact 1 explosive reactive armor was being developed by neistati this era could degrade the penetration of hollow charges a lot rendering nato atgms and rocket launchers practically useless and all new soviet tanks were going to get it arc of mate d64bv this tank featured an improved hull armor which was now better than the d72as hull and much better than basic t64b and it also received the contact 1 explosive active armor the atbv also had the same upgrades when compared to the atb but this mt2 did not stop there they actually put a lot of effort this time and they developed a brand new armor package while soviet tanks used basic sandwich style armor with either text light parts or corundum layers between steel this entity to be received something much better a type of mira armor called reflecting plates this meant the 372b had much better protection than both the atbv and t64 bb on top of also having the contact 1 era but sadly this was its only advantage good thing though is that this time it could actually fire atgms it still lacked automatic lead but they made it so that the fire control system would display the number of mills once you lays a moving target which were present on the reticle so you would move the sight on the corresponding number to shoot at a moving target it wasn't as easy to use as automatic lead but it was a cheaper solution but again it wasn't perfect this still meant that the t72b had inferior fire control system good thing though is the t72b was more mobile than t64bv even though t64bv weight increased with added era and improved armor it still retained the 700 horsepower engine while t72b received a 840 horsepower engine the worst part though by far is the fact that for the entirety of its service in ussr d72 never received the crosswind sensor this meant that the tank was less accurate than its soviet colleagues in 1987 the atu tank entered service and oh boy was it good it didn't have contact 1 era no it had contact 5 which could degrade the penetration of both high-explosive anti-tank and apf sds projectiles it had improved the base armor compared to tatbv so it was somewhat on par with t72 b's armor maybe not as good by default but the tank had contact 5 which drastically improved its protection compared to its counterparts in 1987 the t64 production was stopped in harkov in favor of the atud tank which was a tatu tank with a diesel engine instead of a gas turbine and since nietzsche the gill had to keep up with on-skin harkov they made d72b model 1989 which is practically just a d72p tank with contact 5 era even though its protection was now on par with the atus its fire control system was far behind and its mobility was also worse in total thirteen thousand one hundred t64s were produced during the cold war around 6200 t80s and around 17 and 800 d72s all in ussr for domestic use so as you can see even though t72 was less effective than the other two because it was simpler and cheaper they could afford and produce more of them was it worth it though well kinda keep in mind that all variants are included in that number and not all were in service at the same time but d72 is always outnumbered both t64s and t8 is inactive service especially the 80s that were the most expensive because of their gas turbine engine but you have no doubt the 80s were the best of the three d72s were also regarded as most reliable out of three so that's a plus but their fire control system made them less accurate the lack of wind sensor made it less accurate even when standing still shooting at stationary targets the lack of automatically made it even less accurate when engaging moving targets so what is your opinion was it's lacking fire control system enough to make it the worst or did the sheer numbers compensate for the lacking performance that would be all if you like my content you can consider supporting me on patreon and if you can't leave a like on the video or subscribe if you're new that also helps a lot thanks for watching and i'll see you all in the next video have a nice day [Music] you

Channel: RedEffect

Views: 227,787

Keywords:

Id: 2OcCAKIsF34

Length: 13min 4sec (784 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 02 2021