Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "T-14 Armata vs M1A2 Abrams | Tokyo Warfare Gameplay" video.
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To me it seems like T-14 will become the better tank. Most tanks got their humble beginnings before design flaws has been corrected and armour, firepower and mobility has improved. Abrams is an old design and it cannot stay competative forever by constant upgrading.
And I don't see combat proves anything or disproves anything. A good tank can have shitty killratios, not because its a bad tank, but because it has been used in a bad way... by for example bad crews, bad doctrines, bad leadership and lack of support from infantry, artillery, bombers, engineers, scouts, etc.
Saying t-34 was a bad tank like internet experts sitting in their boysroom says, is simply ignorant. It was a good tank, and certainly more powerful than a PzIII that people loves to point out that it could kill a t-34/76.
And likewise would it be stupid to say that the Elephant was the best tank in World war II because it had the best killratio of any tank of the war. Because how much do we know about the circumstances those kills were made? Were those circumstances ideal, and the enemy was retarded? or were circumstances harder than on other battlefronts? Is it even possible to compare?
I for my part do not consider Ferdinand Elephant the best tank, because it had many flaws - it was too heavy, it lacked a rotatable turret, its armour was not angled, it was expensive to produce and demanded much rare raw materials that Germany lacked, it was not mechanically reliable etc etc....
Despite all killratios I would say that many tanks were more powerful than the Elephant... ISU152, Tiger II, IS3. And when one takes in tank manufacturing aspects and the overall multi-role uses for tanks on the battlefield, I would say most people would consider Centurion, Panther G, Sherman, T-34 and T-44 to be much better tanks for that time period.
Neighter the Churchill or the T-34 had any glamourous beginnings when they first entered battle. And neighter had the Panther or Tiger. But later on they all became know as good tanks.
So I wouldn't judge a tank simply by looking on its combat record.
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Abrams can stay competative for the moment by using DPU ammo that gives greater peneration, while the Germans are looking for ways to give their Leopard2 a new 130mm gun in order to deal with the new Russian tank. But Merkava have none of the problems of those tanks, since it was designed to be carry new modules and getting upgraded into the future with more armour and a 15cm gun if needed. But since Israels potential enemies surrounding her mostly use outdated junk, would it be overkill to use a huge expensive 150mm shell to kill it.
Abrams is a good tank, but it is getting old. They also got their many flaws. And when the Germans used a tank on 70 tonnes in world war 2, they found out that it was too heavy for many bridges and they were too heavy to tow to a repairshop with most vechles, so they needed big rare machines to drag them away from the battlefield. And I would expect an American tank with the same weight would have some of the same problems as the Germans. Atleast does this monster consume huge amounts of fuel, which in turn makes the operational range quite limited when logistical support is not available.
And the heavier weight of a tank does not necessarily mean better protection (as one can see on Lindybeige's videos about the upsides and downsides of having a small tank turret). And the Abrams can be taken out with cheap rocketlaunchers and roadside bombs, as pictures has shown from Iraq, so it isn't invincible despite its huge weight. And it is hard for me to see that the protection on Abrams is much better than on Leopard2, Armata, Merkava or Challanger2.
And its depleted uranium armour has a property of burning when introduced to intense high temperatures (so its basically not very effective against HEAT).
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Yes there are differences between models of the same tank. An Iraqi Abrams is quite shitty compared the latest upgraded tanks. Just as there are differences between the Russian T-72 and the thinly armoured export version of the T-72 M(onkey model) in Iraw that you in just in one earlier post mocked as an example that Eastbloc armour sucks.
Furthermore is it ironic that you celebrate the old Soviet tank design of relying more upon earlier combat experiences than modern technical solutions as the western powers did during the cold war. T-34/76 and T34/85 was a great tank, so why change a winning concept they thought?
So then the lower profile version came - known as the t44 - which looks quite similiar to the T34.
And then came the T55 which also got much in common with the earlier tanks.
And same with the T62, and then with the T72, and then with the T80 and the T90.
Armata is a step away from the old Soviet tradition. And its true that usally not everything will go perfect, but one has to start the next generation of tanks somewhere - and the Russians are early into the game. And the country who have the next generation of superior weapons will have the upper hand on the battlefield. And I must say that I am impressed by this poor country for not just putting out one weaponsystem better than everything in the western world - but many!
America got a GDP 17 times larger and an average American worker makes 4 times as much stuff as a Russian worker. And America spends more on its military than the other 8 largest military spenders in the world combined.
And yet poor Russia makes better planes, better tanks and better attack helicopters.
T-50 is soon becoming the worlds best fighter (the best today is SU35), and today Armata is the worlds most modern tank. And Ka-52 is the best attack helicopter.
Anyways, back to the tank-talk.... I think the old concept of a tank is dying out with technological progress. In the future will computers&robots handle things better than any human can. No pilots or tank crewmen needs to be trained. Fighter jets would be able to make aggressive turns with a computer than what a human body could endure in terms of G-force. And the human body is quite limited compared to the sensitivity of sensors of all kinds... optical, thermal, noise sensors, sensors that can detect the smell of chemical compounds - yea, your name it....
And all those sensors can be made with a precision a human is incapable of. Already today there are common with air combats between planes where the pilots cannot see each other with the naked eye because of the large distances.
We have GPS-guided Tomahawk missiles, and self-driving cars.
So I think the temptation of replacing humans with robots will be large in the future.
And sticking with the old ways of doing things could just lead to a dead end. Just like the castles in Europe that was built with tall thin walls so no one could climb over them, but then someone came with the gunpowder and ruin everything...
And then all well trained knights had their expensive armour pierced by peasants with cheap fireweapons. And in the first world war things like Cavalry, colourful uniforms and marching in formation on the battlefield quickly dissapeared.... as new deadly weapons had made all the old ways of making war obsolete.
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