(CNN)The wraps are off Russia's new main battle tank. Copies of the new Armata T-14 medium tank have been rumbling through Moscow this week as the Russian military practices for Saturday's Victory Day parade commemorating the end of World War II in Europe. News services have distributed several images of the tanks this week. The T-14 was seen in photos last week during parade practice, but those tanks had their turrets covered in canvas. Hmmm' It seems the Russian bear is getting restless. Russia has always had superb armor and so this new tank did not come as a surprise. My strategies and tactics would be more like the old USSR (WW2) and today's Russia (if they are similar to the USSR) than the USA. I love the USA's high tech stuff. Love it. But I wonder how high tech would work on a real massive theater war. I tend to put my trust in the clunky big caliber always works AK47 more than the latest modern red dot optics enabled version of the M16, and I have my reasons. The same goes with most war hardware. Btw I have both an AR and a AK, love em both~ ~reva~ read more @; Russia shows off new high-tech tank - CNN.com www.cnn.com/2015/05/05/world/russia-new-tank/ reva
Superb armor? The U.S. and coalition forces sliced through Soviet armor (exports to Iraqi forces) in the 1991 Battle of 73 Easting. It's junk. Of course the Russians will argue their exports are not the good stuff. I don't know whether this T-14 is any good or not, I'm not a tank expert, but historically, Soviet armor has done poorly when going up against the West. The Russians did make a decent tank back in WW2 with the T-34, but even with that, the Germans destroyed thousands of them. They were certainly better than the U.S. Shermans, which were iron coffins, but the M1A1 tank did very well against the T-72 and T-80s.
Aberdeen Proving Grounds, the U.S. bought a few Ukrainian T-80s from the British and ballistics tests were done...these may have been T-84s however. The T-80 was used in the First Chechen war in the Battle of Grozny and performed poorly. Look folks, the Soviet fan boys like this guy ^^^^^^^^ above...are going to extort also sorts of propaganda about how the Soviet exports are not the same thing and that Russia keeps the really good stuff for themselves. Here is the reality. Soviet tanks have performed poorly in WWII, Korea, in the Middle East wars between the Israelis and Arabs and in Gulf War I, Do you know why? Soviet military doctrine emphasized the importance of numbers and the inevitability of heavy casualties. If you expect your tanks to be destroyed quickly then it doesn’t make sense to build expensive ones lavishly equipped with armor and with an emphasis on crew comfort. Instead their goal was to keep weight and size down so they could out produce the West. They can make a ton of it (tanks) is their only claim to fame. The T-14 may be a departure from this doctrine, but historically Russian armor has been anything but superb. The Russians lost 96,000 armored fighting vehicles in WW2...their doctrine has always been, expendability. Break all you want, we'll just make more; perhaps this latest hi-tech bit of armor is a departure from this philosophy when going to war; perhaps now they are considering sustained survivability.
That's because the Sherman was an infantry support tank, not a tank hunter. It's main role was to go after MG position, bunkers and to provide spot artillery. Beside, you don't need to be the best when you have a ratio of 1,000 to one on the field.
They don't have the money to do it. At best the Russian are putting a smurf band-aid on their military.
