They are. The armor on the export model T-72s is significantly downgraded compared to the "real" T-72, plus those are old tanks with an ERA kit slapped on if they're lucky. The armor's simply not good enough for modern RPGs and ATGMs anymore, and the ammunition is unfortunately stored in a way that makes these catastrophic cook-offs pretty common. A T-72B3 as it is currently in use with the Russian army would probably fare significantly better.
That said, all tanks today are vulnerable to ATGMs, even the ridiculously well-armored Abrams. The Saudis got a whole bunch of theirs destroyed in Yemen by Kornets, plus a lot of their M60s.
??
If anything, Russian tanks are known for their reliability. It's the reason T-55s are still used in dozens of armies - they're extremely easy to maintain.
Yeah but the Russians are about to find out why the US abandoned the similar XM1200 Future Combat Vehicle concept about a decade earlier: mechanical complexity and expense.
The T-14 takes everything good about Russian armor, mostly reliability from tried and tested technology, and throws it out the window for the sake of claiming that they have something more advanced than the West. Furthermore, Russia's economy isn't exactly in a state to support a large scale procurement program for such advanced weapon.
The technical complexity of the T-14 and the T-55, even in the T-55M6 Functionally a 2000 era upgrade to the tank, Arena APS, modern ERA, extra drive wheels to support the added armor and it's been upgunned to a variant of the 125mm 2A46 , is still decades behind the Armata. To say that an as of yet, uncombat-tested vehicle is going to stand up fine in the field and not have anything break down is premature at best.
Also Soviet armor has certainly seen it's share of troubles historically, the issues surrounding the T-62 and especially the issues surrounding initial variants of the T-80 and the teething issues it had with it's turbine engine.
That said I assume the Armata won't perform as badly as that other dude was saying, but if it has issues it wouldn't be a surprise.
There are like 20 Armatas in the world, 1 broke down before a military parade earlier this year. Also let me tell you, everything before the t-55 was completely **** . Arguably though, everything during the U.S.S.R was really ****** , the only reason they still run is because they are so simple.
They can designator the systems they want but they can't afford to build them properly or maintain them to the level such a complex design deserves. T14 is way different than the T55.
It seems to me extraordinarily improbable that any developped country would consider one second fielding a main battle tank that breaks down as soon as it starts rolling
This is anti-artillery, these are shooting down mortars. When you hear the siren before they start shooting, you have like 12 seconds to get to cover before they open fire on incoming mortar fire. Here is the vid this webM is from, keep in mind that the tracers going over your head means there was a mortar about to hid near or right on you.
I believe it is a little like flak, yeah. The C-RAM leads the incoming shells and is fairly effective at shooting them dead on but it's still no laser.
The description on the video with the "AA guns" is wrong. Those are Phalanx CRAM (Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar) guns. Basically, they are smaller versions of the 30mm GAU-8 gatling gun mounted on the A-10 that is controlled by a targeting computer (the big dome on top) to shoot down, you guessed it, rockets, artillery, and mortars.
These ******* fling thousands of bullets downrange to incoming mortars in the hopes that it hits them.
And most of the time, the mortar doesn't even explode, its sorta just... pushed out of the way. The bright white flashes seen are the bullets hitting the mortars.
Also, they are A LOT more terrifying when you get the audio as well.
are you sure the bright flashes are the bullets hitting the mortars? It just seems like a terribly lot of flashes, so that must mean there are hundreds of thousands of mortars and don't artillery fire, like... less than that?
All of those flashes result from the bullets hitting one mortar. A lot of the time, the mortar wont blow up, and will sorta just get pushed out of its initial trajectory, as i said before.
So in one set of white flashes, that is all one mortar. In this video, i think 5 or so mortars are fired and deflected.
