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Russian Tanks: Helium Armor?


Poopstain

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Gents I will try to keep this short:

Russian tanks:  the stats are/have always been so good: big guns, excellent armor, good horsepower: TENS OF TONS LIGHTER than their actual/potential opponents.   

How was this achieved??    

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As much aluminum as possible. Lighter engine and transmission. No water boiler -  consistently omit what seems unnecessary.
And the most significant, less armor (what is meant is: less steel) due to the reduced interior space.

Edited by Stefan Kotsch
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The big gap opens up with the T-64. A large part of that is the auto-loader and compact transmission, and to some extent the focus given on reduced profile. And then later the use of reactive armour as opposed to heavier main arrays as a mechanism to deal with modern munitions is important, and allows for smaller mass bloat in comparison to western designs.

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The primary factor that enabled such a disproportionately large amount of "guns, armour and power" was simply the volume.

But then again, generally speaking, in many respects it is simply due to a more efficient design, and in some cases it was compromises. This could be something as minor as not having an additional ~1 ton taken up by rubber track pads due to the exclusive use of metal tracks, to something as major as having fundamentally more compact types of transmissions. Some lightening measures in the design were to the point of exaggeration, such as making all internal fuel tanks out of stamped aluminium lined with bakelite to save weight instead of steel lined with bakelite, like the external fuel tanks. Many of these obsessive measures to reduce weight can be attributed to Morozov, particularly when he worked on what became the T-64, but the other design bureaus were incentivized to control tank bloating as well.

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I always thought that what the Soviets really wanted in their massive armed forces was "We want it cheap". That also applied to buildings, bridges, factories and nuclear power plants etc. All of these had to be made for a low cost. Only because of the cold war and their attempt to keep up with the West did they innovate.

Just look at the AK47, some may praise it' reliability but the main reason why it was made was because it was dirt cheap.

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Only the AKM, which was made out of stamped metal. The AK47 had the receiver machined out of a piece of steel, and presumably would have been rather more expensive. It certainly feels better built to handle.

I think it's less cost, because they did make expensive systems when they had to, particularly air defence and natural systems. It's more likely the mass army concept, and only having a limited time to make conscripts conversant with the machines they are training on. Being lighter, you can also make kit more reliable and the benefits that also brings also in mobility.

Edited by Stuart Galbraith
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35 minutes ago, TrustMe said:

...Just look at the AK47, some may praise it' reliability but the main reason why it was made was because it was dirt cheap.

I am dying laughing now, and hoping at least a bit you are not serious.

Original AK were pretty expensive, so much that initially it was only SMG replacement, they could not afford to replace all Mosins with it (that is what more traditional and cheaper SKS was for). Milled ones even increased price (through they enabled faster production). Only with AKM was price dropped significantly, but work wise it was not that much cheaper than other production optimized rifles like AR-18 (if you pay workers same). Price actually rose with introduction of AK-74, due the barrel being more expensive to make.

Yeah, it was cheap to make compared to dinosaurs like M14 or FAL, but it's price was never a reason it was selected, else they would have chosen Shpagin one.

Edited by bojan
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What Soviets suffered sometimes from was a "French small arms syndrome" - you are first to revolutionize field, but when other catch up in the few years or decade they are gonna do it better than you, simply because they have your experience to draw from.

Edited by bojan
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47 minutes ago, bojan said:

I am dying laughing now, and hoping at least a bit you are not serious.

Original AK were pretty expensive, so much that initially it was only SMG replacement, they could not afford to replace all Mosins with it (that is what more traditional and cheaper SKS was for). Milled ones even increased price (through they enabled faster production). Only with AKM was price dropped significantly, but work wise it was not that much cheaper than other production optimized rifles like AR-18 (if you pay workers same). Price actually rose with introduction of AK-74, due the barrel being more expensive to make.

Yeah, it was cheap to make compared to dinosaurs like M14 or FAL, but it's price was never a reason it was selected, else they would have chosen Shpagin one.

I've seen internet reports that state that the AK47 was a half the price of an equivalent Belgium FAL battle rifle.

Edited by TrustMe
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FAL was an overpriced milled dinosaur even at the point when it was introduced. Plus Belgian vs Soviet wages.

Edited by bojan
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Quote

I always thought that what the Soviets really wanted in their massive armed forces was "We want it cheap".

I would not agree so easily, especially during the Cold War. I think it was during Brezhnev's time that it was said that when it came to defence, cost was not an issue. Soviet Army fielded 3 main battle tanks, including T-64B with AT missiles and T-80 with turbine. Definitely not cheap when compared to T-55/62.

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Mostly I think it can be attributed to two factors;

1) Aggressive weight savings

...starting with the most effective measure, the reduction of internal volume. The American tanks I've been in (various M1s, M60) had cathedral like cavernous turret crew spaces. The Leopard 2A4, in direct comparison with the M1, had three cubic meters less internal turret volume. Westen tanks were designed for the 95th percentile of the male population (even if those tables from 1the 1960s that thge engineers used in the 70s were outdated by the 1990s and were closer to just a 90th percentile).

As far as I'm informed, the Soviets designed the tanks for the 5th percentile of shortest men because the conscript pool was so large that they could afford to enforce a strict selection for shorter bodies. This is where some the the Western criticism of Russian tanks being not very ergonomical is only partly justified. If your average tankist is of 1.60m height and a 1.90m person climbs into his tank, the tall guy will find it considerably less comfortable. As the US Army was a professional/volunteer army, they could not afford to lose 80% of all possible volunteers just because they were too tall (see the callsign of one of the helicopter pilots in "We Were Soldiers Once...").

 

2) Aggressive optimization for compactness

...even at the expense of the ease of maintenance. Soviet WW2 experience showed that 95% of all tanks were out of action within two weeks of combat service. So they were built to last two or three weeks without major maintenance. The Israeli Yom Kippur lesson was that extreme turnaround times in war repairs can help you avoid losing a war. So, once can see from the archived correspondence of the Leopard 2 development (and one can infer the same for the M1 because both models shared similar traits after the MBT 70 engineer team parted ways) that there were two major inputs to the project after the end of the MBT 70 - the introduction of the new British armor type, and a much stronger focus on modularity and ease of swapping components. The Rheinmetall 120mm gun barrel can be swapped within 15 minutes, the engine swapped in 15...40 minutes (depending on how you take the time), the more complex things won't be repaired in the warzone but swapped for a new component, then shipped off to depot level maintenance and repair (if deemed repair worthy).

Western tanks are designed for (relatively speaking) low operating costs in peacetime because a tank will spend 98% of its lifetime in peace. Soviet tanks were designed for a maximization of firepower and mobility, with what was considered adequate protection levels, and may the devil care about repairs of the T-64 broken down in the outskirts of Hanover when the T-55s of the third echelon have successfully reached the Schelde river.

 

It's a bit of a Hail Mary approach, but not entirely irrational either. That the protection level turned out to be less than adequate in practice was of course very unfortunate. And current Soviet designs seem to emphasize crew survivability much more, at ballooning system costs.

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1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

... 5th percentile of shortest men...

I am not sure. Local height cut offs (and it is not to say that taller people could not function inside, just that army did not want them to):

T-72/M-84 - Gunner - 185cm, Driver 178cm, TC - 188cm.

T-55 - Gunner - 180cm, Driver 175cm, TC - 185cm, Loader - 175cm.

BMP-1 (from evaluation, numbers are not as "scientific" as above) - Driver - 175cm, Commander - 180cm, Gunner - 175cm, Dismounts - 180-185cm.

 

With average 18-25y/o male height of about 177cm in 1990. in Yugoslavia (which was above European average) all of those could fit ~50%+ of population easily, with some picking for specific roles (driver and loader), but nowhere close to 5%.

Edited by bojan
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Okay, I derived the percentiles from a book of Rolf Hilmes comparing the T-72 with the Leopard 2. I found it extreme (and also I didn't find the T-55 and T-72 interiors that cramped when I visited some; I'm about 183cm tall), but I do remember seeing a lot of Soviet combat dwarves climbing from their tanks in various TV footage; enough so that I didn't bother to question it seriously. (And let there be no misunderstanding here, they may have been short but seemed to be very fit.)

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I think the '5%' is one of those Cold War legends. Our army had T-54/55's and T-72's, and I have never heard of this 'requirement'. If you think about it, having just 5% of the males fit inside a tank would make the selection incredibly restrictive and would certainly lead to serious personnel shortage for the tanks corps. I think fighter pilots have much broader physical requirements than that.

If that was the case, might just as well choose women for the tank crews...

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2 hours ago, bojan said:

FAL was an overpriced milled dinosaur even at the point when it was introduced. Plus Belgian vs Soviet wages.

I don't understand why millings on FAL are so much more complicated than in Tokarev, even though they are pretty much the same gun. Sure thing FAL is much better rifle overall, but still.

Supposedly, G3 was substantially cheaper in export markets than FAL.

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Everything pre-ww2 and WW2 became dinosaur in 1950s, due the introduction of reliable stampings. Which is also a main problem of FAL - it was effectively pre-war rifle, given pistol grip and detachable magazine.

If you wanted to mill guns from the forgings in the late '50s... there was a much superior AR-10 and your tooling would probably last much longer, reducing price when milling aluminium rather than steel. :)

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Well FAL is not Swiss complicated, but still. It's baffling how much simpler bolt & bolt carrier in SVT are.

But yeah, I don't think any post-WW2 Soviet small arm was designed just to be super cheap....Makarov, maybe? :huh:

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Makarov was designed to be simple and basically "officer's pistol". In that role it has replaced variety of .25/.32s., it was not intended to be really used by soldiers on the front line as 1950s Soviet Rifle Co had a single pistol, and that was Stechkin. Tankers originally had Stechkins and AKs (IIRC 1 AK per tank). Only in the '60s it was decided to replace Stechkins with Maks among rank and file. That one might have had something to do with the cost, but it might have had also to do with the fact that either way pistol was of limited use on the planned nuclear battlefield, so more compact one (Stechkin is pretty large, especially with holster-stock...) made more sense.

Edited by bojan
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