Aight troops. A quick addendum to a mistake made in this video, specifically on the 9K33 Osa SAM system. The guidance type used for the 9M33 missiles is not semi-active radar homing, but radio command guidance, which is similar but not the same. Unfortunately the main source I was referring back to when writing this video; fm-100-2-3 (linked in the description) goes into very little detail on the Osa's guidance system and it is not a detail I thought to do further research on during research. The statement I made on Osa's missiles being better-equipped to engage manoeuvring fixed-wing aircraft than Roland's SACLOS guidance system still rings true, so I've elected to make this correction rather than reupload the video and bother you all with double-notifications. Additional info for anyone interested - "Land Roll" radar of the 9K33 Osa (SA-8 Gecko): - armyrecognition.com/military-products/army/air-defense-systems/air-defense-vehicles/sa-8-gecko-russia-uk www.armedforces.co.uk/Europeandefence/edequipment/edmis/edmis5a18.htm Radio-command guidance system: - www.britannica.com/technology/rocket-and-missile-system/Tactical-guided-missiles#ref520851 - dbpedia.org/page/Command_guidance
Fun fact, the Mi-28 still has a passenger compartment in it, though it can only seat maybe 2 or 3 people at best. It is there mainly to allow for the helicopter to be able to pick up downed friendly helicopter pilots. Also we recently had footage from Russians using a door gunner on an Mi-35 Hind to shoot up a Ukrainian unmanned surface vehicle (kamikaze boat) on the Black Sea.
Well the Soviets were very paranoid of another war after WW2 so they were certainly prepared. However they were not the first to fully mechanized, that title goes to the US in 1945. It was very big but it all came at a cost, the Soviet bankrupted themselves and the military budget taken up to 50% of the annual budget and 13% of GDP by 1984, for comparison the US only spent half what the Soviet did with their budget. The lesson here is that don't do an arms race with people whose entire motivation can be summed up with money.
@@dannyzero692The Soviets did not go bankrupt: The liberals located in the Russian _Socialist_ Republic succeeded in usurping the power of the social democrats in the _communist party._ The Soviet Union project was a *_political_* failure, affecting it negatively as it deteriorated, culminating in its illegal dissolution and the formations of the liberal republics succeeding the Soviet Union.
The Soviets frankly had material, manpower, doctrinal and even the technological supremacy over the west since the Cold war began. The scales only tipped for Nato when the west pulled far ahead of the Soviets in the silicone and then internet revolution, giving them command and control, battlefield surveillance and precision strike capabilities that the Soviets had absolutely no answer to and would of seen all their advantages be nullified. Western supremacy however has ended with cheap drones, widespread adoption of the net and Russian/Chinese GPS alternatives giving even low tech poor armies operational and organisational capabilities that were previously exclusive to only the west. Once again, its is manpower and material supremacy that will win wars and the west has been caught with its pants down lacking in these regards.
@@GUYISNOTNORMAL Yes, after their Fiat-based Ladas sold worldwide like crazy into all continents for years on end, the Red Army hired Pininfarina to make these machines look good and sleek. Just the colour still needs a bit to desired. 🙂 Which is why I loved to drive my T-55 from 1983 to 1986 in the East-Germany army. When we drove these beasts out of the barracks through half of the city of Rostock, the girls loved to watch us. Any other car wasn't having any chances competing, all female eyes were on us oily comrades. If the girls smiled we lifted the food from the accelerator a bit so not to indulge their sexy summer dresses into a nasty black'n'blue Diesel fume plum. But if the girls did not wave enthusiastically enough, the right foot pressed down hard and the girl's lovely street café afternoon experience was utterly trashed. Nostrils, taste buds, make-up, perfume, coffee (spilled because of the rambling), cake, table cloth, dresses, haircuts, fancy sunglasses - all ruined. Until today there is no detergent on this planet to get these nice sparkling summer dresses back to their original colours. Again 🙂.. Peace! from Dresden / Germany
As a Cold War USMC 0311 (infantry, rifleman) vet I will state for the record the imposing Soviet doctrine regarding the BMPs. If TSHTF we didn't plan on seeing one or two BMPs at a time. They weren't going to be scouting vehicles MBT, and they weren't going to be alone. If we hit T-64 or 72 w/anti-tank weaps like the M47 Dragon or TOW we would expect to see a half dozen BMPs roll up quickly puffing smoke screen and rattling away with whatever gun was attached while a small squad of Soviets barreled out the back. They were applied in numbers. NATO doctrine during the 80s against Fulda Gap scenarios will reflect my statements. Oh, and we'd all be in MOPP gear. NBC/CBRN bullshit.
I was a seabee in iraq and we had a marine advisor deployed with us, he was an old marine Dragon crew member. He said you had to get within 500meters or something before firing. A t72 could rotate its turrent 180degrees, and fire on you before the dragon arrived. Granted it may have been a mutual kill, you wanted to live. Lol.
In defense of T-72 ammunition storage in the carousel, it is protected by being located in the part of tank that was least likely to get hit... back when this tank was introduced.
the carousel itself never been the problem but the extra ammo wich was stored left ,right and behind the carousel, but the flieeing turrets are history with t90m
@@QuicksilverVM I know. There was some logic behind extra ammo everywhere as well; tanks were supposed to be used in large-scale conflicts. This measure relieved overall logistics and ensured tank units' combat readiness at the cost of worsening survivability of individual tanks.
@@QuicksilverVM Any tank with ammo stowage in the hull is prone to turret tossing as well just due the explosive force pushing the turret upward. For example Leo 2s have been seen losing their turrets for this very reason.
*Koala, slowly wakes up to the sound of The Man who sold the world, hears the doctor say:* "Don't panic, you've been in a coma for nine years, it's time to get back and make another video"
It is so sick and tiring to read from a certain bunch of commentors that Soviet armament designs were not made for quality and only for quantity. Certainly not every Soviet fighting vehicle was a masterpiece of engineering but a lot indeed were. I.e. when the T54/55 was introduced in the 1950s, he was superior to almost anything tank in the West. His excellent 100mm main gun, his new inventive perfectly working two axis gyro stabilisation allowing to shoot in full motion and hitting with the first round, the capability to drive through deep rivers within one or two hours preparation, his powerful endless torque providing Diesel engine and his new ABC (NBC) protection system forced many Western armies to have their existing fighting vehicles redesigned, upgraded or replaced. The tank with a minimum of maintenance was very reliable and fuel efficient and was operating under any climate conditions. Same can be said for the Kalashnikov submachine gun and the BTR-series, the later Diesel-powered URAL trucks who managed to get through virtually any terrain, the prize-winning UAZ van and minibus series, as well as the GAZ/UAZ jeeps. Most of the Soviet designed military equipment designs were truly thought through, the average conscript must be able to operate, maintain and even field-repair his equipment. Stunning was also the level of standardisation and simplification among all of these vehicles, machinery and armament. I cannot judge about the latest Russian military designs lately but it is dangerous to believe that Russia only has half-drunk and non-inventive engineers to offer. They know about mechanical and electronic designs much as their Western counterparts, especially in military and space industries. I know it better; I served from 1983 to 1986 as a T-55 commander and I am a German engineer. I also travelled the USSR and (later) Russia quite a bit, as I travelled in my jobs as an engineer extensively all continents for 30 years, including the US. The idea that only the West knows how to make high-quality products is not only arrogant, but plain wrong. Peace! from Dresden / Germany
You were a tank commander of the NVA? My father was a Vietnamese military attaché who worked with the NVA combat engineers to learn about their combat doctrines and he always had a lot to talk about how professional and elite the NVA forces were, along with the Red Army of course.
@@viethoangtruong54 Yes, I was. The tank was aT-55A. I served in Rostock at the Baltic sea line from 1983-1986. Interestingly. And your Dad's efforts obviously paid off. The end of the Vietnam war was one of the very last pure military victories after 1945. I remember as a child collecting valuable trash like newspaper, empty bottles and veggie glasses etc. from the old folks and reselling it at the collection points. Instead of keeping it as pocket money we donated it so bicycles, school materials, medical supplies etc. could be bought and shipped to (then still North) Vietnam. My parents donated frequently blood. Solidarity with the socialist Vietnam was a very big thing not only for our socialist party leaders, indeed it was shared by almost anyone by heart across the population. But let's be happy this senseless war is over. In the meantime I have friends even in the US (Vietnam veterans) and no one of them looks back at it without at least very ambivalent feelings (they keep questioning themselves about any justification to be sent over there). Some served as B-52 pilots or river boat commanders. Some even regret to be there, of course because they also lost some army comrades. To young to fight and too young to die (this way). Anyhow, peace to Vietnam, might these tragic and decade long liberation wars of your country be the ever last one it had to endure. The prize was justified but the damage and losses horribly (high). I lived in Asia (1993-2003) for a long time and travelled the whole continent extensively, but unfortunately at the time had no reason to visit your country. Unfortunately I am mow too sick and old to travel, Vietnam was on my long list to visit..... Peace! from Dresden / Germany
This is all true. People are convinced that Russia magically lost their army and production capabilities after the dissolution of the USSR. Russia literally kept the USSR's ability to produce things. Not to mention, Russian Thermals in their tanks are a generation ahead of what the West offers. They also have hypersonic missiles, which the west cant produce due to failed testing, again and again. Their newest T90, T72B3M and T80BVM tanks are superior or on par with western designs. Russias war economy isnt for profit like in the US. 100K for a bag of bolts? Ok, nice job USA... Russia can produce 4 T90 for the price of an Abrams. Just an M1A2. Not even the SepV3 models. In which the US doesn't produce any tanks and just upgrades them. Russia is building 12 T90M (2024 model) a WEEK. Same with the T80BVM and T72B3M, its around 20 A WEEK. Your story is very interesting and I appreciate the fact that you shared it.
@@m16-a2 Most of this is rubbish. 1. A huge amount of the USSR's military tech was produced in Ukraine (Kharkiv) or Georgia (Tbilisi). 2. America has produced more M1 Abrams than Russia has T-80s and T-90s COMBINED. 3. The cost per T-90M is a little under half the M1A2 Abrams, not a quarter 4. Russian thermals are not a generation ahead of what the West offers... they are literally imported secondhand FROM the West. Russia's best thermographic optics (Catherine-FC) are imported from France. 5. The West has had hypersonic missiles for 70+ years... When talking about hypersonic CRUISE missiles like Kinzhal, the benefits were not considered worthwhile by most Western powers - to travel at such high speeds, hypersonic missiles have to travel at higher altitudes making them significantly easier to detect and therefore shoot down. Sea-skimming missiles and other subsonic cruise missiles that fly nap-of-the-earth, despite travelling at much lower velocities, actually give you LESS time to react, because you won't catch them on radar till they're right on top of you. 6. T-90 production numbers are frequently overstated by the Kremlin and UVZ because they count refurbished/repaired tanks and upgrades of older models to T-90M standard as "new tanks". In reality Russia produced just 44 T-90Ms in 2023, and had only produced 11 this year as of March 18th 7. The idea that T-90M, T-80BVM, or worst of all T-72B3M are "superior or on par with Western designs" is just laughable. Western tanks are undeniably superior in most regards, just as you'd expect for their increased costs.
While the OSA(SA-8) may have some issues with complexities, many of those issues are less of a problem than they are stated to be. The OSA(SA-8) would always operate in a battery system of around 4 complexes, so if one goes down for maintenance or enemy fire there are others to back it up, so your air defense picture is not entirely disabled. The Kub(SA-6) with its single dislocated radar is quite vulnerable here since if I take out the one radar vehicle then the entire battery is rendered inoperable. Putting a hole in the IADs. Additionally, the mobility of the SA-8 would make it quite survivable, as shown in Serbia, in contrast to a towed HAWK battery, which, once located, an enemy has more than enough time to direct long-range fires onto the battery location before it can move.
I think what you stated regarding the HAWK batteries is part of the main reason they were replaced. of course in most situations the HAWK would never be close enough to the front lines to be targeted by artillery as it has a range of 45-50 KM meanwhile the max range on most 152mm/155mm howitzers is about 18-24 KM maximum range so even if the hawk was "close" to the front it likely would still be greater than 24KM from any howitzers that would want to shoot it. really it makes little sense to compare the HAWK which is more on par with the old S125 or KUB systems which both had about half the effective range as the HAWK was somewhere between the S125 and S200 systems back at that time. in fact I am pretty sure the SA-8 was comparable to the Chaparral or some Stinger based air defense systems.
@@dominuslogik484 Chapparal and Stinger-based Linebacker or Avenger systems are more comparable to the Strela - true SHORAD systems. In the same boat you've got things like the German Ozelot or British Rapier, and these are all meant to accompany manoeuvre elements, just a couple hundred metres behind the combat zone. Then you've got your longer range strategic air defences like S-200 or Krug, the British Bloodhound, or the American Nike Hercules, and later on the S-300 and Patriot. These are generally operating in their own specialised detatched brigades/regiments, defending things like cities, transport hubs, air bases, divisional headquarters etcetera. Kub and Hawk sit in between - longer range than the SHORAD units of manoeuvre elements, but still serving in regular army divisions and expeditionary forces, defending things like command and control centres at the brigade or regiment level, bridges, etcetera. They're quite comparable to each other overall, and Italy's Aster 15 is also in this category along with China's HQ-6. Osa though... is quite unique. I compared it here to Roland, another TELAR system (Crotale is another option). It's meant for the same role that Hawk and SA-6 were - divisional air defence for the combat forces - it just goes about it a different way; sacrificing a lot of the range you'd expect from those kinds of systems in order to be significantly more mobile, for the sake of keeping pace with motorized divisions.
@@ArmorCast that seems like a fair assessment, I particularly just took issue with the idea that the Osa was a superior system and using an example of utilizing howitzers to fire at a SAM system with double the range of even modern 152mm howitzer ammunition.
As a 19D4H scout trainer in the US Army reserve I have many books from the period that poster was printed. A lot of guess work on the intelligence side as the big Moscow parades would have the same vehicles passing by the review stands several times same with the flyovers. Sometimes different markings on the ground vehicles would be uncovered or covered to try to confuse the intelligence folks.
I think it would also be interesting to see the average Soviet army layout for different eras of the Soviet Union. The 50s for example would have T-54 and T-55s instead of T-72s and would have ZSU-57s instead of ZSU-23s. It could also have ASU-57s and ASU-85s instead of the 2S1. Both of which could also be airdropped from an AN-12. The ASU-85 served in the Soviet army in the Soviet-Afghan war. The closest thing i could see to replacing the Mi-24 would be the IL-10, a propeller driven aircraft instead of a helicopter as helicopters were only in their infancy back then. There also weren’t really any IFVs back then as the BMP was the vehicle that revolutionized APCs and introduced the whole concept of an infantry fighting vehicle to modern warfare.
I did consider doing a bit of a backwards look in this video just as I did going FORWARD at 38:39 Thing is, when looking into more modern configurations, all I had to do was swap out the types present in the Soviet Seven graphic, for updated types (2S3 to 2S19, Shilka to Tunguska, BMP-1 to BMP-2/3 etcetera.) However, you can’t really do that going backwards, since the entire makeup of the army was very different prior to the 1970s, so it’d be a much more complex topic. I might make that it’s own separate video at some point if this topic proves popular. The premise is to talk about the army specifically, so no fixed wing combat aircraft as they were only operated by the Soviet AIR forces. Otherwise I’d have brought up things like the Su-25 in this video
@@kanestalin7246 But that's not true, T62 was huge leap forward! 115mm smoothbore cannon, combined with more modern ammo provided a lot more penetration over rifled 100mm, it also featured stabilizer. Just for comparison, M60 and leopards got their stabilizer a decade later.
@@somedud1140 The T-55 already had a full two axis gyro stabilizer since the 1950s, allowing us to shoot in full speed motion, which was the most practised firing mode (besides firing from fixes position over open sights and by artillery tables indirectly firing mode as support artillery, as well as firing from during a quick stop while on motion). The electronics of the stabilizer system were still vacuum tube based (no transistors involved) but worked very precise and reliable. So in this regard the T-62 was not better than the T-55. I served as a T-55 commander in the East-German army 1983/86. Later I graduated as an electronics engineer from university. So you can trust my information. Peace! from Dresden / Germany
@@somedud1140the 115mm APFSDS rounds were notoriously poor for armor penetration. On paper, they should be a big step up, but in practise they really weren’t, at least not until more modern shells developed much later. Most of the 115mm sabot rounds were steel, rather than tungsten or DU, and the Soviets had a lot of problems with the quality of their steel. There were some other issues with the 115mm rounds, and the gun too, all of which impacted penetration and reliability, and they often couldn’t even penetrate Israeli Centurions in Yom Kippur
9:45 one thing to say about the lack of effective firepower of the BMP is how difficult it is to hit even a stationary target with a low velocity gun. The slower the projectile, the higher the arc that you have to aim it at. The higher the arc, the more precise you have to aim to actually hit anywhere near the target. So plunging fire generally relies on big explosive warheads to achieve an effect on target without needing to hit them bang on. But direct fire weapons with low velocity projectiles, such as the British Challenger tanks with their HESH, rely on a great fire control system to work. That's why this combination of low velocity gun, lacking fire control system, and small-ish warhead is so weak and can easily turn out completely useless in some engagements.
the fact they can carry a primitive TOW missile on them would of been a major threat though, we really feared the BRDM variant with the ATGMs on top theres whole training videos for tank crews here on youtube on dealing with soviet ATGM based vehicles
BMP-1 were armed with a 73 mm cannon only because the anti-tank missile could not be fired closer than 600 metres. That 73 mm cannon was meant exactly to cover the distance the missile was useless at. When BMP-2 came out, the missiles were advanced enough to fire closer than 600 metres, and thus there was no longer any need in 73 mm cannon and it was replaced with 30 mm autocannon
@@drunklorry3406 Not exactly true. 73mm cannon was meant for general vibe checks. You unload the troops, they scout, you pop OG-9 grenade in every place they don't like (That's why you get 10 times as many grenades over ATGM missiles) The vehicle is essentially a squad weapon assortment you don't need to carry, that's why usually defensive armanents can be used on offensive. BMP-1 tactics is greatly covered by "Nachalnaya voennaya podgotovka", Initial Military Training book for late middleschoolers. It's a great book overall and you should definitely pick it up if you expect to "get volunteered" into the fray. Granted, it doesn't cover thermals since it's old and constant Lenin quotes get old really fast, but it's both useful and a good history piece.
21:45 74 Mi-24s were lost during the Afghan war, if they lost several hundred that would have been every Mi-24 they sent to Afghanistan 3x over, the impact of the stinger was more psychological than physical
Any source for that figure? I’ve seen plenty of conflicting ones. Best sources I can find put the numbers between 113, which is what the Soviet 40th army actually reported (though this may be including damaged but repairable hinds) and ~300, with some sources going even higher
@@ArmorCast Everything I can find on the 113 number is specifically referring to fixed wing aircraft, and helicopters losses at the 300 number. Did you get a little mixed up or am I just really lost?
@@stuglife5514I’ve certainly seen the 113 figure states to refer to Mi-24s alone, though it’s possible that source wasn’t credible or was being intentionally disingenuous. The Soviet-Afghan war is definitely not my area of expertise, so I’m not in much of a position to critique. Any good sources of info you’ve got though I’d love to see
Good to see you back in action! Great overview of Soviet vehicles that I've always loved after years of fighting them in video games. Eventually, I'd love to see more overviews for other military forces of the era, like Britain or Japan. JSDF equipment specifically has been fascinating to me ever since I started looking into it, after War Thunder made me more aware of all their badass vehicles and aircraft.
I was part of the OPFOR while stationed at Ft.Irwin,California in the mid 1980's. I totally enjoyed this vid. I even have a copy of that poster. Well done. Tanker Tough.
Ive tried to research the units of the Leningrad MD in the 70s and 80s, particularly the Kola region MRDs. Based on what little I've found so far, they seem to have had T55s as late as the mid-80s, and they used and still use MT-LBs instead of the BMP or BTR series as a more suitable arctic/winter warfare APC due to mobility issues in snow.
It might have been addressed in the video, but I’m guessing part of the reason why a lot of their vehicles like the Osa or the Hind had condensed roles/equipment vs. the West had to do with budget. The Soviets were never going to beat the West economically, but they still had to maintain an enormous military, so they had to find a way to build a bunch of vehicles for the same roles while cutting back on cost.
Bit of an anecdote but I think it applies to the US mindset on soviet vehicles during parts of the cold war. My grandfather was part of 8th infantry stationed in Baumholder Germany from 72'-75'. Mind you, this was the time where the US still only operated M113s and M60s. TOW missiles systems were brand new and the US Airforce, despite being very powerful at the time, still lacked the hyper-precision guided munitions like we would later. So needless to say, if you were a US infantryman in the 1970s, you were a little nervous about the possibility of a Guards Tank/Moto Rifle division bearing down on you at the outbreak of a war. My grandfather said he never personally saw a T-72 while he was in but they were briefed very much so on the new machine they might be facing and they weren't very confident in their ability to face one down with what amounted to outdated LAWs, Recoilless rifles, and the few TOW systems that were still getting rolled out. As for the BMP, my grandfather said that at that time, he wished the US had something like it. He particularly liked the idea of having a troop transport that could both carry troops to the front and have a sustained engagement with enemy light armor and infantry. He also liked the ability for troops in the back to not only see out of the vehicle but also shoot outside of it if needed. (Again the M113 was the only thing in service at the time and stories of guys in Vietnam not seeing where the vehicle was taking fire from, only to open the top or side doors and get shredded by MG fire was something that left it's mark on my granddad) He never saw the other systems and, outside of the howitzers, he didn't really concern himself with their existence or had a fairly neutral opinion of them as a whole. But the one that made it's mark on him the most was the BMP1. To be honest I don't blame him. The Idea of a personnel transport that can fire what amounts to an RPG round at you every 6-10 seconds, can effectively engage pretty much any US armored vehicle out to 600yards with the gun and 1.5 km with the missile, and can have multiple BMP platoons cross rivers on your flanks in a matter hours, all while you have to hope that your position doesn't get attacked at the same time is a genuinely terrifying prospect and I wouldn't envy his position had the war gone hot in those first weeks. Again it is an anecdotal story but I at least found it interesting when I was younger.
I love how the Anglo-American designations for artillery are always some religious reference, the Priest, The Abbot, the Paladin, The Bishop, The Deacon. only the Canadian Sexton really broke from the naming streak which I find disappointing much like most things from Canada are to me.
Your education ought to be a disappointment to you. Sexton: a church officer or employee who takes care of the church property and performs related minor duties.
@@DarmoeD88 Russians have some odd naming conventions for a lot of vehicles, if I recall correctly there is either some ammunition or tank variants going by the names Mango and Banana.
Came looking for 2S1 fans! Being a driver for those things (and MT-LB chassis variants) I must say that they fill a niche that the big 155mm variants can't fill
i think that the "strategic" mobility of much of the Russian assets isn't that big of a deal considering that most of the armed forces are focused on the western front and that most of Russia is flat and has a lot of rail infrastructure and isn't really a expeditionary force i imagine that the Hind is a good special forces helicopter as the need for mass rocket fire is less necessary, i imagine what Hinds would do in a Black Hawk down scenario once saw a video of a mercenary using a Hind like a gun ship firing a MG out the windows while flying over places in Africa
I’m a retired US Army 11H/11B, I started my career in 1983 as an Anti-Armor Weapons Infantryman using the TOW missile system and it was the “Shilka” ZSU-23-4 that raised our pucker factor through the roof, if we saw one we’d kill it first, that thing is a lawnmower in ground mode. The Soviets aren’t that bright when it comes to tactics since they follow their battle doctrine to the letter so modifying their tactics mid engagement was unheard of while we trained to operate as small units if broken up by a flood of tanks. And that method of hordes of tanks is a tactic they rely in since they know we can’t take them all out fast enough and many will get through our lines. BMP’s are easy to kill but don’t waste a TOW missile on it unless necessary. All Soviet made tanks will blow their turrets into the air once hit due to them using a single retention ring system instead of a triple system as ours. If Russia wised up and modified their tactics to match ours, things would be different. They like to use a lot of indirect fire before they advance but if they improve their artillery systems and pinpoint aiming things would impact us badly. They function extremely poorly when operating at night.
I did not know that a design feature for the HIND was dogfight capability. Given on the other side the A-10 only ever has killed 1 Helicopter with its gun so it's even on a BS level
It was actually a significant focus of Soviet helicopter pilots' training as well, clearly they expected it'd become more of a thing, but as far as I'm aware it never happened outside Iran-Iraq, and it's very unlikely to occur again nowadays
Despite your controversy back on the old channel, the research you provide is still informative. Although I don't agree with what you did, as long as you stay out of trouble here, I don't mind giving an occasional watch on things I have minimal knowledge in. Hope you learn and grow
Awesome video, really informative and pleasant to watch ! My old man was an Gazelle pilot for the French ALAT during the 80's, and showed me and my brother the big seven poster while we were kids, telling us how easy it'll be for him to open up the T72 like a metal can with a well placed HOT, yet how terrifying the prospect of meeting a shilka was to any pilot ! I am wondering, was the T72 actually garrisoned for Soviet units in Germany ? Or do they mainly stored T80s there ?
They got priority for them, but they weren’t considered exotic. The T-64 was originally meant to be the standard MBT of the Soviet Army, to slowly replace all other types. The T-72 was developed by a competing design bureau due to rivalry. The Soviets recognized that the T-72 was a solid, simple design, and much cheaper than the T-64, and eventually placed it into production to equip lower-priority units. By the mid-1980s the newer models of the T-72 basically eclipsed the T-64, but lost the simplicity and cost advantage in the process. Regardless, by then the T-80 was the top-tier tank. It wasn’t until after the collapse of the USSR that the Russians tried to standardized on the T-72/T-90 family as it was the only Soviet tank produced fully on Russian territory. Most T-72 in the Soviet era were in motor-rifle divisions, category B (low readiness units) and the far east. There weren’t any T-72s in the Group of Soviet Forces Germany, for example.
after 7 months and completely nuking his war thunder channel the prodigal son has returned. I'd have been here sooner but it's been so long even yt's algorithm forgot koala existed
USSR didn't lose "Hundreds" of Hinds in Afghanistan, they lost dozens, maybe 80 over 10 years. The Stinger's effect is overrated to a near mythical degree, it shot down relatively few aircraft compared to simple small arms fire. Its effect was much more doctrinal - from late '86 onwards pilots were instructed to fly as close to the ground as possible to avoid MANPADS detection, and air support capabilities were similarly affected, but not that many aircraft were shot down, particularly after '87. There's also a silly idea that goes around that the appearance of the Stinger was a factor in the Soviet pullout, but the decision to pull out had been made under Brezhnev and accelerated under Gorbachev before the Stinger had come into use.
Got a source for the number of Hinds lost? Best sources I can find put the number between 113 which is what the Soviet 40th army actually reported (though this may be counting damaged but repairable hinds), and ~300, with some sources going even higher
Didn't know that the Hind was so handicapped. I allways thought the were both fully loaded up on arm and soldiers, not one or the other. I thought it was that good of a helicopter. Now i know better, thanks Armor Cast (Still one of my favorite looking helicpters tough😉 )
A-10 was created mostly to deal with unarmored things like the BMP/BTR, as well as entrenched or fortified infantry positions, and exposed infantry. It's actually never been particularly good at dealing with enemy armor compared to its contemporaries such as the F-16, F-15E, F-111 or Apache
Wheres the source for the 2002 Hull armor upgrade for the abrams, ive found plent of sources that they upgraded its side armor of hull, turret side and front but not the hull ?
Unless I heard him wrong...6:59...the AT-3 Sagger mounted above the gun, IS NOT loaded "from inside the vehicle". Reloading is done manually by the crew through a hatch.
@@ArmorCast I think you are missing my point. At least one of the crew must expose himself to reload it. Therefore, exposed (even if just from the waist up) to enemy fire and artillery shrapnel. In the heat of battle, with small arms fire and explosions, how "motivated" will that person be to do so? It is no different than any of the MG's (even if they are like the CROWs on the M-1) on the roof of many MBTs...they still require some member of the crew to "pop up" to reload. The way you have presented it, it gives the mistaken impression that the "crew member is under armor" while doing so.
@@cbennett88the gunner is not at all exposed out the turret to reload the missile on the BMP-1. He simply feeds it through the hatch above the gun. Check out this link, there’s a clip showing the BMP-1’s missile reloading process. As you can see, fully done while under armor www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/hyj28h/i_wish_bmp_1_had_this_reload_animation_in_game/
Pretty good video with only one mistake i can think of - Strela-1 and 10, while sharing the name with Strela-2 MANPADS, use much heavier and capable missiles.
Soviet seven sounds like a sick AF action movie Like seven Soviet spec ops fighting hundreds of baddies, not getting a scratch and when the movie ends they tell a crap dad joke as the Soviet anthem blares in the background kind of sick
Even if the turret of the T-72 etc. flies around spectacularly, it is a very capable tank, even today. It is often overlooked in western models, but every tank has weak points. It is simply due to the design, because it also has to be fast and the more armour, the more weight. The advantage of the Soviet tanks is their very low height, which partly compensates for the disadvantage of the vulnerable autoloader. The indestructible tank does not even exist in the imagination.
Damn, the dead awake 😂 good to see a new upload, will you be continuing "your favorite tank sucks"? Edit; liking the new longer edit, and the more informative approach. Hopefully keep the banter videos in the "your tank sucks" series and have a seperate series for the rivet counters among us? 😂
Mi-8 is the real workhorse. It’s way more survivable, easier to maintain and the amount of variants ranging from transport, EW, emergency, combat makes it a better heli. Now Russians use them to counter drones (the naval variant)
I had a friend who was in the British Army in the 80s. He loved it and his mortar (until he did a tour in NI). Anyway, he said that there was only one Soviet thing on the battlefield that really scared him - Hinds. Rockets, gun and worse troops. They had all the bases covered. Interesting video on Russian targerts. 👍 🇺🇦🇬🇧
Hind definitely brings that "fear factor", and as far as troops on the field are concerned, that's pretty well founded! I'm critical of the Hind from a design perspective, and comparing it strategically to its counterparts... doesn't make it any less threatening when it crests a hill lobbing 80mm rockets and 30mm cannon rounds at you!! There's even reported instances of Mi-24 pilots in the Soviet-Afghan war still buzzing over enemy forces after they'd run out of ammo, because the sight of a Hind alone was often enough to send them running!
Please correct the headline. The Red Army was renamed in 1946, and became Soviet Army. Since then ia was not the army of workers class, but the army of state - the Soviet Union.
I think that most soviet armoured vehicles get a bad rep to be fair yes the vehicles were never the best (besides the T-72 and BMP-1 for the time) but alot of people look at modern russian combat videos and say "oh soviet tank bad funny lol" but they are fighting in the wrong time period but if Russia's military didnt have so much corruption they might have had a better chance at fighting in other countries like look at the T-14 or T-15 took only one or two decades just to break down in a show of power but like soviet vehicles wasn't that bad for the time sorry for any incorrect information or any spelling mistakes : D Edit Great video i don't even know about this list
You know, I find it funny how everyone says things like this, baselessly I might add, and yet fail to recall that Ukraine had similar tanks at the start of the war, such as their models of T-72s and T-64s. Tanks which you hardly see from them anymore, save a few examples. And no, they weren't replaced by Western tanks. Speaking of which, let's not forget that NATO tanks have also been destroyed about as often as anything else when they engage. Finally, to retort the T-14 story. No, it didn't brake down. If it had, it would have free-rolled when towed, but instead, the green crew activated the emergency brake. If you look, you will find the tank drove away on its own after.
@@kalebthehistorian5928 yeah good point no one has the best vehicles NATO has more modern ones but still loses tanks every day and Ukraine uses old soviet tanks which are okay even now
@@kalebthehistorian5928”NATO tanks have also been destroyed about as often as anything else” No. This is just demonstrably false. Per the combat engagements NATO tanks have been used in, FAR fewer have been destroyed than the Soviet-era designs. Russia has lost approximately 3,500 tanks at this point in the conflict with Ukraine. Ukraine have lost about a thousand. Less than 40 have been Western tanks…
Also what you got wrong is that not many BMP-1Ps were made because they were in production only for 4 years, but a lot of BMP-1s were upgraded to BMP-1P standart. You forgot to mention that when First bradleys came soviets also started producing BMP-2s. Also About the artilery, it is not about the vehicle itself how long it takes to fire but more it has to do with command structure, USSR relied more on preplanned artilery while US did not.
The T72 was a formidable machine when it was introduced, with the best gun. I am not talking about export variants, but the ones used by the russians. Proof of this great quality is the fact it is still produced today, heavily modernized, and is still a deadly machine, capable to take on the best NATO armor, like we saw in Ukr, where, in one of the very rare recorded tank vs tank engagements, a T72M was able to destroy a US made Abrams with first shot... ( the vid is still on Telegram). About BMP 1 - still way better than M113, a lot better.
T-72s are still used because it's the most convenient option while maintaining somewhat acceptable effectiveness, _not_ because it is simply _that_ extraordinary of a tank. There have been multiple attempts to "replace" it, but because its national origin has less manufacturing capacity and suffered a collapse in living memory, none of those attempts have come to full realization. T-64 and T-72 both had the effect of scaring the piss out of the West much like IS-3 did before them, but like with IS-3, the threat is overblown. Also, comparing BMP-1 to M113 is silly, they're two different types of vehicles that happened to exist at the same time. BMP-1 was a massively flawed vehicle in many respects, especially at its introduction - whereas M113 was just a small-arms-proof box on tracks that did exactly what it was supposed to and not one bit more. T-72 was and, to a point, still is a good tank. But it feels like you're gassing it up a bit excessively.
@@bluntcabbage6042 - T72M is an cheap, easy to maintain, easy to produce, effective machine. Reason why "it feels like you're gassing it up a bit excessively." made me smile, when remembering how the Abrams was popped with FIRST shot by a T72... The vid is still available in Telegram. " somewhat acceptable effectiveness" ... 🤣well, it was proven the 125mm gun is still "somewhat" deadly to Abrams.
@@mirandela777 Your bar must be awful low if the crux of your belief is "w-well it killed x tank in ONE SHOT!!". That's... The bare minimum. It's basically standard for that to be the case. A hit from a full-power main gun using anti-tank munitions _should_ at least mission kill most armored targets it hits, T-72 is not special nor exceptional for doing that. One(1) video showing an export tank dying by T-72's hand is not a good case for it being an exceptionally powerful vehicle. And while T-72 may have been cheap to build and maintain, it also has a plethora of downfalls that you are either ignorant to or purposefully ignoring because you're, again, gassing up a tank excessively for little reason. It remains as common as it is out of convenience, not because it's the most optimal tank Russia has access to.
@@bluntcabbage6042 - your pain to understand the BASIC is heartbroken : the fact that a medium, cheap, old tank was able to pop the Abrams with the first shot, despite all you knew about "murica Abrams is The Best". You see, muppets like you, educated at Hollywood Academy by Professor Rambo have a hard time to swallow the reality: Abrams is an expensive , ordinary tank, fundamental inferior to modern russian tanks and even to old soviet tanks, when fighting on terrains like in Ukr, where a 65-70 tons heavy tank is sinking in the mud up to the turret, get destroyed at first shot ( where is my murican "special", "secret" armor ?? ) and even Ukr crews declare, hard and loud, Abrams is INFERIOR to russian tanks...
Aight troops. A quick addendum to a mistake made in this video, specifically on the 9K33 Osa SAM system. The guidance type used for the 9M33 missiles is not semi-active radar homing, but radio command guidance, which is similar but not the same. Unfortunately the main source I was referring back to when writing this video; fm-100-2-3 (linked in the description) goes into very little detail on the Osa's guidance system and it is not a detail I thought to do further research on during research. The statement I made on Osa's missiles being better-equipped to engage manoeuvring fixed-wing aircraft than Roland's SACLOS guidance system still rings true, so I've elected to make this correction rather than reupload the video and bother you all with double-notifications.
Additional info for anyone interested -
"Land Roll" radar of the 9K33 Osa (SA-8 Gecko):
- armyrecognition.com/military-products/army/air-defense-systems/air-defense-vehicles/sa-8-gecko-russia-uk
www.armedforces.co.uk/Europeandefence/edequipment/edmis/edmis5a18.htm
Radio-command guidance system:
- www.britannica.com/technology/rocket-and-missile-system/Tactical-guided-missiles#ref520851
- dbpedia.org/page/Command_guidance
I forgive you.
There's kicking a dead horse and then there is reviving Koala's corpse every 7 months to make a new video
Ouch...
@@ArmorCastNow lets send you back to slumber with a Mission, the Mid-Cold War Monsters, T-55&62, M60, Chieftain & Leo-1
he's so dead this is the first time ive heard of him
Not Even In Death Does Duty End!
Venerable Dreadnought Brother Koala
Fun fact, the Mi-28 still has a passenger compartment in it, though it can only seat maybe 2 or 3 people at best. It is there mainly to allow for the helicopter to be able to pick up downed friendly helicopter pilots.
Also we recently had footage from Russians using a door gunner on an Mi-35 Hind to shoot up a Ukrainian unmanned surface vehicle (kamikaze boat) on the Black Sea.
Mi24 dude😅
Its crazy reading about the Soviet army and seeing not just how big it was but how it was pretty much 100% mechanized and fielded so many vehicles
Well the Soviets were very paranoid of another war after WW2 so they were certainly prepared. However they were not the first to fully mechanized, that title goes to the US in 1945.
It was very big but it all came at a cost, the Soviet bankrupted themselves and the military budget taken up to 50% of the annual budget and 13% of GDP by 1984, for comparison the US only spent half what the Soviet did with their budget. The lesson here is that don't do an arms race with people whose entire motivation can be summed up with money.
@@dannyzero692The Soviets did not go bankrupt: The liberals located in the Russian _Socialist_ Republic succeeded in usurping the power of the social democrats in the _communist party._
The Soviet Union project was a *_political_* failure, affecting it negatively as it deteriorated, culminating in its illegal dissolution and the formations of the liberal republics succeeding the Soviet Union.
@@dannyzero692the us army in 1945 wasn’t fully mechanized. It was fully motorized.
@@goforbroke4428 my fault, I mixed up the terminology.
The Soviets frankly had material, manpower, doctrinal and even the technological supremacy over the west since the Cold war began. The scales only tipped for Nato when the west pulled far ahead of the Soviets in the silicone and then internet revolution, giving them command and control, battlefield surveillance and precision strike capabilities that the Soviets had absolutely no answer to and would of seen all their advantages be nullified. Western supremacy however has ended with cheap drones, widespread adoption of the net and Russian/Chinese GPS alternatives giving even low tech poor armies operational and organisational capabilities that were previously exclusive to only the west. Once again, its is manpower and material supremacy that will win wars and the west has been caught with its pants down lacking in these regards.
I love how you turned a poster meant to be read whilst on the barracks' toilets into a 40 min video
If "yammerin'" was an olympic sport... ... 😂
😂😂 NICE ONE SOVIET WEAPONS WERE ALWAYS GOOD LOOKING
@@GUYISNOTNORMAL
Yes, after their Fiat-based Ladas sold worldwide like crazy into all continents for years on end, the Red Army hired Pininfarina to make these machines look good and sleek. Just the colour still needs a bit to desired. 🙂
Which is why I loved to drive my T-55 from 1983 to 1986 in the East-Germany army.
When we drove these beasts out of the barracks through half of the city of Rostock, the girls loved to watch us. Any other car wasn't having any chances competing, all female eyes were on us oily comrades.
If the girls smiled we lifted the food from the accelerator a bit so not to indulge their sexy summer dresses into a nasty black'n'blue Diesel fume plum.
But if the girls did not wave enthusiastically enough, the right foot pressed down hard and the girl's lovely street café afternoon experience was utterly trashed. Nostrils, taste buds, make-up, perfume, coffee (spilled because of the rambling), cake, table cloth, dresses, haircuts, fancy sunglasses - all ruined.
Until today there is no detergent on this planet to get these nice sparkling summer dresses back to their original colours.
Again 🙂..
Peace! from Dresden / Germany
i can imagine a miley cyrus poster in the next barracks toilet for the next video
@@ArmorCast Yammer & Sickle? 😶🌫
As a Cold War USMC 0311 (infantry, rifleman) vet I will state for the record the imposing Soviet doctrine regarding the BMPs. If TSHTF we didn't plan on seeing one or two BMPs at a time. They weren't going to be scouting vehicles MBT, and they weren't going to be alone. If we hit T-64 or 72 w/anti-tank weaps like the M47 Dragon or TOW we would expect to see a half dozen BMPs roll up quickly puffing smoke screen and rattling away with whatever gun was attached while a small squad of Soviets barreled out the back. They were applied in numbers. NATO doctrine during the 80s against Fulda Gap scenarios will reflect my statements. Oh, and we'd all be in MOPP gear. NBC/CBRN bullshit.
NBC NoBody Cares.
Until we did (Desert Storm)
@@amerigo88lmao
I was a seabee in iraq and we had a marine advisor deployed with us, he was an old marine Dragon crew member. He said you had to get within 500meters or something before firing. A t72 could rotate its turrent 180degrees, and fire on you before the dragon arrived. Granted it may have been a mutual kill, you wanted to live. Lol.
No one talks about the Shilka, 4 23mm autocannons that fire insanely fast, what’s not to love?
The shilkas guns are 14.5mm
@@goforbroke4428bro what
@@Faded._forgot they weren’t 14.5. Give someone who’s on 3 hours of sleep driving busses for college rotc cadets a break.
@goforbroke4428 No, they’re 23mm.
@@taysondynastyemperor5124 give him a break😭
Yay, our favourite Caledonian Marsupial has returned!
Aight troops we fucking back
For what the 5th time
You do this every year please stop can't you see you're hurting us.
Hell yeah
Engagement
Welcome back, Koala
WE FUCKING BACK!!!!!!!!!!
In defense of T-72 ammunition storage in the carousel, it is protected by being located in the part of tank that was least likely to get hit... back when this tank was introduced.
the carousel itself never been the problem but the extra ammo wich was stored left ,right and behind the carousel, but the flieeing turrets are history with t90m
@@QuicksilverVM
I know. There was some logic behind extra ammo everywhere as well; tanks were supposed to be used in large-scale conflicts. This measure relieved overall logistics and ensured tank units' combat readiness at the cost of worsening survivability of individual tanks.
@@QuicksilverVM Any tank with ammo stowage in the hull is prone to turret tossing as well just due the explosive force pushing the turret upward. For example Leo 2s have been seen losing their turrets for this very reason.
this is a lie@@QuicksilverVM
Still better than challenger 2 ammo storage
I had the "Big Seven" poster on my wall growing up. Loved it. Wish i still had it
Holy crap I looked it up and I can buy a new one! Oh hell yes this is going on my wall.
i have those russian AK/SVD nomenclature posters in my gun room now i want that too
*Koala, slowly wakes up to the sound of The Man who sold the world, hears the doctor say:* "Don't panic, you've been in a coma for nine years, it's time to get back and make another video"
_Oh no, not me. It was The Man Who Sold The World_
It is so sick and tiring to read from a certain bunch of commentors that Soviet armament designs were not made for quality and only for quantity.
Certainly not every Soviet fighting vehicle was a masterpiece of engineering but a lot indeed were. I.e. when the T54/55 was introduced in the 1950s, he was superior to almost anything tank in the West.
His excellent 100mm main gun, his new inventive perfectly working two axis gyro stabilisation allowing to shoot in full motion and hitting with the first round, the capability to drive through deep rivers within one or two hours preparation, his powerful endless torque providing Diesel engine and his new ABC (NBC) protection system forced many Western armies to have their existing fighting vehicles redesigned, upgraded or replaced. The tank with a minimum of maintenance was very reliable and fuel efficient and was operating under any climate conditions.
Same can be said for the Kalashnikov submachine gun and the BTR-series, the later Diesel-powered URAL trucks who managed to get through virtually any terrain, the prize-winning UAZ van and minibus series, as well as the GAZ/UAZ jeeps.
Most of the Soviet designed military equipment designs were truly thought through, the average conscript must be able to operate, maintain and even field-repair his equipment.
Stunning was also the level of standardisation and simplification among all of these vehicles, machinery and armament.
I cannot judge about the latest Russian military designs lately but it is dangerous to believe that Russia only has half-drunk and non-inventive engineers to offer. They know about mechanical and electronic designs much as their Western counterparts, especially in military and space industries.
I know it better; I served from 1983 to 1986 as a T-55 commander and I am a German engineer. I also travelled the USSR and (later) Russia quite a bit, as I travelled in my jobs as an engineer extensively all continents for 30 years, including the US.
The idea that only the West knows how to make high-quality products is not only arrogant, but plain wrong.
Peace! from Dresden / Germany
You were a tank commander of the NVA? My father was a Vietnamese military attaché who worked with the NVA combat engineers to learn about their combat doctrines and he always had a lot to talk about how professional and elite the NVA forces were, along with the Red Army of course.
@@viethoangtruong54
Yes, I was. The tank was aT-55A. I served in Rostock at the Baltic sea line from 1983-1986.
Interestingly. And your Dad's efforts obviously paid off. The end of the Vietnam war was one of the very last pure military victories after 1945.
I remember as a child collecting valuable trash like newspaper, empty bottles and veggie glasses etc. from the old folks and reselling it at the collection points. Instead of keeping it as pocket money we donated it so bicycles, school materials, medical supplies etc. could be bought and shipped to (then still North) Vietnam. My parents donated frequently blood. Solidarity with the socialist Vietnam was a very big thing not only for our socialist party leaders, indeed it was shared by almost anyone by heart across the population.
But let's be happy this senseless war is over. In the meantime I have friends even in the US (Vietnam veterans) and no one of them looks back at it without at least very ambivalent feelings (they keep questioning themselves about any justification to be sent over there). Some served as B-52 pilots or river boat commanders. Some even regret to be there, of course because they also lost some army comrades. To young to fight and too young to die (this way).
Anyhow, peace to Vietnam, might these tragic and decade long liberation wars of your country be the ever last one it had to endure. The prize was justified but the damage and losses horribly (high).
I lived in Asia (1993-2003) for a long time and travelled the whole continent extensively, but unfortunately at the time had no reason to visit your country. Unfortunately I am mow too sick and old to travel, Vietnam was on my long list to visit.....
Peace! from Dresden / Germany
This is all true. People are convinced that Russia magically lost their army and production capabilities after the dissolution of the USSR. Russia literally kept the USSR's ability to produce things.
Not to mention, Russian Thermals in their tanks are a generation ahead of what the West offers. They also have hypersonic missiles, which the west cant produce due to failed testing, again and again. Their newest T90, T72B3M and T80BVM tanks are superior or on par with western designs. Russias war economy isnt for profit like in the US.
100K for a bag of bolts? Ok, nice job USA...
Russia can produce 4 T90 for the price of an Abrams. Just an M1A2. Not even the SepV3 models. In which the US doesn't produce any tanks and just upgrades them.
Russia is building 12 T90M (2024 model) a WEEK. Same with the T80BVM and T72B3M, its around 20 A WEEK.
Your story is very interesting and I appreciate the fact that you shared it.
@@m16-a2 Most of this is rubbish.
1. A huge amount of the USSR's military tech was produced in Ukraine (Kharkiv) or Georgia (Tbilisi).
2. America has produced more M1 Abrams than Russia has T-80s and T-90s COMBINED.
3. The cost per T-90M is a little under half the M1A2 Abrams, not a quarter
4. Russian thermals are not a generation ahead of what the West offers... they are literally imported secondhand FROM the West. Russia's best thermographic optics (Catherine-FC) are imported from France.
5. The West has had hypersonic missiles for 70+ years... When talking about hypersonic CRUISE missiles like Kinzhal, the benefits were not considered worthwhile by most Western powers - to travel at such high speeds, hypersonic missiles have to travel at higher altitudes making them significantly easier to detect and therefore shoot down. Sea-skimming missiles and other subsonic cruise missiles that fly nap-of-the-earth, despite travelling at much lower velocities, actually give you LESS time to react, because you won't catch them on radar till they're right on top of you.
6. T-90 production numbers are frequently overstated by the Kremlin and UVZ because they count refurbished/repaired tanks and upgrades of older models to T-90M standard as "new tanks". In reality Russia produced just 44 T-90Ms in 2023, and had only produced 11 this year as of March 18th
7. The idea that T-90M, T-80BVM, or worst of all T-72B3M are "superior or on par with Western designs" is just laughable. Western tanks are undeniably superior in most regards, just as you'd expect for their increased costs.
@@ArmorCast I wrote a whole reply but pressed cancel :c
T-80UD my beloved
Finaly Koala remembered the password to his account.
It was "Password" all along...
While the OSA(SA-8) may have some issues with complexities, many of those issues are less of a problem than they are stated to be. The OSA(SA-8) would always operate in a battery system of around 4 complexes, so if one goes down for maintenance or enemy fire there are others to back it up, so your air defense picture is not entirely disabled. The Kub(SA-6) with its single dislocated radar is quite vulnerable here since if I take out the one radar vehicle then the entire battery is rendered inoperable. Putting a hole in the IADs. Additionally, the mobility of the SA-8 would make it quite survivable, as shown in Serbia, in contrast to a towed HAWK battery, which, once located, an enemy has more than enough time to direct long-range fires onto the battery location before it can move.
I think what you stated regarding the HAWK batteries is part of the main reason they were replaced. of course in most situations the HAWK would never be close enough to the front lines to be targeted by artillery as it has a range of 45-50 KM meanwhile the max range on most 152mm/155mm howitzers is about 18-24 KM maximum range so even if the hawk was "close" to the front it likely would still be greater than 24KM from any howitzers that would want to shoot it.
really it makes little sense to compare the HAWK which is more on par with the old S125 or KUB systems which both had about half the effective range as the HAWK was somewhere between the S125 and S200 systems back at that time. in fact I am pretty sure the SA-8 was comparable to the Chaparral or some Stinger based air defense systems.
@@dominuslogik484 Chapparal and Stinger-based Linebacker or Avenger systems are more comparable to the Strela - true SHORAD systems. In the same boat you've got things like the German Ozelot or British Rapier, and these are all meant to accompany manoeuvre elements, just a couple hundred metres behind the combat zone. Then you've got your longer range strategic air defences like S-200 or Krug, the British Bloodhound, or the American Nike Hercules, and later on the S-300 and Patriot. These are generally operating in their own specialised detatched brigades/regiments, defending things like cities, transport hubs, air bases, divisional headquarters etcetera.
Kub and Hawk sit in between - longer range than the SHORAD units of manoeuvre elements, but still serving in regular army divisions and expeditionary forces, defending things like command and control centres at the brigade or regiment level, bridges, etcetera. They're quite comparable to each other overall, and Italy's Aster 15 is also in this category along with China's HQ-6.
Osa though... is quite unique. I compared it here to Roland, another TELAR system (Crotale is another option). It's meant for the same role that Hawk and SA-6 were - divisional air defence for the combat forces - it just goes about it a different way; sacrificing a lot of the range you'd expect from those kinds of systems in order to be significantly more mobile, for the sake of keeping pace with motorized divisions.
@@ArmorCast that seems like a fair assessment, I particularly just took issue with the idea that the Osa was a superior system and using an example of utilizing howitzers to fire at a SAM system with double the range of even modern 152mm howitzer ammunition.
As a 19D4H scout trainer in the US Army reserve I have many books from the period that poster was printed. A lot of guess work on the intelligence side as the big Moscow parades would have the same vehicles passing by the review stands several times same with the flyovers. Sometimes different markings on the ground vehicles would be uncovered or covered to try to confuse the intelligence folks.
I think it would also be interesting to see the average Soviet army layout for different eras of the Soviet Union. The 50s for example would have T-54 and T-55s instead of T-72s and would have ZSU-57s instead of ZSU-23s. It could also have ASU-57s and ASU-85s instead of the 2S1. Both of which could also be airdropped from an AN-12. The ASU-85 served in the Soviet army in the Soviet-Afghan war. The closest thing i could see to replacing the Mi-24 would be the IL-10, a propeller driven aircraft instead of a helicopter as helicopters were only in their infancy back then. There also weren’t really any IFVs back then as the BMP was the vehicle that revolutionized APCs and introduced the whole concept of an infantry fighting vehicle to modern warfare.
I did consider doing a bit of a backwards look in this video just as I did going FORWARD at 38:39
Thing is, when looking into more modern configurations, all I had to do was swap out the types present in the Soviet Seven graphic, for updated types (2S3 to 2S19, Shilka to Tunguska, BMP-1 to BMP-2/3 etcetera.) However, you can’t really do that going backwards, since the entire makeup of the army was very different prior to the 1970s, so it’d be a much more complex topic. I might make that it’s own separate video at some point if this topic proves popular.
The premise is to talk about the army specifically, so no fixed wing combat aircraft as they were only operated by the Soviet AIR forces. Otherwise I’d have brought up things like the Su-25 in this video
most warsaw pact nations didn’t buy t62 because it was slower than bmp for inf unit. they kept old t55 and skipped to t72 for tank unit
They didn't buy it because it wasn't significantly superior to the T55 while being more expensive
@@kanestalin7246 But that's not true, T62 was huge leap forward! 115mm smoothbore cannon, combined with more modern ammo provided a lot more penetration over rifled 100mm, it also featured stabilizer. Just for comparison, M60 and leopards got their stabilizer a decade later.
@@somedud1140 i have heard that some nations just didn't feel it was worth it
@@somedud1140
The T-55 already had a full two axis gyro stabilizer since the 1950s, allowing us to shoot in full speed motion, which was the most practised firing mode (besides firing from fixes position over open sights and by artillery tables indirectly firing mode as support artillery, as well as firing from during a quick stop while on motion). The electronics of the stabilizer system were still vacuum tube based (no transistors involved) but worked very precise and reliable.
So in this regard the T-62 was not better than the T-55. I served as a T-55 commander in the East-German army 1983/86. Later I graduated as an electronics engineer from university. So you can trust my information.
Peace! from Dresden / Germany
@@somedud1140the 115mm APFSDS rounds were notoriously poor for armor penetration. On paper, they should be a big step up, but in practise they really weren’t, at least not until more modern shells developed much later.
Most of the 115mm sabot rounds were steel, rather than tungsten or DU, and the Soviets had a lot of problems with the quality of their steel. There were some other issues with the 115mm rounds, and the gun too, all of which impacted penetration and reliability, and they often couldn’t even penetrate Israeli Centurions in Yom Kippur
9:45 one thing to say about the lack of effective firepower of the BMP is how difficult it is to hit even a stationary target with a low velocity gun.
The slower the projectile, the higher the arc that you have to aim it at. The higher the arc, the more precise you have to aim to actually hit anywhere near the target.
So plunging fire generally relies on big explosive warheads to achieve an effect on target without needing to hit them bang on. But direct fire weapons with low velocity projectiles, such as the British Challenger tanks with their HESH, rely on a great fire control system to work.
That's why this combination of low velocity gun, lacking fire control system, and small-ish warhead is so weak and can easily turn out completely useless in some engagements.
the fact they can carry a primitive TOW missile on them would of been a major threat though, we really feared the BRDM variant with the ATGMs on top theres whole training videos for tank crews here on youtube on dealing with soviet ATGM based vehicles
BMP-1 were armed with a 73 mm cannon only because the anti-tank missile could not be fired closer than 600 metres. That 73 mm cannon was meant exactly to cover the distance the missile was useless at.
When BMP-2 came out, the missiles were advanced enough to fire closer than 600 metres, and thus there was no longer any need in 73 mm cannon and it was replaced with 30 mm autocannon
@@drunklorry3406 Not exactly true.
73mm cannon was meant for general vibe checks. You unload the troops, they scout, you pop OG-9 grenade in every place they don't like (That's why you get 10 times as many grenades over ATGM missiles) The vehicle is essentially a squad weapon assortment you don't need to carry, that's why usually defensive armanents can be used on offensive. BMP-1 tactics is greatly covered by "Nachalnaya voennaya podgotovka", Initial Military Training book for late middleschoolers. It's a great book overall and you should definitely pick it up if you expect to "get volunteered" into the fray. Granted, it doesn't cover thermals since it's old and constant Lenin quotes get old really fast, but it's both useful and a good history piece.
This video was fantastically put together man. Thanks for the content brotha.
21:45 74 Mi-24s were lost during the Afghan war, if they lost several hundred that would have been every Mi-24 they sent to Afghanistan 3x over, the impact of the stinger was more psychological than physical
Any source for that figure? I’ve seen plenty of conflicting ones. Best sources I can find put the numbers between 113, which is what the Soviet 40th army actually reported (though this may be including damaged but repairable hinds) and ~300, with some sources going even higher
@@ArmorCast Everything I can find on the 113 number is specifically referring to fixed wing aircraft, and helicopters losses at the 300 number. Did you get a little mixed up or am I just really lost?
@@stuglife5514I’ve certainly seen the 113 figure states to refer to Mi-24s alone, though it’s possible that source wasn’t credible or was being intentionally disingenuous. The Soviet-Afghan war is definitely not my area of expertise, so I’m not in much of a position to critique. Any good sources of info you’ve got though I’d love to see
Good to see you back in action! Great overview of Soviet vehicles that I've always loved after years of fighting them in video games.
Eventually, I'd love to see more overviews for other military forces of the era, like Britain or Japan. JSDF equipment specifically has been fascinating to me ever since I started looking into it, after War Thunder made me more aware of all their badass vehicles and aircraft.
Great to see you back! So looking forward to this topic!
Super interesting content. Glad to have you back mate
I was just rewatching your videos when I saw this in my recommendations, lol.
I was part of the OPFOR while stationed at Ft.Irwin,California in the mid 1980's. I totally enjoyed this vid. I even have a copy of that poster.
Well done. Tanker Tough.
Always a pleasure to have veterans watching our videos mate 👍
What’s your MOS?
Ive tried to research the units of the Leningrad MD in the 70s and 80s, particularly the Kola region MRDs.
Based on what little I've found so far, they seem to have had T55s as late as the mid-80s, and they used and still use MT-LBs instead of the BMP or BTR series as a more suitable arctic/winter warfare APC due to mobility issues in snow.
It might have been addressed in the video, but I’m guessing part of the reason why a lot of their vehicles like the Osa or the Hind had condensed roles/equipment vs. the West had to do with budget. The Soviets were never going to beat the West economically, but they still had to maintain an enormous military, so they had to find a way to build a bunch of vehicles for the same roles while cutting back on cost.
Bit of an anecdote but I think it applies to the US mindset on soviet vehicles during parts of the cold war.
My grandfather was part of 8th infantry stationed in Baumholder Germany from 72'-75'. Mind you, this was the time where the US still only operated M113s and M60s. TOW missiles systems were brand new and the US Airforce, despite being very powerful at the time, still lacked the hyper-precision guided munitions like we would later. So needless to say, if you were a US infantryman in the 1970s, you were a little nervous about the possibility of a Guards Tank/Moto Rifle division bearing down on you at the outbreak of a war.
My grandfather said he never personally saw a T-72 while he was in but they were briefed very much so on the new machine they might be facing and they weren't very confident in their ability to face one down with what amounted to outdated LAWs, Recoilless rifles, and the few TOW systems that were still getting rolled out. As for the BMP, my grandfather said that at that time, he wished the US had something like it. He particularly liked the idea of having a troop transport that could both carry troops to the front and have a sustained engagement with enemy light armor and infantry. He also liked the ability for troops in the back to not only see out of the vehicle but also shoot outside of it if needed.
(Again the M113 was the only thing in service at the time and stories of guys in Vietnam not seeing where the vehicle was taking fire from, only to open the top or side doors and get shredded by MG fire was something that left it's mark on my granddad)
He never saw the other systems and, outside of the howitzers, he didn't really concern himself with their existence or had a fairly neutral opinion of them as a whole. But the one that made it's mark on him the most was the BMP1. To be honest I don't blame him. The Idea of a personnel transport that can fire what amounts to an RPG round at you every 6-10 seconds, can effectively engage pretty much any US armored vehicle out to 600yards with the gun and 1.5 km with the missile, and can have multiple BMP platoons cross rivers on your flanks in a matter hours, all while you have to hope that your position doesn't get attacked at the same time is a genuinely terrifying prospect and I wouldn't envy his position had the war gone hot in those first weeks.
Again it is an anecdotal story but I at least found it interesting when I was younger.
Thanks ❤
OH MY GOD! SOUND THE ALARM, KOALA IS ALIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I love how the Anglo-American designations for artillery are always some religious reference, the Priest, The Abbot, the Paladin, The Bishop, The Deacon. only the Canadian Sexton really broke from the naming streak which I find disappointing much like most things from Canada are to me.
They called artillery the God of War, so the naming has to match up with traditions
@@dannyzero692nope. King of battle.
Your education ought to be a disappointment to you. Sexton: a church officer or employee who takes care of the church property and performs related minor duties.
А у нас артиллерия имеет название цветов🤭
@@DarmoeD88 Russians have some odd naming conventions for a lot of vehicles, if I recall correctly there is either some ammunition or tank variants going by the names Mango and Banana.
Absolutely booty spanking amount of tanks, artillery and mechanized vehicles.
Tank you for this video it felt like a History Channel Doc from the good ol days
This shit might be the purest example in the modern age of something truly only being treasured once it's gone.
I have a fond spot for the 2S1.
A bit of a sweet spot for infantry support.
Came looking for 2S1 fans! Being a driver for those things (and MT-LB chassis variants) I must say that they fill a niche that the big 155mm variants can't fill
Love this video concept!
this was a refreshingly impartial look at soviet equipment
I studied that manual in the early 90’s army. It was something an armor officer needed to understand.
i think that the "strategic" mobility of much of the Russian assets isn't that big of a deal considering that most of the armed forces are focused on the western front and that most of Russia is flat and has a lot of rail infrastructure and isn't really a expeditionary force
i imagine that the Hind is a good special forces helicopter as the need for mass rocket fire is less necessary, i imagine what Hinds would do in a Black Hawk down scenario
once saw a video of a mercenary using a Hind like a gun ship firing a MG out the windows while flying over places in Africa
Neal Ellis, noted South African mercenary, did some really wild shit in a Hind in Sierra Leone.
Thank you for your good research job, i have seen the whole video ^^
I’m a retired US Army 11H/11B, I started my career in 1983 as an Anti-Armor Weapons Infantryman using the TOW missile system and it was the “Shilka” ZSU-23-4 that raised our pucker factor through the roof, if we saw one we’d kill it first, that thing is a lawnmower in ground mode. The Soviets aren’t that bright when it comes to tactics since they follow their battle doctrine to the letter so modifying their tactics mid engagement was unheard of while we trained to operate as small units if broken up by a flood of tanks. And that method of hordes of tanks is a tactic they rely in since they know we can’t take them all out fast enough and many will get through our lines.
BMP’s are easy to kill but don’t waste a TOW missile on it unless necessary. All Soviet made tanks will blow their turrets into the air once hit due to them using a single retention ring system instead of a triple system as ours. If Russia wised up and modified their tactics to match ours, things would be different. They like to use a lot of indirect fire before they advance but if they improve their artillery systems and pinpoint aiming things would impact us badly. They function extremely poorly when operating at night.
I did not know that a design feature for the HIND was dogfight capability. Given on the other side the A-10 only ever has killed 1 Helicopter with its gun so it's even on a BS level
It was actually a significant focus of Soviet helicopter pilots' training as well, clearly they expected it'd become more of a thing, but as far as I'm aware it never happened outside Iran-Iraq, and it's very unlikely to occur again nowadays
Man this is an incredible video, you gained a subscriber
Despite your controversy back on the old channel, the research you provide is still informative. Although I don't agree with what you did, as long as you stay out of trouble here, I don't mind giving an occasional watch on things I have minimal knowledge in. Hope you learn and grow
Awesome video, really informative and pleasant to watch ! My old man was an Gazelle pilot for the French ALAT during the 80's, and showed me and my brother the big seven poster while we were kids, telling us how easy it'll be for him to open up the T72 like a metal can with a well placed HOT, yet how terrifying the prospect of meeting a shilka was to any pilot !
I am wondering, was the T72 actually garrisoned for Soviet units in Germany ? Or do they mainly stored T80s there ?
Weren't the T64B and the T80B considered a bit of an exotic, earmarked for the best troops of the USSR?
They got priority for them, but they weren’t considered exotic. The T-64 was originally meant to be the standard MBT of the Soviet Army, to slowly replace all other types. The T-72 was developed by a competing design bureau due to rivalry. The Soviets recognized that the T-72 was a solid, simple design, and much cheaper than the T-64, and eventually placed it into production to equip lower-priority units. By the mid-1980s the newer models of the T-72 basically eclipsed the T-64, but lost the simplicity and cost advantage in the process. Regardless, by then the T-80 was the top-tier tank. It wasn’t until after the collapse of the USSR that the Russians tried to standardized on the T-72/T-90 family as it was the only Soviet tank produced fully on Russian territory.
Most T-72 in the Soviet era were in motor-rifle divisions, category B (low readiness units) and the far east. There weren’t any T-72s in the Group of Soviet Forces Germany, for example.
after 7 months and completely nuking his war thunder channel the prodigal son has returned. I'd have been here sooner but it's been so long even yt's algorithm forgot koala existed
Good to see you lad! Gonna be back to some War Thunder soon too I reckon, try and bring that channel back too
@@ArmorCast yes, please return to the WT channel.
30,000 views in 17 hrs. Proof you need to make more videos. Stop slacking!! ❤
USSR didn't lose "Hundreds" of Hinds in Afghanistan, they lost dozens, maybe 80 over 10 years. The Stinger's effect is overrated to a near mythical degree, it shot down relatively few aircraft compared to simple small arms fire. Its effect was much more doctrinal - from late '86 onwards pilots were instructed to fly as close to the ground as possible to avoid MANPADS detection, and air support capabilities were similarly affected, but not that many aircraft were shot down, particularly after '87. There's also a silly idea that goes around that the appearance of the Stinger was a factor in the Soviet pullout, but the decision to pull out had been made under Brezhnev and accelerated under Gorbachev before the Stinger had come into use.
Got a source for the number of Hinds lost? Best sources I can find put the number between 113 which is what the Soviet 40th army actually reported (though this may be counting damaged but repairable hinds), and ~300, with some sources going even higher
My favourite yearly youtuber!
I remember that poster still kicking around past 2000 😂 also 19:22 “The mi-24 was the SU’s first *porpoise* built attack helicopter.” 🐬😅
The mi-24 was made by mil... :/
@@hilarybrown2271I assume he means SU as in Soviet Union, not Sukhoi
@@ArmorCast yeah the makes sense
Lol yea I was born in 99 and I remember seeing some of these posters growing up
🤗⭐🙏🏆
Thank you for sharing this
Didn't know that the Hind was so handicapped.
I allways thought the were both fully loaded up on arm and soldiers, not one or the other.
I thought it was that good of a helicopter.
Now i know better, thanks Armor Cast
(Still one of my favorite looking helicpters tough😉 )
WOAH. An upload. I thought this channel was gone
Good video, no propaganda not hate just facts!
Thank you!
Soviet Seven sound like villains from G.I. Joe or a Japanese Tokusatsu series.
Very nice thanks for the video Scotish tank man
I agree with you. Ex East-German tank man (T-55)
Peace! from Dresden / Germany
Great video, an I've seen many.
A 10 was created to deal with this specifically. A flying can opener for all that armor.
A-10 was created mostly to deal with unarmored things like the BMP/BTR, as well as entrenched or fortified infantry positions, and exposed infantry. It's actually never been particularly good at dealing with enemy armor compared to its contemporaries such as the F-16, F-15E, F-111 or Apache
missed these. thanks
Wheres the source for the 2002 Hull armor upgrade for the abrams, ive found plent of sources that they upgraded its side armor of hull, turret side and front but not the hull ?
Unless I heard him wrong...6:59...the AT-3 Sagger mounted above the gun, IS NOT loaded "from inside the vehicle". Reloading is done manually by the crew through a hatch.
Yes... the gunner loads the missile while remaining inside the turret. Hence, the missile is reloaded... from inside the vehicle.
@@ArmorCast I think you are missing my point. At least one of the crew must expose himself to reload it. Therefore, exposed (even if just from the waist up) to enemy fire and artillery shrapnel. In the heat of battle, with small arms fire and explosions, how "motivated" will that person be to do so? It is no different than any of the MG's (even if they are like the CROWs on the M-1) on the roof of many MBTs...they still require some member of the crew to "pop up" to reload. The way you have presented it, it gives the mistaken impression that the "crew member is under armor" while doing so.
@@cbennett88the gunner is not at all exposed out the turret to reload the missile on the BMP-1. He simply feeds it through the hatch above the gun.
Check out this link, there’s a clip showing the BMP-1’s missile reloading process. As you can see, fully done while under armor
www.reddit.com/r/Warthunder/comments/hyj28h/i_wish_bmp_1_had_this_reload_animation_in_game/
The Soviet Seven sounds like a USSR knock-off of The Boys series
The Soviet seven came before
do some videos on singaporean made IFV's and APC's i think they'd be cool for you to breakdown
Pretty good video with only one mistake i can think of - Strela-1 and 10, while sharing the name with Strela-2 MANPADS, use much heavier and capable missiles.
could you do an in dept overview of the EBRC Jaguar?
Soviet seven sounds like a sick AF action movie
Like seven Soviet spec ops fighting hundreds of baddies, not getting a scratch and when the movie ends they tell a crap dad joke as the Soviet anthem blares in the background kind of sick
Keeping up with the tri-annual schedule of finally remembering the login i see
Ah yes one of my favorite yearly youtubers is back
How many of those abbots did you have? 200? WOW, i'm already impressed 😂
At long last he returns!
Woke up to a Tsunami alert just to see Koala finally remembered his login lets gooo
Even if the turret of the T-72 etc. flies around spectacularly, it is a very capable tank, even today. It is often overlooked in western models, but every tank has weak points. It is simply due to the design, because it also has to be fast and the more armour, the more weight. The advantage of the Soviet tanks is their very low height, which partly compensates for the disadvantage of the vulnerable autoloader. The indestructible tank does not even exist in the imagination.
Damn, the dead awake 😂 good to see a new upload, will you be continuing "your favorite tank sucks"?
Edit; liking the new longer edit, and the more informative approach. Hopefully keep the banter videos in the "your tank sucks" series and have a seperate series for the rivet counters among us? 😂
OSA, my beloved.
kola when are to coming back to the wt channel i miss your videos so much
Mi-8 is the real workhorse. It’s way more survivable, easier to maintain and the amount of variants ranging from transport, EW, emergency, combat makes it a better heli. Now Russians use them to counter drones (the naval variant)
The soviets had a very wide range of very capable machines and tools. Luckily they have never met in near peer action. Hopefully, they never will.
When I was in baor used to do recognition remember btr big trick rumble cos had wheels😮
Please do a video on french vehicles
At least he didn't glaze the soviet army's vehicles, he gave credit where credit is due
Yoooooo hes not dead lets go
I had a friend who was in the British Army in the 80s. He loved it and his mortar (until he did a tour in NI). Anyway, he said that there was only one Soviet thing on the battlefield that really scared him - Hinds. Rockets, gun and worse troops. They had all the bases covered.
Interesting video on Russian targerts. 👍 🇺🇦🇬🇧
Hind definitely brings that "fear factor", and as far as troops on the field are concerned, that's pretty well founded! I'm critical of the Hind from a design perspective, and comparing it strategically to its counterparts... doesn't make it any less threatening when it crests a hill lobbing 80mm rockets and 30mm cannon rounds at you!!
There's even reported instances of Mi-24 pilots in the Soviet-Afghan war still buzzing over enemy forces after they'd run out of ammo, because the sight of a Hind alone was often enough to send them running!
Please correct the headline. The Red Army was renamed in 1946, and became Soviet Army. Since then ia was not the army of workers class, but the army of state - the Soviet Union.
Great work, thanks!
OSAs are having a comeback, against drones this time.😮
A video has released after way too long
About time big dog!
thanks very clearly explained
I think that most soviet armoured vehicles get a bad rep to be fair yes the vehicles were never the best (besides the T-72 and BMP-1 for the time) but alot of people look at modern russian combat videos and say "oh soviet tank bad funny lol" but they are fighting in the wrong time period but if Russia's military didnt have so much corruption they might have had a better chance at fighting in other countries like look at the T-14 or T-15 took only one or two decades just to break down in a show of power but like soviet vehicles wasn't that bad for the time sorry for any incorrect information or any spelling mistakes : D
Edit
Great video i don't even know about this list
You know, I find it funny how everyone says things like this, baselessly I might add, and yet fail to recall that Ukraine had similar tanks at the start of the war, such as their models of T-72s and T-64s. Tanks which you hardly see from them anymore, save a few examples. And no, they weren't replaced by Western tanks. Speaking of which, let's not forget that NATO tanks have also been destroyed about as often as anything else when they engage.
Finally, to retort the T-14 story. No, it didn't brake down. If it had, it would have free-rolled when towed, but instead, the green crew activated the emergency brake. If you look, you will find the tank drove away on its own after.
@@kalebthehistorian5928 yeah good point no one has the best vehicles NATO has more modern ones but still loses tanks every day and Ukraine uses old soviet tanks which are okay even now
@@kalebthehistorian5928”NATO tanks have also been destroyed about as often as anything else”
No. This is just demonstrably false. Per the combat engagements NATO tanks have been used in, FAR fewer have been destroyed than the Soviet-era designs.
Russia has lost approximately 3,500 tanks at this point in the conflict with Ukraine. Ukraine have lost about a thousand. Less than 40 have been Western tanks…
The only reason Soviet vehicles get a bad rep is because they have seen far more combat than any other nations vehicles
@@kanestalin7246 yeah
Hello there. Could I know please where do you find the old footage? I am looking everywhere and I cant find anything
LET'S GOOO FINALLY
The return of the king
Thank you
1:37 - T-72
6:21 - BMP
10:55 - ZSU 23-4
13:58 - SA-8/9k33
19:07 - Mi 24
25:02 - 2S1
29:15 - 2S3
MGS:Peacewalker Real-Life showcase 🤘🍻
Also what you got wrong is that not many BMP-1Ps were made because they were in production only for 4 years, but a lot of BMP-1s were upgraded to BMP-1P standart. You forgot to mention that when First bradleys came soviets also started producing BMP-2s. Also About the artilery, it is not about the vehicle itself how long it takes to fire but more it has to do with command structure, USSR relied more on preplanned artilery while US did not.
The T72 was a formidable machine when it was introduced, with the best gun. I am not talking about export variants, but the ones used by the russians. Proof of this great quality is the fact it is still produced today, heavily modernized, and is still a deadly machine, capable to take on the best NATO armor, like we saw in Ukr, where, in one of the very rare recorded tank vs tank engagements, a T72M was able to destroy a US made Abrams with first shot... ( the vid is still on Telegram).
About BMP 1 - still way better than M113, a lot better.
T-72s are still used because it's the most convenient option while maintaining somewhat acceptable effectiveness, _not_ because it is simply _that_ extraordinary of a tank. There have been multiple attempts to "replace" it, but because its national origin has less manufacturing capacity and suffered a collapse in living memory, none of those attempts have come to full realization. T-64 and T-72 both had the effect of scaring the piss out of the West much like IS-3 did before them, but like with IS-3, the threat is overblown.
Also, comparing BMP-1 to M113 is silly, they're two different types of vehicles that happened to exist at the same time. BMP-1 was a massively flawed vehicle in many respects, especially at its introduction - whereas M113 was just a small-arms-proof box on tracks that did exactly what it was supposed to and not one bit more.
T-72 was and, to a point, still is a good tank. But it feels like you're gassing it up a bit excessively.
@@bluntcabbage6042 - T72M is an cheap, easy to maintain, easy to produce, effective machine. Reason why "it feels like you're gassing it up a bit excessively." made me smile, when remembering how the Abrams was popped with FIRST shot by a T72... The vid is still available in Telegram.
" somewhat acceptable effectiveness" ... 🤣well, it was proven the 125mm gun is still "somewhat" deadly to Abrams.
@@mirandela777 Your bar must be awful low if the crux of your belief is "w-well it killed x tank in ONE SHOT!!". That's... The bare minimum. It's basically standard for that to be the case. A hit from a full-power main gun using anti-tank munitions _should_ at least mission kill most armored targets it hits, T-72 is not special nor exceptional for doing that. One(1) video showing an export tank dying by T-72's hand is not a good case for it being an exceptionally powerful vehicle.
And while T-72 may have been cheap to build and maintain, it also has a plethora of downfalls that you are either ignorant to or purposefully ignoring because you're, again, gassing up a tank excessively for little reason. It remains as common as it is out of convenience, not because it's the most optimal tank Russia has access to.
@@bluntcabbage6042 - your pain to understand the BASIC is heartbroken : the fact that a medium, cheap, old tank was able to pop the Abrams with the first shot, despite all you knew about "murica Abrams is The Best". You see, muppets like you, educated at Hollywood Academy by Professor Rambo have a hard time to swallow the reality: Abrams is an expensive , ordinary tank, fundamental inferior to modern russian tanks and even to old soviet tanks, when fighting on terrains like in Ukr, where a 65-70 tons heavy tank is sinking in the mud up to the turret, get destroyed at first shot ( where is my murican "special", "secret" armor ?? ) and even Ukr crews declare, hard and loud, Abrams is INFERIOR to russian tanks...
Timestamps?
Thanks! 😊