Drawing First Blood (Tank V.S Tank)

[Kampfwagen]

First off, I want a bit of an introduction. I'm new here, this is my first post and I want to really commend the makers of this site for their incredible ammounts of information regarding the modern Chinese military. I'm new here, and I dont pretend to be an expert on the Chinese Military but I am an avid fan of forgien militaries, especialy those such as China and Japan. And I really want to know more so that I may become, one day an expert.

Now for my question.

A 'friend' of mine, who is actualy a member of a tank corp and the driver of an M1A2 Abrams MBT.

Now my friend is an avid lover of tanks and how they work. He also seems to have a bit of a somewhat egotistical look upon both his tank and the military of China. He says that, and I quote "China is under a log" and that "A nuke would really help correct that nation". Now dont kill the messenger, I dont consider that to be the truth at all which has made me ask for an outside source.

Assuming that, a Type 98 Tank could ambush a single Abrams on level ground, one-on-one and the T-98 could 'draw first blood' and fire first, would it be enough to destroy or disable the M1?

Now I realize that an M1, if it got first shot on a T-98 would be a massacre, seeing as how the T-98 is based on the T-72, an at best problematic peice of armor. But I do not know the various shot loads, or if there are others asside from the loads you mentioned (Aparently, the Abrams is immune to the SABOT rounds the T-98 fires, but my 'friend' mentioned nothing about the guided tank-fired rocket you mentioned.)

Any help and/or clarification would really help! Thanks!

[MIGleader]

the big advantage the type 98 has over an mi is the krsnopol or chinese version ATGMs, which have a longer range than the m1s gun. if it got first hit with the missle on the side or rear of the abrams, the abrams is dead.

in gulf war one, an iraqi t-72 ambushed an m1 and hit the m1 on the side with a basic heat or sabot round. the m1s top blew up. the type 98 is thus gurenteed a kill if it hits from the side or back.

an m1 vs t-72 has many outcomes, but that might heat this thread up. i think your question has been answered, and its perhaps best if we close the thread to prevent an m1 vs type 98 explosion.

now, i think your friend should consider going to china and voicing his opinion. hes the only one under a log, and a good beating would correct him.

no offence to you.:)

[utelore]

Negitive, no turret seperation has occured by an M1A1 being engaged by another tank...NEVER...there were a few mission kills but no turret seperation. I have seen hits by T-72 and T-62 sabot. NO EFFECT.
HEAT will cause damage but never killed the crew.

[Baibar of Jalat]

Uteo ur right No m1 has had turret blown of off esp in gulf war but the iraqi insurgents have crippled at least 100 tanks of which 70 were sent back for extensive repairs i read this on yahoo news a while back. the numbers ar reseably close to the actual number.

to my point just because the t-98-99 is based to a extent on the t-72 does not make it the same tank with same capabilities of iraqi t 72s. no one thinks the pakistani al zarrar tank is operationally similiar to the type 59:china:

the chinese have learnt from mistakes of soviet designs. thus it is at least capable as the m1a1 but still can challege the m1a2 abram.

also i read that the soviet kontakt armour on t 72 could stop m1a1 shells in testing in germany is this true or is someone bullshiting on wekipidia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kontakt-5

Finally a simple rule i read in miltary vehicle book when a enemy develops a new tank that seems all powerful and indistructable in a short space of time the opposition will develop a equal or superior weapon to counter their machine. this was esp true during ww2 similiar concept will apply today.

[crobato]

The T-98/99 uses a longer rifle than the Russian T-90. The turret of the T-98 may be so designed to accomodate a longer breech than the Russian 125mm, which in turn means longer penetrating sabots. Chances are the gun has longer range and greater penetrating power.

The T-98 also has a laser blinder that can blind targeting equipment or even gunner's eyes. I know that's against Geneva Convention but it does use laser blinders. If you try to light a laser on the tank, the blinder detects your laser, swings and shoot back right back at your laser and if you're unlucky, straight into your eyes as well.

The T-98/99 is much more armored than a T-72. It is much heavier almost by 12 to 15 tons, and the T-99 on top of that is covered with ERA.

[ahho]

Hey utelore, since the situation is given, would the type-98 be mission killed and not able to return fire if type-98 draw first blood???

[MIGleader]

i didnt say the turrent was blown off. the turret was hit, and the inside exploded, blowing off some panels and taking a poor tanker's legs off.:(

one thing the typt 98 lacks is crew safetly feature such as blow out panels and armnored comparments. i dont know if it was resolved on the 99, but it proves that is a t-72 shell can damadge an abrahms, a type 99 shell cna severly damage it.

crew training is another main issue. how well trained would the abrams and type 99 crews be?

[renmin]

Hey utelore, since the situation is given, would the type-98 be mission killed and not able to return fire if type-98 draw first blood???Your question, depends, The Abrams tank can be armed with diferent projectiles, one deadly arment is a explosive projectile fired from the Abrams, the purpose of it is to blow of the turret of an enemy tank. The Abrams destroyed many T-72s in the first gulf war with this projectile, a less powerful projectile fired at the type98 might take about three hits to take out the T-98.The main armament of the type 98is a fully-stabilized 125 mm smoothbore gun with autoloader. Ammunitions for the type 98 include armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot rounds (APFSDS), high explosive anti-tank rounds (HEAT), and high explosive fragmentation (HE-FRAG) projectiles. China has also manufactured Russian A-11 laser guided anti-tank missile (ATGM) to be fired by the 125 mm gun. In addition, Depleted Uranium is also an extra arnment to the type 98

[utelore]

negitive, the abrams does not have a round designd to blow the turret off of other tanks. the reason you see so many t-72 with turret seperation is because of the ammo strorage and the way the auto loader is designed. turret seperation on a T-72 has been caused by everything from 120mm sabot/heat, TOW and bradley 25mm

In OIF insurgents with aircraft bombs used as IED have caused abrams turret seperation but no tank has done this.

[FriedRiceNSpice]

negitive, the abrams does not have a round designd to blow the turret off of other tanks. the reason you see so many t-72 with turret seperation is because of the ammo strorage and the way the auto loader is designed. turret seperation on a T-72 has been caused by everything from 120mm sabot/heat, TOW and bradley 25mm

In OIF insurgents with aircraft bombs used as IED have caused abrams turret seperation but no tank has done this.

Can a Bradley 25mm really destroy a T-72? What kind of shells does the Bradley fire? Can it destroy all T-72s, or only those of poor quality?

[chinawhite]

A BMP-2 mission killed a abram from the side. that has a 30mm cannon.

FriedRiceNSpice i had a picture of the T-72 blown by a Bradley. It was all blown but you could see where it was hit. But i didn't save that picture.The bradley has a 25mm chain gun

[Kampfwagen]

Wow, so many replies in such a short ammount of time! :o Thanks, you have all been very iluminating! Unfortunately, I dont know too much about modern tanks or modern tank warfare so your information has been very helpful for me in future discusions.

Now that statement about the BMP2 really suprised me. It must have been luck on the part of the BMP2. I also know that, asside from the 30MM, the BMP2 has a rocket option on top of it's turret, so I imagine that if it was stealthy enough and got accurate enough with that rocket, I imagine it could disable, if not 'kill' (destroy sounds too...extreme for this weapon) an Abrams.

And I had no idea bout that laser blinder ether. It sounds like it is quite an advancement over the T-72. Oh well, you learn something new every day!

[utelore]

YES YES. I have seen first hand my wingmans tank get the snot knocked out of it by a BMP-2 30mm. The rounds hit the right side from back to front. The rounds entered the battery box on the right side and started a small fire. Thus the big boy was mission killed.

[akinkhoo]

The T99 has been greatly improved from it original design, but it still have a few weaknesses; given the amount of experience the designers had with western tank concept it is simply unrealistic to see it challenge a far more expensive tank on a 1 on 1 'ring fight'.

however in military operations, the doctine are always set to play to ones strength. and also no military hardware is invincible in battle. it is possible for a T99 to kill a M1A2 if conditions are favourable.

I would disagree: i see the T99 is not close to M1 level yet, but it is also not a sitting duck and can fight back. the development of better armor and chassis are still neccesary, however i see tank is of a lower priority as air and naval requirements seem to be more pressing matters of modernization.

[MIGleader]

well, i would say the type 99has an advantage over the m1 basic or m1a1, but not the m1a2. the later developmet of the 99 means that its electronics and sensors must be superiro to the m1a1, a late 80s/early 90s design. the m1a1s armor still is superior to the 99s. the L44 is more powerful than the 2a46, but this is lost because the type 99 can fire therefleks, which has a range of 5 km, more thna the l44s 1.5km. The jd-3 laser jammer is also an up. so the type 99 has first shot, but the m1 has a greater chance of surviving. im pretty sure that m1 crews have more experience and training than their type 99 counter parts.

[Su-27 Pilot]

YES YES. I have seen first hand my wingmans tank get the snot knocked out of it by a BMP-2 30mm. The rounds hit the right side from back to front. The rounds entered the battery box on the right side and started a small fire. Thus the big boy was mission killed.
BMP2's 30 MM ?? I assume you know the 30MM Gun on the BMP2 right ?

[RedMercury]

If I recall, the Bradley kill on the T-72 was a (few) hit(s) on the turret ring.

Every tank, no matter how well protected, has vulnerable parts, even in the frontal arc. For example, the T-72 had a weakness at the driver's vision block, the T-99 redisgned the front hull to reduce this somewhat. However, one weakness many tanks have is the area right around where the gun sticks out.

The biggest strength for the Type-99, imo, is its modularity, specifically in the armour package. The design principle recognized it will not start out perfect nor ever be, but rather evolve as technology becomes available. Making upgrading the armor package easy will let it catch up/keep up far easier. You can clearly see those big lifting attachments on the turret's frontal arc armor. I bet, like the engine, it can be replaced in under 30 minutes in field conditions. Imo, FCS and electronics should be relatively easy to upgrade, as long as there is a standardized interface, hardware is just plug and play, and software upgrades are trivial. Now if they over-designed the gun mount in expectation of future gun upgrades, I'll be really impressed.

[Sukhoi Freak]

From, Mig leader:crew training is another main issue. how well trained would the abrams and type 99 crews be?

--------------------------------------------
Sukoi Freak:
Yes, I aggree, the amount of crew training is also a factor to the success, Im pretty shure the Abrams crew would be trained quite well, because the US has spent About 9999999999999999trilloin dollars on the Iraq war,:D but i dont now the chinese training methods, the laser blinder is a cool idea but will it work in real combat? :D Just asking :o

[ahho]

From, Mig leader:crew training is another main issue. how well trained would the abrams and type 99 crews be?

--------------------------------------------
Sukoi Freak:
Yes, I aggree, the amount of crew training is also a factor to the success, Im pretty shure the Abrams crew would be trained quite well, because the US has spent About 9999999999999999trilloin dollars on the Iraq war,:D but i dont now the chinese training methods, the laser blinder is a cool idea but will it work in real combat? :D Just asking :o

about that laser, the question is can you do a manual control??? because when enemy laser is beaming at you, you could only destroy their laser optics, but how would you blind a person (from atgm) when there are 2 optics. (one for laser and one as a binocular)

[RedMercury]

The beam divergence at target range will probably mean the "spot" is pretty big anyway, and will cover the distance between different parts of optics.

[King_Comm]

Two common misocnceptions are that Type 99 is developed from T-72, and Chinese 125mm gun is a copy of the Russian 2A46, but in reality, Type 99 has little to do with T-72 except for general arrangement, this can be easily seen as Type 99 has weld turrent, longitudinally placed engine, and much heavier weight. As to the Chinese 125mm gun, it has nothing to do with the Russian 2A46 except for the auto loader and 9M119, it is a development of the Chinese 120mm gun which is inturn derived from the Swedish 120mm gun.

about that laser, the question is can you do a manual control??? because when enemy laser is beaming at you, you could only destroy their laser optics, but how would you blind a person (from atgm) when there are 2 optics. (one for laser and one as a binocular)

==I would assume that the laser thingy would attack gunners optical equipment above anything else, what's good having a laser range finder if you can't aim your weapon at you enemy?

[vincelee]

autoloader? NO ONE has seen a picture of that. You do understand that the autoloader size directly relates to penetration rating, right?

[Gollevainen]

it is a development of the Chinese 120mm gun which is inturn derived from the Swedish 120mm gun

Njet...it was said by the engineers of the gun, that it isen't based on the Chinese 120mm, but actually it's continious development of the russian gun...
But there are already a thread about this issue so lets talk about it in there...

[sino52C]

I would argue that the survival package of an Abrams such as crew protection is superior to Type 99.

The armor package may also be better in the Abrams.

[Mightypeon]

Although the M1A1 design is neither "the best western tank" (but probably the western tank the Chinese army might be up against) however, given the enourmous cost difference as well as the not exactly limited experiences the M1A1 desingers(did you know that Israel made a really big buck of money by selling captured T-60s to the western nations?) had with soviet tanks, my bet in a "ringfight" is on the Abrams/Challenger/Leclerc/Leopard-2.

However, "Ringfights" dont tend to happen in reality.


P.S. A western Tank would propably try to set up a "ringfight" as it would be a situation which favours him.

Actually, maybe excluding Germany(new Troop Carrier and Artillery Gun), western nations do no longer upgrade their main battle vehicles (which are the main class mobile howitzer, the main Battle Tank and the main armed transport) as often as they did in Cold War, so catching up may be quite possible.

[Inst]

I'm not sure whether ATGMs could truly come into the equation. The Tank-Fired ATGMs within the Soviet system are really meant to down copters, not tanks.

[Nethappy]

I'm not sure whether ATGMs could truly come into the equation. The Tank-Fired ATGMs within the Soviet system are really meant to down copters, not tanks.

Where did you come out with that?

[Inst]

I'll retract my statement; CDF is in a very interesting situation, and searching through www.archive.org is too labor-intensive.

[Dutch Infantry]

A BMP-2 mission killed a abram from the side. that has a 30mm cannon.

FriedRiceNSpice i had a picture of the T-72 blown by a Bradley. It was all blown but you could see where it was hit. But i didn't save that picture.The bradley has a 25mm chain gun

Mmm Iraq din"t had any BMP 3 oeff...:rofl:
Abrams taken out by a BMP 3 not posible.
Even the 125mm of the t-72 2a45m gun din"t hurt the Abrams m1a2 mutch.
And the chineese tanks have this gun allso.
Oldfasion stuff...
The US have lost in the conflict whit the formor regiem of Irak just a caple of hunderd man.
Becuse the can beat every eastern armt pretty simple.
The ASAF whit 7000 aircraft coult distroy every army in this world.

Demian.

Abradly can takeout the t-72 whit hit TOW what a range of 3700m.

[Gollevainen]

I didn't cath you, Chinawhite (whome which you quoted) said BMP-2, not BMP-3...

[sumdud]

He's saying, a BMP-3 can't take out an Abrams, so no way can BMP-2.

But I hope Dutch understands that we don't mean blowing it up, only shooting its eyes out.

[RedEarth]

These are VERY academic questions, and the core of why M1 is such a bad tank. Yes, I know I will get lots of hate mail on the subject, but please consider how long it took to put M1 into production, and what it was built for.
In that time Soviet Union went from most of it's fleet being composed of T-55s to the T-80s.
Shipping the armoured units to the Gulf made a substantial dent in the US national GDP, and Americans are still paying for 1991!
Aside from the Gulf countries (and Egypt who gets them subsidized by Saudis), Australia has been the only country to purchase M1s (and only 55) because the deal was just too good to refuse.
At the same time the T-72 variants are all over the World replacing the still seriving T-55s.
Then there is the doctrine and environment. In Kuwait and Iraq the US forces fought against an enemy which was passive and lacking any air support. In Europe, the environment M1 was built for, the NATO forces would be facing an enemy on offencive, and sparring for air superiority.
This would be in an environmennt where the average engagement distance is 6-800 meters, not several kilometers in the deserts of Kuwait and Iraq. Would an M1 withstand a direct hit from a 125mm APFSDS round at this range? I have my doubts.
Then there is the cost. The cost is so prohibitive that the M1 is likely to not be replaced n the next family of AFVs on the design board. At over 63 metric tons, it requires a crew of 6 and a logistic tail that is difficult to sustain even for the US. To keep the tanks in Iraq going now, most of the fleet has been operating on very limited budget, utilizing reduced training regime (so I was told in another forum).
On the other hand about 1,000 T-90s will be built in India which has third world infrastructure to handle armoured forces. This is the highest praise for its designers, because tank design is more then just armour, engine and the gun.
As I understand it the Chinese Type-99 will also ultimately be built in large numbers, and its design is based more on the Soviet/Russian thinking then that of the USA.
The reasoning is simple. Larger numbers of tanks make two principles of war possible that were always crucial to securing victory: surprise and mass.
I think 1 on 1 duels in the open went out with the Napoleonic wars, and Napoleon (who's birthday anniversary it is today!) highly disapproved of them.
Cheers
Greg

[steel21]

A 'friend' of mine, who is actualy a member of a tank corp and the driver of an M1A2 Abrams MBT.

Now my friend is an avid lover of tanks and how they work. He also seems to have a bit of a somewhat egotistical look upon both his tank and the military of China. He says that, and I quote "China is under a log" and that "A nuke would really help correct that nation". Now dont kill the messenger, I dont consider that to be the truth at all which has made me ask for an outside source.


No offense, but a driver is usually a PFC or a SPC, which is between 1-2 years of actualy experience in the military. Further, a junior enlisted is rarely taught the tactical and strategic nuances of warfare, and has little if any technically knowledge of the Abrams weapon system.

In this regard, neither do I. I was a former officer in the Armor branch(and a former NCO before that). And the closest you will get to proffesional opinion is a Master Gunner, or a senior Master Gunner instructor.

Generally, an junior enlisted has a sense of "invincibility", this is a reflection of his age.

MY general opinion of the M1 series is lower than his. It is heavy, requires a huge logistic tail, and lacks some of the defense mechanism of the current generation tanks world wide. For example, it does not have a laser detection system, so it does know when it is being targeted. Also, the T99 is supposed to have a auto target tracking system. In its current state, the Abrams is heavily reliant on the gunner to do the tracking.

In my opinion, modern SABOT will ruin either's day in a hurry, and will render both ineffective for some time. The bottom line is that in a standoff, it come down to mission planning and the skill of the crew which will place the weapons at the right place to take the right shots.
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To answer a previous question, the most likely modern armor confrontation is between an Isaeli Merkava 4 and an Egyptian M1A1.
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The Area previously mentioned above the driver's vision block is called "Sabot Alley", which is the only part of the turret ring exposed to frontal fire. This is present in all modern tanks, and a bit more prominent on the Challenger series. On that note, the driver's view needs to be imporved in all tanks as to take the load off the tack commander.
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The Abrams has a crew of 4, not 6.
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[Gollevainen]

Welcome Steel21, always nice to have those with military backround onboard...We have another member, Utelore who is also served with M1...

...don't forget to give good introduction in the new members thread in member's club room:)

[sydneylocks]

Not true about lack of turret separation, ergo:

[Kampfwagen]

Did that happen right after the explosion or after a possible salvage/scuttling? That turret seems rather nicely and neatly placed.

A One-On-One situation is still likely. Seperations from colums, radios not working, etc. So while not prefered, there is a definate possibility of them getting into that undesirable situation.

As far as the M1 being a bad tank? I have heard alot about what happened in the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait, and a good portion of the tanks engaged were Chinese Type-56 tanks or the Soviet Made equivilant. (I forget which tank that was exactly, T-52 or something)

Many M1 Tankers were actualy worried about encountering a skilled team behind the gun of a T-72. So I imagine that it came down more to driver skill than any sort of gigantic technological leaps. I imagine that those leaps are shortened between T-98/99 and M1A1/2.

Also, it's nice to see that my first topic ever here got it's third page.

[adeptitus]

Going back to the BMP-2 vs. M1 Abrams discussion, I can think of 2 incidents in Iraq where the tank "lost" to a BMP. The first was an Iraqi BMP-2 that somehow managed to drive around the back of a M1 and peppered the engine compartment with 30mm autocannon. The second was a friendly fire from Bradley vehicle, accidently shot a M1 in the back with 25mm autocannon. It disabled the engine and set off an APU unit on fire, and the crew had to bail out. In both incidents the tank was technically "mission killed", but not completely destroyed.

These are just lucky or freak accidents that happen very rarely. If you set a force of APCs/IFV's with 25/30mm guns up against a force of MBT's head-on, the APC/IFV's are going to get creamed. Even if you equip the APC/IFV with anti-tank missiles, there's no guarentee that it'd penatrate the frontal armor of a M1 Tank.



Many M1 Tankers were actualy worried about encountering a skilled team behind the gun of a T-72. So I imagine that it came down more to driver skill than any sort of gigantic technological leaps. I imagine that those leaps are shortened between T-98/99 and M1A1/2.

I think the T-72 got a lot of negative publicity from the 1991 Gulf War. There's no question that the M1 is better built and protected, but there are many other factors contributing to the failure of the Iraqis. For example the Iraqi T-72 "Lion of Babylon"'s production only started in 1989 with German and Polish assistance. Many vital components had to be imported from Poland. After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the country was under arms embargo and couldn't import additional components from abroad.

This means the Iraqi T-72 was only produced/introduced to the Iraqi army for 2 years before the 1991 Gulf War. These locally assembled tanks are generally considered inferior in quality, comparred to Russian or Polish products. I don't think anyone would argue that the Polish PT-91 is far better in quality comparred to the Iraqi T-72.

After the battle of 73 Easting, the US assessed that the Iraqi Republican Guard units were brave and willing to stand their ground, but suffered poorly from lack of training, logistics, and effective command. The Iraqi T-72 crew did not know how to use their equipment to its full potential. They failed to deploy effective local security to warn them of incoming allied force. The Iraqi marksmenship was also very poor, and did not know how to properly use their artillery or air defense units.

In other words, the Republican Guard was simply given these shiny new T-72's to look good, but lacked modern, realistic training, something that the US and British is far better at. Had the Iraqis invested in better training and live-fire exercises, the allied force would've suffered a lot more casultiies.

[utelore]

I would just like to say from first hand experience that I ran into a unit of the regular Iraqi army that put up a pretty good fight. We ran up on these guys outside of some kind of large oil industrial facility west of Kuwait. They were armed with T-62 MBT , BMP-2 , MTLB and some BRDM with Sagger. our engagement ranges was around 700 meters and some of my company took hits from various rounds. Anyway we defeated and killed all of them. Maybe 2 company worth of armour. This regular army unit put up the best fight in small unit action that I saw in my 72 hours worth of fighting. Most of my engagements with the republican guard were at more than 2000 meters so I think that made a difference.....cheers ute

[eric chu]

http:://www.6lu.cn/donghua/tupian/UploadFiles_5000/200607/200672123344684.jpg
bbsimg.cd.focus.cn/upload/photos/3091/7Yfku47u.jpg:china:

[Kampfwagen]

Eric, next time, use Imageshack when posting a photo.

http://imageshack.us/

Also, it is preferable to leave a comment when posting anything.

[grndpndr]

This is also my first post as well and if IRC someone said the chin tank had ERA armor?If this is so the armor isnt near as sophisticated as on the abrams.abrams armor as part of its composite nature has a ceramic laminated in the armor which protecs against all ATGMs as far as im aware at least from frontal atack.ERA armor on the other hand is vulnerable to tandem heat warheads which are even made for the old RPG which if memory serves will penetrate some 20 in of homogenous armor.

On the other hand i hve alot of belief in what lenin said ,quantity has a quality all is own!( would lso make a wild guess and ay if we re aware the chin tanks have laser blinding feature or some such thing countermeasures are in the works or already done.The DOD im sure is well aware china is a potential threat in the future.

By the wAy im GETTN BIT LONG IN THE TOOTH;old HAVNG SERVED WHEN THE m60a2/3 WERE THE MAINSTAYS
I WAS IN THE 82ND ABN ASSIGNED AS A tOW GUNNER AND co SNIPER AS WELL AS WITH THE 193 3/5 a cO (abn) THE CANAL ZONE.eVE BACK THEN THOUGHTHE 82ND HAD BETTER ARMOR THAN TODAY WHICH IS NONE.oN THE OTHR HAND THEruss AS ELL AS TH CHI LIKELY HAVE abn IVISONS COMPLETELY QUIPPD WITH bmp3S 100MM GUN 30MM AUTOCNNON AND 7.62 COAX AGANST THE 82DS ARMORED HUMVEES??i DONT THINK THE 82ND NYTHNHG IT USED TO BE THERE FAR SURPASSED BY THE RUSS ABNS MOBILITY/FIREPOWER.