Tanks: How do I learn more about them - beyond "popular" info?

Wikipedia and popular military books provide a lot of information on tanks, but they don't really explain what the information means or it's significance. For example:

A T-72 has a 125mm cannon, and an M1A2 has 120mm cannon. Is the extra 5mm on the T-72 gun significant?

There are three anti tank rounds that I am aware of: SABOT, HEAT, and HESH.

Why have three different rounds that do the exact same thing?

A book will tell you that tank X has a "spall liner", but not why HESH rounds are still used (even though it seems that every tank I have ever read about has a spall liner to protect against HESH).

Tanks often have less armour at the rear and top - but the rear and top is armoured. I would love to know what the armour is suppose to protect against as it seems that a tank can be easily taken out from behind and on top by very basic weaponry.

What is rear and top armour suppose to protect against if not from RPGs? Is it just to protect against small arms?

Where should I go to get more indepth information on tanks?

In particular, I would like to be in a position to make an informed comparison between an M1 and a fully upgraded T-90. I am not just concerned with which tank is better, but with how much better one tank is over the other and in what environments they excell in.

Thank you for any help.

 

Hello and welcome to the forum. And thank you for asking so many interesting questions. They will provide meat for an interesting discussion, or so I hope. We have several AFV experts in our midst but as I am not one I shall leave it to them to answer most of them.

I will try to give information were I can.

You may want to go to a better regional public library and ask the staff Profession Librarian where the area's Government Document repository is located. This marvelous mine of information should have all the latest publications, journals and magazines on a wide variety of topics, from bee-keeping to economic forecasts. They should carry the lastest word on Armoured Warfare theory, at least the non-classified information. I used to dip my toes into this huge pool, but that was a quarter-Century ago. Back then there was still a Soviet Union, and I found English language translations of rather current Soviet theory documents.

You ask several questions asking for quality evaluations. These may be difficult to get satifactory answers as you are brushing up against classification restrictions. As mere civilians there is some information not meant for you, if for no other reason than that the authorities don't want everyone to know that they too are in the dark and clueless. There are times when even the 'experts' are surprized by real life experience. There was a time in the Vietnam Experience when the M113 Personnel Carrier was introduced with an idea of increasing infantry mobility. It was a great idea in the USA, but a misery in S.E. Asia as the wet terrain saw the M113 all get bogged-down.

You ask as to the 120mm verse the 125mm gun. My answer is they are basicly the same weapon on the battlefield, but I am no expert. As I understand it the question is the quality of ammo. And you ask of the differences of Sabot, HEAT and HESH. As a non-expert I know there ARE difference, but I will leave it to our experts. I do know there is a difference in the manner at which the round approaches to problem facing them, as well as a cost difference.

Remember: "Moving foxholes tend to attract the eye." -- Bill Malden.

 

I will certainly look into the government document depository. Although I suspect that our ones will be less detailed militarily than a United States one.

I am geniunely amazed at the things that I have been learning recently. I don't know where I learned what I thought I knew, but I was under the impression the USSR (and now Russia) had poor equipment and training in every regard.

Recently I have learned a hell of a lot more about Russian equipment. This is one of the reasons that I have so many questions. Modern Russian tanks seem to be camparable in technology to NATO tanks.

But perhaps there is a difference how effective the technology is at doing what it was designed to do. For example, the the thermal imaging, range finders, fire control may be unreliable compared to the alternatives.

I have not been able to find any information regarding the use of DU by Russian tank makers, do you know if the Russians use DU armour?

How do Russian tanks compare to Chinese tanks? I always thought that the Chinese had simply made a cheaper version (and less effective) of Russian tanks.

EDIT: I just came across the US Government repository online... WOW!!!! This information is incredible. How on Earth did I not know about this until now.

 

You are welcome to the knowledge I shared. I find there are also always something you can learn from others, that no one knows everything, but collectively we know quite a bit if we pool our knowledge.

I have asked the DU-armour question several times of several people and have gotten a consistent responce. DU armour is possible, in theory, but it really is not suited for AFV armour. DU is a "soft" metal, comparative to Pb (lead). Pb armour for AFVs is also possible but no one makes Pb armour. DU, is still expensive, weak, heavy, and still slightly radioactive. And DU tends to ignite (fire/combustion) when struck with a hard enough blow, which is okay for round, but bad for armour.

Russian AFVs: as was stated by another someplace, the Russian tend to manufacture good equipment for themselves but lesser quality, visually identical equipment for export.

 

Depleted uranium armour is used on the M1A2 Abrams so it must have some advantage.

Thanks for the link to the tank museum site, it was very interesting to browse through.

Is there a unit of measurement for tank armour effectiveness? So that one can compare 30mm of "good" (lets say chobham) armour with 80mm of "weak" (say aluminium) armour. Even though chobham is better than aluminium, I cannot tell if the extra 50mm of aluminium would make it superior to the chobham.

It would be nice if there was something like:

1mm chobham = 1 "protective unit" (pu)
1mm aluminium = 1/8 pu

That would mean in the example above that 80mm of aluminium would only have 10pu versus 30pu for the chobham armour. The chobham armour would still be stronger than the aluminium even though it is 50mm less thick.

Obviously the angle of armour would have to be taken into accout as well.

 

Chinese tanks used to (decades ago) be completely copy of Russian tanks. Started with T-54 if I am not mistaken. And the Chinese copy was Type 59 (again if I am not mistaken). After the split between China and USSR in the 1960s, the make full copy was out of question. Later Chinese tanks still try to base off Russian models, but since they didn't have the access to the real thing, all they could do is to "base off" rather than making the exactly thing.

It changed since 1990s. After seeing how easily the Iraqi tanks were wiped out (some of which were sold to Saddam by China), China started to modernize their military.
Their latest tank is Type 99. Although some say it is based of Russian design, its turret is clearly of western style. So at least it is getting features from both sides on the top of their own.

While all features look good on paper, there is no real combat history for these tanks, so it is hard to judge their true capability.

 

I found (re-discovered?) an interesting video: