Best Tank

How would we know ?
Maybe there are some untested ones that are better, but we don't know because they haven't been tested.

Did Iraq have "proper" Soviet hardware or some licenced and downgraded versions ? Iirc
the USA and USSR usually exported inferior variants of their weapons to other countries during the Cold War to prevent reverse engineering.
I think East Germany was the only country with a "real" Soviet arsenal because that would have been the frontline in an East/West war.


Speaking of untested, exports and Germany: I think (maybe due to misguided patriotism) that the Leopard 2 is still at the top. It has the same (German manufactured) main gun as the Abrams, better range due to less fuel consumption, and superior protection.

There were some articles last year that a few were destroyed in Syria, but those were old Cold War era models sold to the Turkish Army.
The ones Germany still has (all five of them) have upgraded armor to operate in urban environments.

 

Many of the Iraqi T-72's were stripped down variants of stripped down export versions.

 

I think it's legitimate for untested military hardware to be discounted if it hasn't seen combat. It's really hard to make accurate comparisons between a thing which has been used and had its flaws exposed by a trial by fire and something which hasn't. It's relatively easy to look at spec sheets and trials and see all the good features of a thing, while the shortcomings of that thing don't usually become apparent until it's been through real world use - which for military hardware means combat. It's like people who claim the Buran shuttle was a better vehicle than the Space Shuttle based on spec sheets for the former even though it launched exactly once in an unfinished form and didn't actually do anything on that mission besides make two orbits and then land unmanned. The unmanned landing was spectacular, but without a track record you can't even claim that was a reliable feature. I like the Buran a lot and it definitely could have been a better vehicle but we really can't say that for sure based on one demo launch. And I hate the shuttle, so this is saying something.

 

Virgin military equipment should work fine as long as real war conditions never deviates from those on the training range. I guess it's a moral dilemma between real world testing your equipment in nasty proxy wars or real world testing your equipment when Big Ivan comes knocking on your door.

 

this part, @Lexicus

 

They were export ones,had the same gun as Soviets but not the same ammo, no thermal sites, meh armor.
USA doesn't export top of the line stuff either but it's not to far off. Not all Abrams are updraded either but the Iraqi ones are very similar to the US ones.

Not all current t-72s in Russia are upgraded either.

Alot of problems of the T-72 are systematic to the design though.

Americans can probably field more modern tanks than Russia.

Abrams doesn't have any major design flaws except maybe gas consumption.

 

That we know of.

Apart from blowing up some 'monkey-model' Soviet tanks in an Iraqi army that was already beaten, the Abrams hasn't seen anything resembling high-intensity modern warfare - the sort it was designed for. It hasn't seen anything remotely like repelling an armored thrust through the Fulda Gap by the 1st Guards Tank Army.

 

They have lost a few in combat. They just don't tend to explode as bad as anything Russian.

Theoretically they can be penetrated by the best Russian depleted uranium shells.

Abrams have also been hit in friendly fire incidents including in the rear.

They're not invincible but anything else hit by a hellfire won't do any better except maybe Challenger.

 

ah , probably the part ı don't go medieval on people , but ı go orbital on them . But , as actually some of you people might have noticed , ı happen to be the guy who is avidly waiting for the US to catch up so that we can have a space war in the 2030-50 timeframe , you know some singer and some company owner and a little sailing club called USN all together claiming that they have UFOs and stuff . ı won't eat you people , because am a good person and plus no predatory moves in CFC , got that ?

nothing about the poster , but only making a time reference to see how the uberfast supersmart America is rising to the challenge . You know , am getting quite old by now .

 

Iraqi T-72s were downgraded export models, but their weakest part was the crew.

 

True but it sets a bad precedent for buying Russian export models.

Iraqi crews haven't covered themselves in glory in the Abrams either but they reasonably good ones same as most of the US army ones.

 

the Iraqi patheticness in the M-1 is much related to how their enemies were regularly fed with information where to ambush them and the whole lot . But then , they stomped on to get Kerkük from Iraqis so coolly that New Turkey had a member to expose the truth . They were newly made chameleon tanks [made in new Turkey] , they change colours and shape to look like Iraqis as they convince the shiny uniforms of Barzani to have a picnic back at home .

oh my , ı had to grant greatness to M-1 , silly me , silly me ...

 

Yep I don't think any other tank would do any better in the same situation.

RPG-29 dual charge warhead. Complete mystery where they came from. Red Elk how's the weather in your hometown?

 

in the good old days , when people like used to "fight" me , ı had the joke that America paid no attention to me because they knew ı had destroyed only one M-1 tank , so why don't people like blame "THE Starfleet" for the EFP stuff , because there's no way Iranians could have done what American had done 40 years before them ? But hey , we Turks are worse , talking monkeys and the like . And it overtaxes people so much , are we supporting the Shia , are we supporting the Sunni , oh my , are we even supporting America ?

fits with the overall theme of r16 the fool , you know . And ı will be here on Friday as well , by all laws of probability . If not Monday , because ı can always catch cold .

edit : Oh hell , my post above is supposed to say "get Kerkük from the Kurds" , even if they are still Iraqi Nationals ...

 

Complementing what others have said about untested tanks, there's also the matter any advantage one might have against battle-proven ones is strictly theoretical until the vehicle has reached something close to mass production. Until then, the notion it can challenge any properly fielded contender or cause any meaningful impact in a real conflict is just a pipe dream.

It's why I don't give much credence to token wunderwaffen like the Russian T-14 (or the Su-57, or Chinese J-20 for that matter). Right now, it's essentially a testbed, and it's unknown whether it's really viable or if Russia has the means to really put it out there while its advantages count.

The Leopard 2A5+ models have seen some production and export, but I'm not so sure how much actual combat service. Stuff like better protection may look good on paper, but such things remain largely untested in real conditions against real current threats.

 

I almost want to say that what the Abrams has been through is modern warfare. I don't know that we'll ever see a Fulda Gap-type situation and really hope we never do.
(keyword: almost)

Excellent point about mass production. Look at the ridiculous numbers of defects in the initial batches of F-35's for a great example of how important it is to nail the manufacturing process. And that was a plane ostensibly designed for the biggest mass production program in decades.

 

There's military theorists who argue conventional conflicts with great tank battles like the 1980s notion of a Cold War gone hot (see Red Storm Rising) are a thing of the past. They call it third generation warfare, and claim that in the post-9/11 world we're into fourth generation warfare: heightened insurgency, more diffuse conflicts, blurred battle lines, dubious combatants, etc.

One could argue that in such context, the reign of the main battle tank as the king of the battlefield is over. Because ultimately, the role of an MBT is to fight other MBTs, and they're currently more likely to run into entrenched/hidden infantry/partisans with anti-tank weapons than an armoured adversary. Often in tank-unfriendly terrain, to boot.

 

MBT's aren't obsolete, when they're half-melted by nuclear explosions they make great art installation pieces

 

I just wanted to say I still have very strong opinions on this topic but do not have enough time to type a proper response

 

The most recent combats have shown that not to really be the case though. Experience in Afghanistan, for example, has shown that partisans / non-military trained fighters have a tendency to avoid attacking units equiped with MBTs. And the times they did it anyway they got their rears handed to them. Though obviously you aren't going to use them to search and destroy some partisans in the mountains.

In general, tanks are mainly useful if you can provide aircover and supporting infantry. Without either, tanks were almost useless in the past and are pretty much useless now as well, unless you face a really pitiful enemy. It also helps if your troops actually know how to use a tank in combat. All one has to do is look at Turkey's first incursions into Syria. Most of the few Leopard 2s that got destroyed were lost due to sheer incompetence. If neither your tank-crews nor your supporting infantry have any real clue what they are doing, you are bound to lose the tanks in the most facepalm-worthy situations.

Thing is, we haven't really seen an actual land-war of the size and scale of the past. The few times nations faced off against each other with more than just a selected few tanks, the combat strength was so lopsided that no real comparison could be made. Especially since the nation with more tanks also tended to rule the skies as well.