Today we have the brief but ‘stranger than fiction’ account of how a Russian T-90A tank named ‘Maestro’ ended up briefly ‘abandoned’ at a gas station in Louisiana several weeks ago, after the truck towing it to a U.S.
One of the more interesting things to watch as this conflict unfolds/ends will be what a tanks role in war becomes. With precision artillery, drones, precision glide bombs, and 24/7 surveillance overwatch they really carry a huge liabilities with their firepower.
The point of a tank is that it is armored. It can survive being far closer to the front line than artillery. There are also situations where direct fire is better than indirect. Tanks also allow rapid movement and short term relative supply independence.
Any platform - artillery, airplane, helicopter, tank, AFV, supply truck, supply train, MLRS, infantryman or whatever is vulnerable to attack in a modern battlefield - to say tanks are exceptionally good or bad is naive.
The point of modern "all arms" warfare, as MacGregor and other have noted, is linking up all these disparate systems to take advantage of the specific benefits of each and minimize the weaknesses of each.
I'm not disagreeing with any of that. I'm just saying that with the technology advancements of this war it will be very interesting to see if/how their use gets changed. You can't deny they are a giant target on the modern battlefield. (As well as all the benefits you listed)
MBTs are far smaller targets than ammunition dumps, airfields or even combat infantry formations. True heavy firepower force projection is far greater a problem for the above than for the MBT. For that matter, the MBT has not been invulnerable ever since probably the 2nd week of when they first appeared on a battlefield.
As for the "technology advancements of this war" - what exactly has changed now vs. say, January 2022?
Satellites in use now were in use then.
There are more drones, but then again, there were already drones in the air before January 2022.
Fixed and rotary wing aircraft were around then and are around now, as are the Russian anti-air defense formations.
FAB glide bombs? JDAMs were in use by the US since at least 2000. Russia started using them in Syria.
GPS guided artillery shells? Excalibur was in production by 2012.
The point of technology in warfare is extremely rarely one which obsoletes anything.
Even the Blitzkrieg German army of 1940 used a lot of horses to move supplies.
So while you are right that there will be changes - the changes are far more likely to be doctrinal than equipment-based. Nobody is going to stop using MBTs for some time, if ever just as nobody is going to replace the various arms of military forces completely with drones or robots or whatever.
Maybe it got off the battlefield precisely because it's going to provide crap info. Otherwise I'd have expected it would have been at least burned out by a drone strike.
Gaius and Germanicus mature the Ukraine War failures to learn with the Vietnam War and Iraq War failures to learn. Michael Vlahos. Friends of History Debating Society.
If you were going to design a tank, you wouldn't use a fuel gobbling turbine engine ever. Turbine engines are designed for aircraft that operate at constant power in clean air at altitude. When the amerikans were supplying the Soviet Union during WWII Stalin wouldn't accept gasoline burning tanks, they had to be Diesel only. They didn't call the British model "Tommy burners" for nothing. Many Long distance sailors won't have gasoline on board for fire reasons. I had 5 fire extinguishers on my 32' sailboat for that reason. Amerika probably gets the worst value for money on the military industrial complexes than any nation on earth. Most of what flys is 50 year old designs updated and the much vaunted F35 is supposedly stealthy but I doubt that anything is as a couple of invisible US aircraft found out in Serbia and no amerikan aircraft has thrust vectored supermanuverability or serious supercruise capabilities. Sure are expensive though. Reliability and servicability, not so much. The money would have been better spent on the long suffering underclasses but who cares for the untermenchen Dreck, certainly not the ruling classes.
While what you say is true, my favorite Russian tank is still arguably the T-80BVM which is their turbine tank. The turbine engine reportedly gives it several major advantages (though some disadvantages as well), such as: the ability to start in much colder temperatures, whereas T-72s sometimes require you to "light a fire underneath" the tank in order to first heat up the oil/fuel system. And the T-80 generates much more power in general, particularly low end torque (as I understand it at least), which gives it higher speeds and acceleration. And lastly, turbine tanks like both the Abrams and T-80 can run on almost any fuel. You can use fuel oil, diesel, gas, aviation/jet fuel, kerosene, home heating oil, etc., and it will run on them all.
Apr 23, 2023·edited Apr 23, 2023Liked by Simplicius
Yep, but is the very high heat signature worth the above advantages? On that note, with modern thermal detection is that a problem anymore (higher heat sigs)?
Yeah that's why it seems the future in tank design is shifting towards hybrid engines with U.S. and possibly Germany's next tanks being hybrid electric motor which can operate in 'silent' and presumably 'low heat' mode for short periods of time just on the electric portion of the motor.
With that said, though it's not hybrid, the Russian T-14 Armata has several 'stealth' features most people aren't aware of that make it the world's first truly stealth tank. Not only is it designed with stealth angles to be low observability to radar and is coated in special anti-radar coatings, but it's designed to be stealth to heat signatures as well. Not only in its composition but in the design/placement of its exhaust system. Some sources outright claim it's "invisible" in the thermal spectrum: https://en.topwar.ru/115596-armata-malozametna-v-infrakrasnom-diapazone.html
I don't know how true that is, but the Javelin and co may have a hard time locking onto it
I wonder mightily about just how practical an electric engine would be when moving 40 ton tanks. Among other things, the battery pack alone would be ginormous. The EV Semi tractor trailer trucks which are being experimented with are 40 tons, but have 8 ton battery packs. Note this doesn't even include the fuel tank and extra ICE engine weight...
Sure, the EV Semis are intended to have longer range than an MBT, but they also aren't carrying armor.
Then there's the problem with heat. I am fairly sure tanks are very hot - large masses of metal accumulate heat at a pretty unstoppable rate - and electrical batteries do not do well in high temperature, high vibration and/or high physical deformation (i.e. dents) environments.
And while cat-kill survivability is low under any circumstances, a tank with 8 tons of EV batteries in it would guarantee no open coffins. Even if a crewman got out, the flash cookoff would likely heat-kill.
Turbine engines actually have a significantly lower thermal signature compared to comparable multi-fuel and diesel piston engines, as even though the exhaust produced by a turbine is many times hotter, it's far cleaner, which means it cools down and equalizes with the surrounding air temperature far faster than the sootier exhaust produced by a piston engine. As such, tanks that use piston engines like Leopard 2 and T-90 drive around immersed in a massive cloud of (relatively) hot soot and dust, while tanks that use turbine engines like M1 Abrams and T-80 drive around with only a tiny pocket of white-hot gas following them that quickly dissipates. Really, there's absolutely no reason to not use a turbine engine except for its fuel consumption and greater production cost.
Apr 23, 2023·edited Apr 23, 2023Liked by Simplicius
Generally speaking, turbine engine, like a short stroke gasoline engine, only has full torque at full speed and the torque curve drops rapidly.
4 stroke Diesel engines, generally, have very flat torque, allowing them to lift off without stalling, generating smooth, powerful torque across all operating conditions.
If you spent any time near a Helicopter, you will note how the pilot brings the engine up to full speed/torque before lift off. That is exactly the problem with turbine engines in battle conditions. Time is scarce, seconds matter.
Of course, for the Abrams, you could always keep the turbine at (near) full speed, but since it sucks fuel, your time in play is substantially reduced.
Apr 23, 2023·edited Apr 23, 2023Liked by Simplicius
Multifuel isn't that useful a feature. Robert is a little off on the reason the Soviets went with diesel, which wasn't flammability. It was logistics, and it's the same reason the USA and UK went with gasoline. Russia had oil suitable for making diesel and the USA and UK had oil more suitable for making gasoline, so civilian use drove the development of the fuel technology and infrastructure accordingly.
This logistics trail was a major headache for Soviet Aviation in the early part of WW2, lack of good/high octane aviation gasoline. Also, it's not just a software change to reliably burn various fuels in turbines. Any army who needs to start burning fuel bad for it's equipment has already lost the logistics battle, and could only punch up a predetermined outcome with a weak enemy, ala Iraq. The USA had 1 year to build up in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to invade Iraq and still had huge issues with logistics in the end, but no lessons learned, the MIC-IMATT forced off sales of more of the USMM tanker fleet to fuel 'fraudulent weapons' purchases.
I'm a T-80UK enjoyer myself, so I know from researching the engines used by all T-80 and M1 Abrams variants that the dust inhalation issue is far more of a design flaw of the M1 Abrams than an issue inherent to turbine engines in tanks, as not only were the M1 Abrams' filters of a flawed design, but also all T-80 variants have a feature where their engines are designed to vibrate out the dust and dirt so it gets passed out rather than build up to form enough of a mass that could damage the engine. This is why no T-80 has ever had to stop for a sandstorm as M1 Abrams did during Desert Storm.
Yes, when the length and reliability of your logistics supply train is in question, notorious fuel hogs like the Abrams are more liability than asset...
As MacGregor notes - a former Abrams tanker and tank commander - the Abrams was designed to defend the Fulda gap against Soviet attack. It is enormous because it was supposed to be able to take out 4 or 5 Soviet tanks by surviving getting hit (and dodging) while shooting back.
A turbine engine is fine in this use case because the tank is almost always sitting on defense and needs maximum survivability for a short time.
Only problem though was the Soviets had no intention of hitting the Fulda Gap and instead would go across the Northern Plains where they could entrap large formations against the river systems and use Krasnopol and their MLRS superiority to full effect. Thus destroying the NATO heavy tanks in the opening barrages while SRBMs took out the POMCUS sites.
NATO's entire defensive plan was fatally flawed through and through and a recipe for defeat in detail. What should have been done was make the the West Bank of the Rhine the main defense line and have everything east be fortress cities used as bases for commando raids.
That may well be true. Given the US military and US military industrial complex's actions re: missile gap, bomber gap, h-bomb gap, etc etc - what's one more boondoggle plan?
Apr 23, 2023·edited Apr 23, 2023Liked by Simplicius
I wonder what other equipment the Roleplaying SS squadrons have shipped to their masters in the West? Wasn't that one Russian EW truck the MSM was celebrating the capture of last year?
Eh, I say its not too much of a problem. This War has has made it clear that logistics, classic warfare, and basic weapons in great numbers are far more important than some comicbook iron man armor.
Well at least War Thunder and World of Tanks are going to get an update soon lol.
The EW thing was fake. Ukraine claimed that was a Krasukha station, which it wasn't. Krasukha is truck mounted and doesn't come off the truck like a shipping container. That's why they never showed interior photos of it. One possibility I've read is it could have been a Orlan-10 drone command bunker, which would have been nothing, just a metal can with some laptops, but it certainly was not any Krasukha system, that's a fact. You can look up photos of the two yourself and see they look nothing alike whatsoever, but of course Ukrainian supporters will continue to push that to their ignorant followers because they don't know any better.
Yep, if it was as 'obsolete' as they claim, they wouldn't be so desperate to get it to their state of the art testing site. And it only showed their own incompetence, not only could they not ship it directly to east coast ports, and had to truck it across the country, but then their own transport broke down at the first leg of the trip. Kind of an embarrassing blooper reel.
I remember, from my childhood, my elder brother bring engines into the shed to put up in block and tackles to work on. I dinked around with him and found I had an aptitude for automotive engines. Strange but true. Dinking wise. Carry on. The learning continues, many thanks, my pals❤️🇷🇺💙
Apr 23, 2023·edited Apr 23, 2023Liked by Simplicius
It's interesting to note how Russian MBT's are more evolutionary than revolutionary compared to the West (not that the West has done much in the last 40 years, with regards to tank design).
With the T90M being a different turret casting on basically a T72 chassis, the mind boggles at how many T72's could potentially be "upgraded" with a new turret and power pack plus reactive armour if Russia wanted to go that route.
As followers of SpaceX will know, Soviet/Russian metallurgy has been far ahead of the collective West for quite some time. They had full-flow, staged combustion rocket engines more than 50 years ago, that SpaceX themselves have only recently mastered.
Aberdeen Proving Grounds may well use "Maestro" as a target, to test that turrets metallurgy, as well as looking at the Russian solutions to battlefield threats/targeting.
The Twitter opinion of "Cheap, Russian garbage" was amusing to see, that tank looked like all it needed was a quick blow out of debris, replace some of the missing gear, refuel, fire it up and go. An Abrams left hatches open through a winter would be a full depot level rebuild. His point about Abrams crews constantly maintaining, hides the fact that without it, an Abrams is very quickly dead-lined. Top-line US equipment is very maintenance intensive, not something you want in a long drawn out war. US equipment is designed around quick, decisive actions, not long hard grinds.
Such silly comments. Looking inside an 18 year-old car in a junkyard, then claiming the upholstery was badly designed when it was initially built at the factory.
The steel arm rests on the chair clearly were the substructure, with someone having removed the upholstery support.
The Tank was clearly well used and worn out, the tracks and carriers at the point of replacement.
The Russians are looking forward to capturing the stripped-down version of the Abrams, which would be a far better trophy than this "K-car" version of 20 year old tankery.
Too bad for America that it's crazed but incompetent Leadership inside the District of Corruption couldn't have dreamed up a working relationship with Russia, instead of paving a 6-lane highway for Russia and China to formalize an Alliance against the fading, rapidly, ex Super Power.
Thank you for following up on this story very interesting.
I ignore those derogatory comments from Captain Kaos.
Of course I expect this kind of exceptionalism talk from Western ideologues. We already know they think they are incredibly superior to all other life forms.
Since they have so many shipments going to Ukraine, and not so much returning back the other way, it is not surprising that they would haul this old heap back to the US since they clearly have cargo space to do so.
One of the more interesting things to watch as this conflict unfolds/ends will be what a tanks role in war becomes. With precision artillery, drones, precision glide bombs, and 24/7 surveillance overwatch they really carry a huge liabilities with their firepower.
The point of a tank is that it is armored. It can survive being far closer to the front line than artillery. There are also situations where direct fire is better than indirect. Tanks also allow rapid movement and short term relative supply independence.
Any platform - artillery, airplane, helicopter, tank, AFV, supply truck, supply train, MLRS, infantryman or whatever is vulnerable to attack in a modern battlefield - to say tanks are exceptionally good or bad is naive.
The point of modern "all arms" warfare, as MacGregor and other have noted, is linking up all these disparate systems to take advantage of the specific benefits of each and minimize the weaknesses of each.
I'm not disagreeing with any of that. I'm just saying that with the technology advancements of this war it will be very interesting to see if/how their use gets changed. You can't deny they are a giant target on the modern battlefield. (As well as all the benefits you listed)
MBTs are far smaller targets than ammunition dumps, airfields or even combat infantry formations. True heavy firepower force projection is far greater a problem for the above than for the MBT. For that matter, the MBT has not been invulnerable ever since probably the 2nd week of when they first appeared on a battlefield.
As for the "technology advancements of this war" - what exactly has changed now vs. say, January 2022?
Satellites in use now were in use then.
There are more drones, but then again, there were already drones in the air before January 2022.
Fixed and rotary wing aircraft were around then and are around now, as are the Russian anti-air defense formations.
FAB glide bombs? JDAMs were in use by the US since at least 2000. Russia started using them in Syria.
GPS guided artillery shells? Excalibur was in production by 2012.
The point of technology in warfare is extremely rarely one which obsoletes anything.
Even the Blitzkrieg German army of 1940 used a lot of horses to move supplies.
So while you are right that there will be changes - the changes are far more likely to be doctrinal than equipment-based. Nobody is going to stop using MBTs for some time, if ever just as nobody is going to replace the various arms of military forces completely with drones or robots or whatever.
Maybe it got off the battlefield precisely because it's going to provide crap info. Otherwise I'd have expected it would have been at least burned out by a drone strike.
Most likely it broke down during one of the feint operations and was left behind.
S**t happens.
Yes, and if you re-read what your wrote, doesn't that sound like an excellent way to lay down disinformation?
Not clear at all what you are trying to say.
Tanks don't break down?
S**t doesn't happen?
https://audioboom.com/posts/8282172-londinium90ad-gaius-and-germanicus-debate-the-battlefield-on-the-eve-of-the-much-announced-spri
Gaius and Germanicus mature the Ukraine War failures to learn with the Vietnam War and Iraq War failures to learn. Michael Vlahos. Friends of History Debating Society.
https://audioboom.com/posts/8282173-londinium90ad-gaius-and-germanicus-mature-the-ukraine-war-failures-to-learn-with-the-vietnam-w
t-90 is sitting on a standard goose neck heavy vehicle hauler.
abrams is much heavier and road hauler much larger.
no wide tracks!
as to shipping abrams, which active or guard war plan tasked units give up their support sets of their packing and load list sets?
bc some rude uk is is already asking for rear area support shops to be set up for the few thin track leopards….
If you were going to design a tank, you wouldn't use a fuel gobbling turbine engine ever. Turbine engines are designed for aircraft that operate at constant power in clean air at altitude. When the amerikans were supplying the Soviet Union during WWII Stalin wouldn't accept gasoline burning tanks, they had to be Diesel only. They didn't call the British model "Tommy burners" for nothing. Many Long distance sailors won't have gasoline on board for fire reasons. I had 5 fire extinguishers on my 32' sailboat for that reason. Amerika probably gets the worst value for money on the military industrial complexes than any nation on earth. Most of what flys is 50 year old designs updated and the much vaunted F35 is supposedly stealthy but I doubt that anything is as a couple of invisible US aircraft found out in Serbia and no amerikan aircraft has thrust vectored supermanuverability or serious supercruise capabilities. Sure are expensive though. Reliability and servicability, not so much. The money would have been better spent on the long suffering underclasses but who cares for the untermenchen Dreck, certainly not the ruling classes.
https://www.theshermantank.com/lee-and-grant-tanks/soviet-shermans-the-soviet-union-used-and-liked-the-sherman/
While what you say is true, my favorite Russian tank is still arguably the T-80BVM which is their turbine tank. The turbine engine reportedly gives it several major advantages (though some disadvantages as well), such as: the ability to start in much colder temperatures, whereas T-72s sometimes require you to "light a fire underneath" the tank in order to first heat up the oil/fuel system. And the T-80 generates much more power in general, particularly low end torque (as I understand it at least), which gives it higher speeds and acceleration. And lastly, turbine tanks like both the Abrams and T-80 can run on almost any fuel. You can use fuel oil, diesel, gas, aviation/jet fuel, kerosene, home heating oil, etc., and it will run on them all.
Yep, but is the very high heat signature worth the above advantages? On that note, with modern thermal detection is that a problem anymore (higher heat sigs)?
Yeah that's why it seems the future in tank design is shifting towards hybrid engines with U.S. and possibly Germany's next tanks being hybrid electric motor which can operate in 'silent' and presumably 'low heat' mode for short periods of time just on the electric portion of the motor.
With that said, though it's not hybrid, the Russian T-14 Armata has several 'stealth' features most people aren't aware of that make it the world's first truly stealth tank. Not only is it designed with stealth angles to be low observability to radar and is coated in special anti-radar coatings, but it's designed to be stealth to heat signatures as well. Not only in its composition but in the design/placement of its exhaust system. Some sources outright claim it's "invisible" in the thermal spectrum: https://en.topwar.ru/115596-armata-malozametna-v-infrakrasnom-diapazone.html
I don't know how true that is, but the Javelin and co may have a hard time locking onto it
I wonder mightily about just how practical an electric engine would be when moving 40 ton tanks. Among other things, the battery pack alone would be ginormous. The EV Semi tractor trailer trucks which are being experimented with are 40 tons, but have 8 ton battery packs. Note this doesn't even include the fuel tank and extra ICE engine weight...
Sure, the EV Semis are intended to have longer range than an MBT, but they also aren't carrying armor.
Then there's the problem with heat. I am fairly sure tanks are very hot - large masses of metal accumulate heat at a pretty unstoppable rate - and electrical batteries do not do well in high temperature, high vibration and/or high physical deformation (i.e. dents) environments.
And while cat-kill survivability is low under any circumstances, a tank with 8 tons of EV batteries in it would guarantee no open coffins. Even if a crewman got out, the flash cookoff would likely heat-kill.
Turbine engines actually have a significantly lower thermal signature compared to comparable multi-fuel and diesel piston engines, as even though the exhaust produced by a turbine is many times hotter, it's far cleaner, which means it cools down and equalizes with the surrounding air temperature far faster than the sootier exhaust produced by a piston engine. As such, tanks that use piston engines like Leopard 2 and T-90 drive around immersed in a massive cloud of (relatively) hot soot and dust, while tanks that use turbine engines like M1 Abrams and T-80 drive around with only a tiny pocket of white-hot gas following them that quickly dissipates. Really, there's absolutely no reason to not use a turbine engine except for its fuel consumption and greater production cost.
especially in reverse. T-72 line reverse speed is a huge downside in my opinion
Generally speaking, turbine engine, like a short stroke gasoline engine, only has full torque at full speed and the torque curve drops rapidly.
4 stroke Diesel engines, generally, have very flat torque, allowing them to lift off without stalling, generating smooth, powerful torque across all operating conditions.
If you spent any time near a Helicopter, you will note how the pilot brings the engine up to full speed/torque before lift off. That is exactly the problem with turbine engines in battle conditions. Time is scarce, seconds matter.
Of course, for the Abrams, you could always keep the turbine at (near) full speed, but since it sucks fuel, your time in play is substantially reduced.
Multifuel isn't that useful a feature. Robert is a little off on the reason the Soviets went with diesel, which wasn't flammability. It was logistics, and it's the same reason the USA and UK went with gasoline. Russia had oil suitable for making diesel and the USA and UK had oil more suitable for making gasoline, so civilian use drove the development of the fuel technology and infrastructure accordingly.
This logistics trail was a major headache for Soviet Aviation in the early part of WW2, lack of good/high octane aviation gasoline. Also, it's not just a software change to reliably burn various fuels in turbines. Any army who needs to start burning fuel bad for it's equipment has already lost the logistics battle, and could only punch up a predetermined outcome with a weak enemy, ala Iraq. The USA had 1 year to build up in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to invade Iraq and still had huge issues with logistics in the end, but no lessons learned, the MIC-IMATT forced off sales of more of the USMM tanker fleet to fuel 'fraudulent weapons' purchases.
I'm a T-80UK enjoyer myself, so I know from researching the engines used by all T-80 and M1 Abrams variants that the dust inhalation issue is far more of a design flaw of the M1 Abrams than an issue inherent to turbine engines in tanks, as not only were the M1 Abrams' filters of a flawed design, but also all T-80 variants have a feature where their engines are designed to vibrate out the dust and dirt so it gets passed out rather than build up to form enough of a mass that could damage the engine. This is why no T-80 has ever had to stop for a sandstorm as M1 Abrams did during Desert Storm.
Yes, when the length and reliability of your logistics supply train is in question, notorious fuel hogs like the Abrams are more liability than asset...
As MacGregor notes - a former Abrams tanker and tank commander - the Abrams was designed to defend the Fulda gap against Soviet attack. It is enormous because it was supposed to be able to take out 4 or 5 Soviet tanks by surviving getting hit (and dodging) while shooting back.
A turbine engine is fine in this use case because the tank is almost always sitting on defense and needs maximum survivability for a short time.
Only problem though was the Soviets had no intention of hitting the Fulda Gap and instead would go across the Northern Plains where they could entrap large formations against the river systems and use Krasnopol and their MLRS superiority to full effect. Thus destroying the NATO heavy tanks in the opening barrages while SRBMs took out the POMCUS sites.
NATO's entire defensive plan was fatally flawed through and through and a recipe for defeat in detail. What should have been done was make the the West Bank of the Rhine the main defense line and have everything east be fortress cities used as bases for commando raids.
That may well be true. Given the US military and US military industrial complex's actions re: missile gap, bomber gap, h-bomb gap, etc etc - what's one more boondoggle plan?
I wonder if Beg Serge will get his hands on this tank in MD?
^ Big Serge, sheesh fyac....
If you click on the 3 dots, you can edit your existing comment. Just FYI.
I wonder what other equipment the Roleplaying SS squadrons have shipped to their masters in the West? Wasn't that one Russian EW truck the MSM was celebrating the capture of last year?
Eh, I say its not too much of a problem. This War has has made it clear that logistics, classic warfare, and basic weapons in great numbers are far more important than some comicbook iron man armor.
Well at least War Thunder and World of Tanks are going to get an update soon lol.
The EW thing was fake. Ukraine claimed that was a Krasukha station, which it wasn't. Krasukha is truck mounted and doesn't come off the truck like a shipping container. That's why they never showed interior photos of it. One possibility I've read is it could have been a Orlan-10 drone command bunker, which would have been nothing, just a metal can with some laptops, but it certainly was not any Krasukha system, that's a fact. You can look up photos of the two yourself and see they look nothing alike whatsoever, but of course Ukrainian supporters will continue to push that to their ignorant followers because they don't know any better.
Weird thing, they are not "role playing SS squadron" here.
Notice the name Ukrainians gave to the tank. It is after the pilot of a captured BF-109 from the Soviet movie.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_%22Old_Men%22_Are_Going_Into_Battle
In the video they also complain about Europe being evasive on Lend-Lease again.
And no, it was named by Ukrainians (маЕстро) while Russians would write it (маЭстро) instead.
An insignificant bitter detail...
obsolete crap but still more advanced than current usa tanks. lol
Yep, if it was as 'obsolete' as they claim, they wouldn't be so desperate to get it to their state of the art testing site. And it only showed their own incompetence, not only could they not ship it directly to east coast ports, and had to truck it across the country, but then their own transport broke down at the first leg of the trip. Kind of an embarrassing blooper reel.
I remember, from my childhood, my elder brother bring engines into the shed to put up in block and tackles to work on. I dinked around with him and found I had an aptitude for automotive engines. Strange but true. Dinking wise. Carry on. The learning continues, many thanks, my pals❤️🇷🇺💙
It's interesting to note how Russian MBT's are more evolutionary than revolutionary compared to the West (not that the West has done much in the last 40 years, with regards to tank design).
With the T90M being a different turret casting on basically a T72 chassis, the mind boggles at how many T72's could potentially be "upgraded" with a new turret and power pack plus reactive armour if Russia wanted to go that route.
As followers of SpaceX will know, Soviet/Russian metallurgy has been far ahead of the collective West for quite some time. They had full-flow, staged combustion rocket engines more than 50 years ago, that SpaceX themselves have only recently mastered.
Aberdeen Proving Grounds may well use "Maestro" as a target, to test that turrets metallurgy, as well as looking at the Russian solutions to battlefield threats/targeting.
The Twitter opinion of "Cheap, Russian garbage" was amusing to see, that tank looked like all it needed was a quick blow out of debris, replace some of the missing gear, refuel, fire it up and go. An Abrams left hatches open through a winter would be a full depot level rebuild. His point about Abrams crews constantly maintaining, hides the fact that without it, an Abrams is very quickly dead-lined. Top-line US equipment is very maintenance intensive, not something you want in a long drawn out war. US equipment is designed around quick, decisive actions, not long hard grinds.
The U.S. Military is founded on German Blitzkrieg, which means you must mortally wound the enemy in the first skirmish.
And, of course picking on someone of smaller size makes Blitzkrieg, Shock and Awe, easier.
Where is the American Stateman to find a non-military solution?
Seems that the magical counter offensive is still on hold for… lack of weapons 🤡
Based on the photos, the most obvious 'modification' the Ukies made was to cover it in white crosses...
Such silly comments. Looking inside an 18 year-old car in a junkyard, then claiming the upholstery was badly designed when it was initially built at the factory.
The steel arm rests on the chair clearly were the substructure, with someone having removed the upholstery support.
The Tank was clearly well used and worn out, the tracks and carriers at the point of replacement.
The Russians are looking forward to capturing the stripped-down version of the Abrams, which would be a far better trophy than this "K-car" version of 20 year old tankery.
Too bad for America that it's crazed but incompetent Leadership inside the District of Corruption couldn't have dreamed up a working relationship with Russia, instead of paving a 6-lane highway for Russia and China to formalize an Alliance against the fading, rapidly, ex Super Power.
Thank you for following up on this story very interesting.
I ignore those derogatory comments from Captain Kaos.
Of course I expect this kind of exceptionalism talk from Western ideologues. We already know they think they are incredibly superior to all other life forms.
Since they have so many shipments going to Ukraine, and not so much returning back the other way, it is not surprising that they would haul this old heap back to the US since they clearly have cargo space to do so.
Somebody should have poured gasoline in it and burnt her out