Intresting Facts about 1980s Soviet Equipment

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Soviet Tanks

Soviet tanks are often discribed as being very simple to operate and maintain. For all of their simplicity, however, Soviet tanks have often been superior to those used by the US and its allies. For example, Soviet tanks outgun NATO tanks by at least 10mm; in the 1940s 85mm vs 76mm, 100mm vs 90mm or 84mm in the 1950s, 115mm vs 105mm in the 1960s, and 125mm vs 105mm in the 1970s. Larger caliber guns give high velocity and better armor penetration.

However, other factors undercut the Soviet armament advantage, including fewer rounds stored, primitive optics, low rate of fire and inferior ammunition.

Until the appearance of the T-64/72, the NATO superiority in optics and fire control was a tremendous advantage in combat. Not only did this mean that NATO would hit their targets more often, it often meant that NATO tanks would get the first shot in.

There are three types of rangefinders used on tanks: the stadia reticle (the range finder is incorporated in the gunner's sight, primary method used in WWII); the stereo coincidence (this range finder has the commander lay on target and then superimpose two images into one, the mirrors project on either side of the turret and provide the base for a calculation as to range, used in the 1950s-1970s); and the final type is the laser rangefinder (which projects an invisible beam towards a target and reads the elapsed time for the beam to be reflected back to the rangefinder). The following chart shows the average accuracy of each type:

Rangefinder (Range) 500m 1,000m 2,000m

Laser 98% 86% 34%
Stero Coincidence 97% 70% 14%
Stadia Reticle 98% 35% 4%

As you can see, at short ranges there is very little difference in the performance of the various systems, since short range is also the range where armor is most vulnerable to penetration, the advantage goes to the crew that gets the first shot off. At longer ranges, the differences become more marked, this is the reason why NATO crews are trained to engage at long range and why Soviet doctrine stresses closeing and engaging enemy armor as quickly as possible.

Because of their small size, Soviet tanks carry less ammunition than NATO tanks. Due to this, the Soviets are much more dependent upon the second echelon bringing up reserve ammunition to a much higher degree than NATO. This difference was felt by the Syrian T-55s in the 1973 War when many of their tanks were running out of ammunition by the second day, while Israeli Centurions still had adequate supplies of main gun ammunition onboard.

The turrets of NATO tanks often rotate at a much higher rate than a Soviet tank. For example, a M-60A1 tank rotates at 24 degrees per second, the T-55/T-62 rotates at 17 degrees per second.

The lightness of Soviet tanks allows them to use bridges impassable to NATO tanks.

Soviet tanks have much more effective NBC systems than NATO tanks.

Soviet tank engines also take much longer to remove and change out than NATO Tanks. An M-60A1 engine pack can be remove within 30 minutes, a T-62 can take up to 2 hours.

Compared to NATO designs, Soviet tanks have much better cross-country mobility. This is due to their lightweight and high horsepower to weight ratio.

The human engineering of Soviet tanks is widely acknowledged to be inferior, as is their mechanical reliability. T-62s average a breakdown every 160-200km while a M-60A1 averages a breakdown every 240-320km.

The small dimensions of Soviet tanks reduces their vulnerability by presenting a smaller target and allows greater strategic mobility by allowing the use of railway rolling stonck that the larger NATO tanks cannot use. A smaller tank also allows the use of positions that larger tanks cannot use. But the Soviets pay for this advantage with a cramped and vulnerable interior, and, more importantly, the low silhouette limits gun depression to 4 degrees sd opposed to the 10+ degrees of NATO tanks. This forces Soviet tanks to expose much more of their hull than NATO tanks when firing from defilade positions.