T-62 Tank Discussion

[T. A. Gardner]

And yet, in actual combat Soviet tanks have almost uniformly and universally lost against Western tanks since the end of WW 2. There has to be a reason, and it isn't simply crew quality. So, if the T-62 was so much better, why wasn't that demonstrated on the battlefield at least a few times? Instead, the T-55's and 62's repeatedly were shot to pieces, often in overwhelming defeats.

It doesn't argue well for the assessments made of these vehicle's performance.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

I'd argue that the M60 has proven more amenable to upgrades over the years among its other positives. Even early on if you wanted to have built an M60 that was more comparable to the T-62 in terms of firepower it could have been fielded with the 120mm T123 rifled gun which would be more powerful but suffer from the same lower rate of fire the T-62 has. Yes rate of fire isn't everything but it was still an important factor in why the 105mm was selected.

As for the Russian's current use of T-62s I don't think that reflects good about the T-62 but as much as it does the poor state of Russian storage facilities where the ten-thousand plus T-64s, T-72s, and T-80s that are warehoused across Russia aren't being reactivated and used instead.

About the M60A3 vs T-62M comparison yes the T-62M has a laser rangefinder too but I very much doubt it is as well integrated into the fire control system as is the one on the M60A3. The fire control system probably works similar to the one on all but the latest T-72 variants. Which means it's not on par with the T-64B, T-80B, M60A3, or M1. The T-62's gun could defeat the the M60A3 for sure but by that point in time the T-62 (even T-62M) would easily be defeated by the 105mm APFSDS then in use.

I can't confirm this but I'd have to think that in general Soviet tanks didn't provide enough vision ports for the commander and other crew or maybe not enough field of view for the sights and periscopes. Even recently there seems to be a lot of examples of such tanks continuing to blunder into kill zones that really should have been avoided after the lead vehicles get hit.

 

[Elan Vital]

The rate of fire thing is more nuanced, as Tankograd's article on the T-62 can further explain (here directly links to the ROF subsection):

T-62

The T-62 medium tank, known under the factory product code of Object 166, formally entered service in the Soviet Army on the 12th of...

thesovietarmourblog.blogspot.com

Not only was the indexed loading angle not strictly necessary because "the tank was just so tight", but it was specifically implemented to help the loader and is far from an uncommon feature on contemporary (T-55 for example) and modern tanks (Abrams, Leo 2, autoloaded tanks). The other thing is that while maximum theoretical rate of fire was indeed somewhat below contemporary tanks, practical rate of fire was
1- Not 3 rounds per minute, but a minimum of 4 and closer to 5 for most crews
2- This was aimed rate of fire, which is far more relevant because the aiming sequence in any tank of the time will take much longer than reload. Western tanks of the day (the Strv 103 and M60A1/A3 are mentionned in the article) had comparable aimed rates of fire.

To some degree the aimed rate of fire can be accelerated by relying only on the battlesight technique, and in this case T-62 was no worse off, and indeed better off than Western vehicles because the higher velocity of its projectiles allowed a longer battlesight range and greater probability of hit with this method.

And yet, in actual combat Soviet tanks have almost uniformly and universally lost against Western tanks since the end of WW 2. There has to be a reason, and it isn't simply crew quality. So, if the T-62 was so much better, why wasn't that demonstrated on the battlefield at least a few times? Instead, the T-55's and 62's repeatedly were shot to pieces, often in overwhelming defeats.

It doesn't argue well for the assessments made of these vehicle's performance.

What makes you think it wasn't crew quality or other factors? Pretty much all instances of Soviet tanks doing poorly against Western tanks were in very lopsided conditions where the Soviet tanks were crewed by objectively poor crews (all Middle Eastern wars), faced competent crews that sometimes were even more capable than Western ones (Israel), fought under heavy aerial attacks, or faced equipment that was a generation later (Gulf Wars).

Western testing of Soviet tanks can already be flawed on its own due to recovered vehicles being in poor condition, missing important stuff (this happened) or because the intended Soviet training manuals/procedures were not present or known, but they are still better than relying on raw battle results to assess the technical qualities of a given vehicle.
The Soviets themselves, when they got captured examples of Western tanks had positive things to say about them (and not necessary the things people or the Western militaries typically expected).

 

[Colonial-Marine]

T-62 only has 4 ready shells in the turret and the rest of the ammo is in the hull and somewhat harder to get at. I'd have to guess that you'd have 4-5 rounds per minute at first but then it would drop to 3.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

 

[Kat Tsun]

And yet, in actual combat Soviet tanks have almost uniformly and universally lost against Western tanks since the end of WW 2. There has to be a reason, and it isn't simply crew quality.

There's been literally two wars. The Indian-Pakistani Wars, where the Soviet equipment defeated the Western equipment, and the Arab-Israeli Wars, where the Western equipment defeated the Soviet equipment.

Two samples, two divergent outcomes.

You'd have a better argument that since the U.S. military hasn't won a major ground war since WW2, against a competent opponent, that it's an incompetent organization that is bad at war...

It doesn't argue well for the assessments made of these vehicle's performance.

Do you really not know how this works? Tanks are tools. Tools are only as good as their workmen.

The capabilities of a tank cannot compensate for poor crews, but good crews can take advantage of certain capabilities of a tank. You might be better thinking of the M60 as a parade tank: easy to maintain, easy to drive, roomy, and habitable; to the detriment of its fighting qualities; while the T-62 is a fighting tank: short, squat, heavily armed, with a minimal armored volume. One will be easier to keep in action by the crew but likely die in large quantities against comparably trained crews, while the other will be more annoying to maintain but be pretty lethal for killing the other guys.

You can see this, in the hands of the U.S. Army tank crews and OPFOR, where the T-62 is decidedly more lethal and marginally more effective overall than the M60...

You'd think that's all it takes to clear any doubt, but I guess the U.S. Army and its elite training corpus aren't good enough for you? For someone who cites ergonomics as a detrimental design feature of a tank, you don't have a strong understanding of how human factors affect the tank's combat performance, tbh.

Vehicles cannot be "compared" one to one without considerations for the crew capabilities at the end of the day.

Arabs, for whatever reason, have produced poor crews almost as a rule, to the point that people genuinely wonder if Arabs are capable of being good fighters (how did they conquer the Holy Land under Saladin? were they really good, or was Christendom just bad?). Indians, for whatever reason again, have produced decent crews. Maybe Islam is the problem here? That's the common trend between Pakistan and most Arabic nations, who are notorious for losing wars against their national-ethnic enemies in various wars in the XX century. Who knows, who cares.

Point is that Pakistanis have lost wars with advanced Western equipment (M48 Patton) versus contemporary Soviet equipment (T-55), while Arabs and Egyptians have lost wars with advanced Soviet equipment (T-62s), versus contemporary Western equipment (M60), and neither suggests anything about the tanks themselves. The Israelis did not appreciably lose large quantities Tiran-6s in combat in 1982, either, despite lack of spare parts and limited maintenance capability (which is why they were replaced with Magachs).

Of course, all this tells us literally nothing about the capabilities of particular vehicles or their performances in future wars! That can only be determined by using trials crews, and eventually in combat in major world wars, the latter of which has yet to happen.

There's a much stronger argument to be had that no tank since the M4 Sherman and the T-34 have had any serious combat use that has exposed their weaknesses or deficiencies while leading to corrective industrial action in combination with "good" (i.e. battle experienced) crews. T-64BV, of all things, is coming damn close though. T-62 will get there eventually, too.

T-62 only has 4 ready shells in the turret and the rest of the ammo is in the hull and somewhat harder to get at. I'd have to guess that you'd have 4-5 rounds per minute at first but then it would drop to 3.

TBF that's a platoon of dead Pattons in Europe per tank. Hypervelocity ammunition simply doesn't require large quantities of rounds stowed.

This is one of the lessons of the current European war, where tanks are often going into action with a dozen or so rounds stowed, and not suffering for it. However, this was strongly hinted at in minor engagements in Vietnam and especially in McMaster's death ride in 1991, so it's not terribly surprising except to people who still rely on WW2-normed ammunition supply tables.

The only thing that isn't totally clear is if this is a result of hypervelocity rounds themselves, the close range nature of the combat actions in the European war, the digital-laser fire control system and stabilized guns of the T-64BV and T-62M (among others), or a combination of all three of these factors. 1973 didn't see this, but it was a much smaller war for one, and its lines of sight were much larger, so ammunition expenditure may have been higher at excessive ranges beyond contemporary fire control.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

And yet, in actual combat Soviet tanks have almost uniformly and universally lost against Western tanks since the end of WW 2. There has to be a reason, and it isn't simply crew quality.

There's been literally two wars. The Indian-Pakistani Wars, where the Soviet equipment defeated the Western equipment, and the Arab-Israeli Wars, where the Western equipment defeated the Soviet equipment.

Two samples, two divergent outcomes.

You'd have a better argument that since the U.S. military hasn't won a major ground war since WW2, against a competent opponent, that it's an incompetent organization that is bad at war...

It doesn't argue well for the assessments made of these vehicle's performance.

Do you really not know how this works? Tanks are tools. Tools are only as good as their workmen.

The capabilities of a tank cannot compensate for poor crews, but good crews can take advantage of certain capabilities of a tank. You might be better thinking of the M60 as a parade tank: easy to maintain, easy to drive, roomy, and habitable; to the detriment of its fighting qualities; while the T-62 is a fighting tank: short, squat, heavily armed, with a minimal armored volume. One will be easier to keep in action by the crew but likely die in large quantities against comparably trained crews, while the other will be more annoying to maintain but be pretty lethal for killing the other guys.

You can see this, in the hands of the U.S. Army tank crews and OPFOR, where the T-62 is decidedly more lethal and marginally more effective overall than the M60...

You'd think that's all it takes to clear any doubt, but I guess the U.S. Army and its elite training corpus aren't good enough for you? For someone who cites ergonomics as a detrimental design feature of a tank, you don't have a strong understanding of how human factors affect the tank's combat performance, tbh.

Vehicles cannot be "compared" one to one without considerations for the crew capabilities at the end of the day.

Arabs, for whatever reason, have produced poor crews almost as a rule, to the point that people genuinely wonder if Arabs are capable of being good fighters (how did they conquer the Holy Land under Saladin? were they really good, or was Christendom just bad?). Indians, for whatever reason again, have produced decent crews. Maybe Islam is the problem here? That's the common trend between Pakistan and most Arabic nations, who are notorious for losing wars against their national-ethnic enemies in various wars in the XX century. Who knows, who cares.

Point is that Pakistanis have lost wars with advanced Western equipment (M48 Patton) versus contemporary Soviet equipment (T-55), while Arabs and Egyptians have lost wars with advanced Soviet equipment (T-62s), versus contemporary Western equipment (M60), and neither suggests anything about the tanks themselves. The Israelis did not appreciably lose Tiran-6s in combat in 1982, after all.

Of course, all this tells us literally nothing about the capabilities of particular vehicles or their performances in future wars! That can only be determined by using trials crews and eventually in combat in major world wars, the latter of which never happened.

There's a much stronger argument to be had that no tank since the M4 Sherman and the T-34 have had any serious combat use that has exposed their weaknesses or deficiencies while leading to corrective industrial action in combination with "good" (i.e. battle experienced) crews. T-64BV, of all things, is coming damn close though.

T-62 only has 4 ready shells in the turret and the rest of the ammo is in the hull and somewhat harder to get at. I'd have to guess that you'd have 4-5 rounds per minute at first but then it would drop to 3.

TBF that's a platoon of dead Pattons in Europe per tank. Hypervelocity ammunition simply doesn't require large quantities of rounds stowed.

This is one of the lessons of the current European war, where tanks are often going into action with a dozen or so rounds stowed, and not suffering for it. However, this was strongly hinted at in minor engagements in Vietnam and especially in McMaster's death ride in 1991, so it's not terribly surprising except to people who still rely on WW2-normed ammunition supply tables.

The only thing that isn't totally clear is if this is a result of hypervelocity rounds themselves, the close range nature of the combat actions in the European war, the digital-laser fire control system and stabilized guns of the T-64BV and T-62M (among others), or a combination of all three of these factors. 1973 didn't see this, but it was a much smaller war for one, and its lines of sight were much larger, so ammunition expenditure may have been higher at excessive ranges beyond contemporary fire control.

Not true. There was also the N. Vietnamese invasion of S. Vietnam after the US left where ARVN M48A3's (90mm) decimated N. Vietmanese T 55's and even the ARVN M 41 light tanks were able to out perform NVA Soviet armor by a wide margin.

For the T-62, as the video shows, it's quite a feat to load more than 2 or 3 RPM in one due to the weight, size, and location of the ammunition. Worse, the T-62 only carries about 30 antitank rounds of any sort at most so it runs out of ammo PDQ in a gunfight. If you look at the predicted hit rates on targets at 1000 meters + or against moving targets that equates to something like maybe 10 enemy vehicles if you manage a perfect fight, more likely something like 1 or 2 in reality.

That might be fine for the Soviet Army where you can afford the losses, but for most armies that is a disastrous recipe for defeat.

Let me be clear here. I don't fault the Russian designers of this vehicle for a second on the technical merits of what they did. The gun is excellent. The tank chassis and drive train are what they could achieve on the weight and size allowed. On that, the driver is facing a grueling task maneuvering a T-62 on the battlefield. He has to do it buttoned up (hatch closed). The transmission, like other Russian ones of the period was exactly a precision made thing. Thus, even with a pneumatic assist on the clutch, it is a beast to shift gears in. The steering, likewise, was heavy and required muscle to work. Many Arab crews found that the driver got heat exhaustion or worse from even short periods in combat.

Then you add that the casing ejection system didn't usually work as advertised. This led to a quick and massive build up of carbon monoxide, smoke from the spent propellant, etc., inside the tank.

The overall effect is that in terms of basics, gun, armor, mobility, the designers got it right. But when it came to human engineering, polishing the rough basic design, they never got there. A tank is more than just how good its gun, armor, and drive train are.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Yes, that explains why the North Vietnamese won?

ARVN crews might have been okay but they still lost their battles and lost their war. North Vietnamese troops did not suffer for their tank crews' lack of dueling capabilities, and defenders always have an advantage against attacking troops. It's not surprising that the PAVN suffered losses in attacking, but the enemy was destroyed, and the operation successful. The important part is that the PAVN knew how many battalions they would lose, where they would need to put them to destroy the enemy, and successfully defeated the enemy in combat. Americans, if they weren't haughty, would consider this a grand display of "maneuverist" thinking.

The T-62 deliberately traded minor human factors concerns for fightability. This, in hindsight, was a better tradeoff than the Pattons. It's why the M60 is almost completely gone now and the T-62 remains modern, in stockpiles, and will continue fighting for decades.

If an army can't "afford the losses" then you simply don't have an army built to win. That's the cold hard truth that the U.S. military was grappling with in the entire Cold War: its army was too small to win a ground war against the Soviet Union, and NATO was too industrially weak to change this, without using nuclear weapons. For similar reasons, the Soviet Navy was too small to defeat the U.S. Navy.

For similar reasons, the Arabs lost their wars against the Israelis mainly because they blindly copied Soviet thinking with miniscule tank fleets of "a few thousand" instead of a normal size tank fleet of "tens of thousands" that can sustain losses. The correct move would have been to take acquire nuclear weapons and use these to shift the COFM in their favor by using them liberally. Small armies, by necessity, need to rely more on nuclear weapons (or firepower in general) to protect themselves from being destroyed piecemeal.

This is not some obscure knowledge or great breakthrough either: it's why the U.S. Army adopted the Pentomic organization in the 1950's.

The rest of your post appears to be more informed by World of Tanks than any real life armor engagements.

A tank "runs out of ammo" carrying twice as many rounds as tank crews use in combat? As if a single tank crew might engage "10 enemy targets" by themselves? I don't know where you're getting these space alien examples but in real life tanks tend to fight similar numbers, varying between 1-3:1, because companies generally attack platoons and platoons are generally between three to five tanks.

 

[dan_inbox]

A tank "runs out of ammo" carrying twice as many rounds as tank crews use in combat? As if a single tank crew might engage "10 enemy targets" by themselves?

Ever heard about Golan 1973 and Hativa 7's desperate fight almost to the last tank to save the country?
They and and every other IDF armored unit on the Golan did run out of ammo.

...which is why merkavot have a palletized ammo resupply system.

The whole discussion above reeks of too-sweeping statements with more machismo than accuracy. Not really SPF-quality IMO.

 

[Kat Tsun]

That's the textbook definition of an outlier...

Ukraine suggests that, against similarly competent ground forces, most tank engagements at ranges in European terrain (<1000 meters LOS) will require fewer than 10 rounds per engagement, with a period of resupply and refueling afterwards. So do the Indo-Pakistani Wars. So does Desert Storm and 2003. No one ran out of ammunition in the Sinai, either. Tanks carry a lot of main gun ammo because of WW2, and it's extremely hard to find examples of them running out of ammo in pitched battles since the development of hypervelocity ammunition and especially digital FCS and laser rangefinders, even against highly compliant targets, in the past 50 years.

Golan Heights might be literally the only time.

My point is that T-62, as judged by the U.S. Army and CIA, was considered superior to its contemporaries at killing other tanks, with U.S. Army crews behind the wheel.

You can disagree that certain aspects are important, but it's hard to conclude that sacrificing ergonomic factors is not worth the cost, when the U.S. Army's own tests showed T-62 was superior to M60 in real and virtual simulated combat. It's very hard to suggest that T-62 is a "bad tank" too, unless you're willing to accept that M48 and M60 are "worse", because the U.S. Army and CIA came to that conclusion, even after 1973.

If you think this is wrong, you can try to find an alternative analysis or technical documentation to suggest otherwise, but that would be a bit tough I think. I already posted a abbreviated figure showing AMSAA computer modeling studies and a probability of hit of T-62's gunnery at range by the U.S. Army based on actual firing range tests.

The bulk of T.A. Gardner's arguments against the T-62 are not very important, otherwise they would have appeared in U.S. Army field trials and AMSAA tests and been reflected in the test scores and language used; and a few of them are factually incorrect like the "inaccurate past 1,000 meters" when the T-62 remains more accurate than the M60 out to 1,500 meters using contemporary ammunition. The U.S. Army was in fact so worried about T-62 it designed the M1 tank explicitly to be immune to the 115mm 3BM6.

It had some funny quirks mostly because it was a very small tank designed to be not much bigger than the T-55. Like the T-64 after it, it represented the first of a new generation of tanks, and this is to be expected. For all its genuine problems, it's certainly not a lemon or anything of the sort, at least not anymore than the M60 Patton. Any crew that is well trained on it can expect to fight it quite well, the same as T-55A, as India proved in 1971 with its predecessor, and Israel proved in 1982 with the Tiran-6.

The Arab-Israeli Wars tell us more about Arab tank crews than about the tanks they used. After all, Syrians were using Panzer IVs in 1948, how did they not defeat the puny Hotchkiss H-35s of the Israelis? France was completely bodied by the same vehicles. Tanks depend more on their crews than the other way around. A good crew can make even a "bad" tank good, and by technical qualities, the T-62 is far from bad.

There is no separating this into distinctions, because the tank crew operates the tank in action, thus they are one and the same entity.

T-62 is a good tank because there's nothing particularly awful about it that makes it bad. It's not a Valiant where the tank crew literally cannot fit or a Vezdekhod that can't turn or a Mobile Gun System that jams every other round. It's just a particularly well armed, and well armored, main battle tank that happens to be a bit small in size. As it turns out, that's a benefit and even the M1 tank is about as tall as a T-62.

While 1973 was a good example of challenging Western armor, especially in the Sinai where the M60 was very good performing in the automotive area, it didn't go so hot for Soviet armor because the operators were bad. That said, the Egyptians acquitted okay, especially for losers, at the end of the day. To properly "challenge" the capabilities of a tank, you need a crew who can operate a tank at its limits, and Egypt wasn't really there for either the T-62. Pakistan wasn't there for the M48. India was able to operate the T-55 in tough environments without failing and seems to have done alright. Israel did so for all three tanks and the M60.

This suggests they're all roughly comparable to each other, with the Soviets favoring "battlefield performance" and the Americans "ergonomics" to marginal degrees, and that neither tank has any real advantages when compared to crews. Probably why the AMSAA chart shows both M48 and T-55, and T-62 and M60, being both very nearly parity. The edge to the Soviet tanks probably just comes down to their shorter stature and better armor for the T-55, and more capable main gun in the T-62's case, in either comparison.

This tangent has gone on long enough though. I didn't realize such common knowledge as "the U.S. Army was almost as scared of T-62 as it was T-80," and "the CIA considered the T-62 to be a very good tank when they got their hands on it," would be so controversial.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

The T-62 deliberately traded minor human factors concerns for fightability. This, in hindsight, was a better tradeoff than the Pattons. It's why the M60 is almost completely gone now and the T-62 remains modern, in stockpiles, and will continue fighting for decades.

Or is the real reason because the nations that operated the M60 had the money to replace them with newer MBTs and weren't in the habit of holding onto older ones for long periods of time? Put enough work it into it and you can turn the M60 into a more "modern" MBT than you can with an upgraded T-62. Of course for most operators it's better to buy a whole new tank at that point instead.

Ukraine suggests that, against similarly competent ground forces, most tank engagements at ranges in European terrain (<1000 meters LOS) will require fewer than 10 rounds per engagement, with a period of resupply and refueling afterwards. So do the Indo-Pakistani Wars. So does Desert Storm and 2003. No one ran out of ammunition in the Sinai, either. Tanks carry a lot of main gun ammo because of WW2, and it's extremely hard to find examples of them running out of ammo in pitched battles since the development of hypervelocity ammunition and especially digital FCS and laser rangefinders, even against highly compliant targets, in the past 50 years.

I'm never heard of an Abrams crewman complaining that they're carrying too much main gun ammunition, or any tanker for that matter. I'm sure the Russians would have benefited from more extensive use of HE shells if they could determine likely ATGM positions. Nor do I think it is correct to assume there will always be a period of resupply and refueling especially if you're talking about the Fulda Gap during the Cold War.

 

[Kat Tsun]

The T-62 deliberately traded minor human factors concerns for fightability. This, in hindsight, was a better tradeoff than the Pattons. It's why the M60 is almost completely gone now and the T-62 remains modern, in stockpiles, and will continue fighting for decades.

Or is the real reason because the nations that operated the M60 had the money to replace them with newer MBTs and weren't in the habit of holding onto older ones for long periods of time?

Does Egypt not operate the M1 tank alongside the T-62E? Does Russia not operate the T-90 alongside the T-62M? Did Israel not operate the Merkava 1 alongside the Tiran-6? These countries are all quite wealthy and have the money to both develop new tanks and keep old ones in service; Egypt even has the only fully functional M1 tank plant in the world, and they still seem to think that the T-62 is fine to keep in service for much longer than most people kept the M60 around.

So Western countries either are too poor to have large tank fleets of old vehicles, which seems a bit laughable given many small European countries are able to donate hundreds of Leopard 1s to Ukraine, or the M60 has some sort of issue that keeps it from being kept in immediately available stockpiles I suppose?

Perhaps its engine doesn't like running on JP8, the main fuel of the U.S. Army? That's certainly the case for the M88s, although maybe the -A3s will have fixed the piston head erosion issues, as these were present back in the oughties and the -A2s use the same 1050 BHP as the '60's. The -A3 Hercs will have a new ECU with new fuel injection parameters to provide more horsepower (1500 HP target), and are supposed to run natively on JP8 instead of the hackneyed method the -8CRs do, so they might be able to eliminate the piston head erosion problems.

Not much of a problem for the ARVs, which are pretty scarce anyway, but deadlining a platoon or company of tanks because of erosion would be a major concern for an Army that doesn't natively supply DF2 diesel in CONUS training...

The '60 has some problems when it isn't running diesel, as do the Hercs, and these problems are related to the AVDS engine. While its engine is plenty reliable and plenty powerful running DF2 or similar strains of diesel, its power drops a lot using JP8, and it requires more frequent teardowns to check for damage at lower cetane rated fuels, of which JP8 is one. If the M60 is kept out of the fight by its largest potential operator, because of automotive concerns, it says a lot that the T-62's relatively mediocre drivetrain continues to soldier on in other armies with equally modern vehicles.

Ukraine suggests that, against similarly competent ground forces, most tank engagements at ranges in European terrain (<1000 meters LOS) will require fewer than 10 rounds per engagement, with a period of resupply and refueling afterwards. So do the Indo-Pakistani Wars. So does Desert Storm and 2003. No one ran out of ammunition in the Sinai, either. Tanks carry a lot of main gun ammo because of WW2, and it's extremely hard to find examples of them running out of ammo in pitched battles since the development of hypervelocity ammunition and especially digital FCS and laser rangefinders, even against highly compliant targets, in the past 50 years.

I'm never heard of an Abrams crewman complaining that they're carrying too much main gun ammunition, or any tanker for that matter.

No one would, because it's easy to envision cases where you might use it all. This is why you need statistical analysis. The last war where statistical modeling was provided sufficient use cases between equally, or at least comparably, competent tank crews was the WW2.

There likely won't be a war like that ever again, so you need to use a basket of samples instead, and discard data which are outlying. Say, 95% of engagements use fewer than 18 rounds of ammunition per tank, and you want that plus a 25% overhead, you would have 22 rounds in a ready bustle and no more, at least internally.

Modern tanks carry approximately two to four times the stowed kills of WW2 armor. M4 Sherman had about 10-20 stowed kills, while an M1 tank has about 40-50 stowed kills depending on the gun. This is pretty excessive and not very useful. That's a lot of mass and volume that can be used for other, more important, things.

For the record, the new KF51 Panther only carries about 20 ready rounds for its main gun, with an optional 10 extra rounds in an armored box outside the turret (like T-90M), and something like 2,400 rounds of .50 caliber ammo for its coaxial. I don't think the Germans are ignorant when it comes to tank design, so they probably were paying attention to the past 50 years of wars where tanks rarely ate up main gun rounds, and designed the KF51 accordingly.

I'm sure the Russians would have benefited from more extensive use of HE shells if they could determine likely ATGM positions. Nor do I think it is correct to assume there will always be a period of resupply and refueling especially if you're talking about the Fulda Gap during the Cold War.

There is always time for resupply and refueling. If there isn't, you've simply lost the battle. It's a bit like fighting without radios.

Even at the previously mentioned Golan Heights, the Israelis were bombing up tanks with new ammo and fuel, because that's what you do in a battle. One platoon withdraws while another takes up the line, and that platoon that withdraws becomes the company reserve to replace another platoon. Rinse and repeat until you're out of tanks.

---

Anyway, to continue the trend of quoting U.S. Army testers' actual experiences with the T-62:

“I apologize for briefly telling this story again, but…when I first got on one of the US Army’s T-62s in 1978, I was told the story of the odd and somewhat dangerous “trigger” for the spent shell ejection system. When the tank arrived from Israel, the system’s trigger (a roughly cut triangular-shaped piece of metal) was laying loosely on the turret floor. When the tank was fired, the shell casings were ejected on to the closed ejection hatch or port…then bounced around the fighting compartment. It took awhile for someone to figure-out that the loose piece of metal was actually the trigger that operated the ejection hatch. Once it was put into place, the system worked well and reliably. To this day…I think it likely that someone in Israel may have removed the trigger as a practical joke for the Americans.”

MAJ J.M. Warford didn't find the T-62 particularly dangerous to operate wrt shell casings.

 

[dan_inbox]

No one ran out of ammunition in the Sinai, either.

Hmm really ?
Battle for the Sinai passes, October 14, 1973 ?
Khava sinit, 15-17 Oct ?

Again: too-sweeping statements with more machismo than accuracy are not SPF-quality IMO.

 

[Kat Tsun]

The Egyptians ran out of air defense range, not main gun rounds...

 

[dan_inbox]

The Egyptians ran out of air defense range, not main gun rounds...

Of course not the Egyptians. The IDF tankers who had to repel an attack by 800-1000 MBTs.

 

[Kat Tsun]

You're exaggerating things, again.

It was between 400 to 500 tanks from four armored (25th Ind. Armored Bde, one brigade from the 21st Arm. Div, two from the 4th Arm. Div.) and two mechanized brigades, under the Third Egyptian Army, attacking on six separate axes. The most the Israelis saw in any one area would have been about 15 or so tanks.

The bulk of losses were sustained by the 4th Armored Division, which lost almost all of its committed tanks, and the remaining ~150-200 or so surviving tanks retreated a few hours after the attack began. Majority of Egyptian armor losses were from anti-tank missile fire from dug-in infantry and fast jets. Part of the reason why Israeli tankers only suffered about 20 losses out of 700 tanks in the Southern Theater's overall defense plan is because the planned air assault forces of the Egyptian Commandos were intercepted and shot down, or downed during the ingress by small arms fire, instead of being used as tank killer teams during the attack. Those literally a dozen tanks which were hit were only temporarily disabled, and by the time of the counteroffensive, had been put back in action by battle damage/recovery teams.

Not only did the Israelis outnumber the Egyptians in tanks, they outnumbered them in troops, in anti-tank missiles, and in air power. Victory was literally predestined. Thus, the Israelis won, and not only won, but they followed up with a major counteroffensive literally within hours.

I would suggest you look at pp. 352-356 of A. Rabinovich's The Yom Kippur War if you want further insight into the battle in Sinai. The Egyptian attack and Israeli defense against it was so notable it received roughly three whole paragraphs, in the chapter primarily about Sharon's impressive assault crossing of the Suez, interspersed across three and a half pages between one of the B&W photo inserts, in a 650+ page book about the war.

Conversely, GEN el-Shazly's narrative historical whinging and anxiety about the attack during the initial planning stages receives about four whole pages in the beginning of the chapter Stouthearted Men, which begins on pg. 348. Then again the commander of the Egyptian Second Army literally died of a heart attack after the battle, so perhaps anxiety attacks are more dangerous than tank attacks in the Middle East.

The defense of Sinai was less than nothing, and says more about the necessity of being able to ward off attack aviation, than anything else.

Not sure what this has to do with the merits or demerits of the T-62 versus the M60, so I'll leave it at that.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

Does Egypt not operate the M1 tank alongside the T-62E? Does Russia not operate the T-90 alongside the T-62M? Did Israel not operate the Merkava 1 alongside the Tiran-6? These countries are all quite wealthy and have the money to both develop new tanks and keep old ones in service; Egypt even has the only fully functional M1 tank plant in the world, and they still seem to think that the T-62 is fine to keep in service for much longer than most people kept the M60 around.

So Western countries either are too poor to have large tank fleets of old vehicles, which seems a bit laughable given many small European countries are able to donate hundreds of Leopard 1s to Ukraine, or the M60 has some sort of issue that keeps it from being kept in immediately available stockpiles I suppose?

Egypt still operates M60A3s too last I knew and made the unusual decision to extensively modernize many of their T-55s so they apparently like to keep older armor in service. The Israelis retired the Tiran-6 long before they did they Magach-6/7 series. There are enough M60s kept in active use or storage for some very extensive upgrades to have been offered over the years. Turkey, Jordan, Taiwan all operate some heavily upgraded M60s and a dozen or so other nations operate non-upgraded variants still. The truth is the M60 didn't see major export success in Europe like the Leopard 1 did but acting like they've all been thrown out across the globe while T-62s haven't is simply false.

The '60 has some problems when it isn't running diesel, as do the Hercs, and these problems are related to the AVDS engine. While its engine is plenty reliable and plenty powerful running DF2 or similar strains of diesel, its power drops a lot using JP8, and it requires more frequent teardowns to check for damage at lower cetane rated fuels, of which JP8 is one. If the M60 is kept out of the fight by its largest potential operator, because of automotive concerns, it says a lot that the T-62's relatively mediocre drivetrain continues to soldier on in other armies with equally modern vehicles.

That largest potential operator has long ago retired the actual M60s, it's only those armored recovery vehicles remaining which are going to continue to be upgraded. I'm not aware of what fuel current M60 users burn these days but I'd guess it isn't JP8.

No one would, because it's easy to envision cases where you might use it all. This is why you need statistical analysis. The last war where statistical modeling was provided sufficient use cases between equally, or at least comparably, competent tank crews was the WW2.

There likely won't be a war like that ever again, so you need to use a basket of samples instead, and discard data which are outlying. Say, 95% of engagements use fewer than 18 rounds of ammunition per tank, and you want that plus a 25% overhead, you would have 22 rounds in a ready bustle and no more, at least internally.

Modern tanks carry approximately two to four times the stowed kills of WW2 armor. M4 Sherman had about 10-20 stowed kills, while an M1 tank has about 40-50 stowed kills depending on the gun. This is pretty excessive and not very useful. That's a lot of mass and volume that can be used for other, more important, things.

I'd place some value in the opinion of what tankers think they might need versus just using statistical analysis. Russian operations in Ukraine haven't exactly been the sort of mechanized warfare envisioned back in the 70s and 80s. It's too risky to rely on the hope that there will always be a resupply between every armored engagement.

There are other targets than armored vehicles for the main gun to engage and the fact is stowed kills is more a theoretical than practical concept to begin with. Depending on hit location sometimes a target might not be disabled or killed in one hit. Sometimes multiple tanks will hit the same target "wasting" ammo. Or a tank will shoot a target that is already knocked out but isn't visibly on fire.

For the record, the new KF51 Panther only carries about 20 ready rounds for its main gun, with an optional 10 extra rounds in an armored box outside the turret (like T-90M), and something like 2,400 rounds of .50 caliber ammo for its coaxial. I don't think the Germans are ignorant when it comes to tank design, so they probably were paying attention to the past 50 years of wars where tanks rarely ate up main gun rounds, and designed the KF51 accordingly.

The KF51 is utilizing that huge 130mm gun with autoloader so of course there is going to be less immediately available ammunition than with the 120mm gun. That said I wonder how much bustle space those loitering munitions take up and whether or not it would be appropriate to use that for more ammunition instead especially if you're relying on supporting vehicles for NLOS fires.

There is always time for resupply and refueling. If there isn't, you've simply lost the battle. It's a bit like fighting without radios.

Even at the previously mentioned Golan Heights, the Israelis were bombing up tanks with new ammo and fuel, because that's what you do in a battle. One platoon withdraws while another takes up the line, and that platoon that withdraws becomes the company reserve to replace another platoon. Rinse and repeat until you're out of tanks.

Yes there will eventually have to be a time else you lose but that doesn't mean aircraft or artillery won't catch the occasional group of supply trucks and make the tanks go without for a bit longer. That's when you're going to really need that extra ammunition.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Egypt still operates M60A3s too last I knew and made the unusual decision to extensively modernize many of their T-55s so they apparently like to keep older armor in service.

It isn't unusual at all, rather what's unusual is to not keep older armor in service when a new tank arrives.

The Tiran-6s were discarded because Israel only captured a couple hundred 62's, and they were running out of spare parts, while they captured several thousand T-55s comparatively. They only had about 200 operational T-55 hulls out of about 1,800 or so in 2006.

All of the major, biggest operators of the T-62 still operate the tank.

The truth is the M60 didn't see major export success in Europe like the Leopard 1 did but acting like they've all been thrown out across the globe while T-62s haven't is simply false.

I'm not.

I'm merely saying that the largest user of one tank (M60) has completely deadlined the vehicle, and the largest user of another tank (T-62) has kept it in service in field forces and received routine upgrades. I'm not sure what that implies to you, but to me that implies the guys operating the M60 don't think it's worth the trouble, while the guys operating the T-62 think it's fine. That says a lot.

T.A. Gardner tried to imply that the T-62 had poor characteristics of...something.

It was really just a bullet point list of myths and half-truths comparable to "Ronson Sherman" and World of Tanks arguments, some of which applied doubly so to the old Sixties than the T-62. When that didn't work he doubled down on "but the crews" as if a bad crew can't exist and machines have agency or something, ignores the Indo-Pakistani Wars and the T-55's wild success in liberating Bangladesh from Pakistan, and tries to imply that the outcome combat engagements have anything at all to do with tank quality.

The truth is that T-62 is a decent medium tank for what it faced, exceptional for its time, and quite an alright tank all things considered. There's nothing fabulous about it, like the Chieftain or T-64, but there's nothing outstandingly bad either. In the hands of a good crew, like the Israelis, Americans, or Soviets, it can be used very effectively.

Arguments against this, for the most part, seem to be based on warped views that wars are fought more akin to Hollywood movies like Rambo or Desert Storm instead of actual combat experiences between two similarly competent opponents, like Korea or WW2.

That largest potential operator has long ago retired the actual M60s, it's only those armored recovery vehicles remaining which are going to continue to be upgraded.

Yes, the ARVs use the same AVDS as the M60. It's less a "we want this" and more "we don't have a choice" from the Army's perspective, because if the Army had a choice they'd have produced another 500 M1 hulls and replaced the M88s with M1 ARVs.

Those same ARVs are constantly deadlined because they have automotive trouble operating the JP8. That is the actual reason the Sixties were retired. The Army realized that the AVDS-1790 was completely unreliable with JP8 and had severe erosion problems to the point that it could genuinely affect training of crews, especially Guardsmen, and retired them early. The initial plan was to keep the Sixties in service until around 2010, with around 3,200 tanks in the Guard supplementing the 7,500 M1 tanks for everyone else, but this was scrapped because the budget to fix the engines wasn't there due to the 1990's recession.

The ARVs may finally be able to conquer the engine issues of severe piston head erosion with the -A3...only 30 years after it was identified, and 25 years after it killed the M60 Patton.

The AVDS is currently the only engine to still suffer from operating JP8 in CONUS. The Series 71s required no modifications because they're awesome. The DD V8 in the Humvees required a new fuel pump (the Arctic pump kit). The M939 had some weird issue but it's been replaced by the MTVs IIRC. The VTA-903s required new gear shaft bushings and a new fuel pump. The AVDS theoretically requires almost as much work as the VTA-903s, but TARDEC hopes their new ECU will work just as well, so we will see in the coming years with the -A3.

They may have finally licked the engine problems of the old Sixty powerpack or maybe not.

I'm not aware of what fuel current M60 users burn these days but I'd guess it isn't JP8.

The would use diesel or something similar with a fairly high cetane rating. The AVDS doesn't like low cetane rated fuels.

I'd place some value in the opinion of what tankers think they might need versus just using statistical analysis. Russian operations in Ukraine haven't exactly been the sort of mechanized warfare envisioned back in the 70s and 80s. It's too risky to rely on the hope that there will always be a resupply between every armored engagement.

Trusting tankers is worse than trusting Rangers, as I'm not sure they have enough arms in the crew to operate all the guns they want.

If there isn't a resupply between "armored engagements" then you'll simply stop and wait to reconstitute a formation and resupply your vehicles, obviously. It will slow you down. Healthy armies have large numbers of tanks, like how a healthy body has a large number of blood cells. Sick armies have few tanks, you can call it tankonemia if you want, like an anemic body.

Anyway Russo-Ukrainian combat operations have been the exact sort of mechanized warfare envisioned in the 1980's, including large use of operational maneuver groups, at the Army and brigade levels respectively, and large amounts of supporting artillery fire in the attack. The only thing that has been missing from the mix has been large scale use of tactical nuclear weapons to force breakthroughs and suppress defensive fighting positions, and that's mostly because there are no more tactical nuclear shells in either Russian or Ukrainian arsenals, rather than not wanting to use them.

The KF51 is utilizing that huge 130mm gun with autoloader so of course there is going to be less immediately available ammunition than with the 120mm gun. That said I wonder how much bustle space those loitering munitions take up and whether or not it would be appropriate to use that for more ammunition instead especially if you're relying on supporting vehicles for NLOS fires.

The 130mm gun is not appreciably larger in the vehicle, nor in ammunition size (bore and base diameter, not length), than the 120mm. The deletion of the hull rack of the Leopard 2 was foremost a ergonomic decision, and secondarily recognition that modern tank combat requires approximately half as much ammunition on average than it did in the 1970's, and tertiary crew safety.

Simply put: accessing hull ammo requires pulling a the vehicle off the line; tanks hit their targets first shot all the time now; and there is no blowout panel for the hull rack in the -2A4.

The HERO-120s take up the space former held by the hydraulic turret drive.

Yes there will eventually have to be a time else you lose but that doesn't mean aircraft or artillery won't catch the occasional group of supply trucks and make the tanks go without for a bit longer. That's when you're going to really need that extra ammunition.

No, actually, it isn't, because what you just described is a mechanism by which you lose a battle! If your supply trucks are being bombed and your tanks are going on a bit longer, you've simply lost the battle, pure and simple. That unit of tanks will die, they will be destroyed by the enemy, or they will be forced to retreat, and then the enemy will take whatever positions they occupy. You will need to take the former positions again yourself and shed blood and bullets to do so.

In the Golan, the Israelis simply had more battalions. Otherwise they might have had to take the Golan Heights from Syria. Again. Oh no.

---

tl;dr Bad tanks are tanks which cannot be used in combat. Good tanks are tanks which can be used in combat.

Using a tank poorly in combat does not reflect on the characteristics of the fighting vehicle beyond the context of the fight. Most tanks are okay, or good, in that they can be used in combat with a crew properly aware of their characteristics. Some are just straight lemons, things that might have engines breaking down or whatever, but have exceptional good characteristics when they arrive to battle. Some are just automotive beauts, which have terrible combat characteristics, and blow up at as soon as you sneeze at them. Others are somewhere in the middle.

T-62 is one of the tanks in the middle, along with most other tanks of its period, including the M60. It had no exceptional armor or automotive performance or particularly noteworthy cannon characteristics, but it was just okay in all of these areas.

It has quirks, like a giant gun breech and a silly looking turret, but none of them are ruinous. Its operation by people is somewhat immaterial to its performance, no one buys a tank based on its future performance nor does using a tool poorly reflect on the tool, but the T-62 is somewhat special in that no one really saw how good it was because it looked like a hydrocephalic T-55. That's most of the reason why no one bought the thing.

Again, armies are victims of fashion as anyone else. M60 may have gotten export orders simply because it was very large and intimidating.

 

[T. A. Gardner]

Then, if I'm so wrong, why did many of the users of T-55 and T-62 tanks decide to modernize them to include:

New tracks and suspension
New drive train
New fire controls
New gun--usually the L7 105mm
New vision devices
Other stuff too

Basically, many users--Israel being a prime example--replaced virtually every system on the tank except the armor itself. What's that say about the systems the Russians were using on them? You can't say that about users of the US Patton series (M47, 48, 60). Sure, the engines were often upgraded, but a whole new power plant and transmission that was dissimilar from the original? No. Gun? the 90mm to 105mm is typical.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Then, if I'm so wrong,

Yes, you're wrong about the T-62 "being so bad" that "it didn't get export success" and "it got upgraded" and whatnot.

why did many of the users of T-55 and T-62 tanks decide to modernize them to include:

Because they're good tanks.

Basically, many users--Israel being a prime example--replaced virtually every system on the tank except the armor itself.

Israeli Tiran-6s had the same V-55 12-cy engine as the T-62.

What's that say about the systems the Russians were using on them?

It says that T-62 has an old ass engine that requires searching scrapyards and surplus lots for spare parts. Not really that surprising. It isn't much different than the Series 53s or older AVDS engines. Like the AVDS-1790, the V-2/V-55/V-72/V-90 engines are pretty old, about as old as the Detroit Diesels used in the M113 (1930's vintage). They're very, very good blocks though, and Russia has yet to exceed them. Similarly the US has yet to exceed the AVDS-1790 block, although the -1500 made by L3 is pushing limits somewhere.

Likewise the U.S. continued to use the 1930's Series 56 motors until the 2000's and recently sent a bunch to Ukraine. What does that say about the systems the U.S. is using? Well for one thing it says that using old engines is typical behavior and for another it says that neither the V-2-derived nor the Series 56 are particularly bad.

Of course if the South Koreans replaced the M113's Series 53 DD with a Daewoo engine in the K200 the Series 53 must be hot garbage, right? Might as well apply the logic here consistently.

If you replace it, it's because it's bad, not because you want to have available spare parts from a factory or something.

You can't say that about users of the US Patton series (M47, 48, 60).

We can't? Let's take a look at this statement:

New tracks and suspension

The M60A3 has new tracks in the Turkish AMBT/Raytheon SLEP program, and the M60-2000, which use the same T158 tracks as the M1 tank. I believe the Super 60s and the M60A4 were supposed to use T158s too. I wonder why T97 of the M60/-A1/-A2 was replaced with the T142 in the M60A3, for that matter. Must be garbage.

Here's another example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramses_II_tank

They even went further than any T-62 upgrade program and replaced the suspension with a in-arm hydropneumatic one. I guess Patton have crummy suspensions or something I dunno lol.

New drive train

The M60T Sabra, the most modern M60 tank, uses a Renk-MTU 881 powerpack with 1,000 HP and a Renk 304S transmission. AVDS-1790 and CD-850 must be trash, clearly. Otherwise the Turks wouldn't have replaced it!

New fire controls

This doesn't need much of an explanation, but no modern M60 would be using the same tired old drives and stabilizers. The AMBT upgrade program uses an L3 FCS to replace the old Curtiss-Wright motors, and the Sabra has some Israeli thing by Elbit. The Ramses II included a new fire control system as well.

New gun--usually the L7 105mm

Not surprising, considering the amount of new ammunition developed since 1988 for the 115mm gun can be counted with no hands. As you said, gun replacements are typical. Not sure why you're trying to knock the T-62 for such a typical change.

New vision devices

Hughes TIS in the Raytheon SLEP and M60-2000, an Israeli FLIR in the M60T Sabra. No one uses VSG-2s if they can help it.

Basically, many users--Israel being a prime example--replaced virtually every system on the tank except the armor itself.

I ask you, again, how is this different from any other tank? "Except the armor itself" except the T-62M has BDD applique and people have replaced that, obviously, so clearly the T-62 is very accepting of upgrades. This says a lot more than letting a few thousand tanks sit in the desert, because they're only good for spare parts for a busted ass ARV.

It just doesn't say what you think it says.

Sure, the engines were often upgraded, but a whole new power plant and transmission that was dissimilar from the original? No.

The shocking truth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_(tank)

The one Turkey uses is the "Sabra Mark II", the rest were failed upgrades that never gained traction.

The Egyptians in the Ramses II replaced the CD-850 transmission with a Renk 304S coupled to a AVDS-1790-5A. So did the Thais. The Renk 304S seems to be the go-to choice for replacing the Allison transmission. Maybe it's bad.

Never mind that the Hercules got a XT-1410 transmission coupled to a later AVDS.

Gun? the 90mm to 105mm is typical.

The 115mm to 105mm pipeline is real. Realer than the 90mm to 105mm pipeline, at least, since it's still going on.

You'd be better off suggesting instead of the "90mm to 105mm", which was just some junk turrets from the Starships being slapped on some crusty old M48 hulls for the MI National Guard, that the M60's 105mm to 120mm pipeline is more typical. Because it actually is.

My point is, you're saying things that apply equally to the M60's various upgrade programs, yet trying to suggest that this is because of some technical failure of the T-62 that it can accept these upgrades in the first place, because it is stinky. Yet the M60, which is not stinky, is very modular and good for being able to take a new engine, new transmission, additional armor, etc. etc.

Very interesting perspective, certainly, but I'm afraid it's not very truthful when you get down to the brass tacks.

If you're trying to argue that the T-62 needs upgrades, you're right. If you're trying to argue that the T-62 isn't able to somehow be competitive with a Patton in being able to be upgraded, you're wrong.

I'm not sure what you're trying to argue though. You seem to be, at best, trying to compare a baseline T-62A with a M60-2000 or something and saying the T-62 is stinky because it cannot defeat the M60-2000 (it could, obviously) in a frontal arc duel, yet the M60-2000 is somehow not indicative of the M60 being stinky because apparently it needs a new turret just to be able to bully a contemporary medium tank?

It's why I think your arguments and opinions about the T-62 are more informed by video games than the factual reality of the vehicle.

It's not a bad tank. It's a good tank. It's not the best tank, that probably goes to either the Chieftain or the Leopard 1, depending on what you want, but it's a good tank for its time and it remains a good tank today. It's very much like the M60: middle of the road and not particularly exceptional in any regard. However, it's shorter and has a better gun for its time, so it's more likely to win the hypothetical tank duel between two opposing equally competent crews.

We know this because height is one of the critical factors of tanks: the taller the tank is the easier it is to see at distance, the shorter it is the harder, and the flatter trajectory and higher velocity of a particular ammunition nature makes battlesight ranges longer.

Ceteris paribus, you will see an M60 before you see a T-62, and the T-62 will have a longer battlesight range than the M60. This indicates that the T-62 is superior in engagements at short to medium ranges than the M60. Most of Europe is short to medium range lines of sight, which makes the T-62 excellent for European terrain, where lines of sight rarely exceed 1,000 meters. Its engine was apparently good enough to power the next two generations of Russian medium as well.

It's quite literally nothing more than a Soviet M60. Boring, practical, very producible, and effective. It just lacks some of the sillier quirks of the M60, like being obnoxiously tall or having APDS rounds in 1960, in favor of its own quirks like having a automatically trigger shell ejection port and a funny wide turret.

 

[Foo Fighter]

There is little basically wrong with the T54/55/62 series of platforms, the caveat is the engagement and threat environment and crew training.

It is all well and good to rely on statistic but the squidgy organic component will always be the deciding factor. A properly trained unit with coordinated teamwork will outmatch a theoretically superior platform with less well trained/led/organised opposition most of the time. Add logistics and superior tactical data for the whole nine yard victory or, as Tsun Zu said, "Know your enemy and your own shortcomings equally".