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.