T-72 shooting gone bad

[Marmite!!]

Looks like he damaged his hand somewhat, not sure about the other guy in the turret

 

 

[ArtistsRifles]

Wasn't it the T-72 that had the autoloader in the turret that was as good at amputating the gunners hand/arm as it was at loading shells???

[AlienFTM]

Wasn't it the T-72 that had the autoloader in the turret that was as good at amputating the gunners hand/arm as it was at loading shells???

 

 

Yes. Apparently after their Afghan adventure, the Russians had a lot of one-armed former T72 gunners begging on the streets of Moscow.

 

All very well having an autoloader to save a crewman (and increase the size of your tank forces by 1/3 without having to train a single new conscript) and shrink the turret, but it was the Soviets rather than NATO who played with chemical weapons and I am told the autoloader was a lot slower than a good human loader, which meant that between ejecting an empty case and loading a fresh fresh to restore the obturation, the gun would have been a massive hole in the tank's NBC protection.

 

That said, looking at this video, the NBC seal in the T72 wasn't too hot around the turret ring either. I bet crews loved living in rubber NBC suits for days on end. Thank goodness for non-woven charcoal NBC suits.

 

One thing has always puzzled me. T72 and T64 are fundamentally the same vehicle (externally, T64 has heavy tank roadwheels and return rollers in the style of KV1 and 2, and the IS series while T72 has medium tank roadwheels in the style of T34, T44, T54/55 and T62 and the layout of hull and turret attachments are different - I could never get my head around which one had the searchlight on which side, not helped when the recognition instructor displayed the slide back to front ...) yet much is made of the T72 autoloader, but not that of the T64.

 

Surely if the T64, being the same shape and size, also only had a three-man crew, it would also have an autoloader and gunners' arms would meet the same fate?

 

Or, because the T64 was issued to Russian troops whereas the T72 was exported to WarPac countries, and the better-trained Russian commanders were able to dual-role as loaders in the same way as CVR(T) commanders? Or better-trained gunners knew to keep there arms out of reach of the autoloader?

 

But hang on, It was the Russians who invaded Afghanistan. what were they doing in T72s? Was the entire stock of T64s deployed along the IGB with 3 Shock Army et al waiting to roll through the Bundesrepublik, so all they could deploy to the 'Stan were the lesser T72s?

 

What a can of worms this has opened in my mind!!!

[Snapper]

I hadn't realised the Soviets never used the T72 - but what about the ERA models. I think maybe they did. I remember it is the case that the versions built in WarPac countries were exported to pro Soviet states like Iraq because they were of a much better quality than anything built in the USSR. Is this where things get blurred. I've got a decent book on them somewhere. I think I am correct in suggesting that most T72s seen on the UK MV scene are ex-GDR.

 

The auto-loader, made in USSR or not, is a lethal device and comments about amputee gunners is entirely correct. Nice concept, crap kit.

 

I suppose the fact that it looks sexy (for a tank) is only a superficial thing. Working in it looks like a rubbish job. I'm sure I'm right in thinking all the crews had to be of Ronnie Corbett dimensions, presumably with arm(s) like Big Daddy. Finding a decent shirt at Primarkski must be a nightmare...

[AlienFTM]

I hadn't realised the Soviets never used the T72 - but what about the ERA models. I think maybe they did. I remember it is the case that the versions built in WarPac countries were exported to pro Soviet states like Iraq because they were of a much better quality than anything built in the USSR. Is this where things get blurred. I've got a decent book on them somewhere. I think I am correct in suggesting that most T72s seen on the UK MV scene are ex-GDR.

 

The auto-loader, made in USSR or not, is a lethal device and comments about amputee gunners is entirely correct. Nice concept, crap kit.

 

I suppose the fact that it looks sexy (for a tank) is only a superficial thing. Working in it looks like a rubbish job. I'm sure I'm right in thinking all the crews had to be of Ronnie Corbett dimensions, presumably with arm(s) like Big Daddy. Finding a decent shirt at Primarkski must be a nightmare...

 

 

I was specifically thinking 1979 and the invasion of Afghanistan. I am guessing (see above) that this was such a huge logistical job, they left the finite number of T64s squared up against NATO and made do and mended with equipment in 'Stan. Which presumably meant T72. And all their "elite" tank troops would remain in DDR, with the expeditionary force largely made of of even fresher conscripts.

 

With their huge expansion (they sent 1,200,00 troops into 'Stan: our entire army only comprised about 110,000 ...) I am guessing they gave up on a T64-only armoured corps and began using the T72s. But I have absolutely nothing to back this up. It is a theory that explains what we saw.

 

All tank crews WERE Ronnie Corbetts (compact, not humorous). I have always had this image of a Red Army intake of conscripts on parade on Day 1.

 

Sergeant Major: "Shortest on the right, tallest on the left, in single rank ... SIZE!" at which point 100,000 conscripts sort themselves by height.

 

"From the right .... NUMBER!"

 

"1"

"2"

"3"

...

(Two miles down the parade ground:) "One hundred thousand. Last man SIR!"

 

Selection then apparently went like this:

 

"Numbers one through 50,000, you're infantry. Fall out and follow Sergeant Ivanovski." (Infantry got first because they had to squeeze into the back of BMPs. I once took in a display of Soviet armour at Bielefeld. I looked in the back of a BMP. At 5'9" I couldn't even have got in at all without kit, never mind squeeze about 8 men in in full NBC rubber suits.

 

"Numbers 50,001 to 75,000, you're tanks. Fall out and follow Sergeant Petrov." Same reason. For BMP read T62 / T64.

 

After that, the non-combat arms got to pick and choose.

[Richard Farrant]

 

(Infantry got first because they had to squeeze into the back of BMPs. I once took in a display of Soviet armour at Bielefeld. I looked in the back of a BMP. At 5'9" I couldn't even have got in at all without kit, never mind squeeze about 8 men in in full NBC rubber suits.

 

 

 

That is very true about BMP-1. We had one come in to REME workshops about 1989-90 for extensive engine work and at 6'1", I found it a difficult vehicle to get in, why do they make them so damn small?

[AlienFTM]

That is very true about BMP-1. We had one come in to REME workshops about 1989-90 for extensive engine work and at 6'1", I found it a difficult vehicle to get in, why do they make them so damn small?

 

No bigger than they could get away with.

 

1. A couple of years ago (must have been a decade or more when I had little hope of my nipper outgrowing me) I read an article about size. If nobody grew taller than (hmmm IIRC: all figures are pulled out of thin air cos the article was so long ago, but they are, I believe, in the ballpark) about 5'6", the CO2 output from exhalation of the human race would be reduced by enough to counter CO2-induces global warming at a stroke because smaller people need less air. The amount of material in a pair of trousers would be reduced by 1/3 and the devastation caused to cotton-growing land (the growth of cotton destroys the land it is grown on) would be similarly reduced. Cars and BMPs could be built smaller, saving metal.

 

2. The Soviets used spherical command modules on their Vostok and Voshkhod space craft. The last of the Voshkhods, carrying five cosmonauts, were only about six inches wider in diameter than the first Vostok that carried Gagarin into the history books. They just packed them better, stripped out meteor shields when they realised the risk was insignificant and so on. And Gagarin was only about 5'5" tall. When he appeared on Hero of the Soviet Union parades, they stood him on a box.