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Of course the MBT is a part of system, but its meant to be the biting end of the overall army of which it is a part. T-34s were the spearhead of the Soviet Army that won at Kursk and other battles. Despite heavy losses, they still managed to pull off a strategic victory, ,and hence the reverence that this tank is held.
Not so the T-72. your right, it is part of a much bigger war machine. But at no stage has it ever shown any sign of being able to pull the rabbit out of the hat so to speak. Its not a stand out piece of technology, where one can say....."this piece of hardware made a difference", in the same way as say a FW190 or an Abrams might be able to claim. Its a good tank, but its unremarkable, and i daresay, the T-64 and the T-80 are both in the same category.
All these tanks were developed with the basic philosophy of the Red Army in mind. The Soviets designed their army for a rapid thrust, in a war that might last 20 days or less, across the northern plains of Europe. they needed a tank with legs and firepower, cheaply made, easily maintained, high levels of mobility. The T-72 delivered all of that and more. The T-64 and the T-80 less so, but perhapos because the Soviets by the time of the T-80 at least were beginning to realize the shortcomings of their doctrine . Soviet technology since the war has always lagged behind that of the west, and any time they try to achieve a technologiucal advantage in sophisticated weaponry like tanks or aircraft, they always come up short. Anytime the T-72 came up against any decent defence in depth its weaknesses have been exposed. Claiming its an obsolete tank is no real defence. It was constantly upgraed and modernized in its career, to no avail, and even when confronted with lighter, older tanks of western design, just fell down with all its weaknesses exposed for the world to see, if they chose. I daresy the T-64, T-80 would have suffered the same had they been so exposed.
ill put it to you this way. if the israelis had been equipped with T-62s and the Syrians with Centurions, the syrians would have won that battle hands down. it was the qualities of the Centurion tanks that enabled the Israelis to shine and win
again you compare not the tanks but the complete military capability of israelian and syrian, and i'm agree the israelian were and are more capable
I might note that it is also rate of engagement that counts and not just rate of fire. How fast can a tank/crew engage and hit (and re-hit if needed) a number of targets in a limited amount of time.
.Granted these are extreme cases and don't apply as much to the T-62.T-72 and T-64 but better vision and fire control can help speed up the rate of engagement to a higher difference than a plain comparison of rate of fire
Unkowns may include actual accuracy of the weapons/ammo at the distances involved and what range finding equipment was used. I don't believe the Israelis used teh British ranging machinegun but could be wrong.
.Laser range finders may be too new for the 73 war
a bit of both really. less so in the sinai, where the superior qualities of the centurion were relied upon to gain their victory there . Though somewhat of a siplification, they could effectively engage and destroy Arab armour fom ranges as great as 3600m, whilst effective return fire was somewhat less than 2000m. Therein lies the difference.Training and doctrine can affect rates of engagement. Did Israelis dispense with using range finding equipment and depend on the flat trajectory of the APDS ammo to either get a first round hit or a first round close miss that could be corrected onto the target?
Having more AP ammo available makes this a little more practical than the Russian tanks who's limited ammo storage may make more deliberate shooting more of a doctrine issue.
AFAIK not in the YKWIIRC The Syrian tanks had active IR equipment but the Israeli tanks had passive IR equipment a huge difference.