Were Soviet tanks bad? I thought they were serviceable, cheap, sort of utilitarian, maybe not the highest caliber but you could make tons of them and that was the point. Like beetles
They used similar tactics to everyone in WWII. The human wave thing was partly derived from the accounts of ex-Nazis who were sore losers, AskHistorians had an answer about it. I don’t know about Afghanistan, but that was a different kind of war.
Now, yeah. And it’s going about as well as you’d expect.
Soviet tanks were usually very good tankwise, but lacking in softer stats. Their big problems were that they needed to arm a huge conscript (or even worse, draftee) army, so they hoarded everything past obsolescence and most of it was below standard (T-62 wasn’t that good even back then, but they’re still in service) and the lagging electronics industry meaning their night sights, FCS, and in particular thermals were awful. There’s solid argument that until the advent of NATO “box” tanks and the Rheinmetall 120mm soviet designs were better than everyone elses, but beyond they were quickly overtaken.
You have some right points, but also in one of the most used tanks (I forgot which one), crew were attaching a pillow to a sharp metal corner that you would hit with your head all the time. I’d call that utilitarian, as head trauma was avoidable in some cases.
AFAIK they aren’t. Western tanks are usually more optimised to be serviced in the field which makes them larger to be able to easily get to all the parts. Soviet tanks are more optimised on a lower profile while trying to cram as much stuff in there as possible.
Were Soviet tanks bad? I thought they were serviceable, cheap, sort of utilitarian, maybe not the highest caliber but you could make tons of them and that was the point. Like beetles
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Yeah, I thought the doctrine was “crunch all you want, we’ll make more”
Same as with Russian soldiers now
Edit: and always before
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They used similar tactics to everyone in WWII. The human wave thing was partly derived from the accounts of ex-Nazis who were sore losers, AskHistorians had an answer about it. I don’t know about Afghanistan, but that was a different kind of war.
Now, yeah. And it’s going about as well as you’d expect.
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Russia likes to coerce other people’s potatoes into being cannon fodder too.
Soviet tanks were usually very good tankwise, but lacking in softer stats. Their big problems were that they needed to arm a huge conscript (or even worse, draftee) army, so they hoarded everything past obsolescence and most of it was below standard (T-62 wasn’t that good even back then, but they’re still in service) and the lagging electronics industry meaning their night sights, FCS, and in particular thermals were awful. There’s solid argument that until the advent of NATO “box” tanks and the Rheinmetall 120mm soviet designs were better than everyone elses, but beyond they were quickly overtaken.
You have some right points, but also in one of the most used tanks (I forgot which one), crew were attaching a pillow to a sharp metal corner that you would hit with your head all the time. I’d call that utilitarian, as head trauma was avoidable in some cases.
AFAIK they aren’t. Western tanks are usually more optimised to be serviced in the field which makes them larger to be able to easily get to all the parts. Soviet tanks are more optimised on a lower profile while trying to cram as much stuff in there as possible.
Yeah, “cheap”