Must Be Spoon Fed

I'm not sure that problems which are found within legacy fighters are as severe or as many. Could you provide information which equally scolds F-16 or any other well established aircraft as they do F-35? Furthermore, I would not doubt reliability of said sources, because they do have extremely solid primary sources over which they critique said airplanes. It uses official sources released by the government and then you have to either go full conspiracy theorist route saying that either government is lying or just accept that an article is true over what it is saying. A good example is how publicly revealed price for F-35 is just a sham. When you investigate official Pentagon expenditure for said aircraft, it is quoted as a lot higher. When whom I should trust? Isn't it true that various public statements, countless press articles and uncritical reports from pilots might not be saying how things truly are? What they form public opinion to be a lot more positive of an aircraft than it deserves to be? I'm well familiar with realities of this world, being overly critical over something as important as this can cost you your career, so most people remain silent. Pentagon Wars is a good documentary and a comedy which proves that saving lives, doing your job and actually caring for quality of military equipment will cost your career. In the end, said source does not comment on what we should do, at least I did not read it. It asks for a very simple thing, to fix the damn thing before starting production or developing new features. What we do now with F-35 is sinking resources into platform which has nearly a thousand officially registered defects and grand total of 9 critical defects within F-35 production model which can cause destruction of an aircraft or death of its pilot or at very least cause serious damage to its systems. This creates a massive technological debt which we would have later to fix or to suffer through as we do with F-22 bloated software. The only difference in my eyes that F-35 is widely known to have an extremely big technological debt which we allow to pile on. While aircraft like F-22 could be excused for its very high costs or bloated software as being unrivaled aircraft of its era. All of these aircrafts also had a lot less problems when they were introduced than F-35 five years ago. This is my view, I do believe that political interest groups are painting F-35 with unboundless optimism and are "lying" in some cases. Like with its newest cost which does not include a lot of critical support elements required to actually flyaway with it. I also however believe that F-35 is most modern aircraft on the market which is available for procurement. I'm negative over F-35, because I believe it is a lemon of an aircraft, but that does not mean that we should not procure it. It is simply too big of a project to fail now and there are no other real alternatives on market. 4'th Gen ++ aircraft are getting quickly outdated with development of newest fighter jets and introduction of newest anti air weaponary and it would be unwise now to start procurement of those aircraft as they will have to remain viable for at least few decades to come. When we start to look for investing into newest platform available, we sadly have no alternative available and have to go with F-35. This is why despite my harsh criticism and dislike for this airplane, I would still hypothetically proccure F-35 for my nation. I just want to make sure you understand my stance on this plane correctly. It is not that I consider it worthless piece of junk, I would just go with literally any other fifth gen aircraft if I would have anything to choose from. If you say so.

It comes from a person who as his very first reply to me made a bigoted insult. As a second reply, he instead insulted me directly. As for forum, I had read few threads and I can see what kind of forum this is. It is mostly concerned about posting random pieces of information or pictures all day long. In very few threads where I had posted, I had liven up a debate. There are people here who obviously know more about military than posting memes all day and calling that a quality post. It was a pleasure to discuss with them in a past.

Maybe you should read again how this thread had started. People were talking quite critically about aircraft until it devolved into posting pictures and random information. I had added some more substance which I was missing in this thread. You also had completely failed to notice my sarcasm when I had said at the start of my comment:

It is not source's date which matters, but its content. Major points of critique towards F-35 will never go away no matter how much time will pass. I did mentioned that some things would be fixed by now like total cost of an aircraft for an example was somewhat remedied and a lot of smaller issues were fixed. The major problem with F-35 is that its development had dragged on for so long that what was cutting edge and deadly back when it was supposed to come out had became ordinary today. F-35 had lost its edge and its competitors had catched up through decades worth of development which we spent merely ensuring what we were supposed to have actually functions properly. Now, the major factor why we do not procure F-22 or Su-57 is because we often can't do that due to political reasons. We procure F-35, because it is most readily available aircraft. F-35 comes in a day when jet fighter development had stagnated. There isn't anything much on the market outside 4'th gen ++ aircraft. F-22, Su-57, J-20 are specialized and often are politically blocked from being sold on the market. F-35 wins by default, because there is no actual competition for it. That might be a win for some, but for me it is rather sad. It is like getting a participaction medal, it is more insulting than flattering. Here, an article from 2020. This confirms analysis of my previous source and validates it. It was designated as high risk investment which is not worth trouble and this aircraft had successfully managed to live up to that. So in other words, we will be in for another decade until this lemon matures. It doesn't mean that equipment is bad in terms of unusable or useless. It is bad in terms of being mediocre and disappointing. This is what lemon means. https://www.pogo.org/investigation/2020/03/f-35-design-flaws-mounting-new-document-shows/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/01/not-a-straight-shooter-dod-review-cites-fleet-of-faults-in-f-35-program/

It is funny how critique and discussion is handled on this site. Being clever means mindlessly posting pictures and random bits of information. Ironically, in a thread meant to critique said aircraft... That being said, I was thinking what aircraft would I order myself for hypothetical nation's needs. I do tend to lean towards F-35 myself as it is the best available aircraft at the moment and it does offer quite a lot by comparison. Sadly, it flew way past some people heads when I had mentioned that this aircraft was designed for export, not around its own combat performance. I also had mentioned that currently there isn't anything better to procure than F-35.

Hey guys, this is F-35 bash "thred". I think you had lost your way on your way to 31 page. So I will add some good old fashioned hatred back into this thread! F-35 is only good as an export piece in a day of shrinking budgets. F-35 is bad aircraft in every field. As a air superiority fighter it is bad. As ground attack aircraft it is bad. As close air support aircraft it is bad. As interceptor it is a bad aircraft. Any new aircraft specializing in any of those roles would easily demonstrate how inadequate F-35 is. The only thing which its defenders cling to is that this is the only new generation aircraft and thus they can directly compare it to older generation aircraft head to head like A-10 and say it is not all that bad. That is not only unfair, but also shows how deep divide is between same generation planes like F-22 or Su-57 and F-35 in air superiority role. F-35 is nothing more as an export piece designed to be acceptable and able to perform any role and thus drive costs down by allowing one plane to do all the roles instead of having several more specialized planes doing their own each thing. F-35 is jack of all trades and a master of none and thus I despise it for it. Sadly, due to lack of investment in R&D in modern day we are rather starved for choice. Only now minor nations are starting their own fifth generation aircraft programs and they are highly uncertain affairs with questionable possible results. There isn't anything better to purchase at the moment than F-35 and thus we all have to acquire this expensive travesty. I would much rather buy F-22 or Su-57 in its stead and use 4'th generation aircraft to do all other tasks. Source: http://www.ausairpower.net/jsf.html Though source is a little bit older and F-35 might became little less shit during two decades of development, but it still highlights why I dislike this aircraft. It is just so limited when compared to more specialized aircraft.

I would appreciate also any documentation about deployment of heavy vehicles in Soviet armored and mechanized formations. How many vehicles of what type were typical in such and such formation in such and such year. So far it is the best what I had found: https://www.alternatewars.com/BBOW/Tanks/Russian_AFV_Production.htm

Yeah, same website. I also first encountered him there and started reading some of his better articles. I was little bit confused when reading his original forum thread on his Tigerwolf. He is by far worse there than I remember reading some of his articles. Maybe I remember him wrongly or did not knew any better as I started reading him when I started to get serious about understanding warfare. So I might not had catched on his misunderstandings. I also maybe are bit more tolerant of his nonsense and are more forwards towards putting controversial ideas into experimentation and testing. After all, I too often have highly contradictory ideas than majority of people. Overall, I view him as functional madman. He does not know what he is talking about, but in every madman there are sparks of brilliance. I tend to view his writing more as pile of garbage with some potential gems inside which more sane and constructive individual could take and develop something from it. For example in this article he might have a point that MBT are too large and expensive for large scale offensive maneuvers. Try to use Abrams tanks for anything than an assault or defend. Large formation of Abrams are completely incapable of performing same kind maneuvers as Pz.2-4 did during WW2 as they would run out of fuel and logistical chain would be of absolutely terrifying proportions. Maybe for deep battle operations more economical tanks with greater autonomy and mobility are required? Like some hypothetical 50 ton design of a medium tank similar to T-90 series or beefed up Leopard 1 or TAM are required? This is why I like his considerations, he might be missing point all together with 20 ton light tanks in modern combat, but there is some truth in his ramblings. Hmm, when I had skimmed through more of his article, I see that it is me making all of this in my head as I read. He provides very few actual points in his massive article. He reminds me of an autistic person. Great with details and presenting a lot of information, but that information always miss forest for the trees. It is all just misunderstandings and taking things out of context to the point you wonder how such person can function when he disagrees with practically everything one side argues in a debate. Edit: I just read linked article. It is just full of ramblings, he struggles to make a coherent point. He looks like he has rabies as he viciously attacks practically everybody. Significant portion of his article is dedicated to insulting and demeaning as many people as he can name from general groups to specific people. He also wants to remove turrets from all armored vehicles, except for Gavin of course and his precious Tigerwolf. Also his light tanks will have adequate protection to take a hit, whatever what means since Pershing in his eyes could not take a hit from German and Russian 85-88 mm caliber. So I imagine his light tanks would had been protected with carbon fibers during WW2 with 100 strength than modern composite armor and half the thickness of steel. I'm just surprised that people are paying attention to him at all, the kind thing would be to ignore madman than to laugh from him as it is just sad.

Oh, it is that Gavin guy? I was following his writing many years ago. I disliked his writing style, because it is ranty. He tends to ramble on and on in his own thread. He puts way too much unnecessary information to his own articles, he should had taken some writing classes. Though, I do not understand why he is such a polarizing individual. Sure, not all of his ideas are solid and he makes mistakes. People who tend to write a lot and say a lot tend to do most mistakes, but this is only because they have courage to go out and try. In addition, military DOES indeed suffer from itself. Its tradition prioritises brawn over intellect. It strips away individuality. It makes soldier follow the herd and inhibits free thinking. In addition, a lot of military organizations are scrapping bottom of a barrel when it comes to recruit, they lack sheer talent and in general are organizations consumed by politics and weak leaders who get their positions due to political and financial considerations rather than even merit. This is why we see so much politics and people with very questionable military experience at the very top. Military organization can differ widely in its culture and values. I do dare to think that one day military reformists like him will come to power in major country's military and will reshape itself to something new. If anything, that would see a lot of bizarre and interesting military projects getting greenlight. A lot of risky and ambitious projects would get initiated. A lot of them would fail and I'm afraid that such people would succumb to inner infighting due to their own egos. Though personally, I would see military spending A LOT more on research and development and focusing on export of vast array of military equipment while cutting down on its operational budget and its own size to compensate for this shift in priorities. Btw: After reading his tank idea I'm not sure if I was reading same guy. He had poorly edited and poorly done website with a lot of endless articles. They tended to be in general a lot more serious than this mess of a tank design. After doing more research and actually going to forum where he had proposed his idea 13 years ago, I can claim that he is just typical armchair general whose fantasy is running wild. He defends the obvious flaws in his vehicle by imaginary substances who will be as thin as an APC armor, but will provide even more armor than modern MBT. He also has a furry logo which is a sure sign of physical, mental or spiritual deformity, sometimes all of three. I had seen this type of people, their minds are sick. Their minds are a lot more active than yours or my own, but in return they can't filter themselves out. They have a lot of energy to talk, to defend their ideas, but they can't stop and think. They are great at generating ideas, but absolutely terrible and self critique or thinking critically over what they just thought of. This is why you see such nonsensical things as tank with 6 people, having 145 howitzer which somehow is better anti tank cannon than a dedicated anti tank cannons. Can carry 85 rounds of ammunition. Whole thing is protected by imaginarium. A paper thin and feather light substance which provides immense protection which is of course superior to protection on modern day MBT. And to top if all off, such tank would weight 40 tons! I'm honestly surprised that such people even register on your radar. Why talk about and give him more publicity? Do you debunk a random idiot in youtube comment section just as harshly? Such people are just ignored and forgotten by ones above him as they are unworthy of their time and energy.

Hello, I'm interested in Soviet armor production and deployment. Especially of T-55 tank and its variants. Sadly, most sources touch this subject very generally while I would want to get a more detailed view. How much tanks were produced in which country and at what year. Were Soviets producing armor for themselves or for export. Any source which would go into bit more detail about it is appreciated. I would appreciate if someone could help me find information required about those tanks as so far I can rely only on quite general information.

So, there isn't anything which degrades performance of modern body armor no matter how long it was used? You see, I come from Eastern Europe and such things as shoddy equipment comes far more often than in the West. Western standards are in general higher, I can expect that equipment they will be handed out and support it will get will be a lot higher. We did send our elite operatives to Afganistan and into active combat with not enough equipment, I can't remember what exactly they were complaining enough, but in 2000-2010 this problem was accutte here. Same applied to our SWAT officers when I saw campaigns coming from civilians to purchase new body armor to them. Our volunteer and reserve training is equally ridiculous. We have automatic weapons which are so worn down that they can be trusted to fire no more than 1 round reliably before jamming and often our training were more about loud shouting than firing live ammunition. Recently however with change of political leadership, Russia's threat, Lithuania had started purchasing a lot of heavy equipment in bulk and situation is changing as we are the best equipped (at least in some regards) of all Baltic states. Though, it is not you who would had been drafted forcefully which is still a thing here with mandatory military draft and forced to fight first grade military like Russia with an automatic rifle which serves better as a club than a gun. With an expired body armor if you are lucky and ride into battle in venerable M113 if you are from elite formation. Under equipment is/was a big issue in a lot of other, poorer countries. Here you are complaining that your newest weapon is unreliable or expensive, but over here we are given bunch of barely functioning gear anymore and often are given ridiculous tasks to complete.

Those are fascinating statistics. I was always very interested in the cost of vehicles, sadly a theme which is often least covered and researched. In my mind, even T-54 can be a deadly opponent in modern battlefield if used appropriately like ambushing IFV and hiding in the terrain or repurposed as a cutting edge APC or a mobile/imobile pillbox. There aren't enough nations interested in buying second hand old equipment en mass and repurposing them for a new life for a fraction of a cost that new equipment with all its shiny gadgets cost.

That is great post! I wish that such information would be more widely available as I'm likely never will be able to make sense of Russian sources myself. I see that costs of both tanks were about equal and maintenance costs of T-64 were ought to drop dramatically as its critical flaws were worked out. I also looked into both tanks and they seem to be very similar in performance and capabilities. It seems that T-64 price had spiked with B version due to being upgraded with expensive FCS while T-72A maintaining its ballistic computer. Maybe you would remember some sources saying anything about that?

heretic88, you gave me a lot of homework to do before proving or disproving your points. I'm glad that other forum members had helped me with some of the statements too. I will make more in depth comment later, but I would like first to address other minor things. You had ignored my quotes, while you want to see world solely in an interest of private parties wanting to get piece of pie, you also must understand that different parties might have legitimate worldview differences which put them in opposing camps to begin with. An army made out of conscripts do not do well with modern, expensive and complicated equipment. Cost of training and re-equipping massive armies spiral out of control. More so when it comes to economies of scale, having to support an army with huge maintenance costs is prohibitively expensive. This is why the army wanted less complicated tank for their use. T-64 was anything, but that. Saying that USSR was meant to use T-64 as their next MBT is very far from the truth. You can't push a major piece of equipment on military force which does not want it. This was what had happened here, an army objected and Soviets had to shift their plans to develop less complicated and less maintenance intensive tank. Furthermore, when major specifications for a new design is reduced complexity and maintenance, that directly translates to reduced costs. There isn't a problem with tanks like T-64 at all if you have infinite repair shops, engineers, technicians, replacement parts ready to go. USSR could had made such things to be virtually infinite. They did not, because it is expensive to do so. Complaints about complexity and maintenance often boils down to a nation not wanting to spend more money on support elements who are very expensive to maintain. So in my eyes, when an army wants less complicated and easier to maintain design, this directly ties into its costs and its ability to be mass produced. Also keep in mind that an army did not stated that T-64 reliability which was the problem, but rather complexity. Also, T-72 is 40% cheaper in the end to produce, you might be getting wrong numbers from prototype costs or you have different calculations for costs. That is an emotional argument, it is pointless to make such. Btw: I'm looking for more solid sources on costs of those tanks, but I can't find anything solid. Books always reference that decision to go for T-72 was in regards to its cheaper costs, but they do not expand on that. I believe that burden of evidence falls on your shoulders if you want to disapprove this. There is certainly a lot more evidence in favor that rejection of T-64 was due to its high costs, reliability issues and mechanical complexity rather than decision being based solely on politics.

I would be cautious at considering T-64 as replacement for previous models as Soviet politics were confusing and complex area as any nation's politics. Considering that some minister had said or wanted to do is completely pointless when in reality he could had never pushed through his own ideas into becoming a reality. Firstly, army had opposed T-64 as a main battle tank, because it had favored more simplistic designs for its volunteer army. Secondly, Soviet Union had relied heavily on export market and T-64, T-80 models are far less attractive in that role. Thirdly, there wasn't political will to make T-64 as main battle tank. Due from engine production choke point and from its modest production numbers. Soviet politics is a reason why they were producing three lines of battle tanks in late cold war, T-64, T-72 and T-80. Tank factories did not decided what tanks USSR will be producing. In USSR it is political offices who had the final say in determining what weapons will be produced. There were a lot of politics in between, but it was not up to factories to suddenly just decide what army will be using next. Soviet/Russian Armor and Artillery Design Practices– 1945-1995, I-91 Nikolai Shomin, chief designer of T-64 had confirmed that decision to produce T-72 was due to T-64 tank's inherent problems and difficulty of mass production. Soviet Union did not wanted to forfeit its numerical superiority. This is how they had arrived to an idea to combine T-64 strengths with modified T-34 diesel engine. Later it also confirms that export was a major consideration in designing tanks as secondary consideration behind T-72 was its export attractiveness. Statement that it was not cheaper is an odd one since the very reason of T-72 existence was simplification of T-64 design. Its transmission system, cheaper, more reliable engine. Tank was made to be more reliable, easier to maintain and to be mass produced. T-72 was 40% cheaper to produce than T-64 which is a massive difference. Btw: I'm going to ignore if T-64 and T-62 were split between elite units or not, because it will take too much time, but I'm pretty certain that elite formations did received T-64/80 lines together with any other newest equipment Soviets could produce at the time. Also, it seems that in late 60's T-55 were meant mainly for an export. I have my doubts however is Soviet Union still did not produced said tank for its own replacements either. The issue is not whatever current tank can stand its own against new competition, but if current tank is advanced enough to be superior to its competition. 60's is when Soviets had losts its quantitative and qualitative superiority in tanks. In other words, it no longer had numbers superiority together with quality superiority when it came to tanks. Its continued production only exegabareted this problem into early 70's when new generation Nato tanks came into numbers and were refined. M60, Chieftains, Leopards while Soviets had in their inventories more of T-55 tank. In my view, their position would had been better if they would had preferred T-62 tank. M48 had similar armor as M60 and those tanks were tough to beat over range. T-55 had an advantage only, because M48 had sub-par firepower. M60 however had outmatched T-55 tank with greater stand off distances allowing it to destroy T-55 over range reliably. T-62 had equalled this difference by superior firepower, allowing it to destroy M60 from farther away than M60 could destroy T-62 from. Centurion was worse on paper, but from early 60's it was exported in seriously upgraded state, with superior firepower than that of T-55. Chieftains however if in proper firing position makes match up hopeless for T-55, however T-62 firepower still enables it to remain dangerous. HEAT ammunition wasn't popular and I believe it was even in deficit during those years. It also was unreliable, expensive and were far more difficult to accurately fire over distances than any other type of AP ammunition. It is no wonder that in 60's, AP rounds were still a main way of defeating enemy armor. T-55 however could not beat tanks at any range, its AP round was more prone to ricochets and would lose more energy over distance than APFSDS of T-62. 3VBM-1 round was by far superior and Soviets lacked with modernization of T-55 firepower at that time. It was not until 1967 that new round was even made for T-55, 3BM8 APDS. UBR-412 projectile in 60's were not as scary as in 40's and 50's and in my eyes, it shows when using T-55 in any simulator, its firepower feels lacking in 60's.

I had included T-54 too, because they are so related, but just that tank (T-54/55) alone clocks upwards to 100,000 units.. https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/t-5455-produced-tank-ever.html Precise numbers are always difficult to come by as various sources quote various figures, but said tank tend to maintain similar monstrous production quotas. It is not up until later, with more expensive tanks like T-72 when production numbers become more sensible ranging only around 25,000 tanks. T-62 being considered as unpopular intermedium solution still clocked up considerable 23,000 units give or take. T-64 on the other hand had 13,000 models produced. Only T-80 had received modest production numbers of around 5000 copies. By comparison, Soviets had built around 84,000 T-34 tanks and around 60,000 during whole duration of WW2. Those production numbers later turned to be a real headache for a Soviet Union to replace as majority of their armed forces in late cold war were made up of tanks who could not compete with Nato armor on equal terms. This is why I consider that the problem was with the Soviets rather than T-62. Too strong of a focus on mass producing one tank had yielded desired short to medium term effect, but in a long run, Soviets were stuck with massive armored fleets which needed monstrous resources to be maintained and to be replaced in full during late cold war years. Resources which we both know Soviet Union simply could not afford anymore to spend on producing so many tanks who became increasingly expensive. This together with increased demand for more armored vehicles of every kind is why we see drop in overall production of later models too compared to production of earlier models. Btw: Soviets always had similar production numbers all the way since interwar period where they casually produced more tanks than rest of the world combined. Also, state of Warsaw Pact's armored forces were often quite horrific by Nato standards as typically most formations did not had enough of a maintenance elements to properly repair and support its armored forces. Overall plan was to keep most of the tanks in reserve and to bring back during mobilization in hopes that they will be destroyed before they break down. That would had resulted in Soviet army who is tremendously capable of short offensive bursts, like famous 7 days to Rhine operation, but after that Soviets would had experienced massive choke on their capabilities as all those tanks would start breaking down at a similar time, completely overloading maintenance crews.

You greatly underestimate what kind of gargantuan Soviet Union was and thus you do not get the essence of the problem I was talking about. T-64A had entered limited production in 1969. First serial production batch lasted from 1969 to 1972 though which 1560 of those tanks were produced + its earlier variants. For comparison, Soviets during 80's were producing around 9000 tanks, SPG and APCs per year. USSR had produced up to 100,000 T-55 and its variants during 30 year span. This comes to an average of 3,333 tanks per year. T-64 having an early production run of 520 tanks per year is a small scale serial production by Soviet standards while in Western world it would be a large scale production. Furthermore, another argument of why Soviets never seriously intended to replace older tanks with T-64 was that they never had expanded upon tank's engine production factories. We had a choke point in T-64 engines where one factory was producing engines for a tank produced in 3 or all major tank factories. When you hear that Soviets had moved to produce vehicle X in a factory, you should not think that they were focusing on producing that vehicle. Those Soviet factories were gargantuan and producing hundred of tanks per year wasn't a big deal for the Soviets. Btw: Soviets had two major tank lines. MBT intended for main army and elite formations. One line was designed to be cheap and effective and was produced in great numbers. These tanks are like T-55, T-72. Another tank line meant to be the very best that Soviets could produce at the time and those tanks were meant for elite formations. Those tanks were models like T-64 and T-80. By saying that I had meant that Soviets were planning replacement for T-55/62, I had meant that they were planning replacement for their first line of tanks. Any theoretical successor to those tanks would had been obviously a lot cheaper than T-64 or else it would had been deemed as a complete failure.

Drones provide negligible combat value and are not in mainstream service yet. Most of high profile projects are still under development. It will take a good decade when such things as drone artillery spotters, tanks using drones to extend their awareness or when drones will be able to perform roles of more complex machinery like military aircraft or submarines.

With the advent of drones, we will be going backwards technologically. AA guns placed on tanks, low caliber AA guns, low caliber missile launchers. These kind of weapon platforms should see comeback as a lot of drones do not require high capability, heavy equipment to beat. Though, it will be good decades until drones will mature technologically enough to pose real battlefield combat threat on their own. At the current moment, they are little more than a cool hype.

Armor technology is something which had raised many questions to me. Armor is something which tends to gain more value the more you put it. For example, on a tank, extra 50 mm of raw armor thickness can sometimes mean over 500 meters of extra range where enemy fire is ineffective. In a same manner, we often do not prioritize protecting ours...anything and always seem to focus on other aspects rather than protection. In my eyes, it is like being in Imperial Guard army. You are just statistic on someone's excel spreadsheet. You do not gain any real combat performance increase if you survive being shot when you consider all the downsides. Thus, protection is here more for morale reasons and providing bare basic levels of protection for maximum benefit as cheaply as possible. Key point, cheaply. Our analogue SWAT officers were forced at one time to serve with expired body vests. Soldiers also seem to suffer from poor quality body armor issues from time to time and this is in USA, the best equipped military in the world. I can only imagine that body armor in less well equipped nations are long expired and is here more for a show. This is also strange, because we do have technology to create video game equivalent of power armor. We have real cases of body armor stopping heavy machine gun rounds, helmets who can stop sniper rounds, body vests who can stop point blank grenade hits. Armor can be so much more, but we somehow do not care about it. Just look at how long it took us to figure out that creating an air gap between an armor plates makes them more effective...

Idea of T-72 comes from 60's as a merging between T-62 and T-64 in an effort to make a mass production variant which would be cheap to produce, but would have increased capabilities of some T-64 features. Soviet leadership would had been extraordinary short sighted at the time if they did not forsee T-55 obsolescence by 60's. As for T-64, tank was never a meant for mass production in a same quantities as their main battle tank lines hence its serial production. What I had meant however was of shifting production from T-55 to T-62. In this scenario, an excessive production of armor vehicles would had been lowered somewhat while industry reshifts itself towards new tank design. In addition of lowering T-62 production cost. Ultimately this would had meant that Soviet would have had several hundred less tanks than they could have had. In return there would not be such gluttony of T-55 reserves later on and Soviet reserves would make up of around 50/50 percent split between T-55 and T-62 models in late cold war.

Well, calling this tank a mediocre design is more of a reputation rather than reality. It was mediocre only in a sense that it had carried its strengths and weaknesses from its predecessor T-55. Its cannon was monstrous at its time. While other anti tank cannons and rounds would struggle to penetrate equivalent enemy tanks from 1000 meters and onwards, often effective zone being somewhere 1500 meters. This tank however still had enough penetrative power beyond maximum effective engagement distances of 2 kilometers to be a threat to tanks of that era. Gun in addition had a flat round trajectory which is an advantage over rifled guns of its time. I would consider this tank to be the best at its time, only surpassed by T-64, but that tank is in a different category. Not only it is a lot more expensive, but also had severe issues with engine and I think it wasn't until T-64B when Soviets had anything better. T-64 had such problems with its engines that it was merely a paper tiger until 1970s with introduction of T-64B. The problems arising from this tank were not technological or poor performance. T-62 was excellent mass production design, outcompeting its analogs in the West at the time. The real issue was that Soviet Union was so invested into mass production of certain vehicle lines that it found it impossible to shift. While it made its tanks very cheap, it by comparison made T-62 almost twice as expensive! Not because T-62 was more expensive, it was because of sunk costs into T-55 which had made its production so cheap. This tendency to mass produce tanks worked in a short run as it allowed USSR to cheaply become that military supergiant with iconic seas of tanks. On the other hand it had inhibited meaningful Warsaw Pact's technological progress, often forcing it to stick to producing outdated models a good decade after they were ought to be shut down. Hence, this is why Soviet equipment had gained such a poor reputation abroad due to investment in mass production. By comparison, T-55 was produced into 80's decade! This is completely insane that Soviets were so invested into mass production which had left with massive amounts of old, rusting equipment which needed modernization which they could not easily receive due to its low internal space and low upper suspension weight. These were real reasons behind T-62 reception. It is a great tank, plagued with poor techno-economical planning of Soviet Union. In my personal view, I would had ceased production of T-55 in early 60's and would had shifted mass production towards T-62 tanks. T-64 was a lemon design. T-72 was still miles away at that time and T-55 was starting to lose its superiority as a tank against new competition. T-62 would had bridged the gap and ensured technological parity with newest Nato tanks. After all, how many tanks do you really need in your military before expenses of maintenance and logistics start to drag you down?