Can the M1 Abrams Tank Still Outgun Russia’s Best?.But those are very heavily upgraded with a 105-millimeter L7 gun effective against most Russian tanks, an uprated 600-horsepower engine, stabilized infrared day/night sights, digital fire control computers, laser-warning receivers, smoke grenade launchers, and blocks of explosive reactive armor (ERA) that will give it a chance to withstand infantry anti-tank rockets and missiles. Indeed, Ukraine has already beaten Russia to re-introducing to T-55 tanks, as its all-volunteer 47 th Assault Brigade uses 28 T-55-based M-55S tanks donated by Slovenia. In the kinds of a small-unit infantry actions around entrenched positions common in this phase of Russia’s war in Ukraine, fire support from even a small number of tanks can make a big difference. Outside of that, the T-54/55 still poses a deadly threat to infantry, its gun still threatens all armored vehicles short of a tank like BMP or Bradley fighting vehicles, and its front turret armor should withstand most weapons not designed to bust tanks, including the autocannons on IFVs. To be fair, the gun’s shortcomings mostly matter when dueling other tanks, a comparatively rare form of combat in Ukraine. By comparison, even Russia’s newer 3UBM11 100-millimeter sabot rounds with tungsten penetrators achieve only 280-millimeters equivalent penetration at 2 kilometers, and the 3UBM8 HEAT round blasts through 350-millimeters at any range. In return, their D-10T 100-millimeter rifled guns would struggle to penetrate the frontal armor of modern Soviet and Western tanks, which usually exceed 450- to 500-millimeter equivalents versus kinetic rounds, or even more against shaped-charge HEAT rounds. Though formidably armored when they emerged in the late 1940s and 1950s, T-54s are vulnerable to all modern anti-tank weapons.
0 kommentar(er)
