I'm a tank enthusiast, as big of an enthusiast as it could be without actually owning one. Not an expert by all means, when I had a chance I opted for another kind of military service upholding family tradition. This year we're approaching the jubilee of probably the best MBT of the XX century, or at least second part of the XX century. The working horse of the battlefield, machine that served in almost every remotely significant military conflict and became so widespread in the last 40 years. Yep, it's been 40 years since it came into service.

Just recently the proof of how good and trustworthy it is has came from current day Syria, being ambushed by terrorists. For promotional purposes those gangs publish some videos, I took a look at them. Those below probably T-72M's (1980), early export model of the machine.

Tank 1, episode 1. Tank is standing in the middle of the road and it seems has got a hit in the middle of the side already. Those bastards obviously knew where to shoot, right in the middle of fighting compartment and autoloader's ammo, which is placed there (so called carousel). Yet the crew is alive, gunner is spinning the turret around, commander's turret is operational, driver is alive as well -- the machine has started. And here goes another hit.

Tank 1, episode 2. After the smoke goes away the tank is still operational. Driver is alive, you can see he's pushing the gas pedal. Commander's turret is operational as well. The fate of a gunner remains unseen in this episode though.

Tank 2, Episode 1. Again tank in the middle of the road, a good target. Terrorists are aiming for the same spot, but miss hitting third track roller instead.

Tank 2, episode 2. After being hit the machine is under fire from heavy machine gun, machine starts (driver is alive apparently), moving back and forth before it got hit second time, right in the frontal projection. The shooter apparently trying to demobilize the machine killing the driver or hitting the fuel tanks, yet the machine is ok and it moves away keeping it's aim on some target we don't see.

There're dozens of other facts that recently came from Syria where machines counted up to 5-6 hits including rear projection yet remained operational, some record-breaking machine was "lucky" enough to count 12 hits and remained operational.

Those are facts, what about opinion? ANNA (Abkhazian news network) has interviewed one of the Syrians tankman on the matter (the machine behind him is again an early export version T-72M1):

Long story short.

What are the main problems you've encountered operating the mahcine in the battle?
- Air supply is not very convenient in maintance, should be segmented, that way we might not need to disassemble half of the machine if smth goes wrong in there.
- RE (reactive armor) on sides is poorly mounted and fall off easily when hit (shows machine after battle w/o RE on the side, mounting holes are damaged).

Did RE help at all?
- Yep, excellent protection from various rounds, so most of the damage comes from IEDs (gives an example, ripped off couple of track rollers after explosion).

How often machines remain operational after being hit?
- We rarelly have casulaties even after penetrational damage, which happened once during my service, so most of the time machines remain operational.

Are you happy with autoloader, how reliable is it, how it compares with manual loading?
- It's far more convenient and faster than manual loading, the thing never falter and if there's a minor problem it easily fixed during the battle.

 The spread of T's during last two decades, T-72 is among them:

Not sure what I'm going to do with the thread. Maybe turn it into general military thread if interested enough (given how many military conflicts there're around the world, no problem in obtaining the material). Let's start with Syria and T-72. Happy birthday to you, T-72!

I hate tanks. They only cause destruction. I miss the good ol' days when your life or death depended on your punching ability and use of a bow and arrow.

real weapons aint funny

I thought this was another Vita thread after reading the title, you got my hopes up.

I thought you were going to talk about this: 

^ These are sissy tanks for sissy kids, but I'm talking about real men's machines.

Like this for example (the big one, the another one is not a tank):

Actually my "first" tank (the very same depicted on the photo) :D I was a kid back then, crawling inside the thing, to my great regret it was all empty. The IS-3, the huge monstrousity has a fitting name, though unfortuantely (or luckly) never was in actual battle. IIRC it was with advancing troops during Soviet invasion of Manchuria (1945), but never made a contact with the enemy.

My real first machine, i.e. the one I actually drove, was this, T-80BV:

You can recognize T-80 easily by it's skirt, which suppose to protect gas turbine from excessive dust. The machine is very much satisfying in driving due to momentum it can accumulate in a second. Driving anything diesel after this is like driving regular car after sports car. Sorry, T-72.

Next generation machines are just around the corner (debut in September, 2013)

MBT generetion change unlike game consoles has nothing to do with market dynamics, and technology advance isn't smth well accepted in terms of what is generational leap and what is not. So there's a lot of cheap journalism in saying that given machine belongs to said generation, but if smth that has never been changed in tank design for a whole century and finally is about to change -- I believe there's a solid reason to call it nextgen (or 4th to be precise).

Behold... Armata (R&D codename):

I was a little confused when I first saw the model. There're some leaked vague photos of early prototypes that badly represent current state of development and quite a few fake renders, so that devalues them a lot compared to this even though it's just a model. Thankfully after some time I was able to get a confirmation from person who actually saw the thing in real life that the turret (the fantasy of mad scinetist) is a complete and purposeful fake, while the platform itself is rather accurate. This pretty much proves that Armata is going to have a fully separated fighting compartment, enclosed in armored capsule (see the position of optical devices and hatches just in front of the turret, for example), thus the first machine to enter service since Renault FT (1917) which is going to have different design layout rather than classical one.

This fall Armata along with other machines intended for heavy brigades will debut on the show in Nizhny Tagil, chances are high though that they'll be shown only to certain persons who oversee the development, that means no press around. The machine is planned to enter serial production by 2015.