Recently, the American magazine "The National Interest" published an article saying that Russia has invested the latest modification of the T-72 T-72B3M on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, but this type of tank itself has many flaws. Even with technological upgrades, Russia will not be able to completely solve these problems, and these T-72s may not be ideal on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield in the future.
The only evidence that the American media in the article argues that the T-72 is "bad" is that the T-72 was blown off the turret during the 1991 Gulf War. The performance of the T-72 in the Gulf War was indeed very bad, and this war also established the stereotype that European and American tanks had excellent protection. However, in retrospect, weren't these things shaped by the European and American military-industrial complexes and the European and American news media? Looking at the examples of wars over the years, who has not flown the turret, after all, the Leopard 2 and M1A1 Abrams destroyed by Russia are still on display in the Russian Victory Park.
T-72 is a type of main battle tank developed by the Soviet Union in the 70s of the last century, mainly to replace the T-55 and T-62 as the main armored equipment of the Soviet army, and its design inherits the idea of T-55 and T-62 to pursue easy production and low price. Clearly, the T-72 is a high-volume piece of equipment that uses a number of proven designs, such as a steel cast turret, a three-proof device, automatic fire extinguishing, and the same smoke screen as the T-62. However, the T-72 was equipped with a new 125-mm gun and an automatic loader, which gave it a very big increase in firepower. In 1973, the T-72 began to be officially equipped with Soviet units, and it was only in 2006 that Russia stopped creating T-72 tanks. And Russia and the USSR built a total of 25,000 T-72 tanks, which can be said to be a very large amount, in addition to Russia \ USSR for its own use, it is also exported to other countries in large quantities.
However, in general, the T-72 is a tank used in the decisive battle of the large-scale mechanized corps in the Great Plains, and what it pursues when it is made is that it is easy to manufacture and can explode the number of troops, which can be understood as a continuation of the T-34 tank idea. And the reason why the T-72 is easy to fly turret after being hit is due to its special structure, which uses a disc-shaped automatic loader, so the ammunition depot is like a huge plate at the very bottom of the turret basket. And once the ammunition depot is detonated, the turret will definitely fly into the sky.
However, the protection of the T-72 is not as bad as the Western media hype. The ammunition depot of the T-72 is at the bottom of the hull, which is about the same height as the load wheels, so in addition to the normal hull protection, the armor-piercing shells need to pass through the load wheels for these additional thicknesses. The ammunition depot, or loading plate, was covered with a layer of steel plates, except for the elevator position, so the vast majority of shells were not exposed to the fighting compartment, so theoretically the T-72 was not very prone to detonation.
In the Gulf, in addition to the ammunition on the normal loading disc, the T-72 tank has many additional shells stored in the shell racks on the inner walls of the turret, on the turret podium floor, and in the shell racks between the fighting compartment and the engine, and these shells, which lack additional protection, are easily ignited by high-temperature fragments or metal jets scattered in the turret after penetration, causing a serious explosion and thus causing the detonation of the ammunition. In contrast, the design of armored ammunition depots in Europe and the United States is not much better. Both the German Leopard 2 and the American M1A1 Abrams advertise the design of their independent ammunition depots, which are located in the aft compartment of the turret, with explosion-proof partitions and explosion-proof partitions between the turret and the turret, claiming to ensure that the ammunition does not affect the inside of the turret after exploding. In fact, the Leopard 2 was still blown over the turret, and the M1A1 Abrams were also destroyed by Russia many times on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield this year.
However, T-72 is a product of the 70s of the last century, although it does not pursue the advancement of a single performance, but with the development of the times, some of the performance of T-72 is indeed lagging behind the times, so Russia has also made some improvements to it, and its latest improvement is that Russia mentioned in the American media has stepped up the production of T-72B3M for the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, T-72B3M is an improvement of T-72B3 that first appeared in the international military competition tank competition held in Russia. The biggest feature is the replacement of the original 840 hp engine with a 1,300 hp engine, as well as a new sighting and fire control system.
In fact, the earliest T-72B3M was completely a special vehicle for the Russian tank biathlon competition, which was similar in nature to the Continental 96B, except for the crazy laps at the competition venue in Alabino every year, and the rest of the time was maintained in the warehouse. However, with the progress of the Russian-Ukrainian war and the loss of Russian armored vehicles, Russia urgently needs new vehicles, so the T-72B3M appeared on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, and even the T-72B3M, which first appeared on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, also has the logo of the tank biathlon competition, and it is not ruled out that Russia has pulled the special vehicle for the competition in the Alabino warehouse directly onto the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield (it is very likely that this is the reason why the tank biathlon will not be held after 2022).
Although the T-72B3M is equipped with the latest explosive anti-armor, the protection has been greatly improved, but after all, it has not solved the problem that the ammunition depot and the vehicle body cannot be completely isolated, so many people and the media are not optimistic. Actually, this is not the pot for the T-72B3M. It is important to know that the battlefield environment faced by the T-72B3M was not within the scope of what was envisaged when the T-72 was designed. The T-72 is a low-priced, easy-to-build second-generation tank suitable for large-scale tank battles, and its opponent is a torrent of opposing tanks. In the Russian-Ukrainian war, Russian tanks are facing guerrilla warfare and urban warfare, and the threats they need to face are drones and anti-tank rockets, which are not things that rely on tank armor. Also in the face of these threats, the Leopard 2 and M1A1 Abrams, which are more advanced than the T-72, are also folded on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield.
Last month, a Russian Iron Turtle tank appeared in Krasnogovka on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, which can be said to be an answer sheet handed over by the Russian army to a certain extent. This Iron Tortoise tank looks very much like the A7V, in fact, he welded an iron frame on the T-72B, and then covered it with two layers of steel plates inside and out. The two layers of steel plates are spaced 1 meter apart, which can dissipate the metal jet of the cone-shaped charge warhead (such as the common RPG) very well, and even if the armor-piercing projectile breaks through this "turtle shell", most of the kinetic energy will be weakened. It can be said that this layer of turtle shells is a good counteract against the attacks of armor-piercing shells and drones, and the grenades thrown by drones are also useless.
Recently, the Russian army also added drone jammers and minesweepers to this iron turtle, judging from the recent video, this iron turtle was used as a road opening vehicle to carry most of the anti-tank mines, RPGs and drone attacks, leading the Russian army team to break through the Ukrainian defense line in one fell swoop. Although this answer sheet of the Russian army is ugly, it is really easy to use.
On the whole, the stereotype of Europe and the United States hyping the T-72 tank with poor protection is nothing more than to discredit Russia and promote its own products. In fact, Europe and the United States' own tanks are not much better. Moreover, in March this year, the third destroyed M1A1 Abrams on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield was taken by the T-72B3's 125mm main gun. Nowadays, the threat and battlefield environment on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield are not conducive to tanks, of course, the Russian army's Iron King Eight is not the final answer, I think from the perspective of the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, the standard answer should be systematic, information-based modern army synthetic operations, because this is no longer an era that pays attention to the performance of a single weapon.