Re: Army scuttles Arjun trials to push through T-90 purchase
he T-series out smarted them as they had better suspension and lower ground pressure.
Only someone very poorly educated person can call A BT and T-34 series suspension as better. Do you know what suspension these vehicles used? It was Christie suspension, a very primitive and problematic, and soviets leave it behind as soon as possible.
In fact Soviets allways wanted to use the same torsion bars suspension systems as Germans did.
For example the original T-34 was intended to be replaced as quickly as possible with T-34M that had torsion bars suspension system instead of Christie suspension, but war jeopardized all these plans and in the end the T-34 replacement become T-44 that was designed from 1943 and become manufactured in late 1944, but never participated in the second world war.
So :
I am an Ex-NDA and have done lot of studies for my Staff college and I am well versed in amphi ops besides being an ex fighter pilot.
It does not mean you know a lot about tanks. I suggest to read some good books. For example Боевитые машины Уральвагонзавода Т-54 / Т-55 there is a bit about T-44, maybe some other books, I would need to dig in my collection.
As for smoothbore guns, they were used by Soviets and NATO because spin is not desired in modern ammunition, in fact modern ammunition is not spin stabilized, it is fin stabilized but they do not spin.
Spin effect is not good for shaped charge warheads. If projectile spin, the shaped charge jet will have reduced penetration capability because spin is making formation of jet difficult.
French had a lot of problems with this, so they designed a more complex HEAT ammunition, where there was outer case, and inner warhead mounted on ball bearnings, so outer case of projectile was spin stabilized when the warhead itself was not. But this increased complexcity of projectile and manufacturing costs.
As for APFSDS spin is also not desired, very long rods can even break during flight if they were spin. This is because of forces that are effecting penetrator during flight as well as penetration. And this was a problem even without spin effect, I heard that during some initial tests with longer penetrators in late 1980's and early 1990's ended up with penetrators breaking in to parts during flight, it was solved out but spin is a no go for modern ammunition.
There was a lot of reasons to resign from rifled guns. And I am amazed that even if top militaries of the world, proved that rifled guns are obsolete, and not needed any more as tanks armament, some people are so attached to that myth of rifled gun, that even if this makes their weapon system obsolete, they would stick to it.
