[New post] T-72 tanks in urban combat, Indian Army Tankman says they did their job well in Sri Lanka and Ukraine
Frontier India News Network posted: " T-72 tanks in urban combat, Indian Army Tanker says they did their job well in Sri Lanka and Ukraine T-72 tanks have been the object of many debates since they rolled into Ukraine. In general, the tanks have been called a failure in view of Anti Tank " Frontier India
T-72 tanks in urban combat, Indian Army Tanker says they did their job well in Sri Lanka and Ukraine
T-72 tanks have been the object of many debates since they rolled into Ukraine. In general, the tanks have been called a failure in view of Anti Tank Guided Missiles (ATMG) proliferating. The T-72 tank has also done a spectacular job in the war, which is not getting highlighted. We have heard the opinions of the British and French experts, but they are not the users. Frontier India spoke to Lt Col Manoj K Channan (Retd) from the 65 Armoured Regiment, which fought a similar battle in Sri Lanka under Operation Pawan. 65 Armoured Regiment operated the T-72 M1 tanks in Sri Lanka.
The transcript is below:
The Indian Army last operated in Sri Lanka when it was fighting in the built-up area. And today, we have the Russian Army deployed, you know, in Ukraine and fighting in built-up areas. And we see a. Videos on social media, right? So let's do something correctly.
Firstly, let's get the perspective right. When the Indian Army deployed tanks in Sri Lanka, they were more to give added firepower to the Infantry battalions, which had been overwhelmed by the enemy's tactics and firepower. Remember, the infantry battalions had self-loading rifles with ammunition of 7.62 mm, devastating on a single short.
More required for conventional operations vis a vis what the LTTE was carrying the AK 47 or the G3 rifles, which had immense firepower in terms of rounds for per minute firing capability. Let me narrate an incident. Uh, we had Major Chanan Singh from 10 Para commandos who was heavily engaged in operations. He was asked by GOC IPKF (General officer Commanding, Indian Peace Keeping Force). What is it that the SLR can't do, and what the K 47 can? So I'm told this is hearsay, so you would have to go by what I'm saying as hearsay. He told the GOC, sir, you give me an AK 47. I'll go belt into the jungles. And you send 10 of your best men after me, and I'll send you back ten dead bodies.
Now he was stating that because an AK 47 has a 30-round magazine, very rapid rate of fire. You can fire a single shot; you can (fire) a burst of three; you can fire on fully automatic. The SLR was a single shot with a 20-round magazine, but it had immense firepower to knock the man and kill him instantly—no matter where you hit the guy.
Now the same infantry when engaging with the LTTE and these guys were nimble-footed, you know, they would operate in five - six, climb up coconut trees, climb up rooftops. They would fire at you from one position, a burst from one tree, shift to the other. And therefore, you could never get a sense of what was the opposition against you, especially at night you can't see where the fire is coming from, but your men are dropping around you. Not a very good scene to be in.
So the tanks had devastating firepower, 125 mm smoothbore gun, and shell of about 33 Kg. When you fire it at close range, it knocks off the position straight away, whether the guy is on a tree or in a house. I mean, in a given area and one round, you have blasted away the opposition.
So the tanks were basically being used as fixed platforms behind which the infantry would move, knocking off this opposition and reducing the inflected casualties. Was that the correct way of using tanks? No, it wasn't because tanks are not supposed to be used as spill boxes. They're used in conventional, sub-subunit troop levels, which is a minimum of three tanks.
There's a troop leader; who could utilize those three tanks correctly in mechanized or armour warfare. The second thing that has to be born in mind is that. The Jaffna peninsula was something which had the sea on one side; it had multiple lagoons inside. So the water table was very high.
The tanks could not move cross country. They were Paddy fields, all lagoons, where the tanks being heavy equipment, 45 tons, could easily get bogged down. So they had to move perforce on existing roads and tracks or rail lines. So. The enemy knew from where you could operate. But notwithstanding that, after our few setbacks, the combined firepower ensured that the enemy was kept at pay.
Now the same LTTE had been trained by the armoured corps also as to how to negate a tank. And so those were being effectively used against us. They would shoot at our vision devices because when you're closed in the tank, you observe everything outside through your vision devices, day or night devices.
So they would shoot at that. They would make sure that there was glass got splintered. You couldn't have a look. So you had to pop it off your cupola; therefore, you presented a target, but we've found ways and means to negate that threat. Now typically, the T 72 is a conventional offensive tank. It is not a tank designed and built to fight and build up areas.
Notwithstanding that, now let's go relate to your question in Ukraine. It's the same tank. Now the threats have changed. These tanks were designed sometime in the mid-seventies or early seventies and were to be used in mass against the native forces in the planes of Europe. And the Russian doctrine was that use them in plenty and firepower to overwhelm the enemy in larger numbers.
The NATO thought process was that since they couldn't match the Russians in terms of equipment, they said we will have protection, firepower, and mobility. So this is to explain the basics of how a tank is designed right now. Step forward to Ukraine's environment has changed. Drones have come in.
Azerbaijan conflict reflected how the Turkish UAVs were effectively used to make a top attack and negate a tank. A tank typically has maximum protection against its frontal lock in the front chassis. It has protection on the side, minimum protection at the top and minimum at its bottom because most conventional anti-time weapons are fired head-on or from the sides, not from the top deck or something else.
The Russian Army quickly adapted. They made those cages, put nets and ensured that the top deck wouldn't succeed, but that was just being, uh, to use the term loosely, using a "Jugged". Today an active protection system for the tanks is a requirement like all modern aircraft friendships have anti-protection systems on board.
So a tank with each one, there's a development towards that, I think, the T-90s do have an active protection system, which the Russian Army uses, but too many T-90s have not been used. And at the same time, there have been cases of T-90s have been shown being blown up from the top attack and against the Jalin missile, which the U.S. has applied and the missile supplied by the various other NATO countries.
The thing that has to be corrected is that we really don't know whether the T-72s or the T-80s are being shown in the Video clips, which have been circulated on social media, which the Western governments control are Ukrainian or Russian. So somebody said, oh, you know, the Russians will run out of ammunition, they're going to be running out of equipment. It is a war of four days; it's a war of 10. So 24th February 2022, and today we are sitting on 29th July. The war is going on, and I'm told the Russians have increased the number around they're fighting per day from 20,000 to 40,000. So they're not running out of ammunition. They're not running out of anything. They are fighting the battle that they want to. So, it does not fit into the template of the various think tanks in the U.S. or in Europe or India. Mr Putin doesn't listen to somebody, and he is doing what he wants to do. He wants to get Ukraine, and he'll get it, in my view.
I mean, how he gets it may take him a year or two. Well, the west went back on its commitment, what it gave and said on the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, he's doing it now to you.
T-72 M1 and the crew from the Indian Army 65 Armoured Regiment
They are just stepping away for a moment. You know, the Ruble trade is being isolated from the Dollar currency. The Chinese currency is also being isolated. We are trying to get our Rupee to get isolated from the impact of the dollar, right? So these are new things from a unipolar world, a multipolar world who will win, who will lose, which are the new collaboration that comes up, whether it's China, Russia, Iran, or the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. On one side, you see Indians, you know, balanced on the centre, but not bending towards Russia or to Japan or the others. But on the QUAD side, we are still trying to figure out how to sort of keeping our balance impact.
So I. We are fairly well balanced. And at the same time, I think the tanks would need to get active protection suits. Tank is a weapon of offense. The tank has done its job in Ukraine. It led the Russian Army into the hinterland of Ukraine to the objectives that it wanted to achieve.
Please understand there is infantry. There are air defense units. There are, there are so many others. What was their role, and where are they? I mean, nobody was talking about them. So why singularly look at the tank? The tank did its job. It was what it was meant for. So, are tanks supposed to find battles independently? No, you are supposed to be fighting as combat or combined arms group. Or the new term, the Indian Army uses integrated battle groups (IBG, Ed). So there's a compliment: ensuring that your close protections are there all around.
It's like the Navy carrier battle group. So you have an aircraft carrier. You have destroyers; you got subsurface submarines. You've got people flying on top. Your people got sensors and all around to make sure. Nobody is surprised, but you have the offense capability to hit out. So you have to do that with your land forces also. So, you know, it's an evolving world, and drones will be there, swarm drones will be around, but they'll be anti-drone and anti-swarm drone systems. So as we spoke earlier, you have to be nimble-footed. You have to be fast. You have to ensure that your tech is up and about, using all your resources and integrating what everybody talks about, IoT machine learning, and, you know, all the fancy gizmo words you hear.
Laser weapons are still under development, and they'll take some time. It's not easy to firstly store energy and release it in a point form. They're still not approved by the UN and therefore still not on the list to be used as conventional warfare, though, in the space environment, the Chinese have been using them to demonstrate their anti-satellite capabilities.
But now, the U.S. has also said that anything that happens in space will be taken as a conventional operation threat. So things are evolving. So it'll be too early to sort of put a grid around what is logical or which is legal and what is illegal. So it's like the LOC (line of control with Pakistan, Ed.); it's all a matter of perception. It's aligned. It's imaginary. You decide which way goes.
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