Bobjack1240

Even with the 80+105+20, would there have been any chance for M-728 apds? Or would 105mm gun tanks be basically hopeless without M-735 or M-774 apfsds.

I would assume 1 km. The creator of the video didn't say the range. He also did a M-735 video at 1.5 km so I would assume somewhere between 1-1.5 km.

In this simulation, (M60A1 vs T-64 (Early) | Armor Penetration Simulation) 105mm M728 apds rips through a T-64 glacis. However, this is without the 20mm backplate that was installed after 1972. Would the backplate have made that much of a difference? Would M60A1/M48A5 have been hopeless without apfsds because M-735 was only procured in a very limited timeframe? M-774 replaced it and started procurement with 40,000 rounds produced in Fiscal Year 1979 (Congressional hearings).

Soviet doctrine would survive contact with the enemy in a purely conventional operation. Besides the training/troop quality issues I mentioned earlier, the Russians in Ukraine also had serious logistical issues that hindered most of their progress. Compare this with the Soviets who had logistical infrastructure in place for a prolonged war. There wouldn't have been Soviet tanks stuck along stretches of road running out of gas or ammo. Also, the Egyptians in 1973 were able to sort of successfully use Soviet doctrine until they overextended and moved ahead of their SAM umbrella.

Both forces would have used similar equipment: The Republican Guard's performance in the Iran-Iraq War and Desert Storm are the closet proxies we have of how the Nationalvolksarmee would have actually performed in combat during. Both would have used a mixture of T-72A/72M1s (the only serious difference between the 72M1 and the 72A is the lack of an anti-radiation liner for the 72M1), T-72 Urals, and T-55s. Both would have used pretty much the same APCs and IFVs. The Republican Guard was a professional force with more combat experience than the NVA. Both would have used similar atgms. The '89 NVA would have used the Spandrel, Spigot, and Sagger for their infantry, while the Republican Guard would have had the Milan, Spigot, and Sagger. Both would have used pretty much the same AA weapons with the exception of the Iraqis also having Roland SAMs. Both would also have had used pretty much the same attack helicopters and ground-attack aircraft. However, according to Swedish accounts of tests conducted with second-hand East German 72M1s in the 1990s, the East Germans might have also had BM-22 instead of the BM-15 the Iraqis used. Both would have had similar manpower strengths with the Guard being of better quality: By the time of the Invasion of Kuwait, the Republican Guard would have been a professional force around 100,000 strong with 8 year's worth of combat experience. The NVA's Landstreikrafte would have been around 105,000 strong in 1989/1990 (although only 50% of these would have been professional troops).

Also, Soviet Category A formations were much better trained than the Russian troops that were sent into Ukraine. Unlike a lot of the regulars who were told a variation of the following based off of interviews of Russian POWs: "it's a training exercise, it's a peacekeeping mission in Donetsk/ Luhansk, or they'll welcome you as liberators because you're de-nazifying Ukraine" (the VDV and other more elite formations were probably told what they were getting into, they were just poorly lead), the Soviet GSFG troops knew that they would have to engage the full might of NATO. They knew nukes would be used by both sides on a tactical level.

Also, the Soviets would have liberally used nukes. If the Russians did that, some would still be intercepted by Ukrainian S-300s, but the Russians would have been more successful.

Besides a 1974 XM735 test firing ("Comparative Tank gun Data, January 1974") and a ballistics test of the 152mm XM579E4 parent round on a XM1 armor test rig (The XM1 Vulnerability Analysis, 1978), I haven't been able to find any other documentation on the round's performance which is surprising because official documentation exists for the XM774's performance. (But, the actual 774 would have probably been more powerful and closer to what we have in game as this was a prototype). A thing to note about the 1974 test is that the XM735 was only able to penetrate a simulated "T-72 glacis" out to 1.2 kilometers. And another problem with this was that they used a 150mm steel target plate sloped to 60 degrees for the "T-72" which ended up being a NATO heavy single target.

Because of this, for an official "cannon answer" I would go with official army evaluations. In this case, I would have gone with the British 1982 evaluation and compensated by equipping the T-80s with BM-26. BM-26 entered service in 1982 (so it would have technically been within the game's time period) and would have had similar performance to the American M833 which wouldn't come out until 1983, and isn't within the game's time period. Nothing in service at the time would have been safe from BM-26.

Intelligence documents can be very inconsistent because the other document from 1982 was probably meant to be interpreted as the Abrams '79 as that was the only variant in service at the time.

And we don't actually know if the 400 number is correct. Here's the 1987 CIA document about the M1A1 which had better ke protection.

That's really interesting now that you bring that up. Didn't the Shock Force A1 also have depleted uranium or was it a Chobham M1A1 because if it was DU, they would have had to slice even more armor off?

Its a good thing the devs probably used the Steelbeasts '79 M1 Abrams armor values instead of using real life documents because I've looked at real life documents and using real life documents would have been inconsistent as hell. This is especially true pertaining to their ke protection values. A British Army evaluation from 1982 ("Future Main Battle Tank from 1-3-82 to 3-28-83) rated the '79 Abrams as "slightly less than the Challenger 1" in ke protection. If this is true, then the Abrams would be slightly less than 500mm vs ke. We know this wasn't an M1IP or M1A1 prototype because before those entered service (the IP entered service in '84 and the A1 entered service in '85), both of those carried the prototype designation M1E1. The vehicle in the British evaluation is just called M1 Abrams. Slightly less than 500 would also imply the '79 Abrams would have been tested to withstand West German DM-13 (penetrates 450mm at 1km) which was more powerful than the Soviet BM-22 we have in game. A CIA document from 1982 ("PROPOSAL FOR INTERAGENCY INTELLIGENCE MEMORANDUM ON SOVIET ARMOR PROGRAM") rates one version of the Abrams as "400mm rha vs ke and 750mm rha vs heat". Another CIA document from 1987 ("NEAR EAST AND SOUTH ASIA REVIEW") rates the M1A1 as 380mm ve ke attack and 900 vs heat. The firepower and armor protection results for the Future Main Battle Tank Evaluation A British MOD brochure from around the same time (the very early 80s). The 1982 CIA document XM1 Vulnerability Analysis 1977 XM1 British Trial March-April 1978