T-72 Design - Limitations
The T-72 shares many design features with other tank designs of Soviet origin. Some of these are viewed as deficiencies in straight comparison to NATO tanks, but most are a product of the way these tanks were envisioned to be employed, based on the Soviets' practical experiences in the Great Patriotic War.
To impartially understand the advantages and disadvantages of each of the main battle tanks, the phrase that "the T-72 was created as a simpler and cheaper replacement for the expensive and complex T-64" will immediately come to mind. In the Great Patriotic War, then it was the massive, simple and unpretentious T-34s that won, and not the expensive and complex Tigers with Panthers. An ultra-precise gun, complex suspension and thick frontal armor will not help win against a large number of slightly worse tanks.
The American magazine Popular Mechanics published an article which assessed the Russian T-72 and T-80 tanks. In it, journalists called Russian combat vehicles "two of the five worst tanks in the world." So, for example, the T-72 lacks modern ammunition, third-generation night vision sighting systems and armor. The main problem of the tank, they called the storage of ammunition inside the same space where the crew is located.
Russian tanks involved in the 2022 war against Ukraine have a design flaw - the "jack-in-the-box" effect, due to which they turn into "ideal mobile coffins" for the crew. Munitions storage is a hazardous endeavor. One of the primary dangers from storing ammunition arises not just from the explosive charge or warhead, but also the munition propellant itself. In particular, fires and other sources of high ambient heat in proximity to the energetic material create a high risk that the material will prematurely ignite causing a violent energy release, known in the business as a "cook-off". While this deflagration, lasting a few seconds, it not a detonation, it does produce overpressures of sufficient severity to catapult the turret dozens of feet into the air.
Cook-off may occur to energetic materials even though they are not directly exposed to an open flame. Ordnance cook-off includes the rapid burning, deflagration, explosion or detonation of a energetic material, such as a propellant, fuze booster charge or explosive in munitions, due to a given amount of heating over a given amount of time. A substantial danger exists that the energetic material will be ignited when it is exposed to high ambient temperatures over a prolonged period of time, generally when the temperature gradually reaches a predetermined ignition temperature, such as temperatures in excess of the critical temperature. Munitions, such as weapons stored in tanks, are particularly susceptible to exposure to radiative or convection heat source. Specifically, such an event may occur when a weapons magazine, which does not contain a fire, is heated due to a fire in a nearby compartment, or other heat source that heats the magazine in which the munition is being stored. The "cook-off" ignition of a single round, in such a case, may trigger the explosion of the warhead, or the ignition and/or explosion of near-by rounds.
Russian and Soviet-made tanks often blow off the turret when hit by a projectile or rocket. Published photos and videos from the battlefield in Ukraine are replete with shots of Russian tanks literally torn to pieces, and less often Ukrainian (also Soviet-designed). The fact is that in T-72 tanks, shells and other ammunition are stored directly under the crew. A penetrating blow causes a chain reaction and detonation of the ammunition. the resulting shock wave may be enough to blow up the tank turret to the height of a two-story building. The Russian tanks are equipped with an automatic loader so that the shells are automatically fed into the barrel. Soviet engineers praised this as an advantage over Western counterparts. But in a real battle, the ammo rack under the turret immediately detonates when hit. In Western tanks, shells are stored in the turret behind a special armored partition, which often saves the crew even after a direct hit.
The design flaw of Russian tanks must be even more annoying to Moscow, since the problems have been so widely reported before. They attracted the attention of the Western military during the Gulf Wars against Iraq in 1991 and 2003. Then the same fate befell a large number of tanks Russian-made T-72s of the Iraqi army - the turrets were demolished by anti-tank missiles.
Contrary to common belief, the carousel is well protected from above. During loading, the round passes through the door that closes after the tray has retracted, and therefore in the case of turret penetration the incandescent splinters will land on the autoloader roof and not ignite the carousel. Nevertheless, the extra rounds stored in the fighting compartment are very likely to ignite in this case, and of course the lower hull penetration is quite deadly.
It is not the autoloader per se, but the whole notion of placing ammunition inside a fighting compartment makes the tank very susceptible to catastrophic fire if penetrated from virtually any angle. This has been amply illustrated by the conflicts in which T-72s and T-80s have participated.
The T-80, another Russian tank that saw action during the invasion of Ukraine, has a similar ammo loading system. The T-80 inherited the T-64's autoloader but T-72 doesn't. The T-72's hull is a bit narrower and T-64's autoloader wouldn't fit, so it was designed from scratch during T-72 development.
When the T-90 series - the successor to the T-72 tank - entered service with the RF Armed Forces in 1992, the vehicle's armor was upgraded, but the ammo loading system was similar to its predecessor, which made it vulnerable. But the designers of the T-90 have taken the earlier safety over ammo loads into consideration and done quite a lot to prevent cook-offs. The latest T-90s have some major safety features. The carousel below the turret is well separated from the turret, and well-protected. It’s a difficult kill to get on a low-profile tank in proper position to protect its hull as much as possible with terrain (terrorists firing ATGMs at tanks in Syria typically were hit on the top-half of T-72s). There is a thick layer of armor protecting the bottom of the turret from the carousel. Also, each round of ammo in the carousel is individually encased to protect it should the hull be penetrated. And the latest ammo rounds have been developed to help prevent catastrophic explosions.
The design of standard T-72 weapons include significant errors that manifest themselves during firing, which leads to a decrease in fire accuracy and a deterioration in the efficiency of the entire weapon system. Armament with a fire control system of the base tank T-72 allows to effectively hit stationary targets when firing from a place. The effectiveness of firing from a standstill at a moving target or immediately at a fixed or moving target is sharply reduced.
Like all Soviet-legacy tanks, the T-72's design has traded off interior space in return for a very small silhouette and efficient use of armor, to the point of replacing the fourth crewman with a mechanical loader. The basic T-72 design has extremely small periscope viewports, even by the constrained standards of battle tanks and the driver's field of vision is significantly reduced when his hatch is closed. The steering system is a traditional dual-tiller layout instead of the easier-to-use steering wheel or steering yoke common in modern Western tanks. This setup requires the near-constant use of both hands, which complicates the employment of the seven-speed manual transmission.
There is a widespread Cold War-era myth that T-72 and other Soviet tanks are so cramped that the small interior demands the use of shorter crewmen, with the maximum height set at 1.6 m (5 ft 3 in) in the Soviet Army. According to official regulations, however, the actual figure is 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in).
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