Iraqi army's new T-72's may be impounded in Kuwait

Can those T-72's take direct RPG hits? If they can't, then they wouldn't be very useful at all. The Iraqi army would be better off buying Al Zarrar tanks or Al Khalid tanks from Pakistan. Not only would those tanks last much longer in battling the insurgents, they would pack a heavy punch against American tanks if any units decided to rebel. However, the problem is that the Iraqis would need to get retrained to use the equipment.

nah they wont buy pakistani tanks as long they are ruled by USA

germany gives 20 Fuchs transport tanks to iraq, and possibly leopard1 mbt's

how is this fair? kuwait, saudi arabia, israel, egypt all operate m1s or merkavas. the iraqi ar wouls stand no chance against them. the iraqis might as well realize that their armed forces will go no where wit this 40 year old bs and start buying some decent t-80um's from russia. but i guess they dont have any money, and can only get any gear thats free.

Carzyinsane105

the old T-72m used by the saddam army can not stop a mordern rpg shot by the newer ones they are geting now can the main reason the t-72m sucked is beacuse it had no composit armour

SUMDUD

are you sure I saw at lest two pic of a T-55/59 used as armoured box / IFV on election day by the new IRAQI army aparently they stoped a car bomb with machine gun fire .

Click to expand...

Huh?
So what? I saw a bomb taking off a T-55. And never hearing anything about importing T-55s/type 59s, the tanks are probably from Saddam's times.
But either way, the T-55s are the old version ones, so they are pretty useless downgraded or not.

I doubt the old T-72Ms can take much. They are to me objectively a T-55 w/ 2 more wheels.
Giving Iraq AZs and AKs would be nice. And being derivatives of T-72s and 55s, they aren't as hard to deal with as Leopard 1s or M1s.
But with politics, of course they won't.
The Leo1s would be nice if they do get them though.
I wouldn't be so sure about the advances the T-80 has over the T-72, they don't seem to be significant.
Actually, they could buy an upgrade for the T-72s. There is no electronic system on board these T-72s either.
I wouldn't want another country to use M1s to tell you the truth. Plus, some of them have sunk in Iraq. We don't need more DU. (And is DU armor really giving the tank superior armor? Mass doesn't really mean much.)

The Leo1s are good tanks and they need to be put to use.

Composite armor doesn't make other tanks better. The 72 M just doesn't have enough armor.

As the US gov isn't giving its 250 M1s.....

SUMDUD

ANY verson of the T-72 is much better beacuse of the main gun the one importent reason saddam chose the T-72m is beacuse of the IRAIAN chieftens slaughted IRAQI t55s the main gun at lest have some effect aginst the british tank.

PS IRAQ has many T-59/69 type tanks they were imported beacuse of the arms enbargo during the 80s if you look closely you can see they have the
L-7 main gun some are also fitted with extra armour and a 125mm gun abit like the AZ but much more crude

125mm on a 59? It sure as hell wasn't the factory default. There was an upgrade for the Type 59 featuring a 125mm, but that project was cancelled. I wonder how the Austrians felt about the L-7.

Talking about the L-7, that gun is a relatively modern design, and should have given Iranian armor some trouble if it was actually present during the war.

some of the T-59 the americans captured in the first gulf war are armed with

the 2a46 and armoured slabs that I refered to earlier aparently there is no fcs

improvement what so ever. it is also discovered later that frequent fireing of the

gun may cause damange to its mounting. as for the T-69 some were used in the

only iraqi offensive of the gulf war a rais on a saudi town I belive it destoryed

one of those AMX tanks the saudi were useing.

ps they also used the 63 APC

I know Iraq has 55s, 59, 69s, and 63s.
I agree that putting a 120/125 on the light tanks are stupid.
But if Saddam put those big guns on the T-55 and Co., the T-72M wouldn't give any improvement than probably speed. That is probably not very important in Saddam's eyes for most of his army, except for his elite troops, the Rep. Guard.

But I'll leave it here then.
But whatever it is, don't turn this thread offtopic.

These T-72's will be used in urban warfare against insurgents. The new iraqi army doesn't really expect to ever use them in a classical land battle against enemy armor. It's got a big 125mm gun that can blast a house from a safe distance. A 12.7 mm roof mounted MG and a coax 7.65 mm for picking out any RPG shooters. It won't be used in nocturnal fighting conditions either so no need for advanced FCS. And it's a very good point that in case some of these are captured by insurgents they can be easily taken out by the javelin ATGM.
As for survivability I'm pretty certain it can take an old RPG-7 hit to the frontal arc. The insurgents don't have RPG-29 to my knowledge, this baby can even take out a T-80 head-on.
So you get 77 tanks for the price of just US $3 million, I'd say it's a great deal.