T-80
- Thread starter chinawhite
- Start date
I find the discussion on the turret interesting, since many publications claim 70% of modern MBT kills are on the turret. I guess if you could reposition the tank commander and not store any ammo in the turret, it'd increase your crew survival chance.
Or you could revive an old Swedish design:
:rofl:
My point with the "tanks for sale" post is that, here in the US, if you have enough money, even civilians can purchase de-militarized APC's, tanks, jet fighters - yes, you could buy/sell MiG-29's on ebay:
So if you ever thought the US government isn't capable of getting their hands on something, remember that as long as there's profit, there'll be a horde of international arms dealers ready to cater to your needs. I can't say for certain if we have a T-90 tank here in the US, but I'm pretty sure that if the US army wanted one, there'll be enough people out there willing to strip a T-90 and ship the parts over for $$.
Thieves plunder Russian Navy
Russia's nuclear-armed Northern Fleet is falling to pieces - quite literally - as scavengers plunder its ships of precious metal components.
Hundreds of naval officers and civilian contractors have joined with criminal gangs in the illegal trade targeting anything containing a few dollars' worth of gold, silver or palladium.
Millions of dollars are being made on smuggling the loot abroad, and naval equipment worth perhaps hundreds of millions is being ruined in the process, Russian TV reports.
Warships and submarines, both decommissioned and in active service, often find themselves missing vital components, including telecommunication circuit boards, air regeneration filters and even torpedoes.
"Expensive equipment is rendered inoperative as a result of these thefts," says Vladimir Mulov, the Northern Fleet's military prosecutor.
"Parts, for example, are stolen from anti-aircraft systems. Such thefts cause enormous damage to the ships' military capability."
Much of the trade takes place around the northern city of Murmansk, the homeport of the ill-fated submarine Kursk, which sank with the loss of all hands following an explosion during a naval exercise.
The port has become the scene of fierce turf wars between rival gangs which has claimed more than 10 lives this year alone, says its police chief Viktor Pesterev.
Face value
One Russian Granit-class nuclear-powered submarine contains roughly a tonne of silver, more than 30 kg of pure gold and 20 kg of the precious metal palladium, experts say.
Some of this potential treasure is dispersed in thousands of tiny circuit-board components throughout the ship.
A detailed diagram showing where such components can be found on a submarine, along with instructions on how best to dismantle them, was recently found during a police raid.
But just one shoebox-sized air regeneration cartridge, for example, can yield 139 grams of palladium, worth over 2,000 dollars on the black market, the TV says.
No wonder places like Murmansk are littered with booths of scrap metal dealers, and local papers are filled with advertisements offering a good price for precious metal - no questions asked.
Officers and thieves
Shipyards and naval bases have employed guards with metal detectors in an effort to keep the ships' components where they belong.
But that does not always help. One recent victim is the nuclear submarine Kazan, which lost her air regeneration filters. They were stolen by two officers who were supposed to guard them.
Still on trial for a similar offence is the chief of a naval garrison and a naval captain.
Of the 147 people investigated for the theft of precious metals from the military last year, more than half were officers.
Or you could revive an old Swedish design:
:rofl:
My point with the "tanks for sale" post is that, here in the US, if you have enough money, even civilians can purchase de-militarized APC's, tanks, jet fighters - yes, you could buy/sell MiG-29's on ebay:
So if you ever thought the US government isn't capable of getting their hands on something, remember that as long as there's profit, there'll be a horde of international arms dealers ready to cater to your needs. I can't say for certain if we have a T-90 tank here in the US, but I'm pretty sure that if the US army wanted one, there'll be enough people out there willing to strip a T-90 and ship the parts over for $$.
Thieves plunder Russian Navy
Russia's nuclear-armed Northern Fleet is falling to pieces - quite literally - as scavengers plunder its ships of precious metal components.
Hundreds of naval officers and civilian contractors have joined with criminal gangs in the illegal trade targeting anything containing a few dollars' worth of gold, silver or palladium.
Millions of dollars are being made on smuggling the loot abroad, and naval equipment worth perhaps hundreds of millions is being ruined in the process, Russian TV reports.
Warships and submarines, both decommissioned and in active service, often find themselves missing vital components, including telecommunication circuit boards, air regeneration filters and even torpedoes.
"Expensive equipment is rendered inoperative as a result of these thefts," says Vladimir Mulov, the Northern Fleet's military prosecutor.
"Parts, for example, are stolen from anti-aircraft systems. Such thefts cause enormous damage to the ships' military capability."
Much of the trade takes place around the northern city of Murmansk, the homeport of the ill-fated submarine Kursk, which sank with the loss of all hands following an explosion during a naval exercise.
The port has become the scene of fierce turf wars between rival gangs which has claimed more than 10 lives this year alone, says its police chief Viktor Pesterev.
Face value
One Russian Granit-class nuclear-powered submarine contains roughly a tonne of silver, more than 30 kg of pure gold and 20 kg of the precious metal palladium, experts say.
Some of this potential treasure is dispersed in thousands of tiny circuit-board components throughout the ship.
A detailed diagram showing where such components can be found on a submarine, along with instructions on how best to dismantle them, was recently found during a police raid.
But just one shoebox-sized air regeneration cartridge, for example, can yield 139 grams of palladium, worth over 2,000 dollars on the black market, the TV says.
No wonder places like Murmansk are littered with booths of scrap metal dealers, and local papers are filled with advertisements offering a good price for precious metal - no questions asked.
Officers and thieves
Shipyards and naval bases have employed guards with metal detectors in an effort to keep the ships' components where they belong.
But that does not always help. One recent victim is the nuclear submarine Kazan, which lost her air regeneration filters. They were stolen by two officers who were supposed to guard them.
Still on trial for a similar offence is the chief of a naval garrison and a naval captain.
Of the 147 people investigated for the theft of precious metals from the military last year, more than half were officers.
adeptitus said:
One only question to this crappy argumented debate...do you know actually how much hardware is missing in Us military arsenals? Oh maybe you don't know it...but i can tell you at least one story of civilian contractors in Bosnia of a specified company that was not only overcharging the US military for helicopter parts but it was also selling the parts of helicopters (like the apache longbow) and detailed plans of WS to the serbian mafia...Along with holding underaged prostitutes at disposal. In Albania we even got free M 16's for the symbolic buck..."gift" of the US forces people told me. The military like every public property is like a whore: Everyone rides the bitch and for cheap. I mean guys you're being overcharged by hundreds of millions in Iraq for services that you don't need why speaking about russian lacking cash. Stealing from military arsenal has always been a problem, and in the case of typhoons they are to be scrapped anyway (according to the Start 1 treaty) so WTF about NS?
Please don't even bring these kind of low-life pseudo-journalistic articles that are made in order to reinsure our home crowds on the utter superiority of the western civilization on russian barbaric stateless hordes. It like the stigma chinese bear about copying (while as we know the best copists and by far are the europeans that stole among others the paper sheet, the parachute, the gunpowder to the chinese).
Please be more mature and evict postulates on your argumentations. Russia's poor that's BS.
In fact the russians don't have to buy their petrol they have their own wells, while the US army needs saudi dark oil like a child needs it's mother's breast. Russians have organic arms plant. The russians have organic KB's...like any other friggin' army in the whole friggin' industrialized world. They suffer from circonscription and from the early "democratic" days, especially when that pig MOFO of Yeltsin took power, but now it's a whole different world. The russians army is reducing it's numbers dramatically (only 800 000 soldiers should remain as a military total by 2007) and will continue on that way. Russia still has on it's constituttion a "patriotic clause" that in fact is a free pass for forced labor in case of attack. People wake up you don't know everything It's just not the same world out there. The system has worked like that no matter what the social situation was during centuries.
Red not Dead said:
But you're not denying that the US can get ahold of T-90 components, through Russian military personnel stealing & selling them to scrap/arms dealers, no?
In post #45 & #48 of this thread, you doubt the existance of T-80 and T-90 on US military base. I think I've posted enough links to T-80's for sale here. I'll also agree with your opinion that the US didn't obtain T-90 (or parts of) by legal means, which is the point of my article.
We need to stop looking backward to take pride in inventing the paper or building the great wall. That was a long time ago and the world has changed.
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isen't this discussion drifting bit too far away from chinese Type 80 tank?
