Comments on: Red Star – White Elephant? – the failure of Soviet heavy tank

By: missile742 .

missile742 . — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 18:22:13 +0000

All intelligence analysts have to be careful not to let personal biases impact their assessments. Additionally, their products are only as good as their sources. That said, while I don’t know “Cookie” personally like you guys do, the fact at the time of the article he was working at the National Ground Intelligence Center (not Agency), not to mention his Army career, gives credence to his sources and to me at least, implies he had access to classified information on the topic. I’ve dealt directly with NGIC and would have no reason to doubt their assessments on any topic. Not that any of this means squat for WoT, which is mostly fantasy tanks with perfect battlefield performance.

By: Failtrolol

Failtrolol — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 11:35:22 +0000

The main problem with the heavy tanks is simply that they somewhat became obsolete with the deployment of HEAT and APDS shells which could easily penetrate them, combined with the fact that they were too expensive for their performance.

That doesn’t change that they sometimes had their tasks fulfilled. There are several sources stating that the Israelis struggled with destroying IS-3M in the 6-day-war. Then again, the IS-3M could of course not really stand against the opponents due to its mechanical inreliabilty, undermotorisation and lack of competitive fire control/optics etc.

By: Martin541

Martin541 — Sat, 01 Feb 2014 02:51:03 +0000

LOL OH NO !!!

By: Kingkrieg

Kingkrieg — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 22:15:43 +0000

If Yuri Pasholok actually was to read this he would be accusing Americans of.. “russophobics”, but then, this is a reliable source if taken directly form the authors, since this article have a few contribution rpoblems

well, thake that, Pasholok, what are you gonna say now? that american tank designs where made by kindergarden kids? how about by cats? or even better, conspiracy germans in america?

i hope he shats bricks

By: bojan

bojan — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 18:53:05 +0000

Article is horribly dated. He also uses translated sources (since he does not speak Russian), which are even more dated.
He also misses all the contribution from heavies that came to mediums.

By: mobius

mobius — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 15:57:28 +0000

You criticize the tank, you criticize those who designed and built the tank. You criticize those who designed and built the tank, you criticize the Bolshevik state. And you know what criticizing the Bolshevik state gets you.

By: Dominatus

Dominatus — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 14:03:29 +0000

Skimmed through it a little, have to read it thoroughly later. I will say this though, post-war heavy tanks were all universally iffy at best. Even during the war, the Soviets had the best heavies….but that’s because they didn’t really have any competition in that regard.

By: Martin541

Martin541 — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 13:28:49 +0000

This brings me back to the heated discussion a few weeks ago when I said the IS3 was bad tank and everyone got butt hurt over it because I offend the great lord Stalin’s legacy. heres a video of a discussion on the IS3 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXH02YX7gxY starts at 5.00 videos from operation think tank with the chieftain and so on.

By: Cartman

Cartman — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 12:41:06 +0000

Many of the technical problems were common to tank designs of other nations too.
The history of the German, US and British tanks is full of similar failures.
The difference is that the Soviets produced thousands of tanks before realizing that they didn’t work while for example the US only produced a few hundred M103.

By: Oskin

Oskin — Fri, 31 Jan 2014 12:15:58 +0000

He claimed how NATO got T-80BV data, via tank “secretly bought via Arab state in middle of the 80′s”, what ended up to be T-80U sold to Morocco in 1992, and few times, set data as he wanted, not to mention repeating some old things, what can’t be confirmed.

Overall, I agree with you, he is not better than Fofanov or others. None of them is completely unbiased, and everyone have own agenda, and it will always be like that.

Truth is always somewhere between two sides.. problem is that people will always take what they want as face value. Expect this article to be quoted as holy truth by anyone who wants to bash IS series, in near future.