Canadian T72M1 Tank
- Thread starter XRCD011
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While the manual called for the use of the air to start the tank and that worked pretty well, if a driver failed to close the system you could find the T72 may loose its air overnight so I had a fitting made that could be used like a slave cable to blow air into the air tanks of one T72 into another T72. After a while T&E gave me the funds to buy new batteries and it was just a matter to wrestling the original (dead) ones out and using the measurements go to the Douglas Battery book and buy four tractor batteries (I did say the tank was "agricultural" in nature) I hit a home run with the batteries and got a perfect fit, same size, amps, volts. Wrestle the new ones in (four per tank) and we said screw what the manual says and just started on electrical power thereafter with air as a back up.
True I have already mentioned that and it was one of the warnings I had read from the US Army Foreign System Test Group. The way to negate the start up surge (and no it does not drive off on its own) was upon shut down follow the checklist do what was called a oil double suction of the gearbox and reduction gears which I had and still have taped to my T72 manual inside cover (should I ever buy a T72 I guess). When done it made for easier start ups and took away the surge forward.
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The 125mm gun on the T-72 can use the same ammo as the most modern Soviet tanks (3BM-46/3BM-42M allegedly 600mm at 2km), and modern Abrams and Leopard shouldn't be immune frontally, although it hasn't actually been tried yet.
[B]Komrades[/B] you want any more T72??
http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3731/9503852477_1f4776164b_o.jpghttp://farm4.staticflickr.com/3731/9503852477_1f4776164b_o.jpg[/IMG]
Sitting around a couple evenings ago with a rum and coke to sip surfing the net and find more T72 material from when they arrived at Training Support Squadron in Gagetown. No shortage of interested souls wandering in and asking about them and funny enough I recall these two guys showing up to take a look around at them.
Anyways I got more T72 tank material and more on the way if the interest is there.
[youtube]iTqUnO-wo_8[/youtube]
^ Leopard C2 rollout, why the CF did not just say Dutch leopard 2A6M and get on with it is beyond me. Anyways this would be the second T72 to be used as a target. Notice the Maple Leaf on the turret, I did that. Someone on another forum was saying that was a sore point, funny I had every Col, General, Director of Armour, and his dog say it looked great.
^This T72 was the first to be shot at in Canada during the Leopard Mid Life Extension trial (again why the liberal government did not drop the coin on the Dutch Leo II is crazy, spend a dollar to save a dime logic).
Anyways as you can see anything that could contaminate a clean projectile on target armour has been torched off. I can tell you from being there and being the first Canadian to ever shoot a T72 the tanks armour is VERY capable. Two days after the picture the shooting started and after the trials Range Control Gagetown was given it by Trials and Evaluations as a range hard target and it became a favourite target for tank gunner course to shoot at.
It was kind of sad to see the tanks get shot up but that's why they where brought to Canada so they served there purpose. Many people go on that they where brought from Germany for some sort of mini Ops4 but that was really just a bonus/secondary thing and never the reason they where here.
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Rebuilding what you have doesn't attract the attention of the media the way buying new does - different budget too if I'm not mistaken? And tanks are big, nasty, militaristic pieces of hardware that pinkos everywhere hate to spend money on, seeing as it won't be their kids that have to fight in them.
No, the T&E tanks did not have anything to do with the German gift of Ex-WP tanks and equipment to the Government of Canada and DHist/DND. It was along the same lines as a "gift" from the Germans who where glad to divest themselves of the unwanted vehicles but had not tie in to what DHist at DND went and got. Matter of fact I seem to recall something about that museum load being written up in the old Sentinal. In a subsequent batch of vehicles four BMP2 came to Canada for trials (read destructive testing).
Another bit of misinformation is someone was mentioning the tank needing a hammer to shift, No the tank had gate shifting seven forward, one reverse and sailed along at 60KPH (I do believe we went faster on occasion). Very cool to see at speed on snowy ground with brick sized chunks of packed snow and ice fly off the tracks. The only time I could ever see a hammer in the drivers position would be to smack the four dogs holding the escape hatch closed to exit the tank out the bottom. Shifting was never an issue on a T72.
Being a straight forward and rather simple vehicle to keep in the field, it can even be called "agricultural" in nature it was amazingly robust. I had to retrieve the T72 that the Gagetown museum had been given by T&E for one of their trials and deploy with it for a trial. The tank had sat, unloved and unattended to for a year filling up with rain. In one hour I had the tank running again which sort of blew my mind. I very much doubt any Leopard of the day would have started up like that T72 did.
^009 coming back to life
One of the rewarding things of being in the field with the T72 was the amazing degree of latitude we where given as the things where just so weird to see driving and being used as an enemy force till T&E needed to shoot something at them (like the Leopard Mid Life Extension)120mm to 105mm, ADATS, TOW2B, etc. C Sqn RCD took great pleasure in seeing them and it was not uncommon to be tracked by Leopards WAY, WAY out of any conceivable arc. Tank gunners did love tracking us to say the least. The thing was everyone said that the 125mm muzzle end was very visible even at 2,000 M and it was sobering to think if they where looking down the pipe then the T72 gun was also looking back at them and if you ever see the 125mm AP round or HEAT round I have great confidence it would have ripped through the Leo C1
^ Awaiting the order to advance across the inner German border at the Fulda Gap or the Hof Corridor with thousands of other Warsaw Pact tanks and APCs and make the race to the English Channel sweeping NATO aside along the way...............that or head back to the hanger after a day buzzing around the training area.
So they get to the English channel then what? Wave or something? yay they conquer france who hasn't.
I remember the T72 in Calgary being run in the lines by the track pad circa 1995. Seem to remember a lot of smoke!
I also was in Gtown for the Leo C2 roll-out. Chattied with the Col-Cmdt and General Rad about why not Leo IIs. The Col Cmdt answered back with the problem being how to sell it to the government. My response was to scrap the MGS program and tell the government to put the savings into health care!
I also was in Gtown for the Leo C2 roll-out. Chattied with the Col-Cmdt and General Rad about why not Leo IIs. The Col Cmdt answered back with the problem being how to sell it to the government. My response was to scrap the MGS program and tell the government to put the savings into health care!
