It's also gigantic, with a focus on crew comfort and survivability. Compare the side profile vs the T-72
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The chassis itself lends a lot of weight to the design. The armour on the frontal arc is guesstimated to be thicker in the later variants of the M1A2 vs say a T-90A, but the T-90 is also 20 tons lighter, can actually cross a bridge, and doesn't have the profile of a small house.
Either way none of this matters when a Shahed/Geran/PG-7V tied to a DJI quadcopter can kill any tank.
Is this why they were sinking into the ground and annihilating highways year or two ago, or is that just because of mud in Eastern Europe? (I’ve seen plenty of Russian vids with APCs stuck in the muck)
The mud is next level and any afv will have trouble with rasputitsa. The mud yields very easily because it's saturated with water, and you would need significantly lower ground pressure to get by, hence the logs on the back of Soviet tanks; tie it to the tracks and have the tank dig itself out.
As for highways, it was probably a combination of the weight as well as poorly maintained/missing rubber track pads.
It's also gigantic, with a focus on crew comfort and survivability. Compare the side profile vs the T-72
The chassis itself lends a lot of weight to the design. The armour on the frontal arc is guesstimated to be thicker in the later variants of the M1A2 vs say a T-90A, but the T-90 is also 20 tons lighter, can actually cross a bridge, and doesn't have the profile of a small house.
Either way none of this matters when a Shahed/Geran/PG-7V tied to a DJI quadcopter can kill any tank.
Is this why they were sinking into the ground and annihilating highways year or two ago, or is that just because of mud in Eastern Europe? (I’ve seen plenty of Russian vids with APCs stuck in the muck)
The mud is next level and any afv will have trouble with rasputitsa. The mud yields very easily because it's saturated with water, and you would need significantly lower ground pressure to get by, hence the logs on the back of Soviet tanks; tie it to the tracks and have the tank dig itself out.
As for highways, it was probably a combination of the weight as well as poorly maintained/missing rubber track pads.