That's why I said "a bit like" ;-) . AFAIR the export Challenger had downgraded armor, btwHiromoon said:
Yes, a kind of upgrade - if you take into account the fact that Abrams consumes twice as much fuel as e.g. Leopard, for a slight performance upgrade.Hiromoon said:
It was not retooling of the production line just to screw the customer. It was, in fact, the other way round: some factories were retooled so they were able to manufacture tanks with composite armor - factories manufacturing T-64s (and later T-80s) and those manufacturing T-72s earmarked for service in the Red Army. Other were manufacturing tanks using the same technology as that used in T-55s and T-62s, just with new designs - these went to allies from Warsaw Pact (they had the same equipment as the Soviet ones, just worse armor) and for export to other countries (monkey models). It was not only keeping the best stuff for yourself, but also a direct effect of the availability of resources and manufacturing capabilities necessary to make the more complex variants for home use.Hiromoon said:
And reactive armor for T-72s was a much later development. When the first ones were exported, even the Red Army didn't have any reactive armor for its own T-72s.
