MOSCOW. April 3 (Interfax-AVN) - American and British ordnance is not adjusted enough to hold combat operations in the conditions of heat and dust loading, ordnance expert Sergei Roshchin told Interfax-Military News Agency on Thursday.
"The main strike force of the coalition in Iraq is American Abrams M-1 and M-2 tanks. Practical actions prove that those tanks are comfortable enough for not thick dust loading conditions. The thing is that to this day Americans failed to design an efficient air-cleaning system for gas-turbine engines that the tanks have," Roshchin said.
According to him, the air-cleaning system of the Abrams tanks is efficient enough in the conditions of quartz dust but less efficient in the conditions of loess dust which is normal in Middle Eastern and Central Asian deserts.
"The air-cleaning system in such tanks is hard to design for the gas turbine is very sensitive to incoming pressure and various barriers on induction section are no good for it. It is a very complicated device on American tanks which quickly fills up or becomes worn out in dust conditions. The penetration of dusty air on the turbine's blades leads to the fast abrasive worn out, surge and damage of engines," Roshchin noted.
He stressed that 60t-strong British Challenger II tanks might have the same shortcomings for though they have diesel engines they have the turbo-supercharging system. And all problems with a gas turbine are the same with turbo- superchargers.
According to Roshchin, the speed in the development of ground operation can be mainly explained by technical problems.
"They are in a hurry longing for Baghdad because the area is not so dusty and the local temperature is not so transcendent as it is summer. When the temperature is 50-60 degrees above zero Celsius the capacity of American tank engines decreases at 15-20% and in abrasive worn out it is even higher. Dynamic specifications of those 60t-strong tanks decrease as well," Roshchin stressed.
According to him, the Iraqi army has the T-72 Ural tanks or their modernized variants which the country's armed forces guard might have. Those tanks are better prepared for the Middle Eastern climate conditions.
Modernized T-72 tanks demonstrated their high specifications when combating the American Abrams in 1991. Their fires destroyed 50-58 tanks of the U.S. party back then.
Roshchin said that in conditions of city fights ordnance of allies is much more vulnerable to conventional weapons, for example, grenade launchers. "There is no way to combat grenade launchers worldwide. And the tank's dynamic protection only partially helps in the sphere," he added.