Which One is Worse: Arjun or Ariete

[VetLegion]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arjun_(tank)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariete

Why can't India build a competent tank? I mean they're not the first
ones to fail to produce one, but what are their excuses? There are
1.2 billion of Indians and supposedly some good engineers among them.

The "trials" section of the article about Arjun almost made me weep.
Also:

"The Arjun will be pitted against the Russian T-90S during trial exercises
in October-November 2009 to assess its operational capabilities."

I'd pay to see that spectacle.

Ariete doesn't seem all that bad compared to Arjun. It's a half-assed
tank (IMHO) without any passion invested in it but probably competent
enough. India should scrap Arjun, scrap Russian 70s technology, and buy
3.000 Arietes.

Do you agree?

[VetLegion]

Arjuna the megafailure:


Ariete in air defense position:

[Kuciwalker]

Wow, the Arjun is ****ing ugly.

[Dinner]

It's pretty square too which should make it nice and easy to hit with an armor piercing shell. There is a reason everyone else slopes their tank armor.

Edit: Oh, man... I didn't know this tank had been in development for almost 30 years! 30 years and this P.O.S. is the best the Indians can come up with? It's going to be two generations behind before they even deploy it.

[Kuciwalker]

Yeah, I was thinking "wasn't sloped armor invented 70 years ago?"

[Riesstiu IV]

Hard to say...

As far as the Indian tank, the armor isn't slopped because they wanted something that would allow for half the population of Calcutta to latch onto. Sure India has over a billion people but most of them are ignorant peasants, and any Indian engineer with half a brain will leave the country to find a higher paying job.

What use is an Italian tank if the crew is too busy grabbing their nut sacks and fantasizing about incest?

[Dinner]

I believe that way Italy's problem in WW2 as well.

[SpencerH]

The T34 was the best tank during WWII.

[Tattila the Hun]

I'd vote for Panther, tank v. tank basis. As far as having most impact on the overall ground war, T-34 is certainly high up there. As is Sherman, which gets a bad reputation, tank v. tank...

What's wrong with Ariete, exactly?

[Zevico]

I'd vote for Panther, tank v. tank basis.

Oh Serb, Serb, wherefore art though Serb?

[VetLegion]

This forum is seriously deteriorating. I expected this thread to have
200 posts by now

[VetLegion]

What's wrong with Ariete, exactly?

Good question. I don't think that there's anything particularly wrong with it.
But I do feel it's a bit generic. A good tank should have some crazy fixation
of its designers, something that makes it stand out, push the available
technology to the limit. Ariete seem like taking available parts and putting
together something just because everybody else does it.

[Dinner]

The M24 was the best light tank of the war while the M26 Pershing was arguably the best heavy tank though it didn't enter service until the very last month or two of the war. To show it was better then comparable Soviet heavy tanks one has to only look at how the M26 whooped Soviet designed tanks in the Korean war.