T-72

	T-72
Faction	CDF; Russian Armed Forces; ChDKZ; Takistani Army; NAPA
Type	Main Battle Tank
Seats	3 seats: 1× Driver; 1× Gunner; 1× Commander;
Item capacity	Max: 20× Weapons; 100× Magazines;
Top speed	~ 55 km/h
Fuel capacity	1000 fuel units
Primary armament	Main: 1× D-81 125 mm;
Secondary armament	Secondary: 1× DShKM 12.7 mm HMG; Coaxial: 1× PKT 7.62 mm; Defensive: 1× Smoke Generator;
Variants	None
Games	;

	T-72
Faction	SLA; RACS (RF)
Type	Main Battle Tank
Seats	3 seats: 1× Driver; 1× Gunner; 1× Commander;
Item capacity	Max: 10× Weapons; 100× Magazines;
Top speed	~ 55 km/h
Fuel capacity	1000 fuel units
Primary armament	Main: 1× D-81 125 mm;
Secondary armament	Secondary: 1× DShKM 12.7 mm HMG; Coaxial: 1× PKT 7.62 mm;
Variants	None
Games	;

	T-72
Faction	Soviet Union; Nogovan Partisans
Type	Medium Tank
Seats	3 seats: 1× Driver; 1× Gunner; 1× Commander;
Item capacity	Max: 10× Weapons; 50× Magazines;
Top speed	~ 59 km/h
Fuel capacity	700 fuel units
Primary armament	Main: 1× Cannon 120 mm;
Secondary armament	Coaxial: 1× MG 7.62 mm;
Variants	None
Games

NOTE: This article is about the T-72 tank in the main ArmA games. For its Czechoslovak counterpart in ArmA 3's CSLA Iron Curtain Creator DLC, see T-72 (CSLA).

The T-72 is a Main Battle Tank featured in ArmA: Cold War Assault, ArmA: Armed Assault and ArmA 2.

ArmA: Cold War Assault

The T-72 is a Medium Tank used by Soviet military forces and in limited numbers with the Nogovan Partisans in ArmA: Cold War Assault.

Overview

Role:
- Direct fire and manoeuvre

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T72 with its low profile is closely related to the T-64, which is produced solely for USSR armed forces. This tank includes several capabilities including fitment of additional armor or dozer blade for obstacle clearance and preparation of firing positions. It is powered by a V-12 multi-fuel engine that is capable of running on diesel, benzene or kerosene. For extension of operational range, the T72 can carry two 200 liter external fuel drums which can be tactically jettisoned if required.

Vehicle Description

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Design

A cheaper version of its contemporary counterpart, the T-64, the T-72 was one of the most advanced Medium Tanks to have been designed for use by the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies.

Since its introduction to service in 1971, it has and continues to be the standard armoured fighting vehicle of many armies across the world.

Armament
It is armed with a 120 mm smoothbore cannon and has a coaxial 7.62 mm medium machine gun for use against infantry.

The T-72's standard loadout gives it 35 rounds of high-explosive anti-tank (HEAT) and armour-piercing (AP) shells for the main gun (for a combined total of 70 shells). The coaxial 7.62 mm MMG on the other hand, feeds from a single 500-round belt box and has no spares to reload from.

Features
In all aspects, the T-72 is far superior to its medium American counterpart. Unlike the M60, the shells fired by the T-72's 120 mm cannon hit harder, and have more range and accuracy, as they are actually roughly equal to firepower of an M1A1 or T-80, while the M60 has sensibly weaker firepower, equal only to the T-55.

A platoon of Soviet T-72s engaging Partisan T-55s.

It also has a greater top speed and slightly better armour plating that offers better resistance against tank cannon shells when compared to its American counterpart.

However, in the case of survivability against non-heavy anti-tank weapons, it is surprisingly equal to the M60 and can resist up to two direct hits from rounds fired by an M72 LAW or the RPG-75NH.

Mobility
When it comes to turning rate and handling, the T-72 is slightly superior to T-80 and just barely better than the M1A1. However, in terms of speed and acceleration, the T-72 is inferior to both tanks in spite of the fact that it is overall lighter and less well-armoured.

Notable Traits
Its main advantage is that loadout-wise, it is (at least for the main gun) completely identical to the M1A1 and shares the same firepower output, but lacks a coaxial HMG and uses a 7.62 mm MMG instead.

Crew Capacity
The T-72 has a crew capacity of three, which consists of the driver, a gunner, and the commander.

Camouflage

Olive
Guerrilla

Olive: Standard olive paint scheme. Exclusive to Soviet T-72s.
Guerrilla: Olive drab paint scheme but customised with guerilla markings and green stripes. Exclusive to FIA guerillas.

Protection

The T-72 has 400 points worth of armour plating.

Armament

NOTE: For specifics on the Cannon 120 mm's munitions, see its related section listed here.

All weapon systems are controlled by the gunner position. Their optics can switch between two fields of view:

Cannon 120 mm

120 mm smoothbore gun. Can load either HE or AP-type munitions.

It can achieve a fire rate of 7.5 rounds per minute and accuracy-wise, has a fixed dispersion of 0.002 rad regardless of range. There is no delay for swapping between munition types.

MG 7.62 mm

Base damage value	Initial velocity (m/s)
8	1,000

Coaxial 7.62 mm medium machine gun. It is mounted adjacent to the main cannon.

It can attain a fire rate of up to 600 RPM and has a muzzle velocity of 1,000 m/s. Accuracy-wise, it always has a fixed dispersion of 0.0007 rad regardless of distance.

Trivia

Cold War Assault's T-72 strangely shares the same 120 mm cannon with the American M1A1 despite the fact that the T-72 in reality was always armed with the 2A46 series of 125 mm cannons.
- Separate config entries for a 125 mm cannon weapon and its ammunition do exist in the game's configuration files but remain unused. Whether the decision to arm the T-72 with a 120 mm cannon was intended by design or is simply an oversight is not known.
Although it is referred to as the "T-72" in-game, Cold War Assault's official manual refers to it as the "T-72M1".
- This is especially odd as the T-72M1 was actually a downgraded variant of the original "T-72A" tank featuring inferior Fire Control Systems and optoelectronics, thinner armour plating, as well as lacking the ability to launch "9M119" anti-tank missiles from the main gun.
- As it was intended exclusively for the export market (other members of the Warsaw Pact and other Soviet allies), the T-72M1 was never commissioned for service by the Red Army.
- Furthermore, the "T-72" actually appears to be modelled after the post-Cold war Slovakian "T-72M2 Moderna" or the latest Czech-made "T-72M4CZ", both of which did not exist back in the 1980s and were likewise never fielded by the Soviet military.
  - This can be easily noticed by observing its frontal part of turret, which appear to have the distinctive Czech-produced "Dyna-72" first generation Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA) arranged in 5x5 bricks on both sides of the main gun - precisely in the same arrangement on real-word T-72M2/M4s.
  - This ERA was never implemented on any original (Soviet/Russian-made) T-72 variant, thus indicating that the in-game model is actually not a pure T-72M1, but rather a hybrid of Soviet T-72M1 and Slovakian T-72M2.

The information below details unused, pre-release or removed content.

In pre-release versions of Cold War Assault (then-known as the Operation Flashpoint DEMO), the T-72 featured large ERA bricks arrayed in a 3x3 layout on the front turret roof, placed in two linked rows. Moreover, these bricks appeared to be also based on the ones from Slovakian T-72M2 (although the T-72M2 actually featured 6x6 bricks, in three linked rows). This was for whatever reason, later removed in the final release.
- The DEMO version of the T-72 also featured incredibly stiff handling, particularly when turning while driving at full speed. This was later changed in the release version of the game.

Gallery