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T-72 IRL

A T-72 in reality.

The T-72 is a Soviet main battle tank designed by Uralvagonzavod in 1973. The T-72 was produced to replace the T-54 in Warsaw Pact nations to counter against previously made NATO tanks. It was based off the T-62 and T-64, and was further developed into the T-90. It is in service with over 30 nations.

The T-72 uses a 125mm smoothbore cannon as its primary armament, a PKT as a co-axial machine gun and an NSVT anti-aircraft machine gun on top of the turret. The T-72 was not a very exceptional, but proved effective due to its thick armor, especially in later models, which even some modern tanks are not able to penetrate. However, since the majority of T-72s were in mass-production stages and then exported to countries without the technological or economic power to modernize them, many of the world's T-72s were unsuccessful in confrontations against Western powers.

Battlefield Vietnam[]

"T-72 is a heavy NVA tank. The driver fires tank shells with primary fire, and shoots a machine gun as secondary fire. The gunner fires the canopy machine gun with primary fire, and shoots out smoke grenades with secondary fire."

— 1.2 patch notes

In Battlefield Vietnam, the T-72 is the North Vietnamese Army's main battle tank during the Fall of Saigon. It retains all of the T-54's characteristics, such as the powerful main cannon with 30 rounds and a co-axial machine gun with 400 rounds available to the driver, and a mounted machine gun with 500 rounds available to a second player. It also has the same speed, maneuverability and size. However unlike the T-54, the T-72 suffers from an inability to train the main gun downward, resulting in a slight disadvantage in a tank-on-tank fight. Also, the T-72's top gunner has the ability to launch smoke grenades using secondary fire.

Battlefield 3[]

The T-72 is a vehicle featured in Battlefield 3. It appears as an unusable vehicle utilized by the People's Liberation and Resistance, and is the main enemy tank encountered during Thunder Run. After the fight with some Type 72Zs, two tanks appear and conceal themselves in a duststorm, the player can use the infared optics to find them, more tanks are encountered after the player blows up the BM-21s.

Unlike the lesser seen and weaker Type 72Z, the T-72 may take several hits to destroy, and has a main gun that deals a greater amount of damage to the player's vehicle.

Trivia[]

Battlefield Vietnam[]

It is possible that the T-72 was planned to have the smoke grenades being available to the driver, replacing the coaxial machine gun. This can be seen when patch 1.2 is installed for the first time, where the ReadMe file that opens immediately has a different description:

"T-72 is a heavy NVA tank. The driver has no machine gun, but can fire smoke grenades instead."

— 1.2 patch installation ReadMe

This file is never accessible again, and the description is changed to its current form in the notes included with the patch.

External links[]

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