in going over the captions of this booklet, how is it that so many appear to have been misidentified? very early urals with the luna on the left is a T72A and on the right a B? the pix themselves are great. just hard to figure what's what, if you aren't already somewhat familiar with T72s

Maybe because the book was published in 1990?... The knowledge of Soviet armor in the West at that time was extremely limited compared to what we know today.

It's an old book, and the Soviets routinely declined to reveal the official designations of new military vehicles, often for years. Everything was classified unless there was a reason to declassify it. Subtypes were almost never identified, leaving NATO analysts grasping at straws, trying to work out Soviet military policy and development protocols. After all, disinformation is a word that was coined by the Soviets.

When photos of a new Russian tank appeared in the early 1970's, Western analysts were uncertain whether the new Soviet MBT was called the T-64 or the T-72. Only later did it become clear that the Soviets had two completely different vehicles in the same weight class, with the same gun, in production simultaneously (and when the T-80 appeared in 1977, there were three). When the T-72A appeared, it was erroneously dubbed the T-74 in NATO circles, and the Soviets saw no reason to correct anyone.

1990, makes sense. I remember yrs ago something about a T74 that wasn't. takes care of that, I guess, old age

In the Concord book on the T-64/T-80 there's a short addendum on the T-72 which makes it clear the designations in the previous book were 'export' designations used before the correct Soviet designations were known, but even this is frankly a bit confusing. As far as I can figure it:

"T-72A" = T-72 Ural
"T-72B" = T-72 Ural
"T-72G" = T-72M
"T-72M" = T-72A
"T-72M1" = T-72A
"T-72M2" = T-72B

Still a great book, though.

that's prety much how I saw them as being. does have decent pix, some of which google never found

Wow; this takes me back. I recall when at a Div HQ in the UK as a young soldier, I was working with the Intelligence Section. We were all excited when an open Press source - International Defence Review - published photos showing a French military delegation being shown around an early T72 (I'm no T72 expert but recall this version had the flip-out side skirts); they were allowed inside the vehicle and even the ammunition natures were displayed for them to look at.

"Surprise" didn't begin to explain it all, given the secrecy/paranoia prevailing at the time. And of course, it all threw the Int world into a bit of a spin.

Some years later I remember Esci produced what they called a "T74"; still attempting to keep my modelling hand in, whilst I didn't get hold of that, I did buy their "T72" with some quite impressive artwork on the box showing an East German one; sadly, I found it almost unbuildable. I can't quite remember now but I think it was mainly that the stowage boxes just didn't fit on the turret, but looking back, I think it must have been pretty flawed in any case - but I suppose at least Esci tried. These days I would have wrestled it into submission but back then, I gave up!

Model T72s have come a long way since then.

Brian

Nowadays you can even buy your own 1:1 T-72 to check out for missing details on your scale model kit....

http://www.russianmilitary.co.uk/details.php?id=86

http://www.mortarinvestments.eu/products/tanks-2/t-72-42

H.P.