Interview with a T-72 driver from the Czech Army

A T-72 tank driver has answered some questions as part of an interview. J. served in a tank batalion in the Czech Army and has experience both with T-72M1 and T-72M4CZ tanks.

Hello J, many thanks for accepting the interview. Could you give a brief introduction about your service in the Czech Army?

I have served in Czech army since 2013 so my career isn’t too long. I served like tanker at 73rd TB now I serve at AA Regiment.

In general terms, what do you think are the strong and weak points of the T-72?

T-72 is universal tank, which serve all over the world. His big opportunities are small size, small costs and easy service. Disadvantages of this tank is armour and service life of several components

One of the most debated issues of T-72 are the ergonomics. How did you find them as a driver?

Ergonomics in this tank are horrible but you can acclimate on it. You have to accept small space, big noise and sometimes you sweat very much. But for us like tankers or soldiers is normal job (For civilian it couldn’t be acceptable).

Did you train on using emergency hatch (aka heroes hatch in Russia) in the hull bottom?

Nah I didn’t, but I used it for exchange the batteries, so this way was the best for it

When performing exercises, what was the maximum distance you covered in a day? Were there any issues with the maintenance of the tank?

The maximum distance in my life was 120 kilometres in one day in T-72 (I was really tired). I had luck I’ve never had issue with my tank.

First T-72 had IR night sights for drivers. How effective were they for night driving?

As a driver on T-72M1 we had quite upgraded night visions but those were horrible so we used nigh visions from T-72M4CZ

Did you practice NBC scenarios? How did you prepare for them?

NBC in this tank is automatic. But in training we had to activate them. This system is simple, but you have to have sealed all hatches perfectly.

Early T-72 do not have a modular configuration for engine and transmission. Was this an issue?

Yeah it was big issue, because if you wanted to exchange the engine you did this for 3 days.

What was your impression about the T-72M4CZ compared to the earlier versions you drove? What was your impression of the Perkins Condor CV 12 engine and Allison XTG-411-6N transmission?

T-72M4CZ is like Mercedes. It’s different World. T-72M1 has big advantage in terrain thanks to transmission. Automatic transmission in T-72M4CZ is better on roads or in tactic training.

T-72 used to be produced in Czechoslovakia under license. Did you have any shortages of spare parts following establishment of Czech Army and your service?

Unfortunately no. Thanks to T-72M4CZ  our politics and command didn’t want big warehouses with “old” spare parts from T-72M1 so in these days it’s quite big problem.

The T-72 has been used in a long list of conflicts. Did you receive any feedback/training taking into account lessons learned in these conflicts?

Some of my colleagues trained Iraqi tankers after US intervention in 2003, but they hadn’t any special experiences from Iraqi war.

Did you have the opportunity to examine or use other tanks. How did they compare to yours?

I was in Chally 2 M1A2C Abrams, tried Leopard 2A6, T-55AM2 Kladivo. For me the best of them is Leo, but I’m not fan to automatic transmissions

Czech Army is going to apply a modernisation to T-72M4CZ. Do you think the design has room for improvement or it would be better to buy another model?

Modernisation of T-72M4CZ is only for extending their life services, so they change some parts, but design will be same. Our army want to buy new type but it will be hard to choose. For me the best choice for us is K2 Black Panther with West components but with 3 tankers inside.