Well, nationalistic fevor from both sides means that we would
end up trying to downplay or belittle each other whenever something
like this happens. If you can get Pakistanis arguing why their
local tank is the best tank in the world (better then the M1 as
well) it's no surprise that some Malaysians would be concerned
about downplaying the Cat. When the SAR-21 came out, it was by all
respects a decent weapon but we got plenty of Malaysian folks who
made it a point to try to highlight why it HAD to be inferior to
the Aug... for many varied and equally invalid reasons that ended
up quite funny. I mean quality aside (of which I hardly think the
SAR is inferior), it's really marksmanship and tatics that make a
weapon effective. I'm not too surprised if their army got the Cat,
they would be rushing to praise it. But lets be sensible about this
and see the facts yah?
Force for force the SAF will have want to equip a superior weapon
system to what the Malaysians might field because in the long run
if there's really a race we cannot maintain an advantage in
numbers, hence piecemeal we need better equipment. AFAIK, the Cat
is not a clumsly tank... not any more then the M1 could be
considered clumsly when it outgunned and outmanuvered T-72s (on
which guess what tank is based on?) in both Gulf Wars. Crew
training is far more important. I believe the Israelis, who are an
avid user to "big and clumsly" western tanks in all their conflicts
ended up making the merky, and have a good reason not going
T-72.
In all fairness, the PT-91 can't be as bad as Saddam's ten camels
per MBT T-72s that got pwned in a closed range melee with M1A2 SEPs
during Gulf War 2, but as one says, to gain the advantages it has
over western tanks like smaller profile it gives up a lot of
issues. If you are in a war, you certainly do not want to go into
it in a soviet tank, unless it's the Black Eagle or
something.
I don't see the big concern about the Leo's frontal armour, it is
still sloped wat, though the "cheeks" that the A5 and A6 versions
have would be good. ST will certainly fiddle about it with, and the
first batch of Cats we are getting are also probably for "testing,
testing" reasons. Said and done, I think this Cat purchase is
something we can be happy about.
Actually i seriously do suspect that they already have the T-80s.
Reason being that their Deftech are already technology partners
with the Ukrainians.
I did see one picture of a malaysia T80U undergoing runs in a
oil palm plantation some time back.
