Talk:TR-125

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The information in the Polish "article" referring to TR-125 can not be cross-checked with any Romanian sources. Furthermore, the info it inspired in this wiki article is partly irrelevant. As follows:

- "the standard T-72 was too complex for Romanian industry to handle" - series production of the TR-85 shows that by mid 80's Romanian tank industry possessed the technological capacity to produce a "copy" of the T-72. Licence production was out of the question due to party line of producing only domestically "designed" items. The delay regarding series production can be safely put to the Ceausescu's personal desire of making exacerbated cost savings. Just to get an idea I suggest http://www.stindard.ro/historicum/2003-armament-89.pdf Furthermore, by 1989 different enterprises within the Romanian defence industry had introduced in production the 125 smooth bore tank gun (obviously a "domestic" design:) and the corresponding ammunition.

- "Romanian industry was too obsolete" - I suppose it all depends on what you are comparing it to. It had in current production computerized FCS, frontal tank layered armour, different high capacity diesel engines, IAR-93 and IAR-99 aircraft etc. (The press usually reports the special exports between 1980 and 1989 to have surpassed USD 9,5 billion.)

- "This allowed the hull to be stretched by 1 m and installation of more powerful 872 hp (650 kW) diesel engine 8VSA-2T2, based on the US Teledyne AVDS" - We do not know exactly by how much the hull was lengthened. The reason for the lengthening apparently was that of allowing for the introduction of a longitudinally mounted engine (TR-85 style). There is simply no info whatsoever clearly stating that the 8VS-A2-T2 was used. Power-rating is misquoted (even the HP/kW is wrong:). The Romanian tank engine is widely considered to be the copy of a German diesel engine. There are numerous reports stating that the "source" was obtained via special ops by the military spying offices of the time.

- "It was equipped with Polish "Bobrawa" radiation sensors and "Bobrawa-1" laser sensors which were also used in Polish T-55AM" - The chances of a Romanian product of the late 80's to use imported systems was ZERO. Literally, by late 80's not even licences were accepted. Everything had to be designed domestically (“Chinese copying” included:) and even that was subject to cost issues. It's very simple. We lived through it.

- "1 was given to the museum" - As far as I know (and read over time) one of the P-125's is currently used for studying purposes in one of the military schools in Romania and at least one was held by a tank regiment. NO TR-125 has ever been exposed in a museum.

Otherwise - I've developed a keen interest for the TR-125 since the early 90's and I can state that there are not really any info available on-line or, as far as I know, off-line. Either the prototypes were subject to military secret rules or people having access to them have simply found them as uninteresting.

Generally Romanian engineers of the time tried to improve on the original Soviet designs and not down-grade them (see TR-580, TR-85, Romanian PSL etc.)

I've written all this just to provide a bit more especially to young Romanians searching the web for info referring to the TR’s.

btw - over time there were only 4 photographs available on-line. Some of them can be found on armyreco.ifrance.com and there was a black and white one on the jedsite.info web site.

PS - I would like to personally thank the wiki user SuperTank17 for his contribution on the subject.

Best regards,

M

Bucharest

Tanknutro (talk) 22:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Hello

All I did was create an article basing on sources that I was able to find. I'm sure that you living in Bucharest and being Romanian can get much more information on this subject than I do here in Kraków but please try to supply articles that you will edit with references. Otherwise when you delete some information from an article it can be taken as vandalism and reverted by people who don't have the information that you have at your disposal. Just follow Wikipedia guidelines and your edits will be fine.

I wish you happy editing and I want to point out that I only followed Wikipedia guidelines. These guidelines are made to serve for the good of all and therefore everybody editing Wikipedia should follow them.

Regards and Merry Christmas. - SuperTank17 (talk) 22:15, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

) I saw $ I understand.

I doubt I'll be much of a a wiki contributor - it sucks being a grown-up (supposing you are not yet aware of that:) And still, you actually got me to create a wiki account :)))

Cheers, M Tanknutro (talk) 22:24, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Good Evening.

You're never too old to edit Wikipedia. As long as you have computer and can operate it then there is nothing that should stop you from contributing to Wikipedia.

BTW I edited the article to meet with the data you provided. You said that no TR-125 was ever given to the museum. I found few pictures that look like they're from a museum:

Regards. - SuperTank17 (talk) 23:27, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

References