"How common were smoke launchers on T-72s?" Topic

I'm building a company of Revell's T-72M1 kits which contain smoke launchers for the turret. However, after flipping through the book "Arsenal for Aggression" it looks like more often than not, these tanks weren't equipped with smoke launchers.

Should I put them on or not?

First of all, Im not sure are you building soviet or WPACT force, not to talk about exact year, but few notes:

- Soviets themselves didnt use T-72M1 (or M) in any point – tho its possible that if the WW3 would have ignited, they propably would have made some sort of knock-out re-production from it, to act as a wartime production model of T-72. The T-72B was far superior, but also more expensive.
IIRC, they did manufacture the type for export, again, IIRC the first T-72M1s aquired by finland in mid-80s were from soviet union. Can someone confirm this?

- The vehicles in picture are not T-72M1s, there is no "gap" in the lower part of a turret, and the vehicles is having grills instead of rubber skirts. With quick galnze, looks more like
Again, Im quite(!) sure that in non-export M1s, the smoke launchers were standard fitting.

link

Oh, a more complicated question than I thought. I guess I'm just building a somewhat generic warsaw pact force from sometimes in the 80s.

From EG's link it sounds like adding them is the best bet.

Didn't they just dump fuel in the exhausts to make smoke?

Yes, there is exhaust smoke, but that trails behind the vehicle making the smoke. The launchers give you a quick screen across the front of the tank. Of course, they don't affect thermal sights at all.

another consideration is the time frame – smoke launchers are more common recently than they were in the early days of T-72 production – do what you think looks best no one will question the correctness of the launchers on the gaming table

Hmm, dunno what has happened but seems like about half from my earlier posts last sentence got missing :D Well, yeah, I repost:

"- The vehicles in the picture are not T-72M1s, there is no "gap" in the lower part of a turret, and the vehicles is having flip-grills instead of rubber skirts. With quick glanze, looks more like early/mid production T-72M, which is roughly equivelant to T-72, original production model "Ural". But for the T-72M1, Im quite sure even all "for export" models got their smoke launchers – allthough some other features were milded even more. Fex. the T-72M1 built for DDRs NVA by poles had the HEAT cavities filled with non-metallic material, IIRC some sort of fibreglass and rubber, but those exported to Iraq got their cavities filled with sand and rubber. One way or another, they both were downgraded from T-72A, but roughly they were equivelant"

@GROSSMAN:
In earlier models, yes. At least T-55 did have the feature where it sprayed diesel on less-vulnerable engine surfaces (most likely exhaust) creating thick screen of smoke, Im quite sure this was still in use in T-62, not sure about T-72 tho. But for the smoke launchers, they became common in late 70s-early 80s in the soviet armored forces.

@dsfrank:
Im quite sure that in case of T-72M1 the era itself doesnt effect. In case of T-72A (or M) this might be the case, but the T-72M1 production run from early-mid 80s, so it entered in production/service quite late.