Commander
http://perfectumlab.com/gallery/panorams...;m=view_fisheye

Gunner
http://perfectumlab.com/gallery/panorams...;m=view_fisheye

Driver
http://perfectumlab.com/gallery/panorams...;m=view_fisheye

Quite interesting

very cool, thx for sharing those.

Woah awesome! Tank-you!!

Very interesting!... Is that Asbestos, the white foam on the wall?

Liberal application of silver spray cans in a rather hasty and amateurish restoration process.

Not the silver spray paint- I think he's right. You can see a mesh of fiberous filaments clumped on the turret ceiling, and it is known that some tanks in the past had used asbestos and as an insulator because the metal would grow hot in tropical or desert conditions. It's been alleged that certain countries like China have no ethical issues about still using asbestos in military vehicles, either, so that is certainly possible.

I see what you mean. Yeah, that looks like asbestos to me, too - although I'm not certain that the entire clumps are of this material. I'd expect just a layer of maybe five to ten millimeters (.2 ... .4 inch). The rest could be a form of a spall liner. If they aren't using high tech fibers like Dyneema, you have to make the liner much thicker to achieve a similar protection effect. If, in addition, the liner material isn't fireproof, that's a reason more to clad it in asbestos.

WRT the ethics behind it, I don't think that they were necessarily callous. They looked at what was necessary to give the best protection in the case of an armor perforation. Here the choice is to be shred to pieces by the behind-armor debris, or to be burnt alive if the liner that protects you against the high velocity debris catches fire, or MAYBE to die of lung cancer some fifty years later ... under the condition that you can't afford or do not have the technological know-how about fire resistant high performance spall liners. Given these choices, I guess that most people would (grudgingly) accept the asbestos. Burning to death is not a nice way to go.

I have seen Asbestos close and personal and it did look like it.

I know the "Clemenceau" a French Aircraft Carrier build late 50's was full of it and had to be "sanitized" before scraped.

It made a lot of sense for Ships as Armored vehicle to use it, as it was used in FireFighter clothing protection and fire retardant.

In the US, I don't know since the military is not held to respect environmental laws.

I have not seen asbestos in US modern Armor and APC's. It might still be some ships with asbestos on them, may be the ones used as museums (?).

that stuff is not asbestos, it's a neutron liner made of lead, designed to act as a radiation shield.

The T-72 has an anti-radiation mesh of Boron fabric interwoven with other materials- that might be what that is, it's also present in the driver's compartment. It does not resemble the external anti-radiation cover at all.