T-72 varients

[Marcello]

"I'd almost forgotten the theory that only the turret was cast steel while the hull glasis had more advanced protection."

For the early versions (T-72, T-72M) this was apparently the case. Certainly the turrets of those tanks look like plain cast steel, with no inserts. This may sound odd, given that generally you would want the turret to have protection at least equal and possibly much better than the hull but there are a few justifications for that.First of all while the turret had only "conventional" armor it was very thick and supposedly well shaped for shot deflection.Then while the glacis was "composite" it was only steel/fiberglass,nothing of fancy. I also believe the soviets had little taste for western style "hull down" defensive style fighting, which put an emphasis on turret armor (and main gun depression, which the T-XX were never famous for).

[pdoktar]

Yep. The soviet idea was for head-on advance, and very little dug-in defence, so no need for much stronger turret armor. (I find the soviet armor layout much better for WinSPMBT type of games)