Modern Russian tanks T- 72 ,T-80 and T-90 are operated with a three-man crew: commander, driver and gunner. The majority of Western MBT's, such as the U.S. main battle tank M1 Abrams have a crew of 4 - the fourth crewmember is a loader, while on the Russian tanks this function is performed by an automatic loading device. This solution made it possible not only to reduce the size of a T-72/T-80 fighting compartment, resulting in a lower silhouette, but also to increase the fi re rate.