In recent years, the new Russian T-14 Armata tank has attracted great interest around the world. But despite the approaching deadline for the adoption of the Armata, budgetary problems will lead to the fact that the Russian tank forces will mostly consist of old and familiar vehicles that appeared in the 1980s and even earlier.
Kyle Mizokami
In recent years, the new Russian T-14 Armata tank has attracted great interest around the world. It has a "clean slate" design, and it is a fundamentally new Soviet and Russian tank, which has not been seen for many years. Despite the approaching deadline for the adoption of the Armata, budgetary problems will lead to the fact that the Russian tank forces will mostly consist of old and familiar vehicles that appeared in the 1980s and even earlier.
Currently, Russia has 2,700 tanks in its military. They are divided into 36 separate motorized rifle (mechanized) and tank brigades, as well as four motorized rifle and tank divisions. A fairly new invention in the Russian ground forces are the so-called battalion tactical groups. It is a reinforced combined arms unit capable of conducting independent combat operations consisting of four tank and motorized rifle companies, as well as artillery, reconnaissance, engineering, sapper and support units. Each Russian combat brigade or regiment has approximately two battalion tactical groups.
The basis of modern tank forces in Russia is still the T-72 family of tanks, which includes this machine itself, its relative T-80 and the older brother T-90. The oldest model of the T-72 is thirty years old. The T-80 is a little younger because it was built at the end of the Cold War. The newest tank is the T-90, which is basically a deep modernization of the T-72.
The T-72, which entered service in 1973, caused shock in the NATO countries. It was a low-slung tank with a new powerful cannon and durable armor. It was very different from the outdated T-62. The new 2A46M 125mm tank gun could fire up to eight rounds per minute, it had an automatic loader that replaced the loader, and thanks to this, the tank's turret became smaller, despite the increase in the caliber of the gun and the amount of ammunition. The 780 horsepower diesel engine allowed the car to reach a speed of 60 kilometers per hour on the highway.
The T-72 had good armor protection for its time. The combined armor of the hull and turret provided a protective capability equivalent to 335-380 millimeters of rolled homogeneous armor steel, which provided reliable protection against 120 mm feathered NATO armor-piercing shells with a detachable pallet. And its protective ability against shaped projectiles of the same caliber was equivalent to 410-450 millimeters. In the later version of the T-72B1, protection against armor-piercing projectiles was increased by 50%. And thanks to the Kontakt-1 dynamic protection kit, the protection against cumulative projectiles has been almost doubled. In the mid-1980s, an improved Kontakt-5 kit appeared, which effectively protected the vehicle from TOW ATGMS and heavy anti-tank missiles.
The T-72 was the main tank in the Soviet Army until the end of the Cold War, and it was shipped in large quantities abroad to 12 countries, including Syria and Iraq. During the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, the Syrian T-72s performed poorly against Israeli tanks, and the Iraqis fought even worse with their vehicles during the 1991 war. This is mainly due to the poor training of the crews of the Syrian and Iraqi armies, but the T-72 had its own drawbacks, and it was inferior to modern Western and Israeli vehicles, especially in ammunition for tank guns, fire control system, night vision devices and armor protection. What is very important, the Iraqi T-72 did not have dynamic protection of the Kontakt-1 and Kontakt-5 types.
In addition to the T-72, the Russian ground forces inherited the T-80 tank. Externally, it is very similar to the T-72, having the same 2A46M cannon. But there were significant differences between them. The T-80 cannon could fire 9M112 "Cobra" shaped-charge ammunition, which had a range of four kilometers and could penetrate armor up to 700 millimeters thick. The T-80 was slightly larger in size, and it used a 1,250 horsepower gas turbine engine, which provided greater maneuverability, but at the expense of reliability.
Russian economic hardships in the 1990s and early 2000s led to the country's armed forces suffering from underfunding. There was no money for a new tank, and the best examples of the T-72 and T-80 remained in service, undergoing numerous upgrades.
Despite the demoralizing effect of the 1991 Gulf War, Soviet engineers created many modifications using innovative approaches to improving outdated tanks. The Shtora-1 electronic-optical active protection system had sensors for detecting infrared-guided anti-tank missiles and smoke grenade launchers to protect the tank from laser-guided missiles. The Arena active protection complex included a Doppler radar station and protective ammunition for the destruction of anti-tank guided missiles and short-range missiles. The 2A46M tank cannon received new cumulative and armor-piercing ammunition with greater penetrating power, and the remaining T-80 tanks in the armed forces were equipped with the 9M119 Reflex guided tank missile system, which is much better than the Cobra.
In today's generation of T-72B3 tanks, all these improvements are combined, and the tank has turned out to be very modern. It is equipped with the latest built-in dynamic protection "Kontakt-5", which protects it from shaped projectiles. The tank cannon can be used to fire 9M119 Reflex missiles, and the vehicle's ammunition capacity has been increased from 39 to 45 rounds. As a result, the T-72B3 received many improvements regarding armor and protection (the installation program for the new engine was canceled in order to save money). In the future, the T-72B will undergo further modernization and receive an automatic tracking and fire control system, which are installed on the Armata tank, a new Relict dynamic protection system and a new diesel engine, the power of which will be 50% more than the previous power plants.
The remaining 550 T-80 tanks in the Russian ground forces are being upgraded to the T-80BV level. This tank is basically identical to the T-72B3 in terms of armament and armor protection, but it is more reliable, although it has a less powerful gas turbine engine. According to information from Jane's handbook, the T-80BV is more suitable for the cold climatic conditions of the Far East, Siberia and the Arctic. It is probably no coincidence that these places are the most remote from the tank forces of NATO countries.
After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1993, one "new" Russian tank was put into service. This is a T-90. In fact, this is an upgraded T-72, but it was presented as a completely new machine. In many ways, the T-90 is similar to the modern T-72B3, and it marked the beginning of a large-scale modernization project for the T-72. The latest version of the T-90MS has all the features of the T-72B3, plus a thousand horsepower diesel engine, video cameras to ensure tankers' awareness of the environment, as well as GLONASS equipment. One of the most important features of the T-90 is its more powerful armor, which has a protective capacity equivalent to 690 millimeters against armor-piercing and 1,040 millimeters against cumulative ammunition. Due to the additional layers of steel and composite materials on the turret and hull, as well as thanks to the latest generation of dynamic protection, the T-90 armor protection is twice as powerful as that of the T-72.
The high cost of the Armata tank, combined with Western sanctions imposed due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2014, will certainly prevent Moscow from building these new vehicles in large numbers. The Russian armed forces have a lot of outdated military equipment, from fighter jets and tanks to new-generation armored vehicles. Despite the modernization process, a large number of old weapons will remain there. But with proper maintenance, repair, and modernization, the old tanks will be able to serve in the Russian ground forces for decades to come.
Kyle Mizokami is a specialist in the field of defense and national security. He lives and works in San Francisco, and his articles are published in such publications as The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, War is Boring and the Daily Beast. In 2009, he became one of the creators of the Japan Security Watch blog.
