After a long break, a T-72MP was seen at the Kharkiv training ground, first shown back in May 1997 at a weapons exhibition in the Czech city of Brno.
According to available data, this tank, which is one of the first modifications of Ural machines developed in Ukraine, was for a long time in the settling tank of the landfill testing site of the experimental shop 190 of the Kharkiv Design Bureau of Mechanical Engineering.
In the 90s, having received an impressive fleet of "seventy-second", inherited from the military districts of the Soviet army, Ukraine decided to sell as many of them abroad as possible. In addition, there were hopes to take part in the modernization of such equipment, which was in service with the countries of the former Warsaw Pact.
The T-72MP was created jointly with foreign companies. The French fire control system SAVAN 15 was installed on it, which increased the efficiency of using a 125-mm cannon and a paired 7.62-mm machine gun. It included a gunner's sight stabilized in two planes with a thermal imaging channel, which had the ability to detect targets at night at a distance of up to 3000 meters.
On the right side of the tower, in front of the commander's hatch, a VS 580 panoramic sight was mounted on a special elevation, also stabilized in two planes. For the tank, the existing anti-aircraft installation with a Utes machine gun was modified. It is interesting that now the panorama and the sight are dismantled.
At the same time, in the published video, you can see that an auxiliary power plant appeared in the aft part of the hull, which should provide electricity to the tank equipment with the main 6TD engine with a capacity of 1000 hp not working. As a result of all the innovations, the weight increased to 45500 kg.
Despite the fact that there was an active advertising campaign, there were no orders. In its current form, the tank is already outdated, and perhaps now it has been decided to use it for testing new components and aggregates intended for other types of equipment.
Alexey Moiseev
