A serviceman of the Ukrainian army demonstrated the effectiveness of the tank's thermal imaging sight on his YouTube channel.
The thermal smoke equipment exposed a fairly dense smoke screen, and if nothing but the cloud itself was visible in the optical device, then during observation through the thermal imager, all nearby objects were guessed without much difficulty.
It is known that such equipment on the T-64BV of the Armed Forces of Ukraine began to be installed in the spring of 2017, during the preparation for the "NATO-style tank biathlon" - the international tank competitions Strong Europe Tank Challenge.
TPN-1-TPV sights with foreign components were installed on several vehicles of the 14th mechanized brigade instead of the outdated TPN1-49-23, whose operation in the so-called active mode required illumination of the infrared searchlight "Luna".
It was reported that they are able to detect large targets at a distance of 5000 meters, while accurate recognition is carried out at a distance of 2500 meters. The tank was able to use guided missiles at night at ranges up to 4800 meters.
However, then the modernization did not help too much - at the competitions held, the Ukrainian crews took the penultimate place, only the Poles performed worse than them on their supported Leopard 2A5.
Currently, the T-64BV modified in this way, designated as 2017 model vehicles, are delivered in small batches to the troops, where the bulk of the equipment still does not have thermal imaging sights.
Alexey Brusilov
