Image Source: Photo: Bravery2004
Losses in tanks during the battles in Grozny, which began on December 31, 1994, were due to a number of reasons. Including the fact that some of the combat vehicles did not have the required dynamic protection, which could effectively neutralize the actions of enemy cumulative ammunition of various types.
For example, as tankers from the battalion attached to the Samara 81st regiment told the author in Chechnya, when they went to the "hot spot", they simply were not given the contents of the Contact attachment blocks.
Just before entering the city, everything that was needed was brought, but the crews simply did not have time to physically equip the "boxes" on the towers and tank hulls. Therefore, it should not be surprising that rocket-propelled grenades and ATGMs "pierced" the armor. Although sometimes it took several hits to immobilize the "eighty".
And, it seems, this happened not only among the Samaritans. Moreover, tanks of old modifications were used in urban battles, in which the installation of dynamic protection was not provided at all: T-80B and T-72A. The latter were, for example, in service with the 131st Maikop brigade.
Strangely, the sad experience of the New Year's battles was not fully taken into account, since the same T-72A again participated in urban battles in the Chechen capital, already in August 1996.
