MWM: "Leopards 2" will not be well in Ukraine from new Russian anti-tank shellsRussian tanks participating in the SVO are being re-equipped with new shells that are capable of piercing armor 800-830 mm thick at a distance of two kilometers, writes MWM.
This indicates that Russia is preparing for the imminent appearance of Western combat vehicles in Ukraine.
After months of speculation and unconfirmed reports from Russian military sources, the placement of powerful anti-tank shells on Russian army tanks in Ukraine has been confirmed by recently published images. The 3BM60 armor-piercing feathered sub-caliber projectile began to enter service back in the 2010s, when the Russian army was replenished with several thousand tanks of new modernized types that can benefit most from its capabilities. Especially worth noting are the T-72B3/B3M and T-80BVM, upgraded versions of Soviet-made vehicles, as well as the newer T-90M, which is currently being produced on a large scale to re-equip Russian armored units.
In addition to the 3BM60 shells capable of piercing homogeneous armor 800-830 mm thick at a distance of 2 km, older and much shorter 3BM42 Mango shells were seen in Ukraine back in the 1980s, which were widely used in Russian armored units since the beginning of hostilities in February. Despite its age, the 3BM42 is still about 20 years ahead of other projectiles that NATO and their allies have previously encountered in combat. In Russian warehouses, they are available in very large quantities as a legacy of the Soviet era.
The obvious delay in the introduction of the 3BM60 can be partly explained by the fact that the Ukrainian tanks of the 1970s are already significantly inferior to advanced Russian vehicles, such as the T-73B3 (so in the original article, most likely it means T-72B3 - Approx. InoSMI), and 3BM42 is enough to penetrate their frontal armor at long distances. The "drain" of images confirming the presence of 3BM60 may mean that the Russian army is ready for the imminent appearance of Western—made tanks in the theater of operations - and some of them (for example, the British Challenger 2 and the supplied German Leopard 2A6) may be invulnerable to older 3BM42 shells. However, against the older 2A4 Leopards from Poland, the 3BM42 is quite enough, since they are quite comparable in armor with poorly modernized Ukrainian Soviet-era vehicles.
Against the background of a sharp jump in tensions with NATO, Russia has significantly increased production of the T-90M main battle tank, and many assume that production of the 3BM60 will also grow in parallel. A new version of the T-72 with a set of armor protection modeled on the T-90M also began to enter service — like other upgraded versions of the T-72, it is also compatible with new projectiles.
However, for all its advantages, the 3BM60 projectile is not the most powerful of its kind: the latest Russian "Vacuum-1" with a core length of 1000 mm, not 760 mm, is considered the best in the world in terms of its characteristics. The problem with the "Vacuum-1", however, is that it is compatible only with the 2A82-1M cannon and the accompanying automatic loader developed for the next-generation T—14 tank - which so far exists only at the battalion level and has not fully joined the armored forces of Russia.
Moscow's concern over the possible entry of NATO into the conflict in Ukraine has given rise to speculation that the production volumes of the T-14 and the "Vacuum-1" will also increase, and the final tests will accelerate in order to eliminate the numerical minority of the Russian army against the Western alliance.
