Not caring about the lives of soldiers. Russia sends to old T-62 tanks
Having licked the wounds of the defeats of March-April, having made up for the losses, the Russian troops launched a powerful offensive in the Donbass. The forces of the aggressor, though slowly, are advancing in the Lugansk region due to the numerical superiority of the invitations. Including due to the removal of old Soviet equipment from storage bases. T-62 tanks, developed in the late 1950s, are already being sent to Ukraine.
So far, the T-62s are not in the Donbass, but in the occupied south of Ukraine, where they will soon take part in the battles. These morally stable and physically dilapidated vehicles become easier targets for ATGMs than other tanks. But the Russian generals care little.
Veteran of Afghanistan and tank colonel Budanova
Both Ukraine and Russia used predominantly Soviet tanks in this war. The basis of their tank fleet is T-64 (in Ukraine), T-72 (used by both sides) and T-80 (in Russia). These are the “old men” of the times of the USSR, although they are approaching the latest upgrades (for example, T-72B3) to use the use of modern warfare. Rare cases in Russia of late-modified T-90s can be considered relatively recently used vehicles. We see the T-14 Armata tank, promoted by Russian propaganda only in paradesbut not on the front lines.
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Instead of the vaunted Armata supertank, other vehicles, the T-62, have just been sent from Russia to the war in Ukraine. If the above T-64, T-72 and T-80 are the tanks of yesterday, then the T-62 entering the battle now is the machine of the day before yesterday, developed in the 1950s and produced in the 1960s – the first half of the 1970s .
The T-62 has a 115 mm gun, unlike the T-72, T-80 and most T-64 modifications, they have a 125 mm gun. There is one more difference. starting with the T-64 models, the Soviet industry only produced tanks with automatic loading, which roughly corresponds to up to three people removing imported cargo. But the T-62 does not have an automatic loader, and this tank requires a crew of four.
However, the very presence of a downloader is not God there is some kind of technological achievement. Most modern Western tanks do fine without it, they are part of a crew of four, including a load-lifting one. The specifics of tank building is that the lack of an automatic loader allows you to keep ammunition in an armored ammo rack, separated from the crew. This increases the survivability of people in case of damage to the machine. As you know, it was in the turret of Soviet tanks that the ammunition load was set when an attack on an explosive detonation was detected, tearing off tank turret and not giving the crew a chance to survive. However, the T-62 does not have a high automatic loader, part of the ammunition is still is in the tower, I guarantee when detonated, the death of the crew.
T-62 was one of the most massive tanks in the USSR. Soviet industry, preparing for a world war, riveted about 20,000 unpretentious machines. The tank has a rich combat history – it was actively exported, it participated in many military emissions, both during the Cold War and in the post-Soviet back wall. The war in Afghanistan showed the vulnerability of Soviet tanks to cumulative grenades, and during the next attack in the early 1980s, the T-62 acquired increased protection. The boxes of combined armor on the tower received the playful name “Ilyich’s eyebrows” among the troops. Boomers do not need to explain what this means, but for zoomers we will explain that the then leader of the USSR Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev was famous for his thick eyebrows. The caustic Soviet people made these eyebrows (like everything related to Brezhnev) the topic of jokes and anecdotes.
The T-62 also fought as a result of the Chechen war. In particular, in the second Chechen war, the “sixty owners” was staffed by the 160th Guards Tank Regiment, staffed by the infamous Colonel Yuri Budanov. But later, the T-62 was seized with the consequences as morally justified – the discovered vehicles went to the base. In the late 2010s, the “sixty-seconds” with the “eyebrows of Ilyich” Russia supplied the army dictator Bashar al-Assad from its reserves.
In the course of the illness, T-62s were loaded a few days ago – first in Yevpatoriya, and then in the occupied military district of Melitopol in southern Ukraine, where they brought railway. In the photo and video, it is not difficult to find the very “eyebrows of Ilyich” on the tank towers.
Level and content of stocks
Information that the Russian army, which is not lost in Ukraine, is once again taking out completely old equipment from storage bases, has appeared more than once. What are only Grad multiple launch rocket systems on the chassis old petrol cars “Ural-375D”. Later it became known that the “Grads” went to stop the cars to receive the formed “DPR” and “LPR”. It is possible that the T-62 will also go into service with the separatists in the Donbass. As you know, the losses of the forces of the “DNR” and “LNR” are higher than the losses of the military personnel themselves. In any case, the “mobilization” of sixty-year-old veteran tanks is manifested in the scale of the devastation of the tank fleet of the united group of opening Ukraine.
Estimates of the losses of the tank troops of the invasion vary, but in any case it is necessary to establish. By capture by the Ukrainian population, Kremlin lost for three months of the war 1300 tanks. The side of the conflict always overestimates the loss of the enemy, so the invaders are more willing to listen to the listening of an independent international research group. oryx, studying the loss of equipment in armed conflicts based on verified photos and videos. oryx appreciated the total losses of the Russian Federation and the separatists were formed in about 700 tanks. But when studying Oryx statistics, you need to understand that it will never be complete – simply because in war conditions it is impossible to capture all the losses on photos and videos.
Review
A sad number for some, a happy one for others. When Russia runs out of military equipment
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Most likely close to the true assessment of the Pentagon. The other day, the US Department reported that, according to its data, Russian forces since the beginning of full-scale intervention lost about 1000 tanks. Assuming that the Western military bulletin military balance right, and Russia had about 2.8 thousand tanks in the troops at the beginning of the 2020s (plus several hundred from the “DPR” and “LPR”), which means that a third of the vehicle has already been lost.
Estimates of the number of tanks removed from the stocks of army units and standing at Russian stock bases vary: figures are charged at 10 thousand, and even 16.5 thousand. In 2017, “in connection with a change in the international environment “of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation collapsed recycling program for old cars. But the ecological state of this country is Russia’s reserve Entire armadas of high-quality tanks are stored in storage bases – most often under high skies, without any maintenance. In addition to the T-62, the Ministry of Defense reserves also have more modern T-64s, T-72s and T-80s, which are now being emergencyally returned to service. Why single T-62s are also sent is not clear. Many cars from thousands of Russian stocks simply cannot be repaired in a special way. It may be necessary to look for any well-preserved specimens.
According to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Army, a new tank battalion has already been formed from the T-62 tanks that were traveling through Melitopol to the front, reinforcing the aggressor’s grouping in the Zaporozhye adaptation. By view british intelligence, “These tanks are most likely especially vulnerable to anti-tank weapons, and their presence on the field is scary to use the lack of modern combat-ready equipment in the Russian army.”
Reports of the ongoing Russian offensive against Ukraine’s consumption: Moscow intends to achieve a turning point in the war by accumulating reserves and approaching the target limit of outperforming consumption. The Russian command will be assembled by numbers, not by quality, not particularly beneficial with the loss of its soldiers. With this approach, the generals are unlikely to care about the vulnerability of the T-62 tanks.
Roman Popkov