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| Russia To ‘Modernize' 800 Vintage T-62 Tanks Due To Ukraine Losses: Report |
| 2022-10-13 |
| [The Drive] Russian plans to return hundreds of Cold War-era T-62s to service points to serious attrition, supply chain, and industrial capacity problems. In response, Ukraine resurrects the Boys antitank rifle. The Russian military is reportedly set to receive some 800 refurbished and possibly upgraded T-62 tanks in the next three years to try to help make up for severe losses it has already sustained in its ongoing all-out invasion of Ukraine. Many of the nearly antique T-62s have already been pulled out of deep storage and sent to Ukraine, where they have shown to be of debatable utility. If the situation is as it is reported to be, the decision to reactivate hundreds of these remarkably old Cold War-era tanks offers fresh evidence that western sanctions and other factors are hobbling Russia's arms industry. It also provides more evidence as to the poor state of Russia's more advanced armor, with many hundreds of tanks destroyed, damaged, or captured and others sidelined due to being worn out or without high-tech replacement parts after nearly nine months of continuous combat. Gurulyov reportedly said that the T-62s in question would be modernized with new thermal and night vision optics and additional armor and other defensive features, particularly to help protect against anti-tank guided missiles like the U.S.-made Javelin. He does not appear to have provided any granular specifics about these planned upgrades. There was no mention of updating the tank's armament, which consists of a 115mm main gun, a co-axial 7.62x54mm machine gun, and a 12.7mm machine gun on top of the turret. Russia certainly has many hundreds of T-62s in storage that it inherited from the Soviet Union, the vast majority of which are understood to be T-62M subtypes. The first T-62s entered Soviet service in 1961. In the 1980s, the Soviets had put thousands of these tanks through a broad modernization program that included adding more powerful engines, upgraded fire control systems, and new defenses. In terms of new defensive features, a number of different subvariants emerged, including ones with Kontakt-1 explosive reactive armor (ERA) packages and first-generation Drozd active protection systems. Oryx (OSInt) has photo documented over 7,000 Russian vehicle losses of which 1328 are tanks. Russia - 7022, of which: destroyed: 4240, damaged: 164, abandoned: 306, captured: 2312 Tanks (1328, of which destroyed: 757, damaged: 51, abandoned: 53, captured: 468) Real losses are higher. |
| Posted by:Snash Shairt9621 |
| #14 Wikipedia seys: Russia – At least 2,000 were inherited from the Soviet Union. 761 were in active service in 1995. 191 were in active service and 1,929 in storage as of 2000. During 2013 all the tanks of the model and its modifications were allegedly scrapped – later it was found this was not true, as Russia reactivated numerous T-62s to resupply the Syrian Army. In 2022, Russia sent T-62 tanks to reinforce the Southern Ukraine offensive in Zaporizhzhia Oblast during the 2022 Russian Invasion of Ukraine; reportedly up to 600 T-62s were taken out of long-term storage. It looks like they are taking the entire inventory in use 30 years ago and trying to upgrade them. Russian night vision gear is pretty awful and the French stuff on the T-80s and T-90s embargoed. So the Russian upgrade is probably on par with what is on their upgraded T-72s. The ERA tiles and Drozd won't provide protect against top attack missiles. |
| Posted by: Snash Shairt9621 2022-10-13 21:53 |
| #13 The Red Army used an antitank rifle during WWII, but not the Boys. Best Foghorn Leghorn voice: It's a joke, son. |
| Posted by: Snash Shairt9621 2022-10-13 21:38 |
| #12 The modern tanks got crushed, how well will the older ones do? RPGs and AT-4s will go the though the 4" of frontal armor like butter. On the other hand, no auto loader so not as many turret toss competitors. Youtube hardest hit. |
| Posted by: Snash Shairt9621 2022-10-13 20:15 |
| #11 The modern tanks got crushed, how well will the older ones do? Direct fire support in built up areas they will work just as well as the modern stuff ...until you run out of Chechens to do the house by house assaults I suppose. Improvise some reactive armor and go to it. |
| Posted by: magpie 2022-10-13 20:05 |
| #10 The modern tanks got crushed, how well will the older ones do? It depends on what you do with them. Not the first choice for tank v tank, but dug in, hull down, they might make nifty mobile pillboxes. The Russians are going to be playing a lot of defense trying to hold on to what they have now. |
| Posted by: SteveS 2022-10-13 19:46 |
| #9 Who said anything about refurbishment Modernizing to a Russian means fuel and ammunition maybe stenciling on new unit designation A T-62 is dead meat in today’s battlefield environment I sometimes think the tank has been rendered obsolete and we are back to Chancellorsville |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2022-10-13 18:44 |
| #8 by the time the refurbished tanks are ready there may be almost no trained armor platoons left alive and uninjured |
| Posted by: Lord Garth 2022-10-13 18:27 |
| #7 Any one got a spare sPzB 41 lyin' around? |
| Posted by: Rex Mundi 2022-10-13 17:29 |
| #6 Barrel being mined, but not at bottom scraping yet. Russia still offers T55's for sale in the third world, so I figure they have a whole lot of T62's to work through. |
| Posted by: ed in texas 2022-10-13 17:02 |
| #5 Cold War tanks for a revived Cold War that is suddenly getting a lot hotter. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2022-10-13 12:36 |
| #4 The modern tanks got crushed, how well will the older ones do? Seems the world is clearing out the inventories of weapons new and old. The question is do they all have money to restock the inventories with new stuff when its all over. |
| Posted by: ruprecht 2022-10-13 11:43 |
| #3 They going to glue on the cardboard make believe reactive armor? |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2022-10-13 09:24 |
| #2 In response, Ukraine resurrects the Boys antitank rifle. The Red Army used an antitank rifle during WWII, but not the Boys. |
| Posted by: badanov 2022-10-13 06:32 |
| #1 Media only can accurately estimate Russia losses whereas Ukrainian losses minuscule. Just doing as America sending equipment near retirement from active service. Notice Russia had depleted ammunition and rockets back in February or March. Mystery is what they are throwing these last several days. Some say 80 rockets and others 300 a day. The gloves are off now and Russia and its many allies are now working together. This NATO and USA effort has been a severe miscalculation. Then they still have no political efforts to resolve this war but only continue. Only political changes in leadership will USA or NATO make any attempt of rapprochement. |
| Posted by: Dale 2022-10-13 03:36 |