T-72B1 obr. 2022s.
Via social media
The Ukrainian army is not the only one getting new tanks. Well, like new.
As Kiev’s allies pledge more and more of the best NATO-style tanks to the Ukrainian war effort, Moscow is arming and potentially re-enlisting hundreds of older T-72s.
The result is at least one new T-72 model: the T-72B3 Obr. 2022. It is a 1980s T-72B with a number of improvements including a Sosna-U digital day-night gunner sight, new reactive armor, a rear-facing video camera and a fresh barrel for its 125 millimeters -Main gun.
Don’t get too excited. The additions don’t significantly improve the T-72’s performance – and do nothing to address the type’s fundamental problem: its dangerous ammo stowage.
The T-72 stores its main gun ammunition in a carousel located under the turret. A direct hit can set off the ammo, resulting in a catastrophic explosion that destroys the tank, kills the crew of three, and often blows the turret high.
Equally worrying for Russian tankers, a shortage of components appears to have forced tank manufacturer Uralvagonzavod to also produce a downgraded “emergency” T-72B1 Obr. 2022, which lacks the Sosna-U visor.
Instead, the downgraded T-72 has an obsolete 1PN96MT-02 analog thermal sight, comparable to the sights that NATO armies installed on their own tanks in the 1970s. This emergency T-72B1 Obr. 2022 is… not a great tank.
It should come as no surprise that the Russian Army Armor Corps appears to take itself back to the 1980s. The Russian army expanded its war against Ukraine with thousands of reasonably modern T-72, T-80, and T-90 tanks — and quickly lost more than 1,500 of them to Ukrainian artillery, anti-tank missile teams, and, yes, tanks .
As Russian losses mounted, the Kremlin opened warehouses and vehicle parks housing up to 10,000 old tanks moldering. Ironically, many of the newer T-72 and T-80 tanks in long-term storage were in worse condition than T-62s from the 1970s.
Sophisticated optics and electronics tend to quickly deteriorate or be stolen while openly stored in Russia. The T-62s never had sophisticated subsystems, so hundreds of them were still intact after decades of not being used.
The T-62s that the Kremlin sent to Ukraine last summer didn’t last long. The Ukrainians destroyed at least 20 T-62s and captured enough of them – about 40 – to outfit their own T-62 battalion.
The T-62s were an obvious stopgap measure. They and their hapless crews bought Uralvagonzavod time to identify old T-72s that the company could overhaul, upgrade easily, and send to Ukraine to begin rebuilding the Russian Army’s depleted tank battalions.
There could be as many as 5,000 old T-72s in storage across Russia. It’s unclear how many are rust-free and in reasonably good condition. But a lack of intact hulls may not be the main problem. Rather, it seems that the Uralvagonzavod will run out of tank optics before it runs out of tank chassis.
The most important feature of the T-72B3 Obr. 2022 is the Sosna U view. The Sosna-U, which allows a tank gunner to spot a target up to four miles away in daylight or darkness, is reportedly based on unlicensed French optics that the Russian industry found not entirely legal about a decade ago manner acquired.
Foreign sanctions, which have been tightened since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, have impeded, but not stopped, the flow of military electronics into Russia. The Kremlin can bypass sanctions with great effort by purchasing items from intermediaries in non-sanctioned countries.
But it’s unlikely that Russian companies, not exactly known for their precision manufacturing, can copy the optics without also sacrificing quality. That means if the French parts run out, production of the Sosna-U could become much more difficult.
It could happen. It is not without reason that Uralvagonzavod installs older 1PN96MT-02 sights with a nondescript two-mile range on many of the revised T-72s. The company previously added the 1PN96MT-02 to some of the T-62s it sent to the wreck in Ukraine.
Tragically for Russian crews, the 1PN96MT-02 could also be phased out. The latest version of the old-fashioned visor could also include foreign components that may have limited availability in Russia.
So if the T-72B3 Obr. 2022 is an overhauled, surplus T-72 with a Sosna-U sight and a T-72B1 Obr. 2022 is the same base tank but with a less capable 1PN96MT-02 sight, what would you call the next early T-72 surplus model – one with even worse optics?
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