Desperate to upgrade the dozens of tanks it loses each month in its wider war against Ukraine, and equally desperate to give the upgrade tanks a chance for their first encounter with Ukrainian forces, Russia is taking flight with its 60-year-old T-62. Tanks. out of the garage for the long term and accumulating additional armor on most of their metal hulls and turrets.
The problem, for the four-person crews of those old tanks, is that the Kremlin is rarely scaling up the T-62’s 620-horsepower engines. A full set of additional explosive reactive armor weighs up to 3 tons. All that extra weight makes a slow T-62 even slower.
A photo circulated online Sunday shows a heavily modified T-62MV — a 1980s upgrade of the 1960s tank that still disappeared from Russian service after 2008 — dressed in the same reactive explosive armor that protects the more modern T-90s. The Kremlin began reviving old T-62s last year when its losses of trendy tanks amounted to 1,000 vehicles.
With the ERA and a modern 1PN96MT-02 gunner’s sight for its 115-millimeter main gun, this T-62 will be the most upgraded T-62. Call it T-62MV Obr. 2023.
The problem, of course, is that the T-62MV’s diesel engine produces 620 horsepower. Considering that a T-62MV with 3 tons of ERA can weigh only forty-five tons or more, its power-to-weight ratio is less than 14 horsepower per ton. A T-90M produces 26 horsepower per ton; One of the U. S. -made M-1A1s in Ukraine produces 22 horsepower per ton.
A well-fitted layer of explosive reactive armor, which explodes outward when struck in order to deflect an incoming blast, in essence doubles a tank’s protection from certain kinds of high-explosive rounds.
But in the case of the T-62MV Obr. In 2023, this additional coverage will be made at the expense of mobility. The T-62 has never been an active tank. Now it’s even less agile.
It’s important. The Russian and Ukrainian armed forces deploy tanks for small-scale incursions. Examples abound of small groups of tanks from both sides rushing toward enemy positions, firing a few rounds, and then pulling away as enemy missiles and artillery close in.
Western-made tanks, such as the Ukrainian M-1s and the older German Leopard 2s, have the merit of those fast raids because they boast physically powerful transmissions with fast opposite speeds; They don’t want to waste dozens of seconds circling around to escape a zone of destruction at full speed.
In contrast, most Soviet-style tanks have incredibly slow opposites, which can lead to the deaths of their crews in a raid where every moment counts. A T-62 without 3 tons of SCBA can go five miles per hour, compared to an M-1’s sensible top speed of 25 miles per hour in the opposite direction.
With higher ERA, a 2023 T-62MV Obr. 2023 will be even slower.