Russia is probably being forced to make these conversions for reasons that go beyond their problems making new tanks like the T-90. The M-60 really has no place on a modern battlefield. Its armor dates back to the 1950s-60s, and its gun is the U-5TS 115mm smooth-bore cannon. Cannon manufacturing is a pretty complex process and it is most likely that Russia can no longer produce the guns and turrets for T-62s anymore, so they are using turrets from T-80s with their new gun. Ammunition stocks for the old gun are ancient and may be more dangerous to the crew than their target.
The T-62’s gun was not gyro-stabilized so it had to shoot from a stopped position and the barrel itself had to be lowered to be in train with the breach before a new round could be loaded. The very best crews could shoot 8 rounds a minute. In the 1970s NATO tank crews could get off 10 rounds a minute.
The T-62 also carried a crew of four including a loader for the gun, while the T-72 and Russia’s later tanks only carried a crew of three with an auto-loading carousel located inside the tank and turret replacing the loader. The T-62 was a very cramped tank inside for four and by using a newer T-72 or T-80 turret Russia can crew this new hybrid T-62 tank with just 3 men.
They are also trying to add reactive armor to the vehicle and new sights and optics to the gun system.
All of this means additional weight and the T-62 which was derived from the even more ancient T-55 was known for having a weak engine. It won’t be any better with all this additional weight on the chassis.
During the 1st Gulf War, Iraqi T-62s were slaughtered by US Abrams and British Challenger tanks. Certainly crew quality mattered in these battles but it was so lopsided you’d have to turn to the Old Testament to find a fair comparison. Not a single Abrams or Challenger was lost in a battle with a T-62, while the Iraqis lost more than 100 tanks in one tank division alone.
We imagine these tanks would be sent to the conscript units the Russians are cobbling together in Donestk and Luhansk as losses to regular Russian units would get priority in terms of replacements in newer equipment.
Ukrainian T-72s and the 250 T-72m’s from Poland are vastly superior, especially the Polish T-72m1 which has thermal optics, night vision, and digital communications. As we’ve previously reported, this allows the Ukrainians to fight at night, something the Russians are not equipped to do. Those thermal optics at allow Ukrainian armored elements to see ambushes at a distance and engage them in day or night conditions. As the weather gets colder, the thermal optics work even better in spotting the contrast between warm and cold on the ground.
The bigger story is the lengths Russia is forced to go to in solving its production problems in equipping its army in the field. Pulling tanks out of boneyards and slapping new turrets on them is not the first option of modern armies, it is a last resort measure.
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