Sanctions Have Russia Building Frankenstein Tanks

Tank factory 103 in Chita Russia is said to be “modernizing” 800 T-62 tanks over the next 3 years.

A local Russian news station in Chita Russia posted a video on YouTube, stating that Duma member Andrei Gurulev had visited the plant where the modernization effort would take place,

“Returned to Zabaykalsky Krai, where I inspected the 103rd Armored Repair Plant in Atamanovka, near Chita. The plant is fully set with contracts for the next 3 years; [they will be making] 800 tanks during this time — it’s a very large order. The plant works in two shifts, is ready to work in three, and we must help with this,” said Gurulev.

The video of the plant suggests its own equipment could use some modernizing of its own. Most of the high-tech gear looks more than 20 years old.

So, what is Russia trying to do here?

To us, it looks like they are scraping the bottom of the barrel and bringing up splinters with every scoop. Here are our thoughts.

First, we’ve reported previously that Russia can’t replace its tanks with modern equipment.  We knew this because the numerous photos and videos of older T-72s and newer T-80s being destroyed were not being replaced with T-80s and the most up to date T-90s.  The tanks they sent as replacements got older and older as the months wore on.  Economic sanctions had bitten deeply into Russia’s industrial base and it could not obtain the micro-chips to make its more modern tanks and fighting vehicles.

Their apparent “solution” is to try and upgrade a vast boneyard inventory of T-62 tanks left over from the early days of the Cold War.  Try to Imagine the US doing this with the old M-60 Tanks.

Actually, you don’t have to imagine it. General Dynamics did make a prototype of an M-60 with an M1 Abrams turret in 1990 called it the M-60/2000. It was meant as a cheap alternative to foreign countries that wanted a tank force and either could not afford the M1 Abrams or were not cleared to buy it by the US State Department.  It was ready for sale as a kind of do-it-your-self kit for countries with the industrial capacity to take M-60s hulls and drive gear and mount the Abrams turret on it.

They didn’t sell any of them to anybody and dismantled the prototype returning the borrowed M-60 hull and M1 turret back to the army.

This T-62 conversion reminds us of this failed effort.

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.