Ukrainian tanks may be superior to Russian – let’s not have to confirm

The Russian army has amassed about 1,200 tanks near the border with Ukraine, preparing for a possible invasion. Among them, the modern T-90s and the upgraded T-72s.

On the other side of the border, the Ukrainian army has set up a line of defense by mobilizing its own armor. Kiev has more or less the same tank models as Moscow, but its best chariot (an upgraded T-64) is exclusively Ukrainian.

According to the Soviet doctrine – followed by both the Russian and Ukrainian armies – “tank by tank rarely fights”. If and when Russia invades, setting off a seven-year stalemate in eastern Ukraine, the tanks will be the “key” to the outcome of the conflict, as they will “pave” the battlefield to carry out its destructive work Artillery.

The T-64BV, the most common type of tank in the ranks of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and, consequently, Kiev’s approach to the supply of tanks, will be tested for a possible conflict.

The T-64 is a unique Cold War creation. Designed by the Kharkiv Armored Plant in Ukraine, the 40-tonne T-55 and T-62 was a dramatic development when it appeared in the mid-1960s.

It was upgraded to many levels. Among other things: it had a new diesel engine, while it replaced the human factor with an automatic device that fed the projectiles to the barrel, reducing the total crew of the chariot to three soldiers and saving weight.

This model was the first Soviet tank with the – today established – smooth-bore 125 mm caliber cannon, which in the upgraded T-64B has the ability to fire with a guided missile.

The Soviets never exported the T-64. They preferred to sell the cheapest and simplest T-55, T-62 and T-72. In the last decades of the Cold War, thousands of T-64s were equipped by Soviet armies, preparing for an “epic chariot battle” against American M-1s, German Leopards, and British Challengers.

The T-64 was what it needed – and more – for its mission. “This chariot had more advanced capabilities than the NATO armor of the time and the next 15-16 years,” US Army Major General James Warford said in a dissertation published in 1992.

The T-80, an improved T-64 with advanced armor and gas turbine instead of diesel engine, appeared in the mid-1970s. In 1991, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Ukraine inherited hundreds of T-64s and the factory that made them.

Russia, for its part, kept thousands of T-64s and T-80s, but over time their numbers dwindled. Today, the Russian military has withdrawn most variants of the T-64 models. The T-72s, easier to build and maintain, have taken the lion’s share. The latest variant of the T-72, the T-90, borrows some of the best features of the T-80, such as the composite armor, but retains the basic automation systems of the T-72.

In short, Ukraine, as if by mistake in history, was found to possess the most complex and advanced type of armor, while the far more powerful and prosperous Russia “fell” into the less advanced – but more practical – chariot.

At first, Kiev had difficulty maintaining and upgrading the T-64s. It was in 1999 that he began to modernize the T-64BM, built in 1983. The resulting T-64BM Bulat has better reactive armor, a new cannon and a night shot “made in Ukraine”.

Bulat production was slow. When Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 and then backed anti-government separatists in Donbass, the Ukrainian army went into battle mostly with the older 1985 T-64BV “vintage” models, with less than 100 Bulat.

The war was devastating for Ukraine’s armor. Last year, the military revealed that – from April 2014 to June 2016 – 440 Ukrainian tanks were completely destroyed or damaged in Donbas. Behind this crash is the Artillery – with its rockets and mortars.

Anticipating the possibility of a direct military confrontation with Moscow, in 2017 Kiev was seriously concerned with upgrading the chariots that had “survived”. The Kharkiv plant has started production of the T-64BV mod 2017 with improved night-vision shooting, satellite navigation systems, new radios and enhanced reactive shielding. In 2019 a second plant, in Lviv, began producing the new variant of the T-64.

Today, the Ukrainian armor consists of 410 old T-64BV, 210 T-64BV mod 2017, 100 T-64BM Bulat and about 130 T-72. An additional thousand tanks are in storage.

The upgraded T-64s are – in theory – technologically superior to most Russian tanks. It is futile, however, to compare armor with one another, since it is rather unlikely that they will meet face to face on the battlefield.

Tanks are tools for military operations of a more complex scale, with the participation of other Corps. Battalions that maneuver or move in parallel with the infantry, to open the way to the Artillery that supports them in the rear. On the battlefield, planning, training, leadership skills and discipline are more important than the sophisticated capabilities of any military equipment.

Given this, the question is: how effective would the Ukrainian T-64s be in a large-scale military operation, with their crews under enormous pressure? – consequently, how would they respond to a total military conflict with the – by far – largest Russian army, which has more, but not so advanced, tanks?

Hopefully we will never know the answer.

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