The T-80s future in the Russian Army

Btw I doubt very much that they would restart T-80 production. They will more likely upgrade what is in reserve to the T-80BVM standard.

Have to say I agree with that... it makes sense to upgrade those vehicles in storage and use those than produce brand new vehicles for this conflict that would in any case likely be put back into storage after it is over.

Building new T-90s makes sense because they are still in production and can be put into storage when this gets sorted, and of course taking T-72s and T-62s and T-80s out of storage and using them makes sense too... you store them so you have them available to use when you need them... if you are not going to take them out of storage and upgrade them and put them into use then what are you storing them for?

This should eradicate the CFE BS and mean Russia can build as many tanks as it wants... it is talking about reviving the 2S18 152mm gun based on the BMP-3 chassis... and this reminded me... it was cancelled because the definition of the vehicles for tanks and BMPs meant a BMP-3 with a 152mm gun would be counted as a tank so they cancelled it so they could have more tanks.

Some sort of rapid deployed arm or spade that helps deal with the recoil should not be that complex to allow such a light vehicle fire such a powerful gun.

Mir wrote:
That is interesting but it may just be that the above image may be confused with this US State Department picture from 1983 depicting the modified T-72A tank that got the nickname "Dolly Parton". Not a very clear picture I must admit but I believe I have a rare good quality colour picture of what I believe may just be the real "Dolly Parton". This T72A clearly has the thicker turret armour compared to previous models.

Look at these boobies!

Compared to these kwartz turrets

BTW the late production T-72A did feature a a turret similar to the brand new T72B, but as far as I know very few were built and all were converted to T72B's when they fitted Kontakt-1 ERA.

The tank you are referring to was revealed on 69th Revolution Anniversary parade in 1986.
But it was not T-72B yet. It was referred as "improved T-72A" in Soviet materials.
It is practically impossible to distinguish both, the only clear hint MIGHT be the arrangement of Tucha system.
Obyekt 172M-1 used 902A, while obyekt 184 - 902B with reduced and rearranged positioning of the system awaiting installment of Kontakt-1 package.
As you said, the first is a rare bird suggesting that not many of those have been made, but it is kind of clear thing considering the timetable.

My point is that all the changes in armor package used to be applied on a continuous cycle of natural evolution, for three different tank lines, in three different tank hubs. Some solutions has been used on pair, like monolithic steel casted turrets and kvarz ones, where the kvarz one was slightly thicker.
It is almost impossible to determine some aspects, even now.
For example till now, "quartz" inserts combination is classified.
Everyone in the west tested intensively T-72, that includes US, Germans, Swedes, UK and the French - yet nobody public those data.
Some things cleared only because Poland had a T-72 production line on pair with the Soviets, and produced its own T-72, 72M and 72M1, being respectively obyekt 172, 172M and 172M-1.
Łabędy never mastered new turrets with open cavities and NERA, but they did mastered "kvarz" ones.
Where you can find the data?
Well ... reading the materials provided by the Technical University of Silesia.
They made an article about casting technology revealing that ceramic used is made of quartz sand, aluminum oxide, and titanium dioxide. The binding material was .. clay, and some graphite was added to the mixture, too.
What you get at the end, is a sintered quartz block melted at 1200 deg., looking like this :



Here it is in a cut-open turret, on the right, while on the left it is a monolithic part.



Even the casting technology was covered with some myths, and revealed only because taking out the secrecy stamp in Poland - preformed kvartz blocks were stabilized in the mold using steel bars sticking out of the ready turret main element, and cut after that.
Here you have the markings of it :



And one more interesting thing :



Those are ready for assembling frontal hull plates of PT-91A.

See any steel sheets or glass textolite or STB?

Yeah, me neither

Just a correction on the "Dolly Parton". Initially the tank's NAtzo designation was T-74 and as the T-80 in the US

There is one more thing coming to my mind as I think about that.
T-80 case is, that those tanks were mass produced in the 80s, being relatively new when the SU broke up.
It ended up with a situation when due to lack of money, tanks have been taken out of line because of the engine malfunctions/end of resurse.
Russia didn't bother with that, just putting those at storage bases.
The end effect was that there are thousands of tanks - probably more than T-72Bs - that retained relatively good technical parameters and are not worn out as "only" the engines are.
Russkie have now the potential of serial and mass refurbishing of those engines, which means a huge reservoir of tanks ready for modernization/mid life repair.

Here in Germany the propaganda talks about Russia buying old T-54/-55 tanks from NK. 

How can they breath in that f...ing bubble? 

Hole wrote:Here in Germany the propaganda talks about Russia buying old T-54/-55 tanks from NK. 

How can they breath in that f...ing bubble? 

Whatever

What bullshit they feed to their own people doesn't change a single fact on the ground. Ukronazis will keep getting wasted, NATO equipment will keep getting melted down.

Hole wrote:Here in Germany the propaganda talks about Russia buying old T-54/-55 tanks from NK. 

How can they breath in that f...ing bubble? 

They need some mental anchor for Leopard 1 I guess

Ukronazis will keep getting wasted, NATO equipment will keep getting melted down. LIKE5DISLIKE wrote:

NATO still has a lot of equipment. People will be a problem for Ukraine.

NATzo has minimal reserves - not to mention the dwindling numbers of equipment in active service.
The US is perhaps the only exception but even their numbers is not sustainable. On the other hand Russia...

Having old armored vehicles standing around for years in some depot doesn´t mean that you can use them instantly.
They need to be refurbished first or things will end badly. That is where Russia beats the west by a wide margin. 
Western countries need months and months (even years?) to bring back some old tanks or AIFVs.

The sole relatively big park of old vehicles NATO can provide is L1.
With slightly less than 5000 produced in total.
T-55 was produced in around 100k.
T-62 was produced in more than 20k.

European L1 operators have been selling them for the last 25 years, and most of the deals were signed with South America - Brazil, Chile and Ecuador combined purchased some 500 pcs.
What is left, is a junk that requires intensive modernization/repair program .We can see the scale of it - in the last half a year, a whole 10 pcs has been refurbished. The question remains about the cost of this procedure carried in Europe. I guess you can have a brand new T-90M with that money

Oh yeah, we need even more propaganda bullshit to cover that.
All 5th columnists hands on board, your incel nafo fellas need some strong dick massage.

Arrow wrote:

NATO still has a lot of equipment.  People will be a problem for Ukraine.

People in the Ukraine will get tired of being used as cannon fodder as a result of their leaders' decision to make their nation into a kamikaze test-pilot to be used by NATO against Russia while the NATO populations themselves recline back and chill

One link or other in the chain will break and I suspect the Ukrainian population themselves will be first. Maybe that's wishful thinking but it's what I do hope for. If we end up having to wait for NATO equipment or money to run out - that will certainly happen too; Russia + its friends can outproduce and outperform NATO's industries and economies - the US and pals haven't thought this one through either.

Hole wrote:Here in Germany the propaganda talks about Russia buying old T-54/-55 tanks from NK. 

How can they breath in that f...ing bubble? 

Probably they say that to distract people from the fact that old, scrapped Leopard 1 tanks was supplied to the Maidan regime.

Just imagine if this thing happened during the 90's when Russia was at it's most vulnerable.
Back the NATzo had access to a wealth of NVA equipment that could have been fed into this war for many years.
Fortunately they sold off most of it for a couple of pennies and the rest was scrapped and cut to pieces.

The NVA had over 2300 tanks that included 500+ T-72's. IFV's and APC numbered over 6500 and nearly 2500 artillery pieces.

In many ways it is good that the west are a bunch of greedy Bstrds because they could have taken Putin up on his offer for partnership and Russia could have been part of the EU and probably HATO, but I don't think Russia would have been happy as part of HATO and the EU because that would require they do as they were told by Brussels and Washington as well as Germany and France and the UK... it simply wouldn't work.

Europeans are clearly trained to behave and do as they are told, but Russians no so much.

This concept of putting the T-80 back into production is bonkers. And the idea it reduces the issues with supply of parts because of different supply base is also misguided in my view.
It is one thing to modernize tanks, quite another to make new ones.

As for the claims of lack of suitability of the Armata's engine. The truth is the X engine passed Soviet trials. It only lacks in lifetime against more modern engines. But it itself can be modernized as well if it came to it.

The tank engine "issue" is pure inanity. Are these clowns expecting 500,000 km of no-maintenance performance in a freaking tank?
They need to lay off the crack. This engine will be the last item on the maintenance list and Russia has the industrial capacity to
produce new ones to replace the old ones in fast and easy swaps. Underneath all the "analysis" of Russia is basic chauvinist BS about
how Russia is a 3rd rate country living off a rotting Soviet legacy. The only thing rotting here is the brains of these "analysts".

lancelot wrote:This concept of putting the T-80 back into production is bonkers. And the idea it reduces the issues with supply of parts because of different supply base is also misguided in my view.
It is one thing to modernize tanks, quite another to make new ones.

But to modernize old ones, you need to reestablish a stable supply of components.
Those tanks are not being cannibalized, and 4 used to make 1 at the end, assembled with still usable parts.
All the transmission, engine, hydraulics, cabling etc is brand new. Take a look at 72B3 production process at UVZ.
This stuff must be produced because I highly doubt if there is a spare parts stock huge enough to handle that.
Plus if you end up with some four-digit number of tanks in ranks after, part will be needed, again, to use them for the next 30 years.
That is why I won't reject the idea of restarting a full cycle production. They will simply have the production of the components running anyway.

What makes me wonder, is the status of T-64.
Russkie should have some 5-6 thousand of those in storage, out of 13k produced. Most of them were kept in Ukraine anyway, and the bizarre engine makes the thing not easier, but ... they will soon have the production lines in Charkov. Its shape is probably miserable, but maybe there is a chance that engine production line is OK. Even Ukrs had to repair their tanks ...

Honestly I don't think it really makes much sense to put brand new scratch built T-80s back into production... but it really does make sense to give a full zero hour overhaul and upgrade of the T-80s they have in storage... getting them up to a very modern standard will make them very useful and very powerful vehicles that could be sent to any front line anywhere and be useful.

Upgrading everything and hopefully putting on APS systems would be a valuable experience and be an efficient use of available resources and would bring a large force of useful vehicles into operational service over the next few years.

It uses a standard calibre gun and systems and equipment should be modern now too.

If they have them in storage then use them.

In many ways this is an aggressive clean out by the US of ex Soviet weapons and equipment from former Warsaw Pact countries and allies, and the result will be empty storage sites ready to buy brand new and very expensive modern weapons and ammo to restock the western arsenal.

For Russia it is a chance to use old stock vehicles that are worth using and using up old stock ammo some of which might be getting a bit dangerous so using it or destroying it would make a lot of sense.

When the conflicts end then vehicles can go back into storage but with widespread upgrades that make them rather more capable without making them a lot more expensive than necessary and new kit will have been tested and evaluated and the stuff that gets approved can be incorporated into upgrades too.

Some sort of mast mounted optics package for the T-80 and some sort of tethered drone system could be tested and used... we have seen how Russian troops use drones to spot targets for direct fire engagements from tanks and BMPS and BMPTs etc etc.

Such upgrades can massively improve the performance and effectiveness of even older tanks.

I suspect the T-80s in storage as well as the T-72s and the new build T-90s and of course the T-14/K-14/B-14 and also Sprut vehicles means tanks in Russia are looking very healthy and with no availability problems or shortages.

A huge burden on supply systems are the small parts, like screws and bolts and so on.
They are mostly the same on the T-72, T-80 and even the T-64.

flamming_python wrote:People in the Ukraine will get tired of being used as cannon fodder as a result of their leaders'

Not in years at least. There is certain deathcultism among those who are left in Ukraine. People themselves are asking civil services to be stopped and money to be diverted to army instead.
Real consequences of whole empty towns still didn’t hit them.

Interesting.

https://t.me/WalkingDustSW/1086

Hole wrote:A huge burden on supply systems are the small parts, like screws and bolts and so on.
They are mostly the same on the T-72, T-80 and even the T-64.

Sure, but you cant make a tank with screws only.
Some pics from UVZ showing the scope of work shows us for example intervention in carousel mount. Which is logical as it must hold new longer rounds. To make it happen, ammunition computer must be replaced, too. Along with the carousel rotation mechanism that is located on the bottom. And the electric switch ...
Which means, all that elements must have been produced to be replaced.
T-80BVM goes through the very same process, and I suppose they are using same parts and methods just to save time and money.

As they mastered 80BVM modernization, it means they had to reopen gas turbines production, or a full cycle restoration. So they can make new turbines.

Do you see my conclusions? They will end up with existing production lines, that will have to be kept alive for the next 30 years. Those newly refurbished tanks will stay in ranks till the 2050s.

Sending T-80UD from the storage means one thing only - they will refurbish them, too.
As a whole fleet of 80UD left in Russia was about 200 pcs, I hardly believe they would worry about such a homeopathic number. But that would mean that they are taking seriously the 6TD-1 restoration, and that is only a step from increasing the potential to rebuild ... T-64.
This decision would increase the reserves of tanks to be produced ... by some 30%. We talk a few thousand pieces.

I guess this is what they are going for.

The question was if bringing back the T-80 in huge numbers will complicate the logistic chain.
Some of the main components (gun, electronics) are the same, just as the small parts that need
replacement the most, like all those screws and bolts that keep the tanks together. Main issues
are the engines (including transition and so on), the autoloaders and the roadwheels. But even
the roadwheels could be standardised. If they want to keep some T-64 the engine could be replaced
with that of the T-72 series.

A few years ago, Bumar presented a tank with PT-17 marking.
It used 6TD-2 engine and assisting transmission.
So in theory, T-722 based hull can do that.