Why Russians Squirm Inside the T-72B3 and Abandon Them on Battlefield so Often

Units of the Ukrainian 59th Motorized Brigade, which has been on consistent rotation fighting in the Battle of Bakhmut, recorded the footage of a loitering munition drone flying directly into the gunner's hatch, ensuring that the MBT couldn't be recovered by Russian forces and returned to service. A video shared on social media Friday morning highlighted the destruction of a Russian T-72B3 main battle tank, MBT, which had been abandoned on the battlefield near Avdiivka in the Donetsk Oblast. Units of the Ukrainian 59th Motorized Brigade, which has been on consistent rotation fighting in the Battle of Bakhmut, recorded the footage of a loitering munition drone flying directly into the gunner's hatch, ensuring that the MBT couldn't be recovered by Russian forces and returned to service. Another video showed the ordnance striking the tank, which is then seen burning. At the end of the 45-second long clip, which was shared by Ukraine Weapons Tracker at UA Weapons, the T-72B3's hull had been blown off, likely the result of the ammunition stored within the turret cooking off and causing the so-called jack-in-the-box effect. That issue had been first observed by Western militaries during the Gulf War against Iraq in 1991 and again during operational Iraqi freedom in 2003 when large numbers of Baghdad's Russian-made T-72 MBTs suffered the same fate. Scratch one more Russian MBT. Though the video didn't identify the type of weapon used, it was likely a switchblade, the loitering munitions that have also become known as kamikaze drones. The Small Unmanned Aerial System, UAS, is essentially a compact one-and-done weapon that carries its own warhead. Small enough to be carried in a soldier's rucksack, it can be deployed on the battlefield in minutes. The small drone can fly towards an enemy position, loiter overhead, and then strike if an opportunity presents itself. If no viable target is located, the switchblade can return to the operator. Targeting is accomplished by GPS, but it can also be manually controlled. The smaller Switchblade 300 is meant for anti-personnel attacks, while the larger Switchblade 600, which weighs around 50 pounds including internal ordnance, can be used against tanks, armored vehicles, truck convoys, and artillery nests. The larger 600 model can attack targets 24 miles away, while it has a loiter time of about 40 minutes. In the video shared on Friday, the loitering munition drone was successfully used to destroy a Russian T-72B3 MBT, an upgraded model of the Cold War-era T-72. During the war, the Russian invaders lost at least 250 T-72B3 tanks of both newer, 2011, and older, 2016, variants, and at least 100 out of these became trophies for the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The reasons why the occupiers so often abandoned their T-72B3 on the battlefield are quite simple, poor training of the crews, and structural defects of the tanks themselves. The issues with the T-72B3 were highlighted by Mykola Salomaka, a military expert and reserve lieutenant colonel of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. This was another topic discussed at his interview with Serhii Zurits, the director of the Defense Express Information and Consulting Agency, during a joint project of Defense Express and the Espresso TV channel. In particular, as Salomaka says, during the development of the T-72B3 2016 model, the Russians managed to increase the mobility and protection of this vehicle, but on the other hand, they could not change the layout of the tower so as not to weaken the protection from above. Thus, instead of the old TPN one-night site to the left of the main site, they installed the Belarusian-French Sosniy-U. Although Sosniy-U is a good site, it is placed so badly that the gunner in the tank constantly has to be in an uncomfortable position and look back sometimes to observe the battlefield. Consequently, the spine and neck muscles are tense all the time. Another important technological nuance, the 1A40 main site on the T-72B3 tank is analog, but the Sosniy-U is digital. You cannot switch on both of these sites at the same time because they begin to interfere with each other and in that case the T-72B3 essentially loses its ability to function as a combat vehicle. Russian defense industry designers made the T-72B3 of the 2016 model the way which can be only described by the phrase, woe from wit. That is, the vehicle is quite difficult to use in real. At the same time, commanders of lower-ranking tank units did not properly train their subordinates. That is why, for example, in none of the abandoned T-72B3 Ukrainian soldiers found any technical documents on how to control the combat vehicle, although it is impossible to keep all the knowledge for controlling this tank in one's head. Last but not least, while the T-72B3 can fire only two aimed shots in 20-25 seconds of combat, its rivals such as the T-64BV or T-80 can fire three shots each. The combination of these factors led to the fact that Russian occupiers simply left their T-72B3s behind on Ukrainian battlefields at the first opportunity. From time to time, videos are published on the internet how our military, with the help of a bomb from an unmanned aerial vehicle or other means, finishes the equipment of the Russian occupation army which the Russians threw right on the battlefield, fleeing from the blows of our military. And often under such videos you can see comments like why risk a drone, waste ammunition, etc. when you can get it later or something like that. In fact, there is a fairly simple and obvious answer to such a thesis if it is unrealistic to take away the equipment due to intense combat operations or for other reasons, then it is still better to destroy it or at least damage it, because there is a great risk that the enemy will eventually be able to take this equipment and throw it into battle again or send it for repair. A clear example can be a recent video of the security service of Ukraine with the work of special forces who in five days registered dozens of damaged targets to tanks, BMPs, dugouts with infantry, warehouses with ammunition, etc. Among the targets, in particular, were the IMR-2M engineering vehicle, T-72 tanks of various versions, BMP-2, etc. And this technique was precisely abandoned by the Russian army near Vogladar in Donetsk region. An Ukraine weapons tracker drew attention to this interesting fact that the Russians abandoned these vehicles at the beginning of February, but since then one T-72B3 tank and another BMP-2 have disappeared from all the equipment they were probably taking back Russia's, and later SBU fighters decided that it would be better to finish off this equipment than to allow the occupiers to take even more cars. Russians say they have tanks better than M1A2 Abrams Russian media started actively sharing a message that their modernized T-62M tanks are no worse than the Challenger 2, Leopard 2, or Abrams, and in fact, they say, outperform on the battlefield the western tanks supplied to Ukraine. The bold statement comes amidst the news of Russians starting to take their old T-54 and T-55 MBTs out of long-term storage. The original source writing about the advantages of the modernized T-62M was the military watch magazine. The article was titled, Russia's new T-62 tank variant built for 21st century engagements, will it be effective in Ukraine? The main argument supporting the idea of T-62 superiority was that the T-62M was adopted by the military in the early 1980s with integrated upgrades to prepare them, the T-62M tanks, for the XXI century warfare. Then, the Leopard 2 and Abrams that Ukraine is receiving from its allies and partners belong to the late 1970s and early 1980s. Though we should note, even if we compare the tanks just by the years of production, we must take into account that the Leopard 2A4 were produced from 1985 to 1992, and these tanks have digital fire control systems, thermal imagers, and all the other features that make them a modern era MBT. Moreover, the 2A6 version that is currently being delivered to Ukraine appeared in 2001. The same goes for the Abrams that is present in a variety of modern variants. Actually, while singing T-62's praises and stating the advantages over western tanks, the authors offer not to use the T-62M against them, the T-62M tanks were generally used to support the infantry on the Ukrainian battlefield, not for fighting other tanks. And again, there was a staged video featuring Russians already preparing to fight the western tanks with their advanced T-90M tanks and looking for vulnerabilities on the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2A4. The media was especially complimenting the 1PN96MT-02 thermal sight on the T-62M. Although the only advantage they mentioned was its nighttime target detection range of 2,000m. Worth noting, this very sight was chosen for the T-80BVM tanks, then for the T-72B3 of the 2022 edition because of the lack of much better Sosnyu sights, and this replacement can hardly be deemed as an upgrade. Generally speaking, it is not the first time the Russians tried to convince themselves that their T-62M is a wonder-waff with outstanding capabilities and performance on a par with much more modern tanks. In the meantime, according to Oryx, the Russians have lost at least 73 T-62 tanks in variations. Thank you for tuning in to our video. You can click the like to support our TDTV global team and hit that subscribe button now for more great content. We'll catch you at the next one!