As we can see in a recently published video, russian armed forces actively use railways in occupied Crimea to transfer its units and military equipment in particular.
Among all kinds of vehicles we can spot five T-62 tanks, and it seems like russians chose not to weld additional "protective cages", which received the nickname of "barbecue grills" in Ukraine and proved totally ineffective against ATGMs. Instead, they equipped these tanks with modules of explosive reactive armor.
Read more: Russians Complain that the US Specialists Will Learn All the Secrets of Their Latest T-90M Proryv
In some way, it is definitely a step forward in terms of durability, but still far from the "serial" version of the ERA-protected T-62M showcased at the "Army-2022" forum in russia.
Defense Express already took a closer look at this tank modernization in an earlier article. In fact, all it took to modernize the T-62 was to set up ERA modules and anti-cumulative slat armor on the sides of the tank, and install a gyro-stabilized optical/thermal imagery system on the mast.
If it was really worth the effort is dubious, since russians already have another, more advanced, T-62MV modernization. But it turns out russians in general cannot come up with some "unified" way to improve the protection of their Khrushchev-era tanks.
Anyway, we should look at the picture as a whole: on the platforms of an echelon in the video, we can see up to 10 BMP fighting vehicles, two T-80 with manually attached dynamic protection modules and the aforementioned five T-62 tanks.
Such a set of military equipment matches the one used by some "weakened" battalion-tactical group of russian forces, which is equipped with basically the last leftovers remaining at reserve bases. Which means, russian army needs to take the last bits of machinery to somehow replenish the losses they suffered fighting against the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
So it seems russians are now sending everything that still can move and shoot. This fact also supports the idea that russian army has decided to concentrate on the defense of the "corridor to Crimea" through southern Ukraine.
Read more: Armiya-2022: russia’s T-62M Tank Latest Modernization Close-Up Look (Photo)
