Croatian media reported October 28 that Zagreb has agreed on a so-called Ring Exchange agreement with Germany that frees 30 M-84 main battle tanks for Ukraine, which are basically Yugoslav license copies of the Soviet T-72M1.
Worth noting, the possibility of such an exchange, although involving Slovenia, not Croatia, has been discussed since as early as April 2022; however, due to various reasons, this option was never implemented. Instead, Slovenia gifted 28 of its older M-55S tanks to Ukrainian forces, holding on to M-84s.
Read more: Croatia Provides Ukraine with 30 M-84 Tanks and IFVs in Exchange Deal for 50 Leopard 2A8 Tanks from Germany
As a development of T-72M1, the M-84 has a few differences from the baseline version, the main ones outlined by the armor-themed btvt.info web resource. The M-84 of former Yugoslavia has a finer fire control system and overall was created in conditions of better production culture.
Soviet T-72 in particular by the better culture of the production of the machine itself, and by orders of magnitude more perfect fire control system.
The thing is, Yugoslavia's electronics manufacture was head and shoulders above the USSR's, as a result the tank got the DNNS-2 sighting system that has day and night operation modes and is stabilized in two planes.
Interestingly, despite having more versatility, DNNS-2 is much more compact than the Soviet TPD-K1 sight. The quality of the imagery provided by the DNNS-2 instaled on an M-84 even in the basic version without additional modernization, is presented in the picture below.
Another notable detail is that in the times of Yugoslavia, the final assembly of M-84 tanks took place at the Đuro Đaković factory in the Croatian city of Slavonski Brod. Therefore, it's only natural that Croatia has retained the ability to properly maintain and modernize its M-84s after the country's breakup in the 1990s.
Defense Express points out that, as a modernized variant of the T-72, well familiar to Ukraine's military, the M-84 is a very appealing addition to Ukraine's tank zoo where American Abrams, and German Leopard share hangars with Soviet-type MBTs and their modernizations. Especially so given the M-84's equipment superiority.
With that in mind, there are still many more M-84s remaining across the globe, waiting to be ring-exchanged. The list of potential donors of M-84 tanks, according to The Military Balance 2024, includes:
- Croatia – 74 more units;
- Slovenia – 14 units in service for training purposes + 32 in storage;
- Kuwait – 75 units in service + 75 in storage.
Meanwhile, Serbia technically is the richest holder of M-84 type tanks, with 229 units at its disposal, but this country's policy forbids direct weapons transfers to Ukraine.
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