Uralvagonzavod company announced about handing over a "large batch" of modernized T-80BVM tanks to russia’s Ministry of Defense as part of the state defense order for 2022. These tanks are distinguished by allegedly improved level of crew protection.
The russians claim that these tanks have already passed all the necessary tests. Of course, it will take some time for these T-80BVMs to go directly to the combat units of the russian army. However, the very fact of the transfer of these tanks shows that the russian military defense system is still capable of modernizing old Soviet tanks even being under Western sanctions, writes the Army Recognition portal.
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According to the official photo, Uralvagonzavod handed over a maximum of a company set of T-80BVMs to the russian military. Nevertheless, Defense Express won’t rule out that these seven tanks in the photo are actually all that the plant managed to achieve in terms of modernization of Soviet tanks in 2022.
One of the features of the T-80BVM is еру Sosna-U sight, which was manufactured using matrices from the French company Thales. But it is also worth remembering that the Sosna-U sight is also used on another significant russia’s tank – the T-72B3. According to open sources data, in "peacetime" conditions the russian army used to receive up to 50 units of T-80BVM and up to 170 units of T-72B3 every year. Accordingly, these tanks needed a stock of 200-250 matrices to manufacture Sosna-U sights.
Obviously, in the conditions of the full-scale war against Ukraine and due to Western sanctions, the russian defense industry does not have such stock of 200-250 Sosna-U matrices and sights to withstand the pace of production before 24.02.22. Where russians take the matrices from is already of secondary importance (either old stocks, smuggling or industrial espionage).
Russians had to make a choice in these conditions and it looks the following: the russian defense industry will continue separate deliveries of T-80BVMs to military units of the russian army. Instead, the T-72B3 modernization program followed the famousrussian ship.
In one of the publications, Defense Express noted that the Kremlin propagandists began to give out the following instructions: they say that the archaic T-62s should be put back to starage bases, and the russian defense industry should focus on the production of a single model, namely the T-72B3 , T-80BVM or T-90M.
When resources became extremely scarce, Hitler's Germany in December 1944 to March 1945 began to produce simplified versions of the Pz IV and Pz III tanks, and refused from complex models such as the Panther, Tiger and Tiger II. Their followers in 2022 went the other way: their mobs will simply ride on de-canned and bald T-72s.
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