The T-80s future in the Russian Army

A bit more

RussianDefence.com‏ @Russian_Defence 38m38 minutes ago
Replying to @Russian_Defence

T-80BVM - "deep upgrade" T-80B/BV. Indicative of the Russian army standard upgrade that is to be implemented under the Army-2017 contract.

By looking at the photos it seems they even increased the front hull armor as well!

Relikt everywhere

Compare with the BV, its more impressive upgrade.

PapaDragon wrote:
I just wonder why upgraded T-72 and T-80 don't have remote weapon station for MG like T-90 does?

I think the T-80UD had it. There were T-80UD in Russia post-USSR... at least a small number around Moscow iirc.

T-47 wrote:By looking at the photos it seems they even increased the front hull armor as well!

Its because they use Relict ERA on Hull of this modernized BV, on hull of the T72B3M is just good old K5 ERA...

Because of that it seems that they increased hull armor with new steel plates...this Relict bricks have same shapes as on T90AM proryv3....

PapaDragon wrote:Forgot to add one thing: what about the mileage?

I know T-72s have been used extensively but haven't seen T-80s around much.

Could it be that they are simply in too good of a condition to just be thrown away?

Its as much to do with helping out Omsktransmash financially; they're not doing too well and this order will assure them of a stable financial situation while they diversify and so on.

Reminds a bit of the Burlak turret

Good move by Russia. T-80 has huge potential.



PS. not that I see a T-80 in the above footage

PapaDragon wrote:

KiloGolf wrote:Good move by Russia. T-80 has huge potential.
.................
PS. not that I see a T-80 in the above footage

Here's a pic from Zapad-2017 for your enjoyment:

you're right



Looks amazing

Also, it's likely that some folks in Poland and the Baltics are quite nervous now.
This piece of kit looks serious.

I thought idea was to modernise cca 350 T80s and keep gas turbines on them for service in far North due to turbines advantages in low temp. Not sure how smart is it to pull T80 back to service in numbers, was never my favourite apple in the basket.

Tanks T-80BV in the Kantemirovskaya tank division

According to the Belarusian website www.sb.by, on September 16, 2017, the first phase of the joint Russian-Belarusian strategic exercise "West-2017" was completed at the Osipovichsky training ground (Mogilev region of Belarus). The web resource accompanied this message with interesting photo-report about the actions of the tank battalion of the motorized rifle regiment of the 4th Panzer Division of the Western Military District equipped with T-80BV tanks.

Recall that after the restoration of the 4th Guards Tank Kantemirovskaya division in 2013, the T-80BV tanks were not available for its equipment, and both tank regiments of the division (12th and 13th Guards) are equipped with T-80U tanks.





https://bmpd.livejournal.com/2855984.html

KiloGolf wrote:Good move by Russia. T-80 has huge potential.



PS. not that I see a T-80 in the above footage

Thats Pravda. What did you expect? The commentator even said T-80BVM (or something) was to replace T-72, I mean wtf :/

GarryB wrote:I am not a huge fan of the T-80 simply because of the autoloader design, but it is not bad in terms of armour, plus with NERA and of course a modern APS it is a good solid vehicle.

Of course vulnerable from the sides and rear, but the APS and NERA can help with that, and besides what vehicle is completely safe... we have seen Konkurs defeat abrams tanks, so they are therefore not that bad.

Most importantly they are already paid for...

T-80BV has same armor protection as T-72B or slightly batter. T-80U on other had have much batter armor protection then any T-72B or new modernized T-72B3. Only T-90A have same level of armor protection as T-80U (especial against HEAT, turret protection estimated on T80U is more then 1400mm, with k5, T-72B with K5 only 1000mm)...

Instead they modernized T-80Us, have them less then 1500 in storage they modernized BVs, older tanks then Us....

galicije83 wrote:

GarryB wrote:I am not a huge fan of the T-80 simply because of the autoloader design, but it is not bad in terms of armour, plus with NERA and of course a modern APS it is a good solid vehicle.

Of course vulnerable from the sides and rear, but the APS and NERA can help with that, and besides what vehicle is completely safe... we have seen Konkurs defeat abrams tanks, so they are therefore not that bad.

Most importantly they are already paid for...

T-80BV has same armor protection as T-72B or slightly batter. T-80U on other had have much batter armor protection then any T-72B or new modernized T-72B3. Only T-90A have same level of armor protection as T-80U (especial against HEAT, turret protection estimated on T80U is more then 1400mm, with k5, T-72B with K5 only 1000mm)...

Instead they modernized T-80Us, have them less then 1500 in storage they modernized BVs, older tanks then Us....

My understanding is that only just over 400 T-80U's were produced of which about 250 are still active in the Russian Army. Have you got something to support the 1500 in reserve.

galicije83 wrote:

GarryB wrote:I am not a huge fan of the T-80 simply because of the autoloader design, but it is not bad in terms of armour, plus with NERA and of course a modern APS it is a good solid vehicle.

Of course vulnerable from the sides and rear, but the APS and NERA can help with that, and besides what vehicle is completely safe... we have seen Konkurs defeat abrams tanks, so they are therefore not that bad.

Most importantly they are already paid for...

T-80BV has same armor protection as T-72B or slightly batter. T-80U on other had have much batter armor protection then any T-72B or new modernized T-72B3. Only T-90A have same level of armor protection as T-80U (especial against HEAT, turret protection estimated on T80U is more then 1400mm, with k5, T-72B with K5 only 1000mm)...

Instead they modernized T-80Us, have them less then 1500 in storage they modernized BVs, older tanks then Us....

Us are absurdly expensive to operate and spare parts main production facilities are in Ukraine atm. Canibalisation for spares started a decade ago for those that remained in service anyways.

franco wrote:

galicije83 wrote:

GarryB wrote:I am not a huge fan of the T-80 simply because of the autoloader design, but it is not bad in terms of armour, plus with NERA and of course a modern APS it is a good solid vehicle.

Of course vulnerable from the sides and rear, but the APS and NERA can help with that, and besides what vehicle is completely safe... we have seen Konkurs defeat abrams tanks, so they are therefore not that bad.

Most importantly they are already paid for...

T-80BV has same armor protection as T-72B or slightly batter. T-80U on other had have much batter armor protection then any T-72B or new modernized T-72B3. Only T-90A have same level of armor protection as T-80U (especial against HEAT, turret protection estimated on T80U is more then 1400mm, with k5, T-72B with K5 only 1000mm)...

Instead they modernized T-80Us, have them less then 1500 in storage they modernized BVs, older tanks then Us....

My understanding is that only just over 400 T-80U's were produced of which about 250 are still active in the Russian Army. Have you got something to support the 1500 in reserve.  

I thought i did read somewhere that about 3000 were made in total.

Janes mention about 3,000 reserved tanks of T-80 in Russia. Man, even 1,000 of these upgraded tanks would be awesome.  Now that Russia is going to greatly reduce its recycling of older equipment, may give rise to drastically increasing upgraded equipment to handle current and near future oponents, doing it cheap compared to purchasing brand new.

PapaDragon wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:Janes mention about 3,000 reserved tanks of T-80 in Russia. Man, even 1,000 of these upgraded tanks would be awesome.  Now that Russia is going to greatly reduce its recycling of older equipment, may give rise to drastically increasing upgraded equipment to handle current and near future oponents, doing it cheap compared to purchasing brand new.

Easy there dude, these may be in good condition but are hardly spring chickens even with upgrades in the mix

Upgrade within reason but make sure new stuff comes along ASAP

That will have to be done gradually and in low numbers judging by how the russian economic ministry wants to do things. Although, we know almost nothing on Russian procurement or even budget because numbers are thrown everywhere around with no context, it is safe to assume that they are going to be doing some somewhat cutbacks. IE: Newer weapon systems will be extended in deadline and older equipment modernized. So we will probably see further orders for Su-35S and Su-30, while we will see small orders for PAK FA (12 - 24 per contract) and 100 or so Armata's in a couple of years but massive upgrades to T-80's and T-90's.

T-80BVM, T-90M, T-72B3M are enough to deal with foreign tanks. What Syria and Yemen conflict taught us is that the legendary western tanks viewed as indestructible (Leopard 2), isn't really so. What they have going for them for the longest time was their ability to see in poor conditions first before the other tanks. That has changed now with Russian thermals. Mixed in with newer ERA, these tanks can take a beating. In modern conflict, Tanks least concern is other tanks and mostly air and anti tank capabilities.

what I posted in T-90 thread:

T-90M at front, T-80BVM behind

They should put upgraded Arena on them and offer them to iran, iraq ans syria. Those 3 countries are now in need of such tanks and could buy togather at least 1500 tanks or 2000 easily. Russia could send a lot quickly as they are already produced and nedd just upgrade. Iran and irad have almost no tanks to operate against modern ATGM (don t tell me M1 abrams we saw how it handle kornet missile).

As the tanks belongs to russian army they will receive the money and they could invest in buying T-90M and T-14. They don t need all those t-80 that they have in reserve and if they can chose they would prefere T-14 instaed of t-80