Upgraded T-62MV Obr. 2022s.
Via social mediaA platoon apparently from the Russian army’s 5th Tank Brigade is equipped with what might be the ultimate version of the four-person, 42-ton T-62 tank.
But the T-62MV Obr. 2022 with new optics, add-on reactive armor, a mineplow, drone armor and a radio-jammer still is a T-62. It still is thinly-armored and under-powered for all its extra weight—and it still packs an inaccurate 115-millimeter gun.
How much the tank’s inadequacies actually matter right now is debatable, however. Ukrainian forces are running desperately low on ammunition for striking any tank, regardless of its age.
The upgraded T-62s appear in a recent video from the front line of Russia’s two-year wider war on Ukraine—a video that open-source analyst @naalsio26 flagged this weekend.
The analyst concluded the tanks belong to the 5th Tank Brigade, which holds sector of the front in Donetsk Oblast in southern Ukraine. It also is possible the tanks belong to the 39th Motor-Rifle Brigade in Donetsk.
The basic T-62MV—built in the 1960s and upgraded in the 1980s—is obsolete. But there are many hundreds of them in storage in Russia. So when Russian tank losses in Ukraine exceeded a thousand back in mid-2022—that’s a third of Russia’s pre-war tank force—the Kremlin began reactivating the best-preserved T-62s. Hundreds of them.
Some went straight to the front without significant enhancements. Others got a modest uplift. With a fresh application of external explosive reactive armor plus a modern-ish 1PN96MT-02 gunner's sight for its main gun, an upgraded T-62MV became a T-62MV Obr. 2022.
The 5th Guards’ T-62MV Obr. 2022s boast additional upgrades, including plows for digging up buried mines, cage armor for intercepting explosive first-person-view drones and RP-377 radio-jammers that, in theory, block the radio signals operators rely on to control their drones.
The plows and drone-defenses address the most serious threats tankers on both sides of the war contend with every day: mines and FPV drones.
But they don’t address the T-62’s basic flaws. A T-62MV’s diesel engine produces just 620 horsepower. Considering that a T-62MV with three tons of ERA plus drone-armor might weigh more than 45 tons, its power-to-weight ratio is less than 14 horsepower per ton.
A modern T-90M produces 26 horsepower per ton; one of Ukraine’s American-made M-1A1s produces 22 horsepower per ton. All that is to say, the T-62 is under-powered. And that weighs on its mobility—especially if it’s trying to plow its way through a minefield.
Protection also remains an issue. Reactive armor can double protection against certain high-explosive warheads, but it doesn’t do much to deflect non-explosive penetrating rounds. An anti-drone cage likewise works best against drones that drop grenades. Against maneuverable FPV models, a cage is much less effective.
And don’t count on the RP-377 to ground attacking FPVs. Ukrainian drone-operators have found ways of countering the RP-377’s jamming—likely by rapidly changing their control frequencies.
None of these qualifications necessarily mean very much as long as Ukraine struggles with a months-long—and worsening—shortage of ammunition. A shortage resulting from Russia-aligned Republicans in the U.S. Congress blocking further U.S. aid to Ukraine starting in October.
It doesn’t matter if a tank is slow and poorly-protected if you have very little to shoot at it.
For as long as the Ukrainians are ammunition-starved, a very old upgraded tank should do exactly what the Russians need it to do: resist small-arms fire, fire cannon rounds at enemy fortifications and terrorize any troops inside those fortifications.
