Posted on 10/13/2022 10:57:18 AM PDT by Timber Rattler
Despite all of his public bluster, is it possible that Vladimir Putin is getting just a bit desperate in his bid to find some sort of path to something he could call a “victory” in Ukraine? One hint could be found in the fact that he twisted Lukashenko’s arm to pull Belarus into the fighting at this late stage of the game. But another indicator of Russia’s military reaching the bottom of the barrel popped up this week. Yesterday, Tyler Rogoway from The War Zone sent out this alert on social media. It seems that Russia is “modernizing” some of their “vintage” T-62 tanks and taking them out of museum status so they can be sent to replace some of the hundreds of armored units that Ukrainian farmers have towed away for their own army to use.
(snip)
To be clear, the T-62 was hailed in its day as a top-rate, heavily armored Main Battle Tank (MBT) in the Soviet military when it debuted. Unfortunately, “its day” was literally in 1961. That was more than sixty years ago and military technology has moved on considerably, with lighter, faster tanks employing modernized shielding being the weapons of choice today.
As Trevithick points out, these T-62s are literally antiques. The rockets that the west has been supplying Russia with this year have been destroying Russia’s more modern T-80s and T-90s with abandon. One recent estimate claims that Putin has lost more than 40% of his operational tank fleet.
If the Ukrainians have been able to wipe out that many modern tanks, how well do you think these “vintage” tanks will fare?
(SNIP)
There is also a question of who will be operating these ancient tanks when they head toward the Ukraine border.
(Excerpt) Read more at hotair.com ...
"Andrey Gurulyov, a retired Russian general turned politician, who is currently a deputy of the lower house of Russia's parliament, or Duma, reportedly explained the situation during a recent publicized tour of the 103 Armored Repair Plant..."Russia is going to take tanks that ended production in 1975, upgraded them with defenses that do now work, electronics they do no have, to fight modern US and NATO weapons, when weapons half their age can take out every armored vehicle Russia has."Gurulyov reportedly said that the T-62s in question would be modernized with new thermal and night vision optics and additional armor and other defensive features, particularly to help protect against anti-tank guided missiles like the U.S.-made Javelin. He does not appear to have provided any granular specifics about these planned upgrades."
Gurulyov was (is) as guilty of embezzling as much as everyone else up and down the Russian military production and procurement chains. His calling out corruption and inspecting tank plants shows he wants to avoid a tax service audit. It is not a confidence builder when the bosses trying to look good on TV calling for fixing problems everyone knows they will have no part in fixing, are the same ones who lined their pockets causing those same problems.
The crews of those tanks should probably get their wills in order before they get their orders. What a mess.
Tanks were a big part of Soviet military doctrine.
The old guard dies hard, but perhaps more quickly due to its stupidity.
I’d like to make it there and also the tank museum in VA.
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