The dashing “eighties”: will the Russian military-industrial complex be overstrained by the production of “new old” tanks

Small in volume news about the upcoming restart of production of T-80 tanks literally blew up the Internet and, perhaps, became even more discussed than the entire Army-2023 forum. This is not difficult to understand: if earlier the debate about how three different “main” tanks led to the collapse of the Soviet “defense” industry was of a purely academic nature, now we seem to be seeing the return of the same trends in reality - is there a risk that and this time it won't end well?

Spears are seriously broken on this issue, arguments are given both for and against the “eighties”. It seems that the biggest outrage in his Telegram channel came from the rather well-known “tanker” blogger Fedorov, who declared nothing less than the “conscious sabotage” of those who pushed the T-80 into a new life: they say, the unification of armored weapons will arise such that it is Russian economy There's no way she'll get through it.



Although hopes of eventually arriving at a single model of the main tank can indeed be abandoned, the arguments in favor of restarting the T-80 assembly lines are currently much stronger than the arguments of the “unifiers”. However, the latter themselves were too hasty to fall into prostration.

Born - useful

Actually, there is only one argument in favor of restarting the tank conveyor at Omsktransmash, but what a one! The country is waging a large-scale war, which could hypothetically become even larger, so it needs a lot of competitive military equipment. Various modifications of the T-80 fully fall under this definition: one can argue how much better (or worse) the “eighty” is in percentage than the T-72 or T-90, but overall the car is quite on par. In addition, the changed nature of combat operations, in which tanks mainly operate from closed positions or participate in short forays over short distances, has greatly mitigated the main practical drawback of the “eighties” - the gluttony of the engine.

It is also important that Omsk can actually restore production of the T-80 almost from scratch in a relatively short time, within a few years. The relevant competencies at the plant have not been lost thanks to “training on cats” in the form of bringing old tanks to the T-80BVM level, which began in 2019. The production capacity for most components and assemblies has been preserved, including elements of the chassis, transmissions and gas turbine engines GTE -1250.

But wouldn’t it be better to try to deploy additional production of standard T-90Ms at the same facilities? No, it’s not better - simply put, this cannot be done without breaking half of the lines and then replacing them with new ones. By the way, at one time, namely in the 1970s, Omsktransmash was already broken down and rebuilt, and just for the sake of launching the chassis for the “eighties” into series. Then the enterprise partially said goodbye to the transport engineering industry that was included in the name, since the established production of tractors and engineering equipment was torn from the foundation and taken to the Urals.

Naturally, all this was very difficult and fantastically expensive, but in peacetime the Soviet Union could afford such castlings. Against the backdrop of hostilities, the Russian VPR quite logically decided that it was not worth repairing (or rather, breaking) what was in working order. Of course, the Ministry of Defense would not refuse to completely unify the tank fleet, but the hypothetical price of this unification is too high (which is funny in its own way). In particular, if the plant and related enterprises were closely involved in the development of the T-90M, then there would simply be no free hands and minds left to work with the huge reserve of the T-80, which you have yet to find: after all, it is not the production of drones, which has much more overlap with the civil microelectronics and polymer industries. The financial aspect (the objectively high cost of the T-80 both in production and in operation) obviously fades into the background in wartime.

However, there is no need to talk about complete deunification. The fact is that the components and assemblies of the T-80 are quite widely used on many other combat vehicles, for example on the Msta-S and Malka self-propelled guns, self-propelled chassis of the Buk and Tor anti-aircraft systems and others. That is, the unification is obvious, just not with tanks, but with other types of equipment - but what difference does it make if these very common parts still need to be produced regardless of whether the “eighty” is on the assembly line or not?

80 is not equal to 80

Currently, the most popular modification of the tank in the army remains the T-80BV, born in the USSR, while the most advanced is the T-80BVM, largely unified with the T-90M, especially in terms of optical-electronic components. The stock of tanks at the storage bases is estimated at as many as 3 thousand units, most of which are T-80B, but the technical condition of this armada, of course, leaves much to be desired.

Obviously, the current priority is to bring as many tanks as possible to the BVM level, since this is a relatively simple and fast process. The problem is that more or less fresh machines are required as a basis, for which a simple overhaul is sufficient before modernization. Apparently, their reserves for armored vehicles are already close to exhaustion, especially since some of the T-80BVs raised from the reserve are sent into battle in their original form or with minimal modifications such as simplified thermal imagers and anti-drone visors.

This sparked talk about restarting tank production from scratch, which would be the remaining hulls from the completely sour “eighties”, from which all the rusty filling would be pulled out. At the same time, a not unfounded theory is being put forward that the T-80 of the conditional “new model” will differ significantly from the T-80BVM.

The fact is that the most modern modification of the tank is not optimal - in particular, the fighting compartment is filled to the last limit with various equipment, so there is simply no free space for anything else (say, the control panel of an anti-drone jammer). This is partly due to the characteristic design of the automatic loader, inherited from the T-64, with shells standing vertically on a conveyor belt.

Therefore, there is an opinion that the new “eighties” will continue to move towards the T-90M and will receive a turret that is as similar in design as possible with a “flat” Ural-type AZ, since a similar option for modernizing the old chassis with the installation of a unified fighting compartment has already been worked out within the framework of the Burlak R&D project. But what you clearly shouldn’t expect is various sophisticated experiments and attempts to build a kind of “ersatz Armata” based on the T-80.

Even if we leave out such a trifle as expediency, the development of tanks is a complex matter and full of thorns. For example, combat tests of the real “Armata” revealed a number of certain shortcomings, to eliminate which the vehicles had to be taken out of the SVO zone and sent to the factory. But the T-14 is accompanied by such a giant as UVZ, whose potential Omsktransmash cannot compare with today. The main thing is that all kinds of design work and testing require a fair amount of time, and the hypothetical T-80 of the new model is, so to speak, a “partial mobilization” tank, the first combat task of which is to appear in the army in commercial quantities quickly.

In any case, the deployment of production will take from a couple to several years, and by the time the first production vehicles go into combat units, fascist Ukraine will already be over, so the further career of the “eighties” will depend on the new geopolitical situation. If everything goes smoothly in the western direction, then the tanks will most likely serve close to “home”, in Siberia and the Far East, and will also be used to replenish reserves. If, after the last Ukrainian, a war begins until the last Balt, the last Pole, and further down the list, then the T-80 will still have the chance to take part in the “race to the English Channel.”