Where are Russia's T-80s? 

Corrections: 2:04 that T-80UK is a preproduction(!) model, it uses Kontakt-1 not Kontakt-5 ERA, so it is more of a T-80BVK not a T-80U.

I used to live in Perm and the Russian army stored over 200 T80s outside of the city, with no covers or maintenance that I saw and we never heard an engine being started. Ironically the T64 and T72s had shelters over them. When anything new arrived at the site it was just driven to the end of the rows and parked up.

For missing T-80s, it’s worth remembering when the Russian economic woes of post USSR happened, the Russian military was still humongous even as it was being downsized, perhaps they began just cancelling spare parts contracts and just cannibalized existing vehicles, as there was no one to man them anyway, or for parts to sell abroad to anyone who wanted to purchase them, or to former soviet republics whos armed forces inherited some Last important thing that many normies miss is that Russian ‘stored’ tanks are not like say American stored tanks, they’re basically just left in mass vehicle graveyards sitting around, pre war Russians held some 15+ brigades worth of ex soviet heavy equipment for mobilization, so the implication is beyond that there aren’t lots of well preserved vehicles

The gun is actually not completely interchangeable between the T-80 and T-72. They have different mountings (hence different designations)

1:10 to my understanding the "800 T-62 are being modernised" claim is a missreporting of the original statement saying that the factory would restore 800 tanks, of which some were T-62. So that number could include other types as well.

The T-80U at least has an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) so you can maintain surveillance, run systems, etc. without running the turbine. Also I'm pretty certain that T-80 variants have adopted the "powerpack" concept similar to modern Western tanks so while the turbine may need maintenance, the vehicle is not out of service as you can quickly swap the powerpack and send the tank forward with the new powerpack and the damaged one is repaired "at leisure" at a suitable 2nd line repair facility.

I look forward to your analysis of the T-34's performance in Ukraine.

One thing to consider. Soviet Union "tank" production numbers also include "knock down kits" which were basically everything but the actual hull and turret castings. The parts would be mounted on the tank and the tank tested in order to ensure the "tank" worked and then it would be sent for disassembly with the hulls and turrets being sent back to the factory for assembly. This would likely account for several hundred to a thousand of the tanks that are missing from the declared numbers as they arent really a tank but were still produced.

I suspect that the lack of maintenance has left the turbine engines in thousands of tanks inoperable. You can't let them sit for decades without running them from time to time otherwise critical components start to corrode and rubber seals begin to leak. This can happen even on well maintained vehicles, and ignoring it doesn't make it go away.

The main thing, where there is a advantage of the T-80 over the T-72s. the transmission. the T-80 can reserves faster, which In combat is a major advantage. Yes, on the Strategic level (at face value) it dont really matter, but on the Operation and Tactical level its massive, cause it allows you to better reverse behind cover or into a turret down postion. which in turn helps lower losses, which does have a impact on the strategic level.

Reported numbers on Russian equipment need to be taken with a huge grain of salt. The money for those oligarch's yachts came from somewhere.

AFAIK there was another problem with t-80s, requiring retraining of drivers:. On diesel tank, when driving on 1st speed, you can pull both steering handles to make a short stop, the engine will run on idle. On earlier T-80s, this will lead to engine failure: the turbine will speed up until breakage. Later modifications had blocking mechanisms for steering arms or steering wheel. Not 100% reliable information, but I heard many such stories in my Army years, and I was a gunner on T-80. The engine of T-80 is complex, but it can be replaced as a single unit pretty quickly.

The Russians still have a long border with the Chinese, and while they appear to be friendly, historically that has not been the case. If the T-80 is more capable, wouldn’t they hold them in reserve in case of a Chinese adventure in the east? Maybe too much Tom Clancy but it seems reasonable.

"Comrade what is behind those Potemkin villages?" "Why you ask Comrade? It's Potemkin villages all the way to Wladivostok!"

What did they say about the T-14? "It is 'too good' to produce and deploy". Which is Ruzzian for "we don't have the money or materials".

Gotta remember that due to Turbine, T-80 was commonly used with arctic groups. Also, very common corruption and high cost of Maintenance, probably caused a lot of T-80's to be scrapped, sold or used for parts. South Korea also got T-80's as a reparations

A gas turbine engine that has sat idle for 20+ years is scrap metal. While a diesel engine can sit for decades and still turn over. Case in point, the IS3 tank that separatists restarted in 2014 with a little diesel fuel, and drove off it's world war 2 memorial.

Chechnian war... T-80 was used there and Russian commanders thought it was a good idea to send them into urban areas without infantry support. Result was as expected; a lot of losses. It was stated that a lot of them were knocked out by RPGs fired from building tops, downwards, into thin top armor. So, the big question is: are those losses accounted for in this study or Ukraine war only? This might explain the difference between numbers built and currently in service or storage.

Overstating production is a common tactic because you pocket the money from the tanks you didn't produce. It's a real possibility in Russia of the late 80s and the 90s

Thank you for posting this. I am in IT but have an interest in military history. Anecdotally, I recall doing a project related to the Soviet union when I was in high school in the late 70s. I went to the embassy and found some "brochures". I recall being astounded by a piece describing how Soviet industry had made great advances in miniaturizing vacuum tube technology. Despite my youth, I was already working with Apple II era personal computers and understood how much trouble they were in. Apparently, later in the 80s they began to attempt to copy (steal IP) of Western IC technology. IMHO, two factors would make this fail in the long run. (a) Fabrication facilities were becomming more expensive (10+ billion for leading edge today) and (b) They didn't have the vast market in the private sector to help make it profitable. It seems even the US military industrial complex has woken up to their dependency on Taiwan for this critical input to weapon systems. Sad so many people have to die to learn these lessons.

They are actually bringing a lot of T-80s to the front, mostly old T-80BVs, but also a few modern T-80BVMs.

Let me have a wild guess - T-80s were prefered in 90s exactly because they ate a lot of gas(because generals can sell that gas in black market and never actually use it for training and maintenence)

its also quite possible that many of the T-80s in storage are being used for spare parts to keep the remaining 500+ active T80 tanks in service.

9:00 me looking at my stock pile of 2000 t-80's i have hidden from the world:

I think most are not in service ready state. Russia cant even supply the infantry with basic things like tents or plate carriers..... how should the RF be able to keep the newer variants in a service ready state with the newer more expensive parts. And also every newer tank lost is a tank which is harder to replace in the furture with the sancations, etc.

There was a popular drinking game at the production facilities during lunch breaks that was called tank building. It included doing the paperwork for a real build. Anyone still able to stand at the end of the game had lost. Somehow the results of the game got into public documentation. :op

Generally, gas turbines require a lot less maintenance than piston engines as they only have a single moving part - the turbine shaft.

I hope everyone is doing well in times like these

As always your analysis of armor is dynamic , and you are never afraid to revise and review past analysis , keep up the hard work .

Oryx are reporting 338 as lost in one way or another, given how Oryx works that number is likely lower than the reality. So, they have been in Ukraine in reasonable numbers since they account for 22% of Russian tank losses.

And why not include the fact that Russia has often lied about numbers of material. Perhaps so many had never been built!?

I think the problem is much more simple - lack of gas turbine engines, russia didn't produce any after 1990 and they were maintaining the fleet by cannibalizing the spare stock ( us did the same with abrams turbines) so now they probably have lots more hulls than available engines

Losing 2000+ tanks in peace time is a certified Soviet Womble moment.

If Sovietwomble was in charge of those tanks, I wouldn't be surprised they lost so many!

The Russian military is suffering a manpower shortage at this time. The t62 uses a four-man crew, driver, Commander, loader and Gunner. That one extra guy I'm willing to bet they don't have. As for going faster in reverse and not really understanding why that's important, when you stick your nose somewhere you don't want it to be actually you want to be able to go backwards fast. There are times when that high speed reverse really comes in handy when you're getting shot at

"Seeing is believing, but believing isn't necessarily knowing". Brilliant comment. We all need that reminder these days. Thanks!

More curious where all the exotic/esotheric weaponry are. Feels like a discount war where most equipment and vehicles are supposed to get some use prior to becoming fully useless, since many are nearing or beyond their best-before-date.

With regards to the large numbers discrepancies; As you mentioned earlier in your video it's possible that the high cost and maintenance requirements of the turbine engine mean that there are many t-80's in storage that have engines that are unfit for service and haven't been replaced or repaired due to cost. Also, it's possible that when a T-80B, for example, it restored and updated to T-80BVM standard that is being counted as an additional production number. so a T-80B that was updated to a BV and then subsequently to a BVM could be counted 3 times.

At 3:07, Grozniy is not a misspelling of Grozny, it is just a different transliteration of Грозный. Groznyy is also sometimes used.

According to Hilmes, for the T-80s gas turbine, the unit would need much more fuel, than a T-72 unit. And the kind of fuel the T-72 needs is easier to find in enemy territory (diesel).

i found this nambers of t80 produktion. erial production in Omsk (modifications T-80B and BV): 1978 - 3 pieces 1979 - 60 pieces 1980 - 90 pieces 1981 - 208 pieces 1982 - 320 pieces 1983 - 440 pieces 1984 - 570 pieces (including 26 command ones, before that command ones were not issued) 1985 - 610 pieces (including 33 command) 1986 - 620 pieces (including 67 command) 1987 - 685 pieces (including 30 command) 1988 - 740 pieces (including 40 command) 1989 - 510 pieces (including 30 command) + 50 pieces of T-80U in Leningrad (LKZ) 1990 - 460 pieces (including 30 command) 1991 - 75 pieces of T-80BV. + 150 pieces of T-80U. Further only T-80U. 1992 - 5 pieces (Omsk); 1993 - 65 units (Omsk); 1994 - 92 pieces (Omsk); 1995 - 51 pieces (Omsk); 1996 - 18 pieces (Omsk). (plus another 45 * T-80U made in Kharkov). In total, excluding Kharkov and experimental early machines (T-80), which were made in small batches in Leningrad, 5391 T-80B and BV and 431 T-80U were manufactured. T-64(A, B, BV) - 13,100 pcs. T-72 of all modifications, only for the USSR (until 1990) - 17,831. In total, 35,872 T-64, T-72, T-80 of all modifications + 200 T-80U and about 700 T-80UD were produced in 1991. T-80U / UD in Kharkov: 1983 - 10 T-80U units (December). 1985 - 30 units T-80U + 5 units T-80UD. further only UD. 1986 - 45-47 units 1987 - 75 units 1988 - 125 units 1989 -150 units 1990 - 170 units 1991 - 100 units 1992 - 43 units A total of 40 T-80U units and 715 T-80UD units.

the SovietWomble logo Cameo at 10:20 is gold xD

One thing to keep in mind is that money set aside for T-80 maintenance was probably frequently pocketed, and the condition of the vehicles lied about. When it came time to deploy these tanks, it's likely many were not in fully operational condition.

Putting SovietWomble as the picture for "unnecessary/peace tank loss" is a pretty fun wink at the ZF-Guys

I remember seeing a video of a Ukrainian tank crew operating a captured Russian T-80bvm and they said it was far better than their T-64s because the tank doesnt need to warm up to work and its more flexible. Ive also seen a article where a russian tank ace who operated a T-80U said that the reason they were able to beat the Ukrainian tanks is because of the superior reverse speed. He said he knew their tank reverse speed was very better and they were able to outposition and out flank their opponents .

It is highly likely that the money for T-80 restoration went for luxury Yachts upgrade and some other expensive oligarchies expenditures.

Tldw: turbine engines don't store well. Piston engines can often tolerate being stored for decades and still run with minimal restoration.

I rather appreciate your thoroughness and ability to dig up interesting facts and data

OMFG, the Soviet Womble icon for "Losing 2000 tanks in Peace" is fucking _priceless!_

I just want to get to the point where Russia begins modifying WWII-era T-34s

The main disadvantage of the T62 is its 115 mm gun, which seems to have been modernized, but in fact it was still in the 80s, armor penetration up to 450 mm, which is clearly not enough for combat against modern tanks. In the best case, this gun will be able to penetrate the frontal armor of the t72, which is not reinforced by anything, and only at a very short distance. It will not be easy to create new shells or modernize a tank for a new gun, and it will be complicated by the fact that they want to install new engines, sighting equipment, strengthen the protection around the perimeter, some other little things, and simply return it to service after decades of inactivity. They invest very heavily financially and use large production facilities to modernize the !medium! tanks This is not saving, they are desperate.

Well obviously all of them are needed in war thunder as gaijin has to introduce at least one per patch it seems

One huge advantageous the t80 has is that it has an excellent reverse speed, while the t72 and t90 have an extremely poor reverse speed. Thats been a huge difference in firefights and jusf as vital, allows retreat with the strong front armor facing the enemy, rather than the weak rear armor. Its likely the single biggest issue with the t90M.

The reason for the reopening is that the T-62 is a mobilization tank that was recently taken out of service; since 2015, these tanks have been regularly participating in the annual large-scale reopening exercises. These tanks are "fresh", almost immediately ready for re-mothballing, they require a minimum amount of time, money and money to restore and bring them to readiness, plus they require less training, which is suitable for volunteers and mobilized. And the T-80 is one of the most difficult tanks to restore, its engine is very expensive, Russia no longer produces them, so the T-80s are very reluctant to be restored. On the question of the number of tanks in Russia as a whole, I will say that Prime Minister Medvedev recently visited the Tagil plant of UVZ, where about two or three dozen T-90M and T-72B3 stood in the hangar. The Chita repair plant is engaged in the restoration of 800 units of T-62 tanks, but there are also T-72s in the footage from there. Plus, there is also the St. Petersburg plant, Omsk, Chelyabinsk, where there were no photos yet.

At this stage tanks are mainly used for indirect shooting from 4-6 km range. It helps that we have no issues with 115mm shells for T-62 and 125mm shells for other tanks, while 122mm artillery shells are all but spent in summer offensives. You don't really need T-80 for that.

hi dear friend it is one of the best presentation of tanks ever thanks for it keep going

It's a lot more efficient to use T-62s for infantry assault run/support roles compared to a T-80. basically they are using T-62 like we use strikers MGCS

how many in storage are really long gone from being "relocated"?

Probably all three works perfectly good against civilian targets - so there is no reason to renovate the more complex ones.

I follow a few Russian sources and I have seen pictures of T-62s but not in frontline service, rather being used by departments like Omon(saved a picture, even). I also remember The Austrian army colonel saying the T-62s would be used as assault guns in cities rather than regular combat. It seemed logical since they began appearing after Maruipol fell, while they were assaulting Severodonetsk.

One important detail that you didn’t mention why the T-80 is highly favored in this war by both Russia and Ukraine is that it has a higher reverse speed of 10km/hr compared to 4km/hr for the T-72 and T-90 which is advantageous.

Good Video, I agree as long as the Rounds of the older tanks can penetrate the enemy tanks, take the fight into the night. But nothing replaces Training and Motivation.

It is a logistics, maintenance, and training nightmare operating four different tanks. Thank you for clarifying this. How problematic are the Abrams vs the Leopoard drive systems?

T-80 was an oddly sexy tank to me, but I also spent wayyy too much time studying cold war doctrine.

As an old, tired, wore out M60A1 crewman/First Generation M1 Abrams crewman and later Platoon Sergeant I would not feel under gunned with a 105mm launching SABOT rounds at any Soviet/Russian tank featured in this video due to the clearly evident "shell traps". But then I was originally trained as Armored Cav....And we were trained to kick ass and NOT bother to take names back then. Ready And Foward Sir! All Others Follow As Best You Can!

Very interresting. Thanks !

I've seen that "4 tanks 1 gun" video and it's blown out of proportion!

Reverse speed sometimes in combat is the difference between life and death.

There are 35 of them "stuck" in South Korea, 33x T-80U and 2x T-80UK but ironically none in North Korea.

4:00 other turbine benefits: 1) runs on jet fuel, simplifying logistics for the US in Iraq, but also can run on gasoline or diesel. 2) a lot more power for the space and weight. Diesels have made big advances in the last 30-40 years and are probably competitive now, but in the 80s-90s gas turbines were a smart choice.

Given what we've seen, maybe most of them are missing that reactive armour and just have the bays for it with rubber blocks or are empty inside. So they look impressive but are not ready.

It's an interesting contrast to compare your summary of the T80 turbines with that as now used in the M-1 Abrams (latest version). The US setup now has a fuel usage roughly similar to a diesel, and is easier to maintain. As a guess, I would now say that the USSR originally copied the US, and has not had the resources over the last 30 years to evolve the system. Russia's current T80 problems sound like those the US Army had with the Abrams back when it was first introduced.

so far they've lost at least 338 T80s according to Oryx's blog (173 T-80BV, 1 T-80BVK, 89 T-80U, 2 T-80UK, 8 T-80UE-1, 1 T-80UM2, 60 T-80BVM and 4 Unknown T-80). So they clearly are using them relatively extensively at the front, I just don't think a lot of the Russian tank fleet that has been rotting in open air are serviceable without extensive repairs.

About 60% of active T-80's are destroyed or captured. A lot of them are at the Russian armored depot's, scrapped to keep the others running.

Don't worry yourself comrade, all the funds set aside for the conversions and modifications to improve our world class tanks are still being used by me to ponder my course of implementation. However with all the devaluation of our currency I'm needing considerably more funds to adjust for pondering under the stress of combat and I've felt much stress here on the French Riviera with Macron.

Knowing the Russians/Soviets the numbers discrepancy could be just about anything and probably a combination of things. Let's not rule out that probably more than a couple have gone elsewhere as payment in kind for other tools. Russia has more excess armament than cash, cannot afford to upgrade it's massive stocks, and suffers a shortage of skilled manpower to use or maintain them. My guess is, more than a few went to Iran and China for either tech or armament parts as well as other goods.

T44 will finally see action if this keeps up lol

3:40 This part about the gas-turbines being quieter than their diesel counterparts is way off. Whilst operating, the interior of a T-80 isn't exactly deafening, but it's not far off and communicating within is... problematic. It's like trying to have a conversation in your car whilst you're parked between the low-bypass turbofans of a 707. Your ears will be ringing for sure, even with hearing protection.

About 2 years ago I read somewhere that the Russians had come up with an answer to the idle same as running consumption problem, do not know if implemented

The gas turbine of the modernised m1s is on par with diesel with an apu and other improvements. The the chieftain video discussing the Abrams x

The number discrepancy might be down to the T-80UD, which Ukraine's KMDB claimed was their intellectual properly. Which then led to a number of them being rebuild into T-80UE and T-80UM by the Russians. Also, asfaik the T-80BVM's are still being produced by Omsk, and was delivered as recently as last month.

6:00 It should be noted that since T-80BVM is highly protected, but it's done by implementing relict ERA. If we research a deeper the base armor though, we can find out that all t-80s (T-80B, T-80BV and T-80BVM) have a weaker protection in the base turret without ERAs. The turret has the same composite armor packaging as the very old T-72A, it's just has quarts sands - it's good against HEAT but not good against kinetic types of ammuniton. This does not apply to T-80U tanks - they have probably the best armored turret in USSR era (not modern Russia) they have ultra porcelain filled with some other stuff

Did you really question how improtend reverse speed is? Extremly importend that is what tanks do fire, reverse, new position, fire and reverse again. Especially with most of the combat beeing really static.

Its odd that the turbine engines are high maintenance. Given that American turbines in the Abrams are really simple to maintain as there is "only one moving part." Then again Russian diesel engines are remarkably resilient and simple, though not very high performance.

I recall that back when the T-62 was reported as heading to Ukraine, there was a lot of speculation (including from yourself, I believe) that they would be used to free up better tanks for the frontline. Could that be another factor? That due to costs, production and logistics it'd be easier to send T-62s to free up less capable (compared to modern T-80s) T-72 variants for the front? Of course, this is assuming that the T-62 isn't used on the frontlines either, I haven't read up on the T-62 since the aforementioned speculations. Apologies if my info is outdated!

You'd be surprised what can be 'lost' or 'misplaced' in Russia, especially if we talk about 90s period. We kinda lost a whole country, a few thousand tanks here and there won't make a difference.

Great video thanks

I just want you to know I got an ad for sparkling rainbow mermaid unicorn toys when I clicked your video.

The MBT T-## series of Russian tanks are my all time favorites. They just look so aesthetically pleasing. Even with all the design issues, poor performance in modern theaters, and terrible implementation of doctrine; I still love these tanks.

Great video, ty 😊

It's not a mystery were the tank went. They were melted down poured into large steel sheets & made into Oligarchs Yatch fleets. Yep I said fleets.

A curious statement I see some years ago claims that in order to circumvent the treaty, the Soviets do deploy a lot of T-80s east of Urals, which may account for most of the shortfall. P.S.: The far-eastern region is just a big museum for soviet armoured vehicle, you can see IS heavy tanks serving alongside T-80s, should be a good topic for some later potential episode on soviet army doctrine really.

One advantage of bringing the aged T-62 out is that the 115mm ammunition is stockpiled somewhere. Using the HE rounds to bombard towns instead of 122mm howitzer rounds makes sense if you are facing a growing shell shortage.

Ask Michael Manousakis if he had done some T80 deals most recently as he deals with older stuff

this absolutely shows why the Soviet went broke. Talk about needing Soviet (now Russia) needs to GO GREEN. That's a lot to salvage and recycle. GREAT video!!

The GTD-1000 (like any gas-turbine engine) produces much more heat than diesel, making the tank much easier to spot in IR.

Actually there have been a lot of T-80’s specifically T-80BV’s constantly railed to the front (I have Russian sources). The T-62’s are exclusively for DPR/LPR use with the very first batch delivered to the DPR’s Cossack Regiment

7:01 It makes the difference as in it as an autoloader while the T62 does not which means Russia has to start training loaders now which it hasn't done in decades. Also the T62 used a completely different gun with different ammunition and different spare parts so Russia has to completely change its logistics to support it. Also this tank can be taken not only by modern rockets but by 1960s RPGs as well so a much higher loss ratio, Honestly you should better than to say "it makes no difference" by now.

2:40 I could argue that, many sources claim (exactly comparing Russian tanks specifically diesel vs gas turbine used in battle tanks) that gas turbine engines have double lifetime compared to diesel engines. Yes it's very costly in terms of efficiency and service, but it is a constantly spinning engine with less other moving parts compared to diesel where it's a piston engine with multiple counter moving parts and resistance. Other benefits I can say are: it consumes less engine oil, it can easily start at very cold temperatures. It also can use other fuel, but for that it doubles the rate of wearing

A lot of the times, Russian tanks are used as direct fire artillery in infantry support roles or to take out sniper and AT nests in high rises... so, t62s would be just as good as t80s or any other tank for that role. The t62 would probably be better because it fires a unitary shell and doesn't have the same problem with unprotected charges in a carousel