The Reason Russia Is Forced To Deploy 50 Year Old T-62 Tanks

These tanks were already a decade old when Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979. But given that Russia is losing approximately 7 tanks a day (and it's been over 100 days), these are all that are left given that sanctions prevent Russia from building new ones.

US Defense Secretary Cap Weinberger said when the US attacked Iraq, "You go to war with the army you have." No irony intended. JL

Dan Parsons reports in The Drive:

T-62 tanks Russia pulled from mothballs and sent to Ukraine have been spotted on the battlefield sporting improvised armor 'cages' on top of their turrets. This suggests that Russian forces are well aware of how vulnerable these ancient armored vehicles are to Ukrainian anti-tank weapons. Some appear to be wearing warehouse codes in white paint along the sides of their hulls, which begs the question of how much maintenance they received after being pulled from long-term storage. Ukraine also practiced firing anti-tank weapons at target Soviet-era tanks outfitted with precisely this type of armor before a single Russian tanks crossed the border. The results were devastating.

Some of the T-62 tanks Russia pulled from mothballs and sent to Ukraine have been spotted on the battlefield sporting improvised armor 'cages' on top of their turrets. This suggests that Russian forces are well aware of how vulnerable these ancient armored vehicles are to Ukrainian anti-tank weapons. 

The T-62 medium tanks, reportedly spotted in the southern Kherson region, are fitted with what appears to be raised slat or cage armor, designed to mitigate top-attack profiles used by many anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs), like U.S.-supplied Javelins, and the effects of drones dropping munitions on top of the vehicle.

These tanks also sport some sort of improvised shield or plate armor mounted vertically on the deck behind the turret. That plate also could be the tank’s engine hatch, raised to give the turret some protection from the rear.

With no additional slat armor bolted to the tank hulls, the Russian troops operating these tanks appear less worried about high-explosive anti-tank rounds from rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) and other simpler anti-tank weapons than attacks from above.

The tanks appear to be wearing warehouse codes in white paint along the sides of their hulls, which begs the question of how much maintenance attention the vehicles received after being pulled from long-term storage and rushed to the front.

Photos of at least one broken down T-62 emerged shortly after a train full of T-62s was photographed in late May, arriving at the Melitopol railway station in southeastern Ukraine. Those tanks wore similar codes as those recently seen in Kherson Oblast with improvised armor.

Cage or slat armor of this type has already been seen on other Russian tanks assigned to units in Crimea and elsewhere in areas of occupied southern Ukraine. Even on more-modern tanks like the T-72 and T-80, cage armor is of questionable to no protective value against modern ATGMS like the ones Ukrainian forces have employed to such lethal effect since Russia’s unprovoked invasion. Russia is visually confirmed to have lost an average of seven or so tanks a day in the first 100 days of the war, and the actual number is likely far higher. Though not all of these losses were to ATGMs, Ukrainian artillery and drone attacks have also taken a punishing toll on Russian armor.

This type of cage armor is meant to protect the top of a tank’s turret — where the armored vehicles are most vulnerable — to the top-down blast of ATGMs like Javelin, the Swedish-British Next-generation Light Anti-tank Weapon (NLAW), or the Ukrainian-made Skif, also called the Stugna-P. Cage armor could decrease the effectiveness of certain top-attack munitions by interfering with the missile’s detonation sequence before its warhead hits the tank. That could reduce the probability of a kill, but metal slat armor alone is not likely to defeat modern ATGMs, and the T-62 is more lightly armored than newer tank designs, placing it at a disadvantage from the start. Ukraine also practiced firing anti-tank weapons at target Soviet-era tanks outfitted with precisely this type of armor before a single Russian tanks crossed the border in February. The results were devastating.

With the evidence in mind, the cage armor is likely more relevant for mitigating drone attacks from above than countering anti-tank guided missiles, and even the former is questionable.