Russia Didn't Plan To Deploy 70-Year Old T-55 Tanks. But They Are All It Has

The T-55 probably looked fearsome to  Hungarian and East German protesters armed with cobble stones in street fighting against Russian occupiers in 1953 and 1956. 

To veteran Ukrainian combat units wielding state of the art FPV drones and Javelin missiles they look like...lunch. JL  

David Axe reports in Forbes:

The operators of T-55s, including the Russian Marines’ 810th Brigade, normally deploy T-55s as crude mobile howitzers 10 miles away. A T-55 is vulnerable to heavy anti-tank weaponry but also to infantry weapons as well as to the smallest of Ukraine’s small drones. Which is why the T-55 the Ukrainians struck didn’t survive the strike. The small, two pound FPV drone aimed at a weak spot between the turret and hull. That the Russians are risking their oldest and weakest tanks in assaults on Ukrainian positions (reveals) how (few) working tanks the Kremlin still has after losing 2,600 of them in Ukraine.

A Ukrainian drone blew up a Russian tank near the front line in southern Ukraine this week or shortly before.

That alone isn’t all that special. Ukrainian forces have destroyed thousands of Russian tanks in the 23 months since Russia widened its war on Ukraine. Drones have accounted for hundreds of those kills.

No, what’s notable is the type of drone ... and the type of tank. It was a two-pound first-person-view drone—and it struck a 1950s-vintage T-55 tank.

The reason that’s interesting is that the main operators of T-55s in the south, including the Russian marine corps’ 810th Brigade, normally deploy T-55s as crude mobile howitzers: angling their 100-millimeter main guns high into the air and lobbing shells at targets up to 10 miles away.

The T-55 isn’t a great howitzer. Its sights can’t see out to the gun’s maximum range. The fragile gun barrel won’t last long under the heavy strain of firing a lot of shells fast, like artillery usually does.

But in 2024, seven decades after the 40-ton, four-person T-55 first entered service with the Soviet army, the aging tank—recently yanked out of long-term storage in the hope of making good some of Russia’s steep vehicle-losses—is an even worse assault vehicle.

Its gun lacks hitting power. Worse, its armor is just 200 millimeters thick at its thickest, and cardboard-thin at its thinnest. A T-55 isn’t just vulnerable to heavy anti-tank weaponry; it also is vulnerable to infantry weapons as well as to the smallest of Ukraine’s small drones.

Which is why the T-55 the Ukrainians recently struck probably didn’t survive the strike. Angling underneath the cage armor the Russians hastily welded onto the tank’s top, the FPV drone seemingly aimed at a weak spot between the turret and hull.

A second drone watched as the T-55 burned.

An FPV drone normally ranges at most a couple of miles. If the 810th Brigade or another unit strictly were using its T-55s as howitzers, it probably wouldn’t roll them into FPV range.

That the Russians may be risking their oldest and weakest tanks in direct assaults on Ukrainian positions is the umpteenth data point as analysts work to understand just how many working tanks the Kremlin still has after losing at least 2,600 of them in Ukraine.

 

For context, the entire Russian armed forces had fewer than 3,000 active tanks on the eve of the wider attack on Ukraine two years ago. Russian industry produced, or retrieved from long-term storage, 500 tanks in 2022 and another 1,500 in 2023, according to the best estimates.

The pace of production and recovery from storage probably is too slow to make good all of Russia’s tank-losses in Ukraine—especially as the loss-rate has spiked in recent weeks.

Increasingly desperate for working tanks to lend heft to assault groups, the Russians may be doing with their T-55s what they wouldn’t have done just a few months ago: actually using them as tanks.