Ukraine’s Second-Oldest Tanks Are Going Strong

Captured Russian T-62Ms are still useful

A 19th National Guard Brigade T-62M. 19th National Guard Brigade capture

This story was commissioned by Euromaidan Press. Since Substack pays only around a fifth of my bills, I have no choice but to take on a lot of freelance work. I still want my Substack audience to know where to read those freelance stories, however. Hence this excerpt.

by DAVID AXE

1960s-vintage, Soviet-made T-62Ms aren’t the oldest tanks in the Ukrainian inventory. That dubious honorific belongs to Ukraine’s ex-Slovenian M-55S tanks, which are based on Soviet-made T-55s from the 1950s.

The T-62M hasn’t gotten better. The job has changed. These days, many tanks on both sides function as mobile artillery, angling their guns high to fire a few rounds at targets kilometers away. They rarely work as tanks, closing with the enemy and firing directly from a few hundred meters. The threat from tiny explosive drones has pushed armor back from the gray zone, and at that distance a T-62M is not much less effective than a T-64BV. Or, for that matter, than a far more precious Leopard 1, Leopard 2 or M-1.

That is one reading of a war that has changed shape, and nobody has published a study of it. Ukraine’s T-64, Leopard and Abrams fleets have all taken heavy documented losses. Oryx, which logs a loss only where photos or video exists, lists no Ukrainian T-62Ms at all.

These tanks, all captured from the Russians, are also available. And that matters in a military struggling to sustain its tank force. As Russia’s war on Ukraine grinds through its 56th month, Ukraine is running low on its newest and best tanks. Older and less capable ones fill in ... for lack of a better alternative.

Observer Stevius, who closely tracks developments in the Ukrainian armor corps, recently highlighted the ongoing importance of former Russian T-62Ms to the Ukrainian war effort. “Captured T-62Ms still out there!”

Specifically, Stevius noted an ex-Russian T-62M belonging to the Ukrainian National Guard’s 19th Brigade participating in a recent competition for best tank crew in the National Guard. According to Stevius, at least two other Ukrainian units have operated the survivors of at least 45 T-62Ms that Ukrainian troops have captured. Most of the captures took place during the Ukrainian counteroffensives in eastern and southern Ukraine in late 2022.

The 40-ton, four-person T-62M is Ukraine’s second-oldest tank, and where the slightly older M-55S got a deep upgrade in 1990s Slovenia, the T-62M didn’t. In its DNA it is still a vehicle of the early Cold War. The Ukrainian army’s 110th Mechanized Brigade temporarily operated T-62Ms before swapping them out for much newer and more capable T-64BVs. The T-62M has a 115-millimeter main gun loaded by hand by a fourth crew member, but the T-64BV has a more powerful 125-millimeter gun loaded by a fast mechanical autoloader.

Read the rest at Euromaidan Press.