Where are Russia's T-80s?

Where are the Russian T-80s? People talk about the restoration of T-62s, but why not restore the 3000 T-80s that in Russian storage?

Cover modified by vonKickass.

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Zaloga, Steven J.: T-80 Standard Tank: The Soviet Army’s Last Armored Champion. Osprey Publishing: Oxford, UK, 2009

Whatismoo's Unclassified Soviet Army Field Guide, Part 1: Tanks

#t80 #russiantanks #russiaukrainewar

00:00 Intro
00:44 T-80s are being restored?
02:03 T-80s are high maintenance
04:35 T-80's role 2022 vs 1990ies
05:42 Why use the T-80?
07:30 Conclusion
08:43 Something does not add up...

[MilitaryHistoryVisualized]

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.

[vassilyzeitzev]

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.

[looinrims]

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

[cwjian]

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

[TKSSLCHN]

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.

[whyandaccount]

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.

[Bodiddly]

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.

[KittyCatWoT]

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.

[rexmundi]

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

[DominusRexDK]

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.

[TonyA]

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.

[rogerhinman]

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.

[alanhopkinson]

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.

[ivanstepanovic]

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.

[gansior]

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

[janisladigs]

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)

[tomasg]

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

[HannarrMontannarr]

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.

[thunderbug]

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.

[VadarVadar]

I think most are not in service ready state.
Russia cant even supply the infantry with basic things like tents or plate 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.