There has been much mockery for Russia’s decision to send seemingly antiquated tanks from the Cold War to the front lines, but Ukraine could be employing a similar tactic.
There is a significant difference, however. The Kremlin was forced to call up T-62 and even T-54/55 series tanks to bolster its forces after suffering huge losses on the battlefield – where thousands of more modern T-72s, T-84s, and even T-90s have been destroyed.
Moscow was left with few options, but Kyiv – which has begun to receive Western-made tanks including the British-made Challenger 2 and German-produced Leopard and Leopard 2s – is employing its older T-64s for another reason.
The older tanks could prove ideal for clearing the minefields around Russian lines.
Land of Mines
Russia has laid thousands of mines, so many so that it could take decades for them to be cleared when the fighting finally comes to an end. The more immediate issue is that the minefields have slowed down Kyiv’s counteroffensive significantly.
“You aren’t going to risk your best tanks breaking known minefields,” Dan Rice, a former U.S. Army officer who previously advised Ukraine’s top soldier, General Valery Zaluzhny, told Newsweek on Tuesday.
Ukraine has already lost six Leopard 2A4s and nine of the even newer 2A6 main battle tanks (MBTs), so Kyiv can hardly risk any of these advanced machines in mine clearing. That is where the Soviet-designed T-64 could be well suited.
While Kyiv has some 300 that may have been upgraded as the T-64BV and T-64BM, even the modernized Cold War era tank is hardly suitable for frontline actions against more modern tanks. Those and the older T-64A models could still be quite useful in clearing minefields, simply because they are “more expendable,” Rice added.
Ukraine’s Most Used Tank
It is also noteworthy that even as the Russian military maintained stocks of the T-62 and older tanks, its fleet of T-64s was largely retired with thousands even slated for destruction. By contrast, Ukraine carried out the development of the modernization of the T-64 due to the fact that it was home to the original main factory that produced the tank. Modernized variants of the T-64 had become the most common tank in the Ukrainian inventory by 2022 when Russia launched its unprovoked invasion.
In total, some 13,000 were produced by 1987.
The T-64 was developed as a replacement for the T-62, and it introduced a number of advanced features including composite armor, a compact engine and transmission, as well as an autoloader that reduced the crew from three to four – that in turn allowed the tank to be smaller and lighter, yet be armed and armed and armored like a heavy tank.
However, those features made the T-64 expensive to build, and that led to the development of the T-72.
It seems that those old tanks could be crucial to Ukraine’s counteroffensive. The T-64 will lead the vanguard, and for some of the crews it may be akin to a modern forlorn hope, but it would still be better than losing any more Leopard 2s to mines!
Author Experience and Expertise
A Senior Editor for 19FortyFive, Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer. He has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites with over 3,200 published pieces over a twenty-year career in journalism. He regularly writes about military hardware, firearms history, cybersecurity, politics, and international affairs. Peter is also a Contributing Writer for Forbes and Clearance Jobs. You can follow him on Twitter: @PeterSuciu.
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