On the Ukrainian Internet resource "Apostrophe" there was an interview with the director of the Kharkov plant. Malysheva "Will there be a" tank of the future "in Ukraine: what kind of combat vehicles are being created for the army", as if revealing the state and prospects of Ukrainian tank building. The interview tells about the "novelties" of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex, the T-64BM "Bulat", T-84U "Oplot" tanks and the promising "Nota" tank. It should be noted that the interview is given by the director of the plant, who is far from the development of tanks and their characteristics, like any director, he has only one task: to mass-produce what he is ordered to do. The development of the tank is carried out by the design bureau them. Morozov, and it determines the appearance, characteristics of tanks and the prospects for their development. Therefore, the opinion of the director of the plant should be treated rather carefully, he simply does not know and does not understand many things, and gives the wishful thinking.
The article describes the state and prospects of Ukrainian tank building in rainbow colors. At one time, I had to deal with the development of prototypes of today's Ukrainian tanks, and I have a good idea of what characteristics and capabilities they have. I can say right away that these tanks had an excellent Soviet past, now the deplorable Ukrainian present and the future will be the same.
The article gives a high assessment to the Ukrainian T-84 tank, the modernized Soviet T-64BM Bulat tank, the "most perfect" T-84U Oplot tank and the promising Nota tank.
How the T-84 tank appeared
Consider what these tanks are. The T-84 tank is a complete copy of the Soviet serial T-80UD tank. This is the last modification of the T-80U tank, which entered service in 1984. In accordance with the draft government decree prepared in 1990, all tank factories were supposed to move to the production of this tank, but the Union collapsed and this was not implemented. The tank was mass-produced at the plant. Malyshev until 1992.
The T-84 tank appeared in 1996 when Ukraine signed a contract with Pakistan for the supply of 320 tanks. Under this contract, the T-80UD was renamed due to the fact that the task was to transfer the entire Russian configuration of the tank to the Ukrainian one. This task was solved, and supplies to Pakistan were mainly supplied with Ukrainian equipment.
The T-80UD tank was equipped with a 1000 hp 6TDF diesel engine, a 2A46M cannon, an Irtysh gunner's sighting system, a Reflex guided weapon system, an Agat-C commander's sighting system, and a Utes enclosed anti-aircraft gun.
Ukraine was not able to independently produce this tank, most of the components were supplied from Russia. This was especially true of the cannon and sighting systems, without which the tank could not be produced. Several coincidences helped to implement the closed production cycle of the tank in Ukraine.
In 1990, in connection with the preparation of the mass production of the T-80UD tank and the expansion of the production of components for it, it was decided to launch the production of the Irtysh sighting complex, the Reflex missile laser guidance channel and the Agat-S sighting system, in addition to the Vologda optical-mechanical plant at the Cherkassy optical-mechanical plant "Photopribor" and all the documentation was transferred to this plant. So in Ukraine, before the collapse of the Union, its own production of the most advanced tank sighting systems at that time appeared, which Ukraine was not able to independently develop and produce.
No one has ever been involved in the development and production of guns of any caliber in Ukraine either, but the KMDB had a complete set of documentation for the 2A46M gun. The breech part of the cannon was reproduced by the plant. Malysheva. For the production of barrels, special equipment and technology were needed, which were not available. They found equipment at several Ukrainian enterprises and instructed them to organize the production of barrels. It was impossible to do this without technology, the most interesting thing is that the technology was transferred from the Perm plant for the production of guns. Moreover, the specialists of this plant were sent to Ukraine for a special remuneration, and with their help the production of barrels was organized now for the Ukrainian KBA-3 cannon. So Russia raised a competitor in the production of guns in Ukraine with its own hands.
There was no documentation for the Reflex missile in Ukraine, an attempt to develop such a missile was undertaken by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau, but they were engaged in very large missiles and could not develop such a "small" one. This work was entrusted to the Kiev design bureau "Luch", which previously took part in the development of aircraft missiles. Having already had the documentation and production of the laser guidance channel for the Reflex missile, they tried to replicate this missile for more than ten years and eventually developed and launched the Kombat missile, which in its characteristics corresponded to the Reflex missile. This missile became the prototypes of a whole family of missiles produced in Ukraine for various types of military equipment.
All the electronics, most of the documentation for which was also, was reproduced at Kharkov enterprises that produced electronics for the Soviet rocket and space complex. The hydraulic drive of the gun stabilizer was reproduced at the FED plant, which possessed excellent technology for the production of hydraulic machines for aviation.
As a result, the entire configuration of the tank was reproduced and put into production with the money of the Pakistani contract. So it was possible to repeat the Soviet T-80UD tank and pass it off as a new Ukrainian development of the T-84 tank.
Upgraded tank T-64BV
In Ukraine, at the end of the 90s, a project was implemented to modernize the Soviet T-64BV tank, serially produced in 1976-1984, which received the T-64BM "Bulat" index. The modernization consisted in bringing its characteristics to the level of the T-84, with the installation of the Irtysh gunner's sighting complex, the Agat-S commander's sighting complex, replacing the Cobra guided weapons complex with the Reflex, which had already received Ukrainian names and indices, a set dynamic protection "Knife", the upgraded night sight of the gunner "Buran", the installation of a 5TDFM engine with a capacity of 850 hp. or 6TD-1 with a capacity of 1000 hp.
In the early 2000s, 10 of these tanks were modernized; the tank was never put into mass production. With the outbreak of the war in Donbass, a small batch of T-64BV tanks was modernized, but it was no longer possible to massively modernize the tanks due to the collapse of tank production and lack of funding.
Tank T-84U "Oplot"
As if the new Ukrainian tank T-84U "Oplot" was developed in 2011 as a further development of the T-84 tank. It was distinguished by the installation of a 6TD-2E engine with a capacity of 1200 hp, an auxiliary diesel power plant with a capacity of 10 kW, a welded turret, a Duplet reactive armor, a gunner's thermal imaging sight with imported components, a commander's panoramic sight with a laser rangefinder and a thermal imaging channel, a navigation system with a tablet for displaying information, working on signals from satellite navigation GPS / GLONASS, an optical-electronic countermeasure system based on the still Soviet system "Shtora".
In total, one T-84U "Oplot" tank was produced. Serial production could not be organized due to the collapse of the industry and lack of funding. In 2011, a contract was signed with Thailand for the supply of 49 of these tanks, which was only completed with difficulty in 2018.
The upgraded T-64 BM "Bulat" and T-84 tanks in terms of firepower and mobility are at the level of the Russian T-72 B3 tank with the Sosna U gunner's sighting system, the Agat-S commander's sighting system and a 1000 hp engine., as well as at the T-90 level with the gunner's sighting system "Irtysh-Reflex", the commander's sighting system "Agat-S" and a 1000 hp engine.
Tank T-84U "Oplot" at the level of the T-90SM tank with the gunner's sighting system "Sosna U", a panorama of the commander "Falcon Eye" and an 1130 hp engine.
Myths about the Nota tank
The director of the plant tells some idle speculations about the promising Ukrainian tank "Nota", not knowing and not understanding the essence of the problem. He says that the project of the Nota tank was developed back in the Soviet Union with an uninhabited turret, the drawings were transferred to Moscow and the tank was repeated there, making the Armata. Such nonsense is difficult even to come up with, fairy tales are purely in the Ukrainian style.
I am a participant in the development of the last Soviet tank "Boxer", which has nothing to do with "Note". Work on the "Boxer" tank was discontinued in 1991 due to the collapse of the Union and the impossibility of conducting such complex and expensive developments in Ukraine. It was development work with the production of several prototypes, but the design bureau turned out to be in another state and the work was curtailed.
Tank "Boxer" was a classic layout with a manned turret and a semi-extended gun. The concept of the tank was well known in the Ministry of Defense Industry, its project was considered and defended there with the participation of representatives of the Ministry of Defense, Kubinka, VNIITM, there was no secret for specialists, moreover, developments in many units and systems of the tank were carried out in Russia.
The documentation for the tank was not transferred to Moscow until 1995, at that time I was still working at the design bureau. Perhaps, during the implementation of the Pakistani contract, something could have been offered for help in its implementation, but there was no particular need for this, too much time had passed. After the collapse of the Union, the project of a promising tank "Object 195" was developed at UVZ in the early 90s, it used many ideas, components and systems of the Boxer tank, a 152-mm semi-extended gun, sighting systems, TIUS and a number of other systems developed for the tank "Boxer" by Russian enterprises. The difference was in the uninhabited turret and the placement of the crew in a capsule in the tank hull. In 2009, this project was abandoned and the Armata project was launched with a different concept.
Mythical stories that a new promising tank is being developed in Ukraine can only be perceived as an anecdote. There are neither resources nor opportunities for this. The tank is developing not only the tank design bureau, but a lot of allies, without which it cannot be created. There are no such partners in Ukraine today, there is global devastation in science and industry, what kind of tanks are there!
At the KMDB at the end of the 90s, a search research work "Nota" was carried out to find a concept for a tank of the future and nothing more. One of the participants in this project has already written on the Internet that they drew pictures of tanks, no one seriously studied them, and even more so, the design of the tank and all its components and systems was not developed. This is done in any design bureau and even amateurs, there is little sense from this. This work has long ended in nothing, the tanks are creating teams of specialists in different industries, and this is possible only in a strong and rich state, and not in a impoverished and crumbling Ukraine.
Prospects for Ukrainian tank building
The tank building school at the KMDB is still preserved, but it went to the wrong state. Nobody needs this without serious economic, scientific and industrial power. In Soviet times, masterpieces of tank building were created there. On the Soviet backlog in the 90s, when the industry had not yet collapsed, it was possible to maintain that level and upgrade tanks, achieving good performance. With today's devastation, it is impossible even to reproduce what happened in the near future and it will be lost.
For now, it is still possible to modernize previously released tanks, bringing them to the level of the T-84 (T-80UD), but this is not for long. Soon there will be no one to produce components.
There are no T-84BM "Bulat" and T-84U "Oplot" tanks in the Ukrainian army for two reasons: firstly, it is impossible to establish their serial production due to the collapse of the industry; secondly, Ukraine does not need such complex tanks with high performance and cost in hostilities in the Donbass, so they are not in demand. Nobody will let Ukraine enter the external arms market now, nobody needs a competitor there. In this regard, the prospects for Ukrainian tank building are very deplorable.
