Much has already been written about the last place of Ukrainian tankers in the Strong Europe Tank Challenge 2018 in Germany. But the explanation of the reason for such a deplorable result on the part of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine by the inexperience of the crews ("Lenta.ru") surprised me very much.
The impressions of the direct biathlon participants who were accused of unprofessionalism are always the most interesting, since this is the opinion of people from the "field" sitting directly in the car and evaluating it in a specific situation. The emerging video of the biathlon participants and their assessments of the condition of the tanks explained a lot.
I was interested in two points: what tanks Ukraine presented at the biathlon and the reasons that prevented the effective firing from the tank.
According to official reports, Oplot tanks were sent to the biathlon in Germany. The photographs of the tanks show clearly that this is not "Oplot"! This tank is easily recognizable by the cylindrical panoramic sight towering over the commander's hatch. In the photographs, there are other tanks that do not resemble the Oplot in any way. What kind of tanks are these?
The tankers revealed this secret. It turns out that these are really not Oplots, they were made back in 2001! Perhaps these were the first modifications of the tank, which later became the "Oplot". There were never any Oplot tanks in the Ukrainian army, only 49 of them were made with difficulty under a Thai contract and sent to Thailand.
It turned out that four tanks from the only batch of ten tanks made for the Ukrainian army during the entire existence of Ukraine were sent to biathlon. The Ukrainian army did not receive any more new tanks. As far as I remember, there was a scandal that the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine refused to pay for them. Probably for this reason, six tanks from this batch were stored at the Malyshev plant, where there are no conditions for long-term storage of tanks.
Four tanks disappeared somewhere. There are reliable versions that they were already sold in the United States a long time ago, since they really needed money. After 17 years, these tanks were remembered and decided to demonstrate them at the German biathlon as a miracle of Ukrainian armored vehicles. Now this batch of tanks is called differently T-84, T-84U, the first version of "Oplot". In fact, this is a further development of the Soviet T-80UD.
I was surprised by the approach of the Ukrainian military and industry to the preparation of tanks and crews for biathlon. The tankers describe in detail how these tanks were "handed over" to them at the Malyshev plant and how the crews were trained. After seventeen years of storage without proper conditions and without routine maintenance, they decided to send the tanks to biathlon. At the same time, they did not even bother to carry out acceptance tests and check the characteristics of systems and components. After such a long storage without observing the necessary conditions, many defects could appear on them, which already took place in Germany.
Malyshev's plant did not care what would happen to these tanks. As the tankers said, the plant was "not paid" for the training of the crews, probably, they were also offended there for the long-standing failure to pay for these tanks, and the plant did not train the crews. They are like beggars, all the time they asked to do something on these tanks, and they were dismissed as from annoying flies. With such untested technique, without the coherence of the crews, they were sent to biathlon.
The tanks presented at the biathlon in their characteristics were at the level of the last Soviet T-80UD tank, as well as the T-72 and T-90. These tanks had a perfect fire control system, which even today is not inferior to anyone. With good preparation of tanks and crews, they should have shown themselves well in biathlon.
But the tanks were in a deplorable state and, in principle, even with good crew training, they could not claim a good result. Malfunctions rained down one after another, starting with such "trifles" as leaks in the fuel system, inoperative sensors of the engine systems, sparking terminals on the batteries. Much more serious problems were with the fire control system.
The main reason for the failure in biathlon was the inability to shoot from the tank due to constant failures of the loading mechanism and the stabilizer of the gun. For many years with my specialists I have been working on tank fire control systems and have a rough idea of what could have happened there.
According to the crew, when the fire control system was switched on, the gun was “shaking” in the tank all the time, and they hardly guided it at the target. According to indirect indications, this is observed due to the high rigidity of the stabilizer due to the lack of adjustment of this circuit or a defect in the control unit. They changed blocks, but that doesn't always help. In each tank, the control unit must be adjusted to the individual characteristics of the tank. Without this, the defect cannot be eliminated, and trained specialists should deal with this. These are available only at the plant and in repair battalions at the level, in my opinion, of a tank division. Tankers do not know how to do this and are not allowed to do such work.
After a long storage of tanks, the parameters of the gun and turret (moments of resistance) could change. The stabilizer had to be reconfigured, and this was not done. There is a high probability that defects appeared in the control units due to the aging of the element base, especially since tank equipment in Ukraine is manufactured by non-specialized enterprises and without strict control of the element base used.
The second serious malfunction was the failure of the loading mechanism due to the blocking of further operations by sensors during the loading cycle of the gun. The sensors should work like that, they ensure the safety of the tank and the crew, the cannon is still loaded onto a blank, and an explosive projectile with a sleeve. The reason for the blockages could be a sensor failure, which is unlikely, or unacceptably large backlashes and defects in the components of the loading mechanism, leading to false triggering or non-triggering of the sensor.
Apparently, it was so. The tanks were in storage for a long time and were not serviced. The necessary technologists have already been lost at the tank plant, there are no specialists of the appropriate qualifications and there is no demanding military acceptance. Parts and assemblies of the tank are made of "improvised" metal, which can lose its characteristics over time. Units manufactured and assembled without adherence to technology cease to fulfill their functions over time. There are many such units in the loading mechanism, and with its ultra-dense layout, the tolerances for parts and assemblies are very tight. Therefore, any liberties with their manufacture can lead to serious consequences.
So the tankers in the biathlon had to get nervous. In a stressful situation, when it is impossible to fire a shot, you will not only start evaluating the equipment and those who made it with obscenities, but also require the introduction of an additional crew member to load the gun.
The tank, exhibited for biathlon by Ukraine, is an analogue of the T-80UD tank with a small degree of modernization, several hundred of which were delivered under a contract in 1996-1998 to Pakistan. For twenty years of operation, there were no special complaints about this tank, that is, the tank made on the Soviet backlog showed good characteristics. Almost the same tanks produced later - already of a completely different quality, and even in the conditions of a summer training ground, they are practically incapable of combat.
All this suggests that the Ukrainian tank industry has degraded so much that not only has it produced only ten tanks for its own army in a quarter of a century, these tanks were at the lowest level in quality and only disgraced the country in international competitions.
In addition to the quality of the tanks, it is worth noting the preparation for participation in biathlon. Degradation is also taking place at the highest level of management of the army and the defense industry. The preparation of tanks and crews for biathlon could not be carried out either at the technical or at the organizational level. Elementary logic prompted to carry out maintenance work on tanks stored for a long time, debug them, test and carry out a full cycle of crew training. None of this has been done.
According to the tank crews, no one needed them, neither their own command, nor the structures of the Ukroboronprom responsible for the quality of equipment training. With this approach, and the corresponding result. This deplorable experience must always be borne in mind: when preparing serious events, there are no trifles, and any business can be ruined without preparing it.
