After the arms exhibition ended in Nizhny Tagil, information began to appear in the press that a new tank, a fourth-generation armored vehicle, could appear already in 2015. In addition, the military department says that within 6-7 years, starting in 2014, the Russian ground forces will face a large-scale rearmament. Thanks to him, the tank park should be updated by more than 70%.
Today, such statements do not look somewhat utopian, because with active funding, the production capacities of the Russian defense industry are actually working at the limit of their capabilities. Serious modernization of existing tank models is already underway. It is planned that the T-72 tank will be equipped with the latest navigation systems and instruments that allow fighting in poor visibility conditions. To the words about the fact that the T-72 can already be considered obsolete, the military responds with the following: the T-72 tank has not lost its relevance today and surpasses its foreign counterparts in many respects. In this regard, it is good enough to equip it with new guidance and communication means, and its resource will be seriously increased.
The Defense Ministry plans to supply the troops with the modernized T-80 and T-90. These vehicles will also undergo further development, thanks to which they will have electronic navigation systems, digital communications and a convenient all-round visibility system on board. For obvious reasons, the tank will not be left aside, the comfort of the module for the crew of which was appreciated even by Prime Minister Putin. We are talking about the T-90S tank presented at the Nizhny Tagil exhibition.
However, new armored vehicles, such as the T-95 and T-99, may well enter service with the tank forces approximately by 2020. For all the positives, however, one should not forget that in our country any good undertakings can quite unexpectedly run into the walls of bureaucracy and corruption. Let's not forget that the Ministry of Defense has already discredited itself by disrupting the signing of billion-dollar contracts for the purchase of new aircraft. Therefore, let's spit over our left shoulder and hope that the situation with tanks and other armored vehicles will be much more positive than the situation with planes and helicopters.
For greater confidence in the implementation of the outlined plans, it would not be at all superfluous to organize some kind of public control. In other words, you need to carefully monitor where the colossal funds allocated by the state for the purchase of weapons will actually go. Without public control, the hour is not yet even, and the money will again settle on some far from Russian accounts. Or at the same time, the army will again be left with rusty equipment of the sixties, which will be passed off as modernized after painting with green enamel. At the same time, the number of floors in the country houses of Russian generals may suddenly grow again …
