Much in common with the previous hero of our reviews, the T-54/55 tank. As simple, convenient, reliable as its predecessor. Yes, the war in Afghanistan revealed the shortcomings of the tank, but more on that below.
Our intelligence played the main role in the appearance of the T-62. It was thanks to the clear actions of our intelligence officers that the country's leadership received very unpleasant information in a timely manner.
It was about the adoption by NATO countries of new tank guns of 105 mm caliber. This gave a significant advantage to the tanks of a potential enemy over our T-54 and T-55.
By that time, it was no secret that our 100-mm gun of the T-55 tank could no longer penetrate the frontal armor of the American M48 Patton III tank, but the Americans already had an M60 Patton IV on their way. With the new gun, the M60 generally began to have such an advantage that it caused serious concern among everyone in the Union.
But it is worth agreeing that they did not just know how to catch up and overtake us, but were able to masterfully. Moreover, since the time of Joseph Vissarionovich.
In Nizhniy Tagil, where the Uralvagonzavod design bureau is located, from the moment the T-54 was put into service, work began on the next generation tank. This is the so-called "Object 140", which was built in metal, but did not go into production. However, the developments of the "Object 140" went into action and were used to create the "Object 165", a prototype of a new tank.
"Object 165" inherited from its predecessor the hull, turret, engine compartment, transmission and mechanism for automatic ejection of shells through the aft hatch of the turret.
The Object 165 was planned to be armed with a new 100-mm rifled tank gun U-8TS, which was a modernization of the D-54TS cannon. In principle, all the innovations of the modernization consisted in the “Kometa” stabilizer instead of the “Lightning” on the D-54TS.
The Comet was a more modern stabilizer, but the problem was not barrel stabilization. The gun had a whole bunch of complaints, the main one of which was the lack of penetration of the projectile.
It is quite logical that simultaneously with the "Object 165" the development of the "Object 166" began, for which they began to develop another weapon.
If correct, then, of course, do not develop. The weapon had already been developed by that time at the Design Bureau of the Yurginsk Machine-Building Plant No. 75. It was developed as a particularly powerful 100 mm T12 anti-tank gun.
A feature of this gun was the absence of rifling in the barrel. The cannon was designed to be smooth-bore, and here's why: HEAT shells have a greater penetrating ability if they are not given a torque.
For the T12 cannon, special feathered armor-piercing shells were developed, which also did not need to be given a torque. At a distance of 1 km, this cannon penetrated 215 mm of armor, which in theory was quite enough to fight the main tanks of NATO countries.
Naturally, the idea of installing the T12 on a tank immediately arose, since it so happened that a smoothbore gun was almost half as powerful as a rifled one.
However, in practice, everything turned out to be not so simple. The shells developed for the T12 could not be used in a tank due to their size. The length of a unitary cartridge was 1,200 mm, which is perfectly normal for an artillery piece, but it is simply unrealistic to turn around in a tank with such a cartridge.
Therefore, the smoothbore gun for the tank had to be made from the U-8TS. In the 100-mm cannon, the rifling of the barrel was removed, which increased its caliber to 115-mm. Due to the lack of rifling, it became possible to significantly increase the pressure of the powder gases and thereby increase the initial velocity of the projectile.
The new gun lacked a muzzle brake, which was welcomed by the military. The barrel of the gun was lengthened. So the world's first smooth-bore tank gun U-5TS "Molot" was born.
Contrary to many fears, the accuracy of the new gun was at the level of the best rifled tank artillery systems of that time.
The base model T-54 has also undergone changes and improvements. The course machine gun on the new tank was removed, and the method of attaching the PKT coaxial machine gun was changed due to the replacement of the gun.
The new tank gun turned out to be too heavy for the Kometa and Molniya gun stabilizers in service. A new Meteor stabilizer was developed for the new gun.
The layout of the tank was classic: the command compartment was located in front, behind it was the fighting compartment, and in the rear of the tank was the engine compartment.
On the left side of the control compartment was the driver's seat, who got on him through a hatch located directly above the seat in the turret armor plate. A spare escape hatch was located behind the seat in the bottom.
At night, a TNV-2 night vision device was added to the optical devices, which allowed the driver to see the road at a distance of 60 m in front of the tank. The infrared headlight was located next to the regular headlight on the right side of the hull. Under water, the tank was controlled using a heading indicator.
The fighting compartment housed the tank commander (rear left in the tower), gunner (front right in the tower) and loader (rear right in the tower).
[center] Commander's seat
[/center]
In the roof of the tower there were two hatches that opened forward: the left one for the commander, the right one for the loader.
On tanks produced since 1972, a large-caliber anti-aircraft machine gun DShKM was located behind the loader's hatch. Ammunition for the machine gun consisted of 300 cartridges in belts.
Ammunition for the gun consisted of 40 shells and was located in the fighting compartment. Since unitary cartridges weighed very decently, from 22 to 30 kg, the most physically strong guys were selected for the role of loaders. But at the same time, the large weight of the projectile became the reason for the development of an automatic loader.
And AZ "Acorn" was developed and even tested on "Object 166". But the T-62 went into production without AZ, which had been perfected for quite some time. And "Acorn" served as a prototype for the creation of the automatic loader of the T-72 tank.
The power plant is a 12-cylinder four-stroke V-55V diesel engine with a capacity of 580 hp. The cruising range on the highway was 450-650 km.
The tank was equipped with an anti-radiation protection system that could operate in both automatic and semi-automatic modes. With the help of a blower-separator, an excess pressure was created inside the tank, which did not allow poisonous substances to penetrate into the machine in case of depressurization.
The T-62 was equipped with an automatic fire extinguishing system. Fire-fighting equipment extinguished fires in the corresponding compartment with a mixture of ethyl bromide, carbon dioxide and compressed air. It could also work in both automatic and semi-automatic modes.
In the summer of 1961, both "Object 165" and "Object 166" were recommended by the commission for adoption. "Object 165" received the index T-62A, "Object 166" became T-62.
The T-62A was produced in an experimental series of 25 tanks, and then its production was stopped so as not to produce an excessive number of models.
The T-62 was produced in the USSR until 1975, in Czechoslovakia from 1973 to 1978, and in the DPRK from 1980 to 1989. In total, about 20,000 vehicles of various modifications were produced.
For the first time, the T-62 was shown at the Parade on November 7, 1967. The first combat use fell on the events of 1968 in Czechoslovakia, but since there were no active hostilities there, then we are not talking about full use.
The T-62 received its real baptism of fire in 1969 during the Soviet-Chinese conflict on Damansky Island. A platoon of three T-62s tried to help the border guards defending the island by crossing the Ussuri river arm that separated them on the ice.
The Chinese knocked out the tank of Colonel Leonov, who died along with the crew and were even able to capture the tank. Chinese experts carefully examined the T-62 and used the Soviet technical solutions found in it when designing their model Ture 69 (WZ-121).
T-62s were actively used in Afghanistan. Naturally, the vehicle, which showed itself well in battles, began to be transferred and sold to other countries.
The tank fought a lot in the Middle East as part of the Syrian and Egyptian armies during the Six Day War and the Yom Kippur War.
Later, the T-62 under the name "Tiran 6" fought in the Israeli army, since more than 200 vehicles were simply abandoned and lost by the Arab military due to command errors and the lack of professionalism of the crews.
Syria later used its T-62s in the 1982 Lebanese War. The Iraqi army actively used the T-62 during the Iran-Iraq war of 1980-88, during the attack on Kuwait and during the defense during the 1991 Gulf War.
The T-62s were used by Libyan troops during the invasion of Chad by Muammar Gaddafi's troops in November 1986, as well as during the 2011 Dawn of the Odyssey joint French-American operation against him.
Today, T-62s are actively involved in the war against terrorists in Syria.
In general, the T-62 has established itself as a worthy successor to the T-55. Just as simple, reliable, easy to maintain and maintainable.
The fighting showed that the maximum gun pointing angle of + 16 ° is insufficient, especially in mountainous conditions. Applications in the deserts of the Middle East have brought operational problems due to dust. The ammunition load of 40 rounds is quite good, but due to the large size of the shells, only part of the ammunition is located in the turret. For the same reason, used cartridges are not returned to the ammunition rack, but are thrown out through a special hatch.
But on the whole, it was an excellent combat vehicle of that era, which showed itself worthily on the battlefields.
