T-80
The T-80 is a main battle tank that was designed and manufactured in the former Soviet Union and manufactured in Russia. The T-80 is based on the T-64, while incorporating features from the later T-72 and changing the engine to a gas turbine. When it entered service in 1976, it was the first production tank to be powered solely by turbine.
The chief designer of the T-80 was Soviet engineer Nikolay Popov. The T-80U was last produced in 2001 in a factory in Omsk, Russia. In 2023, the CEO of Uralvagonzavod announced that production would restart.
The Ukrainian T-80UD diesel engine variant continued to be produced in Ukraine. The T80 and its variants are in service in Belarus, Cyprus, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine and Uzbekistan. Ukraine further developed the T80UD as the T84.
History
Development
The project to build the first Soviet turbine powered tank began in 1949. Its designer was A. Ch. Starostienko, who worked at the Leningrad Kirov Plant. The tank was never built because available turbine engines were of very poor quality.In 1955, two prototype 1,000 hp turbine engines were built at the same plant under the guidance of G. A. Ogloblin. Two years later a team led by Josef Kotin constructed two prototypes of the Object 278 tank. Both were hybrids of the IS-7 and the T-10 heavy tanks, powered by the GTD-1 turbine engine, weighing 53.5 tonnes and armed with an M65 130 mm tank gun. The turbine engine allowed the tank to reach a maximum speed of, however with only 1,950 liters of fuel on board, their range was limited to only. The two tanks were considered experimental vehicles and work on them eventually ceased.
In 1963, the Morozov Design Bureau designed the T-64, normally powered by the 5TDF diesel. They also experimented with the T-64T with GTD-3TL turbine engines which generated 700 hp. This was tested until 1965. At the same time, at Uralvagonzavod, a design team under the guidance of Leonid N. Kartsev created the Object 167T tank. In 1964, in its report to First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev, the team reported that the design was not worth pursuing partly due to its high fuel use.
In 1960, Khrushchev ended all heavy tank programs. LKZ, concerned with the poor reliability of the 5TD diesel engine of the T-64, was freed to focus on gas turbine tank engine development. In 1967, the S. P. Izotov bureau at the Klimov Research-Production Association was assigned to this project. Rather than re-purpose an existing helicopter engine, Izotov built the GTD-1000T from scratch.
In 1966, the LKZ built the experimental Object 288 "rocket tank," powered by two Klimov GTD-350 turbine engines from the Mil Mi-2 helicopter, offering a combined power of 691 hp. Trials indicated that twin propulsion was no better than the turbine engine which had been in development since 1968 at LKZ and Omsktransmash.
Object 219
The tank from LKZ equipped with this turbine engine was designed by Nikolay Popov. It was constructed in 1969 and designated Object 219 SP1. It was essentially the T-64T powered by a GTD-1000T multi-fuel gas turbine engine producing up to 1,000 hp. During the trials it became clear that the increased weight and dynamic characteristics required a complete redesign of the vehicle's suspension. The second prototype, designated Object 219 SP2, received bigger drive sprockets and return rollers. The number of road wheels was increased from five to six. The construction of the turret was altered to use the same compartment, 125 mm 2A46 tank gun, autoloader and placement of ammunition as the T-64A. Some other equipment was borrowed from the T-64A. The LKZ plant built a series of prototypes based on Object 219 SP2.Production history
In November 1974, Minister of Defence Andrei Grechko, denied approval to put the Object-219 into production due to the tank's high fuel use and lack of advantages in armament and armour over other tanks then in production. Grechko died in April 1976, and Dmitry Ustinov, an enthusiastic supporter of the Object 219, was appointed in his place. The Object 219-2 was accepted for production as the T-80 in August 1976.The Object 219R, incorporating Combination K composite armour, was accepted for Soviet service in 1978 as the T-80B. Production of the original T-80 ended that same year. The T-80B entered production at Omsktransmash in 1979. Omsk developed a command version called the T-80BK. The T-80B was deployed with the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany in 1981.
Initially, the T-80 was confused with the Soviet T-72 by some Western analysts. They are the products of different design bureaus; the T-80 is from the SKB-2 design bureau of the Kirov Factory in Leningrad while the T-72 is from the Uralvagonzavod factory in Nizhny Tagil. They are similar in superficial appearance, but the T-80 is based on the earlier T-64, while incorporating features from the T-72, which was a complementary design. The T-64 in turn was an earlier high-technology main battle tank, designed by the Morozov Design Bureau in Kharkiv to replace the T-54/55 and T-62 MBTs, used before in the Soviet Union.
From a distance, the T-64, T-72 and T-80 look alike. Despite the similarities, the T-80 is 90 cm longer than the T-64, and the T-80 and T-72 are mechanically very different. The T-72 is mechanically simpler, easier to manufacture, and easier to service in the field. As such, the T-72 was intended to be a tank mass-produced to equip the bulk of the Soviet motor rifle units, and for sale to export partners and Eastern-bloc satellite states.
The T-80 design improved on several aspects of the earlier T-64 design, introducing a gas turbine engine in the original model, and incorporating suspension components of the T-72. This gave the tank a high power-to-weight ratio and made it easily the most mobile tank in service, albeit with acute range problems, as the turbine used fuel rapidly, even at engine idle. In comparison to its anticipated opponent, the American M1 Abrams has a larger, 1,500 hp, gas turbine, but weighs 61 tons compared to the T-80s 42.6 tons, so it has a worse hp/t ratio of 24.5 compared to 27.1 and is less maneuverable than the T-80. The T-80 can fire the same 9K112 Kobra anti-tank guided missile through the main gun as the T-64.
The T-80U main battle tank was designed by SKB-2 in Leningrad and the Morozov Bureau. It is a further development of the T-80A and is powered by the 1,250 hp GTD-1250 gas turbine. It is a step ahead of the GTD-1000T and GTD-1000TF engines that were installed on the previous tanks of the T-80 line. This gas turbine can use jet fuels, diesel, and low-octane gasoline, and has good dynamic stability, service life, and reliability. The GTD-1250 has a built-in automatic system of dust deposit removal. It retains the T-80s high fuel use, which the Russian army found unacceptable during the First Chechen War. It is equipped with the 2A46 fire control system and a new turret. The T-80U is protected by a second generation of explosive reactive armour called Kontakt-5, which can reduce the penetration of armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot rounds, such as the M829A1 "Silver Bullet", by 38%, and of high-explosive anti-tank rounds. Kontakt-5 had been developed as a response to the threat of modern APFSDS spurred by testing that found that the Israeli 105mm M111 APFSDS ammunition could defeat the glacis armour of the latest models of the T-72 and T-80.
The Kontakt-5 is integrated into the design of the turret, hull, and Brod-M deep wading equipment. Like all of the previous T-80 models, the T-80U has full length rubber side skirts protecting the sides with those above the first three road wheels being armoured and are provided with lifting handles. It can fire the 9M119 Refleks guided missile and the long-rod penetrator 3BM46. The remotely controlled commander's machine gun was replaced by a more flexible pintle-mounted one. A special camouflage paint distorts the tank's appearance in the visible and IR wavebands. The T-80U's 1A46 fire control system includes a laser range finder, a ballistics computer, and a more advanced 1G46 gunner's main sights, which greatly increases the T-80Us firepower over previous models. These new systems, together with the 125 mm D-81TM "Rapira-3" smooth bore gun, ensure that the T-80U can hit targets at a range of up to 5 kilometers. An experienced crew at the international exhibition was able to successfully strike 52 targets without a miss at a distance of 5 km using guided rockets.
The T-80U of the 1990s introduced the TO1-PO2 Agava gunner's thermal imaging sight and 9M119M Refleks-M guided missile, and later, an improved 2A46M-4 version of the 125 mm gun and 1G46M gunner's sight was used.
Russian tank production faltered in the years before and after the breakup of the Soviet Union. At the two remaining Russian tank plants, state orders all but ceased. Omsk, then the only Russian producer of the T-80, received orders for just five T-80Us in 1992. Around the same time, the Russian Ministry of Defense decided it would commit to eventually producing one tank type only. Though both Nizhni-Tagil's T-90 and Omsk's T-80U had their merits, the T-80 was notorious for its high fuel use and production cost. Also, Russian T-80BVs suffered appalling losses in their first combat use during the First Chechen War. T-90s, which were not deployed to Chechnya, were spared media criticism despite the similarly poor performance of the T-72 in the same conflict. In January 1996, Colonel General Aleksandr Galkin, chief of Main Armour Directorate of the Russian Ministry of Defense, said the Russian Armed Forces would phase out T-80 production in favor of the T-90. Production of the T-80 at Omsk persisted until 2001, mainly for the export market. In September 2023, the CEO of Uralvagonzavod, Alexander Potapov, said that they had been tasked by the military to resume manufacture of the T-80. It is unknown how long the process of restarting the production line will take.