T-62 Main Battle Tank | SMOOTHBORE UPGRADE

[Music] [Music] welcome back everyone it's me again Matt hope you having a wonderful day thank you for joining me on today's video main battle tanks of Russia they're quite confusing sometimes really aren't they especially to the untrained eye if you're not aware of the subtle differences between main battle tanks of the Soviet Union or Russia it can be a little confusing even to this day I struggle to verify what tanks what because I forget what those little subtle differences are and this tank is no exception to that very strange oddity when it comes to verifying what tank is which from the Russian and nation of course the t-62 is no exception to that rule and today we are talking about this beautiful medium tank that was born from the need to upgrade or replace the aging t54 fifty-five series in order for Soviet tanks to be more able to defeat their new Western counterparts in battle this tanks 115 millimeter smoothbore gun was a notable upgrade over the earlier 100 millimeter rifled d 10 t gun the competition the D 50 40s rifled gun lingered on for a while thanks to its newly developed tungsten core sub caliber rounds but one thisthese became available for the u5t f smoothbore as well the d50 40 s finally disappeared from all future tank proposals originally the t-62 was supposed to be a stopgap measure before the appearance of the newer t 64 tank from Kharkov but in the end it was produced in the Soviet Union until 1975 with more than 20,000 of these tanks made and it formed the backbone of the Soviet forces for many years to come unlike the t-64 later on the t-62 was released for export quite soon after all it was scheduled to be replaced anyway in the end over 5000 of these tanks were actually exported around the world and still to this day fighting away interestingly enough most Warsaw Pact countries were not keen on actually purchasing this vehicle there are rumors going around on the internet about the t-62 being licensed produced in Czechoslovakia or Poland but as far as I can find this seems like more of a myth this vehicle was not produced in either country this misinformation probably comes from Western sources and unfortunately mentioned by Steven Seagal or as well both countries evaluated it but the vehicle was actually quite expensive the price of an imported t-62 was roughly 50% more of that of the t-55 the other thing was that the Warsaw Pact militaries knew very well that the Soviets themselves were preparing to replace this vehicle and buying more expensive tanks that were considered only temporary which was considered totally a waste of money in the end the t-62s would generally only exported to Arab countries to replace the heavy losses from laws with Israel Cuba some African countries also and Vietnam along with of course North Korea that actually produced its own variant up until the 80s one very peculiar case was a demands incident from March 1969 where Soviet forces lost the t-62 that drowned in a river during fighting with the Chinese the Chinese troops were able to recover the lost tank and the technology salvaged from it were used to significantly advance their own tank developments the t-62 took part in several notable conflicts during the Yom Kippur War with Israel Arab tankers managed to cause some losses to their Israeli counterparts but in the end the Israeli training prevailed and the Centurions managed to destroy dozens upon dozens of Syrian and Egyptian t-62 tanks despite the massive Arab losses the Israelis did consider the t-62 to be a very lethal and very formidable enemy and used a number of captured t-62 themselves under the designation of the Turan another major conflict for the t-62 that it was taken part in was of course the Afghanistan war where it proved to be extremely vulnerable to ambushes and mines and the Soviets lost 385 t-62 tanks throughout the entire conflict nevertheless the t-62 continued to be a very popular choice and hundreds remain in service at various parts of the world today but like the t54 55 before it by the 1970s and 1980s the vehicle was already showing its extreme signs of age its steel Armour was the first to become very very obsolete with its 100 millimeter of steel al biet sloped the vehicle offered very little frontal protection from modern missiles such as the American tow system that started hearing in early 1970s the turret was quite thick for its time 242 millimeters in the front and the latter batches but it was still just steal the gun needed an upgrade - not that it was completely obsolete but the fire control system definitely could use an upgrade there was many stories of Gunners trying to use the fire control system in it taking far too long to actually program and operate the tank for example did not have a proper rangefinder and the gunner only uses telescopic t-sh to be 41 later the TSH s 41 new gun sights with an inbuilt scale to estimate the distance to his target the tank had a very formidable engine for its class and time the engine was a classic V 55 V DS L engine producing only around 580 horsepower but enough to keep the tank chugging along at a fairly respectable place off-road and on-road in the tank line-up of the day in short in the early 1980s though it was decided that modernization was needed to significantly improve the combat value of thousands of t-62 tanks that were still in service however that's not to say that there were no upgrades between the launch of this tank in production in 1965 and its end in 1975 but these upgrades were only partial it had improved engine decks improved tracks and improved drive sprockets in the model 1967 returning the heavy 12.7 millimeter anti-aircraft machine gun mount to the vehicle on the model of 1972 the KT d1 laser rangefinder in the model 1975 and the mesh anti RPG additional armor based on the Afghanistan experiences and there were also lots of other smaller changes the more thorough modernization that was needed and a result became the t-62m the most visible change was the armor upgrade its goal was to significantly improve the tank's protection from guided missiles and heat shells in general the frontal hull and frontal turret received a major arm upgrade identical in composition of the one of the t-55 M called bdd armor the armor was quite interesting it consisted of three centimeters of steel plate and eight centimeters of space filled with four angled layered five millimeter steel plates and layers of polyethylene the turret armor was identically improved in the most exposed zones by what was become known as aleix eyebrows which were basically two thick stripes of armor although the frontal protection increased to approximately 450 to 400 millimeters of rolled homogeneous Armour versus heat and 320 millimeters of rolled homogeneous Armour versus kinetic shells the whole kit version weighed little over two tons the t-62m also received an anti-radiation liner and a new anti heat rubber screen were installed on the sides of the vehicles although this feature was optional and many vehicles lacked it but at least not the most important part of the entire upgrade was the frontal part of the lower front plate weld to the second pair of road wheels which received an additional 20 millimeters of armor as an anti mine protection system which for the most part passed it's Afghanistan has really made no huge sense there was no real gorilla warfare required against this tank anymore and it came back to the old cold war-era style of attack some additional defensive measures included the 902 b2k smoke grenade launcher system the soda anti napalm system and the firepower was improved by the introduction of two major improvements the 9k 1 1 6 - 2 scanner missile launching system and the vulnerable system was actually allowing the vehicle to fire the 9 m117 missiles the same is satisfied by the t-55 M's bastian system the missile was capable of penetrating up to 750 millimetres of steel the minimum range was 100 meters and the maximum range was around 4,000 meters and the average velocity of this missile was around 370 meters a second the vulner fire control system consisted of the following components an improved kt d - laser rangefinder the bv 62 ballistic computer and the TS HS m41 new gun sight along with the meteo m1 stabilizer as you can see some of the components were identical to that of the Volm FCS version of the t-55 M the unification was important as a cost saver although the nine m117 missiles selves were extremely expensive for a weapon system of this kind and really made no true sense to fire it considering the cost of the tank and main gun rounds being used the 115 millimeter smoothbore gun also received a thermal shroud to prevent it from twisting by the heat of the fire additionally some models had the anti-aircraft 12.7 millimeter DSH AKM machine gun replaced by the more modern and SVT one of the key things that you can notice about the t-62 difference between the t-55 54 is the fume extractor on the barrel you can also notice the spacing between the wheels is a little different on the t54 and fifty-five models however some tanks out there have had certain modifications that deceive you in those two key attributes of defining between what is a t-62 and at sea 55 really really difficult concerning the way in which tanks around the world have been modified in their own variants and the way in which they've kind of has been changed whatever country they want them to be as the engine was replaced also by a more powerful 620 horsepower v 55 you although the maximum speed surprisingly didn't actually change and remains the same as the 50 kilometers an hour it did before the tracks were also improved further they were unified with the t-72 ones the communications were also modernized as well the r12 three radio was replaced with the more modern are 173 set of course with any russian vehicle there are many different variants and sub versions of this tank along with many other tank platforms out there of Soviet and Russian design some notable mentions are the t-62 M - one which was a type of the improved V 46 5 M engine which produced an impressive 690 horsepower and also the t-62 M V - 1 which is the t-62 M V with an improved V 46 5 M engine and finally the t-62 M V which is basically a t-62m without adding the additional bdd Armour but instead an explosive reactive Armour kit it's worth noting that the t-62 D prototype series which were t-62 tanks equipped with the experimental draws a PS or active protection system are not subtypes of the t-62m the development actually in parallel to this tank although the t-62 MD prototype which was a t-62m equipped with these rods ApS actually existed the exact number of vehicle was modified is completely unknown because there are so many different variants one plant alone modified around 400 t-62s to the standards that are passed on from the t-62 D and M variants but the number of produced is totally totally different to what I could find and it's likely that it was in its low thousands the t-62 M's weren't that widely exported either many appeared in Afghanistan during the soviet-afghan war and was supplied to the local governments later they appeared during conflicts in Chechnya and most recently a number of those tanks were sold to Syria where they were used quite successfully against anti-government forces some of the t-62 main battle tank equipment was carried over directly from the t-55 the torsion bar suspension and hydraulic shock absorbers were similar to that of the t-55 suspension system it also had the fire suppression system that could be manually activated or automatically through heat sensors on the vehicle the vehicle did have nuclear biological and Radiological protection systems that were automatically able to seal the tank at preset levels of radiation if they were encountered the t-62 does use standard Soviet smoke screen equipment using diesel fuel sprayed onto the exhaust manifold in the normal configuration the t-62 could Ford rivers up to four point six feet deep when a snorkel was fitted eight-hour procedure in that it could handle up to around 15 feet of water in waiting now the turret surprisingly couldn't be traversed during the loading sequence this combination of drawbacks made it very vulnerable during the Yom Kippur War and the invasion of Lebanon only 40 rounds of the main gun were actually carried the machine gun carried around 3,000 rounds Coe actually which helped a little bit when engaging infantry in Afghanistan overall folks the t-62 was a very impressive tank for its time but unfortunately as it being just a stopgap vehicle it never really was able to match the superiority of the t-64 and later t-72 tanks it was basically a less desirable main battle tank as everybody was waiting for the next model almost like when you just bought the older iPhone model for the one that's just about to come out and you think well I'll save you the money and get the one that's just before it I don't need the fancy bells and whistles but unfortunately the bells and whistles of t-64 did make this vehicle a little less than desired especially in its armored configuration overall though the vehicle did quite well in its service you know it performed through as to what it was supposed to do the various upgrades did give it a little bit more capability but for the most part the tank just wasn't suited to going up against other tanks it was more suited in supporting infantry more than anything else and in Afghanistan it was definitely very vulnerable to guerrilla style warfare and you know IEDs / - hack so I hope you enjoyed today's video folks please leave me a like if you did enjoy the video thank you to everyone who has been contributing towards my patreon lately really does mean a lot I know a lot of you've been donating towards that page lately and it really does mean a lot on every single level personally for me for you to do that and it's supporting me getting new things to produce content for you guys so thank you so much I also have my facebook and discord links in the bottom there and other links that you can go check out if you do want to be notified of any upcoming videos please make sure you click the little bell by the subscribe button so you can get a bit of an idea when I release some new videos thank you again for stopping by and I will see you next time all the best everyone bye bye [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Matsimus

Views: 105,309

Keywords: T-62, t62, main battle tank, russian, tanks, tank, russia, soviet, T-55, t55, smoothbore, t62 tank, T-62 tank, armor, matsimus

Id: YlMKP5SpWD8

Length: 15min 39sec (939 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 29 2020