The T-62 is a rank VI Soviet medium tank with a battle rating of 8.3 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.61 “Road to Glory”. The T-62 is a further development of the T-54 series and was made to fight the newer NATO tanks. It features a 115 mm U-5TS smoothbore gun, which makes the T-62 the first tank in-game and in real life to use a smoothbore gun. The gun also was the first to introduce the Armour-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (APFSDS) into the game.

In the 1950s, with the introduction of the 105 mm L7 tank gun on many NATO tanks such as the Centurion, Leopard, and M60, the Soviets realised that the 100 mm D-10 on the T-54/T-55 series of medium tanks was becoming obsolete. To maintain parity with the new NATO tanks, a new 115 mm smoothbore gun was developed along with a new medium tank based on the T-55. This tank entered service in 1961 as the T-62 and was the first tank in the world to begin service with a smoothbore gun.

While there is little improvement in terms of mobility or protection over the previous T-54, the T-62 has substantially improved firepower. It is capable of frontally penetrating nearly any tank it is likely to see in-game at most combat ranges.

The T-62MV is another tank from the sixty-two model range, which is used during a special military operation in Ukraine. Unlike its counterparts in the face of the T-62M, this machine does not have additional armor, but is equipped with hinged dynamic protection, which provides increased resistance to cumulative ammunition. In this material, we, without affecting the tactics of using tanks in SVO, let’s consider how the security of the T-62MV has changed compared to the T-62M.

Additional booking T-62M

As you know, the Soviet military industry was distinguished by the scale of production and often was not limited to hundreds of units of this or that military equipment produced. This is especially true for tanks, where the score sometimes crossed into tens of thousands. An example is the T-62, which managed to “riveted” more than 19 pieces.

By the beginning of the 80s, this armada, partly distributed to the allies and storage bases, continued to be on the balance sheet of military units, which seriously worried the highest military ranks. On the one hand, the tank is really good and it is too early to write it off – it is quite suitable for operation in non-priority areas and in local conflicts. On the other hand, the security and complex of its ωєαρσиs lagged behind their Western counterparts.

To support the old man, on July 25, 1981, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR decided to bring the firepower and protection of the T-62 and T-55 tanks to the level of the early T-64 and T-72. In the course of the modernization work, the T-62 received a guided weapon system, a laser rangefinder, a ballistic computer, napalm protection, an improved engine, chassis, and more. But the main thing for us is protection.

In addition to the anti-cumulative side screens and mine protection in the form of 20-mm steel sheets on the bottom, which the tanks received, the main improvement was the additional armor blocks installed on top of the main frontal armor of the hull and turret. We wrote about how they work here.

Additional armor of the upper frontal part of the hull consisted of a box assembled from steel sheets 30 mm thick. Inside it, at a distance of 30 mm, there were thinner steel sheets, the thickness of which was 5 mm. The space between them was filled with polyurethane – a quasi-liquid substance, which in its normal state was quite solid, and at the moment of high-speed impact of the cumulative jet began to behave like a liquid.

Armor blocks on the front of the tower had a similar design in the form of a V-shaped steel casting (in lateral section), behind which were the same thin sheets filled with polyurethane. Among the people, these elements were nicknamed “Ilyich’s Eyebrows”, because they resembled Brezhnev’s thick eyebrows.

The newly minted protection turned out to be quite heavy, and we are not talking about durability indicators. If the T-62 in the basic version weighed no more than 37,5 tons, then the modernization with additional armor blocks, bottom protection, screens and other things increased its weight to 41,5 tons.

Well, it was a retribution for the increase in protective characteristics. They really increased against sub-caliber and cumulative shells. Thus, the maximum equivalent from HEAT weapons was 450 mm, and from sub-caliber shells – up to 350–380 mm. At the same time, the “naked” armor of the tank could not actually contain any of these ammunition with a penetration of more than 200 mm.

The growth was obvious. It was with such protection that the T-62, which received the letter “M”, was put into service in 1983.

T-62MV with reactive armor

It is noteworthy that in the same year with the adoption of the T-62M tank, the hinged dynamic protection “Contact” (Contact-1) passed state tests, which in two years will become an obligatory attribute of newly produced tanks. From the beginning of 1985, tanks equipped with it began to be put into service and went into mass production. Among them was the T-62, which later became known as the T-62MV.

Being modernized at tank repair plants, these tanks received all the main innovations of the T-62M, but with the exception of armor. Mine protection and side screens, of course, were preserved, but additional protection blocks for the forehead of the turret and hull were no longer installed. Their place was taken by dynamic protection “Contact”, also installed on the sides of the hull.Structurally, the “Contact” block consisted of a rectangular steel cover and missile steel plates inside, equipped with an єχρℓσѕινє. In a simplified form, it worked like this: a cumulative projectile нιт the cover and detonated. The resulting cumulative jet penetrated inside the block and initiated the detonation of the єχρℓσѕινєs installed inside, which caused a harmful effect on itself, both єχρℓσѕινє energy and the flight of the thrown plates.

Since the cumulative jet does not have its own strength, and it can literally cut through any object that crosses its axis at high speed, the impact of the dynamic protection unit on this “fragile nature” turned out to be very serious. In practice, this meant that the lion’s share of the head elements of the jet dissipated under impact, which seriously affected the mode of its penetration into the armor. Hence the high indicators of the “Contact” protection, which, depending on the power of the shaped charge, the type of funnel and its material, reach half the penetration of the attacking ammunition.

What happened there in practice with this єχρℓσѕινє novelty?

As we already know, the “naked” armor of the T-62 is made exclusively of solid steel. The reduced thickness of the upper frontal part of the hull, taking into account the slope, was 200 mm. On the tower, the thickness of the steel casting was about 211 mm, although there are slight discrepancies from source to source. In this situation, the tank, already in the 70s, could not hold back the impact of virtually any cumulative projectile.

Dynamic protection “Contact” (according to open data) gave a huge increase in resistance to 400-450 mm of steel equivalent against cumulative monoblock missiles and grenades. In combination with the main armor, the overall protection of the tank’s forehead increased to 600–650 mm. Such an obstacle was a hard nut to crack for a considerable part of the ammunition of this type in the 80s.For artillery cumulative shells, the situation was somewhat different. The fact is that such shells have a large mass, thick walls and a decent flight speed. The combination of these factors leads to the fact that the ammunition, нιтting the cover of the dynamic protection unit, breaks it and thereby reduces the width of the maneuver of the thrown plates.

Hence the lower resistance – up to 250 mm (according to open data from the Research Institute of Steel). Together with the main armor, the equivalent against the cumulative “artillery” was up to 450 mm – not the same as with rockets and grenades, but the 105-mm NATO guns in this regard became useless against the T-62MV.