Russians are pulling 70-year-old T-55 tanks out of warehouses

First, the Russian army in Ukraine began to run out of the best T-90M, T-80BVM and T-72B3 tanks. So opened up the old tank park and started pulling out his T-80B and T-62M from 50 and 60 years ago.

Now those aging tanks are also clearly in short supply. Thirteen months after Russia’s widespread war against Ukraine, the first videos and photographs of his vintage 1950s T-55 tank mounted on a Russian rail car have gone viral. . The tank was likely headed to one of his two tank factories in Russia, where technicians could fix it before shipping. to the Ukrainian front.

That it took only a year for Russian and allied forces in Ukraine to wipe out nearly 2,000 tanks and fall back at least two generations in tank technology shows that the sheer violence of the Ukrainian War and the evidence of tactical and operational failure. .

The T-55 is a modification of the T-54, the Soviet main battle tank in the immediate aftermath of World War II. The T-54 first appeared in his 1946 year. The T-55 appeared in his 1958 year.

The T-55 weighs 40 tons. Her crew consists of her 4-man commander, gunner, loader, and driver, with a 100 mm minimally stabilized gun and her 800 hp engine at its maximum.

Its steel armor is 200 mm thick at its thickest, enough for a single Ukrainian soldier firing a Carl Gustav recoilless gun to easily destroy it. Not to mention Ukrainian artillery and mines and the slowly growing arsenal of Western-made tanks.

The Soviet military eventually replaced the last of its tens of thousands of T-54s and T-55s in the 1980s, keeping the surviving aircraft in war reserves.

The beleaguered Russian military is apparently now using war reserves. Do not think that a 70-year-old tank will make a big difference in Ukraine. do Expect them to kill many Russian tankers.