T-64 Information

The T-64 is a Soviet second-generation main battle tank introduced in the early 1960s. It was a more advanced counterpart to the T-62: the T-64 served tank divisions, while the T-62 supported infantry in motorized rifle divisions. It introduced a number of advanced features including composite armor, a compact engine and transmission, and a smoothbore 125-mm gun equipped with an autoloader to allow the crew to be reduced to three so the tank could be smaller and lighter. In spite of being armed and armored like a heavy tank, the T-64 weighed only 38 tonnes (42 short tons; 37 long tons).

These features made the T-64 expensive to build, significantly higher than previous generations of Soviet tanks. This was especially true of the power pack, which was time-consuming to build and cost twice as much as more conventional designs. Several proposals were made to improve the T-64 with new engines, but chief designer Alexander Morozovs political power in Moscow kept the design in production in spite of any concerns about price. This led to the T-72 being designed as an emergency design, only to be produced in the case of a war, but its 40% lower price led to it entering production in spite of Morozovs objections.

At present the T-64 is in use in very few nations or regions, but is currently undergoing significant factory overhauls and modernization in Ukraine. The newest, vastly upgraded and improved model of this 50-year-old design, the T-64BM Bulat, has increased in weight to 45 tonnes and is seeing active service in the field.

The T-64 was conceived at the Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau in Ukraine (Ukrainian SSR), as the next-generation main battle tank by Alexander A. Morozov, the designer of the T-54 (which, in the meantime, would be incrementally improved by Leonid N. Kartsevs Nizhny Tagil bureau, by the models T-54A, T-54B, T-55, and T-55A).

A revolutionary feature of the T-64 is the incorporation of an automatic loader for its 125-mm gun, allowing one crew members position to be omitted and helping to keep the size and weight of the tank down. Tank troopers would joke that the designers had finally caught up with their unofficial hymn, Three Tankers—the song had been written to commemorate the crewmen fighting in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol, in 3-man BT-5 tanks in 1939.

The T-64 also pioneered other Soviet tank technology: the T-64A model of 1967 introduced the 125-mm smooth-bore gun, and the T-64B of 1976 would be able to fire an anti-tank guided missile through its gun barrel.

The T-64 design was used as basis by LKZ for the gas turbine-powered T-80 main battle tank. The T-64A turret was adopted for early T-80 tank models, with its main gun and automatic loading mechanism, and upgraded armour.

The T-64 would only be used by the Soviet Army and never exported, unlike the T-54/55. The tank equipped elite and regular formations in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, the T-64A model being first deployed with East Germanys Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG) in 1976, and some time later in Hungarys Southern Group of Forces (SFG). By 1981, the improved T-64B began to be deployed in East Germany and later in Hungary. While it was believed that the T-64 was reserved for elite units, it was also used by much lower level "non-ready formations", for example, the Odessa Military Districts 14th Army.

With the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, T-64 tanks remained in the arsenals of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Uzbekistan. Mid 2014, slightly fewer than 2,000 of the former Soviet inventory of T-64 tanks are in service with the military of Ukraine and about 4,000 are out-of-service and awaiting destruction in Russia.

Studies for the design of a new battle tank started as early as 1951. The KB-60M team was formed at the Kharkiv design bureau of the Kharkiv transport machine-building factory No. 75 named for Malyshev (Russian: конструкторское бюро Харьковского завода транспортного машиностроения №75 им. Малышева) by engineers coming back from Nizhniy Tagil, with Morozov at its head.

A project named obyekt 430 gave birth to three prototypes which were tested in Kubinka in 1958. Those vehicles showed characteristics that were going to radically change the design of battle tanks on this side of the Iron Curtain. For the first time, an extremely compact opposed-piston engine was used: the 4TD, designed by the plants engine design team. The transmission system comprised two lateral gears on each side of the engine. Those two innovations yielded a very short engine compartment with the opening located beneath the turret. The engine compartment volume was almost half that of the T-54. An improved cooling system and a new lightweight suspension was fitted, featuring hollow metallic wheels of a small diameter and caterpillar tracks with rubber joints.

The tank would be armed with the D-54TS and frontal armour of 120 mm. As it did not present a clear superiority in terms of combat characteristics when compared to the T-55, which was entering active service, Morozov decided that production was not yet ready given the projects drawbacks. However, studies conducted on the obyekt 430U, featuring a 122 mm gun and 160 mm of armour, demonstrated that the tank had the potential to fit the firepower and armour of a heavy tank on to a medium tank chassis. A new project was consequently started, obyekt 432.

The gun fitted on this new tank was a powerful 115 mm D-68 (2A21). This was a potentially risky decision to replace the human loader by an electro-hydraulic automatic system, since the technology was new to Russian designers. The crew was reduced to three, which allowed a considerable reduction in internal volume and external visible silhouette, and consequently in weight, from 36 tonnes (obyekt 430) to 30.5 tonnes. The height dropped by 76 mm.

However, the arrival of the British 105 mm L7 gun and the US M68 variant of it, fitted to the Centurion and M60 tanks, forced the team to undertake another audacious première, with the adoption of composite armour. The recently created process was called "K combination" by Western armies: this protection consisted of an aluminium alloy layer between two high strength steel layers. As a consequence, the weight of the prototype rose eventually to 34 tonnes. But, as the engine was now a 700 hp (515 kW) 5TDF (also locally designed), its mobility remained excellent, far superior to that the T-62. The obyekt 432 was ready in September 1962 and production started in October 1963 in the Kharkiv plant. On 30 December 1966, it entered service as the T-64.

Even as the first T-64s were rolling off the assembly lines, the design team was working on a new version, named object 434, which would allow it to maintain firepower superiority. The brand new and very powerful 125 mm D-81T gun, from the Perm weapons factory, was fitted to the tank. This gun was merely a scaled-up version of the 115 mm smoothbore cannon from the T-62. The larger size of the 125 mm ammunition meant that less could be carried inside the T-64, and with a fourth crewman loader taking up space as well, the tank would only have a 25-round capacity. This was unacceptably low for the Soviet designers, but strict dimensional parameters forbade them from enlarging the tank to increase interior space. The solution was to replace the human loader with a mechanical autoloader, cutting the crew to three and marking the first use of autoloaders in a Soviet MBT. The 6ETs10 autoloader has 28 rounds and can fire 8 shots per minute; the stabiliser, a 2E23, was coupled to the new TPD-2-1 (1G15-1) sight. Night driving was also adapted with the new TPN-1-43A periscope, which would benefit from the illumination of a powerful infrared L2G projector, fitted on the left side of the gun. The shielding was improved, with fibreglass replacing the aluminium alloy in the armour, and small spring-mounted plates fitted along the mudguards (known as the Gill skirt), to cover the top of the suspension and the side tanks. They were, however, extremely fragile and were often removed. Some small storage spaces were created along the turret, with a compartment on the right and three boxes on the front left. Snorkels were mounted on the rear of the turret. A NBC protection system was fitted and the hatches were widened.

Prototypes were tested in 1966 and 1967 and, as production began after the six hundredth T-64, it entered service in the Soviet Army under the designation T-64A. Chief engineer Morozov was awarded the Lenin Prize for this models success.

Designed for elite troops, the T-64A was constantly updated as available equipment was improved. After only three years in service, a first modernisation occurred, regarding:

A derived version appeared at the same time, designed for the commanding officer and named T-64AK. It comprised a R-130M radio with a 10 m telescopic antenna, which could be used only in a static position as it required shrouds, an artillery aiming circle PAB-2AM and TNA-3 navigation station; all of these could be powered by an auxiliary gasoline-fired generator.

In 1976, the weapons system was improved by mounting a D-81TM (2A46-1), stabilised by a 2E28M2, supplied by an automatic 6ETs10M. The night sight was replaced by a TNPA-65 and the engine could accept different fuels, including diesel fuel, kerosene or gasoline. The production, first carried on the B variant, stopped in 1980.

The majority of T-64As were further modernised after 1981, by mounting a six smoke grenade-launcher 81 mm 902A on each side of the gun, and by replacing the gill plates by a rubber skirt for a longer life. Some of them seem to have been fitted with reactive bricks (as the T-64AV) after 1985, or even with laser TPD-K1 telemeters instead of the optical TPD-2-49 optical coincidence rangefinder (1981). Almost all T-64s were modernised into T-64R, between 1977 and 1981, by reorganising external storage and snorkels, similar to the T-64A.

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