The press service of Ukraine’s 3rd Tank Brigade revealed in a Facebook post that one of the brigade’s units is using the T-84 Oplot tank to defend the Kharkiv region from Russian forces.
Although the report does not provide further details, it is significant in that it mentions the use of the Oplot tank for the first time since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
It should be noted that in 2023 in May, the then Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov hinted at plans to purchase Oplot tanks for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Surprisingly, this is the only statement related to this model tank – the use of normally rare indigenous weaponry in the defense of Ukraine is getting a lot of attention.
“T-84 Oplot”
This tank was developed by Kharkiv Morozov Machine Design Bureau (KMDB) for the Armed Forces of Ukraine with the aim of replacing the Soviet T-64 and T-72.
The combat vehicle is equipped with a new generation of Duplet Explosive Jet Armor (ERA) to protect against tandem warheads. The tank has an integrated Štora weapon system, which reduces the probability of being hit by an enemy anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) with semi-automatic guidance.
The Oplot tank is armed with a 125 mm fully stabilized smoothbore gun with an automatic loading system. The combat vehicle can fire 9K119M Reflex cannon-launched anti-tank guided missiles.
The weight of the new tank is about 51 tons. It can be driven by a crew of three, and its maximum speed, according to Ukroboronprom, can reach 70 km/h.
Oplot is an improved T-84 developed in 1976. on the basis of the delivered Soviet tank “T-80”. The first T-84s were produced in 1994, and in 1999 put into use in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Based on information from Defense Express, Defense Blog and other sources.
2024-08-29 09:44:30