T-62

A tank designed in 1961, pulled from Siberian storage yards and sent to Ukraine because Russia has run out of newer ones. At least 334 have been destroyed. Its real significance is not as a weapon but as a gauge: the T-62's appearance at the front is how you measure the draining of the Russian tank reserve.

Overview

The T-62 is a Soviet main battle tank that entered service in 1961, notable in its day for the first smoothbore gun on a series-production tank. It was superseded by the T-64, T-72 and T-80 and had long since passed to storage, reserve formations and export customers. Russia returned it to front-line service in Ukraine from 2022, and the scale of that return has grown as more modern hulls have been consumed.

Refurbished T-62M and T-62MV tanks come out of long-term storage with a modernisation package — thermal sights, slat or cage armour, mine rollers and electronic-warfare fittings — that makes them survivable enough to be worth the effort but does not make them competitive. Roughly 450 had been modernised by mid-2024, with a plan to reach 800.

The type is best understood as an indicator. Analysts tracking Russian armour by satellite have watched the reactivation sequence move from T-72B and T-80U down to T-62 and T-55, and a widely cited assessment holds that of 2,088 tanks visible in Russian storage, only about 851 are realistic restoration candidates — roughly 72% of the Cold War reserve already drawn down.

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