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It's Russia's current best tank, but the T-90 has proven itself to be hot garbage.
When the war in Ukraine kicked off we saw a great deal of Russian T-72s hit the battlefield,
but strangely its modern T-90s were initially rarely seen. The world wondered,
if the T-90 is Russia's best tank, why are they leading the charge an older model? Turns out,
it's because the T-90 isn't that great- but it's very important for Russian arm exports
with many countries around the world operating variants of the T-90. If one of your biggest
breadwinners suddenly shows that it can't stand up to even semi-modern threats, countries currently
operating those vehicles are going to start having second thoughts about future purchases.
This has been a recurring problem for the Russian armed forces as their equipment
fails to operate as advertised. Already countries such as India,
typically big customers of the Russian defense industry, are looking elsewhere for future
purchases. The lackluster performance of the T-90 in Ukraine is only making this worse,
as the tank is proving that developing it in the first place was a huge mistake.
The T-90's fundamental weaknesses were baked in from the start. The tank began as a Soviet
program designed to produce a replacement for the Soviet Union's entire tank fleet. By the
late 1980s the British were already fielding the mighty Challenger, the Germans had the Leopard 2,
and the Americans had left decades of lackluster tanks behind to field the formidable Abrams.
The Soviet Union was in danger, and it needed a tank to answer this new threat.
The T-90 was not it.
Rather than take a cue from the west, which began redesigning their main
battle tanks from the ground up, the T-90 shared the same fundamental design of the
T-72. This made it less of a brand new tank and more of an extensive upgrade,
and left the Soviets with a tank built around design philosophies of the early to mid Cold
War. The west meanwhile had radically changed their designs to meet current and future threats,
so right out of the gate the T-90 was already several steps behind.
But the Soviets were simply being Soviet about things. Rather than invest in a robust, capable
and modern tank, they went with the old Stalin adage of “quantity is a quality all its own.” This
might have been true back during Stalin's time at the wheel, but in an age of attack helicopters,
smart munitions, and computerized warfare, quality suddenly matters a hell of a lot.
The T-90 was designed to be cost effective, in other words cheap, which would allow the Soviets
to field it in huge numbers. Still operating under the flood doctrine of World War II,
where Soviet tanks basically overwhelmed their superior German counterparts with sheer numbers,
the T-90 was the perfect vehicle for a type of warfighting that was obsolete.
The one good thing about building a cheap tank is that it's easy to maintain, and this was of
special significance to a Soviet army equipped with three different models of tanks. T64s,
T72s and T80s all shared many similarities, but required many different components,
making them a logistical nightmare to operate in a high loss environment
like a modern war. For a military that's already terrible at the job of logistics,
the T-90 promised to relief the burden of overwhelmed Soviet upkeep personnel.
Inevitably the Soviet Union fell to pieces, and tank manufacturing, which had already
slowed to a crawl, all but stopped. The Malyshev Factory was now located in independent Ukraine,
the Lenin Kirov Manufacturing Plant had ceased building tanks in 1990, and only two major
plants remained open for business. Budgetary woes also resulted in severe slowdown in production.
When the First Chechen War popped off, Russia sent in its tanks. Notably though,
its modern T-90s were missing from the fight. Instead T-72s and T-80s led the charge,
only to be absolutely savaged by rebel forces with few tanks of their own. Granted,
Russia's major tank losses were mostly due to their very poor doctrine and use
of unsupported tanks in urban combat, but the fact that these tanks were
clearly not survivable in a modern threat environment was not missed on the world.
Cleverly though, Russia saved the T-90 from having a terrible reputation by simply keeping it out of
the fight. According to the Russians, the T-90 was one of the best in the world- if not the
best- and it made no sense to use it against an enemy not fielding significant armored forces of
their own. The world bought the hype, which was good news for Russia's finances as the
T-90 continued to sell abroad. However, the fact that the T-90 and T-72 were so similar should've
been a warning bell for Russia's customers, as the T-72 performed exceptionally poorly in Chechnya.
In 1996 Colonel General Aleksandr Galkin, chief of the Main Armor Directorate of the Russian Ministry
of Defense, stated that Russia would no longer produce the T80 and instead focus on building the
T90. Just a few months later however, he quickly reversed his position without explicitly stating
why, but publicly advocated that the T80 was after all superior. That's pretty much the opposite of
what you would want to hear after investing hundreds of millions of rubles into a new
tank- good job developing this brand new vehicle, but by the way this older one is actually better.
The T-90 did take some cues from the T-80 though, including it into its design. Chiefly this was
the inclusiong of the Irtysh fire control system and an upgraded engine capable of 840 horsepower.
That's impressive, until you consider that at the same time American Abrams tanks were not just
better protected, but had engines delivering well over 1,000 horsepower. Today the Abrams
publicly tops out at 1500 horsepower, while the T-90's engine tops out at just under 1300.
Weighing in at about 48 tons, this is pretty good horsepower for a tank its size. However,
when you consider that the Abrams clocks in at 1500 horsepower and weighs over 70 tons- and
that most of that weight is in its armor package- well, we know which tank we'd prefer to be in.
The T-90 eventually ran into some issues in the export market, and this started to
affect its sales. An Indian order for T-90s went sideways when the Russians used older turrets
mounted to new hulls. These older turrets were not as well protected as new turrets,
but Russia decided to use them in order to exhaust their supply of pre-built turrets.
While under tests, the tank's fire control system and thermal imaging sight completely
failed in the heat of the Indian summer. Overheating was such an issue that a Russian
manufacturer offered to build special air conditioning units for the tanks,
which unsurprisingly also failed, leading to one tank driver fainting from heat stroke. The
Indian Ministry of Defense was forced to source a solution from the global market.
Nations facing the prospect of a major war against a peer adversary such as India have
begun to rethink their ongoign relationship with Russian tank manufacturers. Others though,
more interested in numberes than quality, still find the T-90 a solid buy. But if you're concerned
about modern threats, the fact that the T-90 weighs in 20 tons under tanks such as the Abrams,
Challenger 2, and Leopard 2 gives serious cause for concern. The Abrams has famously ballooned
in weight to the point that it's ability to cross many bridges is in serious question,
but it's also extremely survivable. In a world where the first shoot typically decides a victor,
the ability to survive a first, and even second shot, is a significant quality- and the T-90
is not even guaranteed to achieve first shot capabilities because, no surprise, its electronics
are lackluster compared to western tanks. The biggest flaw with the T-90 is that unlike
a tank like the Abrams, which has the capability to undergo modular upgrades, the T-90 is simply
a frankensteinian mix of a T-80 and T-72, with little room for upgrades. This is best
exemplified by the fact that its autoloader can't fire Russia's new, and larger, anti-tank kinetic
projectiles which were designed to be fired by the T-14 Armata. These new projectiles are a
significant threat to modern armor, which is why it's a good thing that the T-90 can't fire them.
In Chechnya, Russian armored vehicles- both tanks and BMTs- were savaged by fighters
firing anti-tank weapons from rooftops and third story windows. Unable to elevate their
guns to aim that high, the vehicles had no way of protecting themselves. Good thing the T-90
didn't go to Chechnya, because it's main gun elevation is also terrible. This doesn’t help
it in tank on tank engagements either. The T-90 can elevate and depress its gun from a range of
+14 to -6 degrees. The Abrams meanwhile has a range of +20 to -9 degrees. This means that an
Abrams tank can compensate for distance better than a T90, and simply raise its
cannon higher to shoot further, helping achieve that critical first shot kill.
Because the T-90 is basically an upgraded T-72, its armor is fundamentally weaker than modern
tank armor. The addition of explosive reactive panels was meant to help it defeat the threat of
anti-tank missiles, and originally the tank had two laser dazzlers to interfere with a missile's
guidance system. Once upon a time, these might have worked on some guidance systems,
but modern anti-tank weapons, as proven in Ukraine, simply shrug these off. It also
doesn't help that most of the ERA bricks fitted on these tanks are actually just
egg crates because your commander sold off the ERA to make some extra cash on the side.
But the T-90 wasn't faring well against older weapons either. In 2015 Russia
entered the Syrian conflict, and sent its T-90s. They were greeted by rebels armed
with American TOW-2A missiles. The results, well, speak for themselves.
As the T-90 can't engage enemy tanks at the ranges that they are able to bring the pain,
it needs to get closer in order to threaten them.
This makes the armor's vulnerability even more of a survivability issue.
For a while, the T-90 lacked a dedicated thermal sight for the commander. Modern
T-90s have rectified this mistake, though Ukraine was surprised to discover that
captured and destroyed T-90s were equipped with French-built sights rather than Russian ones.
As Russia has now been cut off from advanced electronics by the west, T-90s rolling off
the assembly line and entering the fray are going to be equipped with Russian sights,
and there is strong evidence that shows these aren't nearly as capable. India is also deeply
unsatisfied with the quality of the sights included in their recently purchased T-90s
and once more is on the international market looking for new sights to install
themselves. One really has to question why India continues buying Russian equipment.
The replacement of Kontakt-5 explosive reactive armor with Relikt armor on
upgraded T-90s is also improvement. This, combined with a new armor layed under it,
gives enhanced survivability against HEAT rounds. However, ERA is completely useless
against modern kinetic energy penetrators- they are simply too dense and move too
fast for ERA to do much but slightly change their trajectory when it's already too late.
The constant flow of limited upgrades is indicative of the T-90's biggest problem- it's
an old tank design that Russia is struggling to keep relevant. Faced with major budget problems,
Russia can't afford to actually field a new main battle tanks such as the T-14 Armata,
which is why only just over a dozen have actually been built. Instead it's forced to keep trying
to make the T-90 relevant against modern threats, but the original design was already
approaching obsolescence when it was first fielded. As near-modern tanks enter Ukraine,
with late model Leopard 2s and possibly some American Abrams, the T-90 is quickly going to
become endangered prey. What the tank desperately needs right now is the ability to fire Russia's
new 1 meter long kinetic energy projectile to at least try to keep western tanks at
arm's length- but since its autoloader can't fit it, the T-90 remains an old tank forced
to use old rounds against an increasingly modern arsenal being fielded by Ukraine.
And of course there's still the problem of Russia storing its ammo inside the tank compartment,
turning its crew into astronauts the moment they take a direct hit.
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