- [Woman] This is a destroyed turret gun of a Russian tank.
It was blown off the vehicle,
and landed in the second story of a house in Ukraine.
Images from the war show many tanks ending up,
with this type of damage.
In some cases, the top of the vehicle,
flies a significant distance away.
- We're getting so much video of these tank losses.
It's really very illustrative of what's happening,
in ways that was just invisible in other wars.
- [Woman] Tanks play a crucial role in ground warfare,
and as the world's second largest exporter,
of military equipment,
Russian made vehicles are used in countries,
including India, Iran, and Algeria.
But hundreds have been destroyed,
during the war with Ukraine.
In what military analysts say,
could be the biggest loss of Russian tanks,
since World War II.
- [Jeffrey] It's gonna be the better part of a decade,
before they're actually able to get their force back,
to where they were.
- [Woman] The ongoing war has put this vulnerability,
on public display.
Complicating Russia's campaign in Ukraine,
and its production of tanks.
While Moscow hasn't said how many of its tanks,
have been destroyed since the start of the war,
at least 440 have been documented by Oryx Blog,
an open source military equipment tracker.
More than half of these are the same type of tank.
To understand why we need to look at their design.
The T-72 was first produced in 1969,
with many design iterations since.
One of its most distinctive features,
is also a vulnerability.
This is the auto-loading mechanism.
It reduces the crew from four to three members,
by removing the person responsible for loading the main gun.
Most of the ammunition for this auto loader,
is stored in the carousel,
a kind of metal basket that the gunner sits on top of,
the rest is often stored in nooks and crannies,
around the inside of the tank.
Having these elements stacked on top of each other,
save space within the T-72 and gives it a low profile.
- It makes it much harder to see from the side,
makes it harder to hit.
- [Woman] William Albert is a director,
at the London based Think Tank,
the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
He studied arms control and disarmament,
for more than two decades.
- Early tanks tended to be relatively tall things.
It'd be relatively easy for a soldier,
with an anti tank missile to take it out from a distance,
because the higher it is, you know,
you can hit the turret from quite a ways away.
- [Woman] The compact design has made the T-72,
a cost effective and popular tank,
with thousands used by militaries around the world.
But this design comes with a drawback.
What military analysts call the Jack-in-the-Box Effect.
That can happen when the explosive material,
makes its way into the tank,
usually through the turret ring.
In a T-72, this sparks a chain reaction.
The fire sets off the spare ammunition,
stored around the inside of the tank,
which in turn, sets off the rest,
that's stored underneath the crew.
If the hatch is sealed,
the resulting explosion is pressurized,
underneath the turret.
And this video filmed by a Chinese television crew,
in Ukraine, shows what can happen next.
- Gas builds up. The explosive builds up.
And it sends the turrets sky high. Sometimes meters high.
- [Woman] Modern Western tanks, like the American M1 Abrams,
have avoided this design.
Instead storing ammunition behind an armored wall,
in the back.
This design makes it taller and easier to hit.
But if the ammunition is set off, it has a safer outlet.
- And so the ammunition goes out the back of the turret,
and doesn't kill the crew,
and they used to make us watch videos and things like that,
just to reassure us that that was the case.
- [Woman] Jeffrey Edmonds served in the US Army,
for more than 20 years with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He's now a research scientist,
with the Center for Naval Analysis.
A nonprofit organization that provides research,
for the US Military.
Edmonds says the T-72's weaknesses were amplified,
by Russia's strategy for how the tanks were deployed,
in Ukraine.
Footage released by the Ukrainian military,
shows Russian tanks driving in convoys towards Kiev.
- [Jeffrey] You don't just drive tanks down roads,
and columns, when there's a threat of anti-tank missiles,
or mines or things of that nature.
- [Woman] This initial push left the vehicles exposed,
to Ukrainian soldiers,
armed with thousands of high-powered missiles,
that have been effective at triggering,
the Jack-in-the-Box Effect.
- [Jeffrey] When you look at the modern,
javelin type weapons or the in-laws,
you have basically, explosion coming from the top,
and typically tanks have very little protection on the top.
And so when that happens,
that's the second way you could get explosive material,
inside the crew compartment that can set the ammunition off.
- [Woman] But as the war has shifted away,
from urban centers towards the Donbas region of the country,
battles are now taking place on open fields,
giving Russia's tanks more of an advantage.
- [Jeffrey] The fight in the east is a different fight.
It's characterized much more by artillery duals.
And that's why I think the Ukrainians,
are suffering more casualties now than they did,
at the beginning.
- [Woman] Russia's Ministry of Defense,
didn't respond to a request for comment,
about the design of its tanks or how they were deployed.
Ukraine has also been using the same Russian made tanks.
The military analysts say,
it's seen comparatively fewer losses.
In part by attempting to minimize the tanks vulnerabilities.
- In some cases that means going in with fewer rounds,
and not storing as much of the powdered charges,
inside, haphazardly within the tank that the Russians are.
- [Woman] All this could create challenges,
for Russia's weapons industry.
The vulnerabilities of the T-72 are being displayed,
to tank operators in other countries watching,
what's happening in Ukraine.
- It's gotta be a little bit terrifying now to be,
you know, a tanker in a country that has T-72s.
And to think that you are stepping into a system,
whose design choice was that if the tank is tough.
- [Woman] Western sanctions,
have also limited Russia's access to microchips,
and advanced circuitry.
Stifling their capacity to develop and produce,
newer tanks and missiles.
- [Jeffrey] I think that's gonna continue being a problem,
for their more advanced systems.
And with everything else happening with, you know,
young, tech savvy people leaving sanctions,
you know, the economic downturn,
mid to long term that's... (stammers)
It's pretty bleep.