Tank Story

 I sat this week and looked at a battlefield photo in the Ukraine....with a T-62 tank in the landscape.  

T-62s....for most of you....were manufactured from 1961 to 1975.  There were just over 20,000 of them made in this era, and it was the standard battle tank for the Soviet Union for about twenty years....being pushed out by the mid-70s and replaced by the T-72.  A decade later....came the T-80 and that pushed out most of the remaining T-62s.  In the past decade, an even newer battle-tank has been rolled out (the T-14).

So, it begs a question....why is the T-62 even being seen in use here in 2022?

My gut feeling?  I think tank losses have forced the logistics people to go out to the Russian tank 'bone-yard' and review options.  Somewhere out there....there's probably forty-odd T-62s used for Conscript or mechanic training....kept in reasonable decent shape over the past sixty years.  They got the call....grease up the 'old lady' and send her off to one final war effort.

A bad sign?  Well....if I were a Russian NCO and knew the limits/past history of the T-62....I'd question this matter, and wonder the long-term strategy.   Course, I'm just a little 'cog' in this wheel.  

The odds of the T-54 appearing shortly?  Originally, there were supposed to be around 100,000 manufactured (mostly all in the era shortly after WW II to the mid-1950s).   It was a fairly decent tank, without much in terms of luxury (compared to modern tanks).  Wouldn't shock me if we arrive at mid-summer in the war, and a dozen T-54s show up for the Russians.