Jump to content
Please support this forum by joining the SH Patreon ×
Sturgeon's House

Recommended Posts

I am provisionally convinced that the story you see repeated about how the 115mm smoothbore (2A20 or U5TS) on the T-62 was developed from the D-54T is wrong.  I am also convinced that it was not developed from the T-12 either, which is another version you'll occasionally see.

 

The ammunition for the 115mm has a unique, extra-long neck:

 

vD9ewVT.jpg

 

(following information pulled from Tony Williams ammunition data tables)

 

It's also has the widest case head of any tank gun ammunition of the time; 171mm, which is much wider than the ammunition for the D-10T (147mm), or even the 120mm ammunition used in the L1/M58 (135mm).  The ammunition for the T-12 100mm smoothbore shares the 147mm case head with the D-10T, but the case is much longer.  By bizarre coincidence, the case head for the L7 is also 147mm.

 

This is significant because if the ammunition re-uses the same case head size as a previous type of ammunition, the older cases can often be re-shaped into the new ammunition for test purposes, or special runs of cases can be made that partially re-use the existing tooling.  The much larger case head of the 115mm ammunition would completely preclude this.  As far as I can tell, the 115mm ammunition was a completely novel development that is not meaningfully based on any previous Soviet service ammunition (or at least none that shows up on Tony Williams' tables.  Does anyone know the case head diameter of 130mm M65 ammunition?).

 

Finding information on D-45T ammunition is difficult; there are no charts with case head diameter or anything useful like that.  However, from discussing it with T___A I've learned a few things:

 

-None of the overall round lengths given in any sources list any sort of D-54T ammunition with a greater overall length than existing D-10T ammunition.

 

-In diagrams of the object 430, the ammunition appears to have exactly the same proportions as D-10T ammunition:

 

h09gyZk.jpg

 

iZlbduR.jpg

 

BFPn7pE.jpg

 

That looks for all the world like D-10T ammunition.  Pay particular attention to the ratio of the diameter of the case body and the case neck.  If the D-54T's ammunition were the parent case for the 115mm ammunition, the case body would be about 20% wider than the D-10T's, but the neck diameter would be the same.  This would make the shoulder noticeably bigger, but it's not.

 

The only other explanation I can think of is that the object 430 was actually equipped with a D-10T early in development, but I don't recall anything of the sort.

 

Finally, these last two pictures are supposed to be of the ammunition storage inside the object 430:

 

SuT54551085.jpg

 

SuT54551084.jpg

 

That looks exactly like D-10T ammunition.

 

So, my conclusion for now is that the D-54T was a roided up version of the D-10T, much like how the T140 was a roided up T5 or how an M36 is a roided up M3.  The gun was beefed up to handle new, higher-pressure ammunition and the barrel was made longer, and a muzzle brake was added.  Interestingly, unlike the US developments, the shoulder angle of the ammunition does not look like it was changed to prevent putting the new, higher-pressure ammo in older guns.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Apparently D-54 ammunition was not of satisfactory quality:

 

By decree #1096-400 issued by the CC of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on October 2nd, 1962, the tank "Object 165" was accepted into production under the index T-62A. Mass production of both tanks was planned to begin at factory #183 in September of 1963. However, decree of the Council of Ministers #2238-RS issued on October 29th, 1963, ceased the production of the T-62A due to the poorly developed subcaliber and HEAT shells for the D-54 gun. Only a small batch of these vehicles were built. According to decree #2235-RS of the Council of Ministers issued on October 28th, 1963, the T-62 remained the only tank put into production at factory #183.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Anonymous of the internet claimed the "T-90MS Proryv-3" at the most recent Russian Arms Expo had it, which required some fact checking.

Yes, I have been seeing this popping up as well.

A guy named U.W.A. kind of claimed recent MS' were Proryv-3 of sorts and had the 2A82, which is false.

We don't have confirmation it is even possible to fit the 2A82 other than a diagram showing there might be enough room to do so (per Gurkhan).

There's a lot of misinformation surrounding the "T-90M" to begin with: the T-90AM never existed anywhere but paper IIRC and Sputnik recently claimed they were in service.

We may never see it if Armata gets off to a good start.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

   India is going to buy 464 T-90MS tanks, contract is expected to be around 2 bln$. Part of this number will be bouild at Heavy Vehicles Factory (HVF).

 

BMPD blog noted that since 2009 HVF managed to build about 200 T-90S, which is lower number than was expected, so India is again going to buy tanks directly from UVZ (at least part of tanks) and assemble remaining number of tanks from UVZ-supplied ready parts. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...