Performance and resilience: Ukraine’s T‑84 tanks defy war challenges

The full-scale war in Ukraine has lasted for over two years and is full of astonishing cases. One such case is the zero confirmed losses (no verified photos) of T-84U and T-84 Oplot tanks, representing the pinnacle of Ukrainian armoured vehicle design. We present their performance.

The Ukrainian Armed Forces have a few units of tanks from the T-84 family, which are the most outstanding achievement of the Malyshev Factory in Kharkiv. These new vehicles are a significant evolution of the T-80UD tanks and come in two variants.

The first variant is the final T-84 Oplot, and the second is its budget version, the T-84U, completed on August 12, 2021. At the outbreak of the full-scale war with Russia, Ukraine was reported to have at least six T-84 Oplots and one or two T-84Us. Interestingly, these machines are still used in battles, and so far, no losses have been confirmed. To date, they have been hit a few times by Lancet-3 drones, but the tanks have survived these attacks without any issues.

The Ukrainians used T-80 tanks as a base, refining them to increase protection and improve the survival chances of the three-person crew. The most significant change in the T-84 Oplot tanks is the abandonment of the unisolated carousel autoloader in favour of a solution placed in the turret bustle, inspired by Western designs. The exception is the budget T-84U, which retains the dangerous post-Soviet type autoloader.

The second significant change was using heavy, dual-layer reactive armour called Dupelt, which is practically a dual-layer version of the "Knife" used, among others, in T-64BM tanks. The blocks of this solution utilize cumulative charges, allowing for the use of thicker cassette walls, generating larger fragments. The cumulative jet can even cut kinetic penetrators of APFSDS into pieces. The dual-layer version of the "Knife" effectively protects against tandem warhead missiles.

However, the price for such protection is a significant increase in weight to about 51,000 kg, a record for post-Soviet tanks. For comparison, the Russian T-90M weighs 47,000 kg. To maintain satisfactory mobility, a more powerful 1200 HP diesel engine was required. It is worth noting that this weight is close to that of proposed future tanks in Europe.

The Ukrainian tank is also equipped with an active defence system called "Zaslon" that can shoot down incoming anti-tank missiles, similar to the Israeli Trophy system.

All this, combined with a modern fire control system with a thermal sight for the 125 mm KBA-3 gun and the crew's ability to operate in hunter-killer mode known from tanks like the Leopard 2A6, makes the T-84 Oplot a complete design. In hunter-killer mode, the commander pre-aims the gun at the target using a panoramic sight, leaving the gunner to make precise adjustments, significantly reducing the time between target detection and elimination.