Russia eyes major upgrade for its fleet of T-90A main battle tanks 21909163

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Russia eyes major upgrade for its fleet of T-90A main battle tanks
Russia`s Ministry of Defense (MoD) is planning to upgrade its T-90A main battle tanks (MBT), according to a source in the MoD. "Russia`s Armed Forces operate several hundred of T-90A MBTs that have already revealed their high combat capacity," the source said.
     
Russia eyes major-upgrade for its fleet of T 90A main battle tank 640 001A Russian T-90A main battle tank
(Credit: Vitaly V. Kuzmin)
     
"The MoD has no intention to phase out these tanks. The Ministry`s Main Directorate for Automotive and Armoured Vehicles (Russian acronym: GABTU, Glavnoye Avtobronetankovoe Upravlenie) has developed the program to upgrade the previously delivered T-90A tanks at the armour repairing plants. It is named Proriv-3 (Break-In 3). The enhanced T-90 tank will have a number of advantages over the basic model," the source added.

The Proriv-3 variant of the T-90 MBT (also designated as T-90M, M stands for Upgraded, Modernizirovanny) was unveiled at the Army 2015 military-technical forum held outside Moscow in June 2015. The vehicle has a combat weight of 50 t, a crew of three tankers, a clearance of 450 mm, and an operational range of 550 km (with additional fuel tanks installed). The tank is armed with a 125 mm smoothbore gun-launcher and a 7.62 mm coaxial machinegun.

T-90M also features a roof-mounted remote controlled weapon station (RCWS) armed with a 12.7 mm heavy machinegun. The model of the tank demonstrated at the Army 2015 defense show was up-armoured with Relikt (Relic) explosive reactive armour (ERA) developed by the NII Stali scientific-research institute (a subsidiary of the Tractor Plants Concern). The vehicle is powered by single 1,130-h.p. engine.

According to the Military Balance 2016 report issued by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), Russia`s Land Forces operate 350 T-90/T-90A main battle tanks; 200 more T-90 tanks have been placed in store.
     
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