Thread: Tank graveyard
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Old 09-08-2015, 05:09 AM
aspqrz aspqrz is offline
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Irrepairable?

Almost certainly not.

As long as the hulls are sound all they need is a new engine, drive train, transmission, probably a new suspension, new road wheels (or can they replace the rubber rims? never been a Tanker, don't know), a new gun and fire control system, new electronics etc.

And the finished result would be fine ...

... but it would be costly.

And you could buy more modern tanks.

The real reason would be mainly because the old Soviet era idea of massed tank attacks where 2-3 cheap Soviet tanks can die for each expensive western one and yet still win ... don't cut it any more.

So, economically, there's no need to refurbish them ... it's not that it's impossible.

AIUI there were similar depots scattered across the USSR (when it was still the USSR) into the 1980s with T-34s and T-44s and late WW2 or immediate postwar armoured vehicles in mothballs, with small maintenance cadres at a TO&E level below even Category III units, all waiting for their day of need ... which, of course, never came.

If something like the Twilight War had been fought, you would have seen them back in service ... eventually ...

Different times.

Phil