The T-72 is the AK-47 of tanks-a reliable workhorse seen in wars from Iraq to Ethiopia, from Syria to the carnage before us in Ukraine. Here is supposedly an indomitable part of the Russian war machine, demolished by plucky and nimble Ukrainian forces, armed with shoulder-mounted Western anti-tank weapons in true David-and-Goliath fashion.

These scenes are now some of the war’s defining images. Its turret was undamaged and it pointed harmlessly toward our small gaggle of journalists and soldiers as we stood outside a burned-out farmhouse. The infamous “Z” sign painted on its side showed that this was a Russian tank, likely destroyed by a British-supplied NLAW missile system that Ukrainian forces in the area had been using to hamstring the once-dominant Russian Armed Forces. Equipped with a new engine, dual-reactive armor, lower radar cross section, and the Afghanit active defense system, NATO tank forces viewed the Armata as a formidable new threat.KHARKIV, UKRAINE-On a bright, sunny day in May, as birdsong mixed with the booms of explosions, I noticed a T-72 tank with broken treads and a burned-out, rusted chassis lying before me. Moscow promised to build 2,300 Armata tanks by 2020, enough for about eight tank and motor rifle (mechanized) divisions. In June 2015, the Russian government unveiled the Armata, which was designed to replace older T-72B3 and T-80 tanks in the arsenals of the Russian Ground Forces. Production problems with the Armata, however, could allow the “Burlak” tank to take its place. The tank would be cheaper and easier to produce, while still being a formidable adversary to NATO forces.Ī “new” tank concept has surfaced in Russia, about 10 years after the country abandoned it in favor of the sleeker, newer-looking T-14 Armata tank.

The Burlak builds on past Russian tank technology to produce a tank that has many of the same advantages as the Armata.Russia’s difficulty building new T-14 Armata tanks could provide another tank concept, the Burlak, with the opportunity to take its place.

Modern russian tanks