Steel Coffins: Russia Has Lost Over 100 T-90M Tanks in Ukraine
The T-90M Main Battle Tank (MBT), one of Russia's more advanced tanks, has suffered significant losses in Ukraine, marking the 100th T-90M lost in July 2023.
3 Key Points: The T-90M Main Battle Tank (MBT), one of Russia's more advanced tanks, has suffered significant losses in Ukraine, marking the 100th T-90M lost in July 2023.
-Designed before the rise of drone warfare, the T-90M has struggled in the current conflict despite upgrades like anti-drone visors.
-Ukraine's innovative use of drones and anti-tank weapons, alongside battlefield challenges, has diminished the T-90M's effectiveness. Despite Russia’s efforts to adapt the tank, the simpler T-72 MBT remains more successful in Ukraine, highlighting limitations in design, technology, and tactical suitability in modern warfare.
Russia’s T-90M Nightmare Just Won’t Stop
Back in July, the Russian Army passed an ignominious milestone in its war against Ukraine. According to the Army Recognition Group, a defense publication tracking the evolution of the Ukraine War, Russia lost its one-hundredth T-90M Main Battle Tank (MBT). The T-90M is one of the more advanced MBTs that the Russians possess. It has been among the hardest hit Russian platforms in the war, thanks to Ukraine’s innovative use of drones and anti-tank weapons.
Russia’s T-90M is an upgrade from its predecessors, at least it was supposed to be. This MBT has been equipped with advanced features aimed at enhancing its battlefield effectiveness. Since the start of the Ukraine War, Russia has added anti-drone visors and other armor protections to better defend these platforms from Ukraine’s drones.
Certainly, Russian forces are adapting to this particular threat, but judging from the fact that they are still losing T-90Ms in droves, the adaptations for this model are slow to advance.
T-90Ms were designed to fight a conflict that no longer exists.
They were meant to fight in an age before the rise of drones. What’s more, there are notable examples of the Russian T-90M being outmatched by older American Bradley Fighting Vehicles. In the case of a T-90M being lost in combat to a Ukrainian-driven Bradley, it had to do with the T-90M’s lack of maneuverability in the geographical conditions of the specific battlefield. The one MBT that has proven to be a continual success story is one of the simplest, and oldest, Russian-designed platforms, the T-72.
Both the T-90M and the T-14 Armata have not had a stellar success record in Ukraine.
Some Problems
There are broader logistical challenges behind the T-90M’s lackluster performance in Ukraine. This is also an example of reality disabusing engineers of some of their greatest fantasies. Russian designers envisioned the T-90M being a great, more affordable system when compared to their T-14 Armata. They wanted the T-90M to be better than the T-72 which had been the MBT of choice for the Russian Army for years.
Yet, some systems do not perform as well in actual combat as their designers intended. Or they are not as relevant to the specific war that they are being deployed in. During the counterinsurgency years of the Iraq War, for example, the M1 Abrams MBT was useless for the U.S. Army.
These things happen. Does it mean that the platform is inherently bad? No. It just means it is not well-suited to the environment that it is being deployed to.
Yes, Tanks Will Get Smoked in Warfare
The Russian government, of course, praises the T-90M endlessly, even though its performance has been mixed at best.
While that might sound like a coping mechanism for such an expensive and complex system performing badly, as it is, the Kremlin is not wrong to highlight some of the tank’s advanced features, like its Relikt ERA or its massive firepower.
T-90M Losses: The Larger Picture
More importantly, however, these conversations miss a larger point. That is the fight over technology versus tactical superiority. While that might seem counterintuitive, after all, wouldn’t these two go hand-in-hand?
The fact remains that the T-90M possessing advanced combat technology cannot make up for certain limitations imposed upon the platform by geography, adaptations that the enemy has made, and even poorly or inadequately trained tank crews being sent into battle.
On paper, the T-90M represents one of the most advanced MBTs the Russians possess. The Russian war effort, despite the losses and humiliations, continues grinding the Ukrainians down at a rate that Kyiv’s forces simply cannot withstand in the long run. Yet, the T-90M is a suboptimal system for the kind of war that Russia is waging.
They should stick to the T-72, which is, quite frankly, the greatest MBT currently serving in a combat zone today.
Author Experience and Expertise: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert, a National Interest national security analyst, is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, the Asia Times, and The-Pipeline. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His next book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine, is due October 22 from Encounter Books. Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
All images are Creative Commons or Shutterstock.
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