"T64 Deployment" Topic

Any ideas if T64s were deployed to the Soviet Far Eastern Military District in the 70s/80s.

I note them in Europe with 2nd Guards Tank, 20th Guards and 3rd Shock in the 80s and I believe many with the Soviet South Western Group of Forces in Hungary together with others in the Carparthian Military District – 38th Army?? I would have expected the Soviet units in Hungary and Carparthian units to have T72 (like in Czechoslovakia) in place of T64 but possibly not, or at least not entirely.

I appreciate T64 was the star tank to face the greatest perceived Cold War threat – NATO until T80 started to replace it after first replacing T62s with the other Soviet armies in the GDR.

I note the famous capture of the T62 on the Chinese border in 68 when I suspect it was the Soviet's premier deployed tank given the teething problems with T64 in the 60s. In which case would T64 have gone to the Far East as well in the 70s/80s??

Today I note that v good kit goes to the Far East and believe that is where most of the BMP3's were deployed.

I appreciate Soviet tank deployment is a difficult subject as to which units had what and how many of each and that the Far East is definitely a hazy area.

Best wishes!

Reliability and maintenance issues with the early T-64s caused it to be deployed with units considered politically reliable- so the issues wouldn't be leaked to the west – and put where there were many other units around to carry the combat load should the balloon go up – & they were the first vehicles replaced by the T-80 – in the ensuing years upgrades addressed the early issues but largely it is considered less successful in its own right but had great influence on the following soviet tank models – of course those in political power had to claim the superiority of the vehicle for both political and propaganda reasons – I was an 11B & then an intel analyst it the mid to late 80's & even then we were more concerned with the T-72 than the T-64

I don't know if you've read Steven Zaloga's expose of the T-64 – Osprey NV223 T-64 Battle Tank – but he notes that the initial batch of T-64 was confined to the Byelorussian and Carpathian MD due to lingering problems. Famously, the T-64A was then displayed with the GSFG, (with specially maintained models being conspicuously mobile!). The T64B 'Sniper' tank was then also deployed to Germany, and its clear that this was the only theatre it was deployed in the Cold War, with the 2GTA, 3rd Shock, and 20GTA. However with the withdrawal of the GSFG, there were 4,000 west of the Urals, and 2,000 in Ukraine, but limited numbers were found in Kazakstan and Uzbekistan. But no deployement to the Far East in 70/80s is mentioned.

@ dsfrank – great and succinct post mate!

The armoured threat from the Peoples Liquidation Army was not much better than T55 equivalent until the year 2000. So the T62 was sufficient and then supplanted by T72s into the mid eighties.

The T64 was the giant killer for northern Germany against the Chieftan and what ever the west produced from the eighties on.

The USSR was a bit notorious about keeping the odd single training models for an entire unit and then upon mobilization, equipping them from warehoused war stock.

"I was an 11B & then an intel analyst it the mid to late 80's & even then we were more concerned with the T-72 than the T-64"

Doing the same in BAOR it was the other way around, until T-80 became a reality,

Tally Ho!

Thanks everyone!

Need to get some more T62s for my Cat B units anyway. Far East always seems to be lacking in info in general either Cold War or 1945. I had wondered if they'd deployed better kit there even with the tech imbalance as the proximity of the vital Trans Siberian Railway to the border gave very little strategic depth. Siberia is vast but that is the key communication artery all the way to Vladivostok. I recall a vast Hero project to reroute part of it away from the border through hundreds of miles of marsh that took years and cost a fortune as the works kept sinking.

I was aware of some T64s in the low hundreds (I think) in a couple of the Central Asian republics and think they filmed out there for 9th Company and used T64s (if I remember correctly) in the training scene where the paras are run over in their fox holes.

Just out of interest does anyone know where the T64s were being back shipped to as they were replaced with T80 in Germany?? War storage or filtering down and replacing units outside the areas where we know they were deployed and where we would expect T72 / T62 combination like the units in the Western Soviet Union?

I note of course that Ukraine ended up with 1000s but wasn't sure if that was from units stationed there pre 89 (mostly Cat B or C) or units redeployed there after Soviet forces withdrew from Eastern Europe.

Thought the Zaloga book was brilliant but then I always enjoy his books very much.

Best wishes!

btw, if you want to see some good footage of T64s watch The Aquarium which is a movie based upon Victor Suvarov's book by the same name.

Great footage of them busting out of camp, going through walls, rampaging across the countryside, and firing at targets on the move.

Great, great footage.

Frank

Thanks zaevor I'll have to check that out!