I, too, had expected the modern T-80. The thread is even more interesting to me having found it is the T-80 light tank.
Never heard of the T-80,did it actually see combat? When?
It was envisioned as a replacement/improvement to the T-70 light tank.
Main improvements were the 2-man turret, a new more powerful engine, and better side armor. The turret ring was expanded to accommodate the larger turret, meaning that although the hull looks like a T-70 hull, in production it was a different beast altogether.
There are reasonable suggestions that it would not have been a particularly serviceable tank, as the turret had to be removed to access the engine for a full overhaul (due to the larger turret ring -- on the T-80 the turret ring was extended over the top of the engine compartment).
Several hundred hulls and turrets were produced, but only 70-80 completed tanks were assembled. By the time it was introduced in the second half of 1943, the Red Army had sufficient T-34s coming out of the big tank factories that it no longer required the automobile factories to produce light tanks to fill the ranks, and the very disappointing showing of the T-70 in combat at Kursk led the Red Army away from light tanks in general. By the fall, production at the GAZ factory (which built the only completed T-80s) was fully committed to SU-76s and BA-64 armored cars (in addition to trucks … lots of trucks).
That said, I don't know much about the combat history of the few T-80s built.
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)