page_title: Tanks in the Soviet Union
section_title: T-80 Main Battle Tank
hierarchical_section_title: Tanks in the Soviet Union / Overview per tank / T-80 Main Battle Tank
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Танк Т-80Б в Артиллерийском музее Санкт-Петербурга English: T-80B tank in Saint-Petersburg Artillery museum
context_section_description: The T-80 is a main battle tank (MBT) designed and manufactured in the former Soviet Union.  A development of the T-64, it entered service in 1976 and was the first production tank to be equipped with a gas turbine engine for main propulsion (the Stridsvagn 103 only used a supplementary gas turbine by 1971). The T-80U was last produced in a factory in Omsk, Russia, while the T-80UD and further-developed T-84 continue to be produced in Ukraine. The T-80 and its variants are in service in Belarus, Cyprus, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, South Korea and the Ukraine. The chief designer of the T-80 was the Russian engineer Nikolay Popov.
  The main gun is fed by the Korzina automatic loader. This holds up to 28 rounds of two-part ammunition in a carousel located under the turret floor. Additional ammunition is stored within the turret. The ammunition comprises the projectile (APFSDS, HEAT or HE-Frag) plus the propellant charge or the two part missile. The autoloader is an effective, reliable, combat-tested system which has been in use since the mid-1960s. The propellant charge is held inside a semi-combustible cartridge case which is made of a highly flammable material - this is consumed in the breech during firing, except for a small metal baseplate, which is ejected during the next reload cycle. Thanks to the ability to fire ATGM rounds, the T-80's main gun has a range relatively longer than that of Western tanks; it is capable of engaging targets at a range of 5,000 metres (3.1 mi).
  A disadvantage highlighted during combat in Chechnya was the vulnerability of the T-80BV to catastrophic explosion. The reason given by U.S. and Russian experts was the vulnerability of the stored semi-combustible propellant charges and missiles when contacted by the molten metal jet from the penetration of a HEAT warhead, causing the entire ammunition load to explode. This vulnerability may be addressed in later models. When Western tank designs changed from non-combustible propellant cartridges to semi-combustible, they tended to separate ammunition stowage from the crew compartment with armoured blast doors, and they provided 'blow-out' panels to redirect the force and fire of any exploding ammunition away from the crew compartment. The Russian vector for development for future however is apparently to remove the crew from the turret altogether, this has been implemented with T-14 Armata which was revealed in 2015 Victory Day parade.
caption: T-80B Main Battle Tank at the St Petersburg Artillery Museum.
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