The cages only increase the burden on crews and maintainers that the aging T-62s impose even in a clean, unmodified state. They add weight, obstruct a tank commander’s view, block turret-mounted machine guns and make a tank taller, and thus easier to spot on the battlefield. The cages meanwhile have plenty of downsides. But there’s no evidence a welded cage in fact offers any meaningful protection. “The T-62s will almost certainly be particularly vulnerable to anti-tank weapons,” the U.K. The old tanks arrived in southern Ukraine without the explosive reactive armor that protects newer Russian and Ukrainian vehicles. The impulse to add protection makes sense. Instead, the Russians are deploying the old tanks with their 115-millimeter guns toward the southern battlefront, where Ukrainian battalions in recent weeks have crossed the Inhulets Rivers and established a lodgment 40 miles north of Russian-occupied Kherson.Ĭrews even have welded onto the T-62s cage-like apparatuses that some operators seem to believe will protect the vehicles from top-down strikes by anti-tank guided missiles such as Ukraine’s homemade Stugna-P and the American-made Javelin. The thinking, among these skeptics, was that Russian commanders would hold back the 41-ton T-62s, staging them with their four-person crews in Russian-held towns and cities strictly for defensive purposes.

Russian main battle tank list