T-84 MBT

The T-84 main battle tank is the result of continued main battle tank development by the Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau, which is Ukraine's leading design authority for armoured fighting vehicles.

The overall layout of the T-84 is conventional with the driver’s compartment at the front, fighting compartment in the centre and power pack at the rear. The driver is seated in the centre and has a single-piece hatch cover that lifts and swings to the right. In front of this are three forward-facing periscopes, the centre one of which can be replaced by a night driving device. There is an escape hatch in the hull floor behind the driver. The commander is seated on the right and the gunner on the left both provided with single-piece roof hatches.

The T-84 is based on a T-80UD, but has a number of advanced features which distinguish it from the T-80UD. These include the following:

* new all-welded turret;
* explosive reactive armour of new generation to give more protection against both chemical energy and kinetic energy attack over the frontal arc;
* thermal imaging sight;
* 1,200 hp engine rather than a 1,000 hp engine the T-80UD is powered by;
* digitisation of the electronics packages associated with the fire-control system;
* optronic countermeasures system;
* auxiliary power unit;
* muzzle reference system;
* navigation system;
* enlarged side skirts to give additional protection of the hull sides and running gear components against attacks by infantry armed with short range anti-tank missiles.

The latest version of the T-84 offered for the export market also features an automated gear shifting rather than a mechanical gear selector, new driver's steering controls (the driver now steers the vehicle with a steering T-bar rather than tillers, thus reducing the load on the driver), an air conditioning system, projectile muzzle velocity sensor, and other improvements.

The T-84 uses locally produced components and subsystems, although systems of foreign origin can be incorporated at the customer's request.

The T-84 MBT is a very efficient fighting machine intended to fulfil the mission of providing mobile protected firepower in all types of terrain. The T-84 is very well protected, has good battlefield mobility as well as good strategic mobility, and is able to undertake a wide range of battlefield missions on a 24 hour basis under all weather conditions.

The T-84 MBT is now in service with Ukraine (in 2000 the Ukrainian Defence Ministry ordered 10 new T-84 series main battle tanks) and Pakistan (the final delivery T-80UD tanks supplied to Pakistan in 1999 incorporated many features of the T-84 including a new all-welded turret and other improvements to give them enhanced T-84 configuration).
Armament

The T-84 MBT armament includes a 125mm gun, 7.62mm coaxial machine gun and 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine gun. The tank crew is also equipped with sub-machine guns, hand grenades and a signal pistol.

The main armament comprises a stabilised 125mm KBA3 smoothbore gun fed by a carousel-type automatic loader and fitted with a thermal sleeve and fume extractor (bore evacuator). The gun is stabilised in both elevation and traverse. The main gun has a quick-replacement barrel which can be changed under field conditions without the need to remove the gun from the tank.

Turret traversing mechanism Turret traverse is electric while gun elevation is hydraulic. The turret can be slewed through 180° in less than 5 seconds, as the rate of traverse of the turret on the hull is up to 40 °/s. Manual gun and turret controls are provided for emergency use.

The T-84 has a total of 40 rounds of separate loading ammunition (projectile and charge), of which 28 rounds are placed in the automatic loader. Seven rounds are carried in the hull to the right of the driver. Mounted in the turret bustle is an armoured compartment with stowage for an additional five rounds. Types of ammunition that can be fired by the gun include APFSDS (armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot), HEAT (high explosive anti-tank), HE-FRAG (high explosive fragmentation) rounds as well as laser beam-riding guided missiles.

The specific feature of the tank is that it is fitted with a guided missile system to enable the main gun to fire a laser guided missile and engage targets out to 5000 m. The missiles are stowed in the automatic loader in the same way as conventional ammunition.

The missile can be fired while both the tank and target are moving. The missile has a tandem warhead to defeat targets fitted with explosive reactive armour as well as modern spaced armour, optimised against HEAT attack.

Although the primary role of the missile is to engage battle tanks and other armoured vehicles operating at ranges beyond the effective range of the tank gun firing conventional ammunition, it has the potential for a considerable number of other uses. For example, the missile-armed helicopter poses a very dangerous threat to the tank and is very difficult to hit because of its small size, high speed and manoeuvrability. The guided missile system gives the tank a useful capability against hovering helicopters firing stand-off missiles, which is a decisive factor in its favour, as, obviously, the tank must be able to take some effective action against anti-tank helicopters itself and not rely on other weapons always being available to protect it. With the advance of technology guided missiles will most probably be able to engage even fast-moving and agile targets. Nowadays the guided missiles can also be fired against other battlefield targets such as pillboxes as well as against various soft targets such as buildings and bunkers.

The anti-aircraft machine gun is mounted on the commander's cupola and is intended for use in the ground/air and ground/ground roles being aimed and fired while remaining in the vehicle under full armour protection from the commander's station. The machine gun can be elevated from -5° to +70° and traversed through +/-75° to the right and left of the vehicle longitudinal axis, or through +360° together with the tank turret. The machine gun is fitted with a vertical stabilisation system providing stabilisation in the vertical angle range of -3° to +20°.

The T-84 is fitted with an advanced fire-control system, and either the gunner or commander can lay and fire the main armament at stationary and moving targets while the tank is stationary or moving with a high first round hit probability.

The fire control system comprises a gunner's 1G46M day sight, Buran-Catherine-E thermal imaging sight, commander's PNK-5 observation and sighting system, PZU-7 anti-aircraft sight, 1ETs29M anti-aircraft machine gun mount control system, LIO-V ballistic computer with input information sensors, 2E42M armament stabiliser and other devices.

The gunner's 1G46M day sight has a two-axis stabilised line of sight and incorporates a laser range-finder and a missile guidance capability. It is also fitted with an automatic gyro drift compensation device. The sight field-of-view has magnification values in the range x2.7 to x12.

The integral laser range-finder has a range of 9,990 m and is accurate to ±10 m. The measured distance is shown to digits together with the fire preparation and selected type of ammunition in the lower part of the gunner’s sight field-of-view.

The sight field-of-view is provided with gunnery ranging marks including stadiametric ranging scales for kinetic energy ammunition, chemical energy ammunition, high-explosive fragmentation ammunition as well as for coaxial machine gun. These stadiametric marks are a useful secondary method of range-finding when operating in an emergency. In order to protect the sight optics from bursts of light from the tank’s own gun flash, the optical channels of the sight are fitted with light sensors which automatically shut them down at shot exit. The sight controls enable the gunner to lay quickly and accurately onto targets and track them smoothly.