History of development

In recent years, Russia has introduced the T-72B3M improvement program to upgrade the T-72 series of main battle tanks in service in the Russian army. In fact, Russia has another third-generation main battle tank, the T-80, and when the Soviet Union just collapsed in the 90s, the Russian army also equipped and mothballed thousands of T-80 main battle tanks. It is clear that they, like the T-72 series tanks, have reached the point where they need a massive upgrade. According to the Russian TASS news agency, the Ural Vehicle Plant, Russia's main tank vehicle enterprise, launched an upgraded and improved model of the T-80 main battle tank - T-80BVM in 2018, intending to comprehensively upgrade the old T-80 tank in service. From T-80B / BV to T-80BVM Russia's active T-80 series main battle tanks, the main models are T-80B and T-80BV, which are early upgraded versions of the T-80 prototype main battle tank, such as the 6th separate tank brigade of the Russian Army equipped with the T-80BV main battle tank. The T-80BVM is a further upgrade of the T-80BV, and according to the Russian nomenclature for weapon models, M stands for Massive Upgraded Improved Model. Compared with the T-80B/BV, the T-80BVM has been greatly improved, first of all, the Sosna-U multi-channel gun commander sight system, which was developed by the Russian Instrumentation and Automation Engineering Design Bureau, mainly including high-performance new thermal imagers and white / low-light channel sights, which greatly improved the tank's aiming fire control accuracy and day and night all-weather combat capability. At the same time, the T-80BVM was replaced with a 2A46M-4 modified 125 mm tank gun, which improved the power and accuracy of the gun. In terms of protection, the T-80BVM can be equipped with the new Relikt explosive reactive armor, which significantly improves the protection ability. In terms of mobility, its gas turbine power plant has also been improved to a certain extent, and its reliabili