T-80 Standard Tank: The Soviet Army's Last Armored Champion (New Vanguard)

Steven J. Zaloga's T-80 STANDARD TANK: THE SOVIET ARMY'S LAST ARMORED CHAMPION offers a narrowed focus for specialty military collections focusing on military equipment. The T-80 was the last tank fielded before the collapse of the Soviet Union - and the most controversial. Its history is revealed with photos and discussion.

i HAVE BOUGHT MOST OF ZALOGA'S EARLIER WORKS AND FOUND THEM TO BE EXCELLENT - ESP THE T-72 IN THE SAME SERIES .

HOWEVER - I FIND THIS A BIT BELOW PAR

FIRST - THE MARGINS ON THE LEFT INNER SIDE AND RIGHT INNER SIDE ARE REALLY CRAMPED - ONE HAS TO REALLY STRETCH THE BOOK TO READ - MAYBE THE CHINESE WOULD FIND IT EASY TO READ.

NEXT THE HISTORY AND ORIGINS ARE WELL COVERED AND ZALOGA ATTEMPTS TO COVER THE VARIOUS VERSIONS T-80 B , BV,D & T-80 U - AND THIS IS WHERE THE BOOK FALLS FLAT

- THERE IS NO SECTION CALLED INSIDE THE T-80 TANK UNLIKE THE T-72.

THE BASIC TECHNICAL DESCRIPTIONS OF THE T-80 ARE COMPLETELY OMITTED - ALTHOUGH THERE ARE SECTIONS ON REACTIVE ARMOR , HISTORY OF THE DIESEL POWER PLANT (WHY NOT ON THE BASIC GAS TURBINE ??) , POTTED SECTIONS ON the Kobra missile AND the Refleks missile- NOTHING ON THE MAIN 125 mm GUN - LOOKS LIKE THE PUBLISHER COMPLETELY TRIMMED THE INTERESTING TECHNICAL BITS.

HOWEVER THE TEXT AND COLOR PHOTOS ARE GOOD - OBVIOUSLY ZALOGA HAS A HUGE AMOUNT TO TELL AND HAS VAST INFORMATION AND OSPREY STRUGGLED TO FIT IN THE BASICS IN 48 PAGES AND LIMITED IT MORE TO HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT RATHER THAN TECHNICAL.

FEEL OSPREY WILL BE BETTER SERVED TO CHANGE THEIR PRINTING AND ALSO LOOK AT PUBLISHING THIS AS TWO PARTS - SECOND PART CAN ALSO COVER MORE OF THE TECHNICAL DESCRIPTIONS OMITTED AND FOREIGN OPERATORS LIKE PAKISTAN , CYPRUS AND KOREA AND ON THE BLACK EAGLE .

I would highly recommend THE Main Battle Tank T80 by Mikhail Baryatinskiy PUBLISHED BY MIDLAND COUNTIES (IAN ALLAN, UK) volume is thicker (81 pages) and offers excellent colored photos of the T80 and better technical descriptions and diagrams ALSO AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.

Volume has good color drawings and is generally fine but I found it a bit disappointing. Technically well done and informative but I would have liked to see some more on the organizations the T80 was in to fill the book out since its 'history' was so short. Not quite enough book for the money.

Renowned armor expert Stephen J Zaloga has done many books for Osprey on various Soviet tanks, but his latest volume on the T-80 is one of the most interesting and attractive to date. This volume is packed with interesting data on a main battle tank that is still in service in large numbers both in Russia and several other countries (Pakistan, Cyprus, South Korea). Most of the photos in the volume are also in color and comprise a broad selection, ranging from training grounds to photos of ammunition and internal components. From the first page to the last, I found this a superb technical description that described how the T-80 was initially developed by the Soviet Union and how it has gradually evolved in Russian service.

The volume begins with a succinct but excellent discussion on the origins of the T-80, which lay with the T-64 and T-64A tanks in 1963-1968. It was with these tanks that the Soviet Army moved to the 125-mm gun and introduced the use of tube-launched wire-guided missiles in 1976. Zaloga also discussions the concurrent development of the low-cost T-72 tank as a cheaper alternative to the T-64. The author then discusses the Soviets' requirement for a follow-on to replace the T-64 and T-72 in the 1980s, which eventually resulted in the T-80 design. Along the way, Soviet tank designers became enamored of turbine engines and pushed this open the original T-80 design, which was produced in limited numbers in 1976-1978. Unfortunately, the turbine engine proved extremely unreliable and expensive in service, forcing a shift to the T-80B with a diesel engine.

The author then shifts into a more in-depth discussion of the T-80B, which became the standard Soviet tank in the early 1980s. The author provides two great photos of the Kobra missile, as well as the gunner's reticule and a close-up of the explosive reactive armor (ERA) box. This is followed by a good section on the T-80U, which reverted to a diesel engine, replaced the Kobra missile with the Refleks missile and added improved reactive armor. Photos include interior gunner's station, commander's station, the Shtora jamming system and ammunition. The author does discuss combat use of the T-80 in Chechnya and in the 1991 coup a bit, although this is not a main focus of the volume. The final section is more diversified and covers efforts to modernize the T-80 since the collapse of the Soviet Union, including the Ukrainian T-84 variant and the unfounded Black Eagle prototype. Graphically, the volume has six color plates: a T-80B from the Leningrad Military District, 1989; a 2-page cutaway of a T-80BV from the GSFG in 1989; a T-80UD from the 4GTD in 1993; a Cypriot T-80UK, a Pakistani T-80UD; and a T-80U in the 4GTD in 2006. All in all, this volume was informative and quite useful for the armor specialist or general military reader.

This book has an interesting title: The Soviet Army's Last Armored Champion. Actually, upon reading Steven Zaloga's description of the development of the T-80, a more fitting title would be: The Soviet Army's Overpriced and Troubled Tank.

Zaloga is able to explain clearly (in a mere 46 pages of text), the troubled development of the T80. In his intro, Zaloga sums it up: The T80 was the Soviet's answer to the M1 Abrams, British Challenger, and the German Leopard 2 tank. However, the T80 costs 3 times as much as the T72 (due to its usage of the powerful but gas thirsty turbine engine) yet is only marginally more effective than the T72B. Moreover, the T80 gained a bad reputation in its disastrous deployment by the Russian army during the 1994 assault on the Chechen capital of Grozniy. As Zaloga points out, 70% of the 200 tanks deployed by the Russians in the conflict were knocked out. (The Chechen soldiers, familiar with Soviet tanks, knew that the armor housing the engine was vulnerable to a well-placed rocket strike from above. The result would be a catastrophic explosion which would blow the turret off the tank.) In a different book on the T80, written by Mikhail Baryatinskiy, it was also revealed that the T80 did not have reactive armor during the assault, thus making it more vulnerable to rocket attacks.

As Zaloga points out, the fault of the T80's performance in the conflict lies with the poor training of the tank crew, the incompetent tactics, and the poor operational leadership of the senior Russian Army leadership. However, the T80 tank and its designers were blamed for the disastrous combat performance.

Some of the features of the armor which were supposed to protect the T80 didn't work as well as it was supposed to. The reactive armor (the Kontact) was not popular and only offered marginal protection from APFSDS rounds of modern Western MBTs (e.g. Abrams, Leopard). The unique active protection armor (the Drozd) which was supposed to protect the tank from active guided missiles, did not work that well either.

The troublesome turbine engine was replaced in later versions of the T80 with a gas-diesel engine (e.g. T80U). And finally, the T80 was not an export success. Ironically, the Ukrainian copy of the T80, the T84 was better built and was more successful in the export market than the original.

Zaloga again does a masterful and comprehensive job of describing the development history and the performance of the T80 in 46 pages. The colored plates by Tony Bryan were very good, but on other volumes by Zaloga, the colored plates by Jim Laurier looked even better. I felt that Zaloga could have written more on the Black Eagle and the T90 tank, but he was constrained by the 48 page limitation.

If you're willing to pay a little more, I would highly recommend you purchase the Russian Armor Vol. 3 series of the Main Battle Tank T80 by Mikhail Baryatinskiy, which I also own. Baryatinskiy's volume is thicker (81 pages) and offers excellent colored photos of the T80. It also describes the Black Eagle in fuller detail.

Zaloga's treatment of the T80 does not disappoint; it offers a brief yet comprehensive treatment of an important Soviet AFV. I highly recommend it for tank buffs and military history enthusiasts.