The Threat of Russian T-90s — They’re Getting Decimated in Ukraine

By Kris Osborn, President, Center for Military Modernization

(Washington D.C.) Reactive armor, various combinations of composite armor materials, advanced gunners’ thermal sights, smoke grenades, and the ability to jam incoming anti-tank missiles are all reported attributes built into the Russian T-90M tank.

Should these technical details of the Russian tank be true, and should they be able to achieve the required operational functionality, then the T-90 could well be a concerning and formidable threat.

Nonetheless, stats on paper mean nothing if weapons of war can’t perform. And at least so far in the Ukraine war, the T-90 is no game-changer.

The T-90

Some of the innovations woven into the vehicle sound somewhat similar to upgrades the U.S. Army has made to its Abrams tank. For example, available specs on the T-90 say the tank’s 125mm Smoothbore main gun can fire High-Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT) rounds as well HE-FRAG or fragmentation projectiles to improve anti-personnel lethality. To a certain extent, this parallels the kinds of ammunition fired by the Abrams, which includes Multi-Purpose Anti-Tank round (MPAT) as well as HEAT rounds and so-called “Canister” rounds which release a series of fragmented small projectiles to destroy groups of enemy fighters.

The T-90 entered service in 1993, and the extent to which it has been successfully maintained and upgraded may be somewhat of a question mark. Multiple reports reveal the tank has rather advanced countermeasures such as a “TShu-1-7-Shtora-1” optronic system to disrupt laser targeting on incoming ATGMs and an electro-optical jammer. Perhaps of greatest significance, the T-90M is engineered with advanced thermal sights, as high-fidelity, long-range targeting sensors can of course offer an impactful margin of difference. The U.S. Army’s v3 Abrams variant, for instance, is engineered with a FLIR, forward-looking infrared sensor reportedly able to transmit high-resolution targeting images at stand-off distances.

ABRAMS RIVAL?

The real questions, therefore, most likely pertain to the nature and extent of the upgrades Russian weapons developers have built into the T-90. Has it been upgraded in any way that could rival the v3 and emerging v4 variants of the U.S. Army’s Abrams?