Object 194 and its 152mm gun – the tank that Kremlin didn’t produce
WASHINGTON — It turns out, and this is true, that in times of war, the qualities of a weapon are best revealed. But there is also something else true – it is precisely in military actions that the lack of quality weapons is evident. But the most painful thing is when during a war you realize that you could have had a unique weapon system, but you forgot it, you stopped funding it, or you just thought that you would never need it.
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Tank T-95 – the Russian original source of fourth-generation tanks. Simultaneously the father of the T-14 Armata and the orphan of the Russian industrial weapons complex, whose “parents” the Kremlin killed [figuratively speaking]. At this moment, does not Russia need precisely the long-kept secret project – Object 194, known as the T-95 tank with its 152mm main gun? Because friends, T-64, T-72, T-80 and T-90 something “unexpected” by Russian standards performs extremely badly on the front line.
Object 194
The idea for the T-95 was born in a period when Russia is on the borderline between nostalgia for the old Soviet Union, the challenge of the market economy, and the drunkenness of a president. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia at least managed to stockpile a large part of the Union’s tank inventory, which today is mercilessly sent to burn on Ukrainian fields.
The Object 194 was designed as a large, relatively larger main battle tank than its predecessors. Although information about the tank is scarce, some reports suggest that it was close in size and weight to its Western competitors, the British Challenger 2, the German Leopard 2A7, and the American M1A2 Abrams. To this day, it is argued that the T-95 is the Russian tank that was designed to have nothing in common with its equivalents.
Heavy armor and greatly improved crew survivability. A powerful self-loading 152mm gun that can fire both conventional rounds and guided missiles. Three-man crew and unmanned manned turret. Thermal imaging sights anticipated long before the year 2000, panoramic periscopes, scanning systems, and targeting delegation.
Is Putin regret today?
It sounds really promising, especially if we step back and imagine this happening before the new millennium. Of course, the war in Ukraine also showed that words and paper specifications should no longer be trusted, especially if they are issued under the seal of the Kremlin.
But still, Object 194 fell victim to the modernization of the T-90 and the idea of the T-14 Armata, which was produced in extremely small numbers, which are simply frivolous to cite. It could even be argued that the T-95 was the test of the future of the T-14. Still, it’s fair to say why Moscow “shuts off” the entire project – outdated hardware for its time, or on the verge of survival, and endless pouring of finances into the development of parts and components for the tank for a whole decade. 2010 Moscow ends the project. Doesn’t Mr. Vladimir Putin regret today that there are not a hundred T-95 warheads in the inventory of the Russian army?
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