The last few updates Russia / USSR has been getting T-72s and T-90s. But this just isn’t cutting it in the current meta.
The T-90s have the long 7 second reload speed and a slow 4km reverse speed. The 3bm60 shell is also starting to show its age. The additions of Abrams SEP v3 and Leopard 2A7s have also been pretty rough for Russia / USSR. Just look at the win rates and KDs for these tanks.
The solution is more T-80s. There are few that can be added.
I would prefer more original content for top tier. This is just putting gas to the fire that Gaijin has lit with “new” main battle tanks being locked behind a 420 000+ wall for an active protection system when they could be added as modification on the first place. This also includes poor variantions of existing vehicles like this T-80U-E1 with Relikt explosive reactive armor—“Hey guys, we have a brand new vehicle: A T-80U but with Relikt ERA, how original?”. Definitely no.
It’s certain to say that most hopes of the Object 640 being added can be let go away, BVV_d once said that no footage of the Black Eagle shooting was available for analisys, so the vehicle can’t be added at the moment; with that said I don’t think that will be added unless Gaijin just dismiss any requirements, guess the missing information and add it anyways, which I don’t think that’s happening also. The Burlak turret could be added for both T-90 and T-80 platforms, two in one, given Gaijin recent additions of similar vehicles (BMPT and BMPT-72) one could certainly be implemented as premium vehicle.
Object 219M, although very interesting in my opinion it’s not something that will break through the current Meta and improve the USSR top tier main battle tanks as you say—it’s a T-80BV for the most part. The issues with the Object 219M is the engine “turbo” mode and the abcense of a commander crewmember, which means only two if I’m not wrong, doubtful if it will improve the Meta, but regardless it’s a interesting vehicle that could be added anyways.
T-80BVM (Obr. 2023) in my opinion: No. I don’t think that the innovations on the vehicle would improve a whole lot, there’s the T-90M (Arena-M) for that task. If people want a vehicle with active protection system—T-90M (Arena-M) and T-72B3A (Arena-E) is already in-game, the spot after T-80BVM could be reserved for something worth the grind and being something fun not some souless simple swap of explosive reactive armor package from Kontakt-5 ERA to Relikt ERA.
Base model T-80 would be really nice, could see devs putting it at 10.0-10.3. As it would be basically T-64A with much better engine, suspension and transmission with addition of LRF.
Maybe even add T-80 prototype with the 30mm for the commander.
Would be in game counterpart of XM803 (as in similar case to XM803 to MBT70 situation as T-64 to T-64A will be gameplay wise).
T-64 would have worse turret armour compared to the T-64A and 115mm gun with only option for APFSDS being 3BM6 which would be around the performance of german-american APFSDS found on XM803/MBT70.
So very much possible 9.0 (lets be honest 435 is overtiered and this would still have much worse gun handling/ammo choises than smth like T-62M-1 or ZTZ’s-88’s)
What’s the difference between the Abrams SEPv3 and the SEPv2? Gaijin refused to improve the armor they only reinforced the cheeks, that’s it. And nobody was penetrating the cheeks even before. Do you really want to get a tank like that? It’s like giving you a new T-80, but the only armor improvement is on the front of the turret. Would you want that?
LRF was something that unlike T-72 T-64A’s only got during major repairs. T-72’s started fielding TPD-K1 LRF since 1977 (before T-72A became a thing) whenever it was available.
So theres little T-64A’s with TPD-K1, T-72 Urals and T-72 Urals modernised to T-72AV standart are more often to be found with TPD-K1.
You can tell TPD-K1 from TPD-2-49 on a tank by the second rangefinder window being closed off, as well as main gun sight opening having a cut for the laser rangefinder channel of the TPD-K1.
More so explaining this to let you know that it’s highly unlikely we’ re gonna ever get one with TPD-K1.
You re much more likely getting T-64AV or later variant of T-64A that’s actually close to on par with T-72A/M1 date/capabilities wise.
