Russia Military Using Weapons Older than Its Soldiers to Make Up for Equipment Losses in Ukraine

Paul Goble

            Staunton, May 6 – The Russian military is continuing the tradition of its Soviet predecessors and keeping weapons in storage long after it has declared them to be out of date so that in the event of need, it can make use of those weapons to replace more modern ones lost in combat.

            A survey by The Insider finds that the only way the Russian military has been able to at least partially make up for the losses it has suffered in the field is to bring out of mothballs weapons that were developed and deployed decades ago clearly on the assumption that these old weapons are better than nothing in fighting this war (theins.ru/politika/261291).

            Among the weapons of this kind that the news agency has documented are being revived and used by Russian forces in Ukraine are the following:

·       The T-62 tank, developed in 1962 and first used militarily in the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1968.

·       The D-1 howitzer first developed in 1943. According to records, there were some 700 of these in the arsenal of the Russian army in 2021.

·       The PAC-50, first developed after World War II and put in service already in 1954,

·       The MT-12 gun which went into service initially in 1955.

·       The T-54 and T-55 tanks which were first developed during World War II.