"By powerful artillery fire, air strikes, and a wave of attacking tanks, we're supposed to swiftly crush the enemy."
- Marshal Georgi K. Zhukov

The T-64 is a Soviet main battle tank introduced in the early 1960s. It was a more advanced counterpart to the T-62: the T-64 served tank divisions, while the T-62 supported infantry in motor rifle divisions. Although the T-62 and the famous T-72 would see much wider use and generally more development, it was the T-64 that formed the basis of more modern Soviet tank designs, such as the T-80.

These features made the T-64 expensive to build, significantly higher than previous generations of Soviet tanks. This was especially true of the power pack, which was time-consuming to build and cost twice as much as more conventional designs. Several proposals were made to improve the T-64 with new engines, but chief designer Alexander Morozov's political power in Moscow kept the design in production in spite of any concerns about price. This led to the T-72 being designed as an emergency design, only to be produced in the case of a war, but its 40% lower price led to it entering production in spite of Morozov's objections.

At present the T-64 is in use in very few nations or regions, but today it is undergoing significant factory overhauls and modernization in the Ukraine. The newest, vastly upgraded and improved model of this 50-year old design, the T-64BM Bulat, has increased in weight to 45 tonnes and is seeing active service in the field.

Pictured here is a 1:43 scale diecast replica of a Soviet T-64B main battle tank. Now in stock!

Dimensions:
Length: 8-inches
Width: 3-inches

Release Date: July 2021

Historical Account: "Cold War Gone Hot" - According to military historian David Isby, the T-64 entered service in 1967 with the 41st Guards Tank Division in the Kiev Military District, the suggestion being that this was prudent due to the proximity of the division to the factory, and significant teething problems during induction into service that required constant presence of factory support personnel with the division during acceptance and initial crew and service personnel training on the new type. It appears that the tank remained secret to the West for some years between its entry into production in the first half of 1960s and the official acceptance into the Soviet Army in 1967.

The T-64A began deployment to the Soviet Union's western military districts during the 1970s, and was gradually deployed to first line units in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany in East Germany and Soviet troops in neighboring Warsaw Pact states. The first GSFG unit to receive the T-64A was the 14th Guards Motor Rifle Division at Juterbog, which became the 32nd Guards Tank Division in 1982. When NATO detected the new tank after it was first deployed to East Germany, it was initially misidentified as the T-72. The T-64 mainly served with Soviet tank units in northern East Germany that were part of the 2nd Guards Tank Army, the 3rd Army, and the 20th Guards Army, although it began to be phased out and replaced by the newer T-80BV/T-80U before Soviet troops were withdrawn from Germany in the late 1980s and early 1990s. However, when the Soviet troops withdrew from Germany, two divisions and the 6th Separate Guards Motor Rifle Brigade still operated the T-64.

In September 1990, the Soviet Union had 3,982 T-64s in service west of the Urals, with 2,091 of these in Ukraine. 1,386 of these were T-64As, 220 T-64AKs, 1,192 T-64Bs, 159 T-64BVs, 420 T-64B1s, 27 T-64B1K/BV1K, and 578 T-64Rs. During the Soviet period, the T-64 was never exported.

It is normally reported that the T-64 was not used in the Soviet-Afghan War since the 40th Soviet Army that was deployed there used T-54/55 and T-62 tanks, possibly due to the limited usefulness of tanks in mountain warfare. A small number of T-64 tanks were tested in Afghanistan during January 1980, but were quickly withdrawn without seeing combat because their engines did not perform well in the high altitude necessary for Afghan operations.