Ukraine’s state-owned arms trading agency Ukrspetsexport Corp. delivered the Oplot main battle tank to the U.S. military last week.
Vadim Nozdrya, general director of the Ukrspetseksport, said that the tank was shipped to the United States within the framework of the contract for the new combat vehicle.
The bases version of Oplot has a weight of some 51 tons. The tank can carry a crew of three, and it is enabled with a maximum speed of 70 kph.
The tank is developed by Kharkiv Morozov Machine Building Design Bureau (KMDB) for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It is fitted with Duplet built-in Explosive Reactive Armor (ERA) of a new generation, that protects against tandem warheads. The tank is fitted with Shtora countermeasures system, which reduced hit probability of enemy anti-tank guided weapon (ATGW) system with semi-automatic guidance.
The Oplot-M main battle tank is armed with a 125 mm fully-stabilized smoothbore gun, fitted with a carousel-type autoloader. Vehicle is capable of firing 9K119M Reflex (NATO Designation AT-11 Sniper-B) gun-launched anti-tank guided missiles.
It is noteworthy that this is not the first time Ukraine has supplied tanks to the USA. In 2003, the U.S. Government obtained four T-80UD main battle tanks with an installed Drozd Active Protection System (APS) from Ukraine. The four T-80UD tanks arrived at the U.S. Army Aberdeen Test Center throughout December 2003 and January 2004.
