T-90M Proryv

The T-90M is a deep upgrade of the T-90 line, delivered from 2020. It inherits the central trade of Soviet tank design: an autoloader replaces the loader, cutting the crew from four to three and with it turret volume and vehicle height.

The gains are real. At 2.23 m it stands 0.77 m lower than a Leopard 2, and at 48 tonnes it is nearly twenty lighter than an M1A2. Low means less exposed area; light means better strategic mobility — rail transport, bridge classification, and river crossing all benefit. In Russian operational thinking those outweigh per-vehicle protection.

The cost is equally real. The carousel autoloader lays ammunition flat in the hull floor inside the fighting compartment, with no isolating bulkhead and no blow-off panels. A penetration that ignites the propellant detonates the whole load and throws the turret clear. That failure mode has recurred across multiple conflicts, and it is the key to understanding the difference from Western designs.

Set against the M1A2 point by point, the two chose opposite sides on nearly every trade:

Crew — three versus four. One fewer means a smaller vehicle, and also that maintenance, observation, and security all fall on fewer people, a real burden on extended deployment.

Ammunition — hull-floor carousel versus turret-bustle isolation. The first lowers the vehicle; the second protects the crew. That is not a difference in technical level but in the assumption made about whether the tank will be penetrated.

Armour — Kontakt-5 explosive reactive armour over composite, versus Chobham with a depleted-uranium mesh. Reactive armour works well against shaped charges at little weight cost, but does less against kinetic penetrators and is expended on use.

The T-90M adds a modern commander's panoramic sight and fire control, finally giving it the hunter-killer capability Western tanks had in the 1990s. That gap in timing says more than any comparison of armour thickness.