The T-72 is a Soviet and Russian Main Battle Tank from the Cold War and modern times. The first prototypes of this vehicle were built in 1967-1972, and the car entered service in 1973. It is estimated that at least 20,000 copies of this car were manufactured, although it is worth adding that these are minimal estimates. The combat weight of the T-72B version reached 44.5 tons. The drive was provided by a single W-46 engine with a capacity of 780 HP. The primary armament was the 125mm 2A46M smoothbore gun, and the secondary armament consisted of a 7.62mm PKT machine gun and a 12.7mm NSW machine gun.
The T-72 tank was created as a specific supplement to the T-64 and was to be a less technologically advanced vehicle, although meeting the requirements of the battlefield, and at the same time cheaper in mass production. For this reason, it uses, for example, an engine with a much less avant-garde design or more classic armor (especially in the first production series). The main producer of this tank for the Soviet Army was the Uralwagon Zawod plant in Nizhny Tagil. Unlike the T-64, the T-72 was widely exported and licensed in many countries around the world. It also quickly became the main tank of the armed forces of the Warsaw Pact countries. It is worth mentioning here that it was included in the equipment of the Polish People's Army in 1978 and remains there to this day. The T-72 tank is also used by the armed forces of the Russian Federation and is undergoing numerous modernizations (to the standards: T-72B3 and T-72B3M)
