Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Pages: 26. Chapters: Lion of Babylon (tank), T-62, T-72 operators and variants, Type 69/79. Excerpt: The T-62 is a Soviet main battle tank, a further development of the T-55. Its 115 mm gun was the first smoothbore tank gun in use. The T-62 was produced between 1961 and 1975. It became a standard tank in the Soviet arsenal, partly replacing the T-55, although that tank continued to be manufactured in the Soviet Union and elsewhere after T-62 production was halted. The T-62 was later replaced in front-line service by the T-72. By the late 1950s, Soviet commanders realized that the T-55's 100 mm gun was incapable of penetrating the frontal armor of newer Western tanks like the Centurion and M48 Patton with standard armor-piercing shells. While 100 mm HEAT ammo could have accomplished the task, they were considerably more expensive and required more training of tank crews for proper use. It was decided to up-gun the T-55 with a 115 mm smoothbore cannon, capable of firing APFSDS rounds. Experimental trials showed that the T-55 was inherently unsuited to mount the larger new cannon, and work therefore began on a new tank. The bigger gun required a bigger turret and turret ring to absorb the higher recoil. This in turn necessitated a larger hull, as the T-55 hull was simply too small to accept the new turret. The T-62 thus took shape, marking an evolutionary improvement upon the T-55. (Perrett 1987:38) At the time when Morozov was working on his Ob'yekt 430 tank, a young engineer, Leonid N. Kartsev, was the head of the OKB-520 design bureau of Uralvagonzavod factory (UVZ) in Nizhny Tagil. He was responsible for the T-54A (Ob'yekt 137G) and T-54B (Ob'yekt 137G2) modernizations of T-54 main battle tank. After work on the T-54M (Ob'yekt 139) modernization was abandoned he and his design team started working on a new tank, called Ob'yekt 140....