T-62

T-62

T-55AMD-1

T-62M-1

T-62

T-55AMD-1

T-62M-1

USSR

VI Rank

Battle rating:

AB	RB	SB
8.7	8.7	8.7

Class:

Medium tank

Research:160 000

Purchase:450 000

Description

The T-62 is a rank VI Russian medium tank with a battle rating of 8.7 (AB/RB/SB). It was introduced in Update 1.61 "Road to Glory". The T-62 is a further development of the T-54 series and was made to fight the newer NATO tanks. It features a 115 mm U-5TS smoothbore gun, which makes the T-62 the first tank in-game and in real life to use a smoothbore gun. The gun also was the first to introduce the Armour-Piercing Discarding-Sabot Fin-Stabilized (APDS-FS) into the game.

In the 1950s, with the introduction of the 105 mm L7 tank gun on many NATO tanks such as the Centurion, Leopard, and M60, the Soviets realised that the 100 mm D-10 on the T-54/T-55 series of medium tanks was becoming obsolete. To maintain parity with the new NATO tanks, a new 115 mm smoothbore gun was developed along with a new medium tank based on the T-55. This tank entered service in 1961 as the T-62 and was the first tank in the world to begin service with a smoothbore gun.

As in real life, the T-62 is the first Soviet tank in the tech tree to be equipped with a smoothbore gun and is also the first Soviet medium tank in the tech tree capable of firing APFSDS rounds. While there is little improvement in terms of mobility or protection over the previous T-54, the T-62 has substantially improved firepower. It is capable of frontally penetrating nearly any tank it is likely to see in-game at most combat ranges. It is also the first Soviet medium tank to have a gun stabiliser, allowing it to fire on the move with reasonable accuracy.

General info

Survivability and armour

The armour protection of the T-62 is very similar to that of the T-54. Unfortunately, the T-62 tends to face more powerful guns at its BR, so its armour is not nearly as effective for its BR as the T-54's is. The well-rounded turret and sloped hull can ricochet poorly aimed rounds when angled, but should not be relied upon to protect the T-62.

Like most Soviet tanks, the T-62 has a very compact layout, meaning that a single penetrating hit is will most likely cripple or outright destroy the tank. Of particular note of concern is the front hull ammunition rack inside the fuel tank situated next to the driver. This rack is the ready rack of the T-62 and cannot be emptied by reducing the number of rounds carried. A penetrating hit there is likely to result in an ammunition cook-off that will instantly destroy the tank.

Mobility

The T-62's mobility is somewhat similar to that of the T-54 medium tank, although the heavier weight makes it a little bit more sluggish. It can reach a respectable 50 km/h forward, and the maximum reverse speed is 8 km/h. Because the T-62 is longer than the T-54 and does not have neutral steering, its turning performance is noticeably worse, especially on rough terrain.

Armaments

Main armament

The 115 mm 2A20 smoothbore gun is a potent gun capable of firing APFSDS, HE-FS, and HEAT-FS ammunition. It is stabilised, allowing for accurate firing on the move. The turret traverse is also significantly improved over that of the T-54, and the turret also provides more gun depression, allowing for some use of hull-down tactics. It should be noted that the gun has limited depression when the gun passes over the hull fuel tanks (at roughly 45 degrees to each side). Due to the large size of the 115 mm ammunition and cramped space of the T-62, the reload is much slower than that of comparable NATO tanks (~10–12 s depending on crew skill level and training).

While the APFSDS ammunition is not as lethal as the APHE ammunition used on previous Soviet medium tanks and requires some degree of careful aim, it is still capable of one-shotting tanks, especially with frontal penetrations. There are two types of APFSDS ammunition: 3BM3 and 3BM4. The stock 3BM4 round has a pure steel rod penetrator while the unlockable 3BM3 penetrator is a steel rod with a tungsten slug inside the penetrator. The latter has substantially more vertical penetration and somewhat better post-penetration lethality, but its performance against highly sloped armour is significantly worse. Both rounds have outstanding muzzle velocities of over 1,600 m/s, allowing long-range shots to be made without much lead.

The 3BK4 fin-stabilised HEAT round has more penetration than either APFSDS round and retains its penetration at long ranges, but has a much slower muzzle velocity that makes aiming at long ranges significantly more difficult. It is more effective than APFSDS against lightly armoured targets since it can reliably hull-break them if it detonates.

The 3UOF11 fin-stabilised HE round is rather unremarkable and is only really useful against soft targets.

Machine guns

The T-62 is armed with a single coaxial 7.62mm SGMT machine gun with a single 2500 ammo belt.

Usage in battles

The T-62 is the first entry in the new stage of Soviet MBTs that most Soviet Tankers will research. As usual with soviet MBTs, only the turret has armor to speak of. Do not let this put you off as the T-62's 115mm U-5TS is able to preform exceptionally even with 10.0 BR tanks. In fact, the U-5TS has more penetration than that comes after the T-62, the T-55A, making a lot of players fall back to it (not to mention you lose the cool shell dump animation!). This comes at the cost of slightly slower reload time of 12.0s (9.2s if maxed crew), which is a little below average for it's BR. All in all, the T-62 will give Soviet Tankers a general idea of how to play upcoming MBTs, as the play style doesn't change much.

Pros and cons

Pros:

• Ability to fire high-velocity APFSDS rounds
• Better gun depression in comparison to most Soviet tanks
• Faster turret traverse than the T-54
• Larger ammunition capacity than the T-54, with a generous hull ready rack

Cons:

• No anti-aircraft heavy machine gun
• Slow reload compared to NATO 105 mm L7-armed main battle tanks
• No APHE ammunition
• Cramped layout prone to vulnerable crippling hits or ammunition detonation when penetrated

History

Describe the history of the creation and combat usage of the ground vehicle in more detail than in the introduction. If the historical reference turns out to be too long, take it to a separate article, taking a link to the article about the vehicle and adding a block "/ History" (example: https://wiki.warthunder.com/(Vehicle-name)/History) and add a link to it here using the main template. Be sure to reference text and sources by using <ref>, as well as adding them at the end of the article. This section may also include the vehicle's dev blog entry (if applicable) and the in-game encyclopedia description (under === In-game description ===, also if applicable).

Media

Excellent additions to the article would be video guides, screenshots from the game, and photos.

See also

• T-62M-1: Improved variant with a more powerful engine, added-on composite armour, and missile-launch capability for the gun
• IT-1: Missile-launcher variant of the T-62

External links

Paste links to sources and external resources, such as:

• topic on the official game forum;
• encyclopedia page on the tank;
• other literature.