The night sight in particular is problematic, as it’s an active infrared sight. The sights are mediocre even by 1980s standards.

The Twardy adds new, more robust, two-axis stabilization.Ī T-72M1 has a TPD-K1 day sight and a TPN-1-49-23 infrared night sight. The stabilizer on the T-72M1 is crude and requires frequent recalibration, limiting the tank’s accuracy while firing on the move. The new fire-controls are the PT-91’s most important feature, however. The neatly-fitted reactive armor offers better protection against high-explosive rounds. But it’s got an 850-horsepower diesel engine in place of the old, 780-horsepower model-making it several miles per hour faster. The result is a tank that still looks a lot like a T-72. To produce a PT-91, Bumar-Labedy starts with a 45-ton T-72M1-a downgraded export variant of the 1983-vintage, Soviet T-72A-and replaces the engine, transmission, fire-controls, optics and autoloader and adds bricks of Polish-made Erawa reactive armor. That many of those ex-Polish tanks are some of the better tanks Ukraine has gotten from its allies speaks to the Polish army and industry’s success in freeing themselves from their former dependency on the Soviet Union.

That Poland has been willing to give away a third of its tanks before it can launch local production of new American M-1s and South Korean K-2s speaks to Poland’s determination to help Ukraine defeat Russia. And Warsaw would send an additional 60 modernized T-72s and PT-91s “in the near future,” Morawiecki said. Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki confirmed Ukraine has received around 250 T-72-style tanks, apparently including PT-91s.

Old military tank design