Why Do Russian Tanks Explode Violently When Hit?

Sometimes in modern warfare it is not possible to tell whether a vehicle has been damaged or destroyed, as the only sign may be a small hole with burn marks. But this is certainly not the case with Russian T-72 tanks in the war in Ukraine: in many of the images shared online the vehicles are completely shattered, with the turret thrown some distance from the body of the tank. This is not because of some super-powerful anti-tank weapon. The catastrophic losses are the side-effect of a calculated design decision.

Most Western tanks, including the most modern M1 Abrams, have a crew of four: commander, driver, gunner and loader. You can see a video of a loader in action here: he manually takes rounds from a stowage compartment and loads them into the Abrams’ 120mm main gun. Of the four crew roles in the tank, loader is the simplest and the easiest to automate, and that’s what the Russians did with the T-72 series and later tanks.

The autoloader reduces the number of personnel needed by 25%, as well as significantly reducing the space needed inside the turret as rounds are not being manhandled. It makes the turret smaller, and contributes to the much lower profile of the T-72 – at almost a foot shorter than the Abrams, it can take cover and remain unseen more easily (unless it has one of those ridiculous cope cage armor add-ons welded to the roof that the Russians have employed in Ukraine).

In addition autoloaders are supposed to be faster and more efficient than humans, as well as cheaper.

One disadvantage of having an autoloader is that it reduces the crew available for field maintenance and repairs. Another is that while the French Leclerc tank has an autoloader ammunition stored in a bustle away from the crew, the Russians opted with the the T-72 to have their ammunition storage in the form of a carousel in the body of the tank immediately under the turret.

This means there is no barrier between the crew and the stored ammunition. The Abrams ammunition storage is separate to the crew compartment, and is fitted with special blow-out panels so that if the ammunition explodes – as seen here – the panels blow away first so the blast goes outwards rather than through the closed crew compartment.

With the Russian design there are no blow-out panels, because the ammunition is in the same space as the crew. Any penetrating hit in the turret or hull can set off the ammunition, with a result sometimes describes as Jack-in-the-box effect: the force of the blast from the ammo tears the tank apart from inside, often detaching the turret with such force that it is thrown clear. Such events are instantly fatal to the crew.

The location of the T-72s ammunition storage is well known, and it may even be deliberately targeted, as in this video where a Ukrainian BTR-4 gunner pulled off the David-v-Goliath feat of destroying a Russian T-72 by aiming at the thin side armor over the ammunition storage at close range. No wonder then that some people call the T-72 ‘a death trap,’ and talk about ‘Olympic turret throwing champions.’

While Ukraine uses the same tanks, much of their combat power currently seems to be in the form of light infantry teams armed with anti-tank weapons. Their heavily outnumbered tanks have barely been seen in action.

Judging by the statistics being carefully compiled by the open-source intelligence analysts of the blog Oryx, who have identified and catalogued every single image showing a destroyed vehicle in the conflict, ammunition explosions are not the main cause of losses of Russian tanks. Out of 360 losses documented to date, 166 were destroyed and 6 damaged – but 188 tanks were abandoned, or captured by the Ukrainians. This is a notably larger percentage abandoned than other types of armored vehicle, and suggests that Russian tank crews are reluctant to stay with their vehicles when they have a choice.

But then any T-72 crews who have seen the results may be understandably worried about going into combat in a vehicle prone to violently disintegrate when hit.