Posted on 02/28/2010 7:50:56 PM PST by bruinbirdman
Russian army is embroiled in an embarrassing scandal after 200 of its tanks were found abandoned near a forest in central Russia, unguarded and unlocked.
A news website near the city of Yekaterinburg posted a video of the forgotten tanks showing passers-by clambering inside the vehicles and playing with empty ammunition belts. The only items that seemed to be missing were live rounds and the keys to the tanks' ignitions.
"There are tanks all over the forest, abandoned," an unnamed reporter on the video says. "If you need one, come and get it."
Locals in a nearby village said the tanks had been sitting there for almost four months covered in snow. The armoured vehicles were identified as a mixture of T-80 and T-72 battle tanks, the workhorses of the Russian army.
"We were shocked," Pavel L, a local, told Russian media. "It is like you can sit behind the wheel, start up the engine and drive off and nobody would notice!"
A military spokesman claimed the tanks were in fact being guarded by special patrols and were in the process of being dispatched to a military base. But military prosecutors appeared sceptical about his claims and opened an official investigation. Wary of further bad publicity, the army has urgently begun relocating the tanks.
The scandal comes days after one of Russia's top military commanders suggested the country did not need half of its 20,000 tanks and might scrap many older models. Tanks played an important role in the 2008 Russia-Georgia war, with Russia capturing dozens of Georgian tanks in the short conflict.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
Been looking for a used T-34 for a few years. Got to look harder.
The sale wasn’t completed for those...
T-72s are death traps and obsolete. They are so small inside that T-72 tank crewmen are all 5’6” or less.
20,000?!?
“If you need one, come and get it”
yah try to fuel one up an get it started after all those years.
I wonder if Obama will abandon more than that number of our own in the desert somewhere before he is through.
fail
Yekaterinburg was the city in which Czar Nicholas was murdered, FYI.
//T-72 tank crewmen are all 5’6” or less//
that’s only for extended periods of time. And any tank is a death trap once they get a bead on you.
Ebay.
Winning bidder pays all shipping costs.
No keys....How easy to hot wire a tank?
Also the birthplace of Boris Yeltsin.
“that’s only for extended periods of time.”
Ummm, isn’t tank crewman more or less a semi-permanent job? It’s not like they are tank crewmen for 2 hours and then change up with infantrymen for 6 hours and then back into the tank.
Note that I did not mention T-62s. The Soviets retired those and did not keep very many because they were just awful tanks.
yitbos
Hmm, I’m surprised no one tried to sell one of the tanks on the black market.
I would imagine one could trade for a lot of vodka with one of those things.
Assuming it's a diesel, it shouldn't be too hard. There's no ignition system, so if it's got fuel and will turn over it should start. There may be fuel cutoff solenoid that has to be jumpered, but that should be it.
In other words, half of their tanks aren’t much good for anything. If the gun still works, they should give them to some country somewhere as stationary howitzers, then start selling them ammo.
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