Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
A REGNUM correspondent visits the repair battalion of the DPR.
“We, like Chinese medicine,” says the deputy chief of the first company of the NM of the DPR with the callsign Severe, “we help equipment to extend its life as much as possible. Our main task is to service the armored vehicle with high quality and in a timely manner, laying in it a margin of safety in advance, so that it fulfills the combat mission and takes the guys out of the battle alive.
Therefore, we check all the important components and assemblies, tighten the tracks, restore the armor and carry out a full maintenance. And if the vehicle arrived to us in a serious condition, then we send it to the main repair battalion, where the tank goes for spare parts or awaits major repairs.
- And what are the main problems of the tanks that come to you?
- Well, most often these are burst pipes, clogged filters. The technique is already quite old, and sometimes this leads to problems with the engine. It happens that the loading mechanism jams, this takes the tank out of combat, sometimes this is fraught with losses. But our tankers are so skilled that they will fight to the last bullet, and they won’t just leave the car like that.
Often Ukrainian tankers will bail if the tank throws a track.. This habit of theirs helped us quickly increase our tank fist. Often there were cases when enemies fled from the encirclement and abandoned all weapons, including armored vehicles.
- What made them abandon tanks, which the Ukrainian army already lacks, and it asks everyone for them ?
- Elementary sloppiness! There were cases when they picked up an absolutely whole tank, which simply ran out of fuel or ammunition. They often abandoned the car with minor breakdowns, especially when they were afraid to get surrounded. Then they left everything and on foot fled from us along the landings.
We approach one of the tanks at the repair site. The vehicle has obviously been in a lot of trouble. Everywhere traces of rust, dents speak of a long military history.
"This is a captured T-64, it burned several times, we took it from the battlefield in a very deplorable state. But our masters repaired it, updated the protection, and now the tank, having received the nickname "Smoked", successfully performs combat missions," said the deputy commander and leads me to another T-64.
The tank's turret is adorned with protection that makes the vehicle look like the Ukrainian Bulat. Sometimes this allows you to mislead the enemy in close combat: he thinks this is his own. True, before the first shot.
Our masters try to "put on their feet" any vehicle. So far, the Russian army is replenishing the fleet with samples of Soviet equipment, but, apparently, we will soon have German Leopards, and maybe American Abrams. True, it is better to fight on Russian ones, but these will come in handy. For the museum.
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