History
The T-62 medium tank was born from the need to upgrade or replace the aging T-54/55 series in order for Soviet tanks to be able to defeat their new western counterparts in battle (the history behind the T-62 early development is described here). This tank's 115mm smoothbore gun was a notable upgrade over the earlier rifled D-10T. The "competition" (the D-54TS rifled gun) lingered on for a while thanks to its newly developed tungsten-core subcaliber rounds, but once these became available for the U-5TS smoothbore as well, the D-54TS finally disappeared from future tank proposals. Originally, the T-62 was supposed to be a stopgap measure before the appearance of the newer T-64 tank from Kharkov, but in the end it was produced in the Soviet Union until 1975 with more than 20 thousand made and it formed the backbone of the Soviet forces for many years.
