The Object 140 project was rooted in the development programme for a successor to the T-54, which began in 1953 with a meeting between the Ministry of Transport Machine Building and the three major tank design institutes of the USSR: The KhKBM design bureau of Factory No. However, Object 140 was the tank to which the T-62 owed its essential features, distinguishing it from the T-55. The T-55 was the main tank from which most of the T-62’s primary characteristics were derived. This all took place without direct knowledge of foreign tank developments and without any specific reference threats. In addition to the research work that had been accumulated since the start of a new Soviet medium tank programme in 1953, several more years were spent in shaping the T-62 into its final form between 1958 to 1960, when its military field tests concluded successfully. The design of the T-62 was an amalgamation of several existing concepts which had previously remained at the experimental stage, but nevertheless were already well established before the M60 was known in the USSR. However, the T-62 did not simply pop up overnight as a stopgap solution to house a big gun. The T-62 was put into service on the basis of outgunning it, and indeed, it would not be entirely inaccurate to consider the T-62’s most prominent highlight to be its 115mm smoothbore gun. It was accepted into service as a direct reaction to the new American M60 tank, which had been dispatched to the 3rd Armored Division in the USAREUR (U.S Army in Europe) in December 1960. 183 in Nizhniy Tagil, known as Uralvagonzavod. The tank was designed and built at Factory No.
The T-62 medium tank, known under the factory index of Object 166, formally entered service in the Soviet Army on 12 August 1961. Soviet Union/Russian Federation (1961-Present)
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