Black Eagle (tank)
main battle tank
The Black Eagle tank (Russian: Чёрный орёл, Chyornyy Oryol) or Object 640 was a presumed prototype main battle tank based upon the T-80U, developed by the KBTM design bureau of Omsktransmash in the late 1990s for the Russian Federation. The Black Eagle was cancelled, with all production and development stopped in 2009.
The company developing the tank, Omsktransmash, went bankrupt, with its designs and projects absorbed into Uralvagonzavod and state-owned services. Before the acquisition Uralvagonzavod was developing the Object 195 in competition to the Black Eagle, and then owned the rights to both projects. However, the Russian government withdrew all support and funding for both projects, and they were superseded by the T-14 Armata, which was also being developed by Uralvagonzavod.
Development
History and design
Development started during the 1980s, when the design bureau of the Leningrad Kirov Plant (LKZ) developed a new design based on the stretched T-80U chassis. The bureau closed, and the documentation was transferred to KBTM in Omsk.
A mock-up of the Black Eagle was first demonstrated at the VTTV arms exposition in Omsk, in September 1997, making a single brief pass, far from the reviewing stands. The tank appeared to be a T-80U hull topped by a very large turret and gun, obscured by camouflage netting and canvas.
An early prototype was shown at an arms exposition in Siberia, in June 1999.
“Black Eagle (tank)” enters the record as main battle tank. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Black, Eagle and tank can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Black Eagle (tank)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.