The T-64 was conceived in Kharkov (Kharkiv, Ukraine) as the next-generation main battle tank by Alexander A. Morozov, the designer of the T-54 (which in the meantime would be incrementally improved by Leonid N. Kartsev's Nizhny Tagil bureau, in models T-54A, T-54B, T-55, and T-55A).

A revolutionary feature of the T-64 is the incorporation of an automatic loader for its 125-mm gun, allowing a crewmember's position to be omitted, and helping to keep the size and weight of the tank down. Tank troopers would joke that the designers had finally caught up with their unofficial hymn, "Three Tankers"—the song had been written to commemorate the crewmen fighting in the Battle of Khalkhin Gol, in 3-man BT-5 tanks in 1939.

The T-64 also pioneered other Soviet tank technology: the T-64A model of 1967 introduced the 125-mm smoothbore gun, and the T-64B of 1976 would be able to fire a guided antitank missile through its gun barrel.

The T-64 design was further developed as the gas turbine-powered T-80 main battle tank. The turret of the T-64B would be used in the improved T-80U and T-80UD, and an advanced version of its diesel engine would power T-80UD and T-84 tanks built in Ukraine.

The T-64 would be used only by the Soviet Army and never exported, unlike the T-54/55. It was superior to these tanks in most qualitative terms, until the introduction of the T-72B model in 1985. The tank equipped elite and regular formations in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, the T-64A model being first deployed with East Germany's Group of Soviet Forces in Germany (GSFG) in 1976, and some time later in Hungary's Southern Group of Forces (SFG). By 1981 the improved T-64B began to be deployed in East Germany and later in Hungary. While it was believed that the T-64 was "only" reserved for elite units, it was also used by much lower "non-ready formations", for example, the Odessa Military District's 14th Army.

With the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991, T-64 tanks remained in the arsenals of constituent republics. Currently, slightly fewer than 2,000 of the old Soviet inventory of T-64 tanks are in service with the military of Ukraine and about 4,000 remain in service with the Russian Ground Forces.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-64_tank

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