T-62

The T-62 is a North Korean main battle tank featured in Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.

Overview
The T-62 is the KPA's main tank of choice during the later stages of the game. It only appears in the Northern Province and in some ace contracts, replacing the T-54 from the Southern Province. It is much more powerful than its predecessor, and almost as powerful as the M1 Tank. It can be acquired from most North Korean bases and outposts in the Northern Province.

Destroying a T-62 will result in payment of a $7,500 bounty from the Allied Nations.

Trading one in to the Russian Mafia chopshop at full health will net you $30,000.

Tactics
The T-62 is an old tank; its design goes back 41 years in 2005. But unlike the obsolete T-54 fielded by the Korean People's Army earlier in the game, a T-62 is a much more serious threat. The T-62 features a larger main gun- 115mm versus the 100mm gun of the T-54- and has better armor, a slightly better top speed, and a faster turret traverse. Encountering one or more T-62s on foot or in an unarmored or light armored vehicle will put the player at a considerable disadvantage. In sufficient numbers, the T-62 can stand up to the better, more modern MBTs of the Allied Nations and China, and if it outnumbers them stands a solid chance of winning.

Like the T-54, the T-62 is NBC (Nuclear Biological Chemical) shielded, allowing it to operate in nuclear-contaminated areas encountered in various points of the game.

Facing the T-62 means that one is in for a bigger fight than against a T-54. The operator enjoys better armor and firepower than a T-54, and although the T-62 will catch fire immediately and explode a few seconds later when shot by an M1 Tank or Type 96, it can still fight for those last few seconds and may well get a round or two off from its main gun in that time. Against other main battle tanks, the T-62 fights at a disadvantage but much less of one than a T-54, and in situations where the enemy has no MBTs present, the Korean People's Army can actually win some small victories and drive the invaders back for a short time.

Real life
The T-62 is based on the real life T-62 Soviet main battle tank.

One of the countries still using the T-62 as a first-line MBT is North Korea, which ordered 350 T-62s from the USSR in 1970, another 150 in 1974, and produced at least 1,200 under license in North Korea. A total of 800 are believed to have been in service in the DPRK in 2000, and 2,000 were believed to be in use in 2011. North Korea has modified foreign-made T-62s and built its own to the standard of the North Korean "Chonma-ho", a series of NK-designed T-62 variants.

Trivia

 * The T-62 features an automatic ejection system for its main cannon to prevent the interior of the tank from filling up with spent cannon shells and noxious fumes. It uses the gun's recoil to kick open a trap door on the back of the tank's turret, ejecting the spent shell casing. The circular door can be seen on the rear of the T-62's turret in-game, but it never actually opens to eject the spent shell.

Related pages

 * North Korean vehicles of Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction
 * T-54
 * Type 96
 * M1 Tank