In the early 1950s the tank designers began searching for new ideas, as the Soviet Army needed a radically new tank.
As had been so often the case, when radical tank design changes were required, the Tank Design Bureau of Kharkiv led the way by introducing an unconventional if not revolutionary approach to tank design. The new tank design concepts were embodied in the T-64 tank, which was designed in Kharkiv in the early 1960s under the leadership of Aleksandr A. Morozov and became the first vehicle of the new generation of Soviet-designed tanks. The T-64 was the first in the world to feature an automatic loader enabling the crew to be cut from four to three - commander, gunner and driver. Other advanced features included a sophisticated multi-layer protection, NBC protection system, new layout of the power pack compartment, etc.
The T-64 tank was later on considered to have formed a landmark in the history of tank development in the Soviet Union, as every tank of the Soviet T-series entering service ever since (including T-72 and its modifications, T-80, T-80U, T-80UD, Ukrainian T-84, etc) was based on the design concepts initially introduced in the T-64 tank design, so all the above-enumerated tanks can be called 'direct descendants' of the T-64, its 'children' and 'grandchildren'.
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