Russian Ground Forces: News #1

What’s Been Bought

It’s usually challenging to discover what the Russian military bought in any given year. But it’s somewhat easier now that procurement is increasing.

On January 14, Defense Minister Sergey Shoygu reviewed 2013 procurement in a year-opening videoconference.

He indicated that GOZ-2013 was fulfilled at 96 percent for RDT&E, 93 percent for armament and military equipment purchases, and 91 percent for repairs and servicing. Purchases increased by 70 percent over 2012.

Beyond that no details.

If Shoygu’s scant and statistical, Topwar.ru’s Kirill Ryabov rescues us.

Ryabov says GOZ-2013 amounted to 1.45 trillion rubles, two-thirds more than 2012. Roughly the same accounting as Shoygu’s 70 percent. But Ryabov’s also tracked what was bought. He doesn’t give full citations for his data. But it’s a working list.

He starts with air defense:

6 S-400 SAM battalions.
6 Pantsir-S1 missile-gun systems (ZRPKs).
24 Tor-M1-2U SAMs (SA-15 upgrade).
12 Tunguska ZRPKs.

More than 300 combat and support vehicles for the Ground Troops, including:

2 Iskander-M SSM brigades (107th in the Eastern and 1st in the Southern MD).
54 BTR-82A APCs.
12 BMO-T flamethrowers.
90 Tornado and Grad MLRS.
20 Khosta SP guns.
40 Msta-S SP howitzers.
16 Zoopark counterbattery radars.
16 Leyer-2 EW systems.
10 Redut-2US communications systems.

And reportedly more than 5,200 other vehicles and automobiles.

http://russiandefpolicy.wordpress.com/2014/01/17/whats-been-bought/

A few errors there Alpha... an APFSDS round does not turn the inside of a tank into an oven... the white hot sparks and metal fragments and vapour on the other hand can be lethal in inhaled by the crew and of course pose a serious fire risk for fuel, and ammo.

Second, the T-80 was a fuel guzzler, though all large tank engines burn a lot of fuel. Late model T-80s had 1,250hp engines too.

Also it is wrong to describe the T-90 as being a T-72 hull with a T-80 turret fitted to it.

Very simply the T-72 was the cheap mass production tank that was supposed to replace all the T-54/55 and T-62 and older vehicles still in the inventory.

The T-80 was the quality tank to create gaps in the enemy front for the T-72s to flow through.

At the end of the day the T-90 is a T-72 with the useful high tech upgrades fitted to it, but it retains a few critical things like the underfloor autoloader which makes it much safer when penetrated than the autoloader arrangement on the T-80.

Armata MBT, Kurganets MBT, Boomerang MBT and Typhoon MBT will further improve crew safety by moving them away from all fuel and ammo and protecting them under the heaviest armour on the vehicle.

Fully agreed Garry, i was fully aware of the article's deficiencies,

Sorry... didn't mean to imply the mistakes were yours....   

With respects to the Armata project, i was not aware that Kurganets, Boomerang and Typhoon would all have MBT variants, i thought Kurganets was to replace the BMPs, Boomerang was for BTRs and maybe BMDs and Typhoon was for 2S19-Msta ??

A common mistake to think Armata is a tank, Kurganets is the new IFV (BMP/BMD), Boomerang is the new APC (BTR-82) and that Typhoon is the new light patrol vehicle (BRDM)

Heavy brigades will be equipped with ONLY Armata vehicles... so every vehicle in a  heavy brigades will be Armata based. This means the logistics tail for that brigade is small because one engine type, same transmission and gearing, main components all the same.

In operational terms it also means that all the vehicles will have similar levels of protection and mobility so the enemy wont be able to pick off the IFVs and APCs and leave the tanks vulnerable to infantry attack.

There will be heavy brigades with armata vehicles, medium tracked brigades with Kurganets, medium wheeled brigades with Boomerang, and light brigades with typhoon vehicles.

Each vehicle in each brigade will have a weapon and sensor suite like an aircraft, so there will be a MBT suite of equipment that will be fitted to all MBTs... of course the 10-15 ton Typhoon light wheeled MBT vehicle might be fitted with a 57mm main gun rather than a 125mm main gun, but it will have all the sensors and ballistic computers and electronics as the MBT version of the armata MBT. The IFV (BMP/BMD) version of the Armata might have a high velocity 57mm main gun for dealing with enemy IFVs plus Kornet-EM long range ATGMs for dealing with heavier armour... the kurganets IFV and the boomerang IFV might have the same gun but the Typhoon IFV might have a 30mm cannon instead so that there is enough space in the vehicle for troops (to make it an IFV rather than a light tank).

The vast majority of Russian armoured forces will be highly mobile wheeled vehicles, but then a division might include  heavy, medium, and light brigades for different uses.

Division level artillery would include Koalition artillery based on trucks or non standard chassis... but with the new rocket artillery getting rocket flight range increases and Koalition firing guided shells 70km the division vehicles should be able to support light brigades operating well away from the base the division is based at.

Each vehicle family includes all the vehicle types in a division so there are MBTs, IFVs, APCs, Engineering vehicles, Command vehicles, Air Defence Vehicles, tube and rocket artillery vehicles, recon vehicles, ambulance vehicles, mortar carriers, etc etc

that means for every vehicle type there will be Armata versions, Kurganets versions, Boomerang versions, and Typhoon versions.

there will likely be new models of ATGM vehicles and even UAV launch and control recon vehicles etc etc.

It is even possible that small UAVs might be organic to MBT vehicles so they can find their own targets better and also have better situational awareness around their own position.