Kurganets & Boomerang Discussions Thread #2

Considering the sniper like tactics of a Boomerang division that would take advantage of its mobility and speed I would think a very low profile turret of new design would make sense... perhaps with a built in 30mm cannon mounted coaxially with the ammo supply in the turret bustle or a turret bustle mounted 57mm grenade launcher because that APFSDS round is going to be rather potent in a gun likely to fire at over 100 rounds per minute it would be devastating against modern western BMPs...

If you look at the ammo they have essentially created a telescoped ammo type in a grenade launcher...





Where the HE shell is large, full calibre and very long... creating a big heavy bomb for the calibre, and with muzzle velocity not being that important as long as it leaves the gun and moves a useful distance the propellant charge can be relatively small so lower recoil when fired.

Conversely the AP round needs as long a penetrator as possible and as much propellant as possible to make it heavy for a penetrator but to get it moving as fast as possible in the available barrel length.

So the APFSDS round has a tiny in terms of volume penetrator with the rest of the round being propellent and Sabot to hold the penetrator.

As you can see in the image above the 57mm grenade launcher APFSDS has enormous volume for way more propellant than could be fitted into a 30 x 165mm standard shell case and the projectile is much longer too.



Of course the 57mm shell for the dagger turret has a much bigger shell case.



And thinking about it... if they can do that with the 57mm grenade launcher round... why not do the same to the 100mm rifled gun of the BMP-3 which is essentially a grenade launcher too... a huge HE shell with a tiny stub projector propellant charge to throw it at the target... an APFSDS version of that gun would be a great weapon for a light wheeled vehicle or light tank intended to take on T-55 and similar vehicles or enemy BMPs at extended range...

It already has ATGMs developed for it... and the higher pressure model that fires rounds to 7km might already be able to handle a decent APFSDS round.

You could make it an APFSDS rod that is thicker than normal with a HE charge built in so it becomes an APFSDSHE round for more effect inside targets like enemy heavy BMPs, or strongly built bunkers.

Imagine this being an APFSDS round:



There are already missile based rounds for it:

Those grenade launcher APFSDS look like they should be rather powerful and relatively compact too... they appear to take less space than the 57mm APFSDS from the 2S38 vehicle and could be stacked rather efficiently due to their parallel sides and no bottle shaped cartridge case... like the 30mm and 57mm gun rounds.

A burst of those rounds would be devastating... I wonder if their HE rounds has a command detonation channel for air bursts...

That is actually the grenade launcher armed model, but that would do.

Like I said it has an APFSDS round as well as a HE round with a huge HE bomb.

This is the Armata chassis with the Dagger turret (Kinzhal means Dagger and has the AU-220 gun called T-15 BMP if adopted):



The ammo for the 57mm grenade launcher:



Ammo for the 57mm gun:



Note both rounds are just under 60mm diameter shells but the grenades are more compact rounds.

Also note the extra long 57mm shell is the guided missile projectile...not something that would be practical with smaller calibres.

Of course the 30 x 165mm shells they replace are half the calibre and rather shorter too so even the 57mm grenade rounds have the length and volume for vastly more HE for the HE bomb round and more length and propellent space for a APFSDS penetrating dart round than could ever be fitted to a 30 x 165mm shell case.

The like is to thank you for reporting that here, not that I am happy about what those pricks did and how they got such a weak punishment for what they did.

Another factor is that it is not just a BMP or a BTR... it will end up being everything... and experience in real conflict in Syria and now the Ukraine means they will get experience with modern warfare including with superior communication with drones and air power and artillery etc etc which of course is going to lead to new ideas and new changes and it makes sense to make those changes and then test those changes to see if they make the difference that was expected of them before even considering mass production.

The Armata as a heavy tank and a heavy BMP is a higher priority, while the Kurganets and Boomerang types will be lighter vehicles that should be cheaper and easier to operate and transport.

Not a good idea to rush things into service without proper testing.

Thats stupid. The T-14 is also very big. Vehicle size is irrelevant now that even pickups can be easily spotted by thermal equipped drones from several km, and that guns are very accurate.

Have to agree with you... a very large target is not the problem it seems to be... unless a hit anywhere would make it burst into flames and then it would be a problem.

The point is that despite being rather a large vehicle the Boomerang and Typhoon and Kurganets and Armata are large vehicles but they are also rather better protected than previous equivalent types.

Protecting the crew and troops with decent levels of armour and also having both passive (NERA) and active (APS) protection means they are about as protected as you can reasonably make them.

Modern weapons are accurate enough to say it wont be the case that a smaller target would be missed...

SO i was right that they consider the 30mm too weak. They should immediately mass produce 57mm then.

New western BMPs are getting to be 30 tons plus so even brand new 30mm anti armour rounds would be marginal at 2km range from the front.

The development of both 57mm weapons, both of which have APFSDS with much better performance than any 30mm round could possibly manage has made sense for some time, though with some air defence roles the 30mm is still very useful, especially with air burst shells.

Against light vehicles like BTRs and MRAPs the 30mm is still very effective... and against light ground structures is devastating.

This means that legacy equipment will need to be kept and upgraded. It is not ideal but it is the nature of the beast.

It is not ideal, but most of their older vehicles have plenty of room for upgrades and further development, which can be as simple and basic as fitting a new weapons turret and adding new stuff developed for newer vehicle families.

We have seen a BTR-82 with a twin 23mm gun mount with radar and some sort of optical sensor device for anti drone use... well you could fit that to any vehicle you like really... apart from the fact that most new turrets are unmanned and many don't even reach down into the hull freeing up a lot of space on some vehicles, there is a lot of potential with all of their vehicle types moving forward.

Operationally the Boomerang with its wheeled chassis is going to be the most cost effective units in terms of mobility and speed and operational day to day costs.

With proper anti mine design they could be very useful on the modern battlefield.

Re $200 billion. Remember purchasing power parity. $200 billion buys a lot more in Russia than the same amount in the U.S..

The US solution to corruption in their MIC seems to be to throw more money than they can steal and it really is not working for anyone except the MIC... the Pentagon loses money all the time and holds noone and nothing accountable for it... they don't want to fix the broken system... it is about getting rich... not about saving American lives...

My understanding was that the powerpacks they developed (one for Armata and one for Boomerang and Kurganets and one for Typhoon... don't know about the DT-30 artillery tractor based vehicles) are designed with growth potential... so the Armata engine was supposed to be 1,500-1,800hp in its first models (the different power levels for different vehicles ranging from light 50 ton to heavy 65 ton... the former being the BTR version with the Kord turret I suspect and the latter being the Coalition 152mm gun version) but that in the future new versions of the engine are expected to be developed over the life of the vehicle to 2,600hp.

I just assumed the same would be for the Kurganets and Boomerang which I believe use the same engine... an engine which could also be mounted in trucks for armoured truck use and artillery vehicles etc etc.

Not sure about the other engines but I would assume part of the family concept is a family of engines with unified design and growth potential as new technology and weight is added over time.

They are all supposed to be modular sharing modules and turrets for different roles... so for instance the MBT turret is the T-14 turret which could be fitted to any vehicle family to provide a gun platform. Equally when they decide on the definitive BMP turret for T-15 then that turret will be used across the board... I suspect it will be the model with Kornet and Bulat missiles and 57mm grenade launcher/gun.

No. The engines are designed with future growth potential build in to them... the expectation is that they can boost performance at the cost of engine life to start with but new materials and design options... things like turbosuperchargers and stuff like that, will enable the engine power to be increased over time without shortening the lifespan of the engines.

Eventually they expect to shift to all electric drive where electric motors will take over propulsion and where the power generation no longer requires torque to move heavy vehicles at high acceleration rates over short distances... which leads to very high fuel consumption when the vehicle is propelled by a gas turbine, but is no problem for an electric motor that is powerful enough and can be fed enough electrical current to do the job.

In such a set up gas turbines are smaller and lighter and cheaper and when run at efficient power generating speeds they are more efficient than diesels too with a lower fuel consumption because they are not under load.

A lot of planning went into these vehicle designs and they don't expect exports to pay for it.

I am no expert on how engines work but adding a turbo or a supercharger can boost power.

They specifically designed the engines for growth potential, so they can change piston stroke length or cylinder bore diameters and other things that increase power for an engine.

Improved materials allow it to run hotter or longer or both. Stronger components allow more energy transfer. etc etc.

But as I said, they are likely eventually moving to electric drive anyway and once they are electric drive then a gas turbine becomes much better than a diesel because it is smaller and more compact and you can make 10,000hp gas turbine engines easily enough... the Mi-26 helicopter has two 11K hp engines.

Most armoured vehicles accelerate as fast as they can to move from cover to cover, which means serious acceleration and deceleration which is hard on engines... but more so on gas turbine engines which really suffer excessive fuel consumption... but if you disconnect the "engine" from the wheels... so take away the drive shafts and powered axles and of course the gearbox and transmission and the differential on each axle and just put an electric motor on each wheel or on a tracked vehicle the wheel that turns the tracks then you don't have to throttle the engine so much at all... at idle it will be generating enough power to run everything... you might even have two gas turbines... a tiny one that powers everything that when it is on idle just slow charges the batteries and keeps the vehicle cool or hot depending on the weather... running the optics and gun stabiliser you can run that small turbine at a good efficient energy generating rate and perhaps heat up the main turbine so it starts nearly instantly, but if you are driving around the battlefield you start up the main engine and at idle you can do most things like cruise around and operate everything, but at full power you can accelerate at full speed and do everything and see everything and fast charge your batteries and perhaps even operate electric armour and an electric boosted main gun.

The point is that you operate the gas turbine at idle or at optimum rpm rates... you never have to red line it... with an electric powered vehicle.

With a gas turbine powered vehicle you red line it every time you move at top acceleration which means your fuel burn is enormous... but it does make you fast... and relatively quiet.

All electric vehicle can be very quiet... especially a wheeled vehicle.

I should add you can get 10,000hp+ diesel engines, but they are enormous... they are used on ships where size and weight does not matter but fuel efficiency is important and reliability is important too.

It is easier to scale up the power of a gas turbine than that of a diesel engine.

Soviet and Russian attack helicopters use 2,500hp engines since the 1970s... making a diesel in that power range is not so cheap and easy.