Question Thread: Russian Army

So here's a question, what's so different about the RPG-29?

Answer I gave, its larger calibre rocket motor gives it better range for the same warhead performance as existing known RPG-7 rockets.
RPG-28 has a 125mm calibre warhead of greater power but this warhead has not been seen as an option for RPG-7 yet because it is very large and heavy.

So in practical terms the difference between an RPG-7 with a 105mm calibre warhead and an RPG-29 with a 105mm calibre warhead is that the RPG-29 can engage targets to 500m while the RPG-7 you need to get to 200m or closer to get a hit. That is the difference.

Sorry... didn't realise.

The performance figures for the 105mm tandem warheads... whether fired from an RPG-29 (PG-29V), RPG-7 (PG-7VR), or the RPG-27 are given as "at least" 600mm of homogeneous armour behind ERA.

I would suggest this is a conservative figure and allows for a range of impact angles and for an optimum hit it might penetrate 800mm or more.

The problem is that penetration is enormously variable, though in the case of hitting lower hull armour I would suspect an RPG-29 with its higher velocity and therefore flatter trajectory would normally all things being equal hit at a better angle than the other two launchers.

It is a really difficult thing to speculate and I am sorry for not giving an answer that wasn't straight, but I really don't think you can get a straight answer on this sort of topic.

Real penetration figures are estimates, just like armour ratings.

The Russian army and the Soviet army before it are largely a conscript army.

They tried having contract soldiers but there were lots of problems and instead of moving towards an all contract soldier base it seems they will retain a conscript army for a while yet.

Recently they have been buying new equipment and improving conditions... for instance a private company will be paid to do things like cooking and laundry etc... things the conscripts had to do before that didn't really train them to be soldiers, but it is just the beginning of a change that wont happen over night.

They also increase pay levels as well which should also improve conditions too, but there are problems to be solved.

When called to invade far off lands for power and prestige I would never send a conscript army, but in conflicts defending Russia I am not in doubt that most if not all Russian soldiers will do their utmost to fight off an invader.

So are you referring that Russian army yet isn't prepared for US like
global wars. I mean US has more army outside the America than in
America!!

I am refering to wars like Afghanistan or for the US Vietnam where the big powerful forces were conscripts... in fact you could say the forces on both sides of both wars were conscripts, but it was the locals in both cases that had the reason to keep fighting because they had no where else to go. For the attacking side with a conscript force you might start out with a goal but over time you eventually start thinking any goal is not worth fighting and dying in some alien country.
The locals rarely seem to appreciate anything you are doing for them like building roads or schools etc.

The word Conscript is very disturbing literally. Can a conscript operate a tank or an S-300 battery?

Of course they can.

A conscript is someone who is in the army because they have to be there.
A student is someone who is in a School and at lower levels is there because they have to be there.

Suggesting a conscript can't control a tank is like saying he probably can't read or write either... he was forced into the army but was also forced to go to school as a child as well.

When war is for fun and foreign conquest then it makes sense to take only volunteers because normal human nature is not to kill other people.

When was is to defend your country from invasion then it is every ones responsibility to learn how to do that.

There are plenty of countries that have a conscript army including Israel.

The Israeli Army is actually an exception to the rule that conscripts never work well :v

They are the exception because of the nature of the situation for Israel.

One could argue that the hostile nature of Israels neighbours is reflected in the encroachment of Russias borders by NATO.

Conscript armies are fine for self defence but of course how they are used will effect how they perform.

The Russian experience during WWI was that even highly trained forces kept in the rear can lose morale and become useless where the top forces were kept back to guard the major cities and ended up leading the revolt that overthrew the Tsar.

The result was that the Soviets tended to throw fresh conscript units straight into battle rather than keep them in safe areas and let their fears of what combat might be like get the better of them.

What is the right way to teach a man to kill?

1 ) The fundamental problem with T-90 or any T series tank is the loose ammo in the crew compartment , if there is a penetration of turret the molten fragment will hit the loose ammo and will cause secondary explosion in the turret but before that the crew could also die from fragments ?

Very few anti tank weapons are actually as accurate as you might think.
Most will simply hit a random point on the target if they hit at all.

This means the idea of aiming for the commanders position or the gunners position is simply a nonsense. A round can hit almost anywhere and at a range of angles.

Replace the penetrator with a very long pole or spear.

Put 3 people in the tank and start thinking about how small those three people are in comparison with the entire tank.

Be aware that while there might be a few vulnerable parts from the front that the vast majority of weak points are the side and rear of the tank for most conventional missile weapons. The belly and roof are of course even more vulnerable, but hard to aim for in most combat environments.

The point is that most tank crew have flak jackets and helmets that will stop fragments so unless the penetration goes through a crew member then for most penetrations they should actually be OK.

It is a bit like a soldier being fired at with 50 cal HMG ammo... a miss will do no damage at all.

A .22lr round in the face can kill and a 120mm APFSDS round through the tip of your finger is a trivial wound.

Most tanks have anti spall liners that reduce the amount of material flying around inside a tank when penetrated.

2 ) Western Tank barring Abrams carry ammo in turret but they are place in ammo containers which makes them safer then carrying loose ammo in the turret.

The Abrams has a compartment in the rear turret that is walled off from the crew compartment with armoured doors to separate the ammo from the crew. The compartment has blow out doors so if hit the explosion will be directed up and out of the turret rather than into the crew compartment.

The T-90AM takes that a step further and has an autoloader in the turret bustle so the crew is separate from the ammo plus the ammo is still autoloaded so they only need two crewmen in the turret.

But there is still the fundamental problem of ammo close to crew which can explode for many reasons and kill the crew

Think in terms of the bulkheads in a ship or submarine. These armoured walls are designed to keep separate sections of a vessel separate so that fire or water or explosions are blocked between sections.

Explosives only detonate perfectly spherically when in open air. When contained the blast is directed and deflected from hard surfaces.

Think of a rifle.

The propellent in the round in the chamber will try to explode in all directions at once.
However it can't explode back towards the shooter because of the bolt. The sides of the chamber supporting the shell case stop it from expanding sideways.

The direction of least resistence is down the barrel but it has a bullet in the way. The resistence of the bullet is nothing compared with the resistence of the bolt and chamber so the bullet is blown down and out the barrel and the gas expands behind it.

Wield the barrel shut and it is likely the bolt will be the component that fails next.

In the Abrams and the T-90AM it is the roof of the ammo compartment that is designed especially to fail.

When it fails the explosion is directed up and out which greatly reduces the pressure in the other directions and in normal circumstances once the roof fails the pressure drops and other potential weak spots are not put under pressure and therefore do not fail too.

3 ) So the option is to isolate it from crew and put it in rear turret bustle , though turret bustle is not as heavy armoured but it isolated crew from ammo , if the ammo explodes the crew may still be safe as they are located in heavy armour.

Yes.

4 ) T-90AM will still have the problem of ammo close to crew because even though loose ammo moves to turret bustle , there is still ammo below the crew compartment though protected by heavy armour , but the crew still sits above it.

Real combat experience shows that the most common places tanks are hit is the turret front.
Real combat experience shows that the ammo in the T-72 in the under floor armoured autoloader is safe from penetrations as very few penetrations hit the floor under the turret crew.
Real combat experience shows that the problem is loose ammo and propellent stubs in the crew compartment that start fires that cause explosions in T series tanks.

Adding a turret bustle autoloader and keeping the underfloor autoloader gives the crew 54 odd rounds of ready to fire ammo that is armoured and separated from the crew compartment. If the crew does not feel safe they don't need to load the under floor autoloader if they are happy going into battle with 32 rounds.

In the second conflict in Chechnia they were not happy with loose ammo and went into combat only with ammo in the autoloader, which means 22 rounds so the bustle autoloader means they can take more in even if they don't trust the underfloor autoloader.

Also keep in mind that explosives don't always explode upwards. They could design the floor so that an explosion in the underfloor autoloader could be directed down away from the crew.

It certainly raises the question about the threat of mines... but then most tanks are vulnerable to mines.

The issue is when a KE or HEAT round hits the turret there is first and foremost a tremendous shock effect , it is possible the shock effect would disorient the crew or worst could blow the ammo , that is inspite of the fact it has kelvar spall.

The penetration of the crew compartment will obviously make the crew compartment uncomfortable, but unless hit by fragments or inhaling metal in a hot gas state it is not going to kill. To blow the ammo it needs to come into contact with the ammo and if the ammo is in an armoured area under the floor the penetration would need to be near vertical to penetrate the armoured ammo compartments... so no, it wont blow the ammo.

If there is penetration the molten fragments from armour and ke would fly in many direction in the crew compartment killing the crew instantly in most direction , the jet could still continue and hit a loose ammo or ammo in a canister and could cause explosion.

Then why do we hear about penetrations of Challanger tanks where the Driver just loses a foot but the rest of the crew is fine?
Why do we hear about penetrations of Abrams from the side where one crew man is injured and the rest are fine?

The laws of physics are the same for everyone.

A penetrator... and it might surprise you but HEAT penetrators actually work like APFSDS penetrators at the speeds and energies involved... everything is treated like a liquid, because at above a km per second that is how armour reacts to penetrations of solids (APFSDS at 1.5-2km/s) and much higher speed liquids (HEAT rounds with liquid metal beams of material at 4-5km/s).

Very simply both are designed to penetrate armour and if they both spread out and killed everything inside it wouldn't have been concentrated enough to penetrate the armour in the first place.

The only time everyone dies in an armoured vehicle is when ammo and fuel is ignited and there is an internal explosion.

I have my own reservations over flak jackets and helmets being of any use incase of penetration , if he is lucky he would get out from burn wounds of spall , toxic gas and a shock effect that would take time to recover.

The material thrashing around inside a tank is made of irregular shaped material very poorly designed to penetrate and generally fairly light weight.
In other words a very poor penetrator.

Think in terms of a shotgun... lots of power, but most flak jackets are very effective against all but solid slugs because small round balls have poor penetration characteristics. Flak is the same.

And it might well happen , the crew might inhale toxic fumes and the shock from hit might disorient him , the kevlar spall might break and fly around and kill.

Kevlar is a fabric like clothing... if it broke apart it would be like threads of cotton.

In case of T-90A ,T-72 or earlier T series ammo is loose in crew compartment and it might blow at it hits it , with T-90AM it will be much safer as there is no loose ammo.

The tank crew itself has the choice of what ammo to carry and where.

Even the Abrams has about 8 rounds normally stored in the crew compartment, which if penetrated could explode.

From what I understand Abrams were never penetrated till date and Challenger had one penetration but do you have any stastics ?

Remember that article about a side hull penetration of an Abrams by some unknown weapon. They suggested it was some super weapon because standard RPGs shouldn't be able to penetrate and how the penetrator metal was unusual?
It didn't fill the vehicle with shrapnel and lethal super hot metal gas that killed everyone.

That RPG book posted a while back even mentions that it takes dozens of RPGS to take out an APC because of the low lethality of the weapons if it does not detonate internal ammo or fuel.

From what I understand the KE penetrators would could more over all destruction compared to HEAT that would blow a hole and kill any one inside if its in its path.

Both are lethal to anything they travel through physically... but a KE or HEAT warhead going through someones leg is not an immediately lethal hit... they might bleed to death, but it is very unlikely to kill them outright.

Thats a valid argument but even if their concentrate their force at one spot , these molten metal would still fly inside the tank and not outside as they try to penetrate , if the molten mentals do fly and crew end up in their path it would injure them badly.

A KE penetrator will push aside armour to penetrate and so it is pretty much the penetrator and spall from the inner layer of armour that is the problem with KE penetrations. Anti Spall liners deal with most spall so the threat to the crew is the remaining penetrator which will largely still be very concentrated to continue to penetrate armour.
A HEAT softens the material it is penetrating and as it penetrates into air cavities it will tend to spread a little but spaced armour can be used so that the first time it breaks through the armour and reaches an airpocket it is still inside the main armour and as it spreads slightly on exiting the first piece of armour the beam of penetraing metal is spread when it hits the next layer of armour reducing its penetration. Only the concentrated central portion of the beam will have the energy to get through the next section of armour layers so when it finally penetrates into the crew compartment it has less energy. It is still travelling very fast but remains a fairly focused beam that will not fill the tank with death. In many ways it will act like a kinetic penetrator with the spreading material around it caught by the anti spall liner.

Or the explosive blow up due to direct hit from fragements or due to shock.

Step away from Hollywood movies here. The only things inside a tank that will blow up and kill everyone have to be able to blow up. 30 cal mg ammo is not enough... it will just burn and pop. You need diesel heated to past its flashpoint, or propellent or explosive. The diesel is present in fuel form and the propellent and explosive are main gun ammo. There is nothing else inside a tank that will explode when hit.

The only alternative is APHE ammo where the projectile delivers its own explosive... and for most modern weapons that is becoming more necessary.

Look at the rise of anti material rifles.

Great for shooting light armoured and unarmoured vehicles like trucks and humvees.

Except that now the light armoured vehicles like MRAPs are getting better armour and unarmoured vehicles like trucks and jeeps are becoming very rare beasts indeed.

The 50 APDS might penetrate it at long range but that is all it will do... punch a hole in and out.

Hense the 30mm Russian weapon recently revealed. 30mm would normally be overkill on such vehicles for penetration, but it means that an APHE can be developed that is very effective.

The smaller cheaper 50 cal weapons will penetrate but are too small and light to both penetrate and carry a decent HE charge.

The 30mm round on the other hand has plenty of penetration while allowing room for a decent HE charge so that as the round penetrates the armour of an MRAP vehicle the fuse will sense when it is through the armour and detonate a small charge to fill the vehicle with lethal fragments.

Explosions inside vehicles are much more effective at killing people because you get the blast and the fragments but you also get a sudden increase in pressure from the contained explosion and also blast waves bounce of the inside of the armour so you get the main blast and then reflected blast energy from the internal walls of the vehicle as they bounce around.

Compare that with a tiny armour piercing core that goes in one side of the vehicle and out the other side.

Ak-200 is not a major system that would come under "plan" like a ssbn , it would be part of future soldier system and eventually after clearing all trial it would be inducted without much fanfare

Exactly...

Just like the Pecheneg PKP light machinegun has been entering service replacing the RPK-74M in some roles without media coverage.

In many ways the AK-200 seems to be an upgrade to fix some of the obvious and easy to fix problems with the rifle before the full next gen replacement is ready.

In many ways it is the T-90AM/BTR-82/Su-35 to a Armata/Boomerang/Pak Fa... we just don't know anything at all about what will replace it... liquid or gel propellent? Caseless ammo? Bullpup or standard design?

Knowing the Russians will will be cool.