The New Arena active protection system

Just supplementing the initial pics in this thread with some pics of the T 90 MS during Defense Expo (India)last March

Thank you GaryB for sharing with us these nice and interesting pictures.

The thing that I was surprise to see it’s the high elevation that the cannon of the BMP-3 can go. If the cannon can shoot missiles with Excalibur technique, they might get a very long range.

I think the change from the big tower to 6 separate individual antennas, is a good idea. The tower is too risky equipment. The question that I have is way to get rid of the arrangement of the interceptors that I thought is a good idea.

As for the 2 big silos on top of the turret 3rd picture, maybe it’s to allow this silo to shoot 360 degrees and not to one side only.

From those photos if you look down from above the 6 sensors are evenly spaced around the turret, if you drew a line from sensor to sensor it would make a neat hexagon.

The boxes with the interceptor munitions, there are four in total and they seem to be evenly distributed around the turret too. The rear two boxes are up high while the front two boxes are level with the ERA on the turret front so as not to block optics, but I suspect... just looking at the photos of the model that there are at least three munitions in each box... that assumes just one munition layer... and basic maths says 360 degrees divided by four threes, is 360 divided by 12, which is 30 degrees, so instead of the old system where 22-28 munitions covered 220 to 270 degrees, which means a munition per 10 degree arc, it is now a munition per 30 degree arc... which suggests more effective munitions and also 360 degree coverage.

Note the BMP-3s gun is a low pressure weapon that has a muzzle velocity of between 240m/s and 350m/s with old and new HE shells. The old shells can manage 4km range and the new production model shells can get to 7kms range. The main reason for the relatively short range is that it is designed to directly support troops like the BMP-1s 73mm gun, so the 100mm round it fires has a very short small propellent case and a very large heavy and very effective projectile. Its low velocity does not degrade its performance but makes the ammo smaller and more compact so it can carry more.

It has its own tube launched laser guided missiles already that are dedicated anti tank missiles with shaped charge warheads... much the same as the missiles fired by Russian tanks.

The elevation of the main gun is also useful for engaging targets like helos with the 30mm cannon.

I should point out that the photos of the models above I did not take myself, I got them from Gur Khans Blog...

http://gurkhan.blogspot.co.nz/2012/07/blog-post_1710.html

I would also point out that while the 6 sensors of the new ARENA make a hexagon pattern when looking from directly above, the 4 launcher bins of interceptor munitions don't make an x. Looking from above there are two bins at the sides of the tank so draw a horizontal line from the side of the turret to the opposite side, and the two other bins are at the back... if you draw one line to each rear bin from the centre of the horizontal line you get a symetric K shape... in many ways it is like there is a bin for the side and rear sensors but no bins for the front two sensors...

Of course front bins would get in the way and be vulnerable to (enemy) fire.

Notice that the two bins on the back are angled to cover the majority of the side and rear of the tank, while the two front bins are angled to densely cover the frontal arc.

In combat the turret will most likely be facing the direction of the threat, and the T-90s laser warning system should angle the turret if a designator or rangefinder paints the T-90's flank. IMO it's a good setup, most of the ammunition and coverage for the APS will be concentrated on the frontal arc. The two rear bins should be adequate with three rounds each at protecting the flanks in an ambush scenario. After all, in most cases they will only have to defeat one round before the turret rotates to return fire.

Zivo wrote:Notice that the two bins on the back are angled to cover the majority of the side and rear of the tank, while the two front bins are angled to densely cover the frontal arc.
In combat the turret will most likely be facing the direction of the threat, and the T-90s laser warning system should angle the turret if a designator or rangefinder paints the T-90's flank. IMO it's a good setup, most of the ammunition and coverage for the APS will be concentrated on the frontal arc. The two rear bins should be adequate with three rounds each at protecting the flanks in an ambush scenario. After all, in most cases they will only have to defeat one round before the turret rotates to return fire.

I can't agree on that. It's maybe true in a tank to tank fighting, but not in a urban fighting. The enemy will not fire RPG or ATGM to your front, they will fire on the sides and the rear of the tank.
The laser receiver will not give you enough warning time, because the laser beam will not be on the tank for most of the missile flight, it will point to a close point to the tank, and only at the last seconds of its flight, it will point on the tank itself.
The 3 explosive cast in the front bin are looking to the same direction and can cover 30 degrees from each side of the gun. The rear bin can’t cover the rest of the area, so IMO the rear bins can swing right and left to cover 360 degrees. By doing that the 2 rear bins can help each other and put 6 casts for each side of the tank, and most importent they will stand in 90 degrees to the missile to make the most of the warhead.

We have to keep in mind that this is an upgraded system, the first of which only covered the front hemisphere. This second iteration gives full 360 degree coverage. The question I have is can those layers in the bins be stacked, and if they can then I would suspect that each bin has one munition place that covers 30 degrees and perhaps with 3-4 layers it should offer reasonable protection from any angle.

Remember a modern system like Trophy offers two interceptor rockets so it can engage two threats and then it is empty.

Even assuming there is only one layer of interceptors this evolution of Arena should be able to stop an attack from any angle... remember unguided rockets give no warning at all... and indeed laser beam riding missiles use lasers so weak that if the defence system reacted to them they would likely be set off by reflections of your own laser rangefinders.


I like the idea of fixed munitions that detonate at a specific distance from the vehicle to intercept threats... is it simple and cheap and apparently effective.

To be honest when I first saw the original Arena I wondered if the array of munitions around the front of the turret could be fitted in double or triple layers too.

I liked the idea that the munitions were launched up to fire down into the ground to minimise the danger to nearby friendly troops and I also liked the fact that they could be manually set off to deal with enemy troops that managed to get close to the tank.

I thought the turret would be offer the best location for the sensors, but that it would be a pain to camouflage and would reveal to the enemy that it had ARENA fitted so attack from the rear of the turret...

This new system with 360 degree sensor coverage and we assume 360 degree munition coverage appears to be a much better system, yet it likely retains the problems with the original system in that it likely does not deal with diving top attack munitions.

That is OK as far as I am concerned this upgrade is a good step in the right direction.

The new APS systems Standard and Afghanistan are supposed to be able to intercept APFSDS rounds and I look forward to seeing the solutions they have used for this very difficult task.

GarryB wrote:We have to keep in mind that this is an upgraded system, the first of which only covered the front hemisphere. This second iteration gives full 360 degree coverage. The question I have is can those layers in the bins be stacked, and if they can then I would suspect that each bin has one munition place that covers 30 degrees and perhaps with 3-4 layers it should offer reasonable protection from any angle.

No it’s not going to happen. All the Ammo cassettes need to be ready to launch at all time.

Remember a modern system like Trophy offers two interceptor rockets so it can engage two threats and then it is empty.

The Trophy is built this way. After each shoot an automatic loader will put a new interceptor in place.
The loading will take 1 second and the unit is ready to shoot again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2IqZhonKzU

I like the idea of fixed munitions that detonate at a specific distance from the vehicle to intercept threats... is it simple and cheap and apparently effective.
To be honest when I first saw the original Arena I wondered if the array of munitions around the front of the turret could be fitted in double or triple layers too.

Yes it could be a good idea, but if the turret gets hit, it might ignite the ammo cassette which will not be nice. Maybe that was the reason to move them to bin silos.

I liked the idea that the munitions were launched up to fire down into the ground to minimise the danger to nearby friendly troops and I also liked the fact that they could be manually set off to deal with enemy troops that managed to get close to the tank.

no doubt about that.

This new system with 360 degree sensor coverage and we assume 360 degree munition coverage appears to be a much better system, yet it likely retains the problems with the original system in that it likely does not deal with diving top attack munitions.
That is OK as far as I am concerned this upgrade is a good step in the right direction.
The new APS systems Standard and Afghanistan are supposed to be able to intercept APFSDS rounds and I look forward to seeing the solutions they have used for this very difficult task.

No it’s not going to happen. All the Ammo cassettes need to be ready to launch at all time.

Why?

If there are four fixed launchers and in each launcher there are three interceptor munitions, it is fairly safe to assume either each munition follows a specific path to cover one particular sector with all 12 munitions covering the full 360 degrees or that each munition has a very wide angle of interception so there is already three munitions covering attacks from that direction. If you stack three extra layers of munitions on top then each of the four munitions would cover the same sector so having three munitions on top of the bottom one doesn't mean its sector is not covered till the three munitions on top of it are fired. It means that the sector that munition position covers is covered by 4 separate munitions so there are four shots that can be launched before there is a hole in the defence.

The Trophy is built this way. After each shoot an automatic loader will put a new interceptor in place.
The loading will take 1 second and the unit is ready to shoot again.

So what is it going to do with Kornet, which even in the old standard model can launch two missiles guiding on the same laser beam that fly within 20-30m of each other...

Also claiming to be the first active protection system is a lie, as I have mentioned Drozd-1 and even Shater from the 1970s preceded the Trophy by several decades.

Yes it could be a good idea, but if the turret gets hit, it might ignite the ammo cassette which will not be nice. Maybe that was the reason to move them to bin silos.

I would expect the munitions cassettes would be as insensitive to enemy fire as ERA blocks are.

I rather suspect the grouping of the munitions into bins could either be so they could be stacked in layers to offer more persistent protection, or perhaps make reloading easier and simpler... it also frees up access to ERA blocks which makes them easier to change too.

[quote="GarryB"]

No it’s not going to happen. All the Ammo cassettes need to be ready to launch at all time.

Why?

If there are four fixed launchers and in each launcher there are three interceptor munitions, it is fairly safe to assume either each munition follows a specific path to cover one particular sector with all 12 munitions covering the full 360 degrees or that each munition has a very wide angle of interception so there is already three munitions covering attacks from that direction.

One more option that looks more logic to me, is to allow the rear bins to turn right and left so they can cover all the rear and side areas, and pace the treat in 90 degrees which the ammo will be most efficient.

If you stack three extra layers of munitions on top then each of the four munitions would cover the same sector so having three munitions on top of the bottom one doesn't mean its sector is not covered till the three munitions on top of it are fired. It means that the sector that munition position covers is covered by 4 separate munitions so there are four shots that can be launched before there is a hole in the defence.

If you mean to store 3 cassettes on each other, I don’t think it can be done. It’s to complicated, you have to shoot the cassette out and when explosive involved to eject this cassettes, it’s get complicated.

The Trophy is built this way. After each shoot an automatic loader will put a new interceptor in place.
The loading will take 1 second and the unit is ready to shoot again.

So what is it going to do with Kornet, which even in the old standard model can launch two missiles guiding on the same laser beam that fly within 20-30m of each other.

I’m sure our enemy would like to know the answer for that too. I don’t have answer to that, but I think the soft kill will take care of that.

Also claiming to be the first active protection system is a lie, as I have mentioned Drozd-1 and even Shater from the 1970s preceded the Trophy by several decades.

Agreed

Yes it could be a good idea, but if the turret gets hit, it might ignite the ammo cassette which will not be nice. Maybe that was the reason to move them to bin silos.

I would expect the munitions cassettes would be as insensitive to enemy fire as ERA blocks are.
I rather suspect the grouping of the munitions into bins could either be so they could be stacked in layers to offer more persistent protection, or perhaps make reloading easier and simpler... it also frees up access to ERA blocks which makes them easier to change too.

I think you right and it’s not safe to keep the old arrangement and ERA together, and that’s maybe why they change the concept.

One more option that looks more logic to me, is to allow the rear bins to turn right and left so they can cover all the rear and side areas, and pace the treat in 90 degrees which the ammo will be most efficient.

That adds too much complication, you will need motors to turn the bins and recording devices to monitor where they are currently facing.

It makes more sense to me to simply design the munitions to jump out of the bin at a specific angle to cover a specific sector.

If you mean to store 3 cassettes on each other, I don’t think it can be done. It’s to complicated, you have to shoot the cassette out and when explosive involved to eject this cassettes, it’s get complicated.

It isn't that complicated. Very simply the munition already has to be launched from the bin to an interception point between the tank and the threat in line with the path the incoming threat is approaching upon... imagine a simplified version with command detonated bounding claymore mines. You have, say 12 bins around your position where the mines are launched up several metres into the air and direct their spray of fragments over a very specific direction at fairly specific angles. The detection and tracking system knows how high the claymore goes and how long it takes to get to its detonation point and how fast the fragments move so the job of the control system is to select a claymore that is pointing in the right direction to intercept the incoming threat and based on the targets speed and trajectory to launch an interceptor munition so that its fragments intercept the target in the right place at the right time.

The munitions bound up using a small propellent charge without doing very much damage to the thing they are sitting on. That would not detonate the munition below it so stacking 3-4 on top of each other would not be a problem.

The only difference is that because of the thickness of the munitions the first munition on top will start maybe 30cm above the last munition, but considering the width of the spray of fragments will well and truly compensate for that it shouldn't be an issue.

The munitions would be electrically fired to ensure precise control... you don't want any delay, which would be fairly easy to manage... each bin would be like a metal storm barrel with a propellent charge and electric fuse to launch.

For the control system an electronic record would tell the system how many munitions are in each bin and how many are left. There should be enough overlap so that even if one munition position in a bin is all used up another munition adjacent could be used to compensate.

Using the top munition should not effect the munitions below it which should still be ready to use.

I’m sure our enemy would like to know the answer for that too. I don’t have answer to that, but I think the soft kill will take care of that.

There is no such thing as an invulnerable tank. The enemy can simply use more RPGs at once from a range of different angles.

Then of course a nice powerful rifle like a 14.5mm rifle using a SLAP round could be used to engage the soft bits of the defence system like the radar antennas or in the case of Trophy, the reloading bits.

Don't think of APS as being super systems that will protect everything from everything.

They have fitted the Trophy system to the Merkava... but they didn't take all the armour off the Merkava when they did that. APS is another layer of defence... it is not a substitute for real armour... imagine a 240mm mortar shell with a small bursting charge and 100kgs of chaff that is effective in the MMW radar frequency range that is air burst 200m above an enemy tank unit... as it descends all MMW radar sensors stop being effective...

AJ-47 wrote:

Zivo wrote:Notice that the two bins on the back are angled to cover the majority of the side and rear of the tank, while the two front bins are angled to densely cover the frontal arc.
In combat the turret will most likely be facing the direction of the threat, and the T-90s laser warning system should angle the turret if a designator or rangefinder paints the T-90's flank. IMO it's a good setup, most of the ammunition and coverage for the APS will be concentrated on the frontal arc. The two rear bins should be adequate with three rounds each at protecting the flanks in an ambush scenario. After all, in most cases they will only have to defeat one round before the turret rotates to return fire.

I can't agree on that. It's maybe true in a tank to tank fighting, but not in a urban fighting. The enemy will not fire RPG or ATGM to your front, they will fire on the sides and the rear of the tank.
The laser receiver will not give you enough warning time, because the laser beam will not be on the tank for most of the missile flight, it will point to a close point to the tank, and only at the last seconds of its flight, it will point on the tank itself.
The 3 explosive cast in the front bin are looking to the same direction and can cover 30 degrees from each side of the gun. The rear bin can’t cover the rest of the area, so IMO the rear bins can swing right and left to cover 360 degrees. By doing that the 2 rear bins can help each other and put 6 casts for each side of the tank, and most importent they will stand in 90 degrees to the missile to make the most of the warhead.

SALH missiles which are common in NATO arsenals require the target to be continuously painted by a designator to be effective. If the reflection of the laser radiation off the target is not picked up by the projectile's seeker, it will simply continue on its original path and miss the target. Laser rangefinders will also trip the T-90's warning system. Only beam riders operate the way you stated, and are well known not to trip laser warning systems. The MMW radars can also angle the turret towards the threat, but it will only be able to react after the first shot is intercepted.

All of these factors will put the brunt of the APS ammunition drain and coverage demand on the two front bins. Regarding coverage arcs, your guess is as good as mine as to how large the fragment cloud from the new ARENA is, but the layout indicates they are rather wide.

Arena or Trophy or any similar protecting system is good thing to have, but not for every environment. In an open battlefield, where tanks and IFVs drive fast in charge without infantry, such protection is excellent against ATGMs. But in urban battlefield, where tanks go slowly with infantry support, which is close to tank because of little space, this kind of protection will make more harm to protecting infantry that to protect tank.

The only sensible reason to take a tank into an urban environment is to provide support for infantry, which actually means that they really want an IFV which is a vehicle designed to support dismounted infantry. The reason they don't actually use IFVs is that their armour is not good enough to protect them from the anti tank weapons from close range the enemy might try to use against them.

This means that the really ideal solution would not be a very well protected tank designed for urban operations, because the main guns of tanks have very limited elevation ranges and are optimised for very long range use.

The ideal solution would actually be something like a BMP-3 with auto cannon and HE firepower with excellent elevation capabilities to engage targets in buildings above or below the level of the street.

In this case the ideal Russian "tank" for urban combat will not be the T-99 MBT on an armata chassis, it will be the BMP-4 on the armata chassis, or indeed a 120mm rifled gun mortar armed BMPT based on the armata chassis.

We need also to keep in mind that tanks are used in a range of roles in different types of conflict... in Afghanistan a lot of T-62s and T-54/55s were dug in near a base to provide direct fire HE support. In a similar role a vehicle protected by this improved ARENA could easily have extra munition bins added that are plugged into the control system... you could have 10 bins attached to both sides of the tank hull and another 4-5 attached to the front and rear of the hull all ready to fire. If the vehicle is going to be there for a while you can set up wire fences about 5 metres from the tank with a few land mines incase anyone thinks of trying to rush the vehicle.

You could pass ammo into the vehicle and keep the ammo cassettes full, ready for action.

[quote="GarryB"]

One more option that looks more logic to me, is to allow the rear bins to turn right and left so they can cover all the rear and side areas, and pace the treat in 90 degrees which the ammo will be most efficient.

That adds too much complication, you will need motors to turn the bins and recording devices to monitor where they are currently facing.
It makes more sense to me to simply design the munitions to jump out of the bin at a specific angle to cover a specific sector.

That’s the problem. How do we design the cassettes to do that? It will be much easier to turn the bins, it will not be more complicated than turn the RWS on the turret of the T-90.
The Arena IMO operated in very simple way; the bin will launch the cassette in the same direction, to the same range, in the same elevation, and will always detonate the cassette at the same distance from the tank. The computer will have to calculate the timing for the launch.
There is one big different between claymore and RPG, claymore need to hit people and the system will spread the fragments on a larger area, to shoot dawn RPG you need to concentrate the splinters so they will do serious damage to the RPG and drove it down. So the arc will be no more than 10 degrees each side.

The munitions bound up using a small propellent charge without doing very much damage to the thing they are sitting on. That would not detonate the munition below it so stacking 3-4 on top of each other would not be a problem.

That’s good to know, but the bins are not deep enough to except more then one cassette in depth.

There is no such thing as an invulnerable tank. The enemy can simply use more RPGs at once from a range of different angles.

that's true, but the ADS will make any attack more complicated and more costly to the attackers.

medo wrote:Arena or Trophy or any similar protecting system is good thing to have, but not for every environment. In an open battlefield, where tanks and IFVs drive fast in charge without infantry, such protection is excellent against ATGMs. But in urban battlefield, where tanks go slowly with infantry support, which is close to tank because of little space, this kind of protection will make more harm to protecting infantry that to protect tank.

Tanks in urban fighting will stay 2 km away and give support to the troops with there big guns.
For the fighting zone, hybrid vehicle with the turret of the BMP-3 and the T-72 chassis, plus RWS with 14.5mm HMG will be the right one. The best vehicles in the urban fighting is the D-9s. In any case soldiers shouldn’t be to close to vehicles with ERA or ADS.

Zivo wrote:

AJ-47 wrote:

Zivo wrote:Notice that the two bins on the back are angled to cover the majority of the side and rear of the tank, while the two front bins are angled to densely cover the frontal arc.
In combat the turret will most likely be facing the direction of the threat, and the T-90s laser warning system should angle the turret if a designator or rangefinder paints the T-90's flank. IMO it's a good setup, most of the ammunition and coverage for the APS will be concentrated on the frontal arc. The two rear bins should be adequate with three rounds each at protecting the flanks in an ambush scenario. After all, in most cases they will only have to defeat one round before the turret rotates to return fire.

I can't agree on that. It's maybe true in a tank to tank fighting, but not in a urban fighting. The enemy will not fire RPG or ATGM to your front, they will fire on the sides and the rear of the tank.
The laser receiver will not give you enough warning time, because the laser beam will not be on the tank for most of the missile flight, it will point to a close point to the tank, and only at the last seconds of its flight, it will point on the tank itself.
The 3 explosive cast in the front bin are looking to the same direction and can cover 30 degrees from each side of the gun. The rear bin can’t cover the rest of the area, so IMO the rear bins can swing right and left to cover 360 degrees. By doing that the 2 rear bins can help each other and put 6 casts for each side of the tank, and most importent they will stand in 90 degrees to the missile to make the most of the warhead.

SALH missiles which are common in NATO arsenals require the target to be continuously painted by a designator to be effective. If the reflection of the laser radiation off the target is not picked up by the projectile's seeker, it will simply continue on its original path and miss the target. Laser rangefinders will also trip the T-90's warning system. Only beam riders operate the way you stated, and are well known not to trip laser warning systems. The MMW radars can also angle the turret towards the threat, but it will only be able to react after the first shot is intercepted.

All of these factors will put the brunt of the APS ammunition drain and coverage demand on the two front bins. Regarding coverage arcs, your guess is as good as mine as to how large the fragment cloud from the new ARENA is, but the layout indicates they are rather wide.

That's all true, but the only thing that's important is the coverage of one cassette, the rocket from the DROZD system can cover 20 dgrees area, evendue it's not the same warhead, I don't think that the rear bins can cover the side and the rear without have the option to rotate itself.

Watch the test 30 seconds into this video.



Look at the dust kicked up from the fragments hitting the ground, you can clearly see just how wide ARENA's fragment cloud is. There's a reason ARENA was deemed "to dangerous for infantry" by the west.

Tanks in urban fighting will stay 2 km away and give support to the troops with there big guns.

In that case it's better to use artillery outside the town. Tanks are in the same line as infantry to support them and to give cover if needed. Also tanks are strong enough to crash a building if it is necessary. The problem is, that tank need space to rotate the turret, what in small streets is not always given and infantry will be also close to tank. Actually in urban area it is infantry, who protect tanks against AT teams.

That’s the problem. How do we design the cassettes to do that? It will be much easier to turn the bins, it will not be more complicated than turn the RWS on the turret of the T-90.

Each layer of munitions has three munitions and each munition in that layer can be designed to launch to a different angle... position one to the left, position 2 to the centre and position 3 to the right. The same direction for each position in each layer so position one will always go to the left on layer 1-4.

No moving parts required, so no complication at all.

If the perfect munition is all used up then adjacent munitions could be fired on the off chance that they might contact the incoming threat with enough fragments to be effective because of the spread of the fragments.

The Arena IMO operated in very simple way; the bin will launch the cassette in the same direction, to the same range, in the same elevation, and will always detonate the cassette at the same distance from the tank. The computer will have to calculate the timing for the launch.

This new Arena is no different... just think of it as being a case that each of the individual munitions are moved from where they were into 4 separate boxes, but they are sitting in those boxes angled so they don't all launch straight up to the same place... they are angled so that each one in each layer launches up to a different sector so that full 360 degree coverage is attained. Of course the size of the munitions could mean that each bin covers 90 degrees so the four bins offer full coverage and can be used 3 times each before needing reloading...

There is one big different between claymore and RPG, claymore need to hit people and the system will spread the fragments on a larger area, to shoot dawn RPG you need to concentrate the splinters so they will do serious damage to the RPG and drove it down. So the arc will be no more than 10 degrees each side.

The combined closing speed should ensure effectiveness, a modern shaped charge warhead is fairly fragile and smashing it with what equates to an enormous shotgun blast 6m away from its target and detonating it should make it fairly ineffective by the time it reaches the armour.

A HEAT charge relies on very precise shaping of the explosive and precise detonation timing and location to ensure a clean fully formed plasma torch with heat and mass to penetrate solid metal protection.

Even just detonating the warhead from the side instead of the rear will generally render it almost ineffective, let alone blowing holes in its shape.

That’s good to know, but the bins are not deep enough to except more then one cassette in depth.

How big are the munitions?

that's true, but the ADS will make any attack more complicated and more costly to the attackers.

Indeed, it is another layer of protection that enables the Tank to remain king of the battlefield.

Tanks in urban fighting will stay 2 km away and give support to the troops with there big guns.

Unless they can find some high ground in an overwatch position generally the shape of the land like hills and of course buildings will get in the way of tanks directly supporting infantry in an urban area.

Equally tanks need troops to operate with them to protect them from enemy infantry.

For the fighting zone, hybrid vehicle with the turret of the BMP-3 and the T-72 chassis, plus RWS with 14.5mm HMG will be the right one. The best vehicles in the urban fighting is the D-9s. In any case soldiers shouldn’t be to close to vehicles with ERA or ADS.

The best "fire power" vehicle for infantry in urban combat are BMPT like vehicles. Infantry have little to fear from modern ERA which don't actually explode anymore... the newest stuff deform internally and are called NERA.

Look at the dust kicked up from the fragments hitting the ground, you can clearly see just how wide ARENA's fragment cloud is. There's a reason ARENA was deemed "to dangerous for infantry" by the west.

First of all the west are idiots.

Second look at a video of a T-90 firing a standard round. The muzzle flash is a ball of orange fire about 6-10m long that extends to about 20m around the entire tank because of the length of the barrel. Standing within 25-30m of an operational tank that could open fire without warning at any time is lethal for all unprotected infantry... whether it has ERA, or APS or even if it just gets hit by an enemy HEAT round that sprays fragments everywhere too.

You will notice that while Russian infantry still might ride on the top of APCs, they don't do the same on tanks... even on exercise.

Actually in urban area it is infantry, who protect tanks against AT teams.

Precisely.

Currently tanks go in there because they are the only army vehicles with the protection levels to survive such a dangerous place. In terms of firepower an IFV would be much more useful but its light armour makes it too vulnerable for such a mission.

The new plans for vehicles in the Russian army mean that the armata based IFV or in fact the BMPT if there is one would be an ideal substitute for a MBT in that it has the mobility and protection of a tank, but has fire power more suited to supporting infantry operations down to very close ranges.

The interesting thing is that the BMPT was designed to take the infantry out of the equation.

Urban combat is dangerous and costly because infantry are too vulnerable, but they are needed to protect the tanks from enemy infantry.

The BMPT is supposed to protect the tanks, but in reality it should be able to protect itself and make the use of tanks unnecessary. In other words the BMPT should in one go replace the tank and the supporting infantry it needs to operate in urban areas...

Simply demonstrating how wide the coverage arc of a cassette actually is.

I don't subscribe to the belief that ARENA's large impenetrable kill area is a liability for infantry, because infantry actually keep their distance from tanks for precisely the reason you stated.

Thanks for posting that vid Zivo.

The western experts that believe ARENA was dangerous for supporting infantry probably formed their beliefs before western forces went into Afghanistan and mullahs started firing RPGs at all sorts of NATO vehicles which before deployment seemed to be ideal vehicles, and after obviously needed upgrades and design changes.

The munitions ARENA uses are custom designed for the job and are made of plastic so that the only dangerous fragments that come from their explosion are those directed at the incoming threat. More importantly the fragments directed at the incoming threat are not fired directly from the tank where the danger zone could be hundreds of metres in every direction, the munition is launched upwards so the fragments can be fired downwards into the ground where they don't put supporting infantry at risk.

Zivo wrote:Watch the test 30 seconds into this video.
Look at the dust kicked up from the fragments hitting the ground, you can clearly see just how wide ARENA's fragment cloud is. There's a reason ARENA was deemed "to dangerous for infantry" by the west.

Again, I didn’t see any evidence that the arc is let say 60 degrees, the video is nice, but I can’t learn much about the coverage. I do know that the DROZD’s rocket has 20 degrees opening and they are 17 kg rocket. So the best I can give the Arena’s cassette is 30 degrees. But even with 60 degrees you can’t defend the sides of the tank unless you turn the rear bins.

[quote="medo"]

Tanks in urban fighting will stay 2 km away and give support to the troops with there big guns.

In that case it's better to use artillery outside the town. Tanks are in the same line as infantry to support them and to give cover if needed.

120mm mortar are very welcome in the fighting. Tanks, mortars, rockets will be enough in the fight.

Also tanks are strong enough to crash a building if it is necessary.

The D-9 will do much better job.

The problem is, that tank need space to rotate the turret, what in small streets is not always given and infantry will be also close to tank. Actually in urban area it is infantry, who protect tanks against AT teams.

No doubt, in the fighting some time the tanks will lead, and some time the infantry will lead.