I would suspect that given the speed that these missiles are travelling at (Mach 2 and above) once it hits both the warheads - front and rear will go off immediately after the missile hits the target.
The standard Kornet already does that... modern ERA boxes don't deform externally, but do so internally, so the front small warhead on the Kornet sets off the ERA block, while the second warhead detonated at pretty much the same time punches through the now fired ERA box. Against targets without ERA the first front warhead punches a small hole in the target and the second warhead continues to tunnel through that hole in the armour penetrating through to the crew compartment.
I would suspect this new missile could use a shaped charge front warhead and a rear mounted thermobaric warhead designed to blow through the hole created by the front HEAT warhead and to explode inside the target as it moves in.
There is an RPO-M model rocket that does that... has a HEAT warhead in the front with a thermobaric warhead behind. The reason for this arrangement is that with just a thermobaric warhead to get best effect you need to hit a window or open door to get the rocket inside the room before the explosion goes off... having a thermobaric warhead explode inside a target instead of outside it makes an enormous difference in its effect.
By adding a HEAT warhead to the nose you make the main charge slightly less powerful, but by using teh HEAT warhead to blow a hole in the target and pumping the Thermobaric material in through the hole and then detonating it as it expands and mixes with the air inside the target makes it orders of magnitude more effective in destroying the target.
By doing this with the Bulat missile it becomes much much more effective at destroying moving targets like IFVs and drones... the HEAT warhead often just damages vehicles and would just damage most drones, but a thermobaric warhead then being pumped into or around a small drone and then detonated is likely to make the missile much more lethal and effective against almost all targets including buildings and vehicles and drones...
Here it shows the use of 40mm APFSDS against MBT. The game is more or less accurate with pentration and armor values so it gives a nice idea of what the new turret with 57mm gun and its apfsds can do. There is also anti air rounds that are fired against choppers.
In a Russian BMP with a 57mm gun it would have a 20 round autoloader, but I am not sure how it would work... is it just 20 rounds ready to shove straight into the gun to fire which means keep it empty and load the rounds you think you will need and then fire them, or is it 5 separate loading channels with four rounds each where you could have each channel loaded with a different type of ammo and select between them for each shot so you could have 5 different types of rounds loaded that you can instantly choose from and between and you get four shots of each... I would expect that would take up too much space... perhaps four channels of five rounds each so you could load HE Frag, APFSDS, Air burst, and maybe guided HE, with five rounds ready to fire of each type... or if you are on an anti armour mission perhaps APFSDS in two or three of the slots and HE frag...
Of course the real Russian vehicle will have video processing and auto targeting presumably to the point where you could get it to aim at a specific part of the target, so the gunner would just push the fire button...
1. IMO the crew of tanks or IFV/APC in a battle situation will be very busy with searching the area around the vehicle for enemies. With the stress, the dust, the fatigue and bad observation, none of the crew will be able to look for flying objects. So for the safe of the soldiers it’s better to use the proper equipment and let the professional AA units to deal with flying objects. We can use even the old Shilka gun and the Tunguska to defend the troops.
You know who we say “Jack of all trade but master of none”. So let’s not put too much on the IFV/APC units and let them do what they do best.
There would be computer support where targets that stand out on thermals can be highlighted as potential targets much like modern cameras can detect human faces and puts target boxes around any that appear in view so you can select one for the purposes of focusing.
Crews of vehicles will be very busy because in addition to aircraft and ground vehicles they will also be looking for snipers and ATGM teams and enemy infantry as well as potential IEDs and also any civilians etc...
2. I can’t believe that the Kornet Junior, which we saw in the picture, has the speed and the range to engage IFV and keepthemself far away from the 30-40mm guns, or the 50mm in the future, of the enemy.
The Kornet it is based on has a range of up to 10km with a HE payload, so it would not be impossible for a scaled down model to have a range of 5-6km... these missiles will be mounted on very well protected vehicles that those 30mm guns probably wont penetrate at any range and those 40mm guns might start penetrating at 2-3km...
For fighting against everything the Dagger turret with 57mm high velocity gun and Kornet/Ataka missiles will be the best weapon. For APC that fight in urban area, the Epoch turret with the 57mm AGL and the Bulat launcher will be the best fit.
It really depends on who the enemy is of course... I would say a mix of both weapons makes the best sense as few opponents will have enough armour to make a 57mm high velocity gun critical... most of the vehicles we are talking about have guided missiles and 125mm gun armed vehicles with new anti armour missiles perhaps with 10-12km ranges and are supported by artillery and aircraft... there is not going to be a fire power shortage any time soon...
I would think a special Bulat with two HE Frag warheads one front and one back just designed to explode and shower the target with fragments with supersonic speed would be an ideal weapon for a drone being small and relatively light and likely using laser beam riding guidance as most drones will have laser range finders and target markers already, so making it use a much lower power but still stabilised coloured beam to mark targets should not be a huge problem.
Those drones spotting terrorists in light trucks can hit them straight away...
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