Tank Warfare: Russian Armour vs Western Armour

He is expecting a radically new tank design, such as the US made from the M-60 to the M1.

That is what the T-95 was supposed to be and he cut that for being too expensive and "unnecessary".

BTW the M1 was created thanks to the Shah of Iran. All the previous American models were even more conservative than Soviet models... the M47, M48, M60 looked very much alike but with slightly bigger guns.
The M1 looked different because of the British armour it used. British armour that was paid for by the Shah of Iran that wanted a new tank developed. When the Shah lost power the Brits kept the tank design and called it the Challenger I.

They were not part of the upgrade because domestic industry could not do it which is why it was cut.

The upgrade was supposed to be completed some time about now, but was cancelled before it was even finalised. How would have have known whether the domestic industry could have made it when they were never given a chance too.

I think what really happened is that he was told that most of the money currently available will go into C4IR and that there is no money for tanks or tank upgrades. He will get money for tank upgrades in 5 years time when the C4IR is sorted, so he decides he will have a hissy fit and b!tch and moan about the state of Russian military equipment to stir the domestic industry into action to update and upgrade so that when there is money there will be better domestic options.
That might work... or it might just lead to foreigners running your MIC for the next decade.
Personally I think instead of airing the dirty laundry in the media an ruining export prospects for existing material they should have sat down and developed a new structure where the MIC go to strategic planning meetings and to the troops in the field to find out what will be needed and what each company is working on and what works in the field and what doesn't. Why make the Tank makers develop a new C4IR system for their tanks when it should be applied to all vehicles in the armed forces so cooperation is needed between all sorts of companies to work this stuff out.
A tank is not likely to share many components with an APC, the requirements for engines and transmissions are completely different, but there are lots of things that can be shared like the new anti mine/IED electronics we see on come interior ministry vehicles and gunfire locating technology also being used would also be useful on pretty much all vehicles.
What I am saying is it makes more sense to share technology that can be used in other areas, because this reduces wasted research money, it improves commonality for training and maintainence and logistics, and it means good technology gets used.

It is like the customer is complaining about the lack of stock in a shop when the customer has not spent a dollar in that shop for 20 years and will not tell the shop keeper what they want till they want it.
The customer needs to keep in mind that things have been tight for everyone and I am sure the shop keeper is just as keen to get all the latest stock in, but that costs money and you haven't been buying stuff so until you start making orders don't expect improvements.
Anyone can order catalogs and look at new stuff, but developing it and learning its good an bad points takes time and money, but you want results now.

Who is being unreasonable?

Considering M1A1s have been hit by Hellfires and the crews survived is enough evidence for me that they can survive Javelin and BILL. M1A1 is considered obsolete now and the newer tanks are even better in protection.

They have also been defeated by old model RPG-7 rockets.

What makes Javelin and BILL 2 so dangerous is that they are top attack munitions and apart from the belly of a tank the top is the most thinly armoured side. A Hellfire hit to the rear area of an M1A2 would be fatal because the engine is protected against HMG only and a direct hit on the gas turbine engine would cause an unstoppable fire that would burn out the entire tank. That is not opinion, that is fact. Any model RPG-7 could do this... even an RPG-18.
It is no surprise really because that will pretty much kill any other tank in existence too.
BILL 2 will also kill any tank because it is designed to target the turret roof. The Javelin might not be as effective because although it follows a lofted flight profile it is not designed to actually target the top of a tank and therefore I really don't think it would be a guaranteed kill on a T-90 anyway. The demo I saw they had a rig that held a couple of dozen hair driers heating up an old T-55 so that the Javelin could see it and get a lock on so they could fire a missile at it. The smoke grenades that are designed to hide tanks from thermal sights should be perfectly effective in making a T-90 completely invisible to a Javelin too.
BILL 2 on the other hand is SACLOS guided, or semi automatic command to line of sight guided so the gunner could continue to aim where the tank was and the missile would fly over that position and its metal detecting warhead would detonate above the vehicle anyway.

ARENA won't do anything against a top-attack projectile, its angle of fire is lateral. Drodz isn't worth mentioning.

ARENA munitions are launched upwards and fire downwards at the incoming weapon so that the danger area around the tank is minimised. The munitions are attached to the tank with a fine wire and when the wire reaches its length limit the munition explodes downwards. The system knows the length of the wire and the angle of the sprayed fragments and for an incoming weapon 3-4 munitions could be fired to hit that weapon because of the width of the spray.
It would not be that hard to modify the system to either spring higher or to have two sets of fragments... one spraying up and one down to get normal munitions and top attack munitions without increasing the danger to nearby friendly troops.
Drodz 2 included further smaller rocket munitions around the rear of the turret that greatly improved all round coverage. Again it would not be that hard to add some upward firing grenades, or in the case of Javelin a dazzler that prevents the IIR seeker getting a lock. Laser jammers are already available to Russian forces so something to damage a Javelins seeker wouldn't be that hard either.
It could also be used against other threats that use optical homing seekers too like the laser homing Hellfires and Maverick.

K-5 ERA will not stop the LATEST APFSDS rounds, only Cold War models.

And Kaktus and Relikt?

If we could build it, he would buy it. 15 years is long enough to wait.

I doubt it. You have 20,000 tanks in service or storage, I rather doubt he would buy a new tank even if he knew what he wanted.
Armour is a low priority right now so I doubt he wants to pay for anything.
What he needs to do is stop talking to his last tank maker through the media and go and talk to them face to face and lay out what the situation is and what his plans are. Now these plans might change overnight especially if he is replaced. It has happened before.

The point is that the last tank maker in Russia can make plans and save money if it has concrete information it can plan its future on.

It takes more than Soviet era weapons to take these tanks out.

The RPG-29 is a Soviet era weapon. Its 105mm warheads are the same as fitted to the 105mm PG-7VR RPG-7 rocket.
The RPG-28 has a 125mm rocket warhead.

The weight makes logistics a pain, but the soldiers that ride them are great-full for the protection it provides.

The T-90 has similar levels of protection when fitted with explosive in its ERA. The real difference is that when an M1A2 gets its side penetrated there is no ammo in the hull or the turret to ignite. The Iraqis and Afghans have never operated an M1A2 and so they don't know where the fuel or ammo is stored.
The upgrade of the T-90 was supposed to improve crew safety by moving all the ammo to armoured automatic loaders in the turret bustle and the base of the turret ring.
By cancelling funding and delaying the T-90 upgrade the result is Russian tank crewmen will remain less safe for a little longer, or they will have to operate with a reduced ammo load without loose rounds in the turret and hull.

TOS is not accurate enough to hit a tank, nor would a near miss affect an NBC enclosed vehicle.

NBC enclosed vehicles maintain safe environs for the crew by sucking in and filtering outside air to clean it and then blowing it into the crew compartment so any airborne contaminants don't enter any nooks or crannies because the inside air pressure is higher than outside air pressure so the air flows out of any gaps or holes rather than in bring in contaminants.

Even assuming all the tanks are closed up with hatches shut and NBC system is on a TOS attack will consume all the oxygen both outside and inside the tanks fairly rapidly and unless the crew had extra oxygen equipment they would rapidly suffocate and suffer burns from the high temperatures.
The over pressure is high enough to set off land mines unless those tanks are perfectly hermetically sealed they would be in trouble.

Relikt is not superior to K-5 in KE protection, it is cheaper to produce and better against chemical penetrators.

If it is cheaper to make and better against HEAT penetrators why isn't it in service?

If it can take out K-5, it can take out Relikt and they have plenty of old K-5 modules left from the bloc countries. Ukraine is happy to sell Relikt if they want it.

Who cares?

If you want a tank right now that can defeat an M1A3 and can't be harmed by an M1A3 or a tactical nuclear explosion then you are sh!t out of luck. How about doing what the Americans do and fund something better and put into service now what you have... oops no, you cancelled the T-95 and the T-90 upgrades and you are left with a tank you have had for the last decade or two.

The problem with whining that the new stuff isn't the super best in the whole universe is that if you don't keep spending money on tanks then the tank maker will not be doing anything or earning any money so the problem will just get worse.
The solution is make what you can now, tell your tank maker what you want next and get them working on it and deal with all those other tanks you have but don't want or need.
Make some new tanks, upgrade others to a similar standard and when you get a C4IR system that works then look at what you will need to penetrate Americas best tank and what protection you need to protect your tank from their best ammo and ask for that to be made.

If you go to war tomorrow the most powerful tank does not always win... Ask the Germans, they proved that an inferior tank used properly can win and that a superior tank used well against superior numbers that are also used with skill can lose.

Tanks in most modern conflicts are mobile direct fire artillery support, if a tank on tank conflict ever arises Airpower is more likely to be a deciding factor than another tank... and no tank on the planet can shrug off a hit from a Kh-29. (317kg HE shaped charge warhead for destroying the concrete foundations of large heavy bridges and other things is going to make short work of any armour).

He won't spend money on obsolete items, that has been made clear.

He is an idiot.
Where does he think new technology comes from?
If the Russian MIC gets no money for its products how can it spend money to improve them and develop new technologies?
Spending lots and lots of money to buy foreign material to licence produce in Russia makes sense in many cases, but no foreign country will sell Russia armour better than that already fitted to the T-90... They are not idiots.
This means that if Russian MBTs are to improve then there needs to be funding and the obvious means of funding that development is to buy upgraded T-90s so they can use the funds they earn on upgrading their production facilities and work on new technologies.

He has already said that the new Russian army will not be centred around tanks and that tanks have a lower priority because you already have so many of them.
It seems his goal is to kill the last remaining Russian Tank making company and make them turn to trains for survival.

I guess Russia will just have to buy its new tanks in 2018 from the Ukraine or China.

They have had 15 years of solid funding and large export revenues to do something.

Solid funding?
The company has the capacity to produce 1200 tanks per year export orders paid for the few tanks produced but didn't pay to keep the capacity to make 1200 tanks per year... I doubt the profits even covered wages and maintainence on facilities.
Now that they near completion of the T-95 the guy in charge says that is not what we want... now.
My brother in law used to be a builder but he went out of business because the franchise he operated under promised you could have the house design any way you wanted and he got 2 customers that kept changing the design. Because of the franchise policy he couldn't charge more for changes and it put him out of business.
I think this will likely do the same for the last Russian tank builder. Making trains is probably easier anyway.

They are too concerned with lining their pockets than actually developing something modern.

They were working on an upgrade package for the T-90 to deal with its major flaws and problems. The T-90 is no less modern than any other western design.

Never happened, the mystery hole was made by RPG-29.

The side and rear and top armour of the Abrams is not metres thick and a rear shot of an old model RPG-7 into the engine compartment could easily start a fire that burnt out the entire vehicle.

Hellfire is hell deadlier than Javelin and the tank crews survived.

Hellfire like Javelin uses a shaped charge to burn a small hole in armour. If either penetrate the armour then the effect it has on the tank largely depends on what it hits inside the armour. If it hits any loose rounds or a fuel tank then the tank is in trouble, but you can't say a Hellfire is always more deadly than a Javelin as performance is enormously effected by where it hits and at what angle and the effect of the hit largely depends on what is hit inside the tank... one of the reasons why the T-90 upgrade is so important because it removes loose rounds from the crew compartment.

ARENA munitions are launched laterally and detonate into the path of the projectile.

No they are launched up and fire down to reduce the danger area for friendly troops.

Putting a pinhole in a tank that burns someone's leg off is not destroying it. It took Metis and Kornet to kill modern tanks.

Part of war is a numbers game... the number of RPG-22s and RPG-7s will always outnumber the Kornets and Metis-Ms because they are cheaper, smaller and lighter.
The number of uber modern tanks on the battlefield is reducing all the time... it makes more sense to attack the weak points of a tank than to try to take it front on. A Land Mine and some RPGs is the cheapest way to deal with tanks. A Javelin might take out any T series tank it hits, but it costs more than most of the tanks it is used against. In Afghanistan they use them on anything because the Taleban don't have tanks. The result is that America wonders why this little conflict in Afghanistan costs 10 billion a month.
They could withdraw their troops and spend 5 billion a month on bribes and declare victory... but they aren't that smart.

There are no open holes in the crew compartment and the air pressure inside will not change, no matter what happens outside. That is why it is called pressurised...

So a submarine should have no trouble going as deep as it likes because it is pressurised too... it has no open holes.

The thing is that a TOS explosion is not just fire, it is a supersonic pressure wave like an IED. A 100kg HE bomb wont penetrate the armour of an Abrams but it will kill everyone inside from the shockwave effect.

Because there is plenty of K-5 left over.

But it is obsolete. There is something better available... isn't that the mantra... only buy new stuff?

Just because you haven't heard of the results of the M829A3 and PROCIPAC tests, doesn't mean they didn't conduct them against K-5 and even Relikt. That matters a great deal.

It matters only when Georgia start introducing Abrams tanks with M829A3 ammo. They aren't. And even if the did it wouldn't matter because they could not expect to get and retain air control over the battlefield.
In the early 1980s there were Mig-21s and Mig-23s against American F-15s and F-16s and F-14s and F-18s. By the late 1980s the Mig-29s and Su-27s started to increase in numbers.

A direct conflict between the US and Russia right now is even less likely... so after no funding for two decades you find your ammo isn't as good as theirs... so what? If tanks were really that important you'd have T-95s in service with 150mm smoothbore guns that fire top attack guided rounds to 10kms range and APFSDS rounds at 2.5km/s that could do to the Abrams what the Abrams did to Saddams T-55s in 1990.
Obviously this guy in charge of the purse strings doesn't like tanks.

Who cares?

The normal use for a tank in modern warfare is mobile gun platform that is not invulnerable. The T-90 can do that job already.
The best weapon to kill a tank is supposedly another tank, yet tank on tank combat is distinctly unlikely in the foreseeable future.
Serduykov wont spend any money on tanks in Russia for the next 5 years and when it comes time to upgrade you will have a rail car making company that could have a go, but it is going to cost a lot of money because we sold all that production capacity and tooling and skilled expertise 2 years ago to save money.

Javelins top attack does not mean it attacks the roof at 90° angle. It has options on 30° and 45° as I recall.

The video I saw it came down at about 45 degrees and hit the side of the turret.

A similar hit to the front of a T-90 turret probably wouldn't have penetrated.

Javelin uses a thermal imager to detect the target.

If the target is fitted with IR protection then it is just another SACLOS missile which means that SHTORA can be used against it.

The standard smoke grenades of the T-90 are designed to generate smoke that covers IR bands.

Actually Shtora is an IR jammer and has no direct effect on laser guided missiles.
When it detects a laser target marker it automatically turns the turret in the direction of the laser and fires smoke and warns the crew. The vehicle has to move to ensure protection...

It is an IR dazzler when the vehicle is being attacked with a SACLOS missile like TOW or Milan and it works by shining the two emitters in the direction of the launcher. It is like trying to see a burning match in front of an air raid search light...

Was it on cost grounds?

This guy is an idiot... he complains there is nothing new in tanks and then cancels funding of the only new tank being developed (T-95).

Then he says the T-90 is obsolete and cancels the funding for the upgrade to remove its known problems based on real experience.

There is no funding for ARENA and now SHTORA? But he complains the tanks are vulnerable to top attack weapons...

So it needed something like PAPV to find the optics first and then some form of aiming mechanism to direct the beam?

Would that be so hard?

In aircraft the Ka-52 has already been tested with DIRCMs, so the technology is not that far away.

Some sort of directed energy jammer could be effective against all sorts of weapons that target tanks from Javelin and Spike through Maverick and laser homing versions of Hellfire, to all the SACLOS missiles and the new european IIR seeking missiles.

In fact the only missiles it wouldn't deal with would be MMW radar guided weapons like Hellfire and Brimstone and laser beam riders like the RB-70.

The blinders were fixed on the turret, which would have to be rotated to face the object. Then you lose firing solution as the barrel went with it.

That is right... when the turret turned to face the threat that means you main gun would be pointing at the threat so it could engage it. No point in turning a machinegun to deal with the threat as a missile could be fired 5-6km or more away so only the main gun could reliably deal with it.

Of course if you went for the PAPV solution of finding the optics and the DIRCM for dealing with them with a laser to damage the enemy optics to the point where any missiles fired would fail then you wouldn't need to turn the turret as the threat would be dealt with using an optics damaging laser.

Better to load it with extra smoke grenades.

The problem with smoke grenades is that they might cover 100m by 100m in front of the tank but a SACLOS might continue flying straight and level and still hit the target tank if it doesn't have time to move.
Equally actively dealing with the threat launcher means other vehicles cannot be engaged either, so it removes a threat.
It would also be a useful way of dealing with other similar threats on the battlefield... like enemy snipers with heavy calibre sniper rifles trying to take out your very expensive night optics.

As far as I know, Javelin doesn't need to point a laser beam at a target to designate.

I know... it uses a thermal image with an auto target tracker in the automatic fire and forget mode but it also has a SACLOS mode where the firer puts his crosshair on a target and fires and the missile is directed to hit the target he is aiming for... (For targets like log buildings that are not hot so he can't get a lock on).
It is like the IIR seekers of the latest IR guided AAMs and IR guided SAMs. The solution for aircraft is active IR lasers that dazzle the IR sensors. They are called DIRCMs, or directed infra red countermeasures. The system I am talking about is the Manta, joint developed with the Italians and Russians that has been tested on the Ka-52.

You cannot target the gun while blinders are activated. They have to project a hotspot at the missile as it approaches. As the turret slews to follow it, the LOS with the shooter will be lost.

In its current form... that is why I suggested replacing the Shtora emitters with a few turret lasers like the MANTA DIRCM that has been tested on the Ka-52 and the Mi-28N.

That stuff is far more advanced than Shtora. Warning and auto-slew would make all the difference. The cost of the system is as much as the tank. xaxa

So only put it on half the tanks... or a designated anti missile tank within a unit.

Far more effective than blinders that have to locate a missile that has already fired at you.

Missiles in flight will be easy to spot because of nose cone heating and the enormous exhaust plume behind them.
The Nagging Nadia missile approach warning sensor fitted to Hinds already spots incoming missiles and it entered service in the mid 1980s.

Yes, and any body in the Army will know not to engage a T-90 using the SACLOS mode of target but rather it's top attack thermal guided mode of attack.

And if the T-90 tank in view has IR screening tarps like Nakidka optical, IR, and radar frequency screens then the operator of a Javelin might not get much choice regarding how he engages the target.

A focal plane array is a fancy term for a thermal imaging IR sensor that creates a thermal image of the target area.

The same laser beam that defeats an AIM-9X in a DIRCM on an aircraft could be applied to a tank defence system and perform the same function in a tank.

If you know that much about Nakidka, you know that it was only present at a display in 2009. T-72BM isn't coming out en masse and it isn't in heavy usage. Besides, Shtora only reduces the thermal signature at the sides, doesn't really help when it's top down.

The guy in charge of the purse strings has said that little money will be spent on armour and APCs for the next few years.

What he has said however is that the plans are for up to 1,500 T-90 tanks and 5-6,000 older tanks in reserve. For commonality with the T-90 is the purpose of the T-72BM upgrade for existing T-72s to make them more compatible with the T-90s they will operate with.
The T-72s will be the heavy use tanks with the T-90s coming out for parades and real war, while the T-72s will be used for training and exercises to save wear and tear on the T-90s... unless the conflict is deemed such that the T-72s could be used for that too... where the T-90 is not seen as necessary.
Nakidka reduces IR and radar and optical signature from all angles, and should make a lock on with Javelin difficult if not imposible.
This means it will have to be fired manually and not in a top attack flight profile making it a much less effective missile.
Its 700mm penetration is even less than ATAKA... its party piece was that not tank on the planet has 200mm of armour on its roof let alone 700mm.
SHTORA is a dazzler, but at least its anti laser component would fire smoke grenades when the tank was marked with a laser target marker.

To be quite honest with you, really not sure why you're being so difficult. Shtora is good, but it's not necessary. It does the job that K-5 and Drozd does.

What do you mean difficult?
Why are you so easily defeated?
Money has been invested in these projects and if you drop them for a few small faults then all that time and effort was wasted.
Sometimes starting from scratch is beneficial, but most of the time you really only want to do that when you absolutely have to.
Flaws have been pointed out and I have suggested solutions.
It makes more sense to try a solution than to immediately drop the whole program just because there is a problem.
I am wondering why an idiot Russian bureaucrat is claiming a T-90 is vulnerable to enemy weapons and then cancels an upgrade program that would give the tank for instance Hunter killer optics for 360 degree views, and move all the ammo out of the crew compartment to make any penetrations less catastrophic for the crew, plus a replacement vehicle also designed to deal with limitations in the T-90 design regarding crew protection.

The reality is that no one system will stop everything... it is the combinations of lots of very different technologies that will make Russian tanks safer for tank crews.
SHTORA, K-5 and DRODZ are three completely different technologies.
SHTORA is the equivalent of the start of an ESM suite for a tank that has no equivalent in service in the west.
K-5 is ERA that is effective against HEAT and APDSFS rounds... which was a first for ERA, which had previously only been effective against HEAT rounds.
DRODZ is an active anti missile defence system consisting of a radar and small rockets that are launched into the path of incoming RPG rockets to detonate them well away from the tank.
They were used in service in the early 1980s in Afghanistan on Naval T-55s. They were found to be about 80% effective at stopping incoming missiles despite the crap electronics and radar.
ARENA is a huge improvement in that it has better coverage and the munitions are fired up and away from the tank to prevent damaging the tanks optics, and are designed to generate a focused beam of fragments out and downwards into an area about 20-30m from the tank. 50m away from the tank should be safe and the rest of the munition is designed not to create dangerous fragments except in the forward downward direction of the incoming threat.
It was deemed good enough to probably defeat the BILL 2 top attack missile because it flys a metre or so above the tank and fires down at the tank roof when the tank is detected by its metal mass signature. The ARENA munition is lofted high enough to hit BILL 2.
It is not lofted high enough to engage a diving missile like Javelin, but as I mentioned cheap mass produced IR signature reduction sheeting should do that job.

If Russia really wants to up it's game in Tank protection, start by building larger tanks, not in mass but in dimensions. Having a 2 cm smaller silhouette than an Abrams in exchange for higher risk of catastrophic explosion is not worth it.

Actually most of the difference in size and weight is because there is one less person in a Russian tank.
Making a bigger tank means replacing all the existing support and transport equipment to cope with a larger vehicle. It would not be easy to make transport aircraft bigger or landing craft.

Having a 2 cm smaller silhouette than an Abrams in exchange for higher risk of catastrophic explosion is not worth it.

That has nothing to do with size and everything to do with where ammo and fuel is stored.

ARENA is a Centisecond system, and engages targets moving at up to 700 mps. In comparison, Modern systems like Iron Fist/Trophy, Quick Kill, or AMAP can engage in the millisecond range (the AMAP does microseconds).

That has everything to do with the electronics used in the computers. A version made now should be able to act faster.
There are rumours that the T-95 had an extra outer layer of ERA that was wired up so that it could be fired by a very sophisticated electronic system that included CM and MMW radar for air and ground targets, as well as long and short wave thermal imaging, LIDAR (ie laser radar that can detect optics for example) and FLIR sensors all integrated into the fire control system. It was probably too ambitious and they will likely have another 5 years to work on it.

Hopefully they will have more Russian content when it is ready too.

To compound that, ARENA does not full protect a tank. A tank would be vulnerable in it's blind spot, the rear of ARENA, in which case, the Tank's armor will have to do.

The ARENA revealed was fitted to the turret but did not extend all the way around the turret. There is no reason that in addition to a turret bustle autoloader (as was fitted to the proposed upgrade of the T-90) that further ARENA munitions could not be fitted right around the autoloader on ERA designed to protect the autoloader and turret from rear attack. In fact there is no reason why they couldn't have multiple rows of munitions, some of which fire upwards to deal with diving top attack missiles, or they could make them all fire up and down and out...
Further munitions could be fitted to the hull to protect the engine or sides.

And to nail it all down to hell, neither Shtora or ARENA is being upgraded.

SHTORA and ARENA are developed systems with some existing flaws. They are certainly better than nothing. The companies that make these systems have invested time and money into these systems.
The real question is would it be easier and cheaper to start again from scratch, or to try to work with existing designs and solve the problems. Starting from scratch will waste a lot of time effort and money and may not result in an improved system with no faults.

You see no system will be perfect because no matter how good it is the opposition are going to have a good look at it and find a weakness and make something to exploit it. That means that updates and improvements to solve problems will be inevitable anyway so there is no point in quitting and starting from scratch every time.