T-90 Main Battle Tank

Ukraine t-55AG,Oplot 40 degrees/sec,Siviet era t-72 16 degrees /sec,t-90s 24 degrees/sec,Leo2 48 degrees/sec,M1 abrams,42 degrees/sec.Data provided courtesy of the Kharkiv Morozov machine Building Design Bureau.... turret traverse is an issue!

There is your problem... "Data provided courtesy of the Kharkiv Morozov machine Building Design Bureau".

The two lowest values are for the T-72 and T-90, while the Ukrainian tanks have turn rates comparable to western tanks.

Do you think that is because Kharkov Morozov is the Ukraines leading tank building company?

It would be like a Norinco website talking about accuracy where the AK-47 and AKM and AK-74 all have poor accuracy, but Type 56S and R4 and Galil and Valmet AK knockoffs are much more accurate...

I have posted video of the turret traverse speed of the T-90SM on this very thread where in the space of about 12 seconds the turret is turned a full 360 degrees one way and then the other. 720 degrees, which is something like 60 degrees per second.

That is the video... turret facing forward at 11 seconds and does a complete turn in one direction and a complete turn back by 21 seconds, which means 720 degrees in 10 seconds, and you don't need to be a math genius to work out that means 72 degrees/s turn rate... which is better than all the tanks listed.

Source: http://defense-update.com/20120613_eurosatory-2012-photo-report.html

Thanks for pointing out the source AJ-47.

There are other photos at the above link worth looking at like some pics of BMPT and one of Kornet-EM.

Usually a fording point would be chosen by a special vehicle that is tank based but has no turret that is used in the engineering sections called an IRM. It is a custom designed recon vehicle that can spend days on the bottom of a river and is used to find the best place to ford a river or stream. It has equipment to create proper entrance and exit points that are not too steep.

Laying concrete in a flowing river would not be possible and dropping concrete slabs wouldn't make much sense either as the vehicles needed to do such a thing would be better used creating a pontoon bridge, than dropping slabs of concrete onto an uneven mud river bottom. Even if you diverted a stream and lay a concrete road and then put the stream back the concrete would soon be covered in mud and silt anyway.

The T-90SM is the export model of the T-90AM, and could be fitted with APS if required.

Didn't George1 post something recently where it mentioned new APS systems for the T-90 and armata. The armata system was called afghanistan or something.

Regarding track width, increasing it slightly greatly increases the area of the tracks which in turn decreases the ground pressure dramatically.

Advantages include better mobility, especially over soft ground.

Making tracks wider improves mobility and good mobility is more important than any concerns about land mines.

Standard solutions to land mines still apply like rollers and ploughs and explosives to detonate paths in minefields.

I doubt they have the AM model right now , its only the MS model built for export.

If Russian Army ever buys the T-90AM then they will have the new gun 2A82 something.

What I am trying to say is that the export T-90SM can be fitted with APS, and would normally come with an APS, and APS development in Russia is continuing with all its new vehicles.

The fact that they are not being ordered at the moment just shows they want to spend their money carefully and will buy T-72 upgrades till the armata is ready.

As I have said in the past they tested Drozd in Afghanistan in the 1980s and it was effective, though they have since developed Drozd and Arena based on what they have learned and experiences since.

There are about 3 other APS systems they have developed including a system called Shater, and there were new APS systems being developed for the T-95 and the armata vehicle too... the latter was called afghanistan from memory.

Based on this information I feel your comment that the Indian upgraded T-90 will have an APS while the Russian export T-90SM does not is not accurate.

There was a recent Gur Khan article that showed photos of a T-90SM model with a new revised APS system that doesn't have a large turret mounted MMW radar detection tower like Arena did.

Based on that I rather suspect that T-90SM could easily have APS if the customer wants it.

First of all T-90SM (note the designation T-90S is for export and is a revised model of the T-90A... the improved model gets an M in its designation because it is modernised so it goes from T-90S to T-90SM and is for export only.)

The T-90A is the Russian domestic model and has also had an upgrade applied to it which is not for export and is therefore called T-90AM.

AFAIK they have decided it is cheaper to buy T-72s with upgrades that allow them to train with net centric environments and with modern thermals also train at night and in smoke and bad weather without the cost of a brand new tank.

That is not to say the T-90AM is cancelled, it simply wont be introduced right now.

Think of it in terms of the Su-27M, the original Su-35. It did not enter operational service and the modern Su-35 has little in common with the Su-27M except the name, but that is because in the 25 odd years between them (Su-27M flew in 1988) technology has moved on.

The T-90AM will not enter service now with the Russian Army, though they might buy a small batch for testing and training. In 5 years time when Armata is in production and its costs are known they might produce a few thousands new T-90s for numbers if the armata is not cheap... and it wont be.

Second... HESH is useless against a modern tank because a modern tank will generally have layered armour that includes rubber and empty air pockets. Spall is caused by intense vibration travelling through metal... when it reaches the rubber layer or an air pocket it will not have anything solid to bridge the gap and will not continue to the inner armour.

Very simply... During Desert Storm an IFV was hit by a British 120mm HESH and it survived. At the time they suggested it was because the western armour was so effective, but in reality it hit externally mounted armour boxes and did exactly what it was designed to do and was totally ineffective against an IFV.

...and you are worried that Russian tanks are vulnerable?

In future I suggest you reserve judgement when reading something on Youtube as the quality of information is pretty low there.

It it is so well documented then there shouldn't be any problems finding evidence...

To quote Wiki, which is normally frowned upon...


But this:

Uniquely among NATO main battle tank armament, the L30A1 is rifled, because the British Army continues to place a premium on the use of high explosive squash head (HESH) rounds in addition to APFSDS armour-piercing rounds. HESH rounds have a longer range (up to 8 kilometres / 5 miles) than APFSDS, and are more effective against buildings and thin-skinned vehicles.

And most importantly THIS:

25 March 2003 - A friendly fire ("blue-on-blue") incident in Basra in which one Challenger 2 of the Black Watch Battlegroup (2nd Royal Tank Regiment) mistakenly engaged another Challenger 2 of the Queen's Royal Lancers after detecting what was believed to be an enemy flanking manoeuvre on thermal equipment. The attacking tank's second HESH round hit the open commander's hatch lid of the QRL tank sending hot fragments into the turret that caused an explosion of the stowed ammunition, destroying the tank and killing two crew members. It remains the only Challenger 2 to be completely destroyed on operations

Are relevant.

Based on the above account the HESH destroyed the tank by exploding above an open hatchway that started an internal fire that ignited loose ammo... they could have done the same with a standard HE shell.

HESH is very effective against lightly armoured vehicles and structures like bunkers, but not more effective than a HE Frag shell using special fusing like ANEIT... a delayed fuse 125mm HE shell hitting a building would be more effective than HESH because HESH splatters on the outside and then blows a part of the wall into the building/vehicle. A HE FRAG round with a delayed fuse will enter the building before detonating which will do rather more damage... against a hard armoured target it will be less effective but still pretty devastating to a light vehicle.

The point is both rounds will demolish a Humvee, and the spaced armour on most IFVs will make both rounds less effective though the weight of HE will likely be sufficient to kill crew.

The main point is that a smoothbore gun has the option of HEAT which has the same effect no matter the range of impact... just like HESH, but a smooth bore gun is higher velocity, lighter and cheaper to make, easier to maintain and is most efficient for HEAT and APFSDS rounds.

Rifling is good for standard HE and HESH rounds only.

Also on that wiki page:

he Challenger Lethality Improvement Programme (CLIP) was a programme to replace the current L30A1 rifled gun with the 120 mm Rheinmetall L55 smoothbore gun currently used in the Leopard 2A6.

If the HESH round is so wonderful why would they describe a change from an L55 L30A1 rifled gun to an L55 smoothbore German gun a lethality Improvement programme?

The difference between the two guns is that HESH will be dropped and HEAT will be added and they can use foreign ammo.

It is fairly important to point out that Soviet and Russian tanks also have anti spall liners because APFSDS rounds that get within about 10% of penetrating the armour can also create spall at the impact point.

I think perhaps you are confusing Soviet and Russian tanks with the BTR series of vehicles generally having anti radiation liners but no anti spall liners... this changed with the BTR-82 and BTR-90, which have both had anti spall liners fitted.

The main reason previous models did not have anti spall liners was mainly cost and the fact that their armour was so thin most penetrators above small arms fire would penetrate anyway so anti spall liners would actually do very little that was useful.

Of course the lead based anti radiation liners did have a moderate anti spall effect anyway.