T-90 Main Battle Tank #2

franco wrote:I'm dubious of any mention of putting old T-90's back into service. They have been in storage for 25 years after a short unsuccessful service life. Another article I have read indicated plans to put a total of 400 T-90M and T-90AM (A's upgraded to M standard) into operation.

Why not? Make use of their current systems in reserve to make them suitable for modern and future combat. I would suggest making a similar upgrade for T-72's as well so it streamlines it all.

franco wrote:I'm dubious of any mention of putting old T-90's back into service. They have been in storage for 25 years after a short unsuccessful service life. Another article I have read indicated plans to put a total of 400 T-90M and T-90AM (A's upgraded to M standard) into operation.

There's some talk (not official) that the plan is to upgrade existing in service T-90/T-90A as well as produce 30-40 new T-90M per year.....the 200 odd T-90's in storage might be either scrapped or possibly upgraded at a later stage

Isos wrote:That reduces the money they can spend on t-14. They should remember that t-90 are not cheap at all (neither is the modernization). It's not really smart to buy new build t-90M which is an old design trying to be as good as the t-14 and almost for the same price.

Upgrading existant tanks and buying only the new t-14 is much better.

Apparently they're planning only a limited production run for a few years...they want about 400-500 T-90M's...so roughly about 200 new ones

Well with Iraqi units declaring they prefer the T-90 to the Abrams, and Egypt basically doing the same, it is not really a shock to think that in a lot of cases the T-90 might often be good enough.

I rather suspect Egypt and Iraq probably don't want to foot the fuel bill for a gas turbine powered tank too of course...

[quote="Isos"]

Cyberspec wrote:

franco wrote:I'm dubious of any mention of putting old T-90's back into service. They have been in storage for 25 years after a short unsuccessful service life. Another article I have read indicated plans to put a total of 400 T-90M and T-90AM (A's upgraded to M standard) into operation.

Upgrading existant tanks and buying only the new t-14 is much better.

Not really.

The T-14 is part of the Armata platform, it's release will coincide with the entire platforms release as if there needs to be meaningful modifications to the platform it will affect the T-14 too. Until they work around all of the kinks it will stay in small production numbers.

Spending more on Armata wont get it into meaningful service faster... they have to develop a whole range of upgraded vehicle types before Armata can enter service properly... they will likely start with Armata brigades first.

Directing more money to new T-90s and BMP-3 upgrades means less pressure to get the new vehicle families into service.

There is a lot of focus on the Armata but I suspect the lighter vehicles will be mass produced faster and developed quicker, and should be ready earlier.

They of course might decide that to save a bit of money that they could make the tank, the IFV, the APC, and the BMPT vehicles from Armata tanks to protect the troops and the tank crews and have the rest of the vehicles in a heavy brigade or division being Kurganets.

Having only two vehicle types in a force at least reduces the parts and support requirements of the logistics tail.

Keep in mind that a current brigade like the one I mentioned above needs tracks and wheels and engine parts and transmission parts for T-90 tanks, T-80 tanks (for the MSTA artillery vehicles), for MTLB based vehicles, for BMP-1 and BMP-2 and BMP-3 based vehicles of all types, for BTR-80 based vehicles and BTR-60 based support vehicles, and BRDM-2 vehicles, and of course Grad trucks, TOR and SA-13 and 2S6M vehicles as well as any trucks and prime movers for the towed weapons as well... you can see why having three or four vehicle families can simplify logistics and support, while also making mobility and fire power and protection levels much more even and equivalent.

From a design point of view you make the base vehicles flexible and standardised so to develop an IFV you don't need to design four different ones... you just design one turret... the T-14 turret and you put it on the Boomerang and the Kurganets and perhaps even the Typhoon and maybe later on even the Sprut. Hell, they could even use it in fixed positions on land bases and on river boats. And it works for every role... IFV will get high velocity 57mm gun plus Bulat light ATGMs and Kornet or Krisantema heavy ATGMs, APC can have either low velocity 57mm grenade launcher gun or 30mm cannon and light and heavy missiles... and those turrets can be designed to be fitted to any vehicle family.

The number of Abrams & Leopards lost in Iraq & Yemen in last few years has shown that the 'Soviet pop-top' meme was largely because modern Western tanks simply hadn't been exposed to powerful modern ATGMs yet.

On top of preference for T-90 from Iraq which has operated both, its pretty interesting that Egypt is now looking at obtaining T-90s when they already have a full & recent Abrams production line.

At least part of that is because US uses threat/action of blocking supply of parts as leverage for policy gains -> diversification of supplier becomes important for countries seeking some independence.

I also suspect the costs of supplying fuel for useful numbers of Abrams tanks is probably a convincing argument for the military too.

Does anyone know if the models used by Iraq and Egypt have APUs?

It was a critical addition to the T-80 because when sitting doing nothing running the main engine to keep the heater or AC on as well as all the systems like optics and comms burns an enormous amount of fuel, whereas having a small APU using a tiny fraction of the fuel can keep all the systems running and preheat the engine so starting up to move can be much much quicker.

In the arctic the T-80 makes a lot of sense, but everywhere else issues with dust and fuel consumption make it expensive and fussy.

Isos wrote:

The new turret seems to have much thicker composite armor infront of the gunners position (the new backup sight is mounted further backward) which would be a very good improvement as that particular area was very weak on the old T-90A oly around 500-600 mm RHAE vs kenetic. The new turret could actually be equal to or better than many of the newer western tank turrets without its relikt, maybe even 850-900mm RHAE vs kenietic.

Note the photo you posted at the top of this page Lsos... tank on the left with smoke grenades and IR dazzlers... tank on the right with smoke grenades and what looks like two much smaller boxes on either side of the main gun with a forward facing optical port... could that be SHTORA-1M or SHTORA-2?

Shtora laser warning recievers.

The T-90 can launch laser beam riding missiles... so it has a video auto tracker and a laser... it would not be hard to adapt that set up so that the autotracker detects an incoming weapon or the launch platform it originates from and direct a laser at either to defeat the weapon making the large IR dazzlers superfluous as part of the system.

If so I wonder if in the future laser based APS could be used to automatically zap enemy infantry. Imagine if whenever one of thoes rocket carrying bastards popped up that he would simply recieve a high powered laser through his eye socket.

weapons that blind people are illegal and so what one needs is a laser that will burn through the eye and boil the brain thus circumventing the outcry by making the weapon legal.

The Americans are ripping up agreements left right and centre, and refusing to tie themselves to new agreements... I rather suspect such agreements are no safer...


Of all the things that can happen to you on a modern battlefield I suspect being blinded might even be a greater fear than being killed. The idea of being a burden is not very nice... so being maimed or losing limbs or being blinded could be a greater fear for some soldiers... particularly in a civil war with untrained soldiers than being killed.

Of course a system designed to damage optics or the optical sensors on an incoming missile should easily be able to damage human eyes... I believe the Americans call it collateral damage and just ignore it because their media really don't care when it happens to others.

Optical and IR sensors with 360 degree coverage are becoming more and more in demand... for instance the 9M100 IIR lock on after launch missile can be launched in any direction at a target so you would need 360 coverage in IR frequencies to detect and track targets to use this missile against... your average armoured vehicle would also benefit from such coverage for APS systems and to launch smoke grenades when relevant too.

Experience of the integration of systems in programmes like Ratnik means what was previously multiple separate items could be combined together to simplify and improve performance.

For instance 20 years ago you could buy a GPS system for navigation in the wild. New models add all sorts of features including communication with text messages and short range radio communications, plus the ability to take photos and transmit them and determine range to targets etc etc

The next gen of the system will reportedly include information displays in visors to show maps and instructions and information.

Any news regarding this deal with Egypt ?

EGYPT TO ASSEMBLE ITS OWN FLEET OF TOP TIER RUSSIAN BATTLE TANKS

https://www.cairoscene.com/Buzz/egypt-assembles-t90

https://www.defenseworld.net/news/19763/Russia_To_Assemble_T_90_Tanks_Under_License_In_Egypt#.Xf9IgdUzbIU

This is nice... it was not that long ago I was defending Russian tanks because everyone claimed they were junk.

I remember chatting to a guy in the 1990s particularly because he claimed he fought in Desert Storm and his unit destroyed hundreds of T-90s and T-80s there... all Russian tanks are junk... after chatting to him for a bit it turns out it was his uncle that was there, but it was T-90s and T-80s that he was destroying hahaha.

Then of course the conflict in chechnia happened, which only made things much worse... when you don't fit your ERA blocks with explosive, when you are up against an enemy with the same training because they were in the same army as you, and equipped with the same equipment as you with the same knowledge of the weaknesses and strengths of the vehicles you use, then of course there are going to be problems, but even then the problems are made worse when your command want to minimise casualties by driving into enemy held cities with out preparing them with artillery and air strikes... they seemed to think they would just drive in and everyone would surrender... the second time around they did it right and did a much better job... because they did it right... and the tanks worked well that time.