T-90 Main Battle Tank #2

Victor vicktop55
@vicktop55
Russian troops received a new batch of T-90M and T-72B3M tanks. UVZ has modernized its vehicles taking into account new threats. The tanks of the new series are equipped with turret protection against damage from FPV drones and grenades that the enemy drops from commercial drones.

With do respect but this all are T72B3M obrazac 2023....not a single T90M

Russia’s Central Military Command receives 15 upgraded T-90M main battle tanks

https://tass.com/defense/1715533

Could the microwave shell priming system of the 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV be incorporated into the T-90M? The use of this system and insensitive propellants could significantly reduce the risk of ammunition cook-off/detonation.

I was under the impression that the microwaving the propellant before firing boosted its power rather than primed it for use, but of course I could be wrong.

You could be right and it might allow a rather less sensitive mixture to be used, which would certainly make it safer, but generally an ammo explosion normally occurs when enemy ammo penetrates the tank and directly hits the ammo or propellant in the autoloader... whether that is a kinetic round which showers the ammo with hot sparks of burning metal, or a HEAT warhead with a beam of superheated plasma even things that normally wouldn't burn run the risk of catching fire.

Having said that liquid binary propellant would be interesting where the propellant is split into at least two chemicals that are largely inert, but when mixed together form a chemical that burns rapidly and violently and the byproducts are all naturally gases.

Sort of the opposite of hydrogen and oxygen... both are colourless odourless gases but combine them and burn them and you get water (actually steam that condenses into water when it cools down with totally different qualities).

lyle6 wrote:This is just the transport config. These T-72B3 Obr.23 will likely be fitted with heavy ballistic skirts to further increase protection against direct fire threats.

Won't make much of a difference as the T90s imaging capabilities suck compared to even the M1A1SA.

M1A1SA has a clear advantage over the T-90M when it comes to imaging capabilities:

T-90M:

"Sosna-U" (Imager: Catherine-FC)
Zoom levels: 4x, 12x (Optical);
ID range: ~4500m
Resolution: 768x574 (4:3)

M1A1SA:

"GPS-LOS" (Imager: SADA 2)
Zoom levels: 3x, 6x, 13x (Optical); 25x, 50x (Digital)
ID range: ~6000-8000m
Resolution: 1316x480 (16:9)

RTN wrote:
Won't make much of a difference as the T90s imaging capabilities suck compared to even the M1A1SA.

M1A1SA has a clear advantage over the T-90M when it comes to imaging capabilities:

T-90M:

"Sosna-U" (Imager: Catherine-FC)
Zoom levels: 4x, 12x (Optical);
ID range: ~4500m
Resolution: 768x574 (4:3)

M1A1SA:

"GPS-LOS" (Imager: SADA 2)
Zoom levels: 3x, 6x, 13x (Optical); 25x, 50x (Digital)
ID range: ~6000-8000m
Resolution: 1316x480 (16:9)

An irrelevant point, M1 cannot even operate in the most basic environments in a real war

It's imaging won't help it much if it needs filter changes thousands of miles from the front after a couple of days of operation, or if it needs the specific jet fuel which cannot be replaced at the front

Even if it was NATO using it, it wouldn't fix the logistics problem either, as Russia would pummel storages, depots, and repair sites day in and day out like in Ukraine

There's no way to sustain this tank in a real war

"Digital zoom" is just a post processing filter done in software.
As for the Russian sights in the T-90M it doesn't use Catherine-FC. Do you think they are importing thermal sights from France?
They haven't done so since the West imposed sanctions on the Russian MIC after 2014.

lyle6 wrote:

Cyrus the great wrote:Could the microwave shell priming system of the 2S35 Koalitsiya-SV be incorporated into the T-90M? The use of this system and insensitive propellants could  significantly reduce the risk of ammunition cook-off/detonation.  

A: You could, but you would have to revamp the logistics of the 125 mm caliber around a new propellant design. Too expensive and time-consuming.

B: The long term solution is recapitalizing on the T-14 MBT and the eventual Kurganets/Bumerang spin-offs based on the unmanned turret pattern with complete compartmentalization of energetics from the crew. The ammo can cook-off all it wants but unless the blast door protecting the crew from the combat compartment is compromised the crew will survive unscathed.

Yeah, it would definitely be expensive -- especially if new propellant is introduced; the microwave shell priming system shouldn't be too prohibitively expensive, right? It sounds macabre, but it would at least make the tanks salvageable in the event of a cook-off.

I've looked at the literature on the tests for the DM63 insensitive propellant -- and it seems the Germans used relatively weak RPG-7 rounds to attempt cook-offs against a small number of tank rounds. It would be illuminating if the tests were conducted using RPG-28, Metis-M and Konkurs ATGMs (against a dozen + rounds) in the hull ammo rack.

The carousel autoloader is very safe, as long as the stowed rounds (outside the autoloader) are not carried into battle; I also assume that the 4s24 ERA blocks + Relikt would stop RPG-29 rounds from piercing the side hull; and anything more powerful would kill the crews of any tank just as well. An APS needs to be incoporated into the T-90M at some point to add another layer of crew survivability.

GarryB wrote:I was under the impression that the microwaving the propellant before firing boosted its power rather than primed it for use, but of course I could be wrong.

You could be right and it might allow a rather less sensitive mixture to be used, which would certainly make it safer, but generally an ammo explosion normally occurs when enemy ammo penetrates the tank and directly hits the ammo or propellant in the autoloader... whether that is a kinetic round which showers the ammo with hot sparks of burning metal, or a HEAT warhead with a beam of superheated plasma even things that normally wouldn't burn run the risk of catching fire.

Having said that liquid binary propellant would be interesting where the propellant is split into at least two chemicals that are largely inert, but when mixed together form a chemical that burns rapidly and violently and the byproducts are all naturally gases.

Sort of the opposite of hydrogen and oxygen... both are colourless odourless gases but combine them and burn them and you get water (actually steam that condenses into water when it cools down with totally different qualities).

One of the most salient challenges with using liquid/gel propellants is just how complex it would be; the pumps, sleeves and sealants would have to be maintained by tank crews to some extent. The portability and longevity of liquid propellants is reportedly inferior in relation to solid state propellants.

New safety protocols on storability, transport and maintenance would have to be formulated and applied

There are already fuels being pumped around the vehicle to the engine and through the engine to where it is needed... the technology is not brand new, or particularly complex.

Considering you could locate tanks of these fluids in various places in your vehicle... you could even pump some through your engine compartment to heat it up to prime it to make it mix and burn more efficiently.

Pumping fluids into a tank is quicker and easier than manhandling propellant stubs which need to be positioned with loaded rounds in the autoloader.

It would also make APFSDS rounds rather smaller and lighter because they wont need the extra propellant. You could design them so they stack with the sabot overlapping and get rather more rounds in the autoloader... but of course with no propellant you could have a turret bustle autoloader to feed them straight into the gun because any enemy penetration would not even cause a fire because they are inert.

There is plenty of scope but in the end EM weapons might lead to a tiny propellant charge that is superheated into a plasma and then dragged magnetically down the barrel to accelerate the projectile to enormous speeds.... with the magnets doing most of the work you might only need a small amount of propellant to create the plasma. It might become a plasma when you put 2 million volts through it...

T-90M uses Russian optics similarly known as Irbus K. Russia hasn't used Catherin FC or XP for years after it was banned exported wise as Russia didn't make the matrix for it. So they developed their own Matrix via through NPO Cyclon. Some will say it doesn't use it but it does, it's am overall system Irbis K and not just the matrix used. Older T-90M's use the Sosna using the Catherin FC but that was well over a decade ago.

There are other matrices used as well over the time and one example is what is used for Armata.

The later models actually used a pixel rate similar to the newest Catherine XP creating resolutions on par or greater.  It was theorized to what is used in earlier models of Armata amd later models of T-90

https://sdelanounas.ru/blogs/112033/

ALAMO wrote:First and foremost, Russkie has produced Catherine line of TI on their own, in VOMZ plant in Vologda, since 2009.
...
Thales supplied matrixes for them using middlemen till the late '10s, but those have been replaced by domestic ones by 2018 if I remember.
Irbis-K uses, accidentally of course   , just the same 4x288 pixel matrix working in exactly the same wave length as French Sofradir camera used for Catherine

I doubt those thermal sights were used in Russian Ground Forces tanks after the sanctions happened. They didn't produce any T-90 tanks for themselves for a really long time. If they were used in Russian tanks at all it would have been on the T-72B3M and the like. But that started coming out in serial production in like 2017. And I heard reports the Russians made their own thermal sensor substitute in 2016.

The sensors were probably used for export tanks like the ones sold to India and the like.

GarryB wrote:There are already fuels being pumped around the vehicle to the engine and through the engine to where it is needed... the technology is not brand new, or particularly complex.

Considering you could locate tanks of these fluids in various places in your vehicle... you could even pump some through your engine compartment to heat it up to prime it to make it mix and burn more efficiently.

Pumping fluids into a tank is quicker and easier than manhandling propellant stubs which need to be positioned with loaded rounds in the autoloader.

It would also make APFSDS rounds rather smaller and lighter because they wont need the extra propellant. You could design them so they stack with the sabot overlapping and get rather more rounds in the autoloader... but of course with no propellant you could have a turret bustle autoloader to feed them straight into the gun because any enemy penetration would not even cause a fire because they are inert.

There is plenty of scope but in the end EM weapons might lead to a tiny propellant charge that is superheated into a plasma and then dragged magnetically down the barrel to accelerate the projectile to enormous speeds.... with the magnets doing most of the work you might only need a small amount of propellant to create the plasma. It might become a plasma when you put 2 million volts through it...

I really do like the idea of using gel/liquid propellants, however, I think it will take considerable effort to address issues relating to poor ignition, excessive gas generation, and the absence of reliable dissipative mechanisms.

Once the T-14 has been fully worked out, the hull of the T-90M could be modified to house the 3 crew members -- just as seen in the BMPT; and the turret of the T-14 could be placed onto the T-90 hull...

..It would be less formidable because it wouldn't have the sort of  thick, robust separation that we see in the T-14 Armata, but it would at least protect the crew from propellant explosions. The blast doors in the M1a2 Abrams are only 38mm thick or something. Add microwave shell priming and ammunition detonations would be a thing of the past.

I really do like the idea of using gel/liquid propellants, however, I think it will take considerable effort to address issues relating to poor ignition, excessive gas generation, and the absence of reliable dissipative mechanisms.

Well most problems have solutions, if you have pipes pumping fuels into the chamber then an extra pipe attached to a compressor attached to the engine could be used to eject a loaded shell without firing it... a compressed water line could rinse the chamber and a fresh round loaded...

Why would you think poor ignition might be an issue, gel fuels are generally more energetic and powerful than solid fuels, and excessive gas generation is the actual goal of the process... that is what propellant does... converts a solid or gel or liquid into gas, preferably with no solid or liquid remnants.

The movement to unmanned turrets for the Russian military would simplify things too with multiple tanks of liquids in various regions of the turret and turret basket and turret bustle, separated and isolated with multiple separate tanks so a single penetration and emptying of one tank wont disable the vehicles ability to fire.

I mean one idea could be to just use water as fuel/propellant... pump water into the chamber and microwave it to 3 thousand degrees C... the oxygen and hydrogen will separate and detonate... blowing the projectile out of the barrel... a rapid burst from a compressor to blow the remaining steam out of the barrel before the chamber is opened and a new shell loaded... with perhaps a heat shield behind it like a wad to protect it from the head of the propellant.

If you take thermite, which burns at about 3,000 degrees C and put it on blocks of ice and set it on fire the ice explodes because the 3K degrees C separates the oxygen from the hydrogen which creates fuel, oxygen, heat mixture needed for combustion and you get an explosion. It is also how most nuclear reactors going into melt down explode when the water cooling system overheats and the hydrogen and oxygen detonate.

Once the T-14 has been fully worked out, the hull of the T-90M could be modified to house the 3 crew members -- just as seen in the BMPT; and the turret of the T-14 could be placed onto the T-90 hull...

You probably could but the T-14 is simply better armoured so it would not be as good as a T-14.

The T-90AM is already a very good tank... the T-14 is not a T-90 with the turret crew moved to the hull... it has a much thicker hull front and much much lighter turret because it does not need the heavy frontal turret armour to protect the gunner and commander.

..It would be less formidable because it wouldn't have the sort of thick, robust separation that we see in the T-14 Armata, but it would at least protect the crew from propellant explosions.

The thing is that for enemy fire to reach the T-90s ammo it needs to penetrate into the turret and reach the armoured autoloader... if it can do that then it could equally pass through the crew compartment and eviscerate the crew directly. Moving the crew to the hull makes sense if you make the hull better protected than the turret, but the turret front on the T-90 like on most modern tanks is probably better protected than the hull front.

The blast doors in the M1a2 Abrams are only 38mm thick or something. Add microwave shell priming and ammunition detonations would be a thing of the past.

The problem is that modern combat requires HE shells be carried too and there is no way of making them 100% safe.

If HE ammo detonates in an Abrams then the blast doors are not going to do anything.

Abrams tanks were destroyed in Iraq with 50kg IEDs outside the tank... would it be possible an Abrams with a turret bustle with perhaps 5 or 10 HE rounds weighing 20kgs each could survive them exploding... sliding door or no sliding door?

The people who find out it doesn't actually work never live to talk about it.

I appreciate the drive to reduce casualties, but war is war and you are going to lose tanks and aircraft and men... sounds cold but war is not supposed to be fun.

The sad reality is that it is a game for people in the west who have isolated themselves from conflict by being very very rich... their children will never go to war, and often their wealth comes from companies that make weapons or ammo or mine the materials to make weapons and ammo... and they will never get sick of such games while it does not effect them directly.