[Official] Armata Discussion thread #1

I haven't read the page you linked to but it is perfectly understandable that the armata is progressing well while the Boomerang is not going so well.

Armata had been in development for decades and is a T-95 part II with a few changes.

Boomerang on the other hand is trying to be a wheeled BMP in a scalable form that will also be a wheeled BRDM-2 like vehicle.

Actually I suspect that a 152mm calibre gun will probably have too much HE power and it might have a greatly shortened HE shell so perhaps 3-4 HE rounds could be redesigned to take the space of one APFSDS round. The HE projectile can be half the size and the propellent stub can be half the size too so you can carry 2 shells and 2 propellent charges in the space of one HV round.
Of course the larger capacity should make AHEAD type time fused rounds and missiles much more effective.

For HEAT rounds the calibre is more important than the length so they can be much shorter and still effective too.

Is there any specific applique armor projected for the armata yet?

All the vehicles are likely to get modular armour that can be removed for storage or replaced when damaged and easily upgraded.

is it NERA?

It is very likely to not include explosive though it might have an external ERA layer on top of it. ERA does not generally function in multiple layers, but NERA should work within an armour structure so single outer ERA layer and multiple inner NERA layers with a base standard layer and inner spall liner is very likely, with the ERA and NERA layers replaceable modular units.

If not will it be some kind of kaktus or relikt modification or will it be a completely new type?

Kaktus and relikt are both ERA, with Kaktus being designed into the armour outer layer rather than add on.

Is there a chance the tank will also have a 3-plane stabilizer like all other western tanks to complement the autotracking system?

Certainly possible, but not strictly necessary.

is the whole newgen AFV project delayed or just the boomerang?

They said the problem is with Boomerang, which means the medium and light wheeled vehicle design. There is no single new generation AFV project as such as it will include an armata, kurganets, and two boomerang models as separate complete AFV families.

Do you think its possible we'll see an armata prototype by the end of 2013?

There is no obvious reason for them to show it, but I am sure the makers will want to reveal their products... there will be a lot of pride there... remember these guys have been putting up with sht from experts for the last 20 years about how Russian tanks are inferior... blah blah blah.

What in gods name is 3 plane stabilizing?

Tanks older than t-72 have fully stailized guns.

X2

Even some WWII Soviet tanks had stabilisation systems including the multi turret monstrosities like the T-35.

Personally I think a diving top attack missile with a combined MMW radar and IIR seeker with fire and forget capability would be much more valuable than adding a plane of stabilisation to the gun mount.

The T-90M introduced the ANIET system of electronic fusing where the new fuse is attached to standard 125mm HEFrag rounds. When a target is detected its distance is determined via laser rangefinder and a ballistics computer calculates the flight time to that range. As the HE round is loaded it passes through a fuse setting system that sets the fuse to detonate above the target. The round is loaded and can be fired to a point above the lased target where it will explode.

Generally however air burst ammo is mainly for artillery, but even standard 40mm under barrel Russian grenades have an air burst capability... and have done since the early 1980s.

I would expect they are working on new tube fired anti tank missiles and will continue to do so.

2-plane stabilization functions only in the vertical (and thus compensates for bumps and dips and such, keeping the gun and it's sights level), while 3-plane stabilization stabilizes the gun in the horizontal as well (which is important when traversing a slope, or slewing the gun

Unless the world of physics has changed vertical stabilisation is stabilisation in one Plane. The second plane of 2 plane stabilisation is the horizontal.

Soviet tanks had vertical and horizontal stabilisation of gun and commander sights since the T-10.

The question being asked is that if vertical and horizontal stabilisation is 2 plane stabilisation, what is 3 plane stabilisation?

Note Russian and Soviet tanks can already fire accurately on the move, so what exactly is the extra complication and expense of adding a plane of stabilisation going to achieve?

BTW I just looked it up and the main benefit of 3 plane stabilisation is to allow manual loading while moving cross country. The gun is stabilised and the breech is attached to the gun, but the turret and crew compartment is bouncing around as the vehicle moves cross country. Obviously trying to manually load a 20+kg round into a stabilised breach that is moving in respect to everything in the turret is tricky so the third plane of stabilisation compensates for forward and backward motion of the breach to make the breach and load tray and easier target for the loader to place live rounds.

Utterly pointless when your vehicle has an autoloader.

There is the vertical plane.

And the horizontal plane.

Thats 2d stabilization. There are no other planes, unless you have invented a 3 plane gun that can predict where the enemy will be based on quantum mechanics.

Exactly... the gun barrel elevates on one plane... up and down, the turret turns in one plane horizontal... left and right.

The only other plane is forward and backward and the only time the gun will move backward or forward is under recoil... no point in stabilising against that.

For every tank in a heavy brigade there are dozens of other vehicles, which in the armata concept would need to be armata based.

The CFE treaty basically allows Russia to have 6,000 tanks... the CFE treaty is not being observed at the moment by Russia because they and I think the Ukrainians and Belarus are the only ones who have actually signed the new agreement, but when planning forces and force structures they will likely build around the CFE treaty till it is clear it is fully dead. The CFE treaty was useful for Russia because it was a limiting tool for the size of military forces in Europe at a time when Russia did not have money and the west seemed to have plenty.

Based on the assumption they will plan for 6,000 MBTs in western Russia we can probably split that down to a 20/50/30 split, which in my opinion would be 20% heavy brigades, 50 percent tracked and wheeled medium brigades, and 30% light wheeled brigades.

I would suspect, due to lower cost including purchase costs and running costs that the 50% medium brigades will likely be divided into 30% wheeled and 20% tracked, so that 60% of the armed forces of Russia will be wheeled forces... being 30% of the total from the medium forces and all of the 30% of the light forces.

I have nothing to back all this up, this is just my opinion, but having lots of mobile.

Putting that into real numbers if we take the total of MBTs of all types as 6,000, with 20% Armata, 20% Kurganets-25, 30% Boomerang-25, and 30% Typhoon, then we are talking about approximately 1,200 Armata MBTs, 1,200 Kurganets-25 MBTs, and 1,800 Boomerang-25 MBTs, and 1,800 Typhoon MBTs.

Obviously each Brigade will be made up of a lot more vehicles than just MBTs so production numbers will be much larger than this, but I would expect the lighter vehicles should be able to be produced within 5 years, and I would expect making a couple of thousand heavy vehicles will take a few years too, but I would say that by 2025 there should need to be any T-90s left in service unless they want to keep a reserve.

The point is that they will likely build an entire brigade of vehicles and then train up a brigade and put those vehicles in service at once... a Brigade at a time likely with the important brigades first. Likely the western brigades will get more wheeled vehicles while Siberian units will likely get more tracked vehicles depending on the terrain they will operate on.

It is important not to fall into the trap of thinking that an armata is a tank, the kurganets is a BMP and a boomerang is a BTR and the Typhoon is a BRDM-2. From the Specs the Kurganets and Boomerang will have similar levels of armour and fire power so the choice between them will be what sort of terrain will they be used upon.

Because that is the role it will perform within the unit.

Western countries will likely designate it a light tank, though with NERA and APS and modern camouflage equipment like Nakidka, and other hard and soft protection system a Kurganets light tank model might have similar protection levels to upgraded T-62/55 level tanks, and perhaps even very early model T-72s.

They will have the same gun with the same ammo with the same unmanned turret and all the same sensors and displays and other equipment as the armata MBTs. They will be half the weight and obviously not be as well protected, but should be much more mobile and deployable.

I guess their new structure makes the MBT term obsolete as they are going back to the heavy, medium tracked and medium wheeled and light wheeled tank terms. Of course the light wheeled Typhoon tank vehicle might be too light even for the low recoil 125mm gun of the Sprut and could be armed with a 45/57mm gun as an anti armour weapon along with Kornet-EM ATGMs like the IFVs of the heavier units.