[Official] Armata Discussion thread #1

hehe,top attack HEAT rounds would make the BMPT anti-everything- even armor is not safe.

I don't believe the GRAN mortar round is HEAT, I think it's HE fragmentation. I could be wrong though.

Not that it matter's, it's a large projectile, and it will be targeting the thinnest armor on the tank.

I know its a stupid question, but will noncombat logistics vehicles be based on an armata/kurg, etc., like say a fuel tanker.

collegeboy16 wrote:I know its a stupid question, but will noncombat logistics vehicles be based on an armata/kurg, etc., like say a fuel tanker.

It’s actually a very technical question. I can provide a tiny bit on this topic.

In the past Russia has, of course, built fuel tankers based on fully armored chassis of their tanks, but at least officially, these type of tankers are “not” in service. (Off the top of my head, I can’t remember the designations of any of these vehicles, but one for the airborne troops, based on the 2S25’s chassis is called Armeriya.)

At the same time, just to give an example of the standard conditions of deployment, a normal 31-tank, T-72 based, tank battalion, organic to a tank or mechanized infantry brigade, has five organic 5000-liter fuel trucks and four organic 4200-Liter fuel trailers.

The theory, in a highly-simplified form, is as follows. The fuel originates in the strategic depth of the country at, let’s say, a refinery. It has to eventually be delivered to a tank which may be penetrating the tactical or the operational depth of the enemy. At the battalion level, tankers with the tactical mobility of a tracked chassis and a tank-like armor protection would be very useful, but at the refinery the strategic mobility of a truck-based tanker is optimal. Also the tracked tanker with the tank-level armor protection itself consumes a lot more fuel than the truck-based one, and this aspect also has to be factored into the equation.

In short, ideally there would be many battalion types for different combat action requirements. For example there would be battalions of the following types.

1- The normal type described earlier.
2- The battalion type with POL vehicles that only consist of tracked tankers with tank-level armor protection. The truck-based tankers would then only exist at the brigade and higher levels.
3- Various battalion types that are somewhere in between the previous two types.

How you go about which option or combination of options to take would depend on the capabilities you require and the resources you are willing to expend.

Some typical talk I noticed that the armata will use the gsh-6-23 wondered Where'd took the supplies which the real advantage

Keep in mind that Armata is not one vehicle, but a family of vehicles based on a modular heavy chassis.

The use of the GSh-6-23 is in reference to KBTM's proposal for the BMPT based on the Armata chassis.



The main gun on the model is actually a 120mm rifled gun/mortar used to lob HE, similar to the assault guns of WWII. The GSh-6-23 would be used to suppress infantry, ATGM crews, light vehicles, etc.

can be a 125mm

The consensus is that it's a 120mm gun. IIRC the card in front calls it a "combat artillery platform" or something like that.

The gun is an advancement of the 2A80 used on Vena.

I thought it was 10mil rpm where it found?

I've seen 12k, 10k, and 8k cited as the rounds per minute for this weapon.

Since it's electrically detonated and gas operated, it can really be whatever they set it too. It could also be set to fire in 10 round bursts, or any other increment they want.

It's almost a guarantee it will be toned down for the BMPT.

Much of what has been said here but still an interesting read because of many interesting poinst all at the one place (I marked those points according to my opinion)








Status and prospects of armored vehicles in the Russian Armed Forces in an interview with Business Guide said Deputy Chairman of the Military-Industrial Commission Oleg Bochkarev.






Business Guide: For several years, the military claimed that the available quantity of armored vehicles is enough. What is more promising - modernize its old patterns or-buy new?

Oleg Bochkarev: Speaking of the existing fleet, the earlier it was really Resize - for example, in service with us was about 25 thousand tanks, there were a total of more than 26 types. Imagine how difficult it serve?Especially now that the state does not have the problems that were after World War II, when formed a powerful armored fist. Therefore, the decision to reduce the number of vehicles and typecasting it was absolutely justified. This process was started as an ideology in 2010.

The state has such serious financial costs, laying on the development of the entire line of samples that must be mainstreamed in service by 2020. But until then how much time will pass more? A lot. A military equipment must be ready to perform the task today. Therefore, in parallel with the development of new technology and its massive purchases after 2015 conducted repair and modernization of existing equipment models. Chose the most promising, modernization and repair of which enable us to derive military equipment to modern settings. Today, such work is carried out with the T-72, with BMP-2, BTR ...Year by year, the appropriation for repairs and upgrades will go downward, and expenses for the purchase of new equipment in 2015 will grow at a faster pace. By 2020 technology will be updated by 70%.

Ministry of Defence withdrew from service of obsolete equipment. Initiated the development of all new promising models: created a new tank, new ICV, new armored personnel carriers, the new military automotive technology. Our latest development dating from the end of the 1990s. Agree that today is a very different world, completely different conditions and challenges that must be addressed. Since 2011, this work started, and today went to sprint. For example, at an exhibition in Nizhny Tagil during a private show the military leadership and the government has been shown throughout the full range of armored ground forces. See firsthand this technique will be May 9, 2015 at the parade in honor of the 70th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War.

BG: Production facilities allow you to implement the tasks?

OB: In order for the industry was prepared in parallel with the state program of armaments is the federal program the military-industrial complex. Its volume will be about 3 trillion rubles., Budget component will reach about 60%, and the remaining 40% of the company will make up their own funds. When the state invests the money in the development of production, puts certain conditions. Now the money really come into the industry, the approximate amount of investment this year amounted to about 100 billion rubles., And over the next three years this figure will be more than 200 billion rubles. Enterprises involved in the creation of armored vehicles, will get 2020 more than 250 billion rubles. But this exemplary expert evaluation.

Must take into account that the modernization of production much equipment, machines, dual-use technology. And businesses can not only produce military equipment, but also civilian products. I believe that we should not get hung up on the production of armaments and military equipment. Industrialists need to put such tasks was to diversify production. Should not allow them to sit only on such guaranteed and stable market as defense procurement - should still work in a competitive environment. There are, of course, a purely military technologies that are only needed for defense. But the creation of armored vehicles - this is basically an ordinary engineering, nothing more.

BG: How, in your estimation, the current samples of armored weapons can match world standards? It makes sense for the needs of recent purchases Defense Ministry?

OB: In my opinion, the words of the willingness to buy foreign tanks - it's more a political act, and not seriously thoughtful management step. The Russian state is self-contained and has a complete production cycle of all weapons of military equipment. Absolutely wrong when such a powerful country buys foreign equipment with its defense industry. It is possible that these statements did not reflect the military their real attitude, and were motivated by a desire spur the Russian industry. Just do not forget the military that they criticize the technique created by their performance specifications. After all, designers do not form the technical shape of the car, and just follow instructions from the customer. Today, customers have changed their initial requirements, taking the best from each of English, French, American, German tank and selecting the best options.

But do not forget about the balance, because the machine - it's a balance of characteristics. You can improve something, and you can lose more. Make it larger, for example, lose mobility, speed, cruising range on one tank. But in war there is no gas stations on the road. Now, it seems to me, the pick between the military and industrial complex is completed. Old technology is what it is: reliable, stable and most importantly, easy. What else feature Russian art - it is simple. In the battle once will follow a bunch of buttons and lights, displays and other devices. Ibid stress, adrenaline, confined space, explosions, hum ...Therefore, the simpler, the better.

Another thing is that when the military gained access to foreign technology, we saw differences that would like to see samples on Russian arms. German, British, American schools have a long tradition of tank. But they have more tanks, larger, heavier, but only because they create a more comfortable environment for the crew. They have a crew of four people, and we have the crew - three. Why? Yes, because we do tanks at a higher technological level: we autoloader instead of a fourth member of the crew. Soviet tank school - one of the strongest in the world. It is difficult to say whose technique is better as 30-40 years of tank battles in the real world was not. Recent clashes and our foreign tanks occurred long ago in the Gulf and Africa. Our technique has proved good.

BG: How has enough export capacity in the face of Russian armored vehicles BMP-3 and T-72?

OB: BMP-3 was put into service in the late 1980s, and in fact was the only armored vehicle in Russia, which was shipped abroad in the 1990s. We have 20 years ago, all exports collapsed and foreign markets present only the BMP-3. We from 1992 to 2000 sold 1.3 thousand of these machines, which is a record.Lately, this model was upgraded, and it is quite in demand. Maybe not in such large quantities as we would like, but nonetheless.

T-72 tank we do not manufacture, supply availability of those countries that want to acquire armored vehicles, but do not have serious opportunities in the military budget. This is the most massive tank in the world, close to it no car is worth. We upgraded T-72 still has a future. I think 10-15 years is not a country with a very strong economy will buy this car. In parallel, we will develop the export of the T-90 and its upgraded versions.

BG: At what stage is the project "Armata"?

OB: Made the first samples that pass the preliminary test. And it's not a virtual image on the computer, but the real fighting machine. Just need to understand that phase of art takes more than one year. Once the machine appears in the metal begin productive tests that detect flaws. Phase begins corrections design documentation being finalized this machine.

BG: When working on this project, it was believed that many developments have been taken from the T-95. Is it really so?

OB: T-95 was created in 2000, was a very good car. But the armed forces have decided to develop another model, which has received the name "Armata". We did not reinvent the wheel, from the outset to provide the "Almaty was" the best achievements that were in the T-95. What we have achieved in it, allowed to overtake our "friends" on the tank production for 10-15 years. This will reduce costs. If there is a scientific endeavor, good decisions, then it's just stupid not to take a look at the new machine. Moreover, I can say that we have unused backlogs T-95, which we hold as a bargaining chip. And at any moment we can implement these trump cards in life.

BG: "Armata" will be a unified platform on which to create the base line equipment ground troops?

OB: Absolutely. In the army a large variety of vehicles. And so we lined up technical policy to prevent manifold chassis. Unified solution can facilitate provision of spare parts, construction of infrastructure for the repair, service and maintenance. This is the target for all other manufacturers: producing military equipment, they must be based on the appropriate chassis already.

BG: What is your attitude to the wheel tanks? The Russian Defense Ministry has experienced Italian Centauro - impressions were generally positive.

OB: Today globally combat wheeled vehicles demand. Many are fighting in places where there is infrastructure, there are roads, hard ground. Over the past ten years, sales of military equipment on a giant wheel showed growth. Yes, and the military to develop this area. Usually this kind of technology was small-caliber weapons, but now there are samples and heavy-caliber weapons.

While the acquisition of military wheeled vehicles in droves for our armed forces, not the norm. First, we have no one else going to attack, we do not do special operations in Africa or Asia. And to protect the Russian special need for this technique we have. For example, our middle lane when the rain was at this mess on the wheel not proedesh. Yes and ammunition wheeled vehicles can not load a lot: it is still carrying capacity has its limitations. But the work is carried out. The exhibition in Nizhny Tagil was featured machine "Atom" with the caliber of 57 mm cannon. It's not tank gun, but not small-caliber weapons.Potential shown so works going industry itself on its own initiative making strides in this direction. But it is a question of tomorrow, not today.

That the military conducted the test machines - it's right, because they had to make sure its real characteristics. And when the tests were completed, the military came to the conclusion yourself: why?Now military ardor pougas already, but the work is not stopped, it is not just being the first number.


Interview by Ivan Safronov

http://vpk.name/news/102643_slova_o_gotovnosti_pokupat_inostrannyie_tanki__eto_bolshe_politicheskaya_akciya_a_ne_produmannyii_upravlencheskii_shag.html

GarryB wrote:

I thought it was 10mil rpm where it found?

The only weapons with a faster rate of fire in service or on the drawing board are the metal storm weapons.

The GSh-23-6 has a rate of fire of 10-12,000 rpm, though its rate of fire is often listed as 9,000 rpm mounted on the Mig-31.

The GSh-30-6 has a rate of fire of 6,000 rpm and is mounted on the Su-24 and Mig-27 and fires a much more powerful round.

As Zivo mentions Air Force weapons are electrically fired so rate of fire and burst length can be precisely controlled.

The very high rate of fire is not actually a problem as long as the number of rounds per burst can be controlled... which they should be able to be.

The high rate of fire just means the rounds land in the impact area together like a shotgun blast rather than a stream.

...Except the company (Metal Storm limited) is essential going in to bankruptcy and the likeliness that the technology goes in to full production is slim-to-none...Ironically enough Micheal O'Dwyer the creator of Metal Storm turned down a $100 million from the Chinese only for his company to go in to the shitter a few years later lol! Who knows how reliable the Metal Storm technology was, we only saw demonstrations in closed, controlled, and "sterile" environments and it hasn't been shown to be battle-proven  as of yet.

GarryB wrote:The main problem is that extraordinary rates of fire only have very few practical applications.

the other issue is that the first rounds need large propellent charges to give them the same performance as the rounds further down the tube that have more time to accelerate.

Many times the most radical designs are usually the least practical, while tweaking old but proven designs usually end up being the most viable option available. Case-in-point, you have old but proven practical designs constantly being tweaked such as the Kalashnikov and the Soyuz rocket; decades old designs that are still viable even by today's standards. Then there's the radical designs that have failed to be adopted and mass produced such as the Boeing-Sikorsky RAH-66 Comanche stealth helicopter, or even Lockheed-Martin's Sea Shadow stealth ship. Here's pictures of the Sea Shadow being scrapped...oh how the mighty have fallen:

http://al-datr.livejournal.com/86259.html

It sucks to see those images.

It's too bad the US government didn't sell it with no strings attached. It would have been a fun weekend yacht.   

Zivo wrote:It sucks to see those images.

It's too bad the US government didn't sell it with no strings attached. It would have been a fun weekend yacht.   

They probably feared the Chinese getting ahold of it, anything produced expensively in the west can be produced inexpensively in the East, this is why China has trillions of dollars of trade advantage over America.

Zivo wrote:The GSh-6-23 would be used to suppress infantry, ATGM crews, light vehicles, etc.

And more likely for destroying the anti-tank missiles. I maybe wrong, but I'm convinced that a Gsh-6-23 type weapon can be a good self-defence weapon after seeing the video of an anti-tank missile fired by Syrian terrorists flying towards a SAA tank. These missile are not supersonic and take their own time to hit their target and it is clearly possible to takeout such AT/ATGM with Gsh-6-23/30 if its provided with proper optical or thermal tracking. It is better to use such weapons to target ATGM rather than waste the precious cartridges of the APS which can be preserved to be used for protection against RPGs.

Dima wrote:

Zivo wrote:The GSh-6-23 would be used to suppress infantry, ATGM crews, light vehicles, etc.

And more likely for destroying the anti-tank missiles. I maybe wrong, but I'm convinced that a Gsh-6-23 type weapon can be a good self-defence weapon after seeing the video of an anti-tank missile fired by Syrian terrorists flying towards a SAA tank. These missile are not supersonic and take their own time to hit their target and it is clearly possible to takeout such AT/ATGM with Gsh-6-23/30 if its provided with proper optical or thermal tracking. It is better to use such weapons to target ATGM rather than waste the precious cartridges of the APS which can be preserved to be used for protection against RPGs.

The chance of the GSh-6-23 being used as a CIWS is next to nil. On the BMPT it's slaved to the main gun so to aim, the entire turret has to rotate towards the target. If it was independently aimed that might be a possibility but I doubt that will be the case.  Armata is going into serial production with an Active Protection System named "Afghanistan". It's highly unlikely an APS will run out of ammo because after the first RPG, Armata will know the azimuth of the threat and will rotate the turret to face it. On the Epoch weapon station, the majority of the APS faces forward, because in theory the front will be facing the "threat zone" more than the sides or rear of the turret. The flanking APS modules would only have to work once per engagement.



Afghanistan APS is apparently able to defeat 120mm APSFDS rounds, so it'll be one hell of a capable system.

Saving ammo isn't as much of a concern as saving the vehicle itself. If a threat is detected, they'll be popping smoke, maneuvering, doing anything in their power to stay alive.

Armata may also have a Directional InfraRed Countermeasure (DIRCM) capable of completely defeating IR seeking missiles like the FGM-148. Such Systems are already used on the Ka-52 and more recently, the T-50.



It'll have plenty of tricks up its sleeve to deal with threats.

Thanks for the info Zivo.

RPG is a different matter anyway and best option is the APS. But for the anti-tank missiles, the tank will know about its approach when it gets lazed and will have its turret rotated to its direction. This was indeed mentioned (if I'm not wrong) in the brochure and info that came with the T-90MS. So in such a case the turret will rotate to the direction of the incoming threat.

When I mentioned it, I had in mind urban environment. For the open regular battlefield, the tank is more likely to have its gun facing or in the field-of-view of the incoming missile, so will be able to use the Gsh as the first option.

btw, how many cassettes do Afghanistan carry?

That being said, there's nothing that would prevent the crew from trying to use it as a CIWS. If they could see the missile coming at them a long enough range it would be possible. If Armata has automatic tracking it would be even easier.

We know next to nothing about the new APS being developed.

There's two of them "Afghanistan and "Standard". "Standard" is for the lighter vehicles. Aside for the names and "Afghanistan's" anti-APSFDS capability, the rest is classified, or I haven't seen it yet.

Shtora has a laser warning system consisting of four laser radiation sensor with directional threat detection and has been in service for two decades on the T-90. Armata's CM suite will be more sophisticated. It will likely have both MMW radars integrated with the APS and laser radiation detectors. So not only can it detect lasers prior to engagement, it can detected projectiles launched at the vehicle during the engagement. There's also this little gadget. Optic detection technology could be integrated on the gunner and commander'S EO targeting systems.

How effective is DIRCM against IIR and TI homing heads?

medo wrote:How effective is DIRCM against IIR and TI homing heads?

DIRCMs were invented because IIR seekers of MANPADS for exampe, are almost immune to conventional countermeasures like FLAREs.
Of course i don't have actual statistics but relying on developers claims it is in the figure of 8-9/10 missiles can be intercepted by such system, of course under trial tests not combat environment.