[Official] Armata Discussion thread #1

It's the same model. Look at the side profile shot. Compare the turret height to the hull height.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:The gun of the model looks a bit too long and narrow to be gun/mortar for a BMPT

So what is it then? Vuvuzela? Sure doesn't look like 2B16 and it has thermal sleeve(?) Any ideas?

I think Zivo is right. It's the BMPT version from head on

Yes, I agree with Zivo.

The heavily angled armour looks flat from the sides... from the front it looks small so the turret looks tiny.

Of course it is a model, so it could just as easily be an experimental model with a 57mm gun too, but I rather suspect the two things sticking out either side of the turret are likely the gatling gun and the grenade launcher, which makes me think it is the same model from a different angle.

The MBT will likely be similar but with a high velocity 125mm gun with the heavily angled armour to minimise the turrets profile from the front... keep in mind that the BMPT will operate in the same environment so the low profile turret will be useful on it too.

Even if you hit the turret from the front... odds are you will just hit armour plate at a very shallow angle leading to your penetrator scraping the surface of the armour instead of penetrating.

The sides of the turret are extremely angled, it's actually oval shaped, not circular, with "blades" that extend ahead of the turret ring to cover the crew capsule. The breech housing is rather thin as you can see.

Interview with Vyacheslav Halitov deputy. Director General of SPC "Uralvagonzavod" on special equipment



Has some update on Armata



Today and Tomorrow of Russian armored vehicles


http://www.echo.msk.ru/programs/arsenal/1244424-echo

question: which is better for gun artillery front or rear-mounted engine?
imo it would be front mounted one as most self propelled artillery are fired from within prepared sites anyway, and a ramp door for easy access/ reload is a nice touch.

Generally yes, front mounted engines allow a turret to be moved further back which means the gun sticks out the front less and ammo can be loaded into the rear hull instead of the rear turret which is higher and usually requires a ramp or conveyer.

For Armata the APCs and IFVs will also have a front mounted engine.

For a MBT it is better to have the engine in the rear to hide the IR emissions and to allow thicker frontal armour of better sloping.

I think the SAMs too should use front mounted engine. Tors come in mind because suddenly you would have a lot of uninterrupted
space to work with in the back. Remove the huge bulky turret- replace it with a mini turret housing only the radar sets on the front.
The rest of the space at back can now be filled with SAMs more efficiently. For Pantsir the current setup is ok. Buk too.

Tors come in mind because suddenly you would have a lot of uninterrupted
space to work with in the back. Remove the huge bulky turret- replace it with a mini turret housing only the radar sets on the front.

Then where would the crew sit?

Personally I think the best solution for TOR would be fixed Phased arrays... three of them covering 120 degree angles each... well perhaps 140 degrees each allowing for an overlap, with an optics turret on top. At the very front then the engines and behind them the crewmen, just behind them the fixed radar/optics structure covering 360 degrees, and the rear deck can just be vertical launch tubes for the missiles. If more missiles are needed then a trailer can be developed that could just be a sled with skis and light lowered wheels with lots of vertically positioned ready to fire missiles.

The trailer could be made disposable so that it could be left some where with the main vehicle driving away controlling the missiles via datalink.

The crew would sit behind the engines ofc. the mini turret behind them. Or maybe the mini turret would be placed on top of the crew compartment, in the middle part where there is no hatch. Pretty dangerous ofc. for the crew if it rotates.

collegeboy16 wrote:The crew would sit behind the engines ofc. the mini turret behind them. Or maybe the mini turret would be placed on top of the crew compartment, in the middle part where there is no hatch. Pretty dangerous ofc. for the crew if it rotates.

I think it's a little bit contraproductive to install the engine infront of the hull in any AA (SHORAD) system, exhaust could effect the optical guidance channel and since the FLIR trying always to adjust the contrast for the best visibility the engines exhausts could lower the visibility over further ranges when it tries to adjust the contrast over the entire time. I'm not particularly speaking about TOR's but overall AA systemes which use also electro optical systemes for engagement regardless if just redundant or as primary guidance solution.

Werewolf wrote:
I think it's a little bit contraproductive to install the engine infront of the hull in any AA (SHORAD) system, exhaust could effect the optical guidance channel and since the FLIR trying always to adjust the contrast for the best visibility the engines exhausts could lower the visibility over further ranges when it tries to adjust the contrast over the entire time. I'm not particularly speaking about TOR's but overall AA systemes which use also electro optical systemes for engagement regardless if just redundant or as primary guidance solution.

maybe, but the hot exhaust are likely to be diverted somewhere away from the front or even cooled a bit so this would be a minor issue at best imo.

Will the marines ever get the armata by this decade?

maybe, but the hot exhaust are likely to be diverted somewhere away from the front or even cooled a bit so this would be a minor issue at best imo.

That is the problem of an engine in the front... the exhaust has to be one side or the other, while the hot engine is in front... a hot engine deck in full view of your enemy.


Most important an engine is not made of ballistic materials and is not better than extra armour... the engine in a tank is very much similar to the engine of a truck and even light autocannon rounds will easily penetrate a truck engine.

Further penetrating it is not the worse because all the hot bits and fuel lines means a mix of fuel and heat... it is simply not something that makes sense to have in the front of an armoured vehicle.

The only exception is when using the rear is critical... like an APC or IFV with a rear ramp door.

Will the marines ever get the armata by this decade?

They will get them in time... up to four Mistral carriers plus new Ka-52K helos... they might have spent a big portion of the budget already. Of course to be honest an upgraded T-90 would probably be fine for them for a while anyway as they are not supposed to land opposed... and if they do there will be more than enough Ka-52Ks to deal with any armoured threat.

The concept of armata is more about logisitics and shortening the tail to make units more mobile.

Why do the marines of most countries always get outdated vehicles anyway even if its possible to upgrade them. I don't seea reason why the battles they fight don't need modern armor fire support especially when defending a beachhead from overwhelming regular enemy army forces which has happened in almost all amphibious landing operation in history against equal opponents.

I see no reason why the soviets didn't want to give their marines in the 1980s tanks that weren't hopelessly outdated by 10-20 years like the T-55 and PT-76(the last tanks of the soviet marines operated)

Simplicity, reliability, mobility?

Marines are meant to attack the more vulnerable parts of an enemy's defenses and from there, there are a number of ways they can be employed such as encircling enemy formations in co-ordination with attacks from ground forces on the other side, striking nearby strategic targets or establishing and then defending beachheads for further forces and supplies to come in.

If you think about it, the idea is that they won't be facing the enemy's front-line divisions, the toughest defenses and so on. If they are - then someone has made a terrible mistake. Hence the heaviest & latest tanks are less of a priority than they would be for armour and motor-rifle brigades or divisions let's say.

The second thing you'll notice is that they will have to rely on speed and mobility a lot of the time. They may have to land, gain a little ground, beat off a counter-attack and then rapidly move & out and reach their next targets before the enemy can organize and retaliate properly.
And by mobility I mean - they will landing from the sea, and it's a fair possibility that they may have to cross rivers and such in pursuit of further objectives. The entire marine unit won't have anything more than an attached engineering battalion, more likely a company; certainly not the sort of infrastructure available to the regular armour/motor-rifle units - therefore amphibious tanks and vehicles will be more of a priority and of course such vehicles are lighter; hence the light tanks.

Thirdly, as mentioned - they won't have the infrastructure and support elements available to the ground forces moving along the front with the logistics chains behind them. All the marines have is what they land with, and options for reinforcement, resupply and repair from the outside (i.e. their ships) will be limited at best; in the worst-case there won't be any of that at all.
If a tank in an marine brigade breaks down due to its sophisticated, needy engine, or it's electronic systems taking too much damage; what are you going to do? Wait for the armoured recovery vehicle? To take it to where? Each Russian Naval Infantry tank battalion, as I understand it, has it's own supply & maintenance section. A few dozen men. That's it.
Hence you need simpler, more reliable tanks. And if some break down beyond quick repair, they may have to be abandoned altogether depending on the situation. And you don't want to run the risk of abandoning your most advanced & expensive tanks.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:Will the marines ever get the armata  by this decade?

more like kurganets modified to be like efv.
[/quote]

GarryB wrote:
That is the problem of an engine in the front... the exhaust has to be one side or the other, while the hot engine is in front... a hot engine deck in full view of your enemy.


Most important an engine is not made of ballistic materials and is not better than extra armour... the engine in a tank is very much similar to the engine of a truck and even light autocannon rounds will easily penetrate a truck engine.

Further penetrating it is not the worse because all the hot bits and fuel lines means a mix of fuel and heat... it is simply not something that makes sense to have in the front of an armoured vehicle.

The only exception is when using the rear is critical... like an APC or IFV with a rear ramp door.

also with generally rear area units- rocket and tube? arties, tor?, supply vehicles etc.

also with generally rear area units- rocket and tube? arties, tor?, supply vehicles etc.

Rocket could be like TOS with a centrally mounted rocket pod mount, but tube artillery is made easier with access to the rear hull for storing ammo and propellent.

Support vehicles like transports and ambulances benefit from rear access especially for palletised loads.

Buk would be ideal for a fornt mounted engine too.
Tos for me would be better with a fornt mounted engine too- just so you can store reload rockets in the hul below the boxy rocket pod/turret

BUK has a custom designed TEL and has the engine at the rear... which suggests to me that is the best layout... they could have changed if they wanted.

With TOS the size of the missiles suggest to me reloads on vehicle would not be a viable option and the requirements for frontal armour would make me think that rear engine mount would be best.

I would suspect mortar carrier, and mine layer vehicles would benefit from front engine mounts as it frees up the rear hull for automated ammo storage systems that could be pallet loaded rapidly. Otherwise APC and IFV would obviously benefit from a rear ramp entry/exit and therefore from a front mounted engine.

Armata could take a cue from T-35A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owf2e7Xtx70

One main Gun 125 mm
Below that one 100 mm Gun
12 mm guns all over turret
ATGM x 6 Kornet

Austin wrote:Armata could take a cue from T-35A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Owf2e7Xtx70

One main Gun 125 mm
Below that one 100 mm Gun
12 mm guns all over turret
ATGM x 6 Kornet

Multi-turreted BMPT's were tried and rejected. So I doubt Armata will utilize the layout. The MBT may have a 23mm or 30mm RWS on it, but I'm probable just being optimistic.

That T-35A is badass.

I am more T-28 fan.

That tank, though still archaic, actually had some epic exploits during the late 30s and early 40s.

Zivo wrote:
Multi-turreted BMPT's were tried and rejected. So I doubt Armata will utilize the layout. The MBT may have a 23mm or 30mm RWS on it, but I'm probable just being optimistic.

a 30mm coax is more likely imo, if they are willing to try bustle ammo storage for it. Half of the Epoch turret 30mm ammo is enough.
Multi-turret BMPTs are complex, and would require another gunner. Most of the time the aux. turrets wont have anything more powerful than a GL or HMG anyway and the vehicle can effectively engage at most two targets anyway.
Oth. drone turrets that can be mounted on spare positions in the main turret would be interesting development. A simple RWS with
either GL or MG that can be controlled by datalink from outside the BMPT.