[Official] Armata Discussion thread #1

Every weapon has a countermeasure and EMP is no different... electronics can be isolated from EMP effects just like a faraday cage will protect you from the dangerous effects of lightning.


Makes you wonder what protects an EMP weapon from being disabled by another EMP weapon...

The price of Armata development and production line has been alocated 54 bin Rubles

The new tank Shoigu not afford

After all, T-14 of 201x is similar to T-64 in 196x. Something have a breakthrough in technology and very powerful, but also very expensive initially.

In 196x-197x Russia had to build a cheaper alternative (T-72), in 2014 probably T-90AM upgrade will used in the role similar to T-72

I don't think he meant it literally...

The T-14 could be the expensive tank, but the technology for it is all new and will be shared with the lighter vehicle families.

Mass production over time will reduce costs and upgrades will further improve performance.

the T-14 Armata vehicle wont have vulnerable tank ammo and the crew will be the safest things on board the vehicle.

It will have sensors to detect enemy fire and locate individual shooters and the type of weapon they are using.... that technology is already on BTRs and light vehicles.

It will likely have new equivalents of Kaktus ERA, Shtora EO protection suite, Arena APS, Nakidka screening kit... it will likely have combined thermal and digital optical, and MMW radar sensors giving an all round picture of threats and targets around the tank at all times...

It should be very capable.

kvs wrote:

The war in the Donbas has shown that the T-64 was and is a POS.  Small penetrating fragments often detonate the powder and blow off the turret.
The T-72 has the shells and powder laid out horizontally thereby reducing the cross section and risk.   There are likely some other details as well.
The wiki sings the praises but reality says something else.

What do You expect to see even if Ukrainians were using T-90AM result would be the same. There are pictures of Ukr army positions destroyed by artillery as it was away from direct fighting. There were no cracters. All tanks had catastrophic kills but light vehicle weren't as bad damaged.
T-64 was a neat tank and the best one in his time, but it's not adequate against threats it's facinag today, nor the way its being employed . I'm interest in the quality of those tanks as they seem to have rips were they shouldn't. Bad quality of metals or work could be the case.

Zivo wrote:Less of a "MBT", more of a Boomerang with a 125mm gun.

"Protection" is relative to the class of vehicle. Heavy brigades will be used in high risk environments, light vehicles will be used in low risk environments. Keep in mind that Russia is planning on deploying Active Protection on a scale never before seen, which will vastly increase the survivability of Boomerang and Kurganets.

It looks flawed concept to me.

For example, if there's "a high risk" object, like town, in need to be taken, those entire light brigades might be completely useless for that. As a result, specific "mono unit" for specific task would be management nightmare.

Now compare this to current infantry, armored brigades with various numbers of mixed vehicles. MBTs (descendants of heavy tanks), and IFVs (descendants of light tanks) make brigade more universal.

So, I predict units from those future brigades will be merged very often.
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Regular wrote: I'm interest in the quality of those tanks as they seem to have rips were they shouldn't. Bad quality of metals or work could be the case.

Interesting. Would you like to provide some photos?

etaepsilonk wrote:

Zivo wrote:Less of a "MBT", more of a Boomerang with a 125mm gun.

"Protection" is relative to the class of vehicle. Heavy brigades will be used in high risk environments, light vehicles will be used in low risk environments. Keep in mind that Russia is planning on deploying Active Protection on a scale never before seen, which will vastly increase the survivability of Boomerang and Kurganets.

It looks flawed concept to me.

For example, if there's "a high risk" object, like town, in need to be taken, those entire light brigades might be completely useless for that. As a result, specific "mono unit" for specific task would be management nightmare.

Now compare this to current infantry, armored brigades with various numbers of mixed vehicles. MBTs (descendants of heavy tanks), and IFVs (descendants of light tanks) make brigade more universal.

So, I predict units from those future brigades to be merged very often.

Have you actually been paying attention to this thread? It's already been established at ad nausem that 'high risk' 'Grozny' style environments would be handled by Armata brigades, medium and light brigades such as the VDV would have the predominate number of Kurganets, Boomerang, and Typhoon vehicles. If it's only 'a dangerous object' as opposed to and entire city, than ground based attack drones and aerial drones could handle the job safer and cheaper than any other alternative...

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Have you actually been paying attention to this thread? It's already been established at ad nausem that 'high risk' 'Grozny' style environments would be handled by Armata brigades, medium and light brigades such as the VDV would have the predominate number of Kurganets, Boomerang, and Typhoon vehicles. If it's only 'a dangerous object' as opposed to and entire city, than ground based attack drones and aerial drones could handle the job safer and cheaper than any other alternative...

Yes, if we talk about months-long siege battles. But imagine the situation:

A light brigade is holding a frontline sector (infantry is good at defense). Suddenly, intel reports that enemy tank platoon popped-out in nearby village. HQ decides an attack should be made to eliminate the threat...

Well, obviously,advancing light force might make some undesirable results, such as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Phase_Line_Bullet

So tank attack might be preferable

And what would be more practicable, if a tank detachment from infantry brigade is sent (like it would probably have been done with a current structure) or rather an entire freaking heavy brigade?

etaepsilonk wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Have you actually been paying attention to this thread? It's already been established at ad nausem that 'high risk' 'Grozny' style environments would be handled by Armata brigades, medium and light brigades such as the VDV would have the predominate number of Kurganets, Boomerang, and Typhoon vehicles. If it's only 'a dangerous object' as opposed to and entire city, than ground based attack drones and aerial drones could handle the job safer and cheaper than any other alternative...

Yes, if we talk about months-long siege battles. But imagine the situation:

A light brigade is holding a frontline sector (infantry is good at defense). Suddenly, intel reports that enemy tank platoon popped-out in nearby village. HQ decides an attack should be made to eliminate the threat...

Well, obviously,advancing light force might make some undesirable results, such as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Phase_Line_Bullet

So tank attack might be preferable  

And what would be more practicable, if a tank detachment from infantry brigade is sent (like it would probably have been done with a current structure) or rather an entire freaking heavy brigade?

If were not talking about 'month long sieges' ground based drone attack vehicles would be much cheaper, mass produced quickly, and ultimately much safer (with far less political blowback). There's already plenty of those already in the works, and it'll end up proving to be much better than a mixed weight class brigade.

Are you suggesting that every vehicle needs MBT protection levels all the time?

A medium brigade fighting a conventional enemy brigade for instance... the medium brigade has 25 ton vehicles protected from a range of threats with vehicle armour protecting from a range of enemy vehicle mounted weapons... both guns and missiles.


Perhaps one should ask the question, can a tracked or wheeled 25 ton vehicle with advanced ceramic armour and NERA, and of course Shtora, APS that will stop APFSDS rounds, and Nakidka to make lock ons difficult for thermal guided weapons like Javelin going to be protected...

Lets take a US unit... 120mm smoothbore on tanks and 25mm autocannon on IFVs and TOW II ATGMs and Javelin ATGMs. Assuming the APS is effective and the 25mm autocannon is not effective all the vehicles in a Kurganets unit should have reasonable protection from anything a US equivalent could direct at it even though its MBT is only 25 tons and presumably has a fire and forget tube fired ATGM.

In most operations... and we are not really considering WWIII though it should apply there too... the enemy will have a fairly conventional force of MBTs and IFVs and APCs and a multitude of other light vehicles in every unit. Previously there was no heavy unit so the vast majority of vehicles are light armour or soft skin vehicles... even light brigades equipped with Typhoon will be better armoured overall than this, with medium units having much better average armour even if modern enemy MBTs will have better protection all the other vehicles will be better protected than all the other vehicles in the foreign unit.

The whole concept is to reduce the logistics tail and prevent a situation where vehicles with lighter protection can be picked off leaving the heavier vehicles isolated.

Mixing the vehicles ruins both reasons for creating vehicle families in the first place.

magnumcromagnon wrote:
If were not talking about 'month long sieges' ground based drone attack vehicles would be much cheaper, mass produced quickly, and ultimately much safer (with far less political blowback). There's already plenty of those already in the works, and it'll end up proving to be much better than a mixed weight class brigade.

But we're not discussing "manned vs. unmanned" in case you didn't notice.
The discussion was about application of different manned vehicles in battlefield situatons. If you so insist, current unmanned vehicles depend too much on (jammable) datalinks to replace manned vehicles fully.

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GarryB wrote:Are you suggesting that every vehicle needs MBT protection levels all the time?

No. I'm suggesting that giving some heavy armor to combat units is never a bad idea.

A medium brigade fighting a conventional enemy brigade for instance... the medium brigade has 25 ton vehicles protected from a range of threats with vehicle armour protecting from a range of enemy vehicle mounted weapons... both guns and missiles.

25 ton vehicles will have less survivability than MBTs.

Perhaps one should ask the question, can a tracked or wheeled 25 ton vehicle with advanced ceramic armour and NERA, and of course Shtora, APS that will stop APFSDS rounds, and Nakidka to make lock ons difficult for thermal guided weapons like Javelin going to be protected...

Yes, of course. But we are talking about percentage, not whether or not surviving javelin is possible in the first place. In case of the former, heavy armor is greatly favored.

Lets take a US unit... 120mm smoothbore on tanks and 25mm autocannon on IFVs and TOW II ATGMs and Javelin ATGMs. Assuming the APS is effective and the 25mm autocannon is not effective all the vehicles in a Kurganets unit should have reasonable protection from anything a US equivalent could direct at it even though its MBT is only 25 tons and presumably has a fire and forget tube fired ATGM.

Again, you're using absolute logic: either it's effective or not effective. That's not how it works.

In most operations... and we are not really considering WWIII though it should apply there too... the enemy will have a fairly conventional force of MBTs and IFVs and APCs and a multitude of other light vehicles in every unit. Previously there was no heavy unit so the vast majority of vehicles are light armour or soft skin vehicles... even light brigades equipped with Typhoon will be better armoured overall than this, with medium units having much better average armour even if modern enemy MBTs will have better protection all the other vehicles will be better protected than all the other vehicles in the foreign unit.

Vehicle armor became better, that's true. But so did their guns.
Nowadays, even jeeps can be equipped with 30mm cannons against which typhoon's armor won't stand a chance:
http://www.army-guide.com/eng/product3602.html

The whole concept is to reduce the logistics tail and prevent a situation where vehicles with lighter protection can be picked off leaving the heavier vehicles isolated.

Mixing the vehicles ruins both reasons for creating vehicle families in the first place.

Alternatively, light-only units in offensive or meeting engagement pasture can suffer significantly higher losses than they'd be able to inflict against even outnumbered enemy MBT platoons. On the other hand, chasing those around with expensive (and rare) heavy-only brigades will be logistically much more draining.

No. I'm suggesting that giving some heavy armor to combat units is never a bad idea.

During WWII the Soviets had mixed tank formations with T-26 light tanks, T-34 medium tanks, and either T-35 or KV-1 heavy tanks. Operationally they found that the T-26s would arrive first and get wiped out, the T-34s would arrive next and slug it out with the enemy, and the KV-1s and T-35s arrived late and sometimes not at all.

the purpose of the vehicle families is to unify mobility and protection and firepower.

there is no tank today that is invulnerable to enemy fire... new guided tank fired rounds will likely make that even more true of near future vehicles.

Smaller, lighter more mobile vehicles have a place... in a modern US army unit there are Abrams tanks but there are also much thinner skinned vehicles which are vulnerable.

Having a unit with all MBT level protection could be used against the enemy front line with lighter vehicles forming breakthrough forces.

Equally the MBT forces could be used in specific situations where heavier armour is useful, but most of the time engaging enemy forces from standoff ranges should mean heavy armour protection is not needed.

25 ton vehicles will have less survivability than MBTs.

With an APS fitted and Nakidka and of course NERA and Shtora-2 their survivability could be very high to a range of weapons on the battlefield.

Of course nothing is invincible... even a MBT, but the new designs will take crew survivability to new levels.

In case of the former, heavy armor is greatly favored.

Is it?

The replacement proposal for the Abrams is a 40 ton plastic tank that gives up armour protection for mobility... strategic and tactical.

Again, you're using absolute logic: either it's effective or not effective. That's not how it works.

No it isn't... in real combat so far the enemy wont have anywhere near the competency of the US Army even if it has some of the weapons it uses. In such cases the new Russian vehicles should cut through the enemy like the US forces in Desert Storm, but in the ensuing COIN operations might take some losses. Of course the important factor is that the new vehicles will likely protect Russian soldiers rather better than any other vehicles operational anywhere else including NATO.

Nowadays, even jeeps can be equipped with 30mm cannons against which typhoon's armor won't stand a chance:

A bit dangerous fitting a 30mm cannon to a jeep when even small arms fire can defeat you.

A UAV jeep with Kornet could destroy that jeep from 10km with the HE version of the Kornet-M

Alternatively, light-only units in offensive or meeting engagement pasture can suffer significantly higher losses than they'd be able to inflict against even outnumbered enemy MBT platoons.

A light brigade wont be a few jeep like vehicles fizzing around. If they spot an enemy MBT they will be able to deal with it directly by themselves or with supporting artillery and air power.

Hell a large MBT force will likely draw attention from the local Iskander unit or Smerch unit.

On the other hand, chasing those around with expensive (and rare) heavy-only brigades will be logistically much more draining.

The heavy units wont be scattered randomly. They will have situations where they will prefer to use them and criteria for their use.

I guess what GarryB want to say is that, with the apperance of more advanced APS system like ARENA-xx and Shtora-xx, light vehicles have more capability in defending itself from anti-armour weapons.

We can have a thick and durable shield, we also can have the ability to prevent the enemy from opening fire, or evade/neutralize the enemy's projectile.

Utilize many types of defense method and wise tactics enable us to create a lightweight vehicle with okie-dokie defense capability.

And yet active and passive protection systems are not as widely distributed, but anti tank weapons on other hand are. Even IDF has small number of APS when they had plans to even equip jeeps and helicopters with it.

etaepsilonk wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Have you actually been paying attention to this thread? It's already been established at ad nausem that 'high risk' 'Grozny' style environments would be handled by Armata brigades, medium and light brigades such as the VDV would have the predominate number of Kurganets, Boomerang, and Typhoon vehicles. If it's only 'a dangerous object' as opposed to and entire city, than ground based attack drones and aerial drones could handle the job safer and cheaper than any other alternative...

Yes, if we talk about months-long siege battles. But imagine the situation:

A light brigade is holding a frontline sector (infantry is good at defense). Suddenly, intel reports that enemy tank platoon popped-out in nearby village. HQ decides an attack should be made to eliminate the threat...

That light brigade will no doubt include its own anti-tank battalion or independent company (or at the very least each motor-rifles battalion of that brigade will have its own AT platoon), with AT vehicles based on light platforms such as the Typhoon, and/or the Kornet-D Tigr vehicles, and also with some equipment such as Kornet-EM ATGM teams & truck-towed Sprut-Bs, etc... - they'll be the ones to handle the threat in that case.
They'll certainly be 'lighter' vehicles than the MBTs, and cheaper - but as they're specifically designed to deal with tanks, no doubt that's what they'll do and do well.

The expensive and fewer heavy 'tank' forces (i.e. Armata vehicles) should be reserved through punching through the enemy lines, or places of intense urban combat, etc... using your heaviest armoured vehicles, designed for mechanized assaults, in a defensive role - is a waste. You have far cheaper but just as deadly AT, anti-personnel, anti-air equipment for exactly that task instead.

And yet active and passive protection systems are not as widely distributed, but anti tank weapons on other hand are. Even IDF has small number of APS when they had plans to even equip jeeps and helicopters with it.

I would expect that all the new vehicles will have both passive and active defence systems... they likely will treat it like they are treating the Ratnik super soldier system where components are not treated separately but fully integrated as a system.

In this case you can justify expensive components like MMW radar when it is not just used for the APS system, but is integrated into the fire control system for detecting targets in bad weather and at night at long range.

Interesting fan-made cgi presentation of the perspective BMPT version of Armata:



...I see one inaccuracy, the 30 mm cannon of the left side of the turret is not present on the miniature models that were presented to Rogozin. If I remember correctly the left side had a 40 mm Balkan grenade launcher.

Edit: The another inaccuracy that I see is that the main gun looks like a high pressure gun, where as the BMPT Armata model shown to Rogozin had a low-medium pressure 120 mm gun mortar barrel. The last inaccuracy is in the title of the video; Armata is not a tank but a heavy vehicle platform for heavy armor brigades.

^^^looks nice, 1 thing i dont like though is that it has too much armor on the turret.

collegeboy16 wrote:^^^looks nice, 1 thing i dont like though is that it has too much armor on the turret.

It's basically a fan-made cgi model of the BMPT Armata miniature model shown to Rogozin.



...I think the extra sloped armor is to protect the extra ammo in the turret bustle, and not the crew which will be protected in a armored capsule.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

collegeboy16 wrote:^^^looks nice, 1 thing i dont like though is that it has too much armor on the turret.

It's basically a fan-made cgi model of the BMPT Armata miniature model shown to Rogozin.



...I think the extra sloped armor is to protect the extra ammo in the turret bustle, and not the crew which will be protected in a armored capsule.

i think the second vehicle next to armata is a self-propelled 120 mm mortar/cannon

George1 wrote:

magnumcromagnon wrote:

collegeboy16 wrote:^^^looks nice, 1 thing i dont like though is that it has too much armor on the turret.

It's basically a fan-made cgi model of the BMPT Armata miniature model shown to Rogozin.



...I think the extra sloped armor is to protect the extra ammo in the turret bustle, and not the crew which will be protected in a armored capsule.

i think the second vehicle next to armata is a self-propelled 120 mm mortar/cannon

Actually it's widely believed (confirmed possibly?) that the Armata BMPT shown in the photo has a medium pressure 120 mm rifled mortar cannon, to the left the Kurganets with sloped armor looks like it has a 57 mm cannon. Also I found another inaccuracy in the CGI video, apparently the CGI artist confused the BMPT Armata's GSH-6-23 vulcan with the GSH-12.7 that you would see on the Soviet Mil Mi-24 Hinds from the 1980's.

i think the second vehicle next to armata is a self-propelled 120 mm mortar/cannon

I don't think the BMPT and the other vehicles next to it on the table are to scale, so direct comparisons of gun calibre etc are not useful.

I like the short vid, but suspect the designer of the cgi has decided that the weapons are a 125mm smoothbore main gun, a 4 barrel gatling 50 cal MG as from a model D Hind, and of course the 2A42 30mm cannon.

I rather suspect this is actually a MBT Armata model.

The heavy sloping of the turret armour is good as it maximises the effect of lighter armour.

The BMPT model we have seen seems to have a rather different armament... the main gun is a 120mm gun/mortar as used on Vena support vehicles, which would be excellent for direct and indirect fire support and also delivering guided heavy shells to targets at 12km or more.

the large gatling gun would be the 23mm cannon on the BMPT as the 50 cal would just lack HE power and range, while the large calibre tube on the other side of the main gun in my opinion is not long enough to be a high velocity 57mm gun as would be fitted to an IFV.

In my opinion it is more likely a 40mm grenade launcher or 57mm grenade launcher for targets that don't warrant a 120mm round and 23mm cannon rounds are too light to effect.

As a MBT load out the one in the video should be good enough for a range of targets and would allow the vehicle to operate in a range of environments and engage a variety of target types that a normal tank would be vulnerable to.

Of course the 12.7mm gatling could easily be replaced with a 23mm gun in 23 x 115mm calibre as the ammo wont take up that much more room, yet will offer a vast increase in performance in the HE fire power it can deliver. The much higher rate of fire can be tempered with shorter bursts, or fixed round number bursts to avoid wasting ammo. The multiple barrels should prevent barrel overheating and more targets to be engaged with less wear on the barrels.

The current Hind has a twin barrel 23mm cannon using the same ammo, so replacement with a twin barrel version is another option that is lighter, yet is still a formidable weapon also used by other Army assets.

Russia's Armata Battle Tank to Go Through State Trials in 2016

So i guess they'll be showing it on Victory day 2015 before state trials?

AbsoluteZero wrote:Russia's Armata Battle Tank to Go Through State Trials in 2016

So i guess they'll be showing it on Victory day 2015 before state trials?

Remember the T-95 was completed and supposedly passed state trials before it was cancelled, the MBT Armata takes many things from the T-95, meaning their's less trial and error and MOD and the ground forces understand what to expect.