[Official] Armata Discussion thread #4

Militarov wrote: "armatovskoy", interesting term, i am suprised its not "Abramovski" or "Aramamski", "Sidevindorski", those are terms they always loved to use.

Werewolf wrote:

Militarov wrote: "armatovskoy", interesting term, i am suprised its not "Abramovski" or "Aramamski", "Sidevindorski", those are terms they always loved to use.

i doubt that the term is "armatovskoy" that is in russian like refering or mentioning something about armata so the sufix ovskoy is added.

franco wrote:There in his arsenal and twin launchers for ATGM "Kornet". This will allow the "Boomerang-BM" to fire simultaneously on two air targets. including the unmanned aircraft.

GarryB wrote:Would comment on the 30mm vs 23mm question.

First to be clear the 30 x 165mm ammo is a much more powerful round than the 23 x 114mm round.

The 30 x 165mm round is a high velocity round effective in anti armour and HE use, and the 23mm round is like an enlarged 14.5mm HMG round with a much smaller shell case with much lower velocity.

The 30mm would be best as a high velocity anti armour weapon as used on BMP-2 and BMP-3, but current and near future NATO IFV wont be penetrated by 30mm from effective battlefield ranges so the shift will have to be up to 57mm calibre weapons.

Now the 57mm cannon shells are huge so it will mostly be used for anti aircraft and anti armour use... so what do you use against enemy infantry or soft ground targets?

A 23mm cannon is a low velocity round with a small compact case so you can carry lots of rounds but the HE projectile is rather heavy and effective so it would be useful as a replacement for a 14.5mm HMG against soft targets... its 23mm HE shells being much more powerful because of their extra weight and size.

Note the 23mm Shilka and ZU-23 round is a completely different round with a high velocity 23 x 152mm shell that takes up more space... the HE projectile is the same however so it is effective but gets there slower.

Note the Mi-35M2 with the 23mm chin turret uses 23 x 114mm rounds and it would make sense to replace the 14.5mm guns in IFVs and APC with this 23mm round as its HE effectiveness is excellent with a small compact low recoil round.

Garry B wrote:

I would think 1,100m/s for full calibre high velocity rounds, and perhaps 1,600m/s for APFSDS rounds, with standard rounds travelling at maybe 900m/s or so.

Garry B wrote:
The very rear mounted turret of the T-15 is because it does not penetrate the hull... with a 57mm gun it would need to be mounted much further forward like the 125mm gun turret of the T-14.

Cyrus the great wrote:
The new 125mm gun is really impressive and apparently has rounds that are just as potent as the 140mm were in testing. So if it can penetrate 1000mm of armor what kind of penetration can we expect from the 152mm? I remember reading Garry's post about the tremendous advantages that binary liquid propellants would provide and so I was wondering if this is something that the Russians might consider for the Armata. Like all things, binary liquid propellants would present its own disadvantages such as complexity, barrel corrosion and toxicity. Is it something worth pursuing?

PapaDragon wrote:
I red that even without penetration 152mm shell has enough kinetic force to take out any target, basically squashing it like a paper cup depending on the size.

Most probably they will keep it simple, even without binary propellants this thing is already an overkill.

Werewolf wrote:ISU-152 can kill and tank today regardless of its armor i doubt they will bother making 152mm rounds to overengineered or complicated they could use simple full-bore solid penetrators like in WW2 but they will have to make them Sabots to have the velocity to keep the time to neutralize targets as low as possible aswell enhance hprob.

GarryB wrote:The obvious problem with propellent is that it is designed to generate pressure rapidly and burn fast and clean... that means it has a lot of oxygen and a lot of fuel.

The advantages of a binary propellent are that you can break the propellent down into separate compounds that on their own might not even burn let alone explode. They might be very toxic and certainly would not be safe materials to swim in, but by splitting them into two or more separate compounds you can make their storage easier and much safer... you could have storage tanks located throughout the tank because even when hit they wont burn or explode... it would only be when mixed together in the right ratio that the mixture becomes highly explosive... and it should only be mixed together in the breach of the main gun.

this greatly reduces the risk of explosion on a vehicle and also makes loading much easier and quicker.

The piping used for the internal barrel cleaning system could be adapted to deliver propellent even during firing to add mass and volume to the propellent during combustion...

Regarding the use of a 152mm main gun... it would certainly be a thumper... but EM and plasma offers a few ways of boosting performance... note liquid propellent tends to be more powerful than solid propellent...

Another advantage of 152mm shells is the extra volume allows for larger shaped charge warheads as well as more room for things like rocket motors and guidance fins etc etc.

OminousSpudd wrote:Captain Stupid here, can I ask as to why 152mm (or equivalent calibre) direct fire guns were phased out in the first place if they were/are so effective at MBT destruction?

Cyrus the great wrote:

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That is incredible. I would hate to be in opposing tanks because it would just be the Armata and burning wrecks. I read up on the ISU-152 and what its low velocity rounds were able to do to German tanks, so imagine what 152mm rounds traveling at 1750mps could do to the Abrams and other modern MBTs. A binary liquid propellant set up would prevent sympathetic detonations even if the Armata was penetrated from the side and so I think that it's something worth investing in.

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Militarov wrote:

GarryB wrote:Well certainly with no crew in the turret/ammo storage area it would be useful to purge the air with nitrogen so any spark or burning material quickly is suffocated.

The ISU-152 was about the only Soviet vehicle that could defeat the Elephant and Tiger tanks at Kursk... they didn't do it by penetrating the armour, as shown in recent conflicts even a 50kg IED can destroy an M1 Abrams and kill its crew... a 152mm shell weighs in the range of 40-45kg and travels at about 900m/s.

I would suspect the standard full bore 152mm shell will travel at a higher speed but 1,7km/s would be optimistic for a full calibre round.

Of course with a range of about 70km the 152mm shell from Coalition would have a decent muzzle velocity I would expect.

The simple fact is that a 152mm shell is very heavy and slow to load and the only vehicle that used it in a turret during WWII was the KV-2 which was very powerful but not very popular.

When the T-34 entered service most anti armour guns on tanks were 37mm or 45mm or 50mm calibre long barrel high velocity weapons with poor or no HE capacity.

the 76.2mm gun was a revolutionary design because it mixed both HE power and armour penetration perfomance... before it tanks were either anti tank vehicles with a 37mm or 45mm high velocity anti armour gun and a machine gun, or a short barrel 76.2mm gun firing HE shells... the former anti armour and anti enemy infantry and the latter anti infantry/fortification.  The 76.2mm gun of the T-34 allowed decent penetration of armour and a decent HE shell for other targets... it was the first real MBT.  Good mobility, good armour, good gun.

PapaDragon wrote:

Cyrus the great wrote:

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That is incredible. I would hate to be in opposing tanks because it would just be the Armata and burning wrecks. I read up on the ISU-152 and what its low velocity rounds were able to do to German tanks, so imagine what 152mm rounds traveling at 1750mps could do to the Abrams and other modern MBTs. A binary liquid propellant set up would prevent sympathetic detonations even if the Armata was penetrated from the side and so I think that it's something worth investing in.

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Another problem mitigated by the unmanned turret. Because there is nobody inside, they can use more violent and toxic but also more effective firefighting chemicals than on the older models where they would poison the crew.

Crew is safely tucked away in the capsule so they can use whatever unholy firefighting toxin they want in order to put out the fire instantly and prevent ammo cook off.

Cyrus the great wrote:

PapaDragon wrote:

Cyrus the great wrote:

.....................................

That is incredible. I would hate to be in opposing tanks because it would just be the Armata and burning wrecks. I read up on the ISU-152 and what its low velocity rounds were able to do to German tanks, so imagine what 152mm rounds traveling at 1750mps could do to the Abrams and other modern MBTs. A binary liquid propellant set up would prevent sympathetic detonations even if the Armata was penetrated from the side and so I think that it's something worth investing in.

.....................................

Another problem mitigated by the unmanned turret. Because there is nobody inside, they can use more violent and toxic but also more effective firefighting chemicals than on the older models where they would poison the crew.

Crew is safely tucked away in the capsule so they can use whatever unholy firefighting toxin they want in order to put out the fire instantly and prevent ammo cook off.

That's true and I guess nitrogen could quickly extinguish any fire within seconds and so I guess a binary liquid propellant is not necessary and would make more sense from a technical and financial level. Gold platting can be quite dangerous to any military.