[Official] Armata Discussion thread #4

Cancelation of Armata is pure unfiltered BULLSHIT!

Russia use it's good stocks of good tanks! Why not upgrading older tanks? Of course it will cost money, but they will have huge quantities of modern tanks nearly immediatley. To produce large numbers of Armata will takes decades.

Armata is the future platform for tanks! And they will build 100 to 2020 (only 3 years), that is the half of Germany's MTB fleet! After older tanks are upgraded, Armata will come, after 2020 in larger numbers.

I'm optimistic Upgrade old stuff, then build new ones!

Upgading T-72s, 80s and 90s to make them more capable is not a bad idea, however it is wrong to sacrifice T-14 procurement just because of this, Armata is the backbone of Russian Army's future tank force. I really hope this is just some poorly made article. I know Russia has no infinite resources so they have to priorities their needs, but the shift to hightech and innovative weapon systems needs to keep moving forward.

Huh. James must have missed most recent comments. But anyway, its been 100 for some time because it has to go through all trials. Russia isn't rushing to accept anything. After the 100, it will be about 100 or so tanks a year if full production testing goes as planned. Armata program is fine. Reason why they are upgrading old tanks should be obvious to everyone. But I guess it missed most people - the west has been gearing up for war against Russia. If it happens or not isn't the point. Point is Russia has to ha e appropriate number of equipment, modern equipment here and now to deal with it. Armata isn't going anywhere. It will be built in numbers. Just not in short period of time.

Well that isn't new..just typical stereotype.. Russian build cheap.. when they build something sophisticated they won't be able to afford it. PAKFA and other projects are subject to veeery similar thing.

Armata isn't even all that expensive. These upgrades are just very cheap. But Armata is roughly maybe $1M more per tank than T-90A. In end, it will be built. Its just that like you said, stereotyping. Funny thing is, Russian military budget is far more enough to purchase these tanks rather en mass. The thing is, if you can spend $400M to upgrade a bunch of tanks, that is a lot of tanks as $400M is a lot especially when upgrading.

Russia isn't NATO. It will produce what it needs and how it will need it.

Armata is ideally the new system. Rushing to produce them en mass leads to mistakes, like Mistakes of the Su-35 initially. So they will go through tough trials till they get it right.

Media sensation would state that Russia is broke, cant by Armata's, etc etc etc. Which is all far from the truth. Reality is, it is that it will produce what it needs and will keep testing till most bugs are dealt with.

Respectable Jane's was suggesting that Russia was resigning from T-14 (and Su-57 too) you believe but when
respectable BBC was informing about Russian economy in shambles and same level of respectability Reuters about Russians bombing only civilians and opposition in Syria you didn't I wonder why?

miketheterrible wrote:Russia isn't NATO.  It will produce what it needs and how it will need it.

Armata is ideally the new system.  Rushing to produce them en mass leads to mistakes, like Mistakes of the Su-35 initially.  So they will go through tough trials till they get it right.

Media sensation would state that Russia is broke, cant by Armata's, etc etc etc.  Which is all far from the truth.  Reality is, it is that it will produce what it needs and will keep testing till most bugs are dealt with.

I can completely agree: now relatively cheap upgrades. Thorough testing is one of reasong second is that similar to T-14 tanks can appear in 2030. Why to force mass production now? Not better to wait also then economy goes faster up?

Janes has little cred...

Plans change.... that is the nature of planning.

I would think that upgraded vehicles that can be sent to Syria or simply used for training would be rather more use than scrap metal.

They have stated they will only scrap about half of those vehicles they were planning to scrap.

The number of 6,000 tanks is amusing because that was the CFE limit for european Russia... would be funny if instead of scrapping that extra 6,000 they upgraded them and sent them to the far east or far north as reserve forces.

Either way, this would not effect the Armata programme... or the Kurganets programme, or the Boomerang programme.... all of which will include tanks or gun platforms.

The tank model does not determine the outcome of a battle. The skill of the tank operators and their support in the larger unit does.
You can see a couple of knocked out Deashi T-90s by SAA T-72s. So upgrading old T-90s and T-72s and T-80s is the totally
correct and intelligent thing to do. Anyone who infers from this that the T-14 is "dropped" is either malicious or clueless. But
build 2000+ T-14s is not that important. More important is the development of 100% secure communications and EW capability.
The portable anti-tank weapons we have seen in Syria are a game changer. No tank is safe from them so being able to deal
with this is important and not just throwing a fancier tank in the line of fire.

kvs wrote:The tank model does not determine the outcome of a battle. The skill of the tank operators and their support in the larger unit does.
You can see a couple of knocked out Deashi T-90s by SAA T-72s.

Well this is debatable to a long extent kvs.

While, in facts, is surely true that crew's trainining/proficiency and division-to-brigade level support respresent primary elements in achieving victory on the field in combined mechanized operation both in COIN and in high-end conflicts , MBT's models drammatically influence the outcome of those battles often in a truly decisive way.

The few T-90 and T-90A of domestic production (and even the older T-72B always of domestic production) have shown directly on the battlefield in Syria,even when operated by the same low proficiency SAA crew, a level of performance both in terms of lethality than, much more, survivability incomparably higher than the export legacy SAA's T-72s, that had suffered enormous losses in the past four years even when involved in less "exposed" positions on the battlefield.

Much MoD analysts have identified the "injection" of those few domestic-built T-72B /T-90 on the first line of all the major ground operations of the last year and half in Syria as one of the most crucial element allowing the sudden and sharp shift of the equilibrium in SAA's favor on the ground war.

Those few T-90/T-90s was practiclally present in the very first line of the most important ,deep and Dangerous operations; continually exposed to the potential action of enemy ATGM teams ,a situation that with the export legacy T-72s operated by SAA would have caused losses (both repaireable that not) measured in the hundreds.

In those conditions the combinmed effect of "Айнет" system (allowing the stand-off destruction of entire ATGM teams before the engagement was initiated) and, on the protection side, integrated PS "Штора" and ДЗ Контакт-5 (both of domestic version) have drammatically depreciated ,up to the next-to-irrelevance, the presence of the enemy ATGMs.

I expect you use the same criteria exposed in this comment to analyze the collection of real insults exposed in the comment of this link, that M Zakaharova and myself received.

Will look at it now.

Well this is debatable to a long extent kvs.

You can look at the very weak tanks the Germans used to take much of europe and suggest those with the correct tactics can beat anyone using the wrong tactics but equipped with better armed and better armoured vehicles, but there is more to it than that.

Despite being poorly armed and poorly armed the Panzer 3 and panzer 4 were optimised for the correct tactics that the Germans used sob effectively.

put german troops in a two man Char tank and despite having a better gun and much better armour they would not have been anywhere near as successful.

tactics don't work as well with substandard equipment, but good tactics can hide major faults in bad equipment.

If you are fighting in a flat desert with superior night vision and air control... fight at night and pound them with air power during the day to minimise your losses.

Mindstorm wrote:

kvs wrote:The tank model does not determine the outcome of a battle. The skill of the tank operators and their support in the larger unit does.
You can see a couple of knocked out Deashi T-90s by SAA T-72s.

Well this is debatable to a long extent kvs.

While, in facts, is surely true that crew's trainining/proficiency and division-to-brigade level support respresent primary elements in achieving victory on the field in combined mechanized operation both in COIN and in high-end conflicts , MBT's models drammatically influence the outcome of those battles often in a truly decisive way.

The few T-90 and T-90A of domestic production (and even the older T-72B always of domestic production) have shown directly on the battlefield in Syria,even when operated by the same low proficiency SAA crew, a level of performance both in terms of lethality than, much more, survivability incomparably higher than the export legacy SAA's T-72s, that had suffered enormous losses in the past four years even when involved in less "exposed" positions on the battlefield.

Much MoD analysts have identified the "injection" of those few domestic-built T-72B /T-90 on the first line of all the major ground operations of the last year and half in Syria as one of the most crucial element allowing the sudden and sharp shift of the equilibrium in SAA's favor on the ground war.

Those few T-90/T-90s was practiclally present in the very first line of the most important ,deep and Dangerous operations; continually exposed to the potential action of enemy ATGM teams ,a situation that with the export legacy T-72s operated by SAA would have caused losses (both repaireable that not) measured in the hundreds.

In those conditions the combinmed effect of "Айнет" system (allowing the stand-off destruction of entire ATGM teams before the engagement was initiated) and, on the protection side, integrated PS "Штора" and ДЗ Контакт-5 (both of domestic version) have drammatically depreciated ,up to the next-to-irrelevance, the presence of the enemy ATGMs.

         

To complement this as a response to kvs.... it's due to the reasons he very much listed that the Russian Army needs T-14s. Better armour, better gun, better networking, an APS built for it...... there is no way to spin that T80s,T90s, few T-14s > T-14s in the thousands. Russian's tank corp would be severely improved with T-14s in large numbers. The current upgrades are not qualitative enough.

I think the only scenario where that type of logic works is in the F-35 program to an extent.

Is the T-14s turret final or is it still being improved? Will it get more horizontal active protections systems to protect the side and rear?

Not sure if anyone already pointed this out but it has 4 pods of upper hemisphere active protection systems on to of the turret 2 traversable and 2 fixed in the vertical position.

Also will the Armata get more ERA?

The-thing-next-door wrote:Is the T-14s turret final or is it still being improved? Will it get more horizontal active protections systems to protect the side and rear?

Not sure if anyone already pointed this out but it has 4 pods of upper hemisphere active protection systems on to of the turret 2 traversable and 2 fixed in the vertical position.

Also will the Armata get more ERA?

Turret itself is pretty final and if they do make alterations it is unlikely to be noticeable from the outside because what you see on the outside is just external ''package'' or shroud to be more accurate.

And it is very well protected but you need to keep in mind that because this is unmanned turret (weapon's station actually) it does not require as much protection.

Main risks when turret gets hit is crew getting injured/killed or munitions catching fire. Those two problems are eliminated here.

Crew is in protected capsule and machinery in turret is much tougher than human body so if anything does get trough it's less likely to cause damage. Any sensitive parts inside would have their own protective casings.

I munitions do catch fire entire turret will be automatically flooded with fire extinguishing chemicals like halon. You can't use this on normal tanks because those chemicals are toxic but here it's not a problem because there is nobody in the turret.

As for ERA it's already there and plenty of it. It is not so noticeable because this tank, unlike it's predecessors, is designed to look good as well so ERA tiles are built to look flat and pretty. But they are there just zoom in on a good photo of front part of Armata and you will see the lines between tiles.

In fact it would actually make sense to purge the entire turret interior with nitrogen.... it makes up 70% of the earths atmosphere so it is easy to obtain, but is totally inert and would even reduce corrosion issues as it would remove oxygen from the equation.

Needless to say I rather suspect they will want to make Armata in brigades, so a conventional brigade wont just get its T series tanks replaced with Armata based tanks and its BMPs replaced with Armata IFVs (ieT-15).

Of course this will likely delay getting the vehicles into service as every armata vehicle type will need to be ready, so they might start with hybrid units that still use BMP and MTLB based support vehicles.

Hard to say.

Ideally they would create a complete division equipped only with armata based vehicles and replace an existing div with this new armata div.

It all depends on how far on they are with all the different vehicle types.

They will be working on at least 3 and probably 4 vehicle bases for each vehicle type... ie the missile based SAM vehicle will be TOR for 2 or 3 of the 4 with perhaps the light vehicle family using SOSNA-R perhaps as a much lighter system.... the electronics and sensors and systems and weapons will be standardised as far as possible across the armata, kurganets, boomerang, and typhoon, so development would be optimised so making 50 new vehicle types for a division based on 3-4 different vehicle platfoms... which is easier than making 150 to 200 different vehicles on 30-50 different vehicle platforms.

PapaDragon wrote:

The-thing-next-door wrote:Is the T-14s turret final or is it still being improved? Will it get more horizontal active protections systems to protect the side and rear?

Not sure if anyone already pointed this out but it has 4 pods of upper hemisphere active protection systems on to of the turret 2 traversable and 2 fixed in the vertical position.

Also will the Armata get more ERA?

Turret itself is pretty final and if they do make alterations it is unlikely to be noticeable from the outside because what you see on the outside is just external ''package'' or shroud to be more accurate.

And it is very well protected but you need to keep in mind that because this is unmanned turret (weapon's station actually) it does not require as much protection.

Main risks when turret gets hit is crew getting injured/killed or munitions catching fire. Those two problems are eliminated here.

Crew is in protected capsule and machinery in turret is much tougher than human body so if anything does get trough it's less likely to cause damage. Any sensitive parts inside would have their own protective casings.    

I munitions do catch fire entire turret will be automatically flooded with fire extinguishing chemicals like halon. You can't use this on normal tanks because those chemicals are toxic but here it's not a problem because there is nobody in the turret.

As for ERA it's already there and plenty of it. It is not so noticeable because this tank, unlike it's predecessors, is designed to look good as well so ERA tiles are built to look flat and pretty. But they are there just zoom in on a good photo of front part of Armata and you will see the lines between tiles.  

I think it still needs 360 degree active protection and more hardkill tubes as for the upper hemishpere that is already adaqate. Personaly i would up the passive armor to 1200mm effecctive thickness but that is not realy nesasary since nato lack any rounds that can pen 1000. Also indirect fire ATGMS capable of top attack annd anti helicoter roles that can also explode to kill soft targets would be nice.

Hard to say with the 125mm rounds but the 152mm calibre gun launched missiles should have plenty of space for optics and systems to allow smart performance and excellent penetration... improvements in datalinks with UAVs should allow new levels of performance without excessive costs...

A diving top attack weapon with a calibre of 152mm should have amazing penetration performance... perhaps even stand off detonation so it could explode from 50m distance and penetrate 600-700mm of armour which would be plenty of penetration for a top attack weapon and with a standoff firing distance that would allow it to fire outside the range of modern APS systems...

152mm 2a83 could fit multipurpose AT/AA/explosive missile with 20km or more range and could also fire tactical nuclear missiles while also crushing the hopes of nato tank designers to make a tank that can survive Russian tank rounds although you might want a quickloading mechanism like on the Kolitsiya SV to replenish the ammo.

Its 152mm HE shell would also be useful in urban warfare for blasting fortified buildings like the Red Army did in the great patriotic war with the SU/ISU-152 assault guns but it should also have a 30mm autocanon since some targets just don't need a 152mm shell (technicals trucks armored cars/APCs and so on) and since it has radar a 30mm and 7.62mm combonation for the RWS could automaticaly engage helicopters and missiles since Tunguska and Pantsir cannot get too close to the front lines due to lack of protection.

Will there perhaps be an air defense variant of the Armata that can get onto the front lines and protect the tanks from planes incoming missiles and would also shed infantry?

An armata division will eventually consist of vehicles on the armata platform... so the engineer vehicle. the ambulance vehicle, the recon vehicle, the gun and missile AD vehicle and the missile AD vehicle will all be Armata based vehicles.

The MBT, the IFV, the APC, the self propelled artillery, the mortar carrier, the command vehicle... in existing divisions these vehicles are mostly light vehicles based on the BMP or BTR or MTLB... like the ACRV-1 command vehicle is based on the MTLB, or the MSTA artillery vehicle based on the T-80, or the various engineer vehicles based on various other platforms.

In an Armata division all the vehicles will be Armata based, so the missile and gun AD vehicle in an Armata div will be an Armata chassis with Pantsir-SM mounted on it... the missile only AD vehicle in an Armata division will have TOR... not much different than from today but all vehicles with the same tank level armour and tank level mobility.

Armata Pantsir-M will replace Tunguska and Armata Tor will likely replace the current TOR. They will be able to operate everywhere the other armata platforms can operate that is the point of a family based approach.

I very much agree that with the eventual adoption of the 152mm calibre main gun is going to create issues... as the isreali experience shows even a 120mm gun means often targets in urban combat appear where the main gun is too much gun, so a 60mm mortar is carried to engage lighter targets to allow more targets to be engaged... they can carry several 60mm mortar bombs in the space of one 120mm round.

Looking at the old model of the BMPT with the 120mm gun/mortar, it had a 57mm automatic grenade launcher.

I believe on one page somewhere in this forum someone mentioned it had a very powerful HE round for it.... comparable with a 76mm HE shell... and as such that would be and ideal secondary support weapon because 152mm rounds are only slightly wider than 125mm rounds but they are much longer and take up rather more space.

Another potential option would be to have a sabot case that you slip inside a smaller propellent charge and a short very unaerodynamc projectile... a direct fire HE round for a tank wont be used at more than 10km or 20km, so there is no need to have an enormous propellent charge or some great big long heavy shell... it could be a little stumpy projectile 1/5th the length of a normal 152mm HE shell would be.... so you could fit 5 projectiles and 5 propellent charges in the space of a normal round. The round will be 5 times less powerful than a full power round but for many targets even 1/5th of a round will be plenty enough.

IN terms of anti armour performance even a 1/5 long HEAT charge will be potent because the power of a HEAT round is based on its diameter and not its length...

putting a smaller he shell is a sabot will not decrease the size that much and the T-14 has a carousel outoloader so the length of the round does not matter and i dough a 1/5 load of HE will have sufficient power to destroy a fortified building in 1 hit like a 152mm HE round would I heard that there was a case in Afganistan where the terrorists had fortified some oil refinery or something and 122mm shells were not enough and they ended up using 240mm Tyulpan mortars.

As for AA platforms the Tunguska and Pantsir are light platforms and it seems a bit wasteful to mount a light AD armament on a heavy vehicle I would expect the Armata AD to have heavier armament than the Pantsir like 2x 30mm gast guns + 2x 57mm + 8 short range SAMs and maby some ATGMs for self defense.

The use of the Pantsir missiles is very likely in Armata platforms. They have good range, they are able to shut-down every type of aircraft of the adversary, and are small and agile to use. The question of the size will be likely solved with the amount of Pantsir missiles ready to use (bigger in bigger platforms).

Even the rockets of the BM-21 are usable in Armata platforms, but with loaders for 100 rockets (roughly) instead of 40.

The use of Tor missiles in Armata (Kurganets, Bumerang and BMD-4M) platforms is a lot less likely since they have lower range and performance. The Tor missiles likely are not modern enough for the new platforms, despite to be a very capable system today is unlikely to remain 50 years from now (the approximate life of the new units of the new platforms). The SA-15 Tor systems will very likely remain in the units with T-90, BMP-3 and older platform weapons.

The second option most likely to be mounted in the Armata, Kurganets, Bumerang and BMD-4M platforms would be the S-350. It would make a good combination with the Pantsir mounted on the same platforms.

putting a smaller he shell is a sabot will not decrease the size that much

No, what I mean is that a HE shell has a specific length to width ratio so it does not work to just shorten rounds.... you have to make them narrower too,but if you make them narrower and shorter they wont go down a 152mm calibre barrel.

A short stubby propellent case with a fraction of the propellent of the APFSDS rounds and a shorter narrower HE round.. say 70-80mm calibre with a sabot to fill the barrel width will take up rather less room... you could make them5 times shorter than the full sized 152mm rounds so for each autoloader position you could store 5 rounds.

i dough a 1/5 load of HE will have sufficient power to destroy a fortified building in 1 hit like a 152mm HE round would I heard that there was a case in Afganistan where the terrorists had fortified some oil refinery or something and 122mm shells were not enough and they ended up using 240mm Tyulpan mortars.

If the target is a heavy fortified stone or concrete building then standard 152mm HE rounds can be used, but for a sniper or MG position in one room of a building you could fire an 80mm calibre HE shell with say 6-10kgs of HE and a delay fuse so it penetrates the position before detonating.

As for AA platforms the Tunguska and Pantsir are light platforms and it seems a bit wasteful to mount a light AD armament on a heavy vehicle I would expect the Armata AD to have heavier armament than the Pantsir like 2x 30mm gast guns + 2x 57mm + 8 short range SAMs and maby some ATGMs for self defense.

Tunguska is 34 tons... it is hardly light. The AD Armata will likely have Pantsir-SM with 40km range SAMs... it might have 12 or perhaps 16 missiles but I think the vehicle would be big enough to also carry a 57mm cannon instead of 30mm cannon in the anti aircraft role. They might separate out the missiles and cannon due to the size of the 57mm gun. TOR will likely remain a missile only system though the armata version might have no turret and a large superstructure with fixed AESA modules and 32 or more ready to launch missiles in vertical tubes. The standard TOR in the latest model has 16 missiles in the turret ready to fire so I would expect the Armata version to carry more.... possibly in a towed trailer with vertical launch missiles ready to fire.

The use of Tor missiles in Armata (Kurganets, Bumerang and BMD-4M) platforms is a lot less likely since they have lower range and performance. The Tor missiles likely are not modern enough for the new platforms, despite to be a very capable system today is unlikely to remain 50 years from now (the approximate life of the new units of the new platforms). The SA-15 Tor systems will very likely remain in the units with T-90, BMP-3 and older platform weapons.

The new TOR missiles are smaller and are carried in larger numbers on the original platfom (16 instead of . Range is also increased to about 15km.

The TOR missiles use sophisticated electronics and sensors on the platform but are cheap simple command guided missiles of very high accuracy.

Using fixed phased array antennas for search and tracking a large platform like Armata could carry large numbers of missiles which don't need to be pointed in the direction of the target before launch... one vehicle could cover 360 degrees continuously and rapidly launch missiles to defeat all sorts of targets.

The TOR is intended to engage incoming munitions as well as enemy aircraft so its range is not an issue at all... larger SAMs can engage enemy aircraft before they launch, while TOR can deal with any munitions that have been launched very very effectively.

The second option most likely to be mounted in the Armata, Kurganets, Bumerang and BMD-4M platforms would be the S-350. It would make a good combination with the Pantsir mounted on the same platforms.

S-350 is an Air Force/Navy/air defence force system. the Russian Army has BUK-M3 with 6 heavy long range missiles per vehicle and S-300V4 above that.