[Official] Armata Discussion thread #4

UVZ began work on a tank-robot on the alternative "Armat" chassis T-72

UVZ is developing an assault robotic complex on the chassis of the T-72B3 tank. He must maintain his fighting capacity after hitting 15 RPG grenades. Platform "Armata" for the Ministry of Defense was too expensive

https://www.rbc.ru/politics/08/08/2018/5b62d8979a794742d5e293fd

Very interesting article:

What is included in the complex

Combat vehicle No. 1 with a mass of up to 50 tons with a D-414 125 mm cannon (with a truncated barrel of 4000 mm) with a 22-shot loading machine, a Kalashnikov tank machine with a 7.62 mm caliber, a bulldozer blade and an all- anti-tank means of cumulative action.

Combat machine No. 2 with blocks of launchers RPO-2 "Shmel-M" and auxiliary 7.62 mm PKTM machine gun, a blade and a set of all-purpose protection against manual anti-tank means of cumulative action.

Combat vehicle No. 3 with a combat module of two 30-millimeter automatic guns 2A42 (ammunition up to 1000 rounds), 7.62 mm PKTM and RPO-2 "Bumblebee", a blade and a set of all-round protection against manual anti-tank means of cumulative action.

Combat vehicle No. 4 with a 220 mm NURS type МО.1.01.04M (16 thermobaric shots with an effective area of ​​25,000 sq. M.), 7,62 mm PKTM, a dump and a set of all-round protection against manual anti-tank means of cumulative action.

To manage the robotic tanks, it is proposed to create a highly mobile remote control point also on the basis of the T-72B3 chassis with a set of all-round protection against manual anti-tank means of cumulative action. It is assumed that each robot will be able to control a platoon of combat vehicles within a radius of 3 km. The maximum speed of robots with remote control is 40 km / h.

In addition, it is planned to create a special BTR-T for the security group also based on the T-72B3, which will provide for the deployment of eight people on board.

ARMATA PRICE:

According to the source of RBC in the Ministry of Defense, in 2016 UVZ planned to sell the first batch of Armata tanks (about 100 cars) for 450 million rubles. per unit, but the military department managed to reduce the price to 320 million. At the same time, the cost of one T-72B3 tank in 2016, according to UVZ , was about 79 million rubles.

Cancelling ARMATA
Borisov only said they wont flood the Russian army with them...  Just that.

UZV maintains the production of t-14 as stress by contract.
Ural 9 didnt perform that bad

Also Uran 9 didn't just perform bad, it performed miserably, every single person involved went on record about it
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From today:

The problems of the Uran-9 complex identified in the SAR will be eliminated

Earlier, it was reported about the loss of remote control, the problems in the running gear of Uranium-9 and the problems with the use of weapons installed on it.

In fact, during the combat use of the machine nothing fatal happened. These unmanned systems are still at the very beginning of their development, so it was amazing if the first time everything turned out smoothly.

https://vpk.name/news/223800_vyiyavlennyie_v_sar_problemyi_kompleksa_uran9_budut_ustranenyi.html

...Platform "Armata" for the Ministry of Defense was too expensive...

...That is why they Will purchase 100 until 2020...then they Will choose how much more they need...not if they want... just how many

ARMATA PRICE:

According to the source of RBC in the Ministry of Defense, in 2016 UVZ planned to sell the first batch of Armata tanks (about 100 cars) for 450 million rubles. per unit, but the military department managed to reduce the price to 320 million. At the same time, the cost of one T-72B3 tank in 2016, according to UVZ , was about 79 million rubles

So in other words, for the price of the $2 billion "loan" they made to Ukraine which will never be paid back they could afford 387 Armata. Or, for the current monthly budget surplus of $4.16 billion they could afford 800 Armata.

Clearly, the powers that be are very concerned about A) Future economic realities as multiple US Senators are calling for Iran style sanctions to be imposed on Russia and for Russia to be labelled a "state sponsor of terrorism". B) Misplaced priorities

calripson wrote:ARMATA PRICE:

According to the source of RBC in the Ministry of Defense, in 2016 UVZ planned to sell the first batch of Armata tanks (about 100 cars) for 450 million rubles. per unit, but the military department managed to reduce the price to 320 million. At the same time, the cost of one T-72B3 tank in 2016, according to UVZ , was about 79 million rubles

So in other words, for the price of the $2 billion "loan" they made to Ukraine which will never be paid back they could afford 387 Armata. Or, for the current monthly budget surplus of $4.16 billion they could afford 800 Armata.

Clearly, the powers that be are very concerned about A) Future economic realities as multiple US Senators are calling for Iran style sanctions to be imposed on Russia and for Russia to be labelled a "state sponsor of terrorism". B) Misplaced priorities

In war time, money means nothing. Since it isn't exactly war time, they wont spend all their earnings on tanks, especially brand new tanks not really proven yet. So I can see reluctance. Add to that, they are not really afraid of US sanctions because they know in end it wont amount to anything. See how EU, regardless what US is pushing, is pushing back so they can continue their dealings with Iran? It would just mean more business opportunities with others for Russia and Russia's continuing re-orientation of its economy away from export.

Anyway, back to main concept at hand - upgraded T-72's do have a lot of potential, and I think there are two things going on here

1) Russia is looking at reducing costs in military while having still modern force, so that saved money is used later if in need.
2) They are putting further pressure on Uralvagonzavod to reduce costs even further.

There are probably other options here. But ultimately, Borisov noted in the past the importance of Armata. He wouldn't change his opinion so fast. So there is something else and I think it is to strong arm.

Recently, other major Russian manufacturer of Tornado MLRS system is being sued by Russian MoD. And Russia also saved 4B rubles from bad deals with other MiC. So there is still shakeups going on in the MiC in Russia. Uralvagonzavod was saved recently in financial terms. Kurganmashzavod is bankrupt as is so that is why no real orders for their systems either. There is plan since last two years to merge the two companies to make an armor holding, but they cannot do that until they resolve kurganmashzavod debt, which wont happen for until at least 2019. By then, then can they merge the two companies and the ball starts to roll. They pumped a lot of money into Uralvagonzavod but due to bad management in the past, it still was a loss leader.

I guess its better to restructure a company first before mass purchases and production.

I would find it rather odd then.  Cause the amount of money they have allocated and that has been approved is a lot.  So where will all that money go?  Will they just sit on it?

Anyway, UVZ is planning layoffs of up to 15,000 people.  But there is little info as why cause it was stated that there is no plans for cutbacks in terms of orders and currently their production is at 100% due to demands:

https://vpk.name/news/223810_uvz_gotovit_massovyie_uvolneniya.html

What one person stated was due to purchase of robotics and closure of some previous facilities that no longer needed.

And why now? why get shafted now? when not so long ago, they were on a spending spree, even during sanction era and when the economy was going down, not up? Why would they bother shafting their own armed forces now?

As stated, they have a surplus in budget already per month.

So either something does stink to high heaven, or everyone is actually taking 1 statement and making their own articles about it - which is exactly just that - one statement blown up into hundreds of different articles all pointing to the same thing.

PapaDragon wrote:
Scam if there ever was one.

Why is this scam not catching Putin's attention? Are his hands suddenly tied now? 

Borisov would have to be part of it then or the kingpin of the theft. Cause FSB is involved now in all procurement. And I doubt everyone is stealing, that just sounds like some shitty myth.

I have a feeling it has more to do with major issues in the MiC and cost overruns that is pissing off the mod so they are making "cut backs" till they fix the cost overruns.

FWIW, a robotic T-72 variant makes perfect sense.  Once the technology is developed to build a reliable RC MBT/ACV, conversion of traditional manned vehicles to RC is the next logical step.  Add a processing core, sensors for situational awareness, interfaces into imaging systems and targetting, servo controls to replace driver and gunner inputs, etc  etc.  Don't know why peeps would be surprised about this, except the usual Chicken Littles who run around in a flap screaming that the sky is falling...

Russias defense is best served by an insurmountable nuclear strike capability and a robust economy that is resilient to Uh'Murikkkan skullduggery and buttfukkery.  Conventional forces only need to be able to project adequate deterrence to national borders, and to conduct limited/focused expeditionary actions  where needed in the near abroad.  Everything else needs to be justified on a cost-benefit basis and NOTHING should prevent responsible economic and financial management.  

The last thing Russia needs is to allow herself to be goaded into financial overstretch and ramping up unnecessary mass production of wunderwaffe, when a limited number is all that is required to ensure Russia remains equal or ahead of the technological development cycle.  Let the Uh'Murikkkanz throw away their national wealth on pointless gold-plated nonperforming weapons simply to enrich the private MIC owners with taxpayer money (while deferring the cost to future generations).  FFS, the US deficit is greater than the entire "defense" budget, ie its all on credit.  Russia only builds what she needs and can afford.

I'm just going to throw this out there but Russia has a planned budget till 2027 of 19T. In that, per year, they have a planned set budget. This year, it's planned set budget is over 2T rubles. Something like 2.5 - 2.8T Rubles. And that comes even when they didn't expect $5B per month revenue growth.

So the money exists. The demand is there. So what is it exactly? They aren't overspending. So they must be underspending.

That article about robot T-72 variants is bogus btw.

Well actually that sort of thing is not new... there is a history of older vehicles being relegated to other duties like engineer vehicles.

The Soviets have had underwater engineer vehicles that can be remotely piloted to find good crossings in large deep rivers when needed.

So the idea of making existing vehicles remote control is not really a big stretch.

The fact that the Armata family is going to be fairly large and include a full range of vehicle types yet is not going to replace every Russia tank is important to bring up.

Most divisions will have Kurganets and Boomerang platforms with Kurganets and Boomerang tanks which will be lighter and cheaper and rather more mobile.

Armata tanks are like Su57s... they have Su-35s and MiG-35s too. Making 2,000 Su-57s is not going to happen (except exports of course), just like making 6,000 Armata tanks is not going to happen either.

A person with a minimum technical knowledge knows that unmanned technologies are and will emerge by the low technological end of the military armament.

As every person can see, UAVs, as aircrafts, are fairly poorer and less advanced than even a MiG-21. These UAVs are built because there are not previous old platform of as low technological level to robotize. Also there are cases of robotization of old aircrafts, like the MiG-21 and several older models. For land unmanned weapons this second way is likely to have bigger development.

If something, and despite the almost or total exhaustion of older tanks in Russia, I would say that the T-72 seems too good, too modern still for robotization.

Instead, and taking into account the likely exhaustion of other older warfare (BMD-1, BMDP-1 or BRDM-2) in the short/mid-term, the BTR-D, 2S9 and BMD-2 are very strong candidates for robotization.

Seems to me if Armata is actually cancelled rather than delayed we should be seeing a new big order for T-90s soon.
Just upgrading T-72s & reactivated T-80s doesn't seem like a long term plan unless the budget is really in poop.

No one said it will be cancelled.

I hope that Russia has got too much along with Armata to cancel it. The only new generation MBT in the world. Also, no need to hurry and press it into service. Finish the development and prepare all that is needed for serial production.

Can someone point me to the words cancelled? All I read was will not be produced en mass.

I dunno. English is my only language. But to me there is clearly a difference