Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) tank manufacturer

Russia ripe for the purchase of armored vehicles abroad

10/14/2010 - Analysis

Russia's only manufacturer of tanks of NPK Uralvagonzavod can stay in 2011 without orders. Experts say that even a simple one year will cost technology and training. Degradation of the military-industrial complex, experts say, will force Russia to buy armored vehicles abroad. As found Browser RusBusinessNews, it will pay for defense enterprises formerly fraud and today's inability to promote their products in a fiercely competitive.

The management of OAO "NPK" Uralvagonzavod, which produces T-72 tanks and T-90, the company informed the union about a sharp decline in production of military equipment in 2011. The absence of the state defense order will entail a reduction in staff. UVZ administration intends to reorient the part of specialists mechanoerecting production to civilian production. In particular, the possibility of production of railway equipment in the "tank" workshops.

Press secretary Alexei Uralvagonzavod Zharich said RusBusinessNews that in December 2010, ending a three-year contract with the Ministry of Defence to supply the Russian army for 63 tanks a year. New order has not yet been received. Since the end and export contracts, the company's management decided that we should be ready for mass release of personnel of tank production. Managers are confident that orders for rail cars in 2011 will only grow. According to A. Zharicha, the economy revives, a growing number of carriers, making the plant can not satisfy all requests for cars. Accordingly, the released manpower will fall by the way in civil proceedings. At the state defense company, apparently, no longer counts.

Expert at the Center for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST) Andrei Frolov believes that after the three-year contract at the plant planned to produce new T-95, but the project was closed, and now UVZ is likely to be engaged in the modernization of old T-72B. Such an assumption confirmed Deputy Director General of the artillery factory № 9 Nikolay Kozlov. According to the manager of the enterprise, delivering UVZ tank barrels, with a state order issue is not resolved, and producers aim at upgrading the tanks. However, no plants and the more orders from the Defense Ministry have been reported. Consequently, the upgraded equipment plants can at your own risk.

No contracts with the military and Federal State Unitary Enterprise "Uraltransmash" - the manufacturer of self-propelled artillery units. According to Director of Marketing and Foreign Economic Affairs Nicholas Bednyakovin previous years, contracts also were not earlier than March, but then at least the end of the year was known quantity of products that is going to order the Defense Ministry in the next year. Now there is no such clarity: the numbers are called every month is different and no one can guarantee that your order will generally be because the military still undecided as to which they are preparing for war.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Defense Committee of the State Duma Viktor Zavarzin said recently that the cost of procurement of military equipment and weapons will grow next year by 25%. In 2011 will be spent 460 billion rubles in 2012 - 596 billion in 2013 - 980 billion. Separately, to be financed research and development work, the proportion of costs that the military budget of Russia has decreased somewhat, but in absolute numbers will increase from 107 billion rubles this year to 115 billion in 2011.

The rising costs of military equipment and armament explained the decision to bring the country's leadership in 2013, the proportion of the cost of buying new weapon in the general defense budget to 70%. A similar setup has led to the fact that the Russian Defense Ministry has closed a number of unpromising research and sent the released funds for improvement of ballistic missile Bulava missile carrier "Angara" and "Russia", the new satellites, fighter T-50 and some other projects .

The number of unpromising got all armored vehicles, as manufacturers of tanks and self-propelled guns could not offer anything new. Bednyakov Nicholas said that the emergence of new themes directly linked to funding. Now there is neither one nor the other, why all the previous years Uraltransmash is upgrading the same product. Update technique can be, if the share of R & D spending is at least 10% of the state order. Such claims manager, in post-Soviet years was never. What will happen to the research work in 2011, did not understand.

Experts believe that in this situation industrials largely to blame themselves. Ph.D. Michael Rastopshin has published several articles in the media, which showed that the designers of the Soviet tanks misleading state, in essence, falsifying test results. In particular, manufacturers have argued that the armor of the T-72 (which later grew to T-90) is not penetrated by foreign projectiles from a distance of 1500 meters. However, experts say, back in 1983 shooting showed that an Israeli tank M48A5 breaks the 105-mm projectile frontal armor of the T-72 at a distance of 2000 meters. Ural developers tank managed to convince everyone in neprobivaemosti their armor just because at the time of acceptance tests of T-72 used a shell which is not synonymous with foreign armor-piercing projectiles.

Tricks that have been applied in the Soviet era, today will not go. Ministry of Defence has openly stated that the T-90 - Tank outdated and useless even to upgrade. Years of work in the Soviet economy, however, interfere with JSC "SPC" Uralvagonzavod promote promising technique. In particular, the unclaimed military was already established in the market environment to support combat vehicle tanks (BMPT). According to the head of analytical department of the Institute of Political and Military Analysis Alexander Khramchikhin, managers UVZ could not lobby for this is quite a promising product in ministerial offices. It is obvious that all the new technology raises a legitimate question from the military, where and how they will use it. Leaders of the plant have not been able to explain the purposes for which created a new machine.

Lack of state orders for tanks Uralvagonzavod not kill, but the consequences will be serious for the company: skilled professionals leave, and equipment failure. According to A. Khramchikhin, everything goes to the fact that Russia will buy armored vehicles abroad. It will happen regardless of whether, according to this Russian leadership or not. There will be soon in Russia and their military vessels. Patriotic remain only aviation technology, because in this industry on R & D money has been spent productively, which predetermined high potential leaders lobbying airlines. Already announced that 2015 will be purchased 70 T-50 fighter jets and about 400 new and upgraded military transport and assault helicopters. The military also purchase Il-112 Il-476 Il-76M and AN-70.

Executive Director of the Union of enterprises of defense industry of the Sverdlovsk region, Vladimir Kukarskikh believes that specific orders will be only after the approval of the state armaments program for 2011-2020. But today it is clear that the bet is placed on the rocket-space and aviation technologies.

Such a solution, experts say, absolutely does not imply a complete renunciation of the manufacture of tanks: Melee armor is always needed. Lack of public procurement and "tank" of prospects - the defeat of managers and specialists of JSC "SPC" Uralvagonzavod, which could not operate in a fiercely competitive arms market.

Vladimir Terletsky

http://www.rusbiznews.ru/news/n936.html

The Russian military are fools.
What they should be doing is sitting down with their last company able to make tanks and talking to them about their future plans.

What has happened to date is pathetic... for a decade they promised to spend money and the Russian MIC waited for orders that didn't come.

In the last 2 years or so they actually have spent real money and their returns are not what they expected.

Perhaps it is the Russian military that needs to go to business school?

First of all nothing will happen with the promise of money.

You can't buy new tooling, or hire staff, or buy the raw materials you need to start mass production with promises.

When the money finally comes... there are probably outstanding debts to be paid off and re-equipment takes time and money, retraining takes time and money... an order for 62 tanks per year means do you keep the capacity for making hundreds a year available, or do you save a few million roubles and close off half the factory... knowing that if you get a big order next year it will cost even more to reopen it.

I was under the impression that the BMPT was designed for the Russian Army specifically to support tanks against targets tanks are not good at dealing with like in cities.
They wait till it is nearly finished and then they say they don't want it and don't know what it is for?

Just as well Venezuela has just signed a deal for modernised T-72s.

What the Russian Army should do is have a full and open (and obviously classified) discussion with Uralvagonzavod about what their plans are.
If they don't want tanks for the next 5 years well that is fine, but if they think there will still be a Russian tank maker in 5 years when they know what they want they might get a shock unless they tell that tank maker what the situation is.
The tank maker... if told, can reduce tank making capacity now to save money keeping facilities that will not be needed and diversify into trains and other areas and then in 4 years it can set up for mass production/conversion to meet the Russian Army's needs.
Otherwise waiting and hoping will waste money and possibly lead to the demise of last Russian tank making company Uralvagonzavod going the same way the Omsk factory went.

WoW that will be a shock to us; the engineering community who happen to maintain the Russian armour in high privileges

This communication issue will undermine confidence in Russian Armour too.

The simple reality is that the T-90 is well armoured.

It has a few weaknesses that were to be addressed in an upgrade that it seems has been completed for the T-72 (to make it more compatible and cheaper to operate with T-90s) so the upgrade for the T-90 can't be that far away from complete either as they are related one could safely assume. (It doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out that if you are going to upgrade a T-72 to be more like a T-90 for commonality of parts and use etc, that it would not make sense to independently upgrade the T-90 and undo all that work by changing items in the T-90 upgrade.

There seem to be mixed signals from the Russian Army... the T-90 is not good enough but its replacement has lost funding and its upgrade is cancelled?
When they cancelled funding for the T-95 they said the role of the tank has diminished and that more mobility was needed so a 55 ton tank was not the answer.

The suggestion that a foreign solution could be found is a poor joke as most western tanks weigh far more than 55 tons and would hardly improve the situation. Most of the weapons that threaten a T-90 would probably also destroy any western tank anyway.

Seems to me that the Russian Army should stop communicating to its defence suppliers via the media and start talking to them at a high level behind closed doors and tell them exactly what they do or do not want and what their requirements are for the next decade.
The one remaining tank maker in Russia was set up to build 1200 tanks per year so building 60 or none is an enormous waste of resources. If they can say right now that they want to finalise their C4I system and get it working and then decide what level of electronics are needed in tanks and armoured vehicles to implement that command and control and computers and communications and intelligence system and in the mean time just upgrade 6,000 T-72s and then we will want 1,500 T-90s built and the existing 500 or so upgraded so they are all at the same standard for the next x number of years I am sure the tank makers can make some long term planning for the 500 odd T-90 tanks India wants and the 300 odd T-90 tanks Algeria wants and now the 50 or so T-72s Venezuela wants and it can maintain a workforce big enough to complete the orders efficiently without wasting reserve production capacity just in case.
Being able to make 1200 tanks per year yet only making 100 and upgrading 500 a year is an enormous waste of potential capacity.

It is Popovkin driving the decisions. He made his feelings clear at the round table. T-90 is a "deep modernisation of the T-34." Of course he was exaggerating to make a point, but he did raise serious issues. It lacks modern transmission, power packs, horsepower, and C4I. The guts of the tank are obsolete and the armour is insufficient to survive top-attack and the latest AFSPDS. ammo. He wants a tank on par with Leo2A6/M1A2-SEP/Leclerc-2010... that is what T-95 was supposed to be. It is clear that our suppliers are not able to make a tank to these standards. He is shopping in France and Germany for technologies to bring back to Russia that can be applied to the armour industry to meet these issues. I highly doubt if he is going to attempt to buy a license production of a NATO tank, but does want the ability to make the guts and composite armour to bring a future tank to its level.

Vladimir79 wrote:It is Popovkin driving the decisions. He made his feelings clear at the round table. T-90 is a "deep modernisation of the T-34." Of course he was exaggerating to make a point, but he did raise serious issues. It lacks modern transmission, power packs, horsepower, and C4I. The guts of the tank are obsolete and the armour is insufficient to survive top-attack and the latest AFSPDS. ammo. He wants a tank on par with Leo2A6/M1A2-SEP/Leclerc-2010... that is what T-95 was supposed to be. It is clear that our suppliers are not able to make a tank to these standards. He is shopping in France and Germany for technologies to bring back to Russia that can be applied to the armour industry to meet these issues. I highly doubt if he is going to attempt to buy a license production of a NATO tank, but does want the ability to make the guts and composite armour to bring a future tank to its level.

Popovkin should get reprimanded , this is insult that NATO uses all time about our armored divisions and we do nothing?

I don't have a problem with him hunting for technologies, but gutting UVZ with no orders is an outrage. It is the only tank factory we have left and we need stop-gap tanks, even if it is not modern enough for him.

T-90 is a "deep modernisation of the T-34." Of course he was exaggerating to make a point, but he did raise serious issues. It lacks modern transmission, power packs, horsepower, and C4I.

First of all what is wrong with the T-90 being a deep modernisation of a T-34?
Is he expecting the T-90 to be a deep modernisation of a cherry tree?

The modern transmission and powerpack and C4I system are supposed to be part of the expected upgrade of the T-90... which he cut.

The guts of the tank are obsolete and the armour is insufficient to survive top-attack and the latest AFSPDS. ammo. He wants a tank on par with Leo2A6/M1A2-SEP/Leclerc-2010... that is what T-95 was supposed to be.

And which of those western tanks can currently survive a Javelin top attack missile? Or even a Bofors BILL 2 from the 1980s?

The T-90 would be better able to survive a top attack weapon if ARENA or DRODZ-2 had been put into service.

The T-90 would be better able to survive frontal attacks of the latest APFSDS rounds if they were fitted with the new Relickt ERA that is part of the T-90 upgrade.

It is clear that our suppliers are not able to make a tank to these standards.

Clear from what? He cancelled all attempts to meet his needs.

He is shopping in France and Germany for technologies to bring back to Russia that can be applied to the armour industry to meet these issues.

That is a great idea, which I fully support... when designing something look at the stuff other people are doing and decide whether it is worth adopting yourself. Every design solution has good consequences and bad ones. For instance UK armour is very effective at stopping all sorts of things. The bad side is that it makes the tank weigh 70+ tons and as side armour it is not as effective as a front armour because M1A2s have been penetrated from the side by standard RPG-7 rounds available in Iraq that are comparable to Russian RPG-7 rounds of the 1980s.

There is no such thing as an invincible tank... even 23mm cannon fire can smash all those expensive optics and shatter tracks.

I would expect a large force of Leclercs and Leopard IIs and M1A2s and Challenger IIs would meet the same fate as people in bunkers if hit by a volley from a TOS unit... ie their lungs hanging out their mouths and burnt to a crisp.

I just hope the plan is to stop production of the T-90 till the upgrade is finalised and for UVZ to spend the next 3-5 years starting upgrading T-72s (if they want 4,000-5,000 then it will take a while so 3-5 years of doing 800-1,000 tanks per year might keep them busy) to the new near T-90 standard and then to start production of the T-90s to the new standard and upgrading in service T-90s to that new standard then that will keep their production facilities busy.
During this 3-5 year period they can work on a lighter more mobile T-95 and also develop the electronics that could be used in the T-95 domestically so in 2016-2018 when they want to start its production it will be more Russian than foreign.
This might allow for more development time to make it even more revolutionary... ie electric drive with a gas turbine for generating electrical power. They could even add electrically powered armour like the British were working on some time back and other protection options that don't increase weight considerably.

Forever the optimist...

GarryB wrote:

First of all what is wrong with the T-90 being a deep modernisation of a T-34?
Is he expecting the T-90 to be a deep modernisation of a cherry tree?

He is expecting a radically new tank design, such as the US made from the M-60 to the M1.

The modern transmission and powerpack and C4I system are supposed to be part of the expected upgrade of the T-90... which he cut.

They were not part of the upgrade because domestic industry could not do it which is why it was cut.

And which of those western tanks can currently survive a Javelin top attack missile? Or even a Bofors BILL 2 from the 1980s?

Considering M1A1s have been hit by Hellfires and the crews survived is enough evidence for me that they can survive Javelin and BILL. M1A1 is considered obsolete now and the newer tanks are even better in protection.

The T-90 would be better able to survive a top attack weapon if ARENA or DRODZ-2 had been put into service.

The T-90 would be better able to survive frontal attacks of the latest APFSDS rounds if they were fitted with the new Relickt ERA that is part of the T-90 upgrade.

ARENA won't do anything against a top-attack projectile, its angle of fire is lateral. Drodz isn't worth mentioning.

K-5 ERA will not stop the LATEST APFSDS rounds, only Cold War models.

Clear from what? He cancelled all attempts to meet his needs.

If we could build it, he would buy it. 15 years is long enough to wait.

That is a great idea, which I fully support... when designing something look at the stuff other people are doing and decide whether it is worth adopting yourself. Every design solution has good consequences and bad ones. For instance UK armour is very effective at stopping all sorts of things. The bad side is that it makes the tank weigh 70+ tons and as side armour it is not as effective as a front armour because M1A2s have been penetrated from the side by standard RPG-7 rounds available in Iraq that are comparable to Russian RPG-7 rounds of the 1980s.

It took an RPG-29 to drill a hole in the side of an M1 and the lower front of a Challey 2, and then it didn't destroy it. RPG-7s where fired at a Challey 2 all day and didn't penetrate. It takes more than Soviet era weapons to take these tanks out. The weight makes logistics a pain, but the soldiers that ride them are great-full for the protection it provides.

There is no such thing as an invincible tank... even 23mm cannon fire can smash all those expensive optics and shatter tracks.

I would expect a large force of Leclercs and Leopard IIs and M1A2s and Challenger IIs would meet the same fate as people in bunkers if hit by a volley from a TOS unit... ie their lungs hanging out their mouths and burnt to a crisp.

TOS is not accurate enough to hit a tank, nor would a near miss affect an NBC enclosed vehicle.

I doubt Russian army will not buy new tanks and BMPs. After all, they will also produce Tiger-M and buy IVECO LMV, they buy israely UAVs and also order russian build UAVs Zala, Eniks and Orlan, they buy additional 30 Mi-28N, etc. I more think army want to buy modernized version T-90M and BMP-3M and all this is just to make process quicker to produce newer versions.

They have said they will not buy new tanks in 2011.

I very much hope their communication with UVZ is not through the media and that they are directly talking with each other so that they both know what the Armies plans are.

Hopefully to get them busy they might start the upgrade of T-72s, they have stated they want a force of 1,500 T-90s and a force of about 5-6,000 in reserve.

The original difference between the T-72 and the T-80 was that the T-80 was the expensive and more capable tank while the T-72 was cheap and easy to make and mass produce. There was no commonality between the T-72 and T-80. The only company that makes T-80s is in the Ukraine so in the competition between the T-72 and the T-80 the makers of the T-72 dropped their low cost ease of manufacture focus and upgraded everything to as best they could manage. The resulting tank was called T-90, but now it has little in common with the T-72 or T-80. The T-72 upgrade is supposed to introduce most of the new parts developed for the T-90 into the T-72 to improve performance and greatly reduce the range of parts and components they need to keep in stock. Making the T-72 more like the T-90 means they can have the benefits of having all T-90s without the cost of building that many T-90s.

With the Heavy Brigades operating vehicles of T-90 level weight and protection will be good for UVZ, because it means BTRT type vehicles for that unit.
The question is what is holding up army production of tanks?

If it is to save money on something that is not critical at the moment then UVZ need to know this, otherwise lots of money will be wasted keeping production capacity available if it is not needed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=zq_IbSk_GaQ#!

Putin visits UMZ. You can see new T-90s for Algeria.

http://www.itar-tass.com/c9/414065.html

6 billions roubles will be for production modernization. But it is unclear if 6 billions mentioned in article is additional 6 billions for additional modernized tanks or new build tanks or they are the same billions for factory modernization.

I would expect the money is to upgrade the factories ready to make Armata vehicles, but of course the T-90 production facilities will benefit too.

http://lenta.ru/news/2013/09/27/t72/

UVZ produced a total of 20544 T-72 tanks to date.
The biggest year was 1985, when 1559 tanks were manufactured.

Informative post from Gur Khan attacks! about the amount of work done by company "Petrel" (part of Uralvagonzavod)

- Made 6100 mm naval gun mount (AC) A-190-01 (the first two are mounted on small missile ships Ave 21631 "Hail Svijazhsk" and "Uglich")
- field testing 57-mm naval AU A-220M, on 2014 scheduled gos.ispytaniya (!!! 0_o)
- field testing a new 82-mm mortar 2B24-1 (light more than 10 kg mortar version 2B24)
- performed work (design) to create a 120-mm mortar 2B11-1 ( lightweight version of the mortar 2B11 complex "Sunny")
- the initiative to set up an easy scale-model 120mm CAO wheeled chassis (modified CN 2B16 installed on the chassis light AFVs VPK-39373 "Wolf-3" (6x6), okay, let's see what Grau says.)
- the beginning of the ROC "Sketch" (installation of remote controlled module with machine gun (gun and machine gun?) arms on the chassis type BBM "Lynx", "Tiger" or "Wolf"?)
- the beginning of the ROC "Derivation" ("Derivation ENE"), judging by the picture it is about 57 mm ZSU crawler ZAC-57, judging by the video is 57-mm machine gun in the tower burevestnikovsky uninhabited (?) installed on the chassis of heavy infantry fighting vehicles ("Kurganets"? .)
- creating a line of remote-controlled machine gun modules (DUPM) for various military vehicles (the work of the ROC "Testament," OCD "Fan" [self-propelled anti-tank systems or multi-purpose missile system?] have been successfully performed, products are preparing for gos.ispytany , 4 sample DUPM created for heavy and medium tracked and wheeled combat unified platforms ("Armata", "Kurganets", "Boomerang").
- Serial production of remote-controlled machine gun modules (DUPM) "for protection of strategic objects machines" (probably refers to the machine protection for RVSN type "M Typhoon"??); first party (6 DUPM) shipped to the customer.)
- unveiled CPM (control and screening machines for the service and repair of artillery systems and weapons Armor) 1I37E, 1I41E (appeared first export orders.)
- for the creation of the CAO type "Coalition" "software to perform basic combat tasks."
- continues to conduct R & D "Coalition-SV" on advanced 152-mm artillery complex for NE.
- completed the creation of a prototype for transportation and filling machine (Kamaz) for AK "Coalition-SV", TRV prepared to conduct state tests.
- mass production sets control mechanisms for loading a 152-mm self-propelled guns 2S19M2 (for "Uraltransmashzavoda", in 2013 delivered 48 sets) .
- made ​​product assembly Universal Stand A-190-01 and "Coalition"


LINK

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

Putin visited today Uralvagovzavod

zg18 wrote:Putin visited today Uralvagovzavod

he looks pissed.

Well, they were begging for money... That and Turkey.

UVZ calendar 2016 - 225 mb
https://yadi.sk/i/BpVheXIYnMmQN

Alex555 wrote:UVZ calendar 2016 - 225 mb
https://yadi.sk/i/BpVheXIYnMmQN

Thanks a lot...

Maker of Russia's Deadliest Tanks to Offer Tours of Its Mysterious Factory

http://sputniknews.com/military/20160321/1036692858/uralvagonzavod-military-tourism-launch.html

Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) has it's own online store. Clothes, unformes, shades, scale models, toys, books, DVDs, accessories, footwear, you name it.

It's pretty cool, check it out. They even have kid's clothes

http://uvzshop.ru/catalog/hoodies_sweaters/