[Official] Armata Discussion thread #5

franco wrote:http://www.milkavkaz.com/                      

Possible Ukrainian blogger but not updated frequently, he was a member here for awhile. Russian language version of the Wikipedia is also not bad. Locate the Military Districts and then hit the Russian language version.

The Armata is scheduled for the 1st Guards Tank Army first according to Russian military sources. There are 3 Tank regiments and 1 Tank brigade there. In the rest of the Army there are 9 Tank regiments and 1 Tank brigade. I suspect they will be awhile in getting reequipped.

That is a good link, thanks!

I already looked in wikipedia and several other sources, but the number of vehicles the different units use is not that easy to find, in fact different units (for instance 12th and 13th battalions in Kantemirovskaya tanks division) have different amount of tanks and infantry vehicles, so I am struggling a bit to find current units composition at the levels from regiment to platoon. Only good sources are in Russian and that takes substantially more time to go through.

Do you know if the motor rifle battalions in a tank regiment have different vehicles than the ones in a motor rifle regiment, or are they identical? I would like to understand what units would be equipped with T-15 / Kurganets / Bumerang.

GarryB wrote:The whole point of the Armata family is to have all sorts of Armata vehicles operating together...

That is what I suppose, they are all based on a tank platform so their ability to fight high intensity warfare should stand out among all platforms in the Russian army. Until now (from what I see because I am just getting started with land forces structure) the IFVs had no significant difference between different units, BMPs from 1 to 3 are lightly armoured at best, but with the T-15 (they don't even call it BMP-x) I guess there is a doctrinal change happening. I could theorize that units in a tank division would be all Armata, both tank and motor rifle battalions, while units in a motor rifle division would use T-72/80/90 for the tank regiment and BMP/BTR vehicles for the motor file ones. So main offensive units would have extreme survivability and fire power levels, while defensive ones could use cheaper, less extreme and older material. This would be an interesting way of cycling the material in the land forces joining overall capability and economic viability. But there are other options too...

They have a lot of vehicles they need to develop to create all Armata units... I suspect they will probably start by making the vehicles that are ready first and just displacing non Armata vehicles from the units as they are developed.

Logistics-wise it makes sense to standardize all vehicles, but cost-wise maybe not. For auxiliary vehicles it is questionable whether the cost, weight and levels of protection of a vehicle based on the Armata platform would make sense.

Honestly I think the turrets will get designed first because for most platforms the turret contains the necessary equipment for the role.... once they are ready then putting them on the different vehicle chassis is most of the work done to make that vehicle.

What is needed, beyond what we know? They talk now about the BMPT, what more? Maybe Armata-based Deivatsiya? Well, it could be essentially the same as the BMPT but for the ATGM part. Not even artillery units would need that level of protection I guess, and creating anti-tank units in an Armata division seems redundant.

Anyone with a list of the vehicles in a Russian motor rifle and tank division, please do post it here because then we can look through at all the different versions of Armata and Kurganets and Boomerang that they will have to make to get unified divisions working.

I dont have listed all the vehicles, but it is easy to find the different units a division has. That determines pretty much the type of vehicles needed. I posted it above some time ago.

They would need at least 600 T-14 and T-15 for just the First Guards Tank Army. Production needs to be at least 100 units per year, and even given that rate of production you are talking about decades before all units would be equipped.

calripson wrote:They would need at least 600 T-14 and T-15 for just the First Guards Tank Army. Production needs to be at least 100 units per year, and even given that rate of production you are talking about decades before all units would be equipped.

You need to also understanding they aren't producing thousand in one go, as they are testing the tank. Russia seems to really take its time with testing. Anyway, once everything is done and its ready for full use, they will produce more of them.

It will take time.

LMFS wrote:

That is a good link, thanks!

I already looked in wikipedia and several other sources, but the number of vehicles the different units use is not that easy to find, in fact different units (for instance 12th and 13th battalions in Kantemirovskaya tanks division) have different amount of tanks and infantry vehicles, so I am struggling a bit to find current units composition at the levels from regiment to platoon. Only good sources are in Russian and that takes substantially more time to go through.

Do you know if the motor rifle battalions in a tank regiment have different vehicles than the ones in a motor rifle regiment, or are they identical? I would like to understand what units would be equipped with T-15 / Kurganets / Bumerang.

Re Motor Rifle battalions being different, not that I'm aware of.

That is what I suppose, they are all based on a tank platform so their ability to fight high intensity warfare should stand out among all platforms in the Russian army. Until now (from what I see because I am just getting started with land forces structure) the IFVs had no significant difference between different units, BMPs from 1 to 3 are lightly armoured at best, but with the T-15 (they don't even call it BMP-x) I guess there is a doctrinal change happening.

They are changing from vehicle types to vehicle families... at the moment a BMP-2 is a specific vehicle, but the support vehicles it is based on are not called BMP-2xxx... the BMR-3M for instance is a tank based armoured engineering vehicle used for mine clearing... it is based on a T-72 by the looks of it and is not related to the BMP... the UR-77 minefield breaching vehicle is based on the MTLB, the IRM engineer recon vehicle is based on the BMP-1 and is used on land and in the water for recon... water currents and depths in rivers, ice thicknesses, presence of mines, etc etc.
The TOS system is based on a T series tank, as is MSTA, and the BMO-T Engineer troop transporter is tank based.

I am guessing the easiest way to do it is to pick which forces will be which type of new forces... ie top priority forces intended to fight HATO equipped enemies in built up areas will have their T-90s replaced with T-14s, and their BMP-3s replaced with T-15s an their engineer BREM vehicles replaced with T-16s... they wont get Kurganets or Boomerang vehicles.

Lower echelon units that don't need Armata level vehicles will likely keep their MBTs... they will probably get T-90s from the top units, but if the areas they will operate in will be firm and with good roads they may get Boomerang based IFVs and BTRs to start with and they other types as they complete testing... in places with soft ground and not so great roads they will get Kurganets B-11 BMPs and likely Kurganets BTRs, and T-90s from units above them.

As more types of each vehicle is produced it will enter service so to start with the units with Armata will have T-14s and T-15s and T-16s and likely the BTR/APC version with the Kord HMG in the small turret, and also the 2S35 Coalition and probably an Armata chassis with the 2S38 57mm AA gun vehicle too etc etc.

As the new models complete testing the Armata forces will replace all existing types like T-90 and ACRV-2 and BMP-3 with a T-xx vehicle based on the Armata chassis... they will likely replace regiments at a time depending on the speed of production...

Logistics-wise it makes sense to standardize all vehicles, but cost-wise maybe not. For auxiliary vehicles it is questionable whether the cost, weight and levels of protection of a vehicle based on the Armata platform would make sense.

They have complete control of what they develop and replace... they might leave the command vehicles till last for instance, but the point of the exercise is standardised vehicle families to minimise logistics.

The number of Armata units is not going to be a large fraction of the Russian Army it just would not be affordable... and nor would it even be necessary.

What is needed, beyond what we know? They talk now about the BMPT, what more? Maybe Armata-based Deivatsiya? Well, it could be essentially the same as the BMPT but for the ATGM part. Not even artillery units would need that level of protection I guess, and creating anti-tank units in an Armata division seems redundant.

Well BMPT is a fighting vehicle intended to suppress enemy infantry for use in places where your own infantry are too vulnerable to deploy and you don't want to deploy BMPs because of their weak armour making them vulnerable. In an Armata unit a BMP and a BTR have tank levels of armour so their anti personel and anti IFV weapons should make them pretty good substitutes, but a separate BMPT likely with a 57mm gun would be useful anyway so why not make a few extra turrets and you can use them if they work out useful... I am sure the Air Force would like a light wheeled vehicle like a 6x6 Typhoon vehicle with a BMPT turret with enormous fire power to roll round their airfields preventing attack from air or ground forces...

Armata divisions could still use anti tank units... a motor rifle armata division will not have the same number of tanks as the tank division so the anti tank units will still be needed... plus they will probably have 30km range and 100km range Hermes missiles for hitting all sorts of targets...

AFAIK a tank division has three tank regiments and a BMP regiment and the motor rifle division has the reverse... three BMP regiments and one tank regiment... and a regiment is three platoons of four tanks plus a command tank, so that would be 13 tanks in a motor rifle division and three regiments in a tank division so 13 times three is 39 tanks per division. But then I seem to remember there were 31 tanks in a tank division.

I remember with the Military Technology magazine I used to get they had an annual with force lists for every country, and it would list all the vehicles in a force... if we had one of those we could see which vehicles are tank based, which are BMP based and which are BTR based and BRDM based and GTSM based and MTLB based and those based on other vehicle types and work out what versions each family would need to replace them all.

Official information has been made public about the Armata:

http://gurkhan.blogspot.com/2020/09/blog-post_8.html



Previous drawings comparing it to Abrams, Leopard etc. are definitely off.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

PhSt wrote:Russia’s top brass wants to replace Armata with two-section ‘tank of the future’

It's look great I'm not saying if it's a good idea or not, but I like the 30 mm gun on the right side of the turret and above it. I guess it's elevation is OK, but the azimuth connected to the turret.

[/quote]

That sucks. Mobility will be shitty because they will need to show the front vehicle most of the time when they pop up to shoot from cover. Also going backward will be an issue specially for turning, just like a huge truck or even a car with a trailer in the back.

In terms of protection it adds nothing. The rear vehicle isn't even protected, only from the front and not all the front but really just the front front. A enemy on the front left or right can still hit the front of the rear vehicle and kill the crew.

In theory one of the two vehicles would survive and would need to buy just one part instead of the whole tank but in reality the enemy tank would just use another round to effectively destroy it.

According to the article the manned portion of the proposed future vehicle will be the rear one.

Of course it will and they will likely put the 3,000hp GT engine in the rear section too for heat and fuel.

These vehicles will be fully electric drive... there will likely be another Gas Turbine in there as an auxiliary power supply (APS) for when the main engine is shut down.

Most likely it will have lots of batteries too as well as capacitors and the main gun will likely be at least an EM boosted gun or in fact fully EM powered with all the ammo in the front.

That sucks. Mobility will be shitty because they will need to show the front vehicle most of the time when they pop up to shoot from cover. Also going backward will be an issue specially for turning, just like a huge truck or even a car with a trailer in the back.

That is what I thought initially, but both cabs will be fully powered and use electric drive so it can have one set of tracks going forward and the other set to go backwards and the hydraulic linkage between them can actually be used to lift the other cab off the ground when it does so...

They are heavily used in the Arctic because they are one of the few types of vehicles that can get themselves out of the water if they break through ice.

A normal vehicle can't usually get back on because as it pulls itself out or drags itself out with its wheels or tracks the weight on the edge of the ice breaks it... so it essentially becomes an ice breaking ship.

With the twin cab design the linkage between the vehicle is flexible and can be used to apply force to the other cab so from in the water it can lift the front cab up and it can drive onto the ice and then use the same method to then lift the rear cab up onto the ice without applying all the vehicles weight on the edge of the ice.... it can change the angle of the vehicle going on to the ice to be more level so its weight goes onto the ice more evenly instead of being concentrated on the edge nearest the water if it was just a single cab vehicle trying to drive up onto the ice. With the front cab on the ice and level it becomes more like pulling a trailer out of ice that it has sunk into but even then that trailer is fully tracked and fully powered and can be raised up to apply its weight level too...

In terms of protection it adds nothing. The rear vehicle isn't even protected, only from the front and not all the front but really just the front front. A enemy on the front left or right can still hit the front of the rear vehicle and kill the crew.

I wouldn't take that model as anything except an example... they have developed multi chassis tanks before... and they don't look exactly like this...

It was found that very long tanks with a single chassis were actually hard to turn without losing tracks... many of the T-35s lost in the war simply had engine problems or ran into a ditch it couldn't drive out of and there was nothing that could tow it out...

The connection could the the fully articulated one shown above as used on their arctic tractors like the DT series, or it could be like this:

GarryB wrote:

Oooohhh..  nice render of the Obj 490 (or a development of it)   Don't think i've ever seen anything for that concept 'cept some shitty quality line diags or grainy B&W pics of mockups.

I have a better one. Guess from where it comes ?

Just looking at the first image I would think the gun and ammo would be in the front section.

The 3,000hp GT in the back with a crew capsule and fuel and electric drive motors on both parts so both bits are fully powered...

In the empty places around the turret and ammo in the front section they could fit extra fuel that could be pumped back to the rear section when needed.

They are talking about the late 2030s so the gun light be liquid fuel or it might be fully electric with the 3,000hp GT generating the power to fire the main gun, or it might be a binary liquid propellent gun...

I have a better one. Guess from where it comes ? p

Was going to say Uranus, but that just sounded mean and I wanted to sound funny and not rude...

Was going to say Uranus, but that just sounded mean and I wanted to sound funny and not rude... Embarassed

Hahaha not bad.

It's from a game called Halo actually. It's quite famous and thought someone would guess.

I remember one of the upgrades for the T-55M6 or something, where they actually fitted a T-72 turret, so it was quite a major upgrade, but one of the things they did was change the wheels from steel to aluminium... the Al wheels were thicker but about half the weight and it took a serious amount of weight off the vehicle without really effecting its performance much at all ie it didn't make it weaker... just made it a ton or two lighter...

George1 wrote:Assembly of T-14 "Armata" tanks for experimental military operation

A frame of the Zvezda TV show - assembly at the head enterprise of JSC NPK Uralvagonzavod in Nizhny Tagil of a batch of 132 pieces of equipment on a heavy Armata platform (T-14 tanks, heavy BMP T-15 and BREM T-16) for experimental - military operation under the contract with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation in 2015. Assembly at the head enterprise of JSC "NPK" Uralvagonzavod "in Nizhny Tagil of equipment on the heavy platform" Armata "(T-14 tanks, heavy BMP T-15 and BREM T-16) for experimental military operation under a 2015 contract with the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation (c) a frame of the TV channel "Zvezda"

Bmpd's comment. The first vehicles planned for delivery this year on the promising heavy tracked platform "Armata" from the experimental military batch, the contract for which was signed by the Ministry of Defense of Russia with JSC "Scientific and Production Corporation" Uralvagonzavod "at the end of 2015, were captured. total 132 pieces of equipment development of military games, including tanks T-14 heavy BMP T-15 and ARV T-16, since the end of 2018 and till the beginning of 2021 years for the state test data samples and experimental military operation.

according a statement made in February 2018the then Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Yuri Borisov, this contract for experimental military operation provides for the supply of two battalion sets of T-14 tanks on the Armata platform and one battalion set of heavy infantry fighting vehicles T-15. According to Yuri Borisov's statement, State tests of machines on the Armata platform were supposed to start in 2018 and continue until the end of 2019. "In 2020, we have a finish on all new samples, and after that we will make a decision on serial large contracts," Yuri Borisov said.

Although it was previously assumedthe delivery of the first units of equipment (numbers from 9 to 16 machines were called) on the Armata platform under this contract in 2018, but as a result the start of deliveries under it was postponed to 2019, and now to 2020. Accordingly, the timing of the start of the State tests has shifted. In February 2020, it was reported that State trials should begin in 2020.

In August 2018, Alexander Potapov, General Director of NPK Uralvagonzavod, said at the Army-2018 forum that Uralvagonzavod had by that time produced "about 30" prototypes on the Armata platform, some of which participated in the parade on Red Square and in the tests of the Ministry of Defense.

It is most likely that in the event of successful state tests, serial deliveries of machines on the Armata platform will begin no earlier than 2023-2025. At the beginning of 2020, the volume of a potential serial contract for the period until 2027 was estimated at about 500 T-14 tanks.

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4139814.html

I think it is a good idea to keep the T-80 in use. If the future heads towards larger caliber guns, the T-80 would be best suited to augment Armata numbers instead of T-72/T90.