[Official] Armata Discussion thread #5

After 5 years, the first Combat Approved episode of the T-14 Armata in english and actual HD is released.

The agency's interlocutor specified that they were talking about the Omsk Automobile and Armored Materiel Engineering Institute and Novosibirsk Higher Military Command School of Moscow, September 27. /TASS/. The training of T-14 tank crews on the Armata platform began in a number of Russian military universities, in particular, the Omsk Automobile and Armored Tank Engineering Institute and the Novosibirsk Higher Military Command School. A source in the defense industry informed TASS about that.
"By the beginning of this year, on New Year's Eve, the first batch of simulators for Armata tank crews was delivered to Omsk (Omsk Automobile Armoured Tank Engineering Institute - Adm. TASS), then - to Novosibirsk (Novosibirsk Higher Military Command School - Adm. TASS)", - said the source.
Thus, according to him, we can talk about the beginning of training specialists to work on the newest tanks T-14, and "not only their operation, but also the use and maintenance of the newest tanks.
In September, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported that in October the Kazan Higher Tank Command School will be equipped with a technical training computer classroom, a dynamic computer simulator and a static computer fire training simulator "Armat".
"Armata" is a heavy crawler unified platform, developed in the concern "Uralvagonzavod" (part of Rostekh). The main tank, infantry fighting vehicle, armored repair and recovery vehicle and a number of other armored vehicles are being created on its basis.
On August 23, during the Armia-2020 forum, the head of the Ministry of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov told the Zvezda TV channel in an interview that the promising T-14 tank on the Armata platform could be adopted for service in late 2020 and early 2021.

https://andrei-bt.livejournal.com/1709090.html

Nice video, and notice it shows the vehicles of the Armata type spinning on the spot with one set of tracks going forward and the other set going backwards... I believe that was a critical shortcoming of Russian tanks mentioned... and am I mistaken or did he say the Armata has 8 forward gears and 8 reverse gears too?

GarryB wrote:Nice video, and notice it shows the vehicles of the Armata type spinning on the spot with one set of tracks going forward and the other set going backwards... I believe that was a critical shortcoming of Russian tanks mentioned... and am I mistaken or did he say the Armata has 8 forward gears and 8 reverse gears too?

It is and it does. True pivot steering is a requirement given the increased length of the Armata vehicles compared to their predecessors especially in urban environments (see Syrian T-72s ripping off their ERA skirts while trying to hug corners). And the T-15 has the same powertrain just reversed.

BTW, with the introduction of Armata training sims to tank schools the future of Armata is practically guaranteed.

Because the T-95 thread is locked I'm going to post this here. The patent for the T-95's autoloader:

http://www.freepatent.ru/patents/2366882


A animation of how it works:

https://twitter.com/gunner_schmulke/status/1315663418767089665

125 mm


152 mm

Does anyone know when the fist Armatas will be entering service? There seems to be a large amount of conflicting information on this, not helped by the efforts of deranged western propagandists.

The-thing-next-door wrote:Does anyone know when the fist Armatas will be entering service? There seems to be a large amount of conflicting information on this, not helped by the efforts of deranged western propagandists.

Apparently next year an Armatas "trials unit" will be formed with 2 T-14 and 1 T-15 battalions along with the supporting vehicles. This unit will test, evaluate and help establish any operational, organization and tactical changes needed for the operational use of this new system.

franco wrote:

Apparently next year an Armatas "trials unit" will be formed with 2 T-14 and 1 T-15 battalions along with the supporting vehicles. This unit will test, evaluate and help establish any operational, organization and tactical changes needed for the operational use of this new system.

I thought they were already doing that.

When will the 1st guards tank army get them?

The-thing-next-door wrote:

franco wrote:

Apparently next year an Armatas "trials unit" will be formed with 2 T-14 and 1 T-15 battalions along with the supporting vehicles. This unit will test, evaluate and help establish any operational, organization and tactical changes needed for the operational use of this new system.

I thought they were already doing that.

When will the 1st guards tank army get them?

This testing unit is for tactical & operational procedure testing, not equipment testing.

Not sure re planned timeline for this. Perhaps this unit will be one of the 1st Guards units however it could also be one of the 90th Tank Division units.

It was said that they would go to the Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division:

https://iz.ru/news/704000

Quite a lot of them but no 57mm gun turret.

Isos wrote:Quite a lot of them but no 57mm gun turret.

Old pic.

I doubt the gun is wielded to the turret, so selling them with 30mm guns they have plenty of ammo for right now is a bit like selling them Armata T-14s with 125mm guns instead of with 152mm guns.... right now the 30mm might be good enough assuming this is an image that represents the vehicles they are talking about.

I wonder if they have the new 57mm ammo in mass production yet... has it passed all its tests for BMP use in addition to air defence use and naval use?

Note I would suspect the standard BMP 57mm gun  will be the 57mm grenade launcher because of its potent HE round which would be vastly superior to any 30mm HE round and its APFSDS round which would also be vastly superior to any 30mm AP round too...

Is there anyything special about the T-14s drivetrain. AFIK its is turbodiesel with 8 speed auto trans. Is there any side project to electrify it? I wonder what that might look like. How quiet could a tank be made with electric drive? Would the tracks make too much noise anyway?

On most tanks you can't run one track forward and the other track backwards to pivot on the spot, so to turn around you run one track forward and the other side drags.... you can still turn around easily enough but it takes more space that just spinning on the spot like you could if you could run the tracks in each direction at the same time.

Together with turning the turret it would mean you can turn your heaviest hull armour towards a threat and also bring the gun to bear faster if both are coordinated.

They have talked about electric drive BMP-3s so I rather suspect something is in the works.

An electric drive tank uses electric drive to turn the wheels but you still need some sort of energy or fuel to create the power in the first place.

The talk of the two chassis tank to replace the Armata in the future with a 3,000hp gas turbine engine is a huge hint.

To move a vehicle a gas turbine is not hugely efficient but can be run very efficiently to generate electricity.

Essentially you get rid of the transmission and drive shaft etc and connect a Gas Turbine engine directly to an electric motor... or two... one at each end of a shaft that goes through the Gas Turbine. The gas turbine is run without load to spin the two motors or in this case generators to produce electric current which is directed to the electric motors on each driving wheel, or electric powered armour or electric powered gun or a mix of any of these or to charge onboard batteries.

For periods of time you can run nearly silent on batteries, though the tracks as you point out will not be silent... though with rubber bushings they can be made quieter... perhaps in the future other materials could be used for tracks... resin, carbon fibre, ceramic, glass fibre... nanotubes... whatever....

mnztr wrote:Is there anyything special about the T-14s drivetrain. AFIK its is turbodiesel with 8 speed auto trans. Is there any side project to electrify it? I wonder what that might look like. How quiet could a tank be made with electric drive? Would the tracks make too much noise anyway?

Well, it is an ultra-modern drivetrain fitting for a next gen tank. The engine is a very compact one, with very high power output as to be expected of an x-engine design. It has a rated power of 1500 hp, but has an eco mode of 1200 hp to improve engine resource to 10,000 hours, and a sport mode for when you really need the extra power at 1800 hp. Its compactness is also noteworthy: its even more compact than the German MTU MT883 of the compact EuroPowerPack and just to further illustrate, its less than 50% the volume of the Doosan DV27K engine prepared for the """modern""" Korean K2 MBT. The transmission is no slouch either, with a fully robotic automatic 8 speed forwards and backwards transmission. That's a huge advantage that is usually understated, but it allowed the Russians to have a heavy IFV with the same powerpack as the MBTs and not have to sacrifice the convenient rear doors. The active suspension deserves a mention as well, with conventional torsion bars mixed in with computer controlled hydraulic suspension arms for the two front and one rear wheels. The novel setup allows fine-tuning of the vehicle's suspension based on the vehicle's speed and micro-terrain to achieve maximum stability and enhance the firing accuracy of the onboard weaponry. With all these improvements its no exaggeration to say that the T-14's powertrain is currently the best there is.

But while it is the best, of course there is still room for improvement. One of these is the in the T-14's tracks. Specifically, replacing the heavy dual pin steel tracks with a Composite Rubber Track analogue. I won't go much into details, but suffice to say the CRT is much lighter, much more durable, has much better vibration dampening, is more survivable, and has better tractive properties across broad terrain types. It would be a tangible improvement to the already excellent powertrain of the T-14 if they manage to secure a CRT for it.

You have to be careful with tracks in Russia there were situations where tanks arrived from the UK to be used in Russia only to discover on certain surfaces the vehicle would not move.

The Matilda tank for instance had to have bits of metal wielded to the tracks to get the tank to move on a smooth hard surface like ice.


The Germans thought they were brilliant by interweaving their wheels so you increase your footprint and reduce weight per square inch, and it was compact and very clever... till they went to Russia and got mud and rocks between the wheels which often jammed or damaged a wheel... and to get an inner wheel off to fix or replace they had to take off the two outer wheels first. Another issue is that when left out over night the mud and rocks froze so you had to build a fire to get moving again...

These new Rubber tracks might be the latest thing but do they still work at minus 50 degrees... and if they don't then they are not much good on a Russian tank.

I would add that in the past Soviet tanks have not had very high speed reverse capacity, which never seemed to me to be a bad thing but after watching games like world of tanks or war thunder, it seems that reversing fast is a good thing because it gets you out of harms way while keeping your heaviest frontal armour pointed at the threat. Of course the real world is totally different from those games...

If they went with electric drive with gas turbine APU, what kinda HP would they need for the APU? About 500 HP? More? How far does a tank have to dash at full speed typically?10-20KM? Or would it make more sense to have a 500 HP diesel that can be clutched to the gearbox for longer trips and declutched to charge the battery when running at low speed or stopped.

I think it is too early to consider electric drive. Only when the batteries become less flammable (perhaps solid electrolyte) is it doable.
I also think they will have to find a replacement for copper as a conductor. One of the reasons in WW2 electric drive was not adopted was because of the expense in strategic materials.
There are works in progress of conductors using carbon nanotubes which are currently too expensive but might fit be bill. They are basically made of graphene which is carbon.
Once both those issues are solved I think there is a lot of potential in an electric tank from more silent operation to electrothermal or electric coil/rain gun, etc.

GarryB wrote:You have to be careful with tracks in Russia there were situations where tanks arrived from the UK to be used in Russia only to discover on certain surfaces the vehicle would not move.

The Matilda tank for instance had to have bits of metal wielded to the tracks to get the tank to move on a smooth hard surface like ice.


The Germans thought they were brilliant by interweaving their wheels so you increase your footprint and reduce weight per square inch, and it was compact and very clever... till they went to Russia and got mud and rocks between the wheels which often jammed or damaged a wheel... and to get an inner wheel off to fix or replace they had to take off the two outer wheels first. Another issue is that when left out over night the mud and rocks froze so you had to build a fire to get moving again...

These new Rubber tracks might be the latest thing but do they still work at minus 50 degrees... and if they don't then they are not much good on a Russian tank.

I would add that in the past Soviet tanks have not had very high speed reverse capacity, which never seemed to me to be a bad thing but after watching games like world of tanks or war thunder, it seems that reversing fast is a good thing because it gets you out of harms way while keeping your heaviest frontal armour pointed at the threat.  Of course the real world is totally different from those games...

The Russians are ahead of you Garry. The Vityaz ATV does have a simpler version of the CRT and it does excellent work in the snow:

So it goes, the track looks like its made up of two composite rubber-like material links, with metal pads bolted on at regular intervals to join the two links. It could make use of polymer grousers for the pads to improve traction further.

If they went with electric drive with gas turbine APU, what kinda HP would they need for the APU? About 500 HP? More? How far does a tank have to dash at full speed typically?10-20KM? Or would it make more sense to have a 500 HP diesel that can be clutched to the gearbox for longer trips and declutched to charge the battery when running at low speed or stopped.

Technically it would not be an APU as it is still the primary source of power, but instead of kinetic power it is electrical power.

The vehicle they were talking about to replace the T-14 had a 3,000hp GT... an advantage of a gas turbine is it scales up much better than a diesel engine... so as the power requirements increase a GT is better than a diesel.

Now before someone says marine diesels can have enormous levels of power that is true... but those diesel engines themselves are the size of a bus and actually much much heavier... but that is not an issue for a ship... for a tank there are size and weight restrictions you need to worry about.

As I said the problem with the GT was low speed torque and acceleration performance... which in combat a tank needs because it will generally accelerate from cover to cover from firing position to firing position as fast as it possibly can, to minimise its exposure to enemy fire and to be a difficult target.

With electric motors that is no longer an issue... but with perhaps an electric motor on each road wheel instead of just the drive sprocket, and likely electric armour, and of course an EM gun of some sort you are going to need to generate and store and shift around a lot of electrical power... they are currently doing this for armoured vehicles and ships and subs and trains and also aircraft including helicopters but it will take a while to get right... but it does have enormous potential...

They might have a small APU for arctic conditions to heat the insides of the vehicle and keep the electrical storage fresh.

I think it is too early to consider electric drive. Only when the batteries become less flammable (perhaps solid electrolyte) is it doable.

Battery technology could transform the idea from very good to brilliant... an alternative to battery could be an alternative motor like a fuel cell which unlike a battery uses fuel (hydrogen), but then you have issues of safely storing hydrogen in large quantities too. Hydrogen is much safer than some of the chemicals being used in batteries these days of course...

I also think they will have to find a replacement for copper as a conductor. One of the reasons in WW2 electric drive was not adopted was because of the expense in strategic materials.
There are works in progress of conductors using carbon nanotubes which are currently too expensive but might fit be bill. They are basically made of graphene which is carbon.
Once both those issues are solved I think there is a lot of potential in an electric tank from more silent operation to electrothermal or electric coil/rain gun, etc.

Work on EM cats for aircraft carriers and also on EM boosted guns like Coalition will lead to work on plasmas and superconducting materials that work at or near room temperature that could be ground breaking in a range of fields.

The Russians are ahead of you Garry.

I am used to that... I mean look at the designs of Bartini... a hovercraft skirt built into the lower portion of an aircraft along with conventional undercarriage so it can land on runways but also any flat surface including water and ice and snow or just level ground...

I suspect they won't need an APU, if you have an electric motor that can deliver the 1200 HP for acceleration, then you only need to provide a bit more power then you need at cruising speed. with 500 KWh of battery (5x a Tesla) you will be able to supply full power for 30 mins (doubt that is necessary), if you really need all out power you can fire up the 500 HP turbine and strech that out to 45 min at full power. At slow cruise the engine cycles in and out maintaining the battery charge within a range. When parked, it has those massive batteries to supply power.

mnztr wrote:I suspect they won't need an APU, if you have an electric motor that can deliver the 1200 HP for acceleration, then you only need to provide a bit more power then you need at cruising speed. with 500 KWh of battery (5x a Tesla) you will be able to supply full power for 30 mins (doubt that is necessary), if you really need all out power you can fire up the 500 HP turbine and strech that out to 45 min at full power. At slow cruise the engine cycles in and out maintaining the battery charge within a range. When parked, it has those massive batteries to supply power.

Hybrids don't have a place on a military vehicle like a tank, yet. At the tactical level, the tank must have excess horsepower on demand at any given time, for as long as possible, not just 30 minutes. Movement in combat is nothing like commuting to work on your car; you have to overcome a wide variety of off-road terrain, mostly unsurveyed, and more importantly with no set routing. Hybrids also are incapable of dealing with excessive loads so if a hybrid tank does gets stuck or mobility killed he's SOL. At the operational level the tank must be able to drive hundreds of kilometers at high speeds and stop for 10 minutes in the middle of bumf*ck nowhere to refuel. Obviously with a hybrid you can't do any of that. The only reason hybrid cars even have the range on battery power is because the vehicles are built out of low density materials like carbon and plastic composites and even then the batteries take up a significant share of the vehicle's internal space and weight. Did I mention that batteries don't even come anywhere near close to the power density of hydrocarbons? Because they totally aren't, and you need a lot of them just to power a 50 ton vehicle, an amount that more than exceeds the allowable share on the tank's precious, precious internal volume. They couldn't even contribute to the vehicle's protection, not unlike fuels that when compartmentalized can be incorporated in the vehicle's armor matrix as an additional barrier. Unless power storage technology gets a nice exponential boost in capacity petroleum is still the primary and only choice for the military.