[Official] Armata Discussion thread #5

Given the profile of Rosatom's activities, it is logical to assume that the ammunition in question is an armor-piercing sub-caliber projectile of increased power. Its core is made of extremely strong and heavy material. Depleted uranium is optimal.

I don't think that is the smartest idea...

DU is more valuable to Russia as fuel rods generating electrical power... it actually has commercial value in the energy business, unlike in the west where it is a burden that has to be stored so using in in ammo makes it super cheap and if you can distribute it on foreign battelfields then the ongoing issues with the material are not your problem.

Doesn't matter what sort of training rounds you use you are obliged to fire real rounds as part of training and in war time and these materials cause serious problems where ever they are used and require extensive cleanups afterwards to reduce their insidious effects... and I am not a greenie tree hugger... this material is genotoxic and when used correctly to penetrate metal structures it forms a fine powder perfectly optimised to enter the human body and also the bodies of other animals in our food chain... this stuff is not worth it... except in the Kaliningrad Enclave of course.

Hopefully they will produce a few different types of ammo and keep the DU for HATO enemies only.

Ironically as I mentioned for Russia it is not using up a waste material that costs money to bury or store... you can put this stuff next to the pile of one of their new fast neutron reactors and given time it becomes enriched to where it becomes a usable fuel rod... the ultimate rechargeable battery.

According to him, "it is too early to say unequivocally that this is a mass car."

With new state of the art improvements in armour technology ceramic armour, wire armour, electric armour, and of course passive and active armour types as well as interception of incoming rounds and even camouflage and means of reducing the signature of the vehicle they might decide they don't need very many Armata type divisions, which are not highly mobile, but very well armed and well protected.

They might find that most of the time a Kurganets division has good enough armour and better mobility, with crews protected in armoured capsules and all the other weapons and sensors and protection types that can be fitted to heavier vehicles it might work out more cost effective, while the wheeled Boomerang divisions might become the most common with their mobility and decent level of protection too.

Hell yeah, stick with what works thumbsup

Fuck the tree-huggers and fuck the hippies

Makes sense for the west, because they have no other use for DU except disposal which is not cheap.

That will make it 7 years since they trotted out these badboys to great fanfare at the parade in Moscow. Hopefully, deliveries will actually start in 2022 and not kicked down the road, as has happened in the past.

I have seen lots of light tank designs from the US that were going to be air portable and make rapid deployment of US armoured forces much quicker and easier, and replacement vehicle families and replacements for the Bradley too.

It makes sense to get it right... it is not like HATO is a generation ahead... this is the third world gas station that doesn't make anything leaping a generation ahead of HATO in not just tanks but all armoured vehicles being used today.

Tagging Rosatom to work on their new round says quite a bit. Here's hoping they read the specs wrong and produced nuclear shells instead

That is funny because when it was revealed that the main gun for the Armata will eventually be a 152mm gun most "western experts" started dribbling on about nuclear shells... because 152mm artillery pieces can fire nuclear shells so obviously this tank gun will be the same.... except likely much higher pressure and also a smoothbore.

The rate of cancers has grown where US used such rounds.

DU must be forbidden.

Whether they make them DU or some other wizzo new material, its a very good idea to announce it.

It is yet another pressure point, this time on the ground, on the US to force it, at vast cost, to come up with countermeasures, just like 'hypersonic' etc weapons in the air.

This could be part of the reverse Star Wars, bankrupt the enemy to win the war without fighting, strategy that Putin has been deploying so successfully.

Even the old Mango shell can pentrate all the tanks from the front. T-90 has the Lekaklo shell that is even better.

This new one doesn't change anything.

Tungsten is just as good as DU but less dangerous for civilians.

Isos wrote:Even the old Mango shell can pentrate all the tanks from the front. T-90 has the Lekaklo shell that is even better.

This new one doesn't change anything.

Tungsten is just as good as DU but less dangerous for civilians.

Maybe, but the target may be not be what we assume it to be.

The announcement gives some US contractor's lobbyists (who only know of DU from Iraq) the ammunition to fire up a political case for R&D money on a counter program.

In a land based tank on tank conflict with any HATO member it doesn't matter... roll it out and use it... but in Syria or other places around world this ammo is much cheaper than any other ammo that approaches its performance like Tungsten, but the long term effects are totally different.

What I would love to see is that they develop these DU rounds and store them. Also develop slightly inferior but also more expensive equivalents, and then make some super cheap rounds that mimic the flight behaviour but not penetration performance of both those rounds.

Use the cheap dummy stuff for practise, the expensive stuff in low tier war zones and keep the DU for the final game... the vast majority of ammo carried in Afghanistan and Chechnia would be HE Frag and HEAT, so not much would change... on a real battlefield most targets are more easily destroyed with HEAT and HE Frag anyway... including using missiles.

Defenders of DU will say it is cheap because it is spent fuel rod material that in the west has to be disposed of... which means digging a deep hole and burying it for 10,000 years... normally they use disused coal mines that have run out of coal but most of those are open cast these days anyway.

The DU defenders will also say the radiation levels are so low from depleted Uranium that the dangerous rays can't even penetrate your skin and normal soil in your garden is probably comparably dangerous in terms of radiation levels.

Well Russia has methods and means to convert those depleted fuel rods into fuel rods again which can be sold on the international open market for big money to produce electricity in nuclear power plants.

When complete as a solid rod it is relatively harmless... but when used for the purpose it was designed the enormous impact velocity means the DU actually burns and the powder created and released is actually finer than talcum powder and is easily ingested or inhaled into the body.

Once it is inside your body your body mistakes it for calcium and uses it to build bone structure.

The weak radiation that can't get through your skin, when made into part of your bone structure then destroys your bone marrow and causes tumours... your bone marrow is critical to your bodys defences, and the radiation... as I mentioned before is Genotoxic... it damages human cells to the genetic level... which is not going to turn you into a cool X Men Super hero... more likely an armless legless jelly blob.

It is not just about making a war zone dirty... it is about going to firing ranges and contaminating everyone who goes there... if you get a chance to look at destroyed tanks on a battlefield where the US has fought don't go near them... and don't drink the local water either...

The huge irony is that its tiny level of radiation means it stays dangerous for half the lifetime of planet earth... and in this form when used it becomes readily ingestible.

I remember reading a story about Stalin being told about nuclear bombs and they gave him a sample of uranium to hold... it was just U238, or natural Uranium, not U235 the weapons grade stuff and he thought they were trying to trick him because it felt warm... he thought there was something inside.

Wouldn't be surprised to find out someone sold it as an eternal foot warmer, considering what they used to do with Tritium and other glowing materials... or Opium and other hard drugs...

Any thoughts about when armata might see the proposed 152mm gun? Seems like nato saw armata and shat itself because now rheinmetal is working on a 140mm gun, iirc.

It's not that simple. The range and speed of the shell on impact matter too since they are not rocket propelled. That means
that increasing gun chamber pressure counts for much and not little. The diameter of the gun is directly linked to this.

Any thoughts about when armata might see the proposed 152mm gun? Seems like nato saw armata and shat itself because now rheinmetal is working on a 140mm gun, iirc.

For internet fanboys obviously the sooner the better because it is all about who has the biggest gun and nothing else.

Introducing the 152mm tank gun introduces a new calibre and an new entire selection of ammo for production and storage and operational use.

You introduce a new more powerful gun when the current gun can no longer reliably do the job, but working on the new gun they found ways to upgrade the old gun too and its performance has increased to the point where it can do the job.

It would be the equivalent of the US saying the F-16 and F-15 are not good enough to penetrate Russian air defences so we need a new super expensive F-35 but we will be clever and make it a universal fighter replacement so we only need one type that can do everything and save money on parts and maintenance... the theory was OK, but the implementation was poor and took too long... these days honestly... the best choice for most HATO countries would be to not bother with the super expensive and not invisible F-35 and just take the F-35s avionics and net centricity and apply them to their 4+ gen fighters to get the useful capabilities but with already paid for aircraft and much lower operational costs... they still can't penetrate Russian air defences but at least they wont empty the defence budget on something super expensive but no more effective than previous gen fighters with upgrades.

Fit an F-16 with the radar and avionics of the F-35 and it is faster and longer ranged with better payload and better manouver performance excellent sensor loadout and a lot more missiles and stand off weapons can be carried for a fraction of the operational costs.

The 152mm gun of the Armata is useful and might enter service in a tank destroyer sort of role with a break through tank that might operate with lighter forces with the purpose of long range anti armour use to create breakthroughs in lines that can be exploited by lighter faster vehicles.

I rather suspect EM weapons might result in a much smaller calibre lighter weapon being developed... the HE shell being replaced by a 3km/s mild steel solid round that shatters on impact and fragments everywhere substituting velocity for HE filler for damage.

Its important to note that it might not even be DU that Rosatom would use as the material for the penetrator. It could be some other proprietary heavy alloy optimized for the higher impact velocities than DU was.

This is true... they are not idiots.

DU also had a chemical reaction with steel where the steel was softened by the DU artificially increasing penetration performance against specific steel types... modern composite and stratified armour likely reducing its effectiveness dramatically too.

I think even the Americans are moving away from DU towards more conventional Tungsten alloys the Germans are using - so much for DU supremacy.

It is a very dense relatively hard material... other materials in that category like Tungsten are expensive and not cheap to work either... in comparison DU is expended fuel rods from nuclear reactors that cost money to dispose of.

Ignoring the downsides it looks rather good for the west and is widely used... 20mm Phalanx cannon shells, 25mm AP Bradley cannon shells, the 30mm cannon shells from the A-10 all used DU to maximise performance and to get rid of some nuclear waste.

The Soviets made the mistake of jumping to a larger calibre too early with the T-62 when it turns out not that much later newer shells for the 100 mm gun could do the trick just as well.

To be fair the 125mm was a much better gun and still is rather good.

In the case of the T-34 there was a choice of either having a medium velocity 76.2mm gun, or the high velocity 57mm gun. The 57mm gun was an excellent anti tank gun and could penetrate Panthers and Tigers from useful distances, but the HE round was weak and for the first few years of the war no T-34 even saw a Tiger or Panther... so they made the right choice.

What would have been interesting would be to fit the KV-1 with the 57mm gun and make it a big slow heavily armoured tank killer... or just triple the length of the 76.2mm gun it carried to give it some advantage over the T-34.

In 10-15 years when MGCS is entering service that would be enough time for developments in furthering barrel metallurgy and propellant chemistries, as well as round designs to deliver and we might even see the 125 mm gun surpass the 152 mm gun even further.

Work on super conducting magnets and EM catapults and all electric drive ships and vehicles in 10-15 years time they might have an EM gun firing 70mm projectiles at 4km/s with no sabot.... dreams are free...

It's not that simple. The range and speed of the shell on impact matter too since they are not rocket propelled. That means
that increasing gun chamber pressure counts for much and not little. The diameter of the gun is directly linked to this.

The method of propelling the projectile are important too... for a heavy tank with long range fire power a scramjet powered kinetic round might actually be most effective at 10-20km range... the round leaving the muzzle at 2km/s and then accelerating to 3-4km/s by about 10km range.

Increasing the gun diameter would increase the parasitic mass associated with the sabot, however. Longer penetrators would require longer sabots with much larger areas of contact with the barrel which further increases losses. Best keep the diameter tight, and raise the pressure the barrel can support as much as metallurgy would allow it.

Subcalibre Sabot rounds keeps the projectile low drag... using pocket sabot with cavities inside increases internal volume for more propellent and more velocity...

lyle6 wrote:
Increasing the gun diameter would increase the parasitic mass associated with the sabot, however. Longer penetrators would require longer sabots with much larger areas of contact with the barrel which further increases losses. Best keep the diameter tight, and raise the pressure the barrel can support as much as metallurgy would allow it.

Assuming the goal is to deliver more energy to the target, why would you keep the size of the penetrator the same? Higher velocity has many negatives such as barrel wear, and air resistance for instance. 152mm vs 125mm gives you just about a 50% increase in energy all other things being equal. Alonger sabot can be made with very small increases in weight if properly designed.

lyle6 wrote:
The newer 125 mm gun actually had the milder barrel consumption rates between it and the old 152 mm gun. Drag is no issue at all compared to accelerating substantial parasitic mass to the muzzle velocity.

These things can be affected by metallurgy, but yes of course a heavier round will result in more consumption if the friction surface is not proportionally increased. From what I have seen the muzzles velocities were not much different but that depends on what rounds we are comparing

lyle6 wrote:

mnztr wrote:152mm vs 125mm gives you just about a 50% increase in energy all other things being equal.

No it doesn't.  

Sure it does its math. Equal break mean effective pressure means the energy transferred would be proportional to the surface area. Of course you can screw it up with poor engineering.

lyle6 wrote:

mnztr wrote:
Alonger sabot can be made with very small increases in weight if properly designed.

Maybe, but why make it even a problem in the first place?

[/quote]

Well because you want to increase the mass of the penetrator and reduce its frontal cross section and aerodynamic drag.

lyle6 wrote:
That the two guns have comparable muzzle velocities despite the massive energy advantage of the 2A83 gun is bad news. The only energy that counts is energy transferred to the projectile - its the only energy that would do the actual work of penetrating the tank's armor. Everything else is just losses.

I'm referring to the sabot - why make it any larger than it has to be? The projectiles are more or less the same, being limited to what the vertical carousel autoloader can hold upright in the hull.

The projectile is much heavier this is why the speed is the same and the energy increased If you use the exact same penetrator as a 125mm, then the muzzle velocity will hugely increase. If you do this you get 2 problems, firstly barrel wear and secondly you need a much faster burning propellent as the propellent needs time to fully ignite and expand to transfer the energy to the projectile. If the projectile is too light it will accelerate too quickly and be clear of the barrel before the gas from the propellent has fully expanded.

lyle6 wrote:
That heavier projectile can only really have a wider diameter due to the length limit baked in with the autoloader. Wider penetrators would tend to expend more energy for the same amount of penetration than a more narrower penetrator of the same length. It can't be too narrow, however or it would just snap on impact. Older penetrator designs utilizing monolithic slabs of DU or WHA would have some ratio typically around 30:1 of the length to diameter, but newer segmented designs utilizing more novel materials would have relaxed that rule somewhat so there  isn't much impetus to go for accelerating a fatter and heavier projectile either   .

Actually there is. Its been found that ERA can shear rods which dissipate their penetrating power. The latest KE used by the US has become shorter and thicker to counter this.

lyle6 wrote:

There is no countering the shear - if the penetrator is not getting snapped its being pitched off its axis and a penetrator that is off by even a few degrees before encountering the main armor would be at a severe disadvantage. Modern armor arrays typically respond better with increasing obliquity with the bulging layers significantly enhancing penetrator's pitch until it either snaps or is forced to push through more material until its eventually stopped. The best counter is so far is segmented penetrators where you only lose one segment to ERA while the rest are more or less intact for the main armor.  The only hang-up with the concept is that it requires much higher impact velocities to work properly which is probably why the only users of segmented penetrators are the ones with active projects for much more powerful guns at the moment.

The longer the penetrator the more likely it will shear. This is the finding when they tested the Kontakt 5 ERA when the USSR collapsed and the NATO got access to tanks equipped with Kontakt 5. As a result the penetrator is now thicker and shorter. If you think of a thin rod travelling at very high speed, the tip embeds itself into the armour and the ERA pushes it off its axis, I have no idea what the composition of Kontakt-5 is but I suspect it is not just explosive but layers of explosive and matrial designed to create horizontal jets of metal to deflect and disspate shaped charges and produce a cutting effect in addition to the outward blast.