Apfsds don't need bigger gun but longer projectiles or increased speed.
Longer means heavier... unless you mean longer and thinner... and too thin and they become more likely to snap or shear.
To launch a longer and heavier projectile means higher pressure gun at the same speeds.
Longer barrels can improve performance of existing ammo but longer barrels create their own problems.
Increasing calibre has been the preferred solution in the past... but there will be an upper limit...
152mm would need bigger shells so less rounds carried.
WWII light Russian tanks carried about 140 x 45mm shells, but a T-34 with 100 shells in the L-34 76.2mm equipped tanks carried less but they were effective to longer ranges than the smaller calibre less powerful rounds.
If the 45mm rounds didn't penetrate it didn't matter how many you could carry...
They would change all the production lines and supply would be more difficult and cost will be bigger too. And what advantage does it bring ? None unless you plane to use HE shells always. But then you have solething called Msta-S for that role.
They could get away with two tank gun calibres... for years they had a lot more than just two... there was 125mm or course, but they also had 122mm calibre with the T-10s and T-10Ms, and 115mm smoothbore with their T-62s, not to mention the 100mm smoothbores of their towed MT-12 anti tank guns, and the 100mm rifled guns of the T-54/55s, and the T-34/85s they had in reserve with 85mm guns... I believe sharing the same ammo as the ASU-85s used by their airborne forces...
That is 6 non interchangable calibres... right now they have it pretty good... but adding a 152mm smoothbore calibre wont sink the boat.
They could deploy a couple of units of 152mm gun equipped Armatas for special break through operations... as I mentioned they could carry a lot of extra rounds if they use Sabots for smaller calibre rounds like the 125mm HE Frag rounds... because the 125mm rounds are two piece they could slide a sleeve around the HE projectile like a sabot that is designed to break apart when it leaves the muzzle, and use a normal propellent charge to launch it... the sabot is just a gas seal and does not need to be the full length of the round so it could be slipped on as part of the loading process so you could carry a lot more of the smaller calibre HE rounds that could be pushed through the sabot as it is loaded so it is loaded into the chamber fitted with the sabot to form a seal around the projectile in the larger barrel. The 125mm HE rounds will likely be shorter than the new 152mm HE rounds which means you might be able to stack them lengthwise too.
With the idea of shorter smaller calibre rounds you could develop very short HE rounds of full calibre... poor aerodynamics but they are used at short range anyway. You could stack 3-4 in each round tray and they could still be heavy enough to do sufficient damage to the target most of the time.
Designing for effective ranges of up to 2 km is plenty enough.
On the Combat Approved episode for the upgraded T-90 the targets were at 5km for stationary targets from a stationary and moving tank.
There's not nearly enough flat open expanses in Europe to justify the extended range performance, plus you already have guided rounds for the task.
With skilled planning and positioning I am sure there are opportunities for greater distance shots.
The current NATO heavy tank paradigm against the 125 mm does not work either. The latest M1A2Cs and Leopard 2A7s might not even be able to take advantage of much of NATO's available overland transportation infrastructure, and if they can't even make it to battle they are less than useless.
Introducing the heavier gun.... even just in small numbers... maybe even adding them to one of the lighter more mobile forces perhaps, would mean HATO would have to make the decision to go for heavier tanks or perhaps smaller lighter tanks in large numbers.... a drone swarm where every 10th vehicle has a human crew perhaps... who knows with those HATO kooks.
And a lot of it went into making the new 125 mm gun almost as capable as the 152 mm gun especially in terms of penetration. No less than 900 mm RHA by the 2A82 compared to 1000 mm RHA from the 2A83 gun is nothing to sneer at, and its even more impressive when the former is half the weight and has more than double the service life and performs at the same level of the cold war 140 mm guns.
But then doesn't it form a feed back loop.... the things done to the 125mm gun to achieve near 152mm gun performance could then be applied to the 152mm gun to extend its performance even further couldn't it?
Of course there are new experimental developments they can probably look at that are only at the start of their capacity... all very exciting.
With the T-14, its the turret, NATO tanks, probably the crew's survivability lol.
Giving up the heavily armoured turret was a choice that could be made with lots of cameras and optics and virtual reality systems... the biggest block to the unmanned turret was giving up that viewing position that gave you a 360 degree view around the battlefield from a decent height that allowed you to see the ground around your vehicle. A tethered drone could do an even better job and with thermal cameras and radar and taking power from the vehicle through the tether and also communicating with the tank via fibre optic cable via the tether the drone can hover for as long as the tank has power and radio emissions would be limited to radar, but could be kept low level.
Imagine the faces of an enemy that spots the drone and comes barging through the bushes expecting a nerd with a van using the drone and coming face to face with a squad of four Armata tanks... and they of course saw you coming...
I thought the same too but then again why do you want to obscure your view of the target or give him some warning time? With a stealthy APFSDS shot he might not even be able spot you attacking at all - one blip in the thermals which could be anything really and a second later your tank gets wrecked.
I was thinking more in terms of an enemy formation of tanks all with APS systems active and working...
A 14.5mm HMG with rounds optimised with plastic aerodynamic fairings with a rear mounted metal projectile with a front face with corner reflectors carved into it to generate a RCS of 150-200mm diameter objects... 5.6km from the target you could angle up the gun and fire long bursts launching hundreds of rounds at the targets and those APS systems will have to react to every round that is on target in case it is not a HMG round and is actually an incoming Kornet...
Fire on the enemy armour a couple of times... this ammo is inert and relatively cheap.... they will either soon run out of munitions or be forced to turn them off to prevent wasting those munitions. Monitor the attacks and if they stop defending themselves launch a volley of real ATGMs... when you ATGMs are half way there fire a burst of these jammer rounds... then everyone should move to avoid being shelled.
Then again, the new 125 mm gun still has significant room for growth - change the sabot material to a much lighter composite for instance and watch as its muzzle velocity skyrocket.
Well if there is still room for growth then why not. Didn't someone mention they use Aluminium Sabots... their new cannon rounds use a plastic driving band to reduce wear and reduce friction to increase muzzle velocity without any other changes to the ammo, so perhaps a plastic Sabot could be something to consider too... or at least plastic contact points around the sabot to reduce friction.
The 2A83 gun is nearly twice as heavy as the 2A82 gun: 5000 kg vs 2700 kg. You also have to uprate the fire control mechanisms to take up the higher mass of the gun.
Yeah, as I wrote it wouldn't be that much heavier I knew that would not be true because it is not just a larger tube really it is everything...
On the positive side they were talking about all electric drive which would remove a lot of high pressure hydraulic stuff which is heavy and vulnerable to fire.
What do you guys know about the latest info on Armata? Is 2022 still the date when it will enter serial production? What about the engine and APS?
The fact of the matter is that the upgraded T-90 is as good as any current peer opponent tank already and the T-14 is the next step up... for which HATO countries have nothing in sight this decade.
The T-14 really makes sense when it is fully introduced into Armata brigades... there is no huge gap where they are going to get walked all over if they don't get it into service right now... same deal with the Su-57... the Su-35 and soon MiG-35 are both excellent fighters which only lack proper stealth... which is what the Su-57 provides along with the S-70 of course... which should be able to operate with Su-35s and Su-30s upgraded to Su-35 level and MiG-35s.
There is a numbers issue but look at the whole picture their airforce is extra... their air power is just part of the defence... they have an entire IADS which their aircraft are a part and their Air Force and their Army and their Navy each has their own IADS which communicate with each other and work together.
In HATO the air forces are the IADS based on AWACS aircraft and ground based radar but nothing like what Russia has.
HATO IADS using aircraft for both attack and defence, so in a conflict with Russia a lot of that attack potential is going to get blunted against that IADS, and much of the attack potential will be being used in defence to try to stop long range hypersonic and low flying subsonic ground attack missiles... and if they start destroying airfields that air based defence is going to struggle in attack and defence...
All those numbers of aircraft will be busy both attacking and defending... how safe are those tanks going to be on the ground below them?
Moving a sufficient force of armour towards a Russian border will not go unnoticed and the first thing that will happen when it attacks is likely a serious number of volleys of Smerch rockets with top attack anti armour munitions that will literally decimate their numbers before combat even begins... and it only gets worse from there...