[Official] Armata Discussion thread #5

PapaDragon wrote:

miketheterrible wrote:Seriously? Shit YouTube videos?

Gtfo.

SHOOT HERE...

...in that tiny spot and pray to God that the rest of it dosn't turn you into fine paste by the time you manage to aim

surprisingly, people actually watch this nonsense. It is same with video game stuff or "scary spooky stuff" where the video pic is a giant red circle and arrows pointing.

Shaun901901 wrote:

Based RedEffect misinforming zoomers so they get mulched into fine red paste the second they face these monsters in battle.

We see the one note Johnny theme in these videos: Russians cannot into tanks.

i agree the thumbnail is not the best but the dude knows his stuff most of the time and imo this video is no exception

Problem with taking on T-14 in anything other than aircraft goes like this:

- You can't go after the crew because they are in armoured capsule, try it and they will kill you

- You can target the ammo but it will simply cook off and tank will just reverse out of there

- You can target the gun but again tank will just​ reverse out of there

- You​ can target treads but rest of it still works and tank will simply kill you the moment you reveal your position

- Finally you can target the engine like video suggested but like before rest of it still works and tank will simply kill you

And that is the definition of a good tank when all you can hope to do is immobilise it... in comparison it will be shooting to destroy the tank or vehicle it will be shooting at... sounds like an advantage to me... all in a 50 ton package.

Outstanding.

But equally important shooting it in the engine will reveal your location... assumes it will present its engine and also hold still while your round is in flight.

Ironically the target area for the Abrams is the same place... but also the entire side of that enormous turret.... if you can hit that turret bustle ammo storage area the tank will be destroyed.

Engines are vulnerable on all tanks and turret rears are too... not to mention belly armour and roof armour as well.

This is not new information.

The point is that the west claims superiority in which case the aim point should be the front hull or front turret of the target... the fact that it hasn't been the case with Soviet and Russian tanks for quite some time tells you the myth of the advantage the west holds over the Russians is just that... a myth.

Sadly many war thunder players seem to think a damaged track or engine or lost crewman means you sit still for 30 seconds while it is replaced.

The reality is that any penetrating hit or hit that destroys a track or engine or transmission means the entire crew bail out and recover to a safe area... crew members don't just shift seating position and wait 20 seconds for gun breaches to be fixed and then continue fighting.

Armour thicknesses are nominal and performance depends greatly on the situation and a thousand other factors... sometimes rounds that should penetrate will shatter, sometimes armour that should stop a round fails to deliver the level of protection promised...

mnztr wrote:If the crew bails out is HIGHLY dependant on the tactical situation. In many cases that might be the worst thing to do and result in instant death. If there are other friendly tanks around they will clear the enemy and then help recover the tank with a tow cable. If the air is full off hot metal, best to stay put. If there are also drones, hopefully the smoke will make them think you are already dead.

Most tankers are highly confident of their chances under armor than without that even after suffering a hit that takes the tank out of the fight bailing out is often seen as a last resort. But when enemy fire is demonstrably more than what their tank's armor can handle then the crews only real option is to flee: A tank's interior is full of dangerous energetics - fuel, ammo, even the hydraulic lines are an imminent danger for a catastrophic fire that takes out everyone in the tank. If the armor is penetrated once there's also a very good chance it will get penetrated again by follow-up shots - so you have to get out ASAP.

At least that's the case with conventional tank designs. With the heavily compartmentalized T-14 the chance of a golden BB shot is eliminated if not greatly reduced - by removing the flammables the only real way for a crew member to get killed or injured is if they are so unlucky as to be in the direct path of the intruding projectile with soft body armor and spall linings on the interior walls taking care of much of the smaller, less than lethal fragmentation. The lightly armored unmanned turret also permits a higher mass budget for the front hull citadel, so penetrations are even more unlikely, at least compared to a level of firepower that is calibrated against a tank that has to account for both the hull and turret when it comes to protection.

The Armata cannot change the laws of physics... a hit on the main calibre ammo would cause a fire and possibly an explosion... with the crew separate in their own armoured capsule then the rest of the tank including the engine section can have fire suppression systems and can be operated with a nitrogen purge so there is no oxygen for fuel to burn. Propellent and explosive provide their own oxygen, but fuel fires often lead to ammo detonations, and of course the easiest way to totally destroy any tank is to burn it out.

It would very much depend on the level of damage and the situation, but a burning tank will be abandoned because when fire hits ammo you don't want to be inside that vehicle when it explodes.

Often there will be hatches in the floor that allow escape in a vehicle that has rolled, the crew compartment seems rather unusually spacious on the Armata based tanks from what I have seen...

An explosion of around 50 125mm shells with some HE shells in the mix would be fatal to any tank.

The crew may survive but it would still feel it. Being mainly made of steel it would turn into an oven pretty quickly.

That's what I said. They may survive but the tank hardly. The most dangerous is if it has HE shells inside. HEAT would also do lot of damage.

If it has only APFSDS it should be safe.

mnztr wrote:On top of that, if the tank is out of the fight the enemy is not likely to continue to pummel it and waste precious ammo. Best to stay put and play possum.

Tankers are instructed to keep shooting until the target changes shape or color, or until the crew visibly leaves the tank. Real life tanks don't have hit points to tell you the target is dead - you only know for sure if it actually looks the part.

Of course with the enemy busy shooting at your tank that's one gun occupied. Even better if the tank is so well protected that if it takes a concerted effort of multiple shooters target firing from multiple vantage points to truly take you down. That means multiple targets made available to the rest of your platoon that they can then engage and take down simultaneously, an infinitely more efficient distribution of firepower.

GarryB wrote:The Armata cannot change the laws of physics... a hit on the main calibre ammo would cause a fire and possibly an explosion... with the crew separate in their own armoured capsule then the rest of the tank including the engine section can have fire suppression systems and can be operated with a nitrogen purge so there is no oxygen for fuel to burn. Propellent and explosive provide their own oxygen, but fuel fires often lead to ammo detonations, and of course the easiest way to totally destroy any tank is to burn it out.

Modern ammo is specifically made to be as difficult to set alight or pre-detonate. With no humans in the way you can have very aggressive firefighting systems installed like flooding the whole turret compartment with vented high pressure inert gas and or chemically inhibiting aerosols.

thegopnik wrote:I find the estimated Armour rating for the malachit to be bullshit because the rating on the t-90ms happens to be higher with the additional 900mm of rha protection capsule. France is going for a 1.3 meter penetrating 140mm cannon until 2030 so I am hoping they switch to a 152mm cannon soon. Afghanit as well hopefully be upgraded 3km/s stopping speeds against KEPs and than plasma projectile shields.

Any rating for the Malachit is bull because no tank (slated for production, that is) uses it. The T-90M(S) uses Relikt, while the T-14 uses Monolit.

The French are compensating for the massively improved protection of the T-14. That there will be no equivalent to the T-14 in at least 10 years (realistically 20) allows the Russians some slack when it comes to upgrading the firepower of their premier MBT. And besides, its not as if the 125 mm gun system has reached its potential.

thegopnik wrote:I find the estimated Armour rating for the malachit to be bullshit because the rating on the t-90ms happens to be higher with the additional 900mm of rha protection capsule. France is going for a 1.3 meter penetrating 140mm cannon until 2030 so I am hoping they switch to a 152mm cannon soon. Afghanit as well hopefully be upgraded 3km/s stopping speeds against KEPs and than plasma projectile shields.

French would be able to buy just a handful of new tanks. Leclerc is already more than expensive.

The venture with germany will make it even more complicated and the entry into service would likely be something like 2040-2045 than 2030.

Isos wrote:
French would be able to buy just a handful of new tanks. Leclerc is already more than expensive.

The venture with germany will make it even more complicated and the entry into service would likely be something like 2040-2045 than 2030.

The last Leclerc rolled off the production floor in 2007 and the factory since repurposed to manufacturing wheeled IFVs; the French ability to manufacture MBTs has since greatly diminished. It would take years just to get them up to speed and years more if they want an Armata equivalent. The Germans on the other hand have a healthy order book for new build Leopard 2s and upgraded (rebuild actually) ones. If anyone's in any position to catch-up its the Germans - and anyone else piggybacking on their efforts.

The biggest threat is a fire getting hot enough to set the high explosive or fuel off spontaneously... where it detonates rather than just burns... on a conventional tank that could be a fuel fire or a propellent fire... a fuel fire needs oxygen to burn so most fire fighting systems will stop a fuel fire, though many use Halon which absorbs oxygen in the air so when a halon system goes off you have to bail from the tank if you want to keep breathing.

Propellant is a problem because it contains all the fuel and the oxygen needed for rapid combustion... when a tanks turret gets blown off that is normally a propellent explosion. When the HE ammo detonates then the force cannot be contained and the tank will shatter into very small pieces and explode like a bomb... but most of the time the tank will burn for quite some time before the HE explodes so anyone in the tank would have left because the smoke would be killing them anyway.

Essentially the lightweight turret on the Armata would act as a giant blow out panel for a propellent explosion which should not seriously injure the crew in their capsule, but if there is a lot of HE and HEAT rounds on board then the risk of a detonation becomes much more serious.

APFSDS in themselves are no HE risk but they tend to have double propellent loads so they are still a problem in 125mm calibre systems... as the extra propellent creates an enormous flame and serious problem.

The Russians found that if you only have ammo in your autoloader... even just a sheet metal layer between sparks and flame from a turret penetration can prevent the tank brewing up. Any rounds in the crew compartment were highly vulnerable because the propellent stubs are made of propellent impregnated cardboard and are designed to be complete consumed leaving a tiny stub metal case that forms a seal at the breach, so even a tiny spark on that cardboard can lead to boom.

The T-64/80 series tanks have an autoloader with horizontal projectiles at the bottom of the autoloader ring and propellent stubs sitting vertically around the outside, which means they are exposed so any crew compartment penetration often sets off the exposed propellent stubs and boom.

The T-72/90 was no safer if the extra rounds were carried in the crew compartment, but when it operated with just 22 rounds it was relatively safe as the propellent stubs were under armour plate protection in the autoloader.

The Armata and Kurganets and Boomerang completely isolate the crew from the ammo and fuel making them rather safer... but never totally safe.

Isos wrote:
French would be able to buy just a handful of new tanks. Leclerc is already more than expensive.

The venture with germany will make it even more complicated and the entry into service would likely be something like 2040-2045 than 2030.

NATO's efforts to design a unified tank all came to nothing and this latest effort will likely go the same way.

Lyle6 wrote:
The last Leclerc rolled off the production floor in 2007 and the factory since repurposed to manufacturing wheeled IFVs; the French ability to manufacture MBTs has since greatly diminished. It would take years just to get them up to speed and years more if they want an Armata equivalent. The Germans on the other hand have a healthy order book for new build Leopard 2s and upgraded (rebuild actually) ones. If anyone's in any position to catch-up its the Germans - and anyone else piggybacking on their efforts.

There was a huge gap between the AMX-30 design and the Leclerc but the Leclerc turned out to be rather potent and even somewhat revolutionary in it's modular design. I do agree that the Germans are probably in a better position right now but French tank designs have always been pretty good. Working together to create a new tank is another story though.

There was a huge gap between the AMX-30 design and the Leclerc but the Leclerc turned out to be rather potent and even somewhat revolutionary in it's modular design. I do agree that the Germans are probably in a better position right now but French tank designs have always been pretty good. Working together to create a new tank is another story though.

It has nothing to protect itself from ATGMs, drones, and air launched missiles.

Newest apfsds will go through easily too.

For its price it offers nothing more than an upgraded t-72.

A new french tank with APS and Era would cost 2 times more. Leclerc is already expebsive at 7 million, a new one at 10 million will never be bought.

Most likely french will have to buy a german tank in the future.

Isos wrote:

There was a huge gap between the AMX-30 design and the Leclerc but the Leclerc turned out to be rather potent and even somewhat revolutionary in it's modular design. I do agree that the Germans are probably in a better position right now but French tank designs have always been pretty good. Working together to create a new tank is another story though.

It has nothing to protect itself from ATGMs, drones, and air launched missiles.

Newest apfsds will go through easily too.

For its price it offers nothing more than an upgraded t-72.

A new french tank with APS and Era would cost 2 times more. Leclerc is already expebsive at 7 million, a new one at 10 million will never be bought.

Most likely french will have to buy a german tank in the future.

I think you missed my point...

No I didn't. Designing a good tank is one thing. Producing and buying it in meaningful numbers is another.

Even if the french kept the production line of the Leclerc, a new french tank would still be expensive like any french military product. And now that they need to create a production line would make it even more expensive.