[Official] Armata Discussion thread #5

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

Yes you did!

I responded to Lyle6's comment "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." pointing out that despite the huge gap between producing the AMX-30 and the Leclerc, the French managed to produce a competent tank in the Leclerc.

To think that the West will produce a cheap tank in huge numbers is wishful thinking. There is no such thing as an inexpensive tank in the West no matter how many they will produce. Just ask Alamo in Poland!

For me the question is whether France and Germany can come up with a single design for a future NATO tank. If you look at the history I doubt it.

The Polish deal can't be considered other than a bribe that the Polish ruling party wants to give Muricans. It is the only background.

That sounds so - South African!

That might be the case
They have tons of issues, including destabilization of the juridical system, and constitutional court that is widely condemned in both the EU and US.
Need to bark the antisemitic songs because that is what the handicapped electorate of theirs wants to hear.
And are afraid if the Murican masters will stand that quietly.
So they are trying to bribe them.

GarryB wrote:
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.

You can probably just omit the lock on the turret hatch; That way the rising internal pressure pushes the door open on its own.

And the detonation risk of HE rounds are overstated: modern high explosive composition fills could be very insensitive - you could blow up one round in a pallet and the rest would be unaffected or just deflagrate, which is a lot more manageable. Its only really the old HE rounds that have grown unstable over time that are real risks for catastrophic explosions, but its not like you are supposed to be using decades old ammo anyway.

GarryB wrote:
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.

Partly true. A thin steel shield separates most of the cassettes from the open crew compartment, protecting the charges from incendiaries resulting from turret penetrations, which are the majority of hits. The cassettes immediately under the breech and the opening for the elevator are exposed both to allow the driver access to the turret and the elevator to mate the cassette with the breech, respectively but since these openings are hidden by the breech and the stub catcher from above they partially shield the charges from burning spall. The real danger is in the case of a hull penetration since the vertical charges are a higher profile target. The shields are no protection at all against a heavy metal penetrator or a shaped charge jet.

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

Ironically the T-14's true carousel autoloader only exacerbates the problem of the exposed propellant charges. Still, its a necessary sacrifice to get +10 rounds and the capability to fire very long projectiles, which are the main weakness of the T-72/90 autoloader.

Mir 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.

There's nothing revolutionary with the Leclerc - people are dabbling with tanks in the Armata pattern around the time the Leclerc was being developed. Had the USSR not went kaput they would've been fielding an Armata equivalent around the time the Leclerc went into service, preserving the generational lag that has existed between post war Russian and French tanks.

thegopnik wrote:The Vacuum-1 If I recall correctly penetrated 1 meter of RHA steel and the Vacuum-2 is depleted urainiun and anyone that has compared the T-90 or m1a2s rounds have seen that depleted uranium rounds go like 100mm deeper than tungsten so at best the Vacuum-2 would go 1.1 meters, even So NATO is to create better armour. I do hope at some point in time the kord gun gets changed to 30mm anti-aircraft cannons because of drone warfare and it would be convenient to use.

1 m or 2 m of steel is nothing impressive. The targets are multilayer arrays with variable penetrator to armor interactions - the one who wins is the side that can better model these complex behaviors and meld projectile/armor design with materials engineering to take advantage of inherent weakness in their opponent's design. Why else would the Russians tap Rosatom for the job?

ALAMO wrote:
So yes, you have missed Mirs point
You are talking a different thing.
And considering the "brilliant" deal Poland is going to ink, with a single M1 costing $23mln, Leclerc seems to be a bargain offer
Leclerc proved itself quite well in a battle, and what is even more important, all-new "western" school tanks share the Leclerc features, if we investigate them from a wider perspective without splitting a hair in four.

The Poles are prepared to pay the US $2 billion dollars to setup a base in honor of Trump in their country. Considering the usual arrangement is the guest paying the host country for the privilege the eye-watering M1 deal is probably not a good reflection of the actual price dynamics with the tank, but of Poland's willingness to be the US #1 lap dog.

ALAMO wrote:Both Koreans and Japanese used the same road the French did 20 years earlier. And those two are the newest "western" products we can consider.

The Type 90 and Leclerc are contemporaries actually.

There's nothing revolutionary with the Leclerc - people are dabbling with tanks in the Armata pattern around the time the Leclerc was being developed. Had the USSR not went kaput they would've been fielding an Armata equivalent around the time the Leclerc went into service, preserving the generational lag that has existed between post war Russian and French tanks.

That's all wishful thinking - the reality is quite different. As you say the "USSR went kaput."

Russia could have had at least 4 modern aircraft carriers by now but in the real world they only have one. Same thing with the Armata.

Don't make the same mistake that Isos made. I'm not saying the Leclerc is a wunderwaffe tank, but back in the early 90's it was quite advanced. It's definitely not an Armata killer, but even by today's standard it's still a pretty good tank. From what I can gather the new European tank will even incorporate features from the Leclerc.

The Armata is the current "gold standard" and it will remain so for a good couple of years to come - but the reality is it's only being produced right now. Not 30+ years ago.

You can probably just omit the lock on the turret hatch; That way the rising internal pressure pushes the door open on its own.

The lock is to stop people outside getting in so a lock that resists being forced open from the outside, but pops open when pushed from the inside would make a lot of sense, but if all the propellent goes then the difference between an open hatch and a closed hatch wont be a huge deal... normally miliseconds later in such a case the entire mass of the turret... 7+ tons normally gets launched several dozen metres into the air... the Armata turret is much lighter and might be designed to allow propellent explosions to vent... but that would involve the tank after the explosion would continue to burn and would likely not move in any direction any more so the crew would most likely be thinking of departing anyway.

And the detonation risk of HE rounds are overstated: modern high explosive composition fills could be very insensitive - you could blow up one round in a pallet and the rest would be unaffected or just deflagrate, which is a lot more manageable. Its only really the old HE rounds that have grown unstable over time that are real risks for catastrophic explosions, but its not like you are supposed to be using decades old ammo anyway.

Properly designed storage boxes for rounds normally have space and a design to minimise the chance of detonation... obviously no detonators in place of course, so there is a risk of fire setting the explosive on fire... HE burns readily and easily but to explode it needs to either have a detonator start an explosion or it needs to be heated to a very high temperature.

Of course if you heat diesel fuel to very high temperatures it will also explode... most materials have a melting point and a flashpoint where they will ignite, and of course a detonation temperature where they don't burn... they explode.

Ironically the T-14's true carousel autoloader only exacerbates the problem of the exposed propellant charges. Still, its a necessary sacrifice to get +10 rounds and the capability to fire very long projectiles, which are the main weakness of the T-72/90 autoloader.

If you have any information about the autoloader for the T-14 feel free to post it here.

1 m or 2 m of steel is nothing impressive.

Can't agree with that statement.

Considering the usual arrangement is the guest paying the host country for the privilege the eye-watering M1 deal is probably not a good reflection of the actual price dynamics with the tank, but of Poland's willingness to be the US #1 lap dog.

Indeed... the deal is actually cheap, because they are buying a US presence on their soil so they don't need thousands of tanks... a couple of dozen would suffice...

Russia could have had at least 4 modern aircraft carriers by now but in the real world they only have one. Same thing with the Armata.

Armata is a vehicle family and when it is fully introduced will be rather revolutionary and modern with no western equivalents...

Perhaps France in 10 years time might want to buy Russian tanks... they can fit their own guns and electronics if they want... a Russian built tank would be the most affordable tank the French could possibly hope for.

But it will likely take 10 years for the EU to get the balls to not just be a mouthpiece for the US of A and make decisions that benefit the people of the EU rather than the 1% and Washington.

Mir wrote:
Don't make the same mistake that Isos made. I'm not saying the Leclerc is a wunderwaffe tank, but back in the early 90's it was quite advanced. It's definitely not an Armata killer, but even by today's standard it's still a pretty good tank. From what I can gather the new European tank will even incorporate features from the Leclerc.

It wasn't that much better compared to other MBTs. In technical comparisons against its peers it hardly stood out - and this fact is further reflected in the lackluster export performance of the tank. Actual combat performance is similarly mediocre, with Leclercs being surprisingly vulnerable against legacy cold war anti-tank weaponry that were most numerous in Yemen.

GarryB wrote:
The lock is to stop people outside getting in so a lock that resists being forced open from the outside, but pops open when pushed from the inside would make a lot of sense, but if all the propellent goes then the difference between an open hatch and a closed hatch wont be a huge deal... normally miliseconds later in such a case the entire mass of the turret... 7+ tons normally gets launched several dozen metres into the air... the Armata turret is much lighter and might be designed to allow propellent explosions to vent... but that would involve the tank after the explosion would continue to burn and would likely not move in any direction any more so the crew would most likely be thinking of departing anyway.

The hatch is a much lighter object compared to the entirety of the turret so if anything will give and lift-off it will be the hatch first.

GarryB wrote:
Properly designed storage boxes for rounds normally have space and a design to minimise the chance of detonation... obviously no detonators in place of course, so there is a risk of fire setting the explosive on fire... HE burns readily and easily but to explode it needs to either have a detonator start an explosion or it needs to be heated to a very high temperature.

Of course if you heat diesel fuel to very high temperatures it will also explode... most materials have a melting point and a flashpoint where they will ignite, and of course a detonation temperature where they don't burn... they explode.

By the time sufficient heat has built up inside the vehicle that the high explosive would detonate the crew would be long gone or charred to ash by then. Ideally of course the firefighting systems would have prevented it from reaching that point so the much of the vehicle should still be salvageable even with a fire.

GarryB wrote:
If you have any information about the autoloader for the T-14 feel free to post it here.

This patent is actually for the Object 195's autoloader, but the T-14 should use the same design just modified for a smaller calibre.
In action:

lancelot wrote:
The poor exports were due to cheap decommissioned 2nd hand Leopard 2 tanks being readily available. Most countries did not require terribly sophisticated tanks to begin with. Some were upgrading from the M60 or T-55 or similar tanks. At the time most of those purchases were made the Leclerc was still in production and the French did not have enough tanks for themselves either. Given those considerations the Leclerc was much more expensive and did not make sense in a post Cold War scenario.

Yet that didn't stop the T-90 from becoming a success story in the same conditions is it?

lancelot wrote:
With regards to performance against more modern late Cold War era ATGMs we have seen plenty of Leopard 2A4s getting cooked at Syria just as well. Even most UAE Leclerc tanks did not have the urban protection kits. Those in French service are bare bones and don't have any of the modern protections. Without more modern armor and particularly APS systems any tank will be vulnerable to those late Cold War era ATGMs.
I disagree that it isn't "much better". It is just that it wasn't designed for urban combat or counter insurgency operations. I mean none of the Cold War tanks were.

So it wasn't that advance at all, being on par with early model Leo 2s that date back to the late 80s...

The hatch is a much lighter object compared to the entirety of the turret so if anything will give and lift-off it will be the hatch first.

Its weight is not important, it is how long it takes to fail compared to the rate at which the pressure builds up.

Very rapid pressure build up... like a detonation of explosive means blow out panels don't actually do anything and weak points don't matter.

Two open hatches on a T series tank and a propellent fire and you will get columns of flame 6-8 metres high but with both hatches shut and bolted and the same ignition will lift the turret off the tank.

It is all about pressure and pressure build up and containment and pressure release.

By the time sufficient heat has built up inside the vehicle that the high explosive would detonate the crew would be long gone or charred to ash by then. Ideally of course the firefighting systems would have prevented it from reaching that point so the much of the vehicle should still be salvageable even with a fire.

You are forgetting the propellent... when it burns the fire will heat up considerably and be rather more extensive than just a fuel fire... made worse by the exposed nature of Soviet and Russian 125mm ammo and its semi combustible two piece ammo.

This patent is actually for the Object 195's autoloader, but the T-14 should use the same design just modified for a smaller calibre.
In action:

Assuming it is like that then I would say it is not actually too bad... the problem for the Russians is the very exposed nature of their ammo.... a burning ember landing on a propellent stub or APFSDS projectile would lead to a serious fire because the propellent impregnated propellent is highly flammable, but that appears to encase each round with sheet metal protection... assuming there are covers for the tops so they are not exposed, it does not actually look too bad.

GarryB wrote:
Its weight is not important, it is how long it takes to fail compared to the rate at which the pressure builds up.

Very rapid pressure build up... like a detonation of explosive means blow out panels don't actually do anything and weak points don't matter.

Two open hatches on a T series tank and a propellent fire and you will get columns of flame 6-8 metres high but with both hatches shut and bolted and the same ignition will lift the turret off the tank.

It is all about pressure and pressure build up and containment and pressure release.

Remove the lock with an explosive bolt that triggers upon detection of intense heat and light in the internals - the hatch flies open under the immense pressure and the gases vent into the open atmosphere with minimal pressure buildup.

GarryB wrote:
You are forgetting the propellent... when it burns the fire will heat up considerably and be rather more extensive than just a fuel fire... made worse by the exposed nature of Soviet and Russian 125mm ammo and its semi combustible two piece ammo.

Its propellant. It might not be readily extinguishable by depriving the source of oxygen, but you can always douse it with inert substances, like water and foams which would severely hurt its ability to efficiently combust or even self-ignite.

GarryB wrote:
Assuming it is like that then I would say it is not actually too bad... the problem for the Russians is the very exposed nature of their ammo.... a burning ember landing on a propellent stub or APFSDS projectile would lead to a serious fire because the propellent impregnated propellent is highly flammable, but that appears to encase each round with sheet metal protection... assuming there are covers for the tops so they are not exposed, it does not actually look too bad.

The cassettes would probably be encased in another layer of isolating sheet of metal. If nothing else its probably a bad idea to have moving parts in direct contact with the crew as they would still have to go inside the turret if they are to perform maintenance tasks on the weapon systems.

Moscow. November 10. INTERFAX.RU - The new state armament program for 2024-2033 envisages serial deliveries of Armata tanks to the Russian military, Mikhail Osyko, a member of the board of the Military Industrial Commission (MIC) of Russia, told Interfax.

"Serial (deliveries) are envisaged," Osyko said in response to a related question from the agency.

According to him, the quantitative indicators of military equipment purchases within the framework of the new GPW have not yet been determined. "It's not until 2023," Osyko said.

The state armament program for 2024-2033 will receive funding of at least 21-22 trillion rubles, Andrey Yelchaninov, first deputy chairman of the MIC board, said in mid-April.

According to Interfax, the Armata platform has been developed by the Uralvagonzavod concern as a base for the T-14 main battle tank, the T-15 heavy infantry fighting vehicle, and the T-16 armored repair and recovery vehicle. Armored vehicles on the Armata platform are being tested.

The T-14 is considered to be the only tank of the third postwar generation in the world. According to military experts, the Armata is a new word in tank building and has no analogues in the world. It is an entirely Russian development. The T-14 turret is uninhabited. For the first time the crew is placed in an armored capsule separated from the ammunition.

Earlier, Yury Borisov, as RF Deputy Minister of Defense (now Deputy Prime Minister), said that the RF Ministry of Defense has a contract to supply two battalions of T-14 tanks and a battalion of T-15 BMPs for troop tests.

https://www.interfax.ru/russia/802311

pp. 164-169: training simulators for Armata MBT and Kurganets IFV.

Kurganets training sim.
Looks to be a conventional yoke steering system, and none of that PS controls meme.

Hmm I thought deliveries for a small batch were to start late this year or next year.

Remove the lock with an explosive bolt that triggers upon detection of intense heat and light in the internals - the hatch flies open under the immense pressure and the gases vent into the open atmosphere with minimal pressure buildup.

You could use a pressure sensor to disable the latch if it detects a massive rapid pressure build up, but the differences between a propellent burn and a detonation from super heated fuel or explosive and the hatch wont make any difference.

Load a double charge of propellent in a rifle cartridge and you might suffer pressure problems, but ironically load a quarter charge and watch the rifle blow up.

I experienced something similar when I was young and playing with fire works.

I found a skyrocket that had its fuse missing so I put it aside until I had used up all the fire works in that bag and I noticed the missing fuse in the bottom of the bag along with a large amount of black powder which I assumed had fallen out of the sky rocket with the missing fuse.

I poked the fuse back in to the sky rocket and placed it in a bottle and lit the fuse and stepped backwards. I was out in the middle of an empty field at this time and in total darkness and was waiting for a rather feeble flash of sparks, a rocket that wont go very high at all and then a colourful boom.

Instead it sounded like a stick of dynamite went off and the beer bottle I put the rocket it had its neck shattered... no light or sparks... just a boom.

A sky rocket has black powder that is packed tight and is designed in a way that the hole for the fuse is big enough to let the amount of gas the cross section of black powder release without building up to too high a pressure and exploding.

In effect it turns the black powder column into a fuse where the gas released propels the rocket upwards but the black powder only burns at a fixed rate down the rocket tube rather than all at once.

When the fuse fell out some black powder escaped and the pressed in powder collapsed over time probably creating a pocket of air at the top of the black powder column. The black powder didn't all come out because it is not sand in an hourglass, but when I replaced the fuse and lit that fuse I introduced fire into the tube.

Normally the powder is compressed so as the flame burns upwards there is no give in the powder because it is packed tight, but take out some powder and the flame can push upwards and ignite more powder at once which greatly increases the pressure... hense the boom.

With rifle ammo a rifle cartridge is a long column of powder and because of the width of the case it burns from back to front as the pressure increases.

Extra powder can cause problems because of increased pressures, but not enough powder means the wave front of burning powder goes from one end to the other too fast and all the powder is ignited at once leading to enormous pressures that can destroy the rifle chamber/bolt.

If you think of it as a surface area issue normally the surface area of propellent reacting is a circle the diameter of the cartridge case, but a reduced charge can be the length of the cartridge case at once...

But of course even just the propellent burning might create temperatures that make the fuel or HE explode too in which case blow out panels don't work.

Its propellant. It might not be readily extinguishable by depriving the source of oxygen, but you can always douse it with inert substances, like water and foams which would severely hurt its ability to efficiently combust or even self-ignite.

Really? It contains its own fuel supply and all the oxygen it needs to burn cleanly and completely and you think throwing sand on it will stop it?

It is essentially slow burning HE... do you think you could smother a HE explosion?

If nothing else its probably a bad idea to have moving parts in direct contact with the crew as they would still have to go inside the turret if they are to perform maintenance tasks on the weapon systems.

Considering all the effort to separate the crew from the ammo it really would not make sense to return the crew to the turret to fire the gun...

Perhaps progress in robots might allow a set of robot arms to be located inside the turret able to manually load the gun and fix minor problems and perform repairs...

GarryB wrote:
You could use a pressure sensor to disable the latch if it detects a massive rapid pressure build up, but the differences between a propellent burn and a detonation from super heated fuel or explosive and the hatch wont make any difference.
[...]
But of course even just the propellent burning might create temperatures that make the fuel or HE explode too in which case blow out panels don't work.

But that's the thing - most of the time the HE fillers of shells don't detonate even if the vehicle has caught on fire and the fire raged on for hours and ran itself out. The filler would've burnt but this wouldn't be nearly enough pressure to rupture the shell. I could show you pictures of burn out tanks with the HE shells intact if you'd like.

GarryB wrote:
Really? It contains its own fuel supply and all the oxygen it needs to burn cleanly and completely and you think throwing sand on it will stop it?

It is essentially slow burning HE... do you think you could smother a HE explosion?

Its impossible to stop a propellant fire once it gets going I agree. But propellant fires don't just go off on their own - they need a secondary to ignite. And you can prevent that by either physically blocking (water, sand, shields and closed containers) or by chemically extinguishing the source before it even gets to the ammo in the first place.

GarryB wrote:
Considering all the effort to separate the crew from the ammo it really would not make sense to return the crew to the turret to fire the gun...

Perhaps progress in robots might allow a set of robot arms to be located inside the turret able to manually load the gun and fix minor problems and perform  repairs...

Well they aren't, they are there to check-up on the weapons systems, check the gun, the fire controls, hell just clean stuff. Can't exactly do all those things without suffering a cut or two if the metal cassettes with their sharp and easy to snag on edges are exposed - the turret compartment isn't exactly a palace. And who's going to repair those robot arms if not the crew going under?

20 Armata tanks will be delivered to the troops by the end of the year.

https://ria.ru/20211126/armata-1760937828.html

Rasisuki Nebia wrote:20 Armata

The front of that T-14 appears to be different to previous versions.

Please mark all differences you can find with a red circle. Thanks.