[Official] Armata Discussion thread #5

Supposedly DU shafts offer an additional 10% penetration over WHA ones. But some sources say the difference is negligible, that its a matter of testing methodology if one is superior over the other. Personally I'm leaning into the former because dealing with DU is nasty enough as it is. There must be some unique advantage of the material over substitutes that makes the additional toxicity hazard more than worth it.

I seem to remember that DU actually reacts with steel and softens it allowing better penetration... which of course does not apply to APS systems or ERA, or the various different types of composite armour that don't include steel.

Of course the Russian armour experts Nii Stali are experts with different types of steel and their application as armour and they have their own DU rounds to test with.

Ideally you would have both. DU subcaliber rounds for real wars, and WHA for peacetime and low intensity conflict.

Or perhaps 152mm guns for real wars... the claims by the Germans that their Leopards have 2.5m armour protection on their turret fronts and it turns out to be spaced armour... well I am not sure that western tanks are as well protected as they claim... and even if they are there are always weak spots that are not so well protected.

Aside from being an order of a magnitude cheaper, the subcaliber shot keeps enemy MBTs honest. Take the APFSDS threat away and tanks would get rid of their heavy passive armor in favor of APS, ERA, much lighter protection that would significantly improve the mobility of these vehicles. Tanks are a pain enough to deal with when their poor mobility keeps them within relatively narrow bands of terrain. To give them expanded mobility options is just an own goal.

Traditionally rockets and missiles used HEAT warheads because the energy needed to get to hypersonic speeds made them big and heavy and expensive... but a missile with a scramjet motor could impact the target at 2-3km/s and swap a 5kg HE warhead with a 5kg hardened metal core that runs the full length of the 2-3m long missile and the APFS threat can come from any direction...

* 08:22 Mobilized and T-14 "Armata" at the tank training ground in Kazan.
https://t.me/intelslava/41384

Nice to see this beast of a tank and no doubt there will be more to come.

Training of crews is in full swing, so... 

Podlodka77 wrote:* 08:22 Mobilized and T-14 "Armata" at the tank training ground in Kazan.
https://t.me/intelslava/41384

Nice to see this beast of a tank and no doubt there will be more to come.

Could the russians have been producing more in secret? Against my internal doomer, I have taken the copium that just like how by 2022, there were more than 20 T-90Ms(official numbers), theres more than 30 preproduction T-14s.

Limb, I don't know if you are pretending to be crazy or if you are ...................

Last year there were peacetime conditions and the Russian MOD reported that it had handed over to the Russian army, I will copy the text from the BMPD, which was announced according to the Russian MOD;

AFTERWORD
The total staff strength of all the combat units listed above is 2609 tanks. Twelve more battalions are under formation. The total number of new and modernized tanks (released in 2000 and later) in combat units is about 1340 units, or about 51 percent of the total. The renewal of the tank fleet continues. According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, more than 240 modern and upgraded T-72B3M, T-80BVM and T-90M Proryv tanks will be received by the Russian Army Ground Forces in 2021.

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4393829.html

How many T-90M tanks did you say Russia has? This is link from May last year..
From the side of bmpd, we point out that in the report during the Single Day of Acceptance of Military Products on August 10, 2021, Vladimir Roshchupkin, Executive Director of UVZ, stated that "for the first time, new and upgraded to the level of T-90M" Proryv "tanks in the amount of 26 units" were put into operation "- as can be understood by meaning, we mean deliveries in the first half of 2021.
In turn, Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Alexei Krivoruchko, at a single day of acceptance of military products on August 10, announced that in 2021 the army will receive 65 serial T-90M Proryv tanks.

And before 2021;
Under the terms of the 2017 contract, the delivery of 30 of these T-90M tanks was to be made in 2018-2019, however, the actual delivery of the first 10 tanks to the Ministry of Defense in the tank battalion of the 1st motorized rifle regiment of the 2nd guards Taman motorized rifle division of the 1st Guards Tank Army of the Western Military District was produced only in April 2020. Another batch of T-90M tanks was delivered there in November 2020, and another batch was delivered to the Kazan Tank School at the same time.

https://bmpd.livejournal.com/4370714.html


There are no public announcements for the T-14, so there are no announcements about its deliveries..

Does the T-14 have gun stabilization? Looks like dumb question but in videos I saw the gun always looks like it doesnt

DerWolf wrote:Does the T-14 have gun stabilization? Looks like dumb question but in videos I saw the gun always looks like it doesnt

Even the T-90 has gun stabilization. But it can be turned off. And in this case I think it was.

November 20, 22:05

The Ministry of Defense said that the armored vehicles of the Armed Forces after 2030 will become more protected

In addition, promising tanks, tracked and wheeled infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers are being developed as part of the Armata development work, Major General Alexander Shestakov, head of the Main Armored Directorate of the department, said.

MOSCOW, 21 November. /TASS/. Promising samples of Russian military armored vehicles, according to the concept of its development until 2030 and after, should become more unified and have an increased level of protection of personnel from conventional weapons. This was stated by the head of the Main Armored Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Major General Alexander Shestakov, in his article in the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.

He noted that the tactical and technical requirements for models of armored and military vehicles for the period up to 2030 and the rationale for the concept of their development after 2030 are currently being worked out.

"When developing new equipment, much attention is paid to increasing the level of protection of personnel from the damaging factors of conventional weapons, unification of the main components and assemblies, ensuring modular design, which will make it possible to create various types of weapons and military equipment based on these families and open up almost unlimited possibilities for their modernization," the general said.

Alexander Shestakov also noted that promising tanks, tracked and wheeled infantry fighting vehicles, armored personnel carriers are being developed as part of the Armata, Kurganets-25, and Boomerang development projects. Upon their completion, not only new combat vehicles will be created, but also platforms (base chassis) for future types of weapons, military and special equipment of the types and types of troops.

https://tass.ru/armiya-i-opk/16381611

The key advantage of DU over WHA is that it self-sharpens (the displaced material is allowed to develop failures under high strain, high heat conditions) and alloys are of much higher purity, thus denser.

I was under the impression that all types of penetrator technically self sharpen... the energy and pressure at such velocities means the armour acts like a fluid and as any metal pushes through it shears off excess material as it penetrates for most materials.

Moving to a higher caliber to satisfy anti-armor requirements is a forced error you want to impose on your opponent, not pull off yourself.

The larger calibre is already developed and paid for and would be of tremendous benefit for missile projectiles in terms of volume and HEAT warhead width... it is better to make the move when you choose rather than being forced to because your ammo no longer penetrates.

The 120/125 mm calibres are already a perfect balance of anti-personnel, anti-material and ammo capacity - get a smaller calibre and you need more than one shot to finish off most targets, get a higher one and you lose a lot of ammo.

Armour improvements or improvements in targeting could render shots at 5km or more to be standard rather than exceptions making larger calibre guns more suitable for some vehicles... think of it as a tank destroyer type role for the few enemy armoured vehicles that require that level of performance.

And besides, for subcaliber rounds a higher caliber means a larger sabot. A heavier parasitic mass and more of the energy gains are just wasted.

If larger calibre guns never made sense then the standard anti armour round would still be 37mm to 45mm calibre guns.

With EM guns they might go back to such calibres without Sabot sleeves where the new guns are essentially firing the darts without the full calibre shoes.

A 5 kg metal rod that is 2 m or even 3 m long would be as thin as a needle and would snap upon impact.

A 15kg rod then... HERMES in the ground launched model is supposed to reach 100km targets and its HE warhead is 30kgs but the current model does not have propulsion... it is launched via a very large solid rocket motor and then falls on its target with terminal homing and control fins to steer it into its target... they are updating it to add propulsion to the second stage... I would expect scramjet propulsion would give the best speed performance and would likely greatly extend range.

Could the russians have been producing more in secret? Against my internal doomer, I have taken the copium that just like how by 2022, there were more than 20 T-90Ms(official numbers), theres more than 30 preproduction T-14s.

Would not make sense to send T-14s to Ukraine... the Ukraine has nothing that warrants such performance.

Does the T-14 have gun stabilization? Looks like dumb question but in videos I saw the gun always looks like it doesnt

Very dumb question

Stabilisation systems are subject to wear and tear and are generally only engaged when moving but also when actually firing at a target... any other use is wasteful.

The T-35 tank had stabilisation in the vertical plane in its short barrel 76.2mm gun before WWII.

The Ministry of Defense said that the armored vehicles of the Armed Forces after 2030 will become more protected

In other words they plan to have Armata and Kurganets and Boomerang divisions operational by 2030.

Are there any changes in the Armata project? There is an article in The Moscow Times That I understand from it that the money for any project will be determinate by the needs for the fight in Ukraine. IS it going to effect the Armata project?

https://www.moscowtimes.eu/2022/11/11/20-trillionov-na-veter-krupneishaya-v-rossiiskoi-istorii-gosprogramma-proizvodstva-oruzhiya-ostanovlena-posle-provalov-v-ukraine-a26303

Moscow Times is Western propaganda and is not HQ in Moscow. Who knows what will happen. It might be they decide to focus on producing something for which the production chain already exists like more T-72B3M upgrades first. But I doubt they would not increase T-14 production in the near future since the next opponent will likely be NATO. Money has nothing to do with it since tanks are pretty cheap compared with other weapon systems.

DU is special in how readily and the extent at which it self-sharpens. There are modern WHA alloys that can exhibit self-sharpening, but afaik none come close to the self-sharpening exhibited by DU.

Can't be that special if the difference in penetration is only 10%... imagine the difference in penetration between the blunt end of a pencil and the sharpened end of a pencil... as weak as at human strength levels you could push a sharpened pencil through flesh through an arm or a hand easily enough just using bodyweight pressure and being careful no to shear off the tip and make it blunt, while pushing the blunt end of a pencil through anything would take rather more force all round.

And that is just the concentration of pressure and clearly does not take into account the integrity of the material penetrator... too hard or too soft it might shatter or break...

The real irony is that at the speeds and energies we are talking about most metals act like fluids anyway, but of course the air is the problem... on the moon with no air to slow things down you could really use speed to your advantage.... at 20km per second it no longer matters what materials you are using.... 5kgs of chalk and 5kgs of chicken feathers, it is still 5kgs and at 20km per second both projectiles will vapourise anyway.

On satellite protection systems that means you use layers... a 5mm plate will cause any paint chip sized impactor to vapourise so a 50cm gap and then another 5mm plate will disperse the vapour and render it harmless... in comparison even a 50mm thick plate of Aluminium wont stop that paint chip and the volume of the material from that impact will act as shrapnel and destroy components throughout the satellite because of their volume.

Why? HEAT shells are less effective compared subcaliber shots for anti-armor use. If you really want HEAT to be viable against MBTs there's always top attack. Even a 125 mm tandem shaped charge is more than enough for multilayer roof armor.

HEAT performance massively increases with diameter... it is not an accident that Hellfire is a 152mm calibre missile, nor that the most powerful disposable Soviet/Russian RPG is a 125mm RPG-28...

A 152mm HEAT round does not need much in the way of propulsion as it can be all seeker and warheads... traditionally aerodynamically the nose should be pointy... with such a shape there is a 125mm HEAT round with three HEAT warheads to maximise penetration including a small nose mounted precursor charge to defeat ERA or NERA and prepare the surface for two full calibre HEAT warhead penetrations to come.

Of course if the round is top attack then why bother with 152mm calibre penetrations... a roof penetrator could be 70mm or less in calibre, and of course a bundle of four or five Bulat like missiles could be loaded into one 152mm HEAT round, that could be launched in the direction of enemy armour... the Armata drone might be marking 5 separate targets from enemy armour to enemy drones in any combination with the bundle of missiles each selecting its own target and engaging that target... a single HEAT round with multiple warheads to maximise penetration could be used against hard structures like buildings or several light vehicles in a row... another advantage of the calibre would be gun barrel launched missiles or drones which might use ramjet or scramjet propulsion and have enormous speed and range... a kinetic drone that is designed for impacts against very light structures like enemy light drones might be able to fly around for hours ramming through enemy small drones and destroying them simply though impact at mach 1.5 plus speeds... it would not need to be super fast...

But 5 km or more LOS at surface level is pretty rare outside of featureless deserts. The flight time also makes unguided projectiles impractical against moving targets - so you're going to be firing guided missiles. But if you're firing missiles, why not make them top attack and bypass the steep penetration requirements altogether?

Actually in mountains you can generally see rather further than you can shoot leading to weapons like grenade launchers and auto cannon and artillery to become rather useful. Being on the side of a mountain and seeing an enemy group on a nearby mountain 8-10km away can be quite frustrating as you don't often have much you can use to deal with them... way out of small arms and HMG range and also beyond 82mm and many 120mm mortar range and even 23mm cannon fire range... a T-62 or T-55 dug in to the ground with ammo stacked up near it was useful however.

As optics improve and net centricness expands, the chances that the platform firing the munition does not directly see the target it is shooting at becomes rather higher... and guidance doesn't need to be super elaborate... a simple laser target mark detector or optics for moving target detection or laser spot detector would be cheap enough yet at the same time allow attacking moving targets.

I didn't say that. But there is such a thing as too large a caliber.

I can agree with that, increasing calibre is a significant escalation that leads to problems like heavier ammo and more recoil, all of which creates negative effects like fewer rounds available for use because of the larger ammo, and of course problems with firing on the move etc, but you were suggesting that going from 125mm to 152mm would not be efficient because the larger calibre gun would still use similar sized penetrators and therefore the sabot would be bigger and less efficient, which is not really the case. The extra size and weight and drag of a sabot is nothing compared with the loss of muzzle velocity of having a sabot that does not fill the barrel and lets gas blow past the round.

Maintaining everything else a 152 mm sabot is nearly 50% larger than a 125 mm sabot. 50% larger is 50% heavier, for no reason at all:

Increasing the barrel calibre increases the amount of energy you can get from any particular propellent charge. A sabot that does not fill the barrel is not a sabot any more.

A Sabot is made of very light materials and is in comparison to the calibre of the round mostly empty space with a small structure that supports the penetrator and fills the gap between the barrel and the penetrator to prevent propellent gas blowing past as you know... a 1kg sabot for a 125mm gun and a 2kg sabot for a 152mm gun does not mean the 152mm round is useless or inefficient.

If both carry the penetrator down the barrel and release it at full velocity it will have done its job... the parasitic drag from the larger sabot will be higher, but the bigger heavier 152mm penetrator will still be vastly better than the 125mm penetrator... all other things being equal.

the effectiveness of subcaliber shafts is measured roughly by how long they are and how fast they hit the target. The sabot is entirely wasted energy.

That is right, but the larger calibre allows more energy to be pushed down that barrel for a given propellent charge, which is why subcalibre projectiles in sabot rounds are so effective.

If you're hitting from the top a 30 kg HE warhead is more than enough. Krasnopol hits with 11 kg HEF warheads but it demolishes any MBT it touches.

Which is why I was saying a 5kg penetrator in the first place because top attack means hitting the weakest armour...

Are there any changes in the Armata project? There is an article in The Moscow Times That I understand from it that the money for any project will be determinate by the needs for the fight in Ukraine. IS it going to effect the Armata project?

The Russian Army will almost certainly use lessons from this conflict and others in their design of the Armata vehicle family.... including but not limited to the T-14 tank, but I wouldn't pay any attention to the Moscow Times because it is a foreign owned anti Russia anti Putin anti Russian Army rag... left free at bus stations and doctors offices... no one pays for it... it is a propaganda magazine dedicated to destroying Russia.

Bullseye bro.

BMPD wrote about this in February 2020, and since then a lot of T-90M tanks have already entered service. As a reminder, 65 T-90M tanks were already delivered last year.



Plans for the supply of tanks to the Russian Armed Forces


A prototype of the T-90M tank ("Object 188M", ROC "Proryv-3") during a demonstration on the territory of the 33rd combined-arms training ground. Luga (Leningrad region), September 2017 (c) Mikhail Tereshchenko / Izvestia


According to the Vedomosti newspaper, in an article by Ivan Safronov and Alexei Nikolsky, "The Ministry of Defense has decided on plans for the development of tank troops. There will be about 900 truly modern tanks by 2027," The Russian Armed Forces will begin to receive T-90M tanks in 2020 as new production, and mostly modernized from the T-90A tanks available in the troops. As Alexander Potapov, CEO of the Uralvagonzavod concern, said on Thursday [February 13, 2020], “I think we will see them [T-90M tanks] soon this year.”

According to a person close to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the entire department in 2017-2019. signed three contracts for T-90M tanks (code of development work "Breakthrough-3") with a volume of over 160 vehicles. The first two contracts implied the delivery of 60 vehicles in 2018-2019. (of which 10 had to be built anew, and another 50 T-90 units of early modifications were upgraded to the T-90M level), the remaining one - the largest one - assumed the fulfillment of an order for the modernization of the T-90A in service to the T-90M level.
The deadlines have shifted for objective reasons, says an employee in the industry. First of all, it was necessary to refine the fire control and target tracking system, as well as to test the tower module with new dynamic protection, which is the main difference between the T-90M and significantly increases its security. Now the problems have been resolved, the tank is considered to have received permission for mass production and is already being mass-produced, according to the source of Vedomosti. In 2020, the military will be able to receive at least 15 T-90Ms, he believes.

According to a person close to the leadership of the military department, based on the results of meetings (including with President Vladimir Putin), it was decided to carry out a massive renewal of the tank fleet of the Ground Forces in the next five years. Modern armored vehicles in the Ground Forces are only 50% - this is the lowest figure of all branches and types of the Armed Forces. The update will be “combined,” says the source of Vedomosti: in parallel with the purchase of new tanks, contracts will be concluded for the modernization of vehicles in service.
This year, it is possible to sign a contract for the production and modernization of about a hundred more T-90 tanks to the level of T-90M. Deputy Minister of Defense for Armaments Aleksey Krivoruchko wrote in an article for the first issue of 2020 of the corporate publication of the Radioelectronic Technologies concern that there are now about 400 T-90 tanks of early modifications in the ground forces that need to be modernized.

In 2020, state tests of the T-14 tank, created on the Armata platform, will begin, says a person close to the military department: if they are successful, then in 2021 the Russian Armed Forces will receive a fundamentally new vehicle. The volume of the potential contract for the period up to 2027, the interlocutor of Vedomosti estimates at about 500 T-14 units. This figure corresponds to the financial capabilities of the Ministry of Defense and the state of the platform itself, says Viktor Murakhovsky, editor-in-chief of Arsenal of the Fatherland magazine.
But neither the purchase of the T-14 nor the purchase of the T-90M will make it possible to replace the T-72B3 of various modifications (not within that period), already delivered in the amount of about 2,000 vehicles, as the basis of the tank fleet of the Russian Armed Forces, he believes. In total, by 2027, according to a source in the defense industry, according to these plans, the troops will have about 900 truly modern T-14 and T-90M tanks.

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjTvKa299j7AhULIMUKHaF8C0UQFnoECCsQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fbmpd.livejournal.com%2F3935520.html&usg=AOvVaw2RoD1fcYSuh-Tx5-qNyrtd

Keep in mind that the T-72 mostly equips the tank units of motorized rifle divisions/brigades/regiments. Therefore large numbers are needed.
The T-90M and soon the T-14 will be the spearhead of the tank divisions/brigades/regiments. Most of the time they will be attacking "modern"
western tanks while the T-72 will deal with the rest.

Looking at this conventionnal war, it is dumb to think tanks attack tanks.

 Hole Today at 7:51 pm

As always, you are not wrong, on the contrary...
Unlike some who believe in fairy tales, you can't do without tanks in war, and the biggest "killer" in conventional war was and remains the "queen of firepower" - artillery. It's just that they don't have enough in the West because some countries have less howitzers than some rich owners have cars.