[Official] Armata Discussion thread #6

Fukin autocorrection

ALAMO wrote:Dasha is a perfect example of a person completely deluded by commercials.
She never visited any military base for anything else other than unga buga, that's sure

She does give off some of that "9 Pota" vibes iykwim.
(Yes, I just invented the first russo-romanized pun, suck me )

And lol at BenVaserlan here disliking our posts - she your girlfriend or something dude?  

Concerning some of her comments, there would be a misunderstanding with cleaning the pipe meaning either.

From 6 mins 5 seconds in, the T-14's X engine is analysed.  The video as a whole is about how hard it is to make a reliable X engine. However, according to this video, a number of clever solutions have been come up with by Chelyabinsk.

Getting closer and closer to the finish line.

CITV-gun station seems different.  Maybe.

I guess the loading hatches are open. Or it´s a canvas covering the whole thing.

Milk truck just arrived:
https://patents.google.com/patent/RU219122U1/ru

A succesor for that good old vehicle?

With an explosion big enough to blow the T-14's top off,  what would happen to the crew in the armoured compartment?

I'm imagining the order of danger to be: the shock-wave, then heat, then smoke/fumes.

I would expect their seats will be shock resistant to deal with mines, and the heat would build up over time, but equally I would think various fire suppression systems would also be activated too. Smoke and fumes shouldn't be a huge issue as it should be sealed and NBC protected.

Their crew suits are generally heat resistant to the point where they could scramble out of the hatches and forward over the front of the vehicle, but then after that they are on their own... but above a certain level of power explosions kill.

50kg IEDs killed Abrams crew, and there is more than 50kgs of HE in a tanks ammo load.

At the end of the day the only way to 100% protect the crew is drone vehicles with no crew on board.

Milk truck just arrived:

Solid looking fuel truck... I wonder if they could modify it and create a flame throwing version...

Old style flame throwers look great, but most of the burning fuel is needed (or wasted) to bring the flames to the target area.
Those thermobaric missiles/rockets are more useful.

By the way... that Armata fuel carrier looks more promising than the Merkava water carrier.

BenVaserlan wrote:With an explosion big enough to blow the T-14's top off,  what would happen to the crew in the armoured compartment
I'm imagining the order of danger to be: the shock-wave, then heat, then smoke/fumes.

They would be fine. Blast is not particularly hard to deal with; you just need sufficiently thick walls and strong welds.

lyle6 wrote: and strong welds.

Funny you mention that, typically western MBTs hulls pop open when the ammunition cooks off, while Russian ones do not.

Apparently the 3BM69/70 subcaliber shell just dropped:

https://www.fips.ru/cdfi/fips.dll/ru?ty=29&docid=2805664
Has a complex metallic (Al alloy in all likelihood) sabot design with extensive skeletonization. Despite the machining involved this is the cheap option for mass production as a composite sabot is simply far too expensive judging by the US experience.

The armor-piercing shaft itself has a very pronounced aspect ratio while maintaining a substantial diameter making for a very resilient high performance penetrator against complex reactive targets. Combined with the insane impact velocity out of the 2A82-1M gun, the core should pierce NATO armor at any angle even at extended ranges - and even the T-14 itself at close-in distances.

All in all a very solid round that easily invalidates the latest and upcoming developments in NATO armor for years to come. Now all that's left to do is to panic buy the tank and its stock of shells. Harden your wallet, oh Putin. Increase your army's military budget tenfold.

General in all, current conflicts show that tanks are destroyed by artillery, FPV drones, and ATGM loitering ammunition. Least often by other tanks

Now all that's left to do is to panic buy the tank and its stock of shells.

Regular procurement for the next 5 years will be enough.

All in all a very solid round that easily invalidates the latest and upcoming developments in NATO armor for years to come. Now all that's left to do is to panic buy the tank and its stock of shells. Harden your wallet, oh Putin. Increase your army's military budget tenfold.

Nice that they have it, but considering the performance of western tanks in this conflict so far I would say they probably don't need a lot of them and that actually top attack missiles should be the direction they go with... put an optical seeker in the nose of tiny Bulat missiles and climb them up as they approach their targets and have them dive down on the rear of the turret bustle and it is all over for any western tank.

General in all, current conflicts show that tanks are destroyed by artillery, FPV drones, and ATGM loitering ammunition. Least often by other tanks

True, but current conflicts might not reflect future conflicts, so being ready for anything is useful and important.

Regular procurement for the next 5 years will be enough.

The west isn't sending anything to Ukraine that would warrant this new shell, but by all means produce it and keep it in stocks...

Maintaining advantages is important...

Arrow wrote:General in all, current conflicts show that tanks are destroyed by artillery, FPV drones, and ATGM loitering ammunition. Least often by other tanks

Not really. In the same way that armor constricts the enemy's mobility making them vulnerable to fires, the tank's main gun enables a lot of the lethality of top attack munitions by shunting most of the protection tothe front, leaving the rest of the tank vulnerable to attack.

Hole wrote:
Regular procurement for the next 5 years will be enough.

If there's one thing both sides of the new cold war can agree on, its that the demands of war vastly exceeded all expectations they set.

GarryB wrote:
Nice that they have it, but considering the performance of western tanks in this conflict so far I would say they probably don't need a lot of them and that actually top attack missiles should be the direction they go with... put an optical seeker in the nose of tiny Bulat missiles and climb them up as they approach their targets and have them dive down on the rear of the turret bustle and it is all over for any western tank.

I might seem as a killjoy, but cope cages are actually very, very effective at protecting against  the light anti-armor warheads that loitering munitions frequently use. Not to mention the high attritional losses in drones just running out of juice trying to find their targets or just missing.

Some more analysis on the 3BM69/70 APFSDS:
Looking at previous CGI it appears the 3BM69/70 core has a monolithic structure with a special ballistic tip:

The ballistic tip design is interesting. It looks like a honey dipper with a ridges from end to end and a slight thickening at the middle. Its definitely not steel since it has a windshield and a steel ablative tip would just have a sharpened end without bothering with a windshield.

But since we have a flat image we can more accurately measure the dimensions of the core:

Ouch. This is a 25.4mmx790mm penetrator core. Someone decided that if they're going to pay for a new autoloader they might as well get the longest DU/Tungsten core Rosatom can fabricate.

It might seem backwards, but remember, NATO does not use heavy ERA and peak bending stresses from external and internal NERA modules are nowhere near close enough to those exerted by multilayer flyer plate ERA. The Russians must have realized they could have their cake and eat it too when they designed a girthier core with an extra resilient tip that can resist the reactive effect of NERA without sacrificing penetrating power from ablative segments.

The resulting penetrator is a monster that will overcome the toughest ballistic shielding you can feasibly deploy on overweight NATO MBTs with a conventional turret layout and then some. And since the margin for further weight increases on the latest NATO MBTs is all but tapped out, there is simply no other solution left for NATO but to adopt an Armata style MBT themselves if they want to compete. A costly and risky project to add to the many that their battered economies will struggle to support until eventually it just breaks from the pressure.

I thought the T14 was supposed to be able to carry meter long penetrators.

Though we do run into a problem with the T14's design if gato ever adopts heavy ERA it will not be able to fit long enough penetrators.

The AL can hold 1.2m long projectiles so it can definitely fire meter long penetrators. It is future proof even against the T-14. The only real bottleneck is in the energy of the gun system.

Length is also not the be all and all parameter. Make a penetrator core too long and its liable to snap or bend on impact, moreso when reactive armor is involved.

lyle6 wrote:
Length is also not the be all and all parameter. Make a penetrator core too long and its liable to snap or bend on impact, moreso when reactive armor is involved.

There are ways. I guess I am just sad we will likely not see 3m long penetrators because gato are too dumb to design armour that would require them.

Arrow wrote:General in all, current conflicts show that tanks are destroyed by artillery, FPV drones, and ATGM loitering ammunition. Least often by other tanks

Yes the Hunter/killer mode isnt such a big thing after all. The main role today of the Tank is to support the Infantry it seems, as they are easy targets for Arty and drones.
Though we might see some big armoured fist coming in the near future, i doubt it.
As good as the Armata probably is, if the main role is to support Infantry, the T90 does the job as good. Still, T-14 will make an official debut in the near future, but it will not be a game changer.