[Official] Armata Discussion thread #6

AFAIK the turret bustle autoloader of the Black Eagle was designed to be like a rifles magazine... it would be like a tray that the bustle autoloader would be lowered onto when loading the vehicle. All 31 rounds would be in the bustle autoloader and it would be attached in one piece.

When entering combat the magazine is vulnerable to enemy fire but if penetrated and set on fire the turret can be turned to the side and the bustle magazine can be dumped so it doesn't damage the tank. The vehicle would then head back to the rear area to get a new mag fitted. When sufficient ammo has been fired and the commander wants to reload he can head back to the rear area where the empty or partially loaded bustle can be lifted off and replaced with a full bustle ready to go.

When loading the underfloor autoloader on Soviet tanks you normally hand load them one at a time putting them into the autoloader and having that insert that round into a position on the autoloader with a crewman pushing a button so the system knows what type of ammo is loaded there, so if that round type is selected it knows where to rotate the autoloader to find it.

I suspect with the bustle autoloader it has some other method of specifying and identifying which round is of which type..

The Burlak was based on the T-72 and kept its underfloor autoloader but added a bustle autoloader, which I thought was an interesting compromise.

The Russian Army felt the turret bustle autoloader was too vulnerable to enemy fire and rejected it.

galicije83 wrote:
Probably one of delay of T14 in serial production. They will go with 152mm instead of 125mm

Highly unlikely. Advances in metallurgy and propellant chemistry have made 125mm guns almost, if not equal to the 152mm guns in ballistic performance. Certainly better electronics that you can fit more sophisticated multi-mode seekers and fuzes on the smaller caliber.

lancelot wrote:If anything they should work on making the platform more resistant to drone and guided artillery attacks.

They are. Mass artillery and FPVs made them significantly rethink some of the design decisions regarding active protection. Expect more robust shielding for the equipment, a counter UAV autocannon CIWS (possibly), more near field sensors etc.

william.boutros wrote:
This is not an improvement. It seems they have issues producing a longer barreled gun. This indicates that they are having issues with the production of Koalitsya.

They are serially producing L/47 152 mm guns. Doubt the extra caliber is going to make any difference.

Later, details came out from a source in the defense industry. They revealed that this new T-14 model replaces the 125-mm 2A82-1M gun, which is 56 calibers long, with a much-improved 152-mm smoothbore 2A83-1A gun that has a chrome barrel and is 48 calibers long.

Is this source in Russia or the CIA?

This is not an improvement. It seems they have issues producing a longer barreled gun.

A 125mm gun that is 56 calibres long has a 7m long barrel. A 152mm gun 48 calibres long is just under 7.3m long.

So the 152mm guns barrel is just under one foot or just under 30 cm longer than the 125mm gun they are serially mass producing for the tanks they operate and replacement barrels as needed. These tanks are firing thousands of rounds and would likely each be getting a new barrel every other day...

The real question right now is, what target on the battlefield requires a 152mm gun to defeat it at normal battlefield distances?

Or is this an admission that they wont bother using the T-14 in Ukraine and so the ammo production issues wont be a problem.

I would check the source before I believed it to be honest.

For context, the transportable ammunition for a 152-mm version of the “Armata” tank is set for 40 shells, with 24 stored in the automatic loader. Comparatively, the standard T-14 version, which has a 125 mm gun, carries 45 shells, 32 of which are in the autoloader.

The turret is unmanned. The robot version does not have any crew in it at all. How do they explain the way the ammo storage works. Who loads rounds into the autoloader when they are used up?

The new 152 mm caliber BOPS is made from very strong and heavy materials, possibly including depleted uranium. Its effective range is around 5 km.

So no effective range improvement over the 125mm gun that is lighter and already in widespread production and use?

This  vehicle will also use the latest Krasnopol family artillery projectile, which has a bottom gas generator and satellite navigation. This high-precision projectile was developed for the Russian  Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled gun and is also compatible with the new Malva-wheeled self-propelled gun.

If the T-14 can carry and use the 43km range Krasnopol designed for Coalition you have to ask can it also fire the tactical nuclear 152mm shells too?

The reported range for hitting a tank target with this ammunition is 70-80 km, setting a new record for mass-produced projectiles in its class.

Interesting, but then the Coalition does have a longer barrel than MSTA and Malva that fire it to 43km.

Additionally, the 2A83-1A barrel can fire an anti-tank guided missile from the 9M133FM family, designed for the Kornet ATGM. This missile has a caliber of 152 mm and can penetrate up to 1400 mm of armor and 1200 mm of armor behind dynamic protection, effective from 150 meters to 10 km.

The larger calibre would allow all sorts of new rounds to be used including suicide and recon drones or EMP shells and jammer shells.

Moreover, the 2A83-1A’s 152-mm barrel lasts about 280 rounds compared to the T-14’s base 125-mm barrel, which can last at least 900 rounds.

In both cases the firing limit would be based on the highest velocity highest pressure rounds... so generally APFSDS rounds. They should be able to fire substantially more HE and missile types that wont leave the barrel at anything like top speed or highest pressure.

The T-14 MBT, with its original 125 mm gun, was reported to weigh 55 tons. However recent information suggests that designers managed to reduce the T-14’s weight during optimization. It’s unclear how long this process took.

What a strange comment... surely the interesting factor is how much weight reduction they achieved... not how long they worked on achieving it.

No sources listed at the end of the article to check... so how much can it be trusted.

Most of the article seemed relatively positive, but the nature of propaganda is murky.

There are hardened delay fuzes that can be fitted on 125mm HE shells to further improve the penetration against concrete. Or better yet a modern take on the APHE.

It is strange that the article seems to suggest that the 152mm gun is going to be adopted so longer range targets can be engaged, yet it mentions that the effective range of the gun with standard ammo is 5km... which is the range the T-90 can hit stationary targets while moving.

They showed it on an episode of Combat Approved.

The T-14 was intended to operate with a 152mm gun from the beginning but they fitted an improved 125mm gun because 125mm ammo had room for growth and was in mass serial production so there was plenty of it.

Having one calibre of main gun tank ammo is a good thing... even if they do have T-62s in use with their 115mm smoothbore guns... they likely have plenty of ammo left for that and when that is used up I suspect they could use 100mm smoothbore ammo used in the MT-12 towed anti tank guns with those guns being fitted to the tanks... or more likely just fit T-72 tank turrets to the older vehicles so they use 125mm ammo too.

For such a use I would say using the 100mm low velocity gun from the BMP-3 with a much thicker heavier high pressure barrel and a new APFSDS round being developed for it as an equivalent to the Israeli 60mm gun for use against heavy BMPs and older MBTs and new MBTs from the side or rear.

Ammo is very compact and with an autoloader and unmanned turret you could convert them into robot form...

There are hardened delay fuzes that can be fitted on 125mm HE shells to further improve the penetration against concrete. Or better yet a modern take on the APHE.

Even the standard HE shells for the 125mm gun have a range of options depending on the target...

There are shrapnel and incendiary HE rounds for the 125mm gun but the standard HE Frag round has a protective cap and a detonator fuse that can be set depending on the effect you were after.

With the safety cap on and the detonator set to open the time delay is 0.01 seconds, which is the standard HE Frag setting.

The detonator set to open and the safety cap fitted it has a bit more delay of 0.1 seconds so it can partially penetrate into earth works or bunkers before exploding.

There is also the anything will set it off mode with no safety cap and the detonator set to open and even soft targets will set the round off including mud or snow, or the canvas cap covering the barrel, as well as rain and hail in the air... the vehicle has to be stationary when handling ammo and loading ammo in this condition.

It is a bit like an RPG-7 round with the safety cap on the tip removed... drop it in that condition and the warhead explodes... you can use it as a big hand grenade from the top of a building...

Anyway, this is 125mm ammo from 50 years ago... they now have a couple of different air burst shells and I would expect they will also have more sophisticated fuses now too.

The RPO-M has a sophisticated smart fuse that detects impacts and whether it is stopped by hard armour or if it has hit something softer that it is burrowing through.

Hard armour will set off the armour penetration warhead, and striking something like a window or wall of a building that it is managing to penetrate into leads to a delayed explosion to explode inside the target.

The vast majority of a tanks targets are not other armored vehicles, hence a 152mm might be better suited to such targets. Perhaps the Russians just looked over the combat statistics and decided that 152mm shells are more effective against such targets.

If that were the case then increased length HE rounds with a double charge and a smart fuse would probably make rather more sense than going up in calibre.

Having a Coalition operating with the unit perhaps 10km behind the front line able to drop shells on targets with very high accuracy and perhaps laser guidance would make needing it for tank rounds would be less important.

But I guess we will see.

The-thing-next-door wrote:The vast majority of a tanks targets are not other armored vehicles, hence a 152mm might be better suited to such targets. Perhaps the Russians just looked over the combat statistics and decided that 152mm shells are more effective against such targets.

You got it backwards. Light and unarmored targets are better served with smaller caliber shells precisely because you can shoot more of them.

This is interesting...



It mentions at the end that the versions with 152mm guns might be used in a gun support role including hitting targets with guided shells to 70km and launching Kornet type missiles through the barrel... presumably redesigned to be fired from the gun rather than launched from the tube.

As such the 152mm gun armed version wont be the standard version and would operate in small numbers with most of the other Armatas using 125mm guns.

It mentions transparent armour... that means the crew wear VR glasses and the vehicle has high resolution cameras fixed pointed at different angles. A computer on board then takes the video images from these angled cameras and stitches the view together in real time to form a virtual video high res view of the outside of the tank.

It means you can be sitting in the hull and look around yourself like your head is up level with the turret with an unimpeded 360 degree view around the tank... most likely in digital low light colour TV video and also in thermal channels to you can see threats near the tank on the ground and in the air.

Normally the commander is up in the turret and has the best view. The gunner has his optics but otherwise does not sit with hits hatch open enjoying the view and the driver down in the hull has a very limited view of the world and relies on information from the commander about where to drive.

With this optics system the driver can see where he is going so the commander does not have to spend so much time looking for dangers like deep mud or snow or things that might cause the tank to get stuck or roll over.

The driver and the gunner will both have as good a view of the world as the commander... without having to open their hatches.

The cameras will likely have backup tiny lenses based on fibre optics so if the main cameras are hit they can still see well enough to get back to get them fixed.

The optics system might have a LIDAR incorporated with it so that it can be used by the APS system to detect incoming threats.

Russian helicopters are getting the same systems to allow them to spot incoming fire and to land and take off safely at night and in bad weather.

The 125mm 2A82-1M gun was specifically designed to replicate the ballistic performance of the 152mm 2A83 gun when shooting subcaliber shells, while the new multimode seekers would allow for top attack cumulative shells that can take out any NATO tank from any distance even despite the smaller caliber. For most intents and purposes its as good as the 152 mm gun, but better since it has a larger capacity and shares commonality with existing stocks.

What it can't do is shoot nuclear shells, the 152mm device being the smallest practical without going for more exotic fissile materials...

Any existing 152mm tube artillery can do the same, mind you, they just won't have the survivability of an MBT on the battlefield.

The weak top armour of western tanks and the exposed turret bustle autoloaders is an interesting vulnerability they should be exploiting.

The Sokol-1 missile from some time ago sounded like it had an EO seeker that could home in on targets marked with a laser target marker, but could also identify moving targets and hit them.

The image processing power of a cellphone means tank targets could be identified and its orientation determined... especially fired up into the air and looking down on the target the barrel and turret bustle position determined for targeting the centre of the turret bustle.

A full power HEAT warhead would not be needed... nor would two or three cumulative charges to get through ERA and hull or turret front armour plate.

Speaking of, 3UBK25:

william.boutros wrote:
Then why isn't Koalitsya replacing MSTA?

The Koala upgrade is more than a barrel change.

GarryB wrote:The weak top armour of western tanks and the exposed turret bustle autoloaders is an interesting vulnerability they should be exploiting.

The Sokol-1 missile from some time ago sounded like it had an EO seeker that could home in on targets marked with a laser target marker, but could also identify moving targets and hit them.

The image processing power of a cellphone means tank targets could be identified and its orientation determined... especially fired up into the air and looking down on the target the barrel and turret bustle position determined for targeting the centre of the turret bustle.

A full power HEAT warhead would not be needed... nor would two or three cumulative charges to get through ERA and hull or turret front armour plate.

In one of the frontline materials provided, one of the VDV Kornet operators explained that Kornet already has an indirect attack mode.
It must not fly along the laser beam, but can deviate to attack side/top.
Honestly, I have never heard it before.

Then why isn't Koalitsya replacing MSTA?

There will be older vehicles to be replaced before the MSTA... the 2S3 would be replaced in service first... you would need Coalitia to get into full serial production before it replaced anything really... and it makes sense to cascade the newer vehicles with upgrades before replacing the new vehicles.

The level of electronics upgrades and system upgrades for Russian artillery will have been significant and it shows in their ability to arrive at a firing position and fire and then immediately leave like the Malva vehicles are doing now.

Other self propelled vehicles will be able to do the same if not now then soon, and really the only advantages of the Coalition will be range and for most operations they wont use extreme range firing.... they will be concentrating fire on targets at closer ranges and pummelling them with a 8-9 shells from each gun that all arrive at once.

The Koala upgrade is more than a barrel change.

I suspect a lot of the electronics improvements created for Coalition were applied to MSTA and Malva and will likely be added to their other artillery vehicles to boost performance and improve safety.

Coalition will not just have a longer barrel, but its chamber will be revised to take the new propellant allowing more propellant to be used for extended range shots... but they wont be fired that way all the time.

As shown by the western super guns with the amazing shooting range... you need special high pressure shells to reach such distances, and of course they wear out your gun barrel very fast... the German guns were breaking from firing 100 rounds per day, which would make them next to useless for delivering a proper heavy barrage against an enemy infantry force of any size.

Sigh. LOS thickness =/= armor.

There's 40 years of advancements in materials science between the reflecting plates vs. whatever they are using for the Armata. Nevermind that even back then the armor was nerfed due to GABTU rationing of strategic materials. Can't blame them either - production runs are enormous thousands of units in a few years - something has to give.

Also, Red missed the forest for the trees:


See that gouge on the entry hole? The one that looks to be made by a slanted impact.

The projectile is supposed to arrive at close to a flat angle maybe a degree angle of descent at most, with the witness plate inclined at 60 degrees more or less. For the projectile to gouge the armor that way it must have a positive tilt relative to the armor surface...

A 10 degrees relative tilt is enough to reduce penetration by 20% - 20 degrees to 50%...

And is it just me or is the armor dented further below...

That it penetrated into the second plate with a neat circular hole suggests the first third or so of the sub-projectile was undisturbed. Monolit could be set to have a delayed reaction to allow the attacker to waste his precursor, while at the same time maximizing the impact of the flyer plates against the main body of the penetrator...