Russian Ground Forces: News #1

They talk, Russian army have around 40.000 soldiers near border with Ukraine. Enough to secure border in case of civil war, but to invade 40 million country, Russia need 1 million soldiers. 40.000 soldiers are not enough to attack 1 larger town.

Zivo wrote:

TR1 wrote:


Also comes in 4x4 now apparently.

I never liked the idea of putting so much weight on just four wheels. Especially on a vehicle expected to operate in areas were road conditions are less than desirable.

What would you say if they were double wheeled, 2 tires per space to increase traction area?

GarryB wrote:Interesting... lightweight ATGM for use from light vehicles, or weapon designed to engage light vehicles... or both?

I suspect the former.

i agree, HEAT is not efficient against light armor due to lack of behind armor effects when striking something soft, and this one seems to have a HEAT warhead(probe at front).

collegeboy16 wrote:

GarryB wrote:Interesting... lightweight ATGM for use from light vehicles, or weapon designed to engage light vehicles... or both?

I suspect the former.

i agree, HEAT is not efficient against light armor due to lack of behind armor effects when striking something soft, and this one seems to have a HEAT warhead(probe at front).

There is only HEAT rounds widespread that are suitable for Anti-Armor role of lightweight class, delayed impact fuzed HE-Frag ammunition will either not penetrate and detonate on surface like the harder frontal armor of IFV's or will have to penetrate the side armor which gets thicker and thicker over the last 20 years, so the ammunition of choice for light armored vehicles is still HEAT rounds.

magnumcromagnon wrote:

Zivo wrote:

TR1 wrote:

Also comes in 4x4 now apparently.

I never liked the idea of putting so much weight on just four wheels. Especially on a vehicle expected to operate in areas were road conditions are less than desirable.

What would you say if they were double wheeled, 2 tires per space to increase traction area?

Better. That configuration should be the bare minimum for a vehicle of this size.

TR1 wrote:

Maybe UR Bulat is a missile for an APS (active armor) system.

Can somebody tell me what the first word of the second line of the text is? I am assuming the text is related ().

The first word of the first line seems to be "Управления", which makes sense as being the "U" part of "UR Bulat".

Range, Penetration, that kind of thing.

The shot cuts off RIGHT before the specification display. Damn!

GarryB wrote:

Maybe UR Bulat is a missile for an APS (active armor) system.

Interesting guess, but an APS interceptor munition would never use a shaped charge as a payload... a flat ball bearing covered claymore mine type configuration would make more sense...

There is no major feature in the picture that would categorically indicate that the warhead is a shaped charge; I know about the probe, but it could be something else. Actually, for a conventional shaped charge with conventional contact fusing, the shaped charge has to be way too far back in the missile body to operate optimally at all.

The missile can also be a dual-purpose missile (APS and anti-light-armor) or a triple-purpose missile (APS, anti-light-armor, and anti-personal), with the following characteristics.

1- The missile may have a warhead that includes a wide-angle shaped charge, with or without a fragmentation liner. A wide-angle shaped charge is de-optimized for depth of armor penetration but, with or without a fragmentation liner, would be optimized as an APS and also against light armor of the type shown in the picture. Many Russian active protection systems seem to have exactly these type of warheads or other warheads that are highly directional. Also many high-performance directional mines (e.g., MON-200) essentially have wide-angle shaped charges with a fragmentation liner.

An EFP with a fragmentation liner would also achieve the same thing (e.g., a GSh-7VT with its optional modular fragmentation add-on).

2- It may also have a precursor shaped charge warhead to defeat reactive armors.

3- It has a probe, which can be a contact and proximity probe.

Nice   

Mobile shock reconnaissance robotokompleks

Morpheus Eberhardt wrote:

There is no major feature in the picture that would categorically indicate that the warhead is a shaped charge; I know about the probe, but it could be something else. Actually, for a conventional shaped charge with conventional contact fusing, the shaped charge has to be way too far back in the missile body to operate optimally at all.

yeah, maybe an APS too. something much destructive than large fragments, and a bit contained blast plus with a lot more reach would be necessary to protect lightly armored vehicles against hybrid HE/HEAT missiles like Kornet.

If you all talk about this Bulat missile which TR1 has posted than i personally highly doubt that this should be an APS.
The point of an APS is to be effective against incoming threats and this Missile like shape is unpractical and unconventional in terms of waste of space. APS use usually either Casettes shaped charges like in Arena or cylindric shaped grenades like in Drozd and others. The point is having several of such APS countermeasures, because where one AT weapon comes from there are plenty more. And this missile shaped "APS" would also had only a very narrow directional blast or needed a much higher amount of Fragmentation and explosive than older APS systems already used shotgun like blasts.

I think it is HEAT/HE-Frag or even likely mentioned by Morpheus a Bunkerfaust like grenade which would explain that only light armored targets are shown on the table and not a single hard armored target.

no, the future of APS would be smaller warheads with moar concentrated blast/fragmentation effects. To be effective they must be as acccurate as possible- they would be able to steer a path towards the incoming projectile, not unlike current APS that 'waits' for the target to close in and open up with a shotgun barrage of fragments.

Werewolf wrote:If you all talk about this Bulat missile which TR1 has posted than i personally highly doubt that this should be an APS.
The point of an APS is to be effective against incoming threats and this Missile like shape is unpractical and unconventional in terms of waste of space. APS use usually either Casettes shaped charges like in Arena or cylindric shaped grenades like in Drozd and others. The point is having several of such APS countermeasures, because where one AT weapon comes from there are plenty more. And this missile shaped "APS" would also had only a very narrow directional blast or needed a much higher amount of Fragmentation and explosive than older APS systems already used shotgun like blasts.

I think it is HEAT/HE-Frag or even likely mentioned by Morpheus a Bunkerfaust like grenade which would explain that only light armored targets are shown on the table and not a single hard armored target.

If the diameter of Bulat turns out to be 107 mm, then the missile's dimensions would be the same as those of the Drozd-2 projectiles that have been publicly displayed; that means each Bulat can fit in a Drozd-2 launch tube. Also, in TR1's picture, Bulat is shown next to a Kurganets-25 type APS launcher.

As I have been referring to GSh-7VT in several of my post about Bulat, I have started a thread on GSh-7VT at

https://www.russiadefence.net/t3095-gsh-7vt-7

Morpheus Eberhardt wrote:
If the diameter of Bulat turns out to be 107 mm, then the missile's dimensions would be the same as those of the Drozd-2 projectiles that have been publicly displayed; that means each Bulat can fit in a Drozd-2 launch tube. Also, in TR1's picture, Bulat is shown next to a Kurganets-25 type APS launcher.

Maybe, but i doubt it has 107mm diameter seems smaller than 100mm.

GarryB wrote:

There is no major feature in the picture that would categorically indicate that the warhead is a shaped charge; I know about the probe, but it could be something else. Actually, for a conventional shaped charge with conventional contact fusing, the shaped charge has to be way too far back in the missile body to operate optimally at all.

A HEAT charge forms a plasma beam of vaporised metal... it requires a standoff distance for that beam to form properly... the sole purpose of the probe is to ensure the correct distance from the HEAT charge and the armour it is to penetrate to ensure the best possible penetration performance.

To my knowledge the only other use of standoff probes for fuses is with bombs where the ground is soft or deep snow to ensure the bombs explode well above ground rather than burying themselves before exploding... not really relevant in this case...

According to my conjecture, the probe would be for the precursor shaped charge not for the main warhead; the precursor benefits from a probe too, and the probe geometry matches that of a small precursor shaped charge well.

GarryB wrote:

Also, in TR1's picture, Bulat is shown next to a Kurganets-25 type APS launcher.

Is that an APS launcher on Kurganets-25 or is it an ATGM launcher?

Drozd-2 has two twin launchers with the angles slightly offset to increase the horizontal coverage...

I am not really certain, but two tiers of launchers of the same type can be seen in the Bulat picture. Also the launchers are too short for a normally sized ATGM. Additionally, the launchers resemble the launchers to the rear of the turret in the following picture.

They seem indeed to small to be anykind of an effective ATGM and seem to big and to small in numbers for directional APS countermeasures.

GarryB wrote:

To be fair it was an export version of the Abrams tank bought by the Iraqi army (I think it's the same kind that the Egyptians have) which doesn't include depleted uranium slabs in th

Sorry... Abrams strong crew wont accept that the T-90s and T-80s they faced in Desert Storm might have been downgraded export models so we can't make the same allowances for the Abrams here either.

Looks to me like there is a strong orange plume coming out of the turret after the hit which says to me there was an ammo fire.

Not all Abrams ammo is stored in the turret bustle... 8 rounds are carried in the crew compartment near the driver...

Crew survival outside the tank is generally pretty good... lots of tank crews made it back to their lines during WWII and lived to fight another day.

T-90's and T-80's in Desert Storm??? Did you mean T-54/55's, T-62's, and T-72's/Asad Babil's? I agree that the "America Strong!!!1!" crew can't wrap their heads around the fact that when they actually fight weapon systems that are modern and of their generation than all of a sudden their armor doesn't look nearly as invincible, and are in fact quite vulnerable. Downgraded export models of RPG-29's, Kornet's have proven themselves extremely effective against NATO heavy armor:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/at-14.htm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-450477/Defence-chiefs-knew-invincible-tank-armour-breached.html

Morpheus Eberhardt wrote:Additionally, the launchers resemble the launchers to the rear of the turret in the following picture.

Actually, the two objects to the back of the turret in the attached picture may not even be launchers; they may be sensors.