T-90 Main Battle Tank #2

GarryB wrote:
But this cage armour does the job much easier and cheaper. Why spend big money on APS systems that need to be reloaded when some mesh and metal framing wielded together can do the job.

Cage armour is cheap and simple and effective.

But APS systems generate loads of cash, probably a prime reason for them in the West. Also cages spoil the lines of the tank (form over function) in PR photos and PR matters in "Buy Mine" presentations at a political level. The Chally 3 promo pictures are a case in point.

Very different from Russia's 'function over form' approach.

No it's not, you need multiple FPV drones to destroy an MBT well covered by cages, as much as an MBT with APS.

For me the main reason for cages is, that any Recovery and Maintenance Unit can add cage armor, additional armor plates,
ERA packs and roof armor to a tank.

APS? Not so sure. Currently a tank needs propably to go back to one of the tank repair factories to receive an APS.
That´s why we will see an APS most likely on new build or deeply modernised tanks.

Another point against APS: They were never intended to defend tanks against drones.
Some of them will be able to do it, but only after the sensors and software received an upgrade.
Otherwise any small bird could trigger the APS.

Hole wrote:
APS? Not so sure. Currently a tank needs propably to go back to one of the tank repair factories to receive an APS.
That´s why we will see an APS most likely on new build or deeply modernised tanks.

I will reveal you a secret.
US tanks are being modernized for Troophy, while lacking those.
They are only arranging cabling, making the tank even heavier.
Oh those shitty dumb Muricans ...
Aside of that, Gaza's experience will put a giant question mark on all of the idea.

We will see how they take care of ukro lancent when he struck Russians in mid 2024. They made 2 types of kamikaze drones, one is operate, this second one will be in mid 24. With this stupid cage armor they will decimate Russians vehicles.

The rate at which the Orcs are retreating I rather suspect they are not using their lancets correctly... Stupid cage armour is not stupid if it works.

At the very least it will make aiming for weak points by drone pilots and ATGM operators rather more difficult.

I know why Russians did this. Life of Russian soldier is a cheap and more vehicle they lost in battlefield more will they made it and more money they will spend on them. More money bigger GDP. Math is simple....

WTF are you talking about? The tactics the Russians have been using during this conflict have clearly been designed and intended to maximise the number of enemy kills and minimise the number of Russian soldiers and civilians getting killed.

If the life of Russia soldiers were cheap they would be in T-62s and they wouldn't bother with any cage armour or their own drones either.

You seem to be confusing one side with the other as Kiev sends barely trained soldiers into battle... and they seem to be dying at an enormous rate... especially the ones trying to surrender that get murdered by their own troops before they can be taken prisoner.

Very different from Russia's 'function over form' approach.

Very true... the Russians want solutions that are effective that can be deployed widely and cheaply and quickly and easily.

APS will be used but cages make sense despite the lack of an enormous profit margin that an APS would generate for the company getting the contract.

One Arena M cost around 120k dollars. One tank cost feom 1.5-5 million, and crew cost even more....

Mesh and metal structure and some hinges might cost $5K and do nearly as good a job as an APS system.

I laugh when I hear people saying they need this or that... you do understand that an APS system likely wont stop every threat to the tank and that RPG warheads dropped from 50m would not be stopped by APS systems because it would be travelling too slow to realise it was an AT warhead.

Arena M can be used also on BMPs, BTRs...crew will be sitting in them not on them= less looses or no looses at all with APS....cost of life is more expensive than fkin APS...

APS systems are not magic and wont stop everything... at the moment their biggest problem is probably anti tank mines and drones... against which APS systems might not detect the drone delivering the threat.

They might start using bigger drones that drop a dozen top attack HEAT cluster bomblets which an APS system wont be able to intercept all at once.

How many money politicions stole from budget...we see that they arest 2 high ranking politicians who stole how many dollars/rubles in their favor and favor of company who fork for MOD of RF....its billions of stolen money...

Corruption is always an issue but the Russian military is pushing back a peer enemy force trained and equipped by HATO... HATO... an organisation collectively spending well over 1 Trillion US dollars every year on defence... the US alone spends 800 billion a year... and for the past 10 years or so Russia has been spending about 65 billion per year and is in a position where it can outproduce all of HATO in terms of weapons and tanks and planes and ammo... but you say they are corrupt...

OK.

Now asked your self how many arena Ms they can made it on vehicles to protect same against any threat with billions stolen?

What billions stolen... that was all in your head.

I would expect they are likely redesigning the system to operate from inside a Cage armour suite so Russian vehicles can take advantage of both types of protection.

Cage armour is good for hand grenades dropped into crew hatches or small shaped charges aimed at the tops of engine decks or turrets with thin roof armour.

APS systems might be effective against some drones but are really optimised for use against ATGMs and RPGs.

I mean it would be a quite logical defense against drones, one would think.

I would say they could be adapted to such roles but I rather doubt it is a case of adding an anti drone setting to the on off switch and all of a sudden it is effective against drones too.

Plus they would need to adapt the designs because even with APS systems you will still need cage armour anyway... some drones wont appear on MMW radar returns.

The alternative is just Russian MoD conservatism and general bureaucratic slowdown. The Russian military adapts quickly, and the workshops make field improvisations no problem, or the factories cheap modernizations of older hardware; but in terms of actually introducing new models of equipment into the fray - Russia has been conspicuously slow this war.

I would say the real issue is that they have introduced APS systems and are testing and evaluating them right  now in the field, but they want to check the test results first before deciding which is better and which is more cost effective.

Normally they will adopt different solutions all at once... they had composite armour like the west but they added ERA armour modules on top anyway, and they also went for EW systems like SHTORA for jamming the same missiles the APS systems were supposed to shoot down too, not to mention nakidka to hide the vehicle so it does not get engaged in the first place and of course camouflage and cage armour and smoke grenades... now they are adding jamming equipment to jam drones too... almost like they do care about their crews really... whereas all the problems with western shit and they don't give a crap and they don't fix problems they just tell the users to use them further from the front line so it does not look so bad. Hide the truth and keep producing old crap that clearly is not getting the job done.

I think that is exactly the reason why they are not using APS.

I can't agree... if that were the case then there would be no way they would be using Zircon and Kinzhal missiles when even Kh-22M are reaching their targets. Equally using Iskanders when they could have gotten Tochkas out of stocks and probably even some FROG-7s too.

They are using all sorts of new types of stuff because a weapon you are afraid to use in case it either fails or gets captured and copied is not a weapon worth having.

If it fails it would be rather more useful to know than to not know and make these things and put them in storage for the big one only find they are fucking useless.

You wouldn't send thousands of systems in, you would test it on a few vehicles and monitor their use and how it held up against different issues.

If the vehicles with APS systems were blown up by land mines then that is one thing, but if they are blown up by ATGMs or RPGs then that is something you need to look at and work out what happened.

Absurd.

What's the cost of losing an experienced MBT crew to a stupid quadrocopter with an RPG-7 round attached?

Not absurd... what makes you think an APS system will correctly identify a quadcopter and shoot it down? The cage armour hides weak spots on the tank and the mesh could lead to the HEAT round angling off and not penetrating anything important.

If it's experimental technology - then that's all the more reason to try it out in practice. I mean maybe it has been tried, failed, and now they're improving it - but we haven't heard about anything like that at least.

They are implimenting cage armour upgrades, perhaps the delay for the APS systems is trying to incorporate the sensors and munition launchers with the cage armour designs so it can use both.

After all both the T-14 and the Su-57 have reportedly had their baptisms of fire, and in regards to the T-14 it AFAIK hasn't been accepted into service yet officially either.

It takes time to absorb information learned in combat and working out how to apply that to the design to make it better. You also have to look at potential design changes so they don't break something else or stop it being effective in other intended roles.

Perhaps the T-72s were a success and that is what they were using the T-62s for... cheaper robots...

Clueing NATO into the tech - yeah, that's a concern. And for sure NATO is not trialing out some of its own cutting-edge systems either for the same reason.

I suspect that is the real reason Sgt Shultz is not sending Taurus missiles to Kiev...

You only need one to hit tank in engine compartment and its finished...

And those cages seem effective at preventing that.

Even taking the devils advocate view... the Russians are advancing so losing armour to enemy drones and missiles is no big deal because hitting the engine... the crew should be able to escape and the vehicle recovered and repaired because Russian forces are advancing.

Maybe two drones to solved cage and tank is dead...with APS you will have great protecrion against drones and ATGMs....so yeah i would always choose APS instead of fking cage...

We have no evidence that their APS systems even work against drones, which is probably why they are putting cages on first because the enemy likely don't have a lot of ATGMs and RPGs in big piles ready to use in their combat positions.... in comparison.... drones... which they clearly do have can be reduced in effectiveness by cages which is what we see them using.

That is very true but since then developments have moved at hypersonic speed - literally!

But that is easy hypersonic... Russia could have put a similar shaped glider on an R-7 and said look... we have a hypersonic missile...

Without the scramjet technology it just really isn't the same technology... hell most heavy Russian SAMS today are massively hypersonic too...

They are developing rapidly, but Chinese ICBMs and SLBMs are still far from Russian ICBMs and SLBMs

The thing about the Chinese is that they spend the money and they develop the technology... which is why them developing computer chip technology is so good because they will keep working on it and continue to make it better instead of these western companies that had monopolies on the technology and overcharged and did everything to stop anyone else to get where they are... and the result is that China is going to overtake them...

Otherwise any small bird could trigger the APS.

Or clod of mud thrown up by the tracks... while cardboard drones with electric motors might be able to fly all around the tank and not be noticed at all.

China also does not have an equivalent of the Tsirkon missile.

Nobody does, except Russia... now in service.

Offtopic stuff mostly moved Here.