T-95 Tank Development

Since they're planning on making a heavy IFV off of the Armata platform, wont that need to have a forward mounted engine? I thought Armata was supposed to retain the rear mounted engine configuration?

The Armata vehicle is a family of vehicles, and includes front and rear mounted engine models.

For tank use the engine will be rear mounted and for APC/IFV use and other vehicle use where it is useful it will have a front mounted engine. With an APC or IFV it is useful to have a front mounted engine as that means it can have a rear ramp entry/exit which makes getting in and out quicker and safer.

For the artillery vehicle the gun and ammo are in the turret so there is no advantage to having a front mounted engine. If it had a small turret and ammo stored in the rear hull then a front mounted engine would allow loading ammo directly into the rear hull.

Also, any news about an indirect fire support configuration? Some targets just don't need the Coalition gun system raining shells on them, it's a bit of overkill.

Current tank heavy brigades have a combination of tube and rocket artillery... tube meaning 120mm mortar, 122mm SPA and 152mm SPA. For lighter close range targets the 120mm mortars would be very effective but 80km range Coalition shells with GLONASS guidance kits would make single shots very powerful and effective fire support.

hope we see something like Vena or TOS.

For the moment they are replacing the 122mm gun of the 2S1 with the 120mm gun/mortar instead of the Vena.

I rather suspect that by the time they need to replace the 2S1/2S34 Hosta it will be on a kurganets-25/boomerang-25/Armata chassis. For the Boomerang-10 the 120mm weapon might be too heavy, but a light vehicle equivalent with an 82mm Vasilek equivalent would be interesting...

TOS is being improved and upgraded so I would expect TOS on the new vehicle bases, though considering its role it might be for the heavy brigades only.

I cannot see anything exiciting about this Armata tank other than having a good crew protection. FOr what was told here.. it looks Armata will focus its protection ONLY in the crew.

First of all Armata is not a tank. Armata is a family of vehicles that includes a tank model.

Armata has an external gun mount, and will be fitted for a new 152mm main gun even though the first models in service will be armed with 125mm weapons... much like the first Abrams had a rifled 105mm British gun while later models got a smoothbore German gun.

The Armata tank does not only focus on protection, though that is obviously a key area for any tank... protection, firepower, and mobility are the only really important things on a tank.

The main gun will be externally mounted and ammo will be stored below the turret ring protected by the very thick very steeply angled frontal armour.

The previous limitations of projectile length will have been addressed as it will have been designed to handle much larger 152mm ammo too.

whats the point of having a tank that can protect always its crew but at the same time can be knocked down the in 1 shot at far distances.

What makes you think it can be knocked out with one shot from great distances?

cannot penetrate frontal armor of any western MBT and will be released in 2017? Imho i think Russia can do far better than that..

What makes you think it wont be able to penetrate the frontal armour of Western tanks?

I really don't see how armata will have a chance againts any US ,NATO or Israel MBT.. crew will survive fine but the tank will be destroyed in one hit for not having a full protection.

Why would it not have a chance against these western vehicles?

They should focus in releasing a super tank with super protection and super gun. That could be sold worldwide .regardless of the weight and price. is not like they will be invaded any time soon.

Which begs the question... how well are these western forces going to get on in combat against a Russian heavy tank brigade where they will need the absolute latest 120mm ammo to defeat the command and artillery vehicles in a Russian heavy brigade let alone the tanks. All the vehicles in a Russian heavy tank brigade will have very very heavy armour, while a NATO force will have thin weakly armoured IFVs and other light vehicles the Russians can pick off from extremely long range and leave the NATO tanks exposed and alone...

For example in Syria.. all those T-72 can be disable by a single rocket grenade. in that kind of urban warfare you don't need speed at all .. but crew and tank protection. Israel Merkavas in the other hand with their new Trophy system will be near imposible to shutdown by a single attack of any terrorist.

So the new Armata tank vehicle will be a T-72 despite being quite a few tons heavier?

but their land armored tanks is like many decades behind of americans MBT .

All the plans for the next generation US tanks have failed and most of them centred around making the tanks lighter and more mobile.

The Armata tank will be 20 tons lighter than an Abrams.

The heaviest armour on an Abrams is the turret front... Armata doesn't need heavy frontal turret armour because there is nothing in the turret to protect.

Shoot the gun I hear you say... well the Armata can shoot the gun on the Abrams too if that is so easy... the armour protection around the gun on any MBT is weak because instead of armour there is the mantlet and the equipment to stabilise and elevate the gun which is not armoured.

BTW if you read the rules in the introductions and rules section you might note that it is a forum rule that your first post should be an introduction.

Too late now of course but please take the time to post an introduction thread in the rules and introductions section... I will say to the forum to you there and then we can continue this conversation here. While you are making your introduction thread you might want to check out the introductions other people have posted so you know who you are talking to, and perhaps have a quick look through the rules so you know where you stand and what is expected of you here.



The main problem when talking about armour and Russian tanks is that most of the 125mm ammo we know about was made years ago for use against western armour that was in service years ago. Ammo being designed now will be designed to defeat current and near future opponents and will have rather different penetration performance. AFAIK the newer rounds they are using are DU and appear quite powerful. If that ammo was not effective and there was no growth potential in the calibre they could easily have adopted the new gun they have developed in a larger calibre. They clearly think there is still growth potential to stick with 125mm guns... or do you know better than them?

The new vehicle will likely have a range of innovations... things mentioned include an independently elevating 30mm cannon, sensor fusion that includes but is not limited to Laser radar, thermal imagers in long, medium and short wavelengths, IRST, MMW radar, and digital video. The unified control stations allow any of the three crew to command, drive, and operate the weapons without changing seats.

New armour and likely active and passive defence systems likely include upgrades in ERA or NERA, both active and passive defence systems including DIRCMs, and many other innovations... including the family vehicle concept that failed to reach service in the west.

Sounds to me like the Russians are leading the way yet again.

Apologies for lack of introduction.. just dont socialize much ..and english is not that good.
Just another fan of Russian military .

It is fine, but please take the time to introduce yourself in the appropriate section before continuing to post please.

As I said you can look at the other introductions if you are not sure what to put... you can put as much or as little as you wish, though some information is expected.

It is important to remember we are all fans here and there is no right or wrong... especially when it comes to tank design...

What i see is that Russian philosophy in their next generation tank is heading in the wrong direction.. They had a heavier tank already in test but they canceled because was "too expensive". Saving a life have no price and being able to destroy a Leo2 or Merkava4 frontal armor at 3-5km, with latest upgrades , have no price either.

That change in philosophy is the best thing they could possibly do.

The previous philosophy of trying to maintain a force to take on the entire war badly effected the Soviet economy and the Russian economy is a much smaller thing with a lot less people and resources.

Very simply the new Russian policy is not to match the US and NATO tank for tank missile for missile, but to greatly reduce the quantity of forces and at the same time improve the quality. Mobility as well as protection and fire power are now seen as a valuable way for a reduced size force to cover the still enormous territory.

If China wants to attack Russia with 20,000 tanks then the obvious response is not to send in 2,000 T-90s or 2,000 Armatas and hope for the best... the solution to that problem is a tactical nuke.

For any problems smaller than that and the force they are planning will be sufficient.

No one will invade Russia main land ever.

Yet it has been invaded multiple times... most often when it was seen by outside powers as being weak. In the nuclear age however an invasion is very unlikely, but you can never be 100% sure of anything.

Never we will see another main battle tank war inside Russia like WW2.

The reality is that most wars Russia will be involved with will involve the use of tanks, and actually only a tiny percentage will actually involve significant tank on tank action. You just need to look at the armament choices of the Soviets during WWII to see that they considered the HE shell to be more important than the Armour piercing because in normal combat your tanks punch through the enemy lines and then break through to rear areas where the threats aren't heavy armoured vehicles... they are artillery and HQs and machine gun positions etc etc.

So they don't need any speed tank ,or any fuel efficient tank to cover long distances. Uralvagonzavod already have t90's that are fast and efficient enough. Russia dont need of another MAIN battle tank that had to be produced in the many hundreds or thousands.

They will always need a heavy gun platform able to provide heavy direct fire support to infantry units that is able to destroy any equivalent enemy vehicle.

The future Tank wars Russia and Allies will need to face are..
Insurgents wars..so called revolutions ,that many say are instigated by the west. This is the new way of world wars.. Conflicts already happening against Russia is syria. And they need to provide them with a tank to fight in cities againts well armed rebels. and potential conflicts that will affect Russia security and tanks will be needed are.. another chenchen ,georgia war ,Lebanon ,Argelia,Armenia and countries around their borders.. what is called Urban warfare.

So to fight in an urban area you would need an entire unit with the same high level of protection so the IFVs can't be picked off leaving the tanks vulnerable. That would require a whole family of vehicles with tank level armour... lets call that family Armata?

Please point out the western IFV of the Armata IFV?

Who is behind whom?

So Russia needs like 2 new kind of tanks.. for special conflicts.

Actually Russia is designing and building 4 new kinds of tanks... a very heavy well protected and well armed Armata, a lighter but reasonably protected tracked Kurganets-25, a similarly protected wheeled Boomerang-25 and a light wheeled Boomerang-10... all except Armata are fully amphibious.

1) They need something like an mini mobile fortress ,that can be deployed anywhere in any city and sustain all kind of heavy attacks from anti-tank weapons and even survive medium size road side bombs and fight back insurgents back with light artillery. doesn't need to be fast. in fact not even need move as long can be deployed in any place and HOLD IT ,saving the life of the security and holding the checkpoint. will save a lot of soldiers and civilians lives.. like in the conflict in syria ,that insurgent easily knockdown all their tanks with rockets grenades while tanks travels in cities. Terrorist have access to all americans and Russian anti-tank weapons with 1000 mm RHA penetration.

Err.. that would be Armata... except it is not just a tank but an entire brigade of vehicles based on the same chassis with similar levels of protection and a variety of fire power.

2)and/or they need something (at least) at the level of Merkava-iv with Trophy System. There are israel reports already of that system defeating latest attacks from Rpg-29 in Gaza. with no damages. and other reports of Merkavas iv surviving 7-8 rocket grenades hits. So Israel have there a really powerful tank today ,that can sustain/evade 7-8 direct attacks of the latest rockets grenades,protecting its crew AND the tank.. and allow it to fight back.

The Armata family have a new engine family rated initially at 1,400hp, but expected to range up to 2,400hp in developed models... as a 50 ton vehicle it should be able to perform both the missions you list above.

this new tank needs a powerful gun ,superior than anything produced in the west and penetrate frontal armor of any western tank at 2k-3km distance.

Why does the gun need to be better than any western gun?
The cost of fitting a 152mm main gun would be enormous and there would be lots of additional costs in terms of weight, in terms of ready to fire ammo, in terms of recoil and in many other aspects... like getting it into production.

The simple facts are they have developed a new more powerful gun and have decided to delay its introduction into service because they think there is plenty of scope to improve the 125mm ammo for the moment... which is much cheaper and quicker.

Having the most powerful gun means nothing. Having a very powerful gun in their Panthers and Tigers didn't help German tanks win the war.

You design your gun to defeat the enemies armour... not to be bigger and more powerful than the oppositions gun... if the biggest gun won then they could easily put a 400mm cannon on a tracked chassis. The secret to good tank design is to have the smallest gun that will still do the job because bigger guns are just a burden.

It might look this new direction will be very expensive ,

It wont be cheap, but the modern thermal sights and battle management systems and new communications systems are all well overdue and will greatly improve the performance and cooperation within Russian military branches.

Western armies have repeatedly tried to introduce new armour but they failed because they wanted to do everything with just one vehicle base.

The Russians have sensibly split their requirements into four vehicle families that include tracked and wheeled, yet at the same time are actually dramatically reducing the number of different vehicles within their brigades by introducing families.

but the point here is that Russia don't need to have them in big numbers. Its not a tank to defend their land from foreign invasion ,but to control insurgents in cities..so 60-80 of them should be more than enough for the small conflicts or conflicts with Georgia.they might need to face. and good enough to persuade any Western power from invading that country and losing their best tanks.

Russia is an enormous country and they have decided that they need about 2,000 operational tanks with a further 4-6,000 tanks in storage in case a problem arises.

I would suspect that by the end of the 2020s that a large proportion of the tank fleet will be Armatas but into the early 2020s I suspect about 1,000-1,500 Armatas will be in service and the remaining tanks will be T-90s and upgraded T-72s and by then the T-80s will be gone from Russian Army service.

I actually think that by 2030 that the Armata will have been modified... shifting the crew stations to the hull for protection is a good idea, but shifting them to a van 800km away would also be a good idea too and their multi function crew stations would enable 24/7 operation where one crew might be on watch overnight while the other two rest, while when moving or not actually in combat one crew man can command and keep lookout and the other crew man can drive while the third sleeps on a rotation basis. Obviously in combat when firing and being fired upon all the crew are awake and working at their positions.

It doesn't need to be produced in mass quantity ,. but have to be really strong to persuade any other nation interference. not just a tank that "will do good" in tank complete defense and ok in offense.

Small numbers of super tanks would be too easy to pick off... even a KAB-500 TV guided bomb could take out any tank ever made or even ever thought of.

Russians can do better than that and release something that will make the west return to the drawing board.

The west wont be replacing their tank park any time soon... and if they did the most likely thing they would change is to reduce the weight so the tanks are easier to deploy. In fact if they managed to produce a tank like the T-90 they would be doing well.

If Israel and Germany wich are very small countries with smaller economies can produce world class tanks why not Russia?

Russia is very good at making world class tanks... what they lack is the world class marketing and propaganda capacity of the US and the west.

They need to kick their asses harder and produce something revolutionary next time without taking shortcuts.

Revolutionary is a risk... and an expensive one. Building a good new design from scratch to address the issues with the current vehicles is what it is all about... T-90AM is the upgrade with that goal and Armata is the from scratch solution to that problem.

and imho if they plan to delay their tank for 2017.. its better be really amazing and completely revolutionary in everything.. Or they will end isolated and surrounded by US and NATO with this new "revolutions" around the world.

But you already stated the chance of a US or NATO invasion of Russia is Zero.

Armata needs to perform the roles Russia needs... an M4 with thermal scope and laser range finder and ballistic computer that calculates bullet drop, plus vertical foregrips, is on paper much better than a chinese made AKM knockoff... that of course does not mean the well fed and well trained US soldier carrying that M4 is safe from some semi-literate Afghan tribesman with some facepaint he thinks will protect him from bullets with his rusty chinese made AK.

War simply doesn't work that way.

t's better to have something like the T-90 with very good situational awareness, that is easy maintained to limit down-time, and very reliable. Which is exactly what Armata is supposed to be.

Exactly. The 152mm or whatever calibre smoothbore gun has been developed along with its ammo... if the US decides to sell Abrams tanks to Georgia then you might see Armata get stationed in North and South Ossetia and they might get a few fitted with a larger calibre gun than the Armatas deployed elsewhere, but otherwise it is cheaper and easier to keep to the 125mm and explore its potential.

The external gun mount and the lack of people in the turret means enormous penetrators could be used if they want to...

One RPG in the right place can take out a Merkava.

Exactly. One RPG in the right place can take out any tank ever made.

As a general rule of thumb the front 60 degrees of a tank is supposed to stop the main gun ammo of the enemy at reasonable ranges. The side is supposed to stop the cannons fitted to IFVs and the rear is supposed to stop small arms fire only.

Engines offer very little protection to anti armour weapons, and are prone to catching fire too, so even a light cannon like a 23mm ZU-23 can be deadly to any modern tank if it gets the rear of the tank lined up. Even from the front it can smash optics and shatter tracks and blind and immobilise a tank.

Look at the credit given to the 30mm GAU-8 cannon of the A-10... at 800m its armour penetration performance is only about 70mm but because it is coming down from above it is enough to penetrate an engine deck or turret roof.

The belly of any tank is another vulnerable area that can be targeted by various weapons.

It is perfectly possible that small armoured unmanned robot vehicles could be designed with an upwards facing huge shaped charge explosive with a simple magnetic fuse that detect large heavy objects like tanks. You could drive them over a small hill using the video view from a UAV above or from the camera on the vehicles themselves and drive them under enemy tanks... the noise modern tanks make they will never hear them coming... cheap and simple... you could use play station controllers and have kids steer them...

Take a future heavy/Armata brigade for example. What about the brigades recon forces or anyone else who needs fast vehicles? I don't think they would take kindly to having to ride in a 50 ton monster.

The Russian and Soviet Army has a habit of using tanks in recon units... to boost their firepower. A tank weight vehicle with all the necessary sensors and electronics would be able to do a good job... we are talking about a vehicle with at the minimum will have a 1,400hp diesel with versions that will eventually produce up to 2,400hp in a vehicle that is 10-15 tons lighter than western tanks that are supposed to be mobile super tanks.

Besides the recon aspect will expand its use of UAVs and unmanned ground vehicles in the future anyway.

Recon forces always have, and always will have, dedicated vehicles. That will not change in the new structure.
Why would they use only MBTs for reco?

Yes, exactly... Armata does not = MBT.

An Armata brigade will have dedicated recon vehicles... and those vehicles will be based on the Armata chassis.

I rather suspect they will adopt modular armour, but the point of using a base vehicle family for a unit is to share protection levels and mobility, so making a super light model defeats the purpose.

The problem is that if you have light thinly armoured recon vehicles in a heavy tank or heavy motor rifle brigade then they are vulnerable to attack because you wont be using your heavy brigades against unarmed protestors... there will be a reason you chose to use a heavy brigade over a medium or light brigade.

In urban combat environments it was found that thinly armoured IFVs (and in this context even western non tank based IFVs would fare no better) were picked off leaving tanks to fend for themselves. The main gun on a tank has very limited elevation so attacking it from the 3rd floor or higher or from basement positions meant infantry were relatively safe. The Russian solution is a from scratch design where all the vehicles in the brigade will have the same level of protection and mobility so the enemy will have as hard a time picking off the IFVs as they will the MBTs. Also the MBTs will be fitted with independently elevating 30mm cannon that can engage targets up in tall buildings or down in basements. The external gun mount should also allow a much better range of elevation than the old gun setup.

I do agree with you that the “Armta” concept is the way to go. But I think that for a tank to survive in the battlefield, it needs to weigh around the 60 ton and not 50 ton.

You base a design around a level of protection required... you don't base it on a weight class.

With the T-90 they have a tank that in many ways was very close to the protection levels of western tanks.

They have shifted around the components of the vehicle to reduce weight even further... by moving the crew to the hull it means the thick and heavy frontal turret armour is no longer necessary though the hull front armour will weigh more, yet they are looking at increasing overall weight by several tons.

To prove that weight does not equal protection the KV-1 has similar weight to most model T-72 tanks yet its protection is much less. When it first entered service it was pretty much invulnerable in the frontal sector from enemy anti armour weapons... today it would be incredibly vulnerable.

The threats to a tank are not only from tank’s gun, but also come from light guns in caliber of 35-50mm, that can penetrate the side of a tank, it’s come from EFP that can hit the tank from the sides and from the top, it’s come from the ATGM that can hit the tank from 8 km away, it’s come from the IED included mines that will explode under the bally of the tank and blew it to pieces. So to defend itself form all those threats, the tank needs to have heavy passive armor, reactive armour, ADS, under the bally armour and more. To make it happen I think 60 ton will be a better answer.

Threats to tanks will continue to evolve... there is no such thing as an invulnerable tank. 14.5mm HMG fire will disable running gear and an immobile tank is a dead tank eventually.

I have a question about the concept. What we do with the T-90 and the T-72, are they going to have a “family” or they will stay in the same way they are now, and the “family” concept will be for the Armta only?

Hard to say. The Armata vehicles will be the most expensive and take the longest to actually build... The light and medium brigades wont have T series tanks in them so they can be rapidly created and put into service.

The Armata on the other hand will take a while to produce in sufficient numbers, but I think the effort and time and cost to develop the Armata family equivalents of the T-90 might not be worth it, so they might retain conventional tank and motor rifle heavy brigades for some time with their wide range of vehicle types and extended logistics trains.

Why do people keep forgetting that? At 70 tons, the M1 is still equal to the T-90 in protection, it's the internal volume that adds to the weight as you have more space to cover with armor. Looking at their layouts, I'd even go as far to say the T-90 has slightly better 360 degree protection than the M1 as long as ammo is stored correctly.

Because western media and western marketing and the History Channel talk about 1980s export model T-72s vs M1A1 and M1A2 Abrams tanks.

They have always been keen to point out faults and problems while ignoring strengths and features.

The other factor was of course that even in the Gulf War with people claiming to have been there there is a lot of confusion about what actually happened. I have spoken to a person who claimed to have been there and he said they managed to take out a few T-80s. The truth is that to someone who doesn't know any better a T-54, a T-55, a T-62, and a T-72 look very very similar and with bolted on add on armour they can't really tell them apart. The vast majority of Iraqi tanks were T-55s that could be penetrated from the side with 25mm DU ammo from a Bradley.

T-72s... not so much.

I would add that you don't change the weight class of your armour on a whim... adding 10 tons in weight to your main tanks can drastically effect your ability to transport them... all your existing vehicle handling equipment suddenly becomes more stressed... suddenly you will need a more powerful engine and you will likely need a new transmission and gearing to cope with the extra power and the extra weight.