T-95 Tank Development

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.

No doubt on that, the Merkava-4 is much more protected than Merkava -2, and the Merkava -2 is more protected than the M-60. It’s for sure not only the weight that makes the different, but also were the fuel, ammo, and oil storage in the tank. In the 6 day war the M-60 get hit and the oil that help to turn the turret catch in fire, in the Merkava, there is no oil in the turret, there is fire suppressing system in the engine compartment, and the rounds are in a secure place so they will not explode. So the weight is only one factor in protection but can’t be without it.

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.

No doubt, and that one of the reason way in the Merkava the engine is in the front.

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.

What’s the purpose of the medium brigade? Is it a tank brigade or like the Stryker infantry brigade?

Brand new Abrams with brand new ammo and optics, versus older-armored, export T-72s with ancient ammunition and hardly any fire control...add to that level of training and external factors (air support, w/e) and its not exactly a fair comparison is it Wink ?

Thats true. I just don't know how much better is the T-90 than the T-72 on protection.

AJ-47 wrote:

Brand new Abrams with brand new ammo and optics, versus older-armored, export T-72s with ancient ammunition and hardly any fire control...add to that level of training and external factors (air support, w/e) and its not exactly a fair comparison is it Wink ?

Thats true. I just don't know how much better is the T-90 than the T-72 on protection.

If we are talking about the Iraqi T-72 levels, then we are taking about a ~3 fold increase, depending on the means of attack, chemical or kinetic energy.
No exaggeration, the difference is that massive.

It should be noted that Kuwaiti M-84's which are a high quality Yugoslav version of the T-72s, preformed equally well in combat against Saddam's armor as its western comrades.

One of the largest issue with the T series is loose munitions in the fighting compartment. If crews go in with less ammo (only having the magazine loaded), which was often done during the Chechen wars, T-72:80:90's are top notch for survivability. The T-90AM solved this issue by putting the extra ammo in the bustle.

Armata seems to be using hull ammo storage, (correct me if I'm wrong Garry). I believe the reason Russian designers use this layout is because most of the time AFV's are hit in the turret, so it makes sense not to put the ammo there.

1. The 60 ton number is the maximum weight for tanks, IFVs, APC, and some more, but 152mm cannon can stay in the 50 ton range.

The Armata vehicle family is a 50 ton class vehicle... in other words the IFV/APC, MBT, Command, and recon vehicles will be 50-55 tons or so, but the Coalition in its original two barrel model was going to weigh 65 tons.

2. A 60 ton tank will have 24 hp/ton ratios, which is better than most of the Western tanks have. So mobility will not be reduced.

Power to weight ratio is only part of the problem... gearing, transmission, running gear, all effect acceleration and acceleration from cover to cover is rather more important than top speed. Top speed is only possible on a flat hard surface... where tanks almost never go.

3. Extra 10 ton of armor will improve the strength of any tank.

and yet still wont make it invulnerable... just heavier and slower and harder to transport by air and land and sea.

A. The 30 mm gun that is the main gun on the Western IFV, getting serious upgrade, Sweden will have the 40 mm “Bushmaster-4”, Danish, Norwegian and Dutch have the 35 mm “bushmaster-3”, French and England upgrade there IFV to the CTI 40 mm gun with Case Telescopic Ammunition that his APFSDS has velocity of 1,500 meter per second and can penetrate 160 mm steel, that’s might be a big problem for tanks, IFV and APC.

The frontal armour should easily stop that and most modern tanks have protection from the sides that will stop similar rounds. NERA panels should improve side protection to 300-400mm.

B. EFP-Explosive Form Penetrator. This penetrator can cut through steel with velocity of 2,000 meter per second with no problem, it can be fired as a smart mine, from artillery, rockets, aircraft, and it’s a very dangerous weapon.

Such warheads are only of use against thin armour... a disk that is formed into a projectile by being accelerated to very high speed by an explosive charge is going to lack one key component of penetration... a hard penetrator. Sure it is travelling at high speed but the right case hardened armour will shatter it.

Soviets used SFF or self forging fragments in cluster munitions since 1987 and since 1996 have been offering improved models with built in MMW radar and IR sensors to specifically target armoured vehicles on the battlefield.

C. The worst of all is the under belly mine, this mines can destroy the tank completely.

Mine rollers, mine plows, EMP devices... lots of counters to mines... though nothing is perfect.

I think that the level of armor in a 60 ton with unmanned turret is equal to 70 ton in the Western tanks.

Well that is a pathetic huge step backwards. A T-90AM with upgraded versions of Shtora, ARENA, and Nakidka is a 48 ton tank which is equal in many respects to 70 ton weatern tanks.

The Armata Is newer, but the threats are getting strong and the defence need to get update all the time.

With increasing threats and now money to spend, you would think instead of starting from scratch and using their experience in real conflicts to develop a new tank that will be a whole new generation with new electronics and optics and systems, that they would just keep updating the T-90... hang on... aren't they already doing the sensible thing?

Armata wont be a super tank that will be invincible... because that is not possible.

but the T-72 was not a match to the Abrams tanks in Iraq.

Quite true, but there were plenty of very specific reasons for that.
Replace the M1 Abrams with T-90AMs and the Iraqi tanks with M60s with the equipment they had from the mid 1970s and the results would have been just as one sided.
The US army had training and communications and air control on their side, and the relatively passive posture of the Iraqis basically led to the US dictating the combat, which mostly was conducted at night.

THERE IS A REASON THE US REFUSED TO SEND GROUND FORCES TO KOSOVO.

On big flat open terrain a tank with thermal imagers that let it see through dust and smoke up against enemy tanks with active IR night sights where one can see 5-6km on the darkest night and the other can see 800m with the active IR searchlight it does not take a genius to work out the result.

Add the fact that the Iraqis were using ammo the Soviets wouldn't even use for practise rounds.

What’s the purpose of the medium brigade? Is it a tank brigade or like the Stryker infantry brigade?

The Russians will have two types of brigade in three different weight classes. The Tank brigade and the Motor Rifle brigade.

Basically tanks can't operate on their own and infantry can't operate on its own either, so a tank brigade has 3 tank regiments and one or two infantry regiments, while a motor rifle brigade has 3 infantry regiments and one tank regiment. The three weight classes are now heavy, medium, and light, but there will technically be four. There will be heavy tracked Tank brigades based on Armata chassis and heavy tracked Motor rifle brigades based on the Armata chassis. In the medium class there will tracked medium brigades of tank and motor rifle types on the Kurganets-25 chassis and wheeled medium brigades of tank and motor rifle types on the Boomerang-25 chassis.

Both medium brigades will be fully amphibious.
And in the light class there will be wheeled tank and motor rifle brigades on the Boomerang-10 chassis, which will also be amphibious.

The problem in the past has been to accociate each vehicle family with a vehicle where Armata is a tank, Kurganets-25 is a BMP, Boomerang-25 is a BTR and Boomerang-10 is a BRDM-2 type vehicle.

Basically the Armata brigades will have good mobility but will be used in high threat high risk locations like inside cities or to crack enemy hardpoints.

The medium brigades will be mobile and have lots of firepower and will have heavier armour than current BMP vehicles. (Note the BMP-3 is 18 tons and both the wheeled and tracked vehicles in the medium brigades are 25 tons or more).

The light brigades will be the most mobile.

Communication and data sharing and mutual support will be increased exponentially with the light forces being highly mobile and well armed.

If we are talking about the Iraqi T-72 levels, then we are taking about a ~3 fold increase, depending on the means of attack, chemical or kinetic energy.
No exaggeration, the difference is that massive.

Probably even a greater increase because Iraqi T-72s didn't even have effective ERA. T-90 has very effective ERA.

Armata seems to be using hull ammo storage, (correct me if I'm wrong Garry). I believe the reason Russian designers use this layout is because most of the time AFV's are hit in the turret, so it makes sense not to put the ammo there.

The ammo is stored in the turret but below the turret ring. To hit the ammo from the front you would need to penetrate the frontal armour, the crew compartment in the front hull, the rear armour/firewall separating them from the turret and then the turret to reach the ammo. From the side the ammo should be easier to reach but it is separate from the crew like ammo in the turret bustle of the Abrams... the difference is that the ammo in the Armata is better protected from external fire.

TR1 wrote:

AJ-47 wrote:

Brand new Abrams with brand new ammo and optics, versus older-armored, export T-72s with ancient ammunition and hardly any fire control...add to that level of training and external factors (air support, w/e) and its not exactly a fair comparison is it Wink ?

Thats true. I just don't know how much better is the T-90 than the T-72 on protection.

If we are talking about the Iraqi T-72 levels, then we are taking about a ~3 fold increase, depending on the means of attack, chemical or kinetic energy.
No exaggeration, the difference is that massive.

No doubt the T-90 is very interesting tank, I think it sold very well too, and hope we will not see it in the Syria army. I specially liked the RWS on top of the turret.

The Armata vehicle family is a 50 ton class vehicle... in other words the IFV/APC, MBT, Command, and recon vehicles will be 50-55 tons or so, but the Coalition in its original two barrel model was going to weigh 65 tons.
Power to weight ratio is only part of the problem... gearing, transmission, running gear, all effect acceleration and acceleration from cover to cover is rather more important than top speed. Top speed is only possible on a flat hard surface... where tanks almost never go.
and yet still wont make it invulnerable... just heavier and slower and harder to transport by air and land and sea.

If all of you think 50 ton is good enough, it’s ok with me. But when start from zero, aim high and make the engineering for 60 ton tank. The west going into big upgrade for there IFVs, with bigger gun, extra protection and of course extra weight. So better to be prepare now and that's include engine, gear and more, bc later it will be much more expensive and some time impossible.

The frontal armour should easily stop that and most modern tanks have protection from the sides that will stop similar rounds. NERA panels should improve side protection to 300-400mm.

Is the Russian tanks having NERA on there tanks? How it will stop kinetic projectile? I thought it works only against shaped charge?

Such warheads are only of use against thin armour... a disk that is formed into a projectile by being accelerated to very high speed by an explosive charge is going to lack one key component of penetration... a hard penetrator. Sure it is travelling at high speed but the right case hardened armour will shatter it.
Soviets used SFF or self forging fragments in cluster munitions since 1987 and since 1996 have been offering improved models with built in MMW radar and IR sensors to specifically target armoured vehicles on the battlefield.

This type of weapon get very dangerous, there are a lot of upgrade including long strong penetrator that can penetrate the side of a tank with no problem. I know about some of the Russian stuff including the warhead for the BM-30 Smerch.

Mine rollers, mine plows, EMP devices... lots of counters to mines... though nothing is perfect.

In urban fighting, mins are no easy to detect or to take out, and if you didn’t see it, and you don’t have extra under belly protection you have a problem.

With increasing threats and now money to spend, you would think instead of starting from scratch and using their experience in real conflicts to develop a new tank that will be a whole new generation with new electronics and optics and systems, that they would just keep updating the T-90... hang on... aren't they already doing the sensible thing?

I'm not sure if I get it right. I'm sure that the T-90 is the right way to go, and upgrade it through the time. but a new tank sould be the next step even if it take time to get there and a lot of money to test this tank.

If all of you think 50 ton is good enough, it’s ok with me. But when start from zero, aim high and make the engineering for 60 ton tank.

You have the wrong end of the stick... it is easy to make a 60 ton tank that is well protected... there is no advantage to having a heavy tank. The advantage is in having a well protected tank and the lighter you can make it the better it is in terms of design and operational usefulness.

The west going into big upgrade for there IFVs, with bigger gun, extra protection and of course extra weight.

And when the super Bradley with a 40mm gun comes up against the Armata IFV with its tank level frontal armour how do you think that super western IFV will perform?

With a 40mm gun even the command vehicle in the Armata brigade has tank level armour... how much use will it be?

There are a variety of roles and missions and terrains in real combat... making everything a 70 ton monster is not a good solution no matter how well it protects your troops.

So better to be prepare now and that's include engine, gear and more, bc later it will be much more expensive and some time impossible.

The changes the Russians are making will mean only western tanks with western tank level firepower will have a chance of killing a Russian heavy brigade vehicle from the front... who is behind and who needs to upgrade and react?

Is the Russian tanks having NERA on there tanks? How it will stop kinetic projectile? I thought it works only against shaped charge?

NERA means there is no explosive... the energy of the incoming projectile is used against that projectile to reduce its penetration and hopefully break it up. Soviet tanks since the T-64 have used internal elements that move and interact to that effect.

This type of weapon get very dangerous, there are a lot of upgrade including long strong penetrator that can penetrate the side of a tank with no problem.

The sides, rear, and roof and belly of tanks will always be vulnerable to something... you can't protect everything to the same level as the front.

I know about some of the Russian stuff including the warhead for the BM-30 Smerch.

The Soviets had standard submunitions... Grad, Uragan, Smerch, Tochka-U, Iskander, and aviation bombs could all use these submunitions.

In urban fighting, mins are no easy to detect or to take out, and if you didn’t see it, and you don’t have extra under belly protection you have a problem.

And what level of extra protection will do? This is just silly. No matter what level of increase in armour you decide to apply the enemy will simply make their mines bigger... and making mines bigger is much cheaper than lugging around heaps of belly armour that is just dead weight against threats from all other angles.

I'm not sure if I get it right. I'm sure that the T-90 is the right way to go, and upgrade it through the time. but a new tank sould be the next step even if it take time to get there and a lot of money to test this tank.

That is what they are doing! In fact they decided to save money by not producing the T-90AM right now and continue to upgrade the T-72s. They have a limited budget... it is pretty clear the extra money they would have spent on new T-90AMs is not all being spent on T-72 upgrades... the rest will likely be either invested in the Armata family (remember they have to design and build an entire range of vehicles, or kept aside for purchasing new Armata family vehicles later on.

Guys kharkhiv was the premiere soviet tank factory,lets not rub salt in old wounds.With the dissolution of the 3cp some thing were lost,including the kiev armour school.

If im wrong im sorry the t-55 ag info excites me because it is a survivable veteran,60 years old and still functional.Nevertheless remember maskirovka  et al....the ukrainians made out well,its a fact.Old t-72 was a mass  fast charge pig of a tank.Working from t-64 and t-80s the oplot is very good.

Guys kharkhiv was the premiere soviet tank factory,lets not rub salt in old wounds.With the dissolution of the 3cp some thing were lost,including the kiev armour school.

Kharkov had nothing to do with the development or construction of the T-90 tank... any data they have is either estimates or speculation, and we have seen videos to prove their data is wrong.

They were the premier tank makers of the Soviet Army, because that was their role... develop and produce expensive but state of the art tanks for breakthrough operations... T-64 and then T-80.

The problem is a lack of funding for the last 25 years and separation from the rest of the Soviet Union republics.

Generally new diesel engines came from the Ukraine, but most optics came from Belarus and plenty of components came from Russia.

With the breakup of the Soviet Union the systems were broken up too, and Russia is really the only part of the Former Soviet Union that came has come out of the crisis with a functioning MIC. There were lots of areas they needed to work on themselves and they invested a lot of money on diesel engines and other components. For Thermal Imagers they were so far behind and the Soviet states were also so far behind they purchased French technology to catch up.

Now they are making third gen Russian thermal imagers and investing on QWIP technology and moving forward themselves.

Kharkov has been starved of funds and work and while their ability with modern armours and modern ERA is still better than many countries... they are falling behind because of a lack of investment by their own government.

The sudden investment by the Russian military in late 2008 proved that years of neglect and prototypes don't prepare an MIC for mass production of modern products... that costs extra and takes time.

I would suggest that details released by Kharkov regarding T-90s... Which they don't make nor have access to, is largely for the purposes of marketing, rather than a real comparison of performance, and their numbers are clearly wrong.

BTW most tanks have a range of traverse speeds including backup manual speeds, and 16 degrees per second means over 20 seconds to turn the turret around once. I doubt even the manual speed is that slow, but for precise aiming a slow rate of turn allows the gunner to follow real world targets... a target doing 50km/h that is 3km away could easily be followed with a turn rate of 16 degrees per second.

The T-55 was a simple cheap tank that has probably been produced in more numbers than any other tank in history... especially when taking into account T-54 and of course tens of thousands of Chinese knock offs.

The fact remains that without a new gun the T-55 is a threat only to medium and light armoured vehicles and its armour can be penetrated by most ATGMs and RPGs in service.

It is much better than nothing except when fighting a modern war against a well equipped opponent. For COIN ops or anti guerilla use it is fine, but it cannot be compared with a modern vehicle.

The T-64 and T-80 were expensive tanks few could afford, while the T-72 was the cheap and simple mass production tank, which is really in the same boat as the T-55, though even in the reduced performance export models has better armour and a better gun than T-55s.

Oplot fixes the main problem with the T-64 and T-80 and that was that their propellent stub cartridges were not protected in the underfloor autoloader... so even with just the ammo in the autoloader (22 rounds) any penetrating hit on the vehicle would send a shower of sparks and hot fragments onto the floor of the turret where the incredibly flammable propellent stubs were stored and they would inevidibly ignite all at once in a chain reaction to immediately kill the entire crew and take the turret off.

The Oplot has its ammo moved to its turret rear AFAIK, which solves the problem, but makes the ammo exposed to enemy fire.

The T-72 does not have exposed ammo stubs sticking up vertically unprotected, both the stubs and the projectiles are horizontal and under armour plate to sparks and hot fragments cannot reach the vulnerable propellent.

This means that if you take the extra loose ammo out of a T-72 they are much harder to destroy and the crews survival chances increase dramatically.

Pugnax wrote:If im wrong im sorry the t-55 ag info excites me because it is a survivable veteran,60 years old and still functional.Nevertheless remember maskirovka et al....the ukrainians made out well,its a fact.Old t-72 was a mass fast charge pig of a tank.Working from t-64 and t-80s the oplot is very good.

T-64 had way more issues than T-72 ever did in exploitation, don't let the hype fool you.

If the T-64 was a success, both operationally and tactically, there would not have been a T-72.


The T-55 upgrade is not that big of a deal, Russia has some very good T-55 upgrades as well.

The T-64 was a bit of a problem child, and the T-80 has an excessively thirsty engine arrangement.

Both were high tech frontline tanks, while the T-72 was the cheap mass production tank that would make up the numbers.

The T-72 was never meant to face frontline western tanks... it was the numbers tank that poured through the gaps created by the T-64 and T-80. Ove time its armour and capabilities improved but it was the numbers tank till Russia and the Ukraine split along with the rest of the Soviet Union.

Once they were not longer trapped making the T-72 cheap and producible and had to compete with the T-80 as a quality tank... when they decided they couldn't afford two different tanks that had few compatible parts the T-72BA and T-80 went head to head and the Russian military chose the T-72BA, which became the T-90.

The Russians had Omsk to produce the T-80 in huge numbers so it wasn't as if UVZ won the competition by default... the T-90 was just a better tank. Omsk couldn't make the new diesel engine for the T-80 but otherwise it was pretty much the T-80U vs T-90 and the T-90 won.

T-72B also had thicker armor than T-64, and even T-80B, marginally.

Yes... most things were different and the T-64 was supposed to be better, but things like wheels... the T-64 went to small wheels but later changed to T-72 like wheels with comments about shedding tracks being a problem with the smaller wheels.

As mentioned the T-64/80 have a different ammo arrangement in their autoloaders where the projectiles are horizontal but the propellent stubs are vertical and exposed which makes them vulnerable to armour penetrations. Whether it is a solid penetrator or HEAT plasma jet there are hot sparks and fragments flying round inside the compartment during a penetration and the exposed ammo is almost always ignited in the T-64/T-80 series, whereas the T-72 and T-90 have both the projectile and propellent stub horizontal under armour plate in the autoloader so fragments, sparks and even burning material in the crew compartment will not set it off.

This means that penetrations are dangerous for all T-64 and T-80 vehicles, while with T-72 and T-90s only carrying ammo in the underfloor autoloader is safe... the main fire hazard is loose spare ammo in the crew compartment.

Going into combat with 22 rounds in the autoloader is much much safer in the T-72 and T-90.

Wow this is a hot topic to touch upon.If Armata represents a truly defensive fighting vehicle,certainly it is not a tank.If using a 130mm/152mm gun it is best deemed a tank destroyer,akin to JagdTiger or JagdPanther.Given the immense technical advances made in the last 20 years this "defensive" platform should be unmanned,remotely piloted by a few computechs in a bunker complex somewhere in the Urals.Placing all 3 crew into a 56 ton behemoths central compartment is a bad idea,in regards to survivability,ergonomics and maintenance issues(t-72 crews cant repair a thrown track quickly without outside assistance).Russia cannot continue to shovel 5 foot 3 east asians into tiny metal boxes.Tthe Russian tanker hasnt had room to move inside his vehicle since T-10m or T-62.Slap a new Rapira 3 125mm into an old T-10,fix the turret roof armour,add modern optics and applique armour and add a supercharger...now thats a tank!

Before anyone responds i know the technical impossibilities of my suggestion,but it would have been the origin concept of a new tank.

Instead of looking at it as "one hit will kill off the entire crew". Look at it as "the likelihood of the tank getting hit and killing NO ONE is much higher". Armata isolates the crew from the most dangerous elements of the vehicle and places them in the the most protected area of the hull, unlike all previous AFVs of the past generation with the crew spread all over and near thin armored zones, fuel tanks, and magazines. The entire back 2/3's off this tank could be blown off, and the crew could get out and walk away, find me another tank with that survivability.

Zivo,your thoughts are appreciated,my response is simple.Train elite crew,put them in decent vehicles or remote ops gear.Survivability in any Russian built item has never been a high priority until now when Americans out number them 3/2.The Nato MBT 70 was a commission produced vehicle,commissions always put all eggs in 1 basket and fail...result was M-1 Abrams and Leo-2,(T-90 is close)the finest MBTs in the world.Armata is a commission design vehicle,maybe the next design will be equally successful after Armatas trials fail.

Armata won't fail.

No offense but most of these criticisms are amateur at best.

Zivo,your thoughts are appreciated,my response is simple.Train elite crew,put them in decent vehicles or remote ops gear.Survivability in any Russian built item has never been a high priority until now when Americans out number them 3/2.The Nato MBT 70 was a commission produced vehicle,commissions always put all eggs in 1 basket and fail...result was M-1 Abrams and Leo-2,(T-90 is close)the finest MBTs in the world.Armata is a commission design vehicle,maybe the next design will be equally successful after Armatas trials fail

The original idea behind training in the USSR era wW2 was to manufacture things to be easily operatable by any crew member. Training crew members to be more elite will not improve protection, it will only improve competence with the tank. Like how putting conscripts in a BTR-80, getting struck by an RPG, will kill them all, same here as putting Spesnaz inside. Penetratoin is penetration, its only how the vehicle copes with it.


The concept of moving all the 3 crew members into the chassis will increase the survivability, since the weight class has increased, as well as the less requirements for armour on the turret due to it being unmanned, hence more armour can be focused on the Chassis's glacis plate.

The addition of a unified chassis will save logistics and production costs as well. In a battle, per say, if the Turret module gets damaged, it can be replaced entirely easily nd the damaged portion taken to be repaired compared to reparing it drectly which willconsume resource and manpower. Plus logitic will be simply simpler due to a unified parts list. Consider the M1A2, using its jet turbine and its enormous weight, requires alot of parts as well as logistical planning to be deployed. I read somewhere on this forum that their turbins suffered greatly in the mid east, therefore success wise, i'd consider the leopard 2 are greater success than the M1A2 can ever be.

Slap a new Rapira 3 125mm into an old T-10,fix the turret roof armour,add modern optics and applique armour and add a supercharger...now thats a tank!

The T-10 existed in an era wher Heavy Tanks existed, but there is a reason why Heavy tanks disappeaed, as their role disappeared. Originally, heavy tanks in WW2 were equipped with very large guns (USSR - 122mm, 152mm, 107mm) compared to their Medium (USSR - 85mm, 76mm) counterparts. As technology evolved, there was no need for a huge gun needing a hulking chassis to be mounted, thats why when he T-55 series were introduces (100mm), the T-10 was no longer needed, for it was obsolete. the T-55 was faster, more mass produced, had as good a gun.

These are important questions that the Russian military must have thought long and hard about.

Remember the armata design concept is not out of the blue... Russian tank designers have been grappling with the concept of a crew less turret with the T-95 and according to them it was ready for testing and service when it was cancelled.

The point is that armata, kurganets-25, boomerang-25, and typhoon (later bommerang-10), were military concepts of the idea vehicles for different weight class vehicle families to replace an enormous range of all sorts of different vehicle types. There would be multiple companies competing for such contracts, but certain companies will be in with the best shot.

The armata seams to be earily similar to some utterly failed tank prototypes like America's teledyne expeditionary tank, the M1 CCTB and the USSR's object 477. All of them had unmanned turrets.

And indeed the T-95 which was only ever designed as a MBT AFAIK.

It also hasnt been noticed that no unmanned turret tank has ever been in succesful service.
That may be because the unmanned turret concept has some major flaws:
lack of degraded mode which makes it unusable by the crew in battle if any of the gizmos in the turret fails

In a fluid dynamic situation like battle there is always situations where an unharmed crew needs to abandon a tank because of damage sustained in combat that prevents it from functioning... even track damage can immobilise a vehicle... a lucky hit to the turret ring that jams the turret, an enemy round to the main gun.
The point is that having two crew in a turret will not protect the main gun from being hit or the gunners optics being shattered, and there are very few things they can actually fix in the heat of battle that can get the vehicle fighting again... most of the time the solution will be to bail out and get the vehicle towed to safety and get repaired later... in which case having the three crew under the thickest and most sloped armour till you make that decision will keep them the safest. Anti spall liners and flak vests and helmets should offer excellent protection if something actually manages to penetrate... and not having them in a straight line in the hull will make lining up and killing all three with one shot unlikely.

stuffing the crew into one compartment will make them more vulnerable to shells and mine blasts since a single penetration into the capsule will kill off the entire crew

Sorry but that is a myth. The only time the entire crew is at risk is if they are sitting amongst ammo and fuel and a penetration of the armour ignites either... in which case the exploding fuel and ammo is what actually kills them.

As shown with the penetrations of western tanks in the Gulf where one crew is injured only because they were in the path of the penetration at the time, the risk is much lower when all that ammo and fuel is taken away from the crew compartment... which is the whole idea behind unmanned turrets.

lack of unrestricted top vision which is essential for survival in battle

This is critical... but keep in mind that the APS and Shtora both require 360 degree vision around the tank to function properly... now with the former likely useing MMW radar and the latter an optics system that detects IR sources and lasers you would think that it would not take a genius to realise that 360 degree continuous visual (optical and IR) and radar (MMW) scanning of the surroundings including directly up for diving top attack munitions could be translated into excellent situational awareness. Adding to that some form of anti sniper/optics system as shown in binocular based systems already deployed by Russian forces and sold overseas, and DIRCMs suddenly makes this an interesting vehicle. I rather suspect and audio anti sniper system that can detect shots... calibre and source would be standard equipment too.

Add to this the potential for UAV support and use for gods eye views of the target and the vehicle itself and I think putting all the crew down in the hull is looking better and better.

Do you think the armata will solve these problems?

I rather suspect they already solved those problems with the T-95 which also had an unmanned turret.

IMO they should designed it as a buffed up black eagle.

The Black Eagle would be rejected for the same reason the Burlak upgrade of the T-72 was rejected... all the ammo in the turret bustle is too vulnerable to enemy fire.

In the T-95 and armata the ammo will be stored in the turret below the level of the turret ring.

If I recall, I think the BMP-T turret is unmanned, with the flaw of reloading the missiles requires the crew to dismount.

The BMPT has two crew in the turret, though seated below the turret ring. It was this flaw of having to reload the missiles that I suggested an external 100mm rifled gun as a cheap alternative to putting HE down range with accuracy and lots of power.

.If Armata represents a truly defensive fighting vehicle,certainly it is not a tank.

I don't follow. A tank, by definition is a vehicle with heavy armour designed to carry a gun powerful enough to take on any enemy armour. A mobile gun platform able to deliver accurate and powerful hits on vehicles and structures and enemy troops in the open or behind cover.

Defensive tank killers have fixed guns and generally are older model tanks that are too small to take the big heavy gins of later tanks fitted to them in a turret so they have a fixed structure that greatly limits traverse.

Cheap to make and use they are better for defence than attack because they are not good for mobile warfare where you want the vehicle to move one way and shoot another.

This armata should be fine as an offensive and defensive tank.

Placing all 3 crew into a 56 ton behemoths central compartment is a bad idea,in regards to survivability,ergonomics and maintenance issues(t-72 crews cant repair a thrown track quickly without outside assistance).

The three crew are sitting at the front under the thickest and heaviest armour on the tank that is very steeply sloped to maximise protection... where else would you put them?

In real combat a crew doesn't leap out and change the tire... under enemy fire that would be suicide for any tank... they would abandon the tank... if they think the enemy might get it they would set it on fire before they left.

Follow up forces will recover the vehicle and put another track on it.

Train elite crew,put them in decent vehicles or remote ops gear.Survivability in any Russian built item has never been a high priority until now when Americans out number them 3/2.

Russia has always designed its items to do their job at acceptable risk. T-72s are low and well armoured, their main problem was extra ammo distribution in the crew compartment and the fact that early 80s models faced the latest western models in western combat experience.
American tanks are not relevant... Russia will fight American tanks with tactical nukes... Russia isn't invading NATO and if NATO invades then it will be nuclear very quickly.

The cold war is over.

The Nato MBT 70 was a commission produced vehicle,commissions always put all eggs in 1 basket and fail...result was M-1 Abrams and Leo-2,(T-90 is close)the finest MBTs in the world.Armata is a commission design vehicle,maybe the next design will be equally successful after Armatas trials fail.

Actually the real problem was that the countries interested in the MBT 70 all had different wants and needs and the result was two tanks... the M1, and the Leopard 2.

The MBT 70 actually did the opposite of the armata and had the driver in the turret with the other crew.

I read somewhere on this forum that their turbins suffered greatly in the mid east, therefore success wise, i'd consider the leopard 2 are greater success than the M1A2 can ever be.

The M1A2 is an evolution of a vehicle that started out with British armour and a British 105mm rifled gun.

The first major upgrade was to replace the British gun with a German 120mm smoothbore, and the next major step forward for the Abrams was new British armour...

the T-55 was faster, more mass produced, had as good a gun.

More importantly the T-64 and T-72 had better armour than the T-10 as well as a much more powerful gun.

The introduction of new western manufacturing machines led to vast improvements in Russian gun technology that have led to improvements in accuracy and power and performance... much the same as purchases of Japanese milling machines greatly improved the quietness of Soviet and Russian submarines because of their better quality propellers. They had the skills to design good guns and good propellers, they lacked the machine tools to make them to the precision needed to realise the designs performance.

OK so I get that most of these issues can be solved but what about lack of degraded mode? It would suck in the heat of battle the autoloader to malfunction so theirs no way to reload the tank and it cant be repaired right away?

Manual loading is awkward and slow, if the tank had an autoloader malfunction it makes more sense to withdraw that single vehicle to a rear area and get it fixed than to persist in combat.

The Russians have a lot of experience with autoloaders and not half the stories of tank men losing limbs or their lives are actually true.

Current autoloaders have lots of failsafes, but a damaged one would be a real problem in a current T-90. If you think about it the two turret crew sit side by side level with the gun, so reaching down to the under floor autoloader to get a round that weighs 10kgs and then load it manually into something beside you and then reach down and get the stub propellent charge and put it in the chamber behind the projectile and then close the mechanism and turn forward to find the target would not be a vehicle operating at peak performance anyway.

It would also suck for the engine to fail or the gun to fail... but sht happens and you deal with it.

Guys the reason i mention the old T-10,despite its short comings,. T-10 was the the last Soviet tank design to terrify Nato.In the early 80s during my service,we werent afraid of T-54/55/62,T-64/72/80 were considered to be full of design bugs rendering them of limited use.The T-10 was considered the most heavily armoured Soviet design,a match to the British Chieftain.Where the T-10 was,was definitely going to be a hot spot.Just a case of an old warrior clutching at doctrines and terrors from days gone by.Imagine an 18 year old clutching an FN,hoping the Carl Gustav round wouldnt bounce off Ivans armour while wishing his shell scrape was just 4 inches deeper.

I appreciate what you are trying to say, but that 18 year old that has been told T series tanks are junk is living in a dream world and when he fires his Carl Gustav at the glacis plate of a T-80U expecting it to cut through like butter and the tank just keeps coming he will spend the next few seconds filling his shell scrape with the contents of his bowels and will be cursing the Western military instructor who told him his weapons were the best in the world and all them commie toys were junk.

The T-10 was a bogeyman because it was largely unknown in the west... just like the Su-27 remains a bogeyman in the west while the Mig-29 has been examined and played with inside and out.

The point is that in real combat against a competent enemy that has actually spent money upgrading their Mig-29s and Su-27s it is very likely that the Wests low opinion of the Mig will bite them in the A$$, whereas they might actually do better against the Flankers because they had more respect for them to begin with.

Iraqi T-72s were easy kills for 1990 M1A2 Abrams, though the vast majority of tanks the Abrams fought in that conflict were not even T-72s, but older models including Chinese clones.

A Soviet tank from that period would be much better equipped and operated in comparison, but this is something the west seems happy to largely ignore... who do you think is going to suffer in that regard? Certainly not Russia.

Not really new... British and American pilots in the Pacific war were told that Japanese planes were made of rice paper and couldn't fly in the rain... lots of allied pilots found to their cost that that was BS.