Russian Army ATGM Thread

Isos wrote:Are they planning to use them on the older tanks (t-72/90/80) ?

What's the cost ?

We saw the images from NK with drones hitting from above directly on the weak spots at angles close to 90°.

As long as they don't have 360° coverage it's not worth using them.

Isos wrote:That's quite expensive actually.

The system is simple with simple hardware (small radar,  simple explosive rounds and the computer is also small and not expensive). The integration is also quick since you mount it on the tanks with few holes for the wires.

They should sell it 25k. They have some 2500 tanks in active service + some thousand in foreign armies. If all get upgraded for such small price that would be billions of dollars directly in their pocket.

At 850k no one will buy it. If they do it will be very small batches.

Isos wrote:Who cares about SAAB. Western tanks cost >5 million a piece.

A t-72 can be bought at 750-1000 k$. Why would anyone buy a protection system at the same price as the tank. Offering it at 25-50k will actually attracts buyers. Arena is propose for decades now and no one buys it.

It's a matter if time before Israel offers a similar APS for soviet tanks and indians will buy it for sure for their thousands of tanks/bmp's.

The projectiles aren't the thing that makes the system expensive. Neither the wires that connects it to the computer.

Yeah, 360 degree radar systems have always been cheap... that is why all American Abrams tanks already have them...

Except that isn't true... in fact the mast mounted MMW radar on the Apache AH-64D was so expensive only about 1 in four aircraft actually got the radar antenna...

Yeah, selling Rafales for 10 million an airframe and they would sell like bloody hotcakes... but there is no point because losing money on every sale is bad business. If customer countries don't want to buy an extra layer of protection for their tanks then that is their choice...

Name one single country or company that would do something that stupid... take 50 million dollars in payment for something you would normally charge 850 million for... I thought my suggestion of selling Rafales for 10 million was silly but this is actually worse...

Isos wrote:No one is buying it right now and its a system pretty easy to create. If I was them I would quickly reduce the price and create a smaller version for BMPs and BTRs.

Just india would buy some 1000 to improve their tanks against chinese overwhelming forces (drobes, atgm.).

At 50000$ they would get 50 million.

Mindstorm wrote:

Isos wrote:No one is buying it right now and its a system pretty easy to create. If I was them I would quickly reduce the price and create a smaller version for BMPs and BTRs.

Just india would buy some 1000 to improve their tanks against chinese overwhelming forces (drobes, atgm.).

At 50000$ they would get 50 million.

The price....... that has been never even near to $ 850000 even for the unique Арена prototype.....of domestic APS will go down significantly with production.

The problem with export of original Арена was that it was rightly never considered by MoD necessary for mass prodcution to equip armoured and mechanized divisions of the Federation's Ground Forces, taking into account the unique volume and level of suppression fire -artillery and БМП based - and the unique level of air defense, EW and masking equipment widely available to Federation's military formations.

Produce several thousands of those early APS with the entire component basis was considered totally not necessary taking in consideration the huge overmatch enjoyed against the battlefield menaces that could potentially justify theirs introduction in service.

Foreign potential operators will never acquire a system not mass produced and operated by its maker, it is an universally accepted axiom.


The situation in a way became even more convoluted with the development of the new generation of APS designed purposely for the future line of ground force vehicles of light ,medium and heavy weigh, with technical characteristics immeasurably greater than those of original and modernized Арена capable to defeat not today battlefield menaces but those arguably developed by opponents in the next 20-30 years and that obviously could not be offered to foreign purchasers because a simplified exportable version is not even in see at this stage.


The solution has been a modular redesign of the original Арена complex easy to integrate in both domestic and foreign medium and heavy class armoured vehicles capable to reliably defeat today more advanced foreign menaces such as Javelin, Spike and aircraft, helicopter and UAV-delivered high precision ammunitions, it has beign named Арена-M and will be mounted and operated on some modernized tanks of domestic park just to aid its export potential.

In this very interesting interview to Бекхан Оздоев (industrial director at Ростех) touching dozen of different development programs for armed forces you can read a clear reference to Арена-M

https://ria.ru/20201127/ozdoev-1586506217.html

GarryB wrote:

Yeah and S-400 radar is much more expensive than the Apache's radar.

Those are not the same radars. APS need to detect incoming missiles flying at more than 100-200m/s only. And fuze the cassettes at the right moment. That's nothing complicated.

The radars used in ARENA and DROZD and Afghanit are not simple PIRs that detect an IR signature inside a building and set off a burglar alarm.

The MMW radar of these APS system has to detect the target and track it to determine its trajectory to see if it will hit the vehicle the system is mounted on or if it will fly over top. It then has to calculate an interception option from the available munitions and launch the correct munition at exactly the critical time to intercept it...

That means precise tracking performance... covering 360 degrees around the tank...

Apache radar is like 10000 times more complicated to make.

Not really... but it does scan a much larger volume of air space, though nothing like the volume the S-400 scans of course.

The APS doesn't cost 500k to be made. I suspect some 5-10k. Pretty simple technology.

Of course... simple cheap technology... that is why every tank already has it because it is simple and cheap.... BTW why does the US use an Israeli system instead of an American system if they are so cheap and simple... and what are the British and French and German systems called... the ones they have in operational service?

If they were 5K then they would already have them in widespread operational service... they don't.

If they sell 0 of them they get 0$.

If they sell zero but don't make any either then they make zero but it also costs them zero.... so they break even.

If they sell 2000 of them at reduced price they get 50 millions.

If each set they sell is 50K, and they sell 2000 of them that means they get 100 million dollars... but if they cost 100K a set to make and install then they get 100 million dollars but it cost them 200 million dollars to make so they are out 100 million dollars. How are they going to pay back the bank loans they used to set up production if they get 100 million dollars income from 200 million dollars worth of hard ware and services...

And that is just assuming it only costs 100K a unit price to set up serial production and get production running.

Over time with orders the cost would of course go down and design improvements will make it much better system... simpler and more effective agaisnt a wider range of targets but you need to have it in production for that to happen normally.

As I keep saying, an APS is extremely costly because in the current state of the AFV protection is guarantees 90% of survavibility to the most common threats (SRATW/ATGM). The cost price should be around the 100K, but the reason for the hike is that Arena needs to break even with its sank costs.

The sad thing is that they will realise how much they need it when they go into combat without it and by then it will be too late... rushing it into production and into service means little training and experience with the systems might lead to it not being that effective to start off with, and it will be rather more expensive too.

Look at the difference in reputation from the first conflict in Chechnia and the second one... tactics and equipment made the difference... ERA works much better when it is loaded with the explosives it needs to work and rolling tanks into prepared cities  against an enemy that has had the same training on the same equipment you are using is suicide in any army.

GarryB wrote:

So future work is top attack....

mnztr wrote:yes now that you mention it I understand its role better. Its not very well protected so its really designed to be placed at a strategic location (probably protected by a Pantsir) and take out enemy tanks from beyond the range of the their main guns backing up the assault by MBTs or protecting a base or line against an armoured assault. FORMIDABLE. The Israelis cobbled something similar together but not remotely as good. (although more heavily armoured)