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.

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

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...

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...

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

I too have been wondering about the absence of the Arena APS, and any other APS system from Russian tanks

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

I don't think the case is related to embezzlement of funds, nor penny-pinching.
Sometimes Russia will go and do something stupid like perhaps not wanting NATO to gain knowledge about the work of its APS systems to be able to then build countermeasures against them. Give the crew some cages instead, they'll make do.
I hope that's not the case at any rate.
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.

The cost of equipping one MBT with APS is greater than the cost of equipping 100 MBTs with cages, not to mention that the cage poses no risk to the infantry operating around it.

flamming_python wrote:like perhaps not wanting NATO to gain knowledge about the work of its APS systems to be able to then build countermeasures against them. Give the crew some cages instead, they'll make do.

I think that is exactly the reason why they are not using APS. It is pretty clear from the fiasco in Gaza that the Trophy is not working as advertised and this is the best the "west" can get. No need to risk this "no analogs" technology - esp since the cages are doing a fine job.

Belisarius wrote:The cost of equipping one MBT with APS is greater than the cost of equipping 100 MBTs with cages, not to mention that the cage poses no risk to the infantry operating around it.

Absurd.

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

Mir wrote:I think that is exactly the reason why they are not using APS. It is pretty clear from the fiasco in Gaza that the Trophy is not working as advertised and this is the best the "west" can get. No need to risk this "no analogs" technology - esp since the cages are doing a fine job.

It doesn't make sense to me

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.

Around the start of the war they were also trying out unmanned T-72s in trials. Well presumably the trials failed to meet expectations as we haven't heard or seen anything about these robot tanks since. But why not try them out in battle anyway? And then iterate upon that. 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.

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.
But Russia has used Iskanders, and Zirkons and whatever else, and those are more sensitive. If it helps to save Russian lives you might as well use it, and then use the lessons learned to get busy on the next generation of APS.

flamming_python wrote:

Absurd.

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

flamming_python wrote:
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.

Arena can not be considered experimental and has been around for some time now. It is even offered for export as the Arena-E.  Arena-M is quite new but it has been announced very recently that it will be retrofitted to existing tanks like the T-72B3M. Sounds like Arena-M has passed the acceptance tests.

flamming_python wrote:
But Russia has used Iskanders, and Zirkons and whatever else, and those are more sensitive. If it helps to save Russian lives you might as well use it, and then use the lessons learned to get busy on the next generation of APS.

Iskander copies have been available in both China and North Korea for years now. The Tsirkon is (and should remain) super secret but apparently used in Ukraine (even "shot down"! ) but I would prefer that they refrain from using it. Iskander and Kinzhal is more than good enough. They can't even stop the ancient Kh-22's. Same goes for T-14. No need to battle test it as true tank on tank warfare is rare.

I would (like to) think that the Su-57 operated well outside harms way.

Belisarius wrote:

flamming_python wrote:

Absurd.

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

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

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...

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.

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

There is cages that cover the engine compartment, are there any APS capable of dealing with FPVs diving almost vertically during the attack?

Maybe two drones to solved cage and tank is dead...with APS you will have great protecrion against drones and ATGMs

There are more videos of Russian tanks with cages surviving multiple attacks than videos of APS, like Trophy, intercepting any shit...

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.

galicije83 wrote:

Maybe two drones to solved cage and tank is dead...

The T-90M “Proryv” with a protective visor withstood three hits from enemy FPV kamikazes.

https://t.me/intelslava/59746

flamming_python wrote:
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.

Untrue. UMPKs, FPVs, Geran, Zemlediye, T-90M, etc. etc. The Russian military constantly introduces new stuff and makes them a natural part of its repertoire all the time. The only real limitation is the industry which needs time to acquaint itself with new technologies, setup the logistics as well as train the personnel who will mass manufacture these new weaponry.

https://paralay.iboards.ru/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=594&start=237

T-90M tanks will finally receive T09-A6-1 Arena-M active protection systems (APS).

TASS reports this with reference to contracts concluded on the sidelines of the Army-2024 forum.

"The corresponding state contracts for the supply of the modernized BM-2 combat vehicle, the modernized TOS-1A heavy flamethrower system on the T-80 base chassis with the development of design documentation, T-90M tanks with the T09-A6-1 active protection kit were presented on the sidelines of the Army-2024 forum by the head of the Main Directorate of Armaments of the Russian Armed Forces Anatoly Gulyayev to the deputy general director of Uralvagonzavod Dmitry Semizorov - the publication reports.

The saga of putting the APS into service for domestic armored vehicles has been going on for several decades and reached the finish line only at the end of the last decade, when the Arena-M began to be tested on T-72B3 UBH tanks, which passed these very tests in 2023.

We hope that the Arena-M APS will be supplied in a modernized version for combat drones, the refinement of which was discussed in February of this year during a visit by former head of the Ministry of Defense Sergei Shoigu to the machine-building design bureau in Kolomna, since the key threat to armored vehicles on the modern battlefield is precisely FPV drones, and only then "classic" RPGs and ATGMs.



https://t.me/milinfolive/128321


Anyways I saw this posted at paralay.iboards.ru and the picture got me excited so I translated it and if true it is pretty huge. Go over to paralays site in the vehicles forum and the t90 thread. This is where I got this info. Also sorry the t90 thread I posted goes to thr first page. Go to the latest page to see the original post of this info.

Here's a free idea but perhaps they can install ducting to the TDA (smoke generator) exhaust that redirects it upwards rather than the port side.

You would have to be aware of the wind direction during attacks, ensure its blowing from behind to have an effective screen, but during retreats the smoke should effectively block the top and the rear.

Finally APS ARENA M on tanks...probably they are tweak her for FPV drones since it was introduced long time ago...i hope it will protect tanks and APC and lot of vehicles from this fking night mares in FPVs....

In theory their APS systems are designed to quick reaction shoot down threats detected over the last few hundred metres or less, so detecting and dealing with drones should be a feature of these systems if they can detect them reliably (ie RCS and low thermal signatures make them an issue, but an active short range system like LIDAR would reliably detect all targets in question even ones made of cardboard...)

It would be important to make sure these systems had significant numbers of munitions and the ability to direct them in any direction needed to deal with the threat...

Obviously nothing is perfect and even somethings will get through so ERA and cage armour should still be present along with jammers and other equipment... but having APS systems will help and also getting them into service will enable them to be properly tested and through production and operational experience their performance improved and costs to go down too.

Against powerful anti tank missiles fitting it to light vehicles might not protect them, but against drones if it can hit them at decent ranges... ie 20m plus then the damage to even light vehicles should be acceptable and stopped by light armour.

Well price of one arena m was in 2017. 120000 dollars..so you can buy 40 of them for one t90m....we will se i hope soon ArM in action...

Well they might be cheaper now, and have more domestically made components.

They are not going to get cheaper if they don't mass produce them, and they are not going to get better sitting in labs and used in tests.

Getting them into service will find problems and issues and as these issues are dealt with the systems will mature and get better... and as technology improves and things get cheaper they can add capability and improve too.

It is the same for everything of course... lasers are becoming rather powerful and at the same time smaller and more portable... against recon drones a nice high power laser would be an efficient way of dealing with such problems in large volumes.

These APS systems are not going to be 100% effective but they are going to make the task of defeating armour rather more difficult and complicated... and expensive.

GarryB wrote:Well they might be cheaper now, and have more domestically made components.

They are not going to get cheaper if they don't mass produce them, and they are not going to get better sitting in labs and used in tests.

Getting them into service will find problems and issues and as these issues are dealt with the systems will mature and get better... and as technology improves and things get cheaper they can add capability and improve too.

It is the same for everything of course... lasers are becoming rather powerful and at the same time smaller and more portable... against recon drones a nice high power laser would be an efficient way of dealing with such problems in large volumes.

These APS systems are not going to be 100% effective but they are going to make the task of defeating armour rather more difficult and complicated... and expensive.

It is probably more expensive but it is interesting to see its effectiveness against different types of munitions especially ambushes from short distance, top attack and FPV.

Well the new Russian APS systems are designed to stop APFSDS rounds, so the issues with FPV drones that you don't see them till they are diving down on you is not really a problem for such a system because although with an APFSDS you need warning time... ie to detect them at a distance, that is because they are moving so fast... a FPV drone is moving much slower so there is more time relatively for an automatic system to react.

But having said that they wont be 100% effective and will need to be cleverly designed to that munitions can be reloaded in the field so the enemy just doesn't keep attacking from the same direction to use up the munitions on one side of the vehicle to make it vulnerable to attack.

When the threat is missiles then the vehicle can actively do something about that... when a missile is detected the tank can look to where the missile was fired in the hope of destroying the launcher and crew while the APS system deals with the incoming missile. If you can take down a missile crew or RPG operator with every third or fourth missile fired at you then the enemies numbers are going to get used up.

Obviously if you spot them and hit them before they fire that is even better, but with FPV drones the vehicle might never see the guy controlling the drone so he can launch drone after drone after drone at you, so APS systems and other equipment including jammers and lasers are needed too as well as your own drone operators taking down their drone operators and vehicles and troops.

Don't think APS systems will fix the problem.

Drones are going to be a problem moving forward and solutions are going to be needed of all types and implemented in the field too... and some might work some of the time but nothing will work every time.

This is the APS against FPVs.

now they just have to figure how to smuggle SHORADs close the front to deal with Orlan type tactical recon drones acting as spotter for enemy fires.