Armata - universal attacking machine

[madmusti]

 

[500]

 

[MICA]

the turret design is pretty obvious after the last picture

 

[Azeri440]

2 men crew?

 

[Tacticool]

Why are they covered? Do they want to make a blast on victory day?

 

[tiga.derajat]

2 men crew with autoloader

 

[Azeri440]

2 men crew with autoloader

Russian tanks always had autoloader
that means no more tank commanders? I wonder what type of difference that would make

 

[Oldman1]

Russian tanks always had autoloader
that means no more tank commanders? I wonder what type of difference that would make

The commander will be doing both jobs including as gunner.

 

[jhungary]

lol a lot of hype on both side, maybe we should talk to someone who actually drove tank for a living

@Davos what do you think

 

[ptldM3]

lol a lot of hype on both side, maybe we should talk to someone who actually drove tank for a living

@Davos what do you think

I flew an aircraft before, does that make me an authority on the F-22?

 

[jhungary]

I flew an aircraft before, does that make me an authority on the F-22?

lol, who says anything about authority?

So, anyone who make a comment here is to be some sort of authority, then I guess all of the post in this thread are all ought to be deleted.

If I want to hear nonsense, I want to hear from someone who knew stuff, but not people claim whatever and say yeah, this is the truth, and I know for a fact you know nothing about M1 Abrams, and yet it does not stop you from making Verbal Diarrhea like Abrams this and that.

If you can do it, why can't I call on a Tank Gunner of actual Abrams and say something about the Armata?

BTW, I don't know they gave Pilot License to 13 years old in Russia lol

 

[Davos]

lol a lot of hype on both side, maybe we should talk to someone who actually drove tank for a living

@Davos what do you think

G'day Mate

Don't know much about the Armata I am afraid, in fact, I don't think anyone beside the people who build them know what's inside an Armata, we can guess how good it is or how bad it is but I don't think I can find a way to compare the Armata to other Modern Main Battle Tank like the Abrams, Leopard II or Leclerc

I can, however, comment on the issue we already known and how the Russian took advantage or being in disadvantage compare to Western Tank

First of all, Armata is the base chassis for all Future Russian Armoured Vehicle, the base, as we all known will be of the same design, so you can almost certainly knows the chassis would be a modular chassis, otherwise it cannot function as an universal platform it said it could.

Modular chassis is not a new concept, the Israeli uses the same idea on their Merkava, while the concept was good, but there are a few flaw, such as crew system, transmission and load/weight distribution, those are the problem that plague the Israeli Merkava series.

However, the Merkava design was originally to include troop transport capability, so basically it already double as a troop carrier, even so, the weight distribution have seriously impeded the capability of Merkava as a SP Howitzer, and if I remembered correctly, I don't believe it was fixed even today.

Another problem with the Armata is that it uses an autoloader with remote unmanned turret. Basically, it fixed the issue basically associated with autoloader tank the Russian used before, which is to protect the crew from munitions cook off, however, with a remote unmanned automated turret, one very big problem I can think of is what if the tank gun misfired??

Now, I don't know if the autoloader system have been improved to a point it can handle misfire situation. Traditional Autoloader cannot take out the round already loaded in chamber, let alone deal with a jammed round. When this happened, the gunner would need to have access to the gun, and the one thing being remote operation is it tend to be hard to gain access to the breech, especially when you are using an Autoloader, which in the old days involved disassemble the autoloader assembly and then take care of the round inside the breech.

On the back of that issue, one can also imagine what could happen when the system broke down altogether mid fight. Unless there is a way the Armata can switch from Automatic Loading to Manual Loading, the unmanned turret would increase work load for the gunner or the crew when it suffer some malfunction.

Another issue I can think of is being a 3 man crew in tank configuration, and with a automatic turret, if one man is down, then the whole tank would have to be written out. Where in a 4 men tank, we have a Gunner, Loader, Driver and Commander, which one position is always redundant. And with a 3 men crew, you only have a Driver, Commander/Communication and a Gunner. Which mean if one of them were hit and incapacitated, the tank have to either go on either can shoot but cannot spot target, or can spot target but cannot run or can run and spot but cannot shoot.

Another problem related to a 3 men crew would be the maintenance issue, each crew maintain their own tank, with a more complicated tank and you have less crew member to perform daily maintenance on it, either they would have to drive to an assigned spot for unit maintenance everyday after action, which waste time, or they would have to have more man hour to tank providing field maintenance. Which would draw away man power because you will need to provide security to the tank while they are undergone surgery.

But to conclude, I will have to say, if all of the issue above have been fixed for Armata and that does not affect much of the operational status of the tank, then this would be a good place to start the new generation, it minimize the logtrain, basic maintenance and also crew training to a very great deal, but as I said, this would be a very big gamble and currently, we only know that much to comment on whether or not the Armata is a success or failure.

Davos

 

[forcetrip]

G'day Mate

Don't know much about the Armata I am afraid, in fact, I don't think anyone beside the people who build them know what's inside an Armata, we can guess how good it is or how bad it is but I don't think I can find a way to compare the Armata to other Modern Main Battle Tank like the Abrams, Leopard II or Leclerc

I can, however, comment on the issue we already known and how the Russian took advantage or being in disadvantage compare to Western Tank

First of all, Armata is the base chassis for all Future Russian Armoured Vehicle, the base, as we all known will be of the same design, so you can almost certainly knows the chassis would be a modular chassis, otherwise it cannot function as an universal platform it said it could.

Modular chassis is not a new concept, the Israeli uses the same idea on their Merkava, while the concept was good, but there are a few flaw, such as crew system, transmission and load/weight distribution, those are the problem that plague the Israeli Merkava series.

However, the Merkava design was originally to include troop transport capability, so basically it already double as a troop carrier, even so, the weight distribution have seriously impeded the capability of Merkava as a SP Howitzer, and if I remembered correctly, I don't believe it was fixed even today.

Another problem with the Armata is that it uses an autoloader with remote unmanned turret. Basically, it fixed the issue basically associated with autoloader tank the Russian used before, which is to protect the crew from munitions cook off, however, with a remote unmanned automated turret, one very big problem I can think of is what if the tank gun misfired??

Now, I don't know if the autoloader system have been improved to a point it can handle misfire situation. Traditional Autoloader cannot take out the round already loaded in chamber, let alone deal with a jammed round. When this happened, the gunner would need to have access to the gun, and the one thing being remote operation is it tend to be hard to gain access to the breech, especially when you are using an Autoloader, which in the old days involved disassemble the autoloader assembly and then take care of the round inside the breech.

On the back of that issue, one can also imagine what could happen when the system broke down altogether mid fight. Unless there is a way the Armata can switch from Automatic Loading to Manual Loading, the unmanned turret would increase work load for the gunner or the crew when it suffer some malfunction.

Another issue I can think of is being a 3 man crew in tank configuration, and with a automatic turret, if one man is down, then the whole tank would have to be written out. Where in a 4 men tank, we have a Gunner, Loader, Driver and Commander, which one position is always redundant. And with a 3 men crew, you only have a Driver, Commander/Communication and a Gunner. Which mean if one of them were hit and incapacitated, the tank have to either go on either can shoot but cannot spot target, or can spot target but cannot run or can run and spot but cannot shoot.

Another problem related to a 3 men crew would be the maintenance issue, each crew maintain their own tank, with a more complicated tank and you have less crew member to perform daily maintenance on it, either they would have to drive to an assigned spot for unit maintenance everyday after action, which waste time, or they would have to have more man hour to tank providing field maintenance. Which would draw away man power because you will need to provide security to the tank while they are undergone surgery.

But to conclude, I will have to say, if all of the issue above have been fixed for Armata and that does not affect much of the operational status of the tank, then this would be a good place to start the new generation, it minimize the logtrain, basic maintenance and also crew training to a very great deal, but as I said, this would be a very big gamble and currently, we only know that much to comment on whether or not the Armata is a success or failure.

Davos

As correctly pointed out. It all depends on what sort of upgrade that auto-loader has. Looking at the time this has been cooking in the pot I am suspecting something immensely upgraded in that department.

 

[ptldM3]

Another problem with the Armata is that it uses an autoloader with remote unmanned turret. Basically, it fixed the issue basically associated with autoloader tank the Russian used before, which is to protect the crew from munitions cook off, however, with a remote unmanned automated turret, one very big problem I can think of is what if the tank gun misfired??

Auto loaders are being used more and more. The Russians and Chinese have always used them but now the South Korean K-2 uses it, the French Leclerc uses it as well, so does the new Japanese Type 10 tank. Everyone on the internet is critical of auto loaders yet more tanks are using them, therefor they must be reliable otherwise no one would gamble on them. I'm not a tank engineer but the first thing that comes to mind in case of a malfunction would be a mechanical extractor, if i can think of a mechanical extractor i'm sure that engineers have thought about it as well. Moreover, the Armata should have a compartment inside the turret to load ammunition and perform maintenance, meaning in a worst case scenario one of the crew members could clear a malfunction. The main point is that autoloaders have been around for many decades, the Russians have the most experience with them, so far they have been reliable enough to where they decided to go with an auto loader with the Armata, and as mentioned before many countries are now continuing the trend of autoloaders.

Another issue I can think of is being a 3 man crew in tank configuration, and with a automatic turret, if one man is down, then the whole tank would have to be written out. Where in a 4 men tank, we have a Gunner, Loader, Driver and Commander, which one position is always redundant. And with a 3 men crew, you only have a Driver, Commander/Communication and a Gunner. Which mean if one of them were hit and incapacitated, the tank have to either go on either can shoot but cannot spot target, or can spot target but cannot run or can run and spot but cannot shoot.

Take a look at the hatch configuration:

First note the crew all sit together unlike on a traditional tank where the entire crew is scattered through the tank in parts of the tank that are considered vulnerable. Note the hatch thickness which is by far thicker than any current tank that i know of. This is not bragging but simply pointing out that if the roof is that thick then imagine how well the glacis is armored, the same goes for oblique armor on the side of the tank. The entire crew is separated from the rest of the tank meaning that the crew should still be able to survive as long as their capsule is not breached, even if the turret is breached or blown off due to an IED which would usually kill the entire crew of a traditional tank, the same goes for the chassis, as long as the capsule on the Armata is not breached the crew should survive where as on a traditional tank if the chassis is breached the crew sustains serious injury or death. As for your scenario of one crew member being down in the Armata, the same hypothetical scenario would also apply to a 4 man crew, if one man is down then the tank is simply not as affective or ineffective period. The Armata is also very automated (confirmed) and i would guess it had redundant systems to where commander and gunner can do their jobs interchangeably.

Another problem related to a 3 men crew would be the maintenance issue, each crew maintain their own tank, with a more complicated tank and you have less crew member to perform daily maintenance on it, either they would have to drive to an assigned spot for unit maintenance everyday after action, which waste time, or they would have to have more man hour to tank providing field maintenance. Which would draw away man power because you will need to provide security to the tank while they are undergone surgery.

I'm not sure how they do it in Australia but in Russia tanks never go it alone, they are always supported by other tanks or are closely supported by infantry fighting vehicles and most importantly combat recovery vehicles. No one gets out and repairs tanks on the front line, that is where armored recovery vehicles are called in. If a tank such as the armata is damaged or breaks down and the crew is hell bent on repairing the vehicle themselves then they can do that too, yes they are one man short compared to an Abrams or Leo but the job can still be done and other vehicle/troops can give them assistance whether it be to help fix the tank or provide a secure perimeter.

Some people are still grasping on to the old fashioned 4 man crew with manual autoloader. I'm not saying it's a bad thing but tanks have changed a lot from the 1960s and 1970s. A 4 man crew is becoming obsolete, that is why so many countries are switching to auto loaders. One can argue all day why a 4 man crew is better then a 3 man crew and then the argument can go the other way too.

 

[500]

Fully unveiled by official Russian defence twitter account.

T-14 tank:

T-15 Heavy IFV:

Kuganetz-25 IFV:

Bumerang APC:

Koaloitsia-SV howitzer: