Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Colonol Dekker on April 24, 2015, 02:34:13 pm
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Russia to Unveil Its New Tank, the T-14 Armata
By SOF
The next much talked about in recent months Russian tank is here.
The T-14 Armata will make its public debut at the 9 May Victory Day parade. The tank is intended to be the successor to the T-90, which entered service in 1992. The last American main battle tank, the M1 Abrams, first entered service in 1979.
The T-14 will feature a new 125mm main gun, the 2A82 with 32 rounds. The Russians are also planning a heavy infantry fighting vehicle companion, the T-15, to go with the T-14 Armata. And that’s not all.
A family of new combat vehicles based on the universal platform Armata will be displayed at a Victory Parade in 2015, Oleg Siyenko, General Director of the Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) research and production corporation, told ITAR-TASS in an exclusive interview at the ADEX-2014 international exhibition of armaments.
“All works are proceeding according to schedule. A whole family of armored vehicles based on the Armata platform will be displayed in a Victory Parade next year,” Siyenko said, Tass.ru.
“The newest MBT Armata has been developed by UVZ specialists on the basis of a heavy-duty platform of the same name. The platform is to be used for the development of a main battle tank, infantry combat vehicle, a heavy APC, a tank support combat vehicle, an armored repair-and-evacuation vehicle, a chassis for self-propelled artillery mounts, etc. The MBT will have a 125mm gun, remote-controlled and fully digitalized. The crew will operate the gun from an isolated armored capsule”, Tass.ru reports
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Something about those side mounted independently elevating but not rotating guns seems off. Maybe for attack helicopter deterrence. Be interesting to see more photos after May Day. The lack of independent "commander's gun" seems like it would be easily remedied if needed I suppose.
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that looks pretty bad ass got to admit. looks like they tried incorporating a bit of stealth technology into it.
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Was driving home, thinking about it, maybe this is demonstrating the various turrets that will be on separate versions (MBT, AFV, AA).
Makes more sense than the sharks with bees in their mouths I see here. But again, I could be wrong.
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I don't think it's stealth, at least from not radar. The armor is heavily sloped to deflect incoming projectiles, so this is kind of "stealth" from incoming bullets. :) The principle is actually somewhat similar, in both cases you don't want to have stuff hitting your hull dead-on. Heavy sloping and having few right angles help achieve that in both cases.
It does seem that they did try masking the heat signature somewhat. It seems to lack reactive armor for some reason (a staple of Russian tanks) and the elevating guns look odd (probably AA weapons, certainly look better for that than the puny commander's MG), but it certainly does seem like a modern, capable design. I'm sort-of looking forward to seeing it rolled out, though something tells me I really shouldn't... :)
Also, I can't wait for someone to model the thing in ArmA3. It certainly looks like it'd fit right in.
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Not sure where they'd even put a 'commander gun' since the thing is supposed to have an automated turret, that is not yet finished by the most recent messages I've read. It'll have a masked turret on the parade, most likely a mock-up.
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While insanely awesome, it really does make me ask the question: The hell are they going to need it for?
Entirely different topic altogether though.
I find it rather amusing that Russia keeps bringing in new tank designs while the States just sticks with the Abrams design while modernizing as tech improves
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****. Now I'm just wondering if this "Great Patriotic Tank" release has to do what with sanctions. Another pissing contest?
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I sure hope so. Because if it's not mere saber rattling, then everyone is in for a lot of trouble. That said, it probably is.
Not sure where they'd even put a 'commander gun' since the thing is supposed to have an automated turret, that is not yet finished by the most recent messages I've read. It'll have a masked turret on the parade, most likely a mock-up.
Hmm, if so, then this tank could possibly be operated by just two crewmen (driver and commander). That would be impressive, and fit Russia's concept of tank warfare. Their tanks are made to win campaigns, not battles, so they must be easy to mass produce and outfit. Reducing the number of crew would help there.
I find it rather amusing that Russia keeps bringing in new tank designs while the States just sticks with the Abrams design while modernizing as tech improves
Abrams can't last forever, and while it's a good tank, it might soon find itself at its limits. I have a feeling that the US doesn't make new tank designs, because today's conflicts hardly involve tanks (it's usually either aircraft or mech infantry). Which is a perfectly valid reason to focus on those instead. That Russia is making new tank designs means it either wants to show off, Cold War-style, or actually expects to be involved in an armed conflict where tanks would be of use. And it doesn't take much to guess where would that conflict happen.
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****. Now I'm just wondering if this "Great Patriotic Tank" release has to do what with sanctions. Another pissing contest?
No, this thing's been in the works for years, and it's pretty customary for the Russians to publicly reveal new stock in on the May 9 victory parade.
I sure hope so. Because if it's not mere saber rattling, then everyone is in for a lot of trouble. That said, it probably is.
Not sure where they'd even put a 'commander gun' since the thing is supposed to have an automated turret, that is not yet finished by the most recent messages I've read. It'll have a masked turret on the parade, most likely a mock-up.
Hmm, if so, then this tank could possibly be operated by just two crewmen (driver and commander). That would be impressive, and fit Russia's concept of tank warfare. Their tanks are made to win campaigns, not battles, so they must be easy to mass produce and outfit. Reducing the number of crew would help there.
The Russians learned in WW2 with the early T-34s that combining the gunner and commander roles overworks the person doing it. Especially the unit commanders, who have to find targets, aim and fire the gun, tell the driver what to do, and also command all the other tanks in the platoon or company. It doesn't work, which is why they switched to the conventional setup when they upgraded to the T-34-85. This hasn't changed.
Another thing is that removing one person from the crew means more work for the remaining people when the tank needs to be serviced. You've already removed the loader, so you've got a 3 man crew doing the work 4 people do on a Leopard 2 or an Abrams. The weight saved can make that worth it, but with a 2 man crew? Not a chance. It would be hell.
While insanely awesome, it really does make me ask the question: The hell are they going to need it for?
Potential war. What else? Countries that wait to be attacked before modernizing their forces don't fare well.
I find it rather amusing that Russia keeps bringing in new tank designs while the States just sticks with the Abrams design while modernizing as tech improves
Which the Russians have been doing with pretty much all their tanks since the T-55. Seriously, the Russians modernize old stock a lot more than the USA does. Their T-72s are still perfectly viable MBTs, and the T-90 is the equal of the M1A2 for most purposes. The Abrams is better in some ways, worse in others.
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The Russians learned in WW2 with the early T-34s that combining the gunner and commander roles overworks the person doing it. Especially the unit commanders, who have to find targets, aim and fire the gun, tell the driver what to do, and also command all the other tanks in the platoon or company. It doesn't work, which is why they switched to the conventional setup when they upgraded to the T-34-85. This hasn't changed.
That's why I'm saying it'd be impressive. Now, it's true that maintenance would suffer, but with today's automation you could conceivably remove the gunner. If the turret is really automated, the commander doesn't have to aim the gun, just give it a target (like he already does). The computer would then put a round in it. In WWII, firing a gun was indeed a "full time job", it still is on tanks like Abrams, though it's significantly easier now than it was then. An FCS so advanced as to allow eliminating the gunner would be quite a feat, but is definitely possible. It'd save weight, interior space and allow fielding more vehicles with the same amount of men. On the other hand, maintenance could become a pain (unless it has some spiffy system to make that easier, anyway) and redundancy could suffer as well.
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Dragon: The commander's job is maintaining situational awareness and directing the entire tank. It's not that aiming the gun is tough, but it's still a full time job. Sure, the computer calculates lead and drop automatically now, but the gun still needs to be aimed manually, and it's going to stay that way for a very long time, for the simple reason that throwing rounds downrange doesn't always mean shooting at targets a computer can pick out through ground clutter. And if the commander's focusing on shooting things, he's not paying attention to what's going on around the tank itself, or what the rest of the unit is doing.
If you really wanted to reduce the tank crew to 2 men, you'd have better results combining gunner and driver. The commander's job is too essential to have him be distracted by actively shooting things.
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Well, considering T-90 is basically a modernization of T-72, a new concept was long overdue imho. While I believe the T-90 to be slightly superior to the abrams if only because you can afford 3 of them for the same price, the armor just doesn't compare, hence why Russians developed the quite awesome active defenses. T-14 is closer in weight to the Abrams, suggesting it might be better protected from stock.
What I find amazing is the degree to which Russians are making various systems interchangeable not just between the armored vehicles. This thing will have the same radar as the new T-50 fighter etc. Should make it rather cheap to acquire and maintain. The Nazis tried to do that with the E-series, although they came up with it too late.
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Actually, if you factor in the ERA, the T-90A has very nearly the same level of armor protection as the M1A1HA and M1A2, at least on the front axis. Bit worse against KE penetrators, bit better against HEAT. The T-72B obr.1989 is pretty much even with the M1A1.
Not sure how the T-90A measures up against the M1A2SEP, but that's because it's really hard to find numbers on the M1A2SEP's armor protection.
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This thing looks really impressive,looking at its armament,it could probably defeat Abrams in one on one fight,as even our Serbian T-84 is compatible to the Abrams.
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The whole automated turret thing got me intrigued, wonder how they will pull it off. Skynet fear intensifies!
Also, Russian spaced-armor = magic.
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It's not automated, it's remote controlled. The 3-man crew is inside the hull.
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Potential war. What else? Countries that wait to be attacked before modernizing their forces don't fare well.
And who is going to attack Russia?
It overall just seems pointless given the likelihood any of this stuff will see any proper use (unless they intend to use it offensively) is pretty low
Still, I like military tech as much as the next fellow... I just fail to see its purpose unless you're actually preparing for something.
Least, any threat that would require such modern technology to counter with.
But, it gives people jobs so there's always that. No small amount either
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Regarding the reactive armour, you can get it in racks that are quite modular to sling / bolt to the sides. Easier to replace. Also bar armour may be fitted In the future as it prevents traditional piezoelectric ignition on heat/rpg heads.
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The sloping armor on the turret is quite extreme. I wonder when someone's gonna take a cue from battleship tactics and switch to plunging fire. Radar and thermal targeting lock on to the target, computer predictions to lead the target, and then a special link or a pre-fire timing to have the shell detonate above the target and shower the engine compartment with shrapnel.
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And who is going to attack Russia?
It overall just seems pointless given the likelihood any of this stuff will see any proper use (unless they intend to use it offensively) is pretty low
Still, I like military tech as much as the next fellow... I just fail to see its purpose unless you're actually preparing for something.
Least, any threat that would require such modern technology to counter with.
But, it gives people jobs so there's always that. No small amount either
Who's going to attack the USA, or the UK, or China?
You risk a lot when you gamble on the idea that conventional war is over. Especially since it probably isn't.
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And if everyone simultaneously makes that same gamble...
Who's going to attack the USA, or the UK, or China?
Same point about Russia
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And if everyone simultaneously makes that same gamble...
Prisoner's dilemma.
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they can also sell these tanks to other countries. Iran might like a few of them.
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This thing looks really impressive,looking at its armament,it could probably defeat Abrams in one on one fight,as even our Serbian T-84 is compatible to the Abrams.
Which is why it will probably never be 1v1 with an Abrams. This is the very reason Apaches, Reapers and A-10s exist.
EDIT: I'm sure you knew that, it just seemed worth mentioning that this likely wasn't a complete oversight on the part of the US.
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And if everyone simultaneously makes that same gamble...
Prisoner's dilemma.
Yup
Honestly, it's a fascinating thing to imagine
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Yeah, but just to imagine. I don't think that we'll ever give up wars. Indeed, there is an old proverb. "Si vis pacem, para bellum." The West in general and NATO in particular seems to have forgotten what ancient Romans already knew. That's why Russia is so bold these days. They can see that we have forgotten that old maxim.
And who is going to attack Russia?
I don't think anybody is. However, you can swap the words around a little and end up with a better question, which is "Who is Russia going to attack?". :) And an answer to that is a lot more disturbing.
Which is why it will probably never be 1v1 with an Abrams. This is the very reason Apaches, Reapers and A-10s exist.
And those are the reason Flankers, PAK-FAs and S400s and S500s exist (or soon will). Russians do have a few good answers to American attempts at air superiority. American doctrine relies heavily on air superiority, and modern SAMs and interceptors could really mess them up. And Russians have quite a few of those (unlike Americans, who seem to rely solely on the Stinger for ground-based air defense).
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The Stinger is just a crappy shoulder-launched MANPADS, of which the Russians have their own versions. Our vehicle-mounted SAM is the Patriot, and that's pretty damn good itself.
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The sloping armor on the turret is quite extreme. I wonder when someone's gonna take a cue from battleship tactics and switch to plunging fire. Radar and thermal targeting lock on to the target, computer predictions to lead the target, and then a special link or a pre-fire timing to have the shell detonate above the target and shower the engine compartment with shrapnel.
Javelins already do this.
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/77/1-27_Top_attack_flight_path..PNG)
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The Stinger is just a crappy shoulder-launched MANPADS, of which the Russians have their own versions. Our vehicle-mounted SAM is the Patriot, and that's pretty damn good itself.
The Patriot is not a vehicle mounted SAM, in that the vehicle that carries it can't fire it on its own. It's a mobile SAM battery. It requires a number of separately carried components beyond just the launcher. Things like a radar array and a command center. The Russian equivalent is the S-300 and S-400, and the S-400 is a vastly superior system.
The USA has no mobile frontline AA like the Tunguska and Buk. They rely on air superiority to protect against enemy CAS.
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The USA has no mobile frontline AA like the Tunguska and Buk. They rely on air superiority to protect against enemy CAS.
*cough* LAV-AD *cough*
http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/lav-ad.htm
http://www.army-technology.com/projects/blazer/
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As far as I know, like the Bradley Linebacker, the LAV-AD is no longer in service. The USMC only had 20 or so of them anyway.
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Not only that, they were armed with Stingers. There's also a thing called the Avenger, which is an AA version of the HMMVW, armed with... Stingers. :) LAV-AD and Bradley Linebacker are both roughly equivalent to having a guy armed with a MANPADS pop out of the top hatch of a normal APC (OK, they had better targeting and were somewhat faster than that, but not much else). Their cannons can take pot shots at helos, but are crap against jets. Panstir S1 (a further development of Tunguska), on the other hand, is a serious long-range missile system with a fast tracking gun that can and will shred a low flying Viper if the missiles don't get to it first (as a plus, it absolutely butchers any infantry and softskins thrown at it, as any ArmA player will attest :) ).
As for Patriot, it's roughly comparable to S-300. S-400 is currently in use (and is, hands down, the best long-range AAM system out there), S-500 is in development. The Buk is not only vastly superior to other missiles in its class (it's close to Patriot in speed and ceiling, but has shorter range), it's also mobile like the Panstir. The only worthwhile US missile, the RIM-174, is ship launched and thus completely incapable of protecting land-based stuff any reasonable distance from the shore.
The US relies too much on their air superiority for air defense. This worked against a technologically inferior enemy, but Russia is very much capable of nullifying that advantage. The Stinger isn't good enough of a deterrent, being pretty much a last-ditch air defense option against low-flying aircraft (so it won't help you if someone bombs you from level flight at high altitude). Guns fielded by the US aren't particularly effective against aircraft, either.
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I think like you're assuming knowledge where there isn't any Dragon. Any such conflict would be catastrophically large, every weapons system takes probably hundreds of hours to fully understand. AFAIK both sides keep their systems full capabilities as national secrets and / or inflate their values to make them seem more impressive. I'm not saying that the US would "win" any prospective conflict, I'm just saying that you probably don't know everything there is to know about their weapons or tactics, and I doubt you know enough to legitimately claim to know about the probability of the US losing air-superiority in any given global conflict. Not because I doubt your intelligence or even your research, but because I doubt there's much good information out there.
[edited slightly for clarity]
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There isn't any knowledge of classified systems, so your guess is as good as mine. On the other hand, it's been rarely the case that someone pulls out a "wonder weapon" from their sleeve after a conflict starts. What I'm saying is mostly based on the data that is available, and should work well enough. The US is at a disadvantage in the air when compared to Russia, because even though its aircraft are more advanced, but they need to operate without SAM support and are themselves exposed to Russian SAMs. It also loses a critical part of its defenses and offensive capability if it doesn't have air superiority.
Russians know that they can't match US in the air. They're thus working towards ensuring they don't have to, instead developing superiority on the ground. If there are no planes in the air at all, Russia has the advantage. The USAF's most advanced aircraft, the F-22, is also primarily meant to fight other aircraft, meaning it's less effective as a ground attack platform. Therefore, forcing the US into an "air vs. ground" situation is preferable. What use are the aircraft if the ground is lousy with SAMs preventing them from doing anything useful?
Generally, the trend seems to be that Russian equipment is designed to win campaigns, while US equipment is designed to win battles. The latter has a great deal of equipment that performs perfectly in exercises and would win any 1:1 battle. The former, on the other hand, builds equipment that is inferior in individual battle, but excels at making sure no such battle ever occurs. Russian tanks are mean to fight inferior opponents (like supply convoys), their helos are their primary tank hunters and the AA component ensures they can fly around unbothered by aircraft.
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As cool as the T14 looks, I still think the Abrams could kick its ass. On the other hand, tank warfare is getting more technologically apt - the PL-01 for example, which is almost something you'd expect from Ghost in the Shell short of cybernetics. Everything from thermal shrouds, optic camouflage, it'll be interesting to see how far this goes before tanks are fully automated as drones (though I do argue, we'll start seeing anti-drone warfare when drones become staples of combat).
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I don't think full automation is will happen, though they might end up with drastic crew reduction. UAVs are nice, but that's only because they're being used against primitive opponents who don't have much in terms of electronic warfare. Rely too much on unmanned designs and you'll end up with your entire army shut down by jamming the control signals. Specifically anti-drone warfare will spring up long before drones are anywhere close to replacing manned equipment.
Oh, and Abrams is on pretty equal ground with the T-80 and T-90. T-14 would likely level it even in direct tank to tank combat Abrams was designed for. There's only so much you can do with what is ultimately a 80s design. Abrams is a 3rd generation tank, Armata is a solid 4th gen design (Russians call it 5th generation, by the way, but it's because of their nomenclature, which places the current Abrams in the 4th). So far, the only "true" 4th generation tank in service is JGSDF's Type 10.
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What's the biggest problem with the Abrams? It has a very lackluster selection of ammunition for its gun:
https://youtu.be/uiceFAZ9dcM?list=PL5Rcou7imb0r6mFWlC6_Z2uDQhGeotq3B
The linked video series tries to savage the M1 in a lot of ways, some debatable, others like the unavailability of effective anti-personal, HEAT* and bunker-buster rounds are not. EDIT: Correction, apparently HEAT rounds *are* available. Still no effective anti-personal round through.
While the Abrams has some further really aggravating issues (mostly logistical) the above takes the crown, for it really dampens the potential usefulness of the platform, since most of the time, tanks are *not* fighting other tanks on the battlefield nowadays. The funny thing is, this issue could be *easily* resolved, there are a lot of ammunition types available for smooth-bore 120 mm guns that could be adopted for the Rheinmetall gun the M1 has.
*HEAT rounds are not as effective against modern heavy armor as kinetic rounds like the APFSDS, however they're *more* effective against lightly armored targets like APCs, trucks, etc.
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My underinformed impression is that UAVs are more desirable than unmanned tanks because a small aircraft can do a lot more than a small tank.
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UGVs have been proposed, even armed ones (though not tank-sized ones). It's just that flying is easier than traversing terrain, and terrain can occlude communications with a ground unit (a significantly bigger problem with commands that actually steer the vehicle as opposed to telling the driver what to do).
What's the biggest problem with the Abrams? It has a very lackluster selection of ammunition for its gun:
https://youtu.be/uiceFAZ9dcM?list=PL5Rcou7imb0r6mFWlC6_Z2uDQhGeotq3B
The linked video series tries to savage the M1 in a lot of ways, some debatable, others like the unavailability of effective anti-personal, HEAT* and bunker-buster rounds are not. EDIT: Correction, apparently HEAT rounds *are* available. Still no effective anti-personal round through.
While the Abrams has some further really aggravating issues (mostly logistical) the above takes the crown, for it really dampens the potential usefulness of the platform, since most of the time, tanks are *not* fighting other tanks on the battlefield nowadays. The funny thing is, this issue could be *easily* resolved, there are a lot of ammunition types available for smooth-bore 120 mm guns that could be adopted for the Rheinmetall gun the M1 has.
*HEAT rounds are not as effective against modern heavy armor as kinetic rounds like the APFSDS, however they're *more* effective against lightly armored targets like APCs, trucks, etc.
Abrams usually uses HEAT against groups of infantry (seems to work well enough), but yes, ammo selection is a big issue. Most tanks these days can fire all kinds of weird ammo, including guided missiles (dunno if anything came out of the "guided tank shells" idea for Abrams). It should be easily solved, but still. It's also a logistical nightmare, with 4-person crew (there are arguments for manual loading, but I find them less and less convincing as autoloaders improve) and a lot of parts that are no longer produced. It can hold up in an individual engagement with modern tanks, but fighting a full-scale war with it is another matter.
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So who feels like some pictures?
T-14
(http://i.imgur.com/va0exwZ.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/FWPCjaf.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/8DmZNoq.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/aRPsJuk.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/PJhkeo4.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/pL5SglK.jpg)
MSTA-S
(http://i.imgur.com/pvsP6j8.jpg)
Kurganets-25 IFV
(http://i.imgur.com/Lfglt8p.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/iMkDNWd.jpg)
T-15 Heavy IFV
(http://i.imgur.com/9CpU9yF.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/WII3Gp9.jpg)
Bumerang APC
(http://i.imgur.com/z8E7bN1.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/6K0MwQ1.jpg)
It's like the future invaded Russia. The T-15 has got to be the biggest IFV I have ever seen. Which makes sense, given that it's built on the same chassis as the T-14.
More (different) pictures here: http://bastion-karpenko.ru/new-tehnik-parad-150504/
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Hm, anyone got dimensions on the turret? It looks kind of small compared to the abrams or challenger, almost as if they did away with armor spacing.
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It's small because it isn't crewed, unlike the Abrams and Challenger turrets. Actually, from what I can tell, the turret you see there seems to be mostly empty space. A thin metal cover to protect countermeasures and secondary optics from shrapnel. Remove that cover, and the turret probably looks more like this:
(http://rosinform.ru/assets/files/photosets/photos/7-3-10-1.jpg.896x604_q90.jpg)
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That turret in the photos looks considerably less sexy than the one in the video, even though the video one has the silly AA guns.
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That turret in the photos looks considerably less sexy than the one in the video, even though the video one has the silly AA guns.
Yeah, this. Also, the skirts around the tracks look more like rubber than armor, are they supposed to be? Or just poorly measured metal plates hooked together?
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Omg. That T-15.
I want to be inside it.....
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So how is Putin paying for all of this? :p
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These were probably paid for before the whole Ukraine thing.
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The tank that ground to a halt in Red Square later started moving of its own accord after an unsuccessful attempt to tow it away.
It was later announced over a loudspeaker that the tank’s stop had been planned in advance, and was a rehearsal for any emergency situation that might happen during the parade, a Russian newspaper reported.
Too bad it was only a rehearsal. :lol:
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Check this out!
http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/russia-tests-largest-amphibious-hovercraft-in-live-fire-drill-in-baltic-sea/ar-BBjnj5m?ocid=U219DHP
Sorry I couldn't find a video yet.
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So how is Putin paying for all of this? :p
He's... Putin it on his tab!
YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
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So it was this tank that shut down in the middle of the Victory parade? :D I suppose somebody got his ass scolded by that. Wouldn't want to be in his shoes, though this is completely understandable for a new system.
What it comes to tank warfare, it's about how you use them. We weren't that afraid of main battle tanks in the army - especially in the terrain of this country, it would be a poor choice of a combat system. In open fields maybe, but I can't help feeling the main battle tank is heading towards the way of a battleship. A lot of effort for a relatively little benefit as the today's missile systems out-range and most of the time also outmaneuver the main battle tank. When practicing RPG shots, I really pitied the crew on the receiving end after seeing what happens there: the thought of the sudden fiery death from a copper carrot would not be a pleasant one. That certainly isn't one of the ways I want to go.
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Holy **** the shot trap on that T-14's turret is ****ing awful.
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Mika: Active protection and ECM systems are things the Russians have been investing in very heavily for quite a while. Arena is used on the T-90A, T-72B2/3, and the T-14 uses a new system called Afganit, which is apparently capable of intercepting projectiles moving at speeds up to 1300m/s (that number is almost certainly just a ballpark figure). This covers a whole range of munitions, including both the Hellfire and AGM-65 Maverick, and can protect against top-attack munitions as well. Hell, it even covers some smaller caliber kinetic energy penetrators. You can see the T-14's turret is absolutely covered in countermeasures. Unlike most Western tanks, countermeasures doesn't just mean smoke.
Arena, for the record, looks like this:
(http://i.imgur.com/R2yHk2L.gif)
I'll also add that Relikt (their most recent ERA) is apparently effective against even tandem-charge warheads.
Scotty: It's not a shot trap any more than the Leopard 2A5 and onward turret wedge armor is. It's thin spaced armor, probably meant to protect countermeasures and optics from shrapnel and prematurely detonate shaped charge warheads.
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I meant the big divot in the turret where the gun optics are. I mean, I hope that it's a decoy, because otherwise that's the most obvious weakspot I've ever seen on a supposedly armored vehicle.
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Er, that's a weak spot present on pretty much every modern tank. Just look at the Leopard 2:
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Leopard_2A4_Austria_6.JPG/800px-Leopard_2A4_Austria_6.JPG)
If it looks bigger on the T-14, it's probably because the turret itself is a lot smaller. Gunner optics are always vulnerable.
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Arena, for the record, looks like this:
(http://i.imgur.com/R2yHk2L.gif)
Must be pretty ****ty for the infantry who are hunkering down near that thing when it starts popping AMS grenades.
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Looks like they're still working on the cheek guns.
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Mika: Active protection and ECM systems are things the Russians have been investing in very heavily for quite a while. Arena is used on the T-90A, T-72B2/3, and the T-14 uses a new system called Afganit, which is apparently capable of intercepting projectiles moving at speeds up to 1300m/s (that number is almost certainly just a ballpark figure). This covers a whole range of munitions, including both the Hellfire and AGM-65 Maverick, and can protect against top-attack munitions as well. Hell, it even covers some smaller caliber kinetic energy penetrators. You can see the T-14's turret is absolutely covered in countermeasures. Unlike most Western tanks, countermeasures doesn't just mean smoke.
Arena, for the record, looks like this:
(http://i.imgur.com/R2yHk2L.gif)
I'll also add that Relikt (their most recent ERA) is apparently effective against even tandem-charge warheads.
Scotty: It's not a shot trap any more than the Leopard 2A5 and onward turret wedge armor is. It's thin spaced armor, probably meant to protect countermeasures and optics from shrapnel and prematurely detonate shaped charge warheads.
I'd be more worried if they had made a less noisy tank as these are not exactly subtle systems. I'm aware of Russian ECM development, they performed waveband jamming quite often during the live military exercises so that we mainly heard pipe and organ music and communist songs from the radios. Of course, our radios were of Vietnam era (battalion radio 217), and we made no attempt to avoid it.
I still wouldn't like the proposition of getting shot at but not being able to shoot back. And that is IF the system works - Russian electronic suites have gathered a certain reputation at this point.
Apparently, these systems do have caused significant collateral damage in earlier conflicts, so the infantry deployment with this will be quite different.
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I still wouldn't like the proposition of getting shot at but not being able to shoot back. And that is IF the system works - Russian electronic suites have gathered a certain reputation at this point.
Simple but pretty reliable? We're not in the 80s anymore.
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While the media is salivating and making wild-ass guesses to the capabilities of the Armata platforms (MBT, BMP, etc.) what I really wonder about is what *mix* the Russians will actually use. I doubt the T-90 (and other platforms based on the T-72 chassis) will be altogether phased out.
This has the hallmarks of the kind of hi/low mix that was often suggested in the west too, with a cadre of low-weight, easy to deploy general fighting vehicles and another line of heavy vehicles for front line engagements against high threat targets.
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I still wouldn't like the proposition of getting shot at but not being able to shoot back. And that is IF the system works - Russian electronic suites have gathered a certain reputation at this point.
Simple but pretty reliable? We're not in the 80s anymore.
The 2008 Georgian war would suggest otherwise. I know Russia's been hard at work to correct those failings, but until a system is actually proven under combat conditions, it isn't "reliable."
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Arena (and the whole T-90A, really) was combat tested in Chechnya from 1999 to 2002. By all accounts, it performed quite well. The T-90 wasn't deployed in Georgia at all.
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Well, you could start by naming a single electronics manufacturer originating from Russia that's selling products world wide.
There are truly brilliant individuals in Russia. However, the problem of the country has always been the management and the governing level. Despite the brilliant individuals, it is the combined system that needs input from several people and that's where things start falling apart. To put it as my company commander put it, "Typically in war those who **** up less, win"
I note that the former Jugoslavian pilots discovered the MiG-29s they were piloting a bigger threat than the NATO missiles. Their anecdotes show them mainly fighting against the systems of the airplane. Radar warning receiver not working, for example. It would be an argument to say that the Jugoslavian MiGs were poorly maintained, but how is that different from Russia itself? I think Russian Air Force rolled back to semi-active missiles quietly some time ago, perhaps they have now a functional active one? I do recall each of these systems were again marketed as "fully functional", "combat tested", "better than anything else on the market".
The tank casualty differences in the two Chechnya conflicts cannot be only attributed to the reactive defenses, but also to a completely different strategy of employing them. This time, tanks did not go to narrow streets where their fighting ability is nullified, and used hit & run tactics instead, or waited outside the effective range of hand weapons outside the cities and instead sieged the city from a far. However, it turned out that the more modern tanks T-80s were unusable for mountainous regions, and older T-62s had to be employed in more mountainous terrain, negating any advantages in the reactive armor.
This is not to say that the Arena system is useless or a wrong development, it's definitely welcomed by the tank crews. The thing is, though, how reliable it really is, given the Russian track record of electronics and other tank related problems from Chechnya? I think the only success where the results have been both surprising and impressive are their SAMs. One would think that the Anti-tank missiles would still be easier and cheaper to develop than the tanks, which is actually something what Soviet Union said about aircraft and SAMs.
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Well, you could start by naming a single electronics manufacturer originating from Russia that's selling products world wide.
How is this even relevant? The majority of big electronics companies in Russia are primarily in the defense industry, which naturally limits the international market to state governments. Consumer electronics in Russia are still in their infancy, a consequence of the USSR's economic policies. But I guess I could throw in Angstrem, which is one of the biggest integrated circuit manufacturers in Europe. No, Russia doesn't have any giants like Intel, but then again, how many countries do?
I note that the former Jugoslavian pilots discovered the MiG-29s they were piloting a bigger threat than the NATO missiles. Their anecdotes show them mainly fighting against the systems of the airplane. Radar warning receiver not working, for example. It would be an argument to say that the Jugoslavian MiGs were poorly maintained, but how is that different from Russia itself? I think Russian Air Force rolled back to semi-active missiles quietly some time ago, perhaps they have now a functional active one? I do recall each of these systems were again marketed as "fully functional", "combat tested", "better than anything else on the market".
Here's how the modern Russian Air Force is different from the old Yugoslavian one: It's actually funded and maintained. We aren't in the 90s anymore. Russian military funding has shot through the roof over the last 15 years. The core of their armed forces, that is, the bits they actually plan on keeping, are in fairly good shape now. Yes, there's still a lot of rusting, poorly maintained vehicles lying around, but that's because Russia still has the stockpiles of a superpower's military, and what they plan on keeping is significantly smaller. They have no real need for the USSR's stockpiles of tens of thousands of T-55s and hundreds of MiG-23s. Stop assuming that the Russian military of the 1990s and early 2000s paints a good picture of the Russian military of 2015. Hell, even the on one that fought in Georgia in 2008 presents an outdated picture. The Russians have been very, very active in reforming their military. It's one of the big reasons why the war in Ukraine is so different from the one in Georgia.
And yes, the Russian Air Force does have a modern active guidance missile. It's the R-77. Yes, they're also still using the semi-active R-27. Better to use them than to let their stockpiles go to waste. Though I'm fairly sure there's a version of it with an active seeker.
The tank casualty differences in the two Chechnya conflicts cannot be only attributed to the reactive defenses, but also to a completely different strategy of employing them. This time, tanks did not go to narrow streets where their fighting ability is nullified, and used hit & run tactics instead, or waited outside the effective range of hand weapons outside the cities and instead sieged the city from a far. However, it turned out that the more modern tanks T-80s were unusable for mountainous regions, and older T-62s had to be employed in more mountainous terrain, negating any advantages in the reactive armor.
I never said Arena was why Russian tanks performed better in the Second Chechen War. I said Arena and the T-90A were combat tested there and performed well, which is true. So I can't say I'm entirely sure what your point is.
Vehicles have always been and are always going to be more expensive than the weapons used to destroy them. This isn't anything new. Again, not sure what your point is, because Russia's hardly the only country now building expensive tanks. In spite of all the T-90A's electronic countermeasures, it's still only half of the cost of the M1A2, and the M1A2 isn't that much better. Current estimates for the T-14's cost puts it around what the M1A2 costs (~8M USD).
TBH, your opinion seems based on an antiquated view of Russian equipment and hardware that either hasn't reflected reality since the 1990s, or never reflected reality at all.
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The Hungarian Air Force also used Mig-29s, but they never had such a bad reputation... maybe it was because our mechanics were more inventive or willing to ground a plane than let a pilot fly it in a bad condition?
As for Russia not having its own electronics industry, they've just released a VLIW processor of their own. I think the design is very interesting. Intel's similar IA64 (EPIC architecture) chips didn't do so well, but today with OS visualization and most business software developed in languages using JIT compilers they should be a lot more competitive.
http://www.extremetech.com/computing/205463-shadows-of-itanium-russian-firm-debuts-vliw-elbrus-4-cpu-with-onboard-x86-emulation
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The reason I'm asking about the electronics and world wide distribution is that it is one of the more demanding places to be in. And traditionally, this is an area where Soviet Union was weak, and where Russia remains weak. The reason for that is explained in the above post: despite of brilliant individuals, the system as a sum of several contributions doesn't function, which leads to frustration, depression and if lucky, then immigration to elsewhere for those who can. Disclaimer: some of my work colleagues are from Russia. I feel a bit sad about that processor, a lot of effort for something which will not sell around the globe. The reason? Nobody wants to fund Putin's Russia until attitude changes happen.
Finnish Air Force utilized MiG-21s until Hornets became available. Their public commentary was quite nice for the MiG-21 despite a number of high profile accidents where pilots elected to stay in the plane in order to prevent the stricken plane from hitting houses. In person, the pilots were very happy to get rid of it. The same applies pretty much to any weapon system from Russia, they look good on paper, but it is the actual implementation which is almost always lacking. Hand held weapon systems from there tend work best, but anything more complex is highly questionable. Any commentary of the actual performance of the tanks in Chechnya is quite revealing: the fire prevention systems of T-80s were not used since that would have increased the work load of maintenance :lol: Avionics coolant is ethanol based, and the mechanics drink it, leading to reduced or non-existing performance of the jets. And this is rampant up to this day, up to the point where I'm starting to think that the best way to stop Russian army on their tracks would be to place some 50 000 liter containers of Vodka on their path :lol:
And yes, I know they are supposed to have R77 in service. The question is, is it really? That is because the real life performance of R27 in itself is quite dubious, and to carry that instead of R77 is sort of a statement. I know Australia goes with Sparrows, but the later variants of AIM-7 seem to perform considerably better. Again, it might be that I'm over-reading things here, but then again, Russia has a proven track record of this sort of stuff happening, and I have seen it happen before. That and the cancellation of a long distance ramjet version of R77, and there certainly isn't going to be any help regarding the avionics in the recent years from Western side!
The discussion about missiles and tanks was related to my earlier comment of the possibility of tanks going the way of the battleship. Nobody actually wants to start a tank-to-tank slogging fest without decisive advantage in numbers, so instead I suppose a more portable, more silent and faster systems will be used instead since that will allow shooting the tank while tank cannot shoot back. And of the Arena, I remain in that the system was created to prevent anti-tank missiles from hitting the tank. However, it was not tested in the same type of engagement where Russia last time suffered a number of casualities (which was a tactics failure, not a tank failure in itself). So no roof top RPGs in this case yet. Correcting the tactics also made easier for the tanks, as most of the threats are then coming from the frontal sector where the tank is the strongest. However, I suppose Russian armed forces will like Armata since it most likely rectifies some hilarious design features (from the opposition point of view) of T-72s, T-80s, and up to T-90s.
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Finnish Air Force utilized MiG-21s until Hornets became available. Their public commentary was quite nice for the MiG-21 despite a number of high profile accidents where pilots elected to stay in the plane in order to prevent the stricken plane from hitting houses. In person, the pilots were very happy to get rid of it. The same applies pretty much to any weapon system from Russia, they look good on paper, but it is the actual implementation which is almost always lacking. Hand held weapon systems from there tend work best, but anything more complex is highly questionable. Any commentary of the actual performance of the tanks in Chechnya is quite revealing: the fire prevention systems of T-80s were not used since that would have increased the work load of maintenance Avionics coolant is ethanol based, and the mechanics drink it, leading to reduced or non-existing performance of the jets. And this is rampant up to this day, up to the point where I'm starting to think that the best way to stop Russian army on their tracks would be to place some 50 000 liter containers of Vodka on their path.
And yet India still happily buying up Russian tanks and aircraft when the USA, Britain, Germany, etc. would be more than happy to sell equipment to such a large military. Out of all potential tanks, the only tanks still in the running to replace Peru's ancient T-55s and AMX-13s are the M1 Abrams and the T-90S. Canada, of all countries, is using Mi-17 utility helicopters to complement its Chinooks, rather than, say, the UH-60 or MH-53 we'd have easy access to south of the border.
The T-80s deployed in the First Chechen War had a lot of issues, most of them related to the sorry state of the Russian military after the fall of the USSR. They were deployed without infantry support, many didn't have their smoke launchers loaded, and most didn't even have their ERA packages installed. Their failure isn't a result of them being bad tanks, it's a result of the army having serious difficulties because of the fall of the USSR. Again, notice how the T-90s deployed during the Second Chechen War didn't have any of these issues. They were more competently used, they were equipped properly, and they performed quite well. Times have changed.
Again, stop assuming the USSR or even the Russia of 20 years ago paints an accurate picture of the state of the Russian military now.
And I'm just going to add this, might help you get a better idea the differences between US and Russian aircraft of 25 years ago (and it's generally a fascinating read): http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/how-to-win-in-a-dogfight-stories-from-a-pilot-who-flew-1682723379 (http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/how-to-win-in-a-dogfight-stories-from-a-pilot-who-flew-1682723379)
And yes, I know they are supposed to have R77 in service. The question is, is it really? That is because the real life performance of R27 in itself is quite dubious, and to carry that instead of R77 is sort of a statement. I know Australia goes with Sparrows, but the later variants of AIM-7 seem to perform considerably better. Again, it might be that I'm over-reading things here, but then again, Russia has a proven track record of this sort of stuff happening, and I have seen it happen before. That and the cancellation of a long distance ramjet version of R77, and there certainly isn't going to be any help regarding the avionics in the recent years from Western side!
That statement probably being "we have a lot of these and don't really need to use more modern missiles against older, less well maintained Georgian and Ukrainian planes." And I'm sorry, "Russia has a proven track record of this stuff happening"? As opposed to who, the Americans? Yes, a shining example of flawless technology development there.
There's also the fact that much of the Russian Air Force's inventory of fighters (about half, going by the numbers) can't actually fire the R-77. It's a post-USSR missile, and only modernized aircraft can fire it. The US Air Force had a similar problem when they adopted the AMRAAM. The AIM-7 was still pretty widely used during the 2003 Iraq War.
The discussion about missiles and tanks was related to my earlier comment of the possibility of tanks going the way of the battleship. Nobody actually wants to start a tank-to-tank slogging fest without decisive advantage in numbers, so instead I suppose a more portable, more silent and faster systems will be used instead since that will allow shooting the tank while tank cannot shoot back. And of the Arena, I remain in that the system was created to prevent anti-tank missiles from hitting the tank. However, it was not tested in the same type of engagement where Russia last time suffered a number of casualities (which was a tactics failure, not a tank failure in itself). So no roof top RPGs in this case yet. Correcting the tactics also made easier for the tanks, as most of the threats are then coming from the frontal sector where the tank is the strongest. However, I suppose Russian armed forces will like Armata since it most likely rectifies some hilarious design features (from the opposition point of view) of T-72s, T-80s, and up to T-90s.
Battleships became obsolete because their primary purpose (killing ships) was done better with anti-ship missiles, torpedoes, and bombs, and you don't need a big heavy battleship to throw those around. Smaller ships and aircraft do it just fine. Tanks, on the other hand, don't have a job that can be done by something else. Infantry don't move as fast, and aircraft can't hold ground (and are starting to become even more vulnerable than tanks because AA systems are advancing insanely fast and planes can't hide as well, even stealth ones).
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That statement probably being "we have a lot of these and don't really need to use more modern missiles against older, less well maintained Georgian and Ukrainian planes." And I'm sorry, "Russia has a proven track record of this stuff happening"? As opposed to who, the Americans? Yes, a shining example of flawless technology development there.
1) Russia's more modern missiles were useless in Georgia anyway because of the American GPS blackout. The further development of GLONASS remains untested.
2) Georgia didn't have fighter planes to begin with and Russia still couldn't achieve air superiority
3) Are you seriously insinuating that Russia has anywhere near the aerial warfare capabilities of the American fleet?
It's one of the big reasons why the war in Ukraine is so different from the one in Georgia.
Georgia was a direct engagement between militaries. Ukraine is still a proxy war, despite the very high likelihood of Russian SpecOps shenanigans. They're fundamentally different conflicts.
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That statement probably being "we have a lot of these and don't really need to use more modern missiles against older, less well maintained Georgian and Ukrainian planes." And I'm sorry, "Russia has a proven track record of this stuff happening"? As opposed to who, the Americans? Yes, a shining example of flawless technology development there.
1) Russia's more modern missiles were useless in Georgia anyway because of the American GPS blackout. The further development of GLONASS remains untested.
2) Georgia didn't have fighter planes to begin with and Russia still couldn't achieve air superiority
3) Are you seriously insinuating that Russia has anywhere near the aerial warfare capabilities of the American fleet?
1) Air-to-air missiles don't rely on GPS.
2) AA matters.
3) Uh, no. I'm saying that the USA has just as much of a military technology development problem as Russia does. They both have their share of boondoggles and technology they never got working. It means very, very little.
Georgia was a direct engagement between militaries. Ukraine is still a proxy war, despite the very high likelihood of Russian SpecOps shenanigans. They're fundamentally different conflicts.
Yes, they are. Why do you think that is? The Russian military of 2008 would have had a lot of difficulty prosecuting the war in Ukraine as it's being done now. It isn't just a proxy war. Keeping it up this long requires a logistical and organizational structure the Russians just didn't have 7 years ago. The mobilization and deployment of a few of their units for exercises a year or so ago was done in absolute record time compared to the one they went through for Georgia.
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Sorry for quite the massive Bump for the others, but I recalled talking about the Russian missile technology in this thread with Aesaar. Based on the current events in Syria, I find it quite interesting that the new Amraamski is actually NOT carried in Syria by Russian Air Force despite your claims (and very much according to mine). Instead, a 30 year old Sparrowski is (R-27), and it is not even the active variant which apparently never left the drawing board.
Not to mention unguided carpet bombings by Blackjacks, gloriously hitting grain silos (= oil refinery in the official propaganda) and water purification plants. Sigh, it is indeed true that nothing has changed since the Sovjet Unijon. Which may actually be for the better for most of the world that currently are not being aggressed by Russia.
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Canada, of all countries, is using Mi-17 utility helicopters to complement its Chinooks, rather than, say, the UH-60 or MH-53 we'd have easy access to south of the border.
What? I take it you don't mean the four they leased back in 2010 because they were already in Afghanistan (three of which were shipped off to Bulgaria in 2011). So exactly in what capacity is Canada still using their mi-17s?
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'Despite my claims'? I don't remember saying anything about the R-77 in Syria. In any case, I did more research on the subject and found complaints about design flaws with the R-77, primarily all-weather issues, which would explain why it isn't commonly deployed. They're overhauling it, apparently. We'll have to wait and see how well that'll work out.
So I'll give you this one. I haven't been able to find enough info about it being used recentlyto believe it doesn't have significant issues.
And everything I can find about the Tu-160's deployment in Syria indicates they've been shooting cruise missiles, not unguided bombs. Tu-95s as well. The Tu-22Ms are the only ones that dropped unguided bombs. The whole strategic bomber deployment has just been about showing off. A show of force meant for NATO more than for efficient use of assets. Same goes for that swarm of cruise missiles they fired from the Caspian Sea.
We've seen Su-34s loaded with KAB-500KR TV-guided bombs. They're use a lot of unguided ordnance, but they've got some pretty sophisticated stuff in use too.
Canada, of all countries, is using Mi-17 utility helicopters to complement its Chinooks, rather than, say, the UH-60 or MH-53 we'd have easy access to south of the border.
What? I take it you don't mean the four they leased back in 2010 because they were already in Afghanistan (three of which were shipped off to Bulgaria in 2011). So exactly in what capacity is Canada still using their mi-17s?
I'm referring to the six Mi-8Ts leased from SkyLink Canada in 2008 and the four Mi-17/CH-178 we leased in 2010. We're barely in Afghanistan anymore, so I should have used the past tense. We're not using them anymore.
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Canada, of all countries, is using Mi-17 utility helicopters to complement its Chinooks, rather than, say, the UH-60 or MH-53 we'd have easy access to south of the border.
What? I take it you don't mean the four they leased back in 2010 because they were already in Afghanistan (three of which were shipped off to Bulgaria in 2011). So exactly in what capacity is Canada still using their mi-17s?
I'm referring to the six Mi-8Ts leased from SkyLink Canada in 2008 and the four Mi-17/CH-178 we leased in 2010. We're barely in Afghanistan anymore, so I should have used the past tense. We're not using them anymore.
I'm not even sure the handful of Mi-8s from SkyLink count in the first place. From what I understand, those were basically a taxi service to keep troops off the roads; they were piloted by civilians and eventually replaced by Chinooks anyway. These were deals made out of necessity because someone didn't think their deployment to Afghanistan through. It wasn't some incredible deal on superb Russian hardware made at the ire of western defense industries.
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I'm not even sure the handful of Mi-8s from SkyLink count in the first place. From what I understand, those were basically a taxi service to keep troops off the roads; they were piloted by civilians and eventually replaced by Chinooks anyway. These were deals made out of necessity because someone didn't think their deployment to Afghanistan through. It wasn't some incredible deal on superb Russian hardware made at the ire of western defense industries.
Of course it wasn't, but the biggest reason we didn't and will never adopt the Hip as a widespread helicopter isn't a failing of the helicopter itself, it's that it's just not strategically viable to buy equipment from a potential enemy.
You do that and you get the problem Iran has had with their F-14s since the revolution.
If that hadn't been the case, I think we'd have probably bought them, much like we ended up buying the 20 Leopard 2A6 tanks the Germans leased us (and another 80 Leo 2s from the Dutch). Why? Because they're good helicopters and filled a significant gap in our capabilities, and they're flat-out better than our Griffons. Crews liked them, too.
Do remember I'm arguing against Mika's notion that anything Russian-made more complex than a personal weapon is "highly questionable", which is simply wrong.
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You do that and you get the problem Iran has had with their F-14s since the revolution.
That's less of an issue than people think. It took several years for the operational readiness and sortie rates of the Iranian F-14s to decline; in fact, Iran essentially fought the Iran-Iraq War with F-14s, F-5s, and F-4s (also SuperCobras).
There are also several potentially friendly manufacturers of Mi-8/Mi-17 parts. There are also numerous operators in the modern era who are not on the best of terms with Russia, like Poland, Hungary, Colombia, and Turkey. They're relatively simple machines; it would not be difficult to develop a domestic parts supply if it was seen as needful. (Iran lost their F-5 fleet because they kept purging the Western-trained maintenance crew, not because they couldn't have made parts for them. Even today, they can still mechanically maintain their few remaining F-14 airframes. Their problem is with keeping the radars running.)
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Do you know how they maintain their F-14 airframes? By cannibalizing parts from the others. It's why they have so few left. They originally bought 80, they're down to about 20. They tried to keep 60 operational during the Iran-Iraq War, and had about 40 operational when it ended. Routine wear and tear is costing them planes. Not to mention the obscene amount of money it costs them to keep their AIM-54s functional.
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Do you know how they maintain their F-14 airframes? By cannibalizing parts from the others.
That's how they did it originally. By the end of the Iran-Iraq War they were able to fabricate most of the parts needed for basic maintaince.
It isn't cannibalization that's kept twenty of them flying to the present day, and it wasn't cannibalization that reduced them from sixty to twenty. The airframes are old and have a very high number of hours. The airframes themselves are wearing out and you don't "fix" it when a main wing spar develops a crack. You have to retire the aircraft or send it back to the manufacturer to be completely taken apart and everything over a certain number of hours is stripped out.
The USN was experiencing the same problem with many of its operational Tomcats when the fleet was retired. (Arguably the reason Iran has any of them left at all is they don't make arrested landings.) Most of them had been withdrawn from service pending remanufacture when Congress used that as an excuse to kill the type. At the end of the Tomcat's carrier lifespan most ships only embarked a half-dozen planes, sometimes less.
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Yeah, they can handle basic maintenance, but that isn't enough. When the engines break down, or the radars break, they can't just manufacture new parts (also the biggest issue with their Phoenixes). Complex maintenance is what they can't do, and that's what they need to cannibalize other planes for (usually taken from the least airworthy airframes, obviously). Hell, Canada's having a similar issue with our CF-18s. They need replacement, not because they can't do the job, but because we can't easily replace some components. Average flying hours for most of our planes is around 6000 hours, and the airframe is rated for 8000.
I'll add that the USAF and USN have an unsually high amount of flying hours compared to most air forces, so judging the airworthiness of planes from other air forces based on US maintenance requirements isn't going to paint the most accurate picture
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You do that and you get the problem Iran has had with their F-14s since the revolution.
There are also several potentially friendly manufacturers of Mi-8/Mi-17 parts. There are also numerous operators in the modern era who are not on the best of terms with Russia, like Poland, Hungary, Colombia, and Turkey. They're relatively simple machines; it would not be difficult to develop a domestic parts supply if it was seen as needful.
Actually we shall retire these helicopters pretty soon. M-17's and Mi-8's are excellent machines, easy to fly and maintain so the crews love them. But sooner or later we will be unable to keep them running because of lack of the spare parts. The only reasonable source of such parts would be Ukraine however the situation in this country is not very stable so we rather want to pick other source. Of course the best option would be a domestic production, but we don't have resources to do that <our biggest helo factories were sold to Sikorsky/ now Lockheed Martin and Agusta Westland>.
Before the elections our Ministry of Defence chosen the Airbus H225M Caracal <other offers were a sh***y S-70i Black Hawk parody with weak engines and avionics and untested, unknown AW-149 which lacks the lift power> to replace the Mils. However after the elections the new Minister of Defence said that the whole auction for multi-role helicopters should be reconsidered (there was a big political sh**storm over this.) So everything remains in flux for now. But I hope that they will stick to the Caracal.
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Some cool footage I found. I'm really curious of that system which allows the crew to control the vehicles remotely.
Demonstration of T-14
And Koalitsya SPG
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Some cool footage I found. I'm really curious of that system which allows the crew to control the vehicles remotely.
I'm sort of hoping it would! :D
Take a look on the history (https://books.google.fi/books?id=63_zqr7w9OoC&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6&dq=russian+radio+controlled+mines+second+world+war&source=bl&ots=wAmXaSmYrJ&sig=yFww-NzY8IGU_KqOYwizzvvJma0&hl=fi&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjctOWw6s_KAhUC1SwKHYbZDtAQ6AEIJjAE#v=onepage&q=russian%20radio%20controlled%20mines%20second%20world%20war&f=false) with respect to that!
There's actually a popular take of that history around here, about playing greatest hits for the mines (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Säkkijärven_polkka) to make them blow up...
EDIT: Link added
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I don't think Russians are going to fall for that one again. :) The amount of EW gear on that thing is quite impressive, TBH. I want this tank in ArmAIII.
That said, the greatest strength of the design is somewhat easy to overlook among all this showmanship: the common chassis. For this reason alone, I can confidently say this system is superior to anything NATO has. It's been said that NATO tanks win battles, while Russian ones win campaigns. Armata is an extension of this philosophy. Logistical advantage of that system is going to be absolutely staggering. With common manufacturing equipment, common replacement parts and presumably a degree of common training, the real strength of Armata is in logistics.
That, and it makes ArmAIII modders' job much easier, with the ability to reuse the models between vehicles without being accused of lazyness. :) I say, Russians did a great job with the Armata.
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Of course not, I'm not expecting that. Just saying all new stuff also opens up possibilities for interesting new games.
Remember how it went with the Soviet T-34 - a lot of what is being said about the Armata sounds a lot of what people were saying about T-34. Except, it turned out that T-34 was not that great after all, being almost a campaign ending disaster on the Easter Front leading with a lot of Russians defending it by "We didn't need to design it environmentally resistant or durable, it progresses 200 km and is likely destroyed anyways!" :D Yeah, right!
By the way, the same thing applies to Russian MiGs and Su-whatevers, starting from mechanics drinking the avionics coolant fluid :D.
Remember: Russia is Russia.
EDIT: Actually, thinking about it, I don't think the common chassis will be that great. For me it sounds that it would make APCs too big and heavy - there's a reason why other armies have made the APC different from a tank, and I think a lot of that has to do with weight, mobility and size. Finnish APC Nasu houses like 15 people in a very small target, and to provide excellent mobility in the forest, it principally isn't armored. And the strangest thing? I'm OK with that, having spent something like 12 months with those things - that speed in the woods, though. The wheeled APC Pasi was a bit different case in Southern Finland, we actually crashed with that one as the driver slipped of from an icy road to woods around 60 km/h. Probably the one and only time I'm laughing when being in a vehicle that is colliding with trees...
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Not to mention that Armata platform-based vehicles would suffer terrible difficulties with punching through all these Finnish wetlands and tough terrain. I would be much more worried if they attacked us. We have a lot of flat and dry space, perfect for MBT combat. I hope that we will receive highest class anti-tank ammo and complex modernization for our Leopard 2's (both A4 and A5 variants).
Other interesting thing is how many of these things can Russians introduce to service per year. Crappy economic situation is likely to cool down their ambitions but as we know from history... Russians are capable of prioritizing tanks over food for their own if they need.
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Finland is a crappy place for tank combat anyway. Any tank would have trouble with terrain like that, Armata or not. I suppose they could try fitting the turret (it's modular as well) on a snowmobile chassis if they wanted to invade Finland, as that's about the only vehicle which is good in there. :)
As for the T-34, well, it was designed in a completely different situation. It was a tank designed in wartime, during shortage on good materials and using a particularly finicky suspension based on a rejected (guess why) American design. Not to mention it still won them the war thanks to sheer numbers it was produced it. All in all, T-34 wasn't all that bad of a tank, from a strategic standpoint. Tankers would disagree (when the commissar was out of earshot, of course :) ), but nobody asked them anyway.
EDIT: Actually, thinking about it, I don't think the common chassis will be that great. For me it sounds that it would make APCs too big and heavy - there's a reason why other armies have made the APC different from a tank, and I think a lot of that has to do with weight, mobility and size. Finnish APC Nasu houses like 15 people in a very small target, and to provide excellent mobility in the forest, it principally isn't armored. And the strangest thing? I'm OK with that, having spent something like 12 months with those things - that speed in the woods, though. The wheeled APC Pasi was a bit different case in Southern Finland, we actually crashed with that one as the driver slipped of from an icy road to woods around 60 km/h. Probably the one and only time I'm laughing when being in a vehicle that is colliding with trees...
The T-15 isn't an APC, though. It's an IFV. The APC you're talking about is a wheeled platform, it has more in common with Bumerang APC than with T-15. The Armata system shares the IFV turret with Bumerang, but the common chassis is for IFVs, SPGs and tanks, which are heavy by definition. Of course, the T-15 IFV is going to be one of the heaviest ones around, but on the other hand, it will be capable of keeping up with tanks and fighting alongside them if needed. It's not even a new idea, the Israeli Namer IFV is a similar concept based on Merkava, though with much weaker armament.
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The T-34 also very nearly lost the USSR the war due to how easy it was for a T-34 to become inoperable due to mechanical failure or being destroyed in combat.
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-t-34-in-wwii-the-legend-vs-the-performance/ (http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-t-34-in-wwii-the-legend-vs-the-performance/)
Given the T-14 breaking down on a freaking parade route, I'm doubtful its actual combat performance will be much better.
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It wasn't actually a breakdown, the T-14 video explained how this happened. The Armata driver's station is very different from the old Russian tanks (just check the video, it looks nothing like any tank I've seen) and they were given one month for adapting. Sure, they're playing that off as a demonstration how easy it is to adopt to Armata, but my guess is that it wasn't always quite enough. The driver applied the brakes by mistake when trying to steer the tank back into the lane, then got confused and didn't know what to do. The same tank later drove off under its own power, so I don't think that explanation is propaganda. There was nothing wrong with the tank (and the driver is probably stuck driving garbage trucks now. Though he should be glad he didn't do that in Stalin's time, or he'd have bigger problems... :) ).
Yeah, T-34 was easy to knock out. The key here, I think, was that they made them faster than the Germans could destroy them. :) The same place mentions just that, the Soviets had about twice the AFVs on their front as the Germans. That was the greatest strength of the design. Sure, it was definitely too easy to take out, even given its numbers, but Soviets were always firm believers in quantity over quality, not only on the battlefield. I don't think that at that time, they could have built a better tank with comparable speed. It was definitely easier to get the workers to work faster than work better (communist Poland had the same problem. There was a saying "whether you're standing or laying down, two thousand is what you get"). About the one thing they could have certainly done better was the suspension, and I believe one of the later versions of T-34 got that reworked.
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The T-34 also very nearly lost the USSR the war due to how easy it was for a T-34 to become inoperable due to mechanical failure or being destroyed in combat.
http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-t-34-in-wwii-the-legend-vs-the-performance/ (http://www.operationbarbarossa.net/the-t-34-in-wwii-the-legend-vs-the-performance/)
Given the T-14 breaking down on a freaking parade route, I'm doubtful its actual combat performance will be much better.
Oh hey Wehraboo site. Break out the wehrabingo cards and go through that, I'll wait.
The T-34's breakdown rate was actually perfect for the way the Russians used it, so this argument is on extremely shakey ground on several points. (They make a claim at one point that it didn't render existing German tanks obsolete by default; they never back this claim up, because there is no sane way to do so.) The T-34 was a mass-production expendable vehicle for the Soviet style of operational rather than tactical warfare. Its operating time before overhaul or breakdown was carefully calculated to just exceed its mean time to being knocked out in combat operations. At that point the crew would be transferred to another vehicle while their original one is either dead or in overhaul, exactly as intended. It in no way "almost cost the Russians the war" (the arguments made to this effect are ones that have little to do with the tank and everything to do with the poor state of Soviet logistics and leadership during the 1941-1942 period) and in fact its dependable breakdown characteristics was a key part of their success by making logistics simple.
In fact, it wasn't until Chechenaya and Gulf One that the Russian idea of the ideal vehicle changed significantly from the one represented by the T-34's mean-time-to-knocked-out/mean-time-to-breakdown being roughly the same; they designed their whole army that way. (A Soviet armored or motor-rifle division, for example, was provided with 72 hours of organic supplies for ammunition, food, and fuel; this is the amount of time it was judged that the unit would remain combat-effective. After that it would be replaced in the line and withdrawn for reorganization.) The extended operations of Chechenaya on one hand and demonstration that highly survivable vehicles could defeat many less-survivable ones during Gulf One changed the Russians' minds, and resulted in T-90 and T-14.
Then again, T-90s have fought in the Ukraine and for all their supposed improvement, the results have been embarrassing.
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Then again, T-90s have fought in the Ukraine and for all their supposed improvement, the results have been embarrassing.
Don't forget about Syria. Syrian Arab Army received some of these tanks recently. As I've read they are doing pretty well there. Certainly better then T-72's that's sure.
http://www.almasdarnews.com/article/russian-t-90-tanks-make-the-difference-in-southern-aleppo-as-the-syrian-army-surround-khan-touman/
Active protection systems will save a lot of tankers lives as terrorists use many ATGM launchers (US provided TOWs and Russian made Konkurs from Saudi stockpiles)
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Don't forget about Syria. Syrian Arab Army received some of these tanks recently. As I've read they are doing pretty well there. Certainly better then T-72's that's sure.
Hmm. Ironically, in Ukraine, they've largely lost to Ukrainian T-64 variants. There US Army has put out a series of reports on the tank fighting in Ukraine that make for interesting reading. The most effective killer of tanks there has been other tanks with KE penetrators. (Though apparently Russian Kontakt-5 ERA is not handling tandem-charge Western missiles as well as the Ukrainian "Knife" ERA copes with Russian tandem-charge missiles. Oops.) The widespread use of ERA/cage/slat armor means most vehicles survive a Konkurs or RPG hit, and as long as they don't stand still for very long they're usually safe from anything but another tank.
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Even though it was built after Chechen war, T-90 was still not really made for tank-to-tank combat. Again, Russian tanks are meant to win campaigns, not tank battles. In the latter regard, T-90 inferior to Western tanks. It was designed with attacking supply lines and generally fighting inferior enemies, while being mobile enough to evade superior Western tanks. For instance, it's almost 20T lighter than the Abrams and much smaller as well. Vulnerability to anti-tank KE penetrators is to be expected.
In both of the conflicts quoted, the above is shown perfectly. T-90 lost against Ukrainian tanks, but in Syria, when used in conditions it was designed for, it excelled. Soviet doctrine always placed major emphasis on campaign-level planning, sometimes even eschewing tactical-level superiority. Soviets designed their weapons (not only tanks, but also planes and other vehicles) to work as a part of a larger system. In contrast, NATO hardware is generally made to excel at 1-on-1 duels and maximize individual performance.
While the Russian approach may sound more effective in a regular war, this does mean that they are much more vulnerable to blunders on operational level. Also, it's inferior in situations where there are no supply lines to cut, or in small-scale guerrilla conflicts where the "campaign level planning" doesn't amount to much. As it happens, most of today's conflicts are like this. Time will tell if Armata addresses problems that the earlier designs had in those areas.
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As I hoped... it's happening :)
http://bumar.gliwice.pl/pierwsze-leopardy-juz-u-nas/
Polish Leo 2's modernization process has already begun. First stage will be a domestic maintenance, then we shall add some additional armor for the A4's, new optics and fire control systems to make the tanks being capable of using newest types of ammunition. Modernization will be performed by Polish defense industry in cooperation with German Rheinmetall Defense.
It would be great to removed the old, used cannons and install the new ones but I'm not sure if this will happen anytime soon.
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The T-34 was a mass-production expendable vehicle for the Soviet style of operational rather than tactical warfare. Its operating time before overhaul or breakdown was carefully calculated to just exceed its mean time to being knocked out in combat operations. At that point the crew would be transferred to another vehicle while their original one is either dead or in overhaul, exactly as intended. It in no way "almost cost the Russians the war" (the arguments made to this effect are ones that have little to do with the tank and everything to do with the poor state of Soviet logistics and leadership during the 1941-1942 period) and in fact its dependable breakdown characteristics was a key part of their success by making logistics simple.
I know this is usually given as an explanation. However, it doesn't make sense to me. If the tank breaks down regularly at certain interval, then you must make sure you'll have good transportation capabilities. This wasn't the case for USSR on the Eastern Front (or anywhere in USSR to be frank, and actually, it still is not), and the dysfunctional T-34s were very close to cost the USSR the war as the planned replacements could not arrive fast enough on the front lines. And then the replacements broke on the front line without contributing to the push forward. It seems to me that the T-34 held some kind of tactical advantage over its temporary rivals, but almost caused a strategical disaster.
In a way, USSR strategy was like Zapp Brannigan's: give opposition enough targets so that they run out of bullets. The much more logical reason for the tank breaking down is actually poor material quality, poor production standards and uncaring assembly and production personnel - I do not believe the tank was designed to break that way, but instead the strategy had to be modified (and rewritten) to take this into account. The similar stuff applies to Russian airframe engines, the usual reason for shorter MTBFs is given with that the Russian engines are designed to run hotter, produce more thrust and thus break faster. The actual reason for that is lacking material technology to produce equivalent thrust on lower temperatures. Which becomes evident when considering the unit operation costs - it's kind of funny that the Soviets were touting MiG-29 to be cheap, when the actual real life cost was IIRC the highest when Finnish Air Force was selecting its fighters.
What it comes to quantity over quality, it's something the Russians do not learn. They have been given numerous lessons of that - mentally it's just much easier to go to war with a bigger bunch of dudes regardless the quality of said dudes. Perhaps T-14 is a step from that, but at least the Karelian brigades have selected the modernized T-80 over Armata. I don't know the reason for that and can only speculate.
Sorry about mistaking IFV to APC, don't know what I was thinking. What I meant to say is that if based on the Armata chassis, the resulting IFV will likely be too heavy and large for a typical operational theatre, limiting its usage. It may not be possible to air lift it, for example. Note the NATO experiences in Afghanistan mirror this in a way that the requirements of the next IFVs seem to aim for better mobility at the cost of armor. And that Bumerang. I can almost hear Russians saying the design is their own work and they didn't copy it from anyone, honest! Then again, imitation is the best form of flattery.
Congratulations on Poland upgrading the tanks. Consider also the asymmetrical responses to the Russian tanks, sometimes it's not about direct engagement, and more about outsmarting and outpositioning the opponent. And preferably shooting the opponent when they cannot even respond.
EDIT: What it comes to USSR strategy of cutting supply lines, that was not the case here. Instead, they preferred the breakthrough attack formation which ironically left their supply lines open for counter attacks.
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The T-34 was a mass-production expendable vehicle for the Soviet style of operational rather than tactical warfare. Its operating time before overhaul or breakdown was carefully calculated to just exceed its mean time to being knocked out in combat operations. At that point the crew would be transferred to another vehicle while their original one is either dead or in overhaul, exactly as intended. It in no way "almost cost the Russians the war" (the arguments made to this effect are ones that have little to do with the tank and everything to do with the poor state of Soviet logistics and leadership during the 1941-1942 period) and in fact its dependable breakdown characteristics was a key part of their success by making logistics simple.
I know this is usually given as an explanation. However, it doesn't make sense to me. If the tank breaks down regularly at certain interval, then you must make sure you'll have good transportation capabilities. This wasn't the case for USSR on the Eastern Front (or anywhere in USSR to be frank, and actually, it still is not), and the dysfunctional T-34s were very close to cost the USSR the war as the planned replacements could not arrive fast enough on the front lines. And then the replacements broke on the front line without contributing to the push forward. It seems to me that the T-34 held some kind of tactical advantage over its temporary rivals, but almost caused a strategical disaster.
In a way, USSR strategy was like Zapp Brannigan's: give opposition enough targets so that they run out of bullets. The much more logical reason for the tank breaking down is actually poor material quality, poor production standards and uncaring assembly and production personnel - I do not believe the tank was designed to break that way, but instead the strategy had to be modified (and rewritten) to take this into account. The similar stuff applies to Russian airframe engines, the usual reason for shorter MTBFs is given with that the Russian engines are designed to run hotter, produce more thrust and thus break faster. The actual reason for that is lacking material technology to produce equivalent thrust on lower temperatures. Which becomes evident when considering the unit operation costs - it's kind of funny that the Soviets were touting MiG-29 to be cheap, when the actual real life cost was IIRC the highest when Finnish Air Force was selecting its fighters.
I hate to say it so bluntly, but you are flat out wrong. Your "much more logical reason" is factually incorrect. Russian tanks in mid World War 2 were deliberately built such that the average time it took one to break down was also the average time it took one to be knocked out by enemy fire. This allowed factories to save time, money, and materials by machining their tools to looser tolerances, and increased the output of Russian factories significantly. By late World War 2 they controlled sufficient rail infrastructure that getting tanks to the front was a transportation issue that Russia was eminently capable of tackling. The USSR actually had significant advantages in tank construction that German simply did not (or could not) replicate. German tanks (in particular the Tiger and its derivatives) had significant mechanical issues that were caused by literally the opposite of all the things you just listed.
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I hate to say it so bluntly, but you are flat out wrong. Your "much more logical reason" is factually incorrect. Russian tanks in mid World War 2 were deliberately built such that the average time it took one to break down was also the average time it took one to be knocked out by enemy fire.
I reserve the right for the possibility that I may be wrong. However, my first question when these statements are abound is to ask "factually incorrect according to whom?". Western sources that rely on Russian sources? To prove that this was the case they would need to have gone to the Soviet factories and check whether their equipment would have allowed better accuracies at that time. Unfortunately, much of those factories were inaccessible to Western people, and many of them do not exist anymore!
Then consider that the Soviets lie and how systematic that is. It should be common knowledge at that point that the Soviet Union revised their history several times. They revised several other things as well, also why the Second World War was such a big blow for USSR. Here in Finland I actually was taught that the German operation Barbarossa was a proactive move and a mistake since the outcome would be evident to anybody (the Finnish history teaching had to kiss Soviet ass at the time). This is bull**** at least on the first part. Barbarossa was a reactive thing, and definitely not a mistake - one of the few right decisions by Germany at the time. This is because Soviet Union was planning an attack to Central Europe and was amassing troops to the border - Germans caught them pants down and destroyed a large portion of the equipment, hence my comment T-34 could not arrive fast enough to replace the destroyed ones. That's the strategical catastrophe I was talking about. It's also not T-34 that stopped Tigers. It was the Allied air campaign that destroyed the factories.
If you have also some engineering background, you'll also know that you'll design according to the tolerances that the factory can make - anything better will not happen anyways. However, you don't also want to over-specify those parts where the tolerances are not needed, but not to under-specify the parts where the tolerances are needed. During the time I've walked on this Earth, I have never seen a comparable product coming from Soviet Union that would convince me they could have done better tolerance-wise. Thus I see it possible that the T-34 being what it is is actually the result of USSR production capabilities, and not by the original design. I also see it possible that the T-34 is described in the way it is described in the books because the performance had to be justified somehow to the politbyro while not making the production facilities look bad.
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Whatever was the underlying reason, one fact remains: T-34 was an expandable vehicle. Whether by necessity or by design, the USSR strategic doctrine was built around this. And it worked.
Also, nobody claims T-34s were any good against Tigers, though they definitely weren't completely helpless against them, either. The IS-2 tanks were the Soviet "Tiger killers". And that's even without mentioning the Tiger's own problems.
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I know this is usually given as an explanation. However, it doesn't make sense to me.
This is because you're not sufficiently educated to be discussing this issue.
If the tank breaks down regularly at certain interval, then you must make sure you'll have good transportation capabilities.
Why? This is certainly not how the Germans handled the fact the Panther couldn't handle a 100km drive without its final drives spontaneously combusting. (Their solution was usually to grin and bear it, and when that failed, destroy the vehicle in place.) It's in no way matched to American experience on the matter, which was based around battalion-level refits for knocked-out tanks that saw most of them back in action in less then a week.
What are you arguing for here? Full factory refit? That's crazy talk. There are levels of maintenance you perform on a tank, of course. Field maintenance is easier than depot is easier than factory, but the fact that the Soviets designed the T-34 to require depot-level maintenance around the point it would normally be knocked out is hardly going to require "good transportation capabilities"; you simply drag it to the battalion or regimental maintenance group with another tank. There is actually very little you can do to a WW2-era tank, even in terms of combat damage, that demands a factory-level refit.
This wasn't the case for USSR on the Eastern Front (or anywhere in USSR to be frank, and actually, it still is not), and the dysfunctional T-34s were very close to cost the USSR the war as the planned replacements could not arrive fast enough on the front lines.
Even in the most fever-dream sources from the German side, this would be regarded as base insanity and I cannot fathom how or why you would arrive at this novel...theory. The T-34's planned replacement T-43 was not only ready to go in late 1942, it was deliberately rejected in favor of the more limited T-34/85 upgrade to keep production numbers up. Base T-34/76 was superior in every meaningful combat sense to existent German tank designs until Tiger, and Tiger was never numerous enough to be a useful weapon. Even when deliberately massed during engagements like Kursk, the Russians more or less wrote the book on how to deal with Tigers via defense in depth and interlocking fields of fire with AT guns. In Russia, the newspaper reporting the blunting of the German offensive with the headline "The Tigers Are Burning!" is famous.
If you're arguing in a more tactical scope, then there's nothing to support you at all and this argument becomes even more incomprehensible.
And then the replacements broke on the front line without contributing to the push forward. It seems to me that the T-34 held some kind of tactical advantage over its temporary rivals, but almost caused a strategical disaster.
Again, crazy talk. There's nothing like this in any existent source of the period, even the breathlessly pro-German ones. I just pointed that out with the Operation Barbarossa site, that it made claims, and did not back them.
The much more logical reason for the tank breaking down is actually poor material quality, poor production standards and uncaring assembly and production personnel - I do not believe the tank was designed to break that way, but instead the strategy had to be modified (and rewritten) to take this into account.
Unfortunately, design documentation is available and disagrees with this. Besides, if you honestly believe that any of this is necessarily an impediment to a long-lasting machine, the T-55 was notorious for dumping nearly a kilogram of metal shavings into its oil sump as the engine knocked off the unfinished bits during the first hundred hours of operation. You just filter them out and keep going, no biggie.
Realistically, the T-34 isn't even breaking down in a meaningful way in this discussion. Every 90 hours of operational life, it requires depot-level preventive maintenance to adjust the transmission. That's what's happening here. The only reason this is true is due to the awkward positioning of the transmission. It was entirely possible to have moved the transmission if it was necessary. It was not.
I reserve the right for the possibility that I may be wrong. However, my first question when these statements are abound is to ask "factually incorrect according to whom?". Western sources that rely on Russian sources?
So you're going to literally make **** up instead? Rely on the Germans sources, which were pretty much obvious feel-good nonsense when compared to their combat reports?
I mean, there were things wrong with the T-34 design. It was ergonomically one of the worse tanks of the war. The original two-man turret crew was not good, compounded by front-opening hatches that blocked the view forward. Some units literally issued the driver a sledgehammer because that was the force it took to change the gears. They were not originally equipped with radios enough (though when it became obvious that a radio for every vehicle was a necessity, the Soviets spared no expense to make it happen). Their tactical application was frequently lacking. But the problems you're arguing for are simply ridiculous, born of ignorance about the platform, about what is actually being discussed when we talk about mean-time-to-failure here.
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This is because you're not sufficiently educated to be discussing this issue.
This comment I find particularly hilarious, since I apparently don't have what it takes to discuss this, what are your credentials then?
Why? This is certainly not how the Germans handled the fact the Panther couldn't handle a 100km drive without its final drives spontaneously combusting. (Their solution was usually to grin and bear it, and when that failed, destroy the vehicle in place.) It's in no way matched to American experience on the matter, which was based around battalion-level refits for knocked-out tanks that saw most of them back in action in less then a week.
What are you arguing for here? Full factory refit? That's crazy talk. There are levels of maintenance you perform on a tank, of course. Field maintenance is easier than depot is easier than factory, but the fact that the Soviets designed the T-34 to require depot-level maintenance around the point it would normally be knocked out is hardly going to require "good transportation capabilities"; you simply drag it to the battalion or regimental maintenance group with another tank. There is actually very little you can do to a WW2-era tank, even in terms of combat damage, that demands a factory-level refit.
I think you are ignoring one thing: Germans got quite far in the Russian territory despite their "tanks combusting after 100 kms", yet it took Soviets a couple of years and a winter to turn the tide. Now why would that be? The answer lies in the fact that a major production facility of T-34s in Ukraine were overrun and the next facility was quite far from the front lines. Now the Soviets faced the problem of dismal the transport capability from inner Russia to the front lines, leading to T-34s breaking down before they could arrive where they were needed. This is a problem that the Germans did not have in the initial phase of Barbarossa. The sides actually reversed as Germans were hit by the poor transport capabilities in Russian territory while the front line came closer to the production facilities. Incidentally, this is part of the coincidences why Finland was never occupied in WWII as Soviets had to direct a lot of Red Army to southern front.
And I don't think I have contested that the T-34 was not designed to be field repairable. What I said is that the thing breaking down is NOT by design, but a byproduct of poor assembly and production capability even for its time. Designing things to be repairable and designing things to break mean entirely different things in the engineering world. Designing things to break down reliably is typically more difficult than doing that by accident or as a byproduct of some other things, but you should already know this right?
Even when deliberately massed during engagements like Kursk, the Russians more or less wrote the book on how to deal with Tigers via defense in depth and interlocking fields of fire with AT guns. In Russia, the newspaper reporting the blunting of the German offensive with the headline "The Tigers Are Burning!" is famous.
Yeah, I recall lots of Soviet headlines from 1980s, and some of them were even true! The point was, if the nation is so deep in the history revision as Soviet Union was, no document can be held authentic. I can't stress this enough. Instead, you'll have to accept a type of quantum mechanical wavefront probability analogue for History: there is a probability that the claimed thing did not happen as reported, or what happened was entirely different. Which is why I said that in order to demonstrate that the breaking down of T-34 was actually by design you'd need to know the machine tooling accuracies in Soviet factories. But unfortunately, I don't think you can, and neither can the Western historians. Thus you'll have to assign a certain probability that what I say can be the true.
Case in point, the design documentation of T-34 can be written before or after the trials and revised several times by undisclosed parties. It is also possible that the requirement specification of Red Army has been influenced by their earlier accounts of T-27s breaking down, and they required the field repair capability be added (which is reasonable). The reason field repair capability was required is likely substandard performance of the T-27s, which is related to the manufacturing tolerances. Got it?
the T-55 was notorious for dumping nearly a kilogram of metal shavings into its oil sump as the engine knocked off the unfinished bits
Yeah, I got to look at the bottom plates of it from the ants perspective when it was moving. For your information, almost all Russian equipment used by Finnish Defence Forces have actually been modified by some degree for the above mentioned reasons. Vehicles have been specifically abhorrent, KraZ and UAZ included. There's no difference to this in the civil vehicles coming from the Soviet Union era. Skoda presentatives in Mlada Boleslav actually expressed that they were sorry of having to produce substandard vehicles in the last Soviet years when the quality difference had become obvious for everybody.
Their tactical application was frequently lacking. But the problems you're arguing for are simply ridiculous, born of ignorance about the platform, about what is actually being discussed when we talk about mean-time-to-failure here.
The correct English term is Mean Time Between Failures (MTBF).