Armata without tarpaulin: experts argue about the appointment of the T-14

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The flagship of the new series, the T-14 "Armata" tank, hit the lens of the motorist's phone as soon as he left the landfill and went to the loading site to the railway station to go to Moscow. Since then, this video has amassed over 6.5 million views.

The BBC's Russian service spoke with experts from Russia, Ukraine and the UK, who note that Russia has indeed succeeded in making a technological breakthrough in armored vehicles for the first time.

At the same time, according to them, the tanks, armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles presented at the parade are essentially pre-production models, not yet adopted for service.

They have yet to undergo state tests, as a result of which changes may be made to the design.

A tank for the Third World War?

Although the new tanks and armored vehicles were shown completely open, there is still not much data for a detailed analysis of the technical characteristics of the new armored vehicles. First of all, this concerns optical and electronic devices, which play a key role in the same T-14 tank.

T-14 "Armata" - a steel fist of tank armies or a universal tool for solving local conflicts?

Nevertheless, according to the outline, the designers paid more attention to the frontal armor of the new tank, which indicates that they were building the vehicle for massive tank battles, according to the BBC Russian service Andrei Tarasenko, judging by the outlines.

“Three people sit shoulder to shoulder in the front of the hull, but we see that the dimensions of the tank, its width remained the same. that the crew members rest their shoulders on the side, which is not much thicker than the side of the same T-72, he said.

According to the expert, in modern conflicts such as Syria or Iraq, most of the hits of cumulative munitions fell on the side, which cannot be protected only with the help of an active protection system.

"The tank is designed for full-scale conflicts, such as the Third World War," he concluded.

In turn, as the Russian military expert Viktor Murakhovsky said, the terms of reference provided for the necessary level of protection from all angles, including the upper hemisphere.

Armored vehicles have not finished all tests yet

"In terms of the level of security, this tank has no analogues in the world, and I am not sure that they will be able to do [something similar] in the near future," he said.

Murakhovsky also believes that the use of a tank in a particular type of military conflict should be considered taking into account the fact that several platforms of tracked and wheeled armored vehicles are being developed in parallel.

Konstantin Bogdanov, the military observer of Lenta. Ru, agrees with him, who also said that a heavy infantry fighting vehicle is being built on its basis for city battles to accompany the tank. However, he admitted that the T-14 is "a universal tank of the battlefield on the plain."

"But, strictly speaking, most of the use of this tank would be in such conditions. It would be strange to see something else," he concluded.

Samples

According to experts, the samples of equipment presented at the Victory Parade are rather pre-production prototypes that have completed or are completing factory tests.

“These are already experimental-industrial batches of samples, which this year, or in the next one, will enter the stage of state tests.

According to Andrei Tarasenko, the revolutionary design of the new tank, as well as conceptually new for Russia infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers on medium tracked (Kurganets) and wheeled (Boomerang) will require serious revision within several years - according to him, this is inevitable for such machines in any country.

In addition to the T-14 tank, new infantry fighting vehicles and armored personnel carriers will be shown at the parade

Konstantin Bogdanov believes that in the future the evolution of the T-14 tank will follow the path of simplification.

He believes that it is rather a sample demonstrator of all available technologies of Uralvagonzavod, and the only question that can and should be asked is whether all the installed systems have been brought up to a working state?

The expert believes that only later, “based on the results of experimental tests, [the Ministry of Defense] will decide whether it is needed in this form, or whether technologically less advanced systems can be installed on it, but cheaper and which, according to the cost-effectiveness criterion, are more suitable army ".

Challenge NATO?

According to Andrei Tarasenko, with all the disadvantages that he sees in the T-14, this tank is "a serious bid by Russia to restore parity with the leading tank-building countries - the United States and Germany."

"What we see can seriously change the aspects of the defense construction of both European countries and neighbors [Russia]," the expert said and added that in the coming years the Western countries' response to the appearance of "Armata" will be ready.

However, British military expert Paul Beaver in an interview with the BBC said that against the background of the emergence of new technology in Russia, Western countries - the United States and Great Britain - are only engaged in the modernization of existing tanks.

"There are no plans in the West to create a new tank," the British expert said.

According to Paul Beaver, over the past 20-30 years, Western countries have coped with all the challenges that required the intervention of tanks, using existing armored vehicles.

He believes that so far there is no reason to believe that there will be any reaction to the appearance of "Armata": "There is no arms race between Russia and the West."

Pavel Aksenov

T-14 "Armata"

Another version of the "Armata": the world's first infantry fighting vehicle on a tank chassis:

BMP T-15

The newest self-propelled artillery systems 2S35 "Coalition-SV" according to their capabilities can close the niche of self-propelled artillery from the division to the front link.

Large "Kurganets" with a 30-mm cannon and ATGM in an uninhabited combat module. The new generation of BMPs should replace both the old BMP-1 and 2 and the more recent BMP-3.

The impressive dimensions of the new wheeled armored personnel carrier "Boomerang" are not least due to the acceleration: the previous generation of combat vehicles was designed for soldiers a little more than 170 centimeters tall, weighing within 65 kilograms and laying more than 10 kilograms. Modern - for fighters over 180, weighing about 80, carrying 25 kilograms of weapons, equipment and protective equipment.

New armored truck on the chassis of the KAMAZ "Typhoon"

Launcher of the latest Russian anti-aircraft missile system S-400

"Yars" is Topol-M, only lighter thanks to composites and therefore "taking" on board more payload weight, as well as better able to overcome missile defense systems due to more powerful engines with variable thrust vector and "smart" control system, capable of making decisions about the maneuver in a split second. At the same time, the power of the damaging payload was also increased - up to 1.2 megatons. Yars can carry up to four individual nuclear warheads with a capacity of up to 300 kilotons each at a distance of 11 thousand kilometers.