The appearance of the Russian Armata tank aroused a keen interest of specialists abroad. On December 21, 2018, the influential American publishing house The National Interest published an article by columnist Will Flannigan "Have the rules of the game changed with the advent of the Russian Armata tank?"
The article notes that for the first time since the end of the Cold War, a fundamentally new tank has been created in Russia, in which the designers have found the optimal combination of firepower, security and mobility. As an advantage, the author notes the use of guided weapons and an active protection complex on this tank. The author compares the tanks at a conceptual level and comes to the conclusion that the modernization of the American Abrams, the British Challenger and the German Leopard 2 will not allow reaching the characteristics of the Armata, and NATO countries need to think about creating their own tank of a new generation.
Dmitry Rogozin's PR move with the demonstration of the "raw" Armata tank at the May 9, 2015 parade had its effect, the West believed that a new generation tank had appeared in Russia and seriously thought about how to resist it. All statements that "Armata" will be in the army yesterday are not confirmed in any way. This is understandable, it is impossible to create such a complex technique and bring it to serial production in a short time. There are both technical and conceptual questions about this tank, all this needs to be checked and confirmed. Military expert Baranets said in November that the Armata tank was not accepted for service and that it was undergoing a test cycle. Q. E. D.
The characteristics of the "Armata" tank, published in the open press, are apparently "declared", they still need to be "confirmed", and this takes time. Hence the constant postponement of serial production and unintelligible explanations that "there is not enough money."
Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to objectively compare the characteristics of the American Abrams M1A2 tank of the latest SEP v.3 modification, serially produced since 2000, with the already known characteristics of the Armata tank in terms of the main criteria - firepower. security and mobility.
Tank layout
Tank "Abrams" has a classic layout typical of NATO countries. The crew is four people, the driver in the hull, the commander, the gunner, who is loading in the turret. There is no automatic loader, for the safety of the crew, the ammunition is located in the turret niche and is separated from the crew by an armored partition with opening flaps and the presence of knockout panels that are triggered when the ammunition is hit.
Tank "Armata" of a fundamentally different layout. The crew is three people, the driver, the commander and the gunner, all are housed in the tank hull in an armored capsule, the tower is uninhabited and controlled only by electrical signals, the turret contains weapons, an automatic loader, a fire control system, tank protection systems and interaction control equipment in other tanks and commanders.
Firepower
The firepower of a tank is determined by the main, secondary and auxiliary weapons, the perfection of the FCS and the power of the ammunition used.
The Abrams tank uses the 120 mm M256 cannon, a modification of the German Rheinmetall L44 (L55) cannon with high muzzle energy.
The Armata tank has a new 125-mm 2A82 cannon with a partially chrome-plated barrel, the muzzle energy of which is 1, 17 times higher than the Rheinmetall L55 cannon and is capable of firing both existing and future ammunition.
An option is being considered for equipping the Armata tank with a 152-mm cannon 2A83, in which, due to the chrome plating of the barrel, the pressure of the powder gases is brought to 7700 atm, which is 2.5 times higher than that of existing tank guns. This gun will provide the initial speed of the BPS 1980 m / s, which is significantly higher compared to the Abrams cannon (no more than 1800 m / s).
On the "Armata" the effectiveness of fire is much higher due to the use of a guided missile with a seeker, fired through the barrel of a gun with a hit probability of 0.9 at ranges up to 7000 m.
Ammunition on the "Abrams" tank provides armor penetration of the BPS at a distance of 2000 m - 700 mm, and the KS - 600 mm. According to military experts, on the Armata tank, improved BPS for the 125-mm cannon can provide armor penetration at the level of 800 mm, and the guided missile - 1200 mm.
Consequently, in terms of the main armament, the Armata tank is significantly superior to the Abrams tank.
As an additional weapon, both tanks use a 7.62 mm machine gun paired with a cannon. On the "Armata", apparently, due to the complex layout of the combat module, the machine gun was carried out and installed on the turret, connected to the gun by a parallelogram. This arrangement reduces the reliability of additional weapons, since the machine gun can easily be hit by enemy fire.
As an auxiliary weapon, both tanks use a 12.7 mm anti-aircraft machine gun, remotely controlled from the commander's panorama. On the Abrams, the efficiency of the auxiliary weapons is higher due to the use of another 7.62 mm loader machine gun mounted on the turret in front of the loader's hatch.
The fire control systems on these tanks are the same in terms of the set of individual devices, but there are also fundamental differences. This modification of the "Abrams" is equipped with a gunner's sight with two-plane stabilization of the line of sight, with visual and thermal imaging channels and a laser rangefinder. The magnification of the field of view of the optical channel is 3, 10, and the magnification of the electronic magnification of the thermal imaging channel is 6-50. There is a branch from the gunner's sight to the commander, and the commander can completely duplicate the gunner when firing. Target detection range during the day 5000 m. At night - 3000 m.
The commander has a panoramic thermal imaging observation device with two-plane stabilization of the line of sight with a target detection range of 3000 m.
An unstabilized monocular sight-backup with 8x magnification is installed on the cannon in the turret for firing in case of failure of the gunner's sight.
The loader has a thermal imaging sight for firing from the loader's machine gun, the commander's anti-aircraft machine gun is remotely controlled from the panorama and it is possible to fire when the hatch is closed.
The OMS of the Abrams tank includes a set of sensors for input information about the tank systems and meteorological conditions of firing, which are processed by a ballistic computer to calculate and automatically enter the aiming angles and lateral lead in the gun drives.
The FCS of the Armata tank is built on different foundations and is fundamentally different from the systems of the previous generation of tanks. There is not a single visual optical channel in the "Armata" control system. This is due to the adopted layout of the tank and the uninhabited turret, in which it is impossible to implement communication between the crew and optical devices, which is a serious drawback of this tank.
The LMS uses the principle of integrating optoelectronic and radar means for detecting, capturing and hitting targets.
As the main device, a panoramic sight stabilized in two planes with television and thermal imaging channels with a magnification of the field of view of 4, 12, an automatic target acquisition and a laser rangefinder is used. The panorama rotates 360 degrees regardless of the tower.
The sight allows you to detect targets at a range of 5000 m during the day, at night and in difficult meteorological conditions at a range of 3500 m, to lock the target and conduct effective fire.
According to open information, it is unclear whether or not there is an independent gunner's sight. I have been developing an LMS for many years, and it is hard for me to imagine that the developers decided to build a system based on one sight without having a single optical channel, which significantly reduced the reliability of the LMS when the panoramic sight fails.
If, nevertheless, a gunner's sight is provided in the system, then it must completely duplicate the channels and characteristics of the panorama and have a laser guidance channel for the guided missile.
To detect targets in the OMS, a pulse-Doppler radar is used based on an active phased antenna array (AFAR), which has four panels on the tank turret, providing a 360-degree view without rotating the radar antenna. The radar can track up to 40 ground-based dynamic and 25 air targets at a distance of up to 100 km.
The commander, after receiving information from the radar about the detected targets, puts them on the map, selects the most dangerous ones and gives target designation to the gunner. The panorama turns to the selected target, at the command of the gunner, the target is captured and tracked.
In addition to the radar and optoelectronic devices, the OMS includes six video cameras located along the perimeter of the tower, which allow you to see the situation around the tank in 360 degrees and identify targets, including in the infrared range through fog and smoke.
The OMS also includes a standard set of input information sensors for calculating and entering the aiming and lateral lead angles by the ballistic computer.
The actual firing range of the BPS on the Abrams and Armata tanks, taking into account the characteristics of the FCS and the cannon, should be within 2800-3000 m, while the DDS on the Armata tank may be slightly higher due to the higher characteristics of the 2A82 cannon. If the 152-mm 2A83 cannon is used on the Armata tank, the DDS will be significantly higher.
On "Abrams" and "Armata" are used armor-piercing subcaliber, cumulative, high-explosive fragmentation shells and shells with remote detonation, ammunition on both tanks is 40 rounds. On the Armata tank, a guided missile is also included in the ammunition load. On "Abrams" shots are unitary loading, on "Armata" - separate. The Armata tank has an automatic loader with 32 rounds, 8 of which are housed in an insulated compartment in the body of the tank. In the automatic loader, the shots are placed vertically in the turret cockpit at the level of the tank hull and are better protected against damage.
There is no automatic loader on the "Abrams", 34 shots are placed in a niche at the rear of the tower and are separated from the crew by an armored partition, 6 shots are placed in the hull in special armored containers. The absence of an automatic loader increases the time for preparing and firing the first shot, especially when firing on the move. This also affects the accuracy of setting the detonation time in a projectile with remote detonation. The automatic loader does this automatically at the moment a shot is sent into the cannon chamber. Without an automatic loader, the loader receives this data from the commander and enters it manually.
The preparation and firing time of the first shot on the Armata tank when firing from a standstill and on the move will be 6-7 s, and on the Abrams tank when firing from a standstill 9-10 s, while firing on the move - up to 15 s.
The Armata and Abrams tanks did not solve the problem of creating a three-dimensional image of the terrain, “looking at the tank from the outside”, creating a 3D image of the terrain in a computer based on video signals, and displaying it on the commander's helmet-mounted display, as in aviation. Such a system "Iron Vision" was created for the Israeli tank "Merkava" and is planned for implementation on the "Abrams" tank with its modernization under the SEP v.4 program. So far, nothing has been heard about the development of such a system for the Armata tank.
Comparing the firepower of the two tanks in terms of their aggregate characteristics, it can be argued that the Armata, even with a 125-mm cannon, will surpass the Abrams due to the more powerful cannon and ammunition, the presence of guided weapons, an automatic loader and radar target detection equipment.
In terms of additional and auxiliary armament, the Abrams will surpass the Armata tank, since the coaxial machine gun is removed from the turret and can be easily hit by enemy fire. In terms of auxiliary armament, the Abrams has two independent machine guns, which ensure higher fire efficiency in urban areas and the saturation of enemy melee anti-tank weapons.
The OMS of the Armata tank, with all the advantages of using radar target detection equipment, is significantly inferior in reliability to the OMS of the Abrams tank. In addition, the radar has a significant drawback, it can detect only moving targets, it does not see stationary ones, and this class of targets cannot be identified by it in any way. The Abrams has three independent sights - the gunner's sight, the commander's panorama and the backup sight, two of them with optical channels, which ensures high reliability of the system in the event of failure of individual devices.
The Armata tank does not have a single device with an optical channel. If only one panoramic sight is really used, in which all optical-electronic channels are concentrated, then the OMS does not stand up to criticism in terms of its reliability. If the panorama fails, and it is in the most vulnerable spot on the roof of the tower, or if the tower's power supply system fails for various reasons, the tank becomes completely unusable.
All elements of the FCS are located on the tower, have unprotected zones and, when fired by small arms or small-caliber artillery weapons, armored vehicles and aircraft will inevitably be hit and fail, which further reduces the reliability of the FCS.
When analyzing the concept of the "Armata" tank in terms of firepower, the issue of the reliability of the FCS is decisive. The future of this tank depends on how successfully it will be solved.
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