The prototypes of the Boxer, manufactured in 1987, looked more impressive compared to the T-64. The tank was about 0.3 m higher, a powerful cannon above the turret and a high hull with combined armor inspired some respect for it. In appearance, it was more formidable in comparison with the tanks of the previous generation.
The constant increase in performance characteristics and the installation of more powerful weapons inevitably led to an increase in the mass of the tank. With a given mass of 50 tons, it was exceeded by several tons and this required serious measures to reduce it. The designs of the tank, cannon, engine, suspension and protection assemblies have been revised.
In addition, titanium had to be introduced into the design of some units, from which the chassis balancers, structural elements inside the tank, elements of dynamic protection, and sheets of the frontal protection package of the tank were made. This made it possible to significantly reduce the mass and practically fit into the given requirements.
Protection
The tank was characterized by a high level of protection with a minimum number of weakened zones and the use of all the achievements of that period. The armoring of the bow assembly of the tank hull had a modular structure, its overall dimensions were more than 1 m along the projectile. Much attention was paid to the protection of the sides and roof of the tower, it was combined: for example, the protection of the sides had a multi-barrier structure, and the crew hatches had a powerful multi-layer protection.
Were considered all the developed options for active protection - "Drozd", "Arena", "Rain" and "Shater". No concrete results were achieved on any of them, and it was decided at the R&D stage not to equip tanks with active protection and introduce it as it was worked out.
Nevertheless, the commissions headed by General Varennikov, a future member of the State Emergency Committee, decided to demonstrate the active defense of Drozd in action. For greater effect, the shot was an OFS, the system intercepted it, the projectile exploded and some of the fragments went towards the commission. The colonel standing next to Varennikov was seriously wounded. Surprisingly, the general behaved in cold blood and ordered not to investigate the incident, although there were a lot of violations during this show.
A variant of electromagnetic protection was considered, work on which was carried out at VNIIstal. After reviewing the state of the work, it became clear that it would not be possible to implement it in the near future, since there were no acceptable energy-intensive energy storage devices, and the existing ones were comparable in size to a tank.
Power point
The power plant of the tank was based on a diesel engine. Initially, a variant of the 12ChN four-stroke 12-cylinder engine developed at the KHKBD was considered, but given that it existed only at the level of experimental samples and was not completed, it was abandoned.
The stake was made on the already existing two-stroke engine based on 6TDF with a capacity of 1200 hp, with the possibility of bringing the power up to 1500 hp. This engine was installed on prototypes and tested. The cooling system was ejection, one sample was with a fan cooling system. During the tests, shortcomings in starting and cooling the engine were revealed, which were gradually eliminated. On tests, a tank with such a mass developed a speed of 63 km / h. In addition to the main engine for the tank, an auxiliary diesel power unit was developed, installed on the fenders.
The information disseminated on the Internet that the "Boxer" tank was equipped with a power plant based on a gas turbine engine, and even more so, such a sample of the tank was made, the purest speculation. In the process of work, this question was never even raised, since in the mid-80s the epic of pushing a gas turbine engine onto a tank had already ended and the diesel T-80UD was adopted as the main tank.
Undercarriage
At the beginning of development, several options for the chassis were considered. As a result of detailed studies, we settled on the chassis, which was based on the rubberized "Leningrad" chassis worked out on the T-80UD. In terms of weight, it lost about two tons to the T-64 chassis, but with those loads and engine power, it was dangerous to go for the version with a "light" chassis, and further work was based on sufficiently worked out units of this chassis.
The information that samples of the "Boxer" tank were made on the basis of the T-64 chassis also does not correspond to reality. There were no such samples, individual tank systems could be tested on the old chassis, but this had nothing to do with working out the suspension.
Weapon complex
In connection with the increasing requirements for the firepower of the tank, the armament complex was repeatedly changed. At the stage of developing the concept of the tank, a 125 mm cannon was adopted as the main armament, an additional armament was a coaxial 7, 62 mm machine gun and an auxiliary armament of a 12, 7 mm machine gun.
At the research and development stage, the customer set increased requirements for the firepower of the tank and the gun was replaced with a more powerful 130mm gun. In the process of repeated discussions of the caliber of the gun, by the end of the research work, the question arose of further increasing the caliber of the gun. Two factors played here: strengthening the protection of the tanks of a potential enemy and the need to install powerful missile weapons.
At one of the NTS meetings, when discussing the caliber of a 140 mm or 152 mm gun, the head of the GRAU, General Litvinenko, proved that the 152 mm caliber is much more effective, and it also makes it possible to use the groundwork for missile armament of the Krasnopol self-propelled guns of the same caliber. As a result, it was decided to install a 152 mm cannon, and they began to develop it in Perm specifically for the Boxer tank and did not return to this issue, although this decision led to a lot of problems for the tank.
In accordance with the requirements of the military, all ammunition for a gun up to 40 rounds must be placed in an automated ammunition rack. In the development process, various options for ammunition, both separate and unitary loading, were considered. In the early stages, the shot was separately loaded and serious problems arose when placing the ammunition in the turret to the right of the gun.
In one of the versions, VNIITM offered a shot with a cap-loading, a package of gunpowder was pulled out of a square sleeve during loading and sent to the gun chamber. This option was too exotic and was abandoned.
In the final version, due to the increased requirements for armor penetration and problems with the placement of ammunition in the automated ammunition rack, the option of a unitary shot with a length of 1, 8 m was adopted and the layout of the tank was changed for it.
The choice of the shot option and the automated loading scheme fundamentally influenced one of the defining characteristics of the tank - the time for preparing and firing a shot. With separate loading, this time increased due to the double ramming of the projectile and the sleeve (in one cycle this was decided only on the T-64).
In this regard, the scheme of automated loading of the gun was fundamentally changed three times during the development process. With such a caliber and the amount of ammunition, it was difficult to place them in the limited volume of the tank.
In the first version, at the stage of research and development with a separate loading shot for a belt-type autoloader in the tower to the right of the gun, a too small volume was allocated, the kinematics of the mechanisms was very complex and already at the stands they faced the problem of unreliable operation of the mechanisms.
In the second version, at the R&D stage with a 152 mm gun caliber and a separate loading shot, the main part of the ammunition was placed in the tank hull compartment in two belt conveyors (32), and the consumable part (8) in the belt conveyor of the turret aft niche.
When the ammunition was spent in the tower, they were replenished from the hull. With this design, again, there was a very complex kinematics of the mechanisms and there were big problems when transferring ammunition from the hull to the turret, especially when the tank was moving. In this design, there was a double chambering of the projectile and the cartridge case.
As a result, such a scheme had to be abandoned and switched to a unitary ammunition with the placement of the main ammunition in the hull in two drums of 12 pieces and consumable 10 pieces, placed in the tower. This design made it possible to significantly simplify the automatic loader and ensure a minimum time (4 s) for preparing and firing a shot, since there was no double ramming of the projectile and the cartridge case. Placing ammunition in isolated drums also protected it from ignition when the tank was hit.
In the late 80s, in connection with the increased requirements for combating lightly armored and air targets, it was decided to additionally strengthen the armament of the tank and instead of the 12.7 mm machine gun, a 30 mm GSh30 cannon was installed. It was installed to the right of the main cannon on the roof of the tower with an independent drive vertically and horizontally was connected to the tower.
The sighting system for the "Boxer" tank was developed taking into account the accepted layout of the tank, was multi-channel and provided all-day and all-weather firing with artillery shells and guided missiles. For the gunner, a multi-channel sight was developed with optical, television, thermal imaging channels, a laser rangefinder and a laser missile guidance channel.
The commander installed a panoramic sight with optical, television channels and a laser rangefinder. It was not possible to implement the thermal imaging channel in the gunner's sight. It was decided to install a separate thermal imaging sight with image output to the gunner and commander. On the basis of the television channel, an automatic target acquisition and tracking was developed on the basis of the Shkval aviation complex.
The complex provided complete duplication of firing by the gunner and commander, the commander could not fire only a guided missile. In the event of a failure of the sighting complex for firing from a cannon and a machine gun in emergency mode, a simple optical sight-backup was installed on the cannon.
At the first stage, the guided missile was developed in two versions - with radio command and laser guidance, later on the radio command guidance was abandoned. To ensure firing of a rocket in conditions of dust and smoke interference, a CO2 laser was developed. Further development of guided weapons was supposed to use a missile with a homing head by analogy with the Krasnopol self-propelled guns and to ensure firing according to the principle of “fire and forget”.
For this tank, a 3-mm range radar was also developed on the basis of work on the "Arguzin" theme, but due to the complexity and low efficiency in detecting targets, the work was stopped.
The sighting system, in terms of its characteristics, made it possible to obtain a significant gap from the existing generation of domestic and foreign tanks and ensured an actual firing range of artillery shells of 2700 - 2900 m and the destruction of targets by a guided missile with a probability of 0.9 at a distance of 5000 m.
The implementation of the sighting complex should not have caused any particular problems, since the technical groundwork for all elements of the complex, except for the CO2 laser and the radar, already existed at that time. The head of this complex was the Central Design Bureau of the Krasnogorsk Mechanical Plant, which was previously well known for its irresponsibility when creating sighting systems for tanks.
For the "Boxer" tank, the activities of this company played a tragic role, the deadlines for all work were constantly disrupted and the tests of the tank were postponed for years. There could be no tank without sights, everyone understood this, but no measures were taken. The sighting system was never fully implemented and the tank began to undergo a preliminary test cycle without the sighting system.
