The Americans, and after them the Europeans, recognized the loyalty of the Russian concept of the development of armored vehicles. Russia in tank building, despite the collapse of the USSR and a decade of devastation, was ahead of its main opponents. Moreover, it has pulled out much ahead. The Russian "Armata" has already gone into production, while the Americans plan to receive their analogue of the Russian combat platform in service no earlier than in 10 years, and the Europeans expect to receive a similar machine even later. But these are only plans so far …
By the mid-1980s, it became clear that the successful concept of the main battle tank, the first model of which in the USSR was the Kharkov "sixty-four", was already becoming obsolete. Breakthroughs in the field of robotics and instrumentation made it possible to move to the creation of a tank with an uninhabited tower of a small size, which made it possible not only to dramatically reduce the affected area of the new combat vehicle in different projections, but also to dramatically increase its firepower and protection without significantly increasing its mass.
It was this idea that was laid in the new promising development of the Kharkov tank builders "Object 477" (although theoretical studies of it began even earlier, in the 1970s). The collapse of the USSR and the insufficient elaboration of some technical solutions put an end to this machine, but the developments on it were not in vain. In the 1990s, the Leningrad Tank Design Bureau at the Kirov Plant went even further. Russian engineers suggested not just developing a new type of fourth-generation tank, but creating a universal combat platform, on the basis of which combat vehicles for various purposes (heavy infantry fighting vehicles, tanks, etc.) would be produced. All these ideas were implemented in the future in the "Armata" project, the two main combat "configurations" of which, the T-14 (tank) and the T-15 (heavy infantry fighting vehicle), are already entering service with the Russian army.
In fact, these are combat vehicles of a new generation, in which the ability to conduct network-centric combat operations is combined (each vehicle is a separate cluster of a whole unit, which in real time exchanges with the rest of the information received about the situation on the battlefield), new active and passive means distance defense, enhanced booking, new weapons, and most importantly, all this was contained in a weight of 50 tons. That is, the car turned out to be compact and transportable for modern delivery vehicles (railway platforms, transport aviation).
It must be admitted that the United States, thanks to the collapse of the USSR, had a head start, which they tried to take advantage of, but failed. Well, the American designers did not "shmoglu" to fit all the ideas of Soviet tank building into the cherished 60 tons of technical specifications.
The NGCV project, the development of which the Americans began in 2011, was curtailed in 2015. The main reason was, as I said above, the inability to fit the required technical characteristics of the machine into the weight limits (60 tons).
Why is it so critical to Americans? The fact is that new equipment should be able to be airlifted. And based on the characteristics of the military transport aviation (the ratio of the transferred cargo and the range), the new military equipment could not weigh more. Otherwise, it would force the Americans to develop new types of military transport aircraft or completely change the concept of using their armed forces.
Meanwhile, American engineers did not promise to reduce the mass of the new machine below 80 tons, which, in fact, put an end to the program by the end of 2015. As early as the next budget year, funding for the program was curtailed. But not for long.
The parade in Moscow in the spring of 2017, in which the new "Armats" and heavy infantry fighting vehicles T-15 marched in formation, forced the Americans to return to this project. Moreover, the American military today not only wants a new machine, they want it tomorrow, otherwise very soon Russian tanks, in their opinion, will not leave their American counterparts a single chance to survive on a real battlefield.
“Initially, it was assumed that the new technology, which could replace both the Bradley BMP and the Abrams tank, will be ready by 2035. However, a decision has now been made to accelerate the pace of work. The first two prototypes were expected to be completed by September 30, 2022. It is planned to allocate $ 700 million for these purposes. Now it is planned to reduce this period by at least one year. We want to take a leap forward, moving on to the next generation of weapons. We cannot wait 15 years. We must move forward faster, because I look at these countries (Russia and China. - Author's note), and I know that we need to get there before them."
As we already understand, Washington will not succeed before “them”, but the race for the leader has already begun, and no one, according to the habit of 30 years ago, will spare either effort or money. We'll see what the outcome will be, but meanwhile, Washington's European “allies” have also taken care of designing a new combat platform to replace the Leclerc and Leopard-2.
True, their plans are much more modest. Europeans are realists, and they understand that they are not able to get a new tank before 2030, and therefore today the concept of a new combat vehicle is being worked out under the Main Ground Combat System 2030+ (MGCS 2030+) program or, translated into Russian, “Basic ground combat system of the future after 2030”. In fact, this is a repetition of the "Armata" concept, however, the European "partners" plan to surpass the Russian tank in all respects. But, as we can see from the numbers, they want to achieve this no earlier than in 15 years, and during this time a lot of things can change. In general, it is not in the habits of Russian designers to stand still, especially if the country's leadership has both the money and the desire for this.
So, let's summarize. A new tank arms race in the world has already begun. Russia is still in the lead, but the Americans rushed after it right off the bat and the Europeans are slowly following the beaten path. Soon we will be able to evaluate the first results. I think they will be interesting …
