In the "Independent Military Review" published an article entitled "New after a bright presentation. It is unacceptable to hide the objective shortcomings of weapons systems under a layer of jingoistic patriotism "(" NVO"
No. 3 dated 01/29/16). The author is Sergey Vladimirovich Vasiliev. How he signed - a reserve colonel, candidate of technical sciences, professor of the Academy of military sciences.
The article is entirely devoted to criticism of the new Russian tank T-14 "Armata". The author hits backhand, his reproaches are harsh, impulsive and emotional. The arguments, however, are somewhat paler. Their weakness is visible even to a person who is not keen on the history of tank building, its products. However, the topic touched upon is so important for the defense capability of Russia that it requires additional reflection and analysis.
In this regard, with a request to comment on the author's arguments and to object, if such is possible, we turned to the reserve colonel Sergei Viktorovich Suvorov, one of the leading domestic experts in the field of armored vehicles. He graduated from the Kharkov Guards Tank Command School with a gold medal, the Academy of Armored Forces, the postgraduate course of the Military Academy named after V. I. M. V. Frunze. Served in the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany and the Trans-Baikal Military District, successively holding the posts of a tank platoon commander, deputy tank company commander for armaments, tank company commander, deputy tank battalion commander - chief of staff, commander of a training tank battalion. Candidate of Military Sciences (dissertation on "Improving fire control of motorized rifle and tank units"). In postgraduate studies and after it, he was engaged in practical research and testing related to the study of the combat capabilities of various models of armored vehicles. He taught at the Military Academy. M. V. Frunze at the Department of Combat Effectiveness.
After leaving the Armed Forces, he worked as editor-in-chief in two military magazines, at the Military Industrial Company, and now he is the chief specialist of the Moscow office of the Ural automobile plant. He was also engaged in testing wheeled armored vehicles after being transferred to the reserve. The whole adult life does not part with the tank theme, and since the work is associated with participation in international military exhibitions, he constantly improves his knowledge about modern foreign models of armored weapons and equipment, he is familiar with many of their creators.
As questions to our interlocutor, NVO columnist Nikolai POROSKOV quoted excerpts from an article by Sergei Vasiliev, and at the end of the conversation - and some other domestic and foreign detractors of the novelty of the Russian defense industry, already called the main tank of the 21st century, the flagship of Russian rearmament and even a star tank.
- Sergei Viktorovich, the author, in particular, writes: "After the presentation during the Victory Parade at the RAE-2015 arms exhibition in Nizhny Tagil," Armata "modestly stood behind the fence."
- I got the impression that this man is far from the topic of tanks. Yes, the car was parked outside the fence, because the "Secret" stamp had not yet been removed from it. There was more than one, there was also a T-15 infantry fighting vehicle on the same platform, a self-propelled howitzer "Coalition-SV". There were so many people crowding around the fence that the word "modest" does not fit the situation at all. People left this place only when it was necessary to take seats in the stands to watch the demonstration. A lot of foreigners came to this exhibition to "Armata". There was Christopher Foss, Janes' chief armored editor. I even took a picture with him, asked about his impressions. Foss said he had long dreamed of seeing this tank. My German friends came, literally for one day, to see the T-14. There was a familiar specialist from Geneva.
- Let's continue quoting: “An uninhabited tower operating in automatic mode is not just a design feature, it is a new ideology now in the domestic tank building industry. But why did the world tank building ignore this ideology?"
- World tank building is working on this problem. Something turns out, some doesn't. To say that since they do not have this, then we do not need to, it is wrong or not entirely correct: they do not have much of what we have. When we got a diesel T-34, all their tanks were running on gasoline. Their first automatic loader appeared 25 years after it appeared in our country in 1966 on the T-64, that is, around 1990 - from the French on the Leclerc. Such work on the "Leopard" did not go well. The Jordanians made an automatic loader on an experimental machine - on a modernized Challenger. By the way, no one flew into space before us, but this does not mean that we did not have to fly.
- “The booked volume of foreign tanks is historically made much larger than ours, it is not God knows what a difficult technical problem to accommodate the entire crew in the corps. It's just that they consider it wrong to deprive the tank commander of the possibility of a direct all-round view - electronics by electronics, and there is nothing more perfect than the eye. In the T-14, the commander from the vehicle body has a direct visual view only in the 140-160 degree sector (and asymmetrically relative to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle), the rest he must “see” through various sensors and sensors. But these sensors are housed in a separate turret on the turret roof, which is not protected like an armored capsule and, moreover, raises the overall height of the tank to almost three meters. That is, one successful shot from a small-bore cannon, and the Armata is half blind. Moreover, there are plenty of effective means of destruction of radio-electronic equipment (REO) in the world - from the ubiquitous jammers to the latest microwave generators - electromagnetic pulses."
- Placing a crew and all the necessary equipment in a tank is always a problem. By the way, even Western designers admitted to me that they lagged behind us in terms of the layout of the tank. I agree that the optical observation channel is important. I looked at several new designs without an optical channel and asked the developers the same question as the author of the article. They replied that they did a lot of research and testing before choosing this particular option. Note that one channel of electron-optical observation is different from another. There were many complaints from the Americans about the Norwegian-made Kronberg remotely controlled module: many of their own were shot in Iraq. But it should be borne in mind that now on many sighting optoelectronic devices, the image is combined: a high-resolution color television camera and a thermal imager, which gives a picture in black and white. In this case, a picture is obtained with details that the human eye is unable to determine. In addition to all this, we (like Vasiliev) do not know what else is there on the "Armata".
And to get one successful shot, how many unsuccessful ones must be! At this turret, where the sighting and observation complex is located, you must shoot from a small-caliber cannon from a distance of at least two kilometers, otherwise this tank will make a pile of metal out of you even before your shot. It is enough for a tank to make one "unsuccessful" shot with a high-explosive fragmentation projectile, even if it falls nearby, so that an infantry fighting vehicle or an armored personnel carrier with an automatic cannon is destroyed. Let me give you one example. The BMPT "Terminator" has about the same turret. During the tests, she was subjected to shelling with various types of ammunition, including small-caliber ones. Two shells hit the target, but even after that it worked: both the television camera and the thermal imager. With some flaws, but worked the same. Not so simple as it seems at first glance. All these are amateurish antics - oh, I'm going to shoot now …
Now about the hindrances. Will they affect the quality of the signal when it is transmitted to the monitor screen, which is shielded by the tank's armor, and even by braiding the cables? What did Vasiliev mean by hindrance? Unless EMP is an electromagnetic impulse. Since the invention of nuclear weapons on all tanks, starting with the T-55A, all electrical equipment has been shielded taking into account the possible impact of EMP.
Those who have never been in imported tanks write about the booked volume and the comfortable location of the crew. Fortunately, I had a chance to sit in the Leopards, and in the latter - the Leopard-2A7 +. Even in the T-72, in the place of the commander, I felt more comfortable. Placement of the crew in the "Leopard", that in the "Abrams": three people are sitting on top of each other, freer for only one loader. But he needs to rush back and forth with a shot one meter long and weighing 30 kg - manual loading. Whoever has never in his life loaded a tank gun with a regular artillery shot while moving a tank will never understand what it is like for a loader.
- “A feature of the 125-mm 2A82 cannon is the infamous floor-carousel automatic loader, which is designed so that if it hits the turret directly and breaks through the armor, it will inevitably undermine the ammunition load. But here is a nuance - the safety of the crew when the Leopards and Abrams ammunition are detonated is ensured by diverting the explosion energy upward or to the side due to the knockout panel, for which the ammunition is placed outside the reserved volume in a lightly armored turret "lure". But in the T-14, such an explosion will occur inside the tank! So the role of the kickout panel is prepared for a multi-ton tower with expensive equipment (if, of course, the hull can withstand it)."
- What does the automatic loader have to do with it? The gun itself, it can be either with or without an automatic loader. Which machine gun to attach to this gun is a designer's business. And the cannon, which is now in the "Armata", was calculated not for a floor-carousel automatic loader, but for an automatic machine in the tower niche (zamane), like those of the same French. For this gun, there is a new armor-piercing projectile of greater length, which does not fit into the carousel machine gun.
It seems that Vasiliev has no idea how the ammunition load is placed on the Leopard and Abrams. In the zaman they have only a part of the ammunition load - 50-60%. But to destroy the tank, one shot is enough, which will explode inside. They have a knockout panel, but this is not a panacea. There were cases on "Abrams": when the ammunition exploded, the partitions were also bounced. We also have a knockout panel on the T-90MS. I think that all the best that the previous models have is taken for "Armata". On "Armata" the crew is uniquely protected from ammunition. Even if he tears off the tower, the crew will remain intact.
- “The already scanty free booked volume, intended for the crew, has been reduced. Crew members are practically deprived of the ability to move elementary, and ergonomically their position is the same as a sprat in a bank. So it is unclear what it will be like for the crew to leave the car in a critical situation."
- The expression "deprived of the ability to move elementarily" reminds me of a passage by a Western expert on Soviet armored vehicles, who wrote: "Inside the Soviet tanks it is very cramped, it is impossible to stand up in full height with closed hatches."What is it for? I wrote to him: in a luxury Mercedes-600 I also could not stand up to my full height with the hatch closed, but for some reason no one said that this car was uncomfortable. Vasiliev, however, would like to ask: you were in this car to be able to write about "sprats in the bank." I was not inside the "Armata" either, but I was in the previous models.
The critic talks a lot with enthusiasm about western tanks, but does not say that in Leopard there is one personal hatch for the loader, and through the second three people must get out: the commander, gunner and mechanic, because the mechanic cannot get out through his hatch - only his head can stick it out. And in "Armata", as the developers say (and it will be possible to check this over time), the hatches have become larger, there are fewer protrusions, which can be caught inadvertently during disembarkation. To judge this, you must try to get out yourself, preferably in overalls, preferably in winter.
- "The crew members are actually isolated from each other, which excludes their mutual assistance in case of trouble."
- How are they isolated if, according to the author, they sit in one capsule, "like sprats in a bank"?
- "The presence of a powerful armored capsule, the combat weight of the" Armata "in 48 tons (" Leopard "," Abrams "," Merkava "- for 60 tons) relative to the 46, 5-ton T-90 can only mean a simultaneous decrease in the level of armor protection in combat and motor -transmission compartments of the machine. And a tank disarmed or stopped in battle, albeit with a rescued crew, is a lost tank."
- We have one "great" writer (I will not name him) - he writes about tanks, although he has never been in a tank, he only saw the tank on TV. In his opinion, everything is superb in the West, but here … But we must not forget that our tank is always smaller in dimensions than that of competitors. And each additional cubic meter of tank volume is up to five tons of weight gain. I had a chance to communicate with the chief designers of both Abrams and Leclerc. And even they say: the Russian school of tank building is remarkable in that no one in the West can still assemble a tank as tightly, as successfully as the Russians do. Indeed, starting with the T-64, they were packed in such a way that with the minimum volume of the tank, everything was crammed. Competitors also have an impressive size of the engine compartment. And this is an increase in the mass of tons by 10-15. And to say: since we have 48 tons, and they have 60, then our defense is worse, fundamentally wrong.
- “The dimensions of the tank have grown significantly (the height of 3 m was mentioned above). Moving the commander and gunner-operator into the hull behind the driver with the same turret pursuit (after all, the gun with an automatic loader is the same) inevitably leads to an increase in the length of the tank hull; besides, it is not known how much the engine-transmission compartment with the new 1500-horsepower engine added here. And the tank has clearly grown in breadth due to solid anti-cumulative screens. With the same combat weight of 48 tons, the increased size of the tank, obviously, further reduced the overall level of armor protection."
- And here, on the contrary, he reproaches the developers of the T-14 that the size of the tank has grown! The height is 3 meters, but half a meter of them is the same turret weighing no more than 200-250 kg. With its increased size, the tank has an uninhabited tower. Outside, she has a kind of "tin". It's like a lightweight and durable submarine hull. I will explain to the candidate of technical sciences that from the suspended anti-cumulative screens, which increased the dimensions of the vehicle, the mass did not increase, the air that is between the body of the tank and the screen, as a rule, does not give an increase in mass.
- "Having increased the size of the tank and, accordingly, the booked volume, the developers did not lift a finger to increase the free volume to increase the comfort of the crew (even, on the contrary, reduced it to the size of an armored capsule, where the crew members are generally deprived of mobility and occupy a reclining position)."
- Let the author watch a very informative film of the TV program "Military Acceptance", where you can see that in the "Mercedes" it is closer than in the "Armata". I was surprised that the creators of the tank allowed such a detailed shooting of the car inside.
In terms of layout, the designers of the American "Abrams" seriously lagged behind their Russian counterparts. Photo from the site www.army.mil
- The author quotes the words of the tank's developers: "The peculiar angular shape of the Armata turret" reduces the vehicle's visibility in the thermal and radar spectra of observation. " And then came the criticism: “About protection from thermal radiation - patriotic nonsense. The heat source is the engine in the tank hull, not the turret. Something is wrong with the radar radiation too. In theory, the "broken" surface should "throw" it away from the axis of the device-emitter. But for this, such a surface should not have "pockets" - concave cavities, in fact corner reflectors, giving the opposite effect. And on the T-14, judging by the photo, they are present in abundance. We are not told a word about protection from laser radiation, which is the basis of the guidance system of most anti-tank missile systems (ATGM).
- The heat sources in the tank, in addition to the engine, also the chassis (the rollers heat up), shock absorbers, a tower with a lot of electronics, a firing cannon, finally, a cooling system, an air conditioner heat exchanger. If you look at the thermal signature, you can see that the whole case heats up, in different places in different ways. Corner reflectors have always been a means of jamming enemy radar. Now about laser radiation. The T-90 was also equipped with laser radiation detection sensors. Further, aerosol grenades are fired off in automatic mode, an aerosol cloud is created within 1–2 seconds (for western tanks, only after 5–6 seconds).
- “World tank building has 100 years of experience, which shows that a cannon and two or three machine guns are enough for a modern tank, and multi-turret, heavily armed monsters disappeared even before World War II, and not so much because of their size as due to the impossibility of effective firepower management. For what kind of upcoming battle "Armata" may need so many auxiliary weapons, controlled by a maximum of two people, is frankly incomprehensible."
- Let him list the "extra" weapons on the T-14. Or does he want us to do it?
- "SAZ" Afganit ". This is, in fact, ammunition firing in the direction of an ATGM or RPG grenade flying towards the tank and destroying the latter by detonation. Imagine the result of using SAZ, if a tank in battle acts surrounded by its own infantry. It is not for nothing that Western tank builders, despite the complex technical device of the SAZ, avoid its widespread use. ATGM and RPG grenades - relatively slow flying, that is, from an armor-piercing sub-caliber projectile (BPS) and ammunition operating on the principle of "shock core", the SAZ will not save. The location of the Afghanit mortars horizontally under the turret indicates that in the upper hemisphere the tank is completely uncovered by the SAZ and is defenseless against the Hellfire helicopter ATGMs and the Javellin ATGMs attacking from above. To use the SAZ, you need a radar, turning it on, the tank helpfully finds itself on the battlefield."
- If our critic is really a colonel, he should have taken into his hands the "Combat regulations", which described how the infantry operates in conjunction with tanks. What does it mean tanks surrounded by infantry? During the Great Patriotic War, the infantry used to land on tanks as a landing. Now there is no such thing. After the first shot from the tank gun, the infantry will be blown off the tank. In my own experience, during the zeroing period, we placed the tanks close to each other so that we could step from one to the other. I leaned out of the hatch at the gunner's place when a nearby tank fired. The feeling is as if the boxer drove into my forehead! There are sparks in the eyes. I flew down and began to frantically wonder what had happened. In accordance with the "Combat regulations", the infantry runs after the tanks at a distance of 50-100 meters.
About the blow from above. Even on tanks of earlier designs, dynamic protection of even the first generations has proven itself very well in protection from overhead impacts.
Regarding the detection of the tank when the SAZ radar is on. As a rule, a tank is shot at when it is discovered. Accordingly, if the tanks are camouflaged and do not fire, they are not detected by the enemy and no one will turn on the radar of the active protection system. When the battle begins, the tanks, firing from their cannons, will somehow find themselves better than any radar station on. Well, a military man with a scientific degree should understand such things!
“I don’t even want to comment on the“innovativeness”of the“Armata”as a unified tracked platform. An ancient, like the world, method - just remember the domestic self-propelled artillery installations (ACS) of the war years SU-76 and SU-100 based on the T-60 and T-34 tanks, respectively, the post-war 122-mm ACS 2S1 "Carnation" based on armored personnel carrier MT-LB or even modern "novelties" - BMPT "Terminator" and flamethrower TOS-1A "Solntsepek" based on the T-72 tank ".
- Nobody says that this is the first platform in the world. Its innovativeness is in the modularity of execution, there is a different chassis, layout. The systems cited by the critic, as unsuccessful, are based on the T-72. Where this platform is not only used! And the experience of application (which is more than 40 years) is very successful. I think this platform will serve for a long time.
- Now about the "arguments" of other critics. The media, they write, flashed information that "Armata" was made according to Western developments thirty years ago. One German publication wrote about the "Armata": just such a version of the tank was developed in Germany in the 90s to replace the "Leopard" -2, and the Russians copied it.
- Firstly, no one has shared with us thirty-year-old Western developments. Secondly, at the same time, in the late 70s, without knowing about these Western developments, at the Solnechnogorsk test site, tanks were tested without any crews at all. An entire tank platoon "fought" without crews! They shot, hit various targets. However, for various reasons, then it was not possible to implement this development in its final form. So it remains to be seen who copied whom.
- The most harsh critics were the Chinese. Norinko is convinced that its 52-ton VT-4 (MVT-3000) main battle tank is superior to the Russian vehicle in maneuverability and firepower, the quality of automation, and fire control systems. And it's cheaper. Moreover, according to the Chinese tank builders, it was VT-4 that pushed Russia to develop the "Armata".
- We have seen and heard all this: how the Italian armored vehicle "Iveco" is superior to the armored car "Tiger", how the "Centaur" is superior to the BTR-80 - until it came to practice. We saw Chinese products during the Tank Biathlon competition. How many engines have they changed? Let's do some comparative tests and everything will become clear.
- The Chinese (and not only people) remember the annoying stop of the T-14 during the rehearsal for the Victory Parade. Chinese experts believe that the tank has a broken gearbox, as the tractor was unable to move it after several attempts.
- The tractor weighing less than the tank itself could not move it, not because the gearbox broke down - the tank was on the brake. Apparently, one of the blockages worked, which stopped the tank. The fact is that the on-board information and control system reacts to any action by the crew that is not provided for by the operating rules and blocks this incorrect action. For example, incorrect gear shifting. In the case we are discussing, she simply turned off the engine. If the gearbox had been broken, the tank would not have been able to start and drive further after that. In fact, he wound up and drove off. The error occurred due to the lack of training of the crew - they simply did not have time to prepare in a short time.
- Arguments of domestic critics: the creators of "Armata" make the same mistake as the designers of the Wehrmacht, relying on heavy and expensive tanks ("Tiger" and "Panther"). It was impossible to produce them in large quantities. As well as "Armata" - in contrast to the T-90. As a result, a potential enemy will have more tanks, and in combat conditions, the simplicity of equipment is often more valuable than its capabilities.
- To date, many T-14s have already been produced. And this is in a pilot production, with an incompletely rebuilt conveyor. At the same time, the country did not abandon the T-90 of various modifications and even older models. The latest modification of the T-90MS under the Breakthrough-2 program impressed me personally with its comfort, no western tank can compare with it. In the T-90MS all the electronics were changed, there was a lot of space, car seats, steering wheel, automated gear shifting, air conditioning … Even the French Leclerc was bypassed. So these fears are in vain.
- No bells and whistles will protect a beautiful toy from RPG-30 "Hook" produced by NPO "Basalt", assure domestic cassandras. The main advantage of the "Hook" is its bicaliber construction with the use of a target simulator to overcome active defense. The "Hook" penetrates 600-mm armor from a distance of 200-300 meters.
- Show me a tank in the world that would be protected from the RPG-7, not to mention the Hook. If the commander and the crew are not trained, do not know how to fight, then they will be burned with anything - without the "Hook". Some "experts" sometimes cited such an example: they say, in Afghanistan, spooks from a rifle pierced armored personnel carriers and infantry fighting vehicles from a hundred meters. And how did this shooter end up a hundred meters away from the side? What did intelligence and combat support do? The shooter was supposed to be shot a kilometer before the APC. It's the same with tanks. The "experts" say: the tanks have nothing to do in the city, they cannot be sent there to their death. And what can the infantry do in a city without tanks? They'll just interrupt her. Open the "Battle Manual" and read the chapters on organizing combat and organizing interaction. This is the art of fighting. And Hook is one of his episodes. And the task of the commander of the crew of the "Armata" is to make the most of the capabilities of his weapons complex and prevent the enemy from effectively using his weapons, the same grenade launcher.
- 152-mm shells are becoming the main ones in artillery today. It is necessary to establish their production. But this is impossible without the restoration of the TNITI machine-tool plant - the Tula Scientific Research Technological Institute. He is in a deplorable state today. To make a new BPS for "Armata", a changeover of the production line will be required. But the efforts of our defense industry are directed in a slightly different direction, opponents lament. In 2014, Russia signed a contract for the supply of 66,000 Mango tank rounds to India. To do this, supply equipment, technology and organize the production of shells at a plant … in India. And let the factories in Russia continue to languish? And who needs a cool Armata tank without new shells?
- One of the reasons why it did not go into the series "Object 195" (aka the T-95 tank) was that the vehicle was ahead of its time. Like Su-100 and M-50 bombers, like the IS-7 tank, and so on. The T-95 was "hacked to death" by Serdyukov, Makarov and company. There were other reasons as well.
The 125-mm cannon solves all problems today and suits everyone. The time will come - they will put a 152-mm cannon. It has been worked out, tested.
And the fact that Russia is supplying India with tank ammunition is perhaps for the best. The industry earns funds that can be used to improve its own production.
