The Armored Vehicle Thread

T-14 absolutely, T-90 not as much mostly because of it's mobility and weaker armor but it makes up for it with all of it's toys.

But it's close enough to where you can't consider either of them to just be written off.

The “toys” are all junk though, and the Armata is not only unreliable as hell but also burdened with what are essentially 80s/90s-era systems.

The fault is with the execution, not the design. Sure, if they could do a good job of building them and had access to the same technological base then maybe it would be an even match, but they can’t and they don’t.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 8:47:21 AM

Abrams isn't exactly a shiny new object either. A lot of it's systems are very old and it's still lacking a lot of features that really should be standard by now.

No softkill options whatsoever, still no reactive armor, and we're only just now getting a hard kill system in the form of Trophy almost a decade behind the Russians and Israelis. Something that adds a pretty significant chunk of weight to an already overweight vehicle.

The Abrams is entirely too dependent on being a big dumb object with a really powerful engine.

Edited by LeGarcon on Jan 30th 2019 at 11:57:44 AM

Abrams does have a softkill option in an IR jammer system the name of which I don't remember right now. Been there since the 1980s. It might work deflecting an AGM-65 Maverick (or Russian equivalent) and it won't do much if anything to Hellfire/Ataka-V type laser-guided/radar-guided missiles but it's better than nothing.

TUSK options for Abrams have included various marks of reactive armor. Typically mounted to the sides and rear.

Also Trophy has been approved for use on Abrams.

Edited by MajorTom on Jan 30th 2019 at 9:01:47 AM

Even the most modern T-90 is about a decade behind a modernized Abrams in terms of fire control quality. The less that’s said about the reliability of the electronics in the T-90 the better, too. Better optics, clearer night vision, actually useful battle computers, the list goes on. It’s not completely one-sided but the edge goes to the Abrams every time.

Russian softkill and hardkill systems are a joke. Their APS may as well be a coin toss, and Shtora has proven utterly ineffective at deflecting modern ATGMs.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 9:03:22 AM

The angry eyes still work on TOW and other systems that use similar guidance systems, you've said so yourself in the past in this very thread and in the military thread. Shtora is also a broad term and includes the laser warning system, automatic smoke deployment, and the automatic turret slewing that traces the source of the laser. That's also something that works.

My real complaint is that why are the Russians still consistently outperforming us on a conceptual level when it comes to armor development?

We've got the technological base to actually make this stuff work when they don't but they keep beating us to the punch with the concept.

Edited by LeGarcon on Jan 30th 2019 at 12:09:01 PM

The dazzlers work on some TOWs. They don’t work on Javelins, or any of the more modern varieties of ATGM, and the rest of Shtora doesn’t exactly work too well either.

I wouldn’t exactly say the Russians are outperforming us on a conceptual level. They’re coming from a different design base, the focus for them is more on frugality than cutting edge performance. That’s a lesson I think is worth learning, but we should also keep in mind that we can actually afford to have cutting edge performance.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 9:20:12 AM

Nothing works on the Javelin, that's why it's so great.

Which is also why we're replacing TO Ws as secondary weapons on so many of our lighter vehicles, because they don't work on T-90s.

Among a bunch of other probably more important reasons.

Note that I said some TOWs. Most of the modern TOW variants aren’t so easily fooled.

Even the older variants are simply yanked off course, and as we’ve seen in Syria capable operators can still land the hit despite that.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 9:19:45 AM

If we have cutting edge performance why don't we ever use it?

Why is our ERA still worse than the stuff they were using two generations ago? Why has it taken us this long to get a working APS system for our vehicles? Why the hell haven't we ever gotten gun launched ATGMs?

I'll excuse the autoloader because of the immense cost of redesigning a 40 year old turret to accommodate it but if our next doesn't have one I'm sending an angry telegram to the DoD.

If we have a manned turret at all, which we shouldn't.

We're far too reliant on the Abrams being a big dumb object.

Edited by LeGarcon on Jan 30th 2019 at 12:33:06 PM

To answer those questions in order: we do, it isn’t, because we wanted a system that actually works, and because we don’t particularly need them in our order of battle.

Why do you think the Russians pushed a barely-functional APS system out the door? Because they know their composite armor isn’t up to scratch, thanks to a struggling materials science field. They use last-gen French fire control kits because they know domestic designs aren’t going to meet that mark. They have gun-launched ATG Ms because they don’t expect significant air or infantry support.

Like I said, they’re working from a very different position than we are. They have a very different order of battle, and they know where they’re weak and compensate for it.

But there's still a lot of stuff that we can use that we don't.

Imagine if our big dumb object of an Abrams had double it's current engagement range with an ATGM option for example.

Edited by LeGarcon on Jan 30th 2019 at 12:44:05 PM

Well I mean that would certainly be nice, but it doesn’t really need to be able to do that in our order of battle so blowing a bunch of money on the capability doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for us.

I’ll also point out that the Abrams has significantly higher tactical maneuverability than Russian tanks, and its cutting edge fire control means it can use that to get the jump on enemies with ease. We need a tank that fills our MBT role, not the Russian MBT role.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 9:54:33 AM

There is no advantage in being the shorter ranged tank. We learned this in World War Two.

Wasn’t everyone just saying we should move past WW2 lessons like a page ago?

Russian tanks don’t fight with the expectation of air cover, US tanks do. Likewise US tanks almost always move in concert with anti-tank teams, while Russian anti-tank capabilities are more defensively focused and don’t always accompany the spearhead.

I’m somewhat skeptical of gun-launched ATGMs anyway. An external launcher is a much better choice there.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 10:00:35 AM

I mean the Russians have been making it work for decades now to great effect without too many issues.

Our problems with the concept were mostly us trying to make the ATGM the primary weapon for a light tank rather than another ammunition choice for a big one

Last I read, everything in the Russian arsenal from 1945 to today was designed for being on the offensive, not defensive. Including ATGM teams who would quickly deploy from their BTR's and BMP's as the rest of their motorized rifle and tank divisions moved alongside.

The range advantages of gun launched ATGM's on the offensive is phenomenal in its potential to easily bust up tanks and bunkers before the enemy can even clearly see you. It takes a lot less time to fire off 1 or 2 gun-launched missiles at a target from 8000 meters away free of retaliation than it takes to wait for air support or artillery.

It's for both, remember Russia's battleplan for WW3 was basically broken into two parts.

One was the fast blitz through Europe to try and knock them out of the fight and then the second half was staging a long and deep defensive to wear us Americans down when we took Europe back from them.

Their heavy use of mechanized infantry helps a lot with the first half and Russian tanks have a lot of qualities to help with the second.

Defense in depth was pretty much their whole Cold War strategy, after the initial breakout they expected to be defending for most of the engagements. Those mobile anti-tank teams were going to be harassing NATO armor through Europe.

But what’s the advantage a gun launched missile has over one carried externally? Externally carried missiles are something being explored for a future US tank, and it’s the exact same capability with none of the drawbacks.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 10:10:10 AM

Seemingly they don't have any major ones unless you count taking up internal ammo stowage as a downside.

It's also loaded and fired exactly like a normal tank shell with no real fuss or need for separate stations or wiring or anything like that.

Well, the main downside is that the missile is by necessity very small. A bigger missile is more useful. The firing process isn’t exactly identical either, the gun does need to be able to accommodate missiles. If we’re designing a whole new gun for a new tank it would be trivial to add the capability, but an existing gun might not have it.

Well sounds like Rheinmetall better put some work in on that 130mm

And the size doesn't seem to affect it's payload the gun launched ATGMs are showing penetration easily on par with any standalone system.

Edited by LeGarcon on Jan 30th 2019 at 1:24:14 PM

Even that’s not as big as you’d like for a full-size ATGM. They usually run around 150mm and up.

The part about similar performance isn’t true. To use a Russian example, Refleks has significantly poorer performance than a full size ATGM like a Kornet. You either get the same payload and less than half the range, or the same range and less than half the payload, basically.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 10:27:59 AM

Javelin is rated for 800mm, TOW is rated for 900mm, and the current gen Refleks is also rated for 900mm.

If you wanna go back further the old Kobra ATGM was 600mm which was also considered to be excellent back in the 70s when it came out.

If you wanna use the Kornet as the yardstick then it blows just about everything we've ever fielded out of the water with it's 1300mm of penetration.

Edited by LeGarcon on Jan 30th 2019 at 1:31:30 PM

Given the size of the warhead I find that figure a little hard to believe for the Refleks (and the Kornet too for that matter), but like I said note that’s at the cost of it having less than half the effective range of a conventional ATGM.

I’ll also point out that Abrams have been known to engage at 4000+ meters, and Refleks only reaches out to 5000 meters, making it a little questionable over a regular shell. If you’re going to have a missile you want to get range from it, and if it’s going to go down your gun barrel and have a long range that means a small warhead.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 10:37:25 AM