The Russians Can't Afford Their T-14 Tank

More than three years after Russia’s T-14 Armata tank made its widely touted and much scrutinized public debut, the country has made it clear it has no plans at present to buy more than 100 of them. The design’s ballooning cost has forced the Kremlin to focus its efforts on upgrading its T-72, T-80, and T-90 tanks, instead.

In 2015, Oleg Sienko, then-Chief Executive Officer of Uralvagonzavod, or UVZ, the T-14’s state-owned manufacturer and Russia’s largest producer of tanks, had said that he expected the Kremlin to order as many as 2,300 Armatas by 2020. The first examples made their initial public appearance ahead of the annual Victory Day parade in Moscow that year and one suffered an embarrassing break down during a rehearsal. The Russian government's planned purchases of the type have steadily shrunk since then.

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The Russian MoD has Ordered two Battalions of T-14 Armata Tanks

Russian Deputy Defence Minister Yuri Borisov has confirmed an order for two battalions of T-14 main battle tanks (MBTs), the Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported on its website on 9 February.

The order for the T-14 MBTs and T-15 heavy infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) is understood to have been placed in December 2017. Touring the Uralvagonzavod factory in Nizhny Tagil, Russia, Borisov said, “It’s no secret that we already have a contract for trials and combat operations: two battalions of Armata tanks and one battalion of heavy infantry fighting vehicles.” Both vehicles are based on the Armata common platform.

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This is, iirc, only 60 tanks and 30 IFVs.

They are for evaluation and extended trials.

A Bad Sign for the Russian T-14 Armata

Russia's Ministry of Defense (MoD) is planning to bring back into service some of its mothballed T-80BV main battle tanks (MBTs) and to update them, according to a source in the country's defence industry.

"At present, the preparative works to start the modernisation of the first T-80BV MBTs are at a final stage," the source told IHS Jane's . "In accordance with the programme developed by Omsktransmash and the Special Design Bureau for Transport Machine-Building [SKBTM], the overhaul and modernisation of the MoD's T-80BV tanks will be launched next year. [We will be doing] the relevant works at the Omsktransmash facility," the source said adding that the numbers of the tanks to be updated and the terms of the programme will be defined by the military.

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US Army Wants a new Tank by 2035

The US Army wants its Next Generation Combat Vehicle to serve as pack master to a swarm of crawling and flying robots. It wants lighter weapons with heavier firepower, able to aim almost straight up to shoot drones out of the sky and hit rooftop snipers. It wants miniaturized missile defenses to shoot down incoming anti-tank weapons. It wants suspension, underbody, and crew compartments designed from the ground up (literally) to resist landmines and roadside bombs. It wants diesel-electric engines — like a giant Prius — or other advanced motors that can power an array of jammers, sensors, and drone-killing lasers.

Given Russian advances and our own aging hardware, the Army also wants all this, or something close, by 2035. That means research and development must get started now, when budgets are already tight.

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Plans and Progress on Russia's T-14 Armata Tank

Some data on Russia’s armor programs appearing in the media prior to Tank Troops’ Day (11 September) didn’t get too much notice.

RIA Novosti interviewed the chief of the MOD’s Main Automotive and Armor Directorate (GABTU), General-Lieutenant Aleksandr Shevchenko on 9 September.

General-Lieutenant Shevchenko noted that the MOD plans to “modernize” new Tigr armored vehicles, and not just by mounting a 30-mm gun. They will, not surprisingly, go by the name Tigr-2. But no other details.

Shevchenko confirmed Uralvagonzavod’s announcement that it has delivered more than 1,000 T-72B3 tanks. He also indicated that the MOD will receive 300 improved T-72B3. The improved T-72B3, he says, will have a better engine and better defensive and targeting systems.

Some number of Russian T-90 tanks nearing the end of their service lives will be modernized under the “Proryv-3” program, according to the GABTU chief. The resulting tank is supposed to be superior to the original T-90.

Regarding the Armata armored vehicle family, Shevchenko reported that the “experimental” lot of T-14 tanks will conclude initial field trials in 2016 and move into state testing. This will be completed in 2017 and followed by formal state acceptance of the T-14.

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Russia has Ordered the First 100 T-14 Armata Tanks.

The Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) has signed an agreement with manufacturer Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) for the supply of a test consignment of more than 100 T-14 Armata main battle tanks (MBTs), the first units of which are already undergoing field trials, Deputy Minister of Defence Yuri Ivanovich Borisov told local media on 6 September.

"The first batch has already been purchased from Uralvagonzavod. We have a contract for the pilot batch of more than 100 units," Borisov said.

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T-14 Armata Tank Manufacturer Uralvagonzavod on the Cusp of Bankruptcy?

Maybe Russia’s economy is muddling through its downturn. But for some major enterprises, the situation seems somewhat worse. Tank and railcar maker Uralvagonzavod (UVZ) is a case in point.

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US Army Testing Foriegn Active Protection Systems for Tanks

The US Army is turning to foreign systems for an interim solution for advanced protection for its combat vehicles against rocket-propelled grenades, anti-tank guided missiles and other threats.

The service’s effort to rapidly integrate already developed solutions is heating up this summer as the Army tests out what will likely be four different solutions on M1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Stryker combat vehicles.

Such threats like RPGs aren’t just resident in one theater, but are problems world-wide for armored combat vehicles and it’s only growing, particularly in the Central and European Command area of operations.

Partly spurring the effort is the possibility that Russia is ahead of the US Army when it comes to armor protection as evidenced by the reported survivability of its tanks when up against Ukrainian anti-tank and anti-armor weapons in the ongoing conflict along Ukraine’s border with Russia.

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Rhenmetall Shows off its 130mm Tank gun

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Panzer Kampf! Germans Developing a new 130mm Tank gun

Rheinmetall is developing a 130mm smoothbore tank gun that will be unveiled at the Eurostatory exhibition in June, company officials have confirmed to IHS Jane's .

According to Werner Kraemer, president of Rheinmetall Waffe Munition's executive board, the new 130 mm gun should be in production by 2025.

The new tank gun is intended to be a match for the current and new generations of Russian armoured fighting vehicles (AFVs), including the T-14 Armata main battle tank (MBT).

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US Army M-1 Tanks Deployed to the Republic of Georgia

Few things highlight a nation’s military power better than a column of tanks. As the United States and Russia vie for influence in Europe, the Pentagon has come to see armored vehicles as an important, if often slow, show of force.

That’s why a team of M-1 Abrams main battle tanks made the long journey to the Republic of Georgia in early May 2016. They were the U.S. Army’s first tanks to ever visit Georgia, which fought a brief, violent war with Russia in 2008.

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US Army Wants Active Protection Systems for Armored Fighting Vehicles

Alarmed by deadly battles in Ukraine, the Army wants to place miniaturized missile defense systems on its armored vehicles to protect them from anti-tank weapons. To reach this high-tech holy grail, which has painfully evaded the service in the past, the Army is taking a two-track approach. The fast track, as we’ve written previously, is to test off-the-shelf systems, like the Israeli Trophy, that are used today. But today’s defenses may fail against tomorrow’s missiles.

That’s why the Army is also pursuing a long-term alternative, a Modular Active Protection System designed to be easily improved as new dangers emerge. The vision for MAPS is a suite of plug-and-play defenses adaptable to different threats and to different Army vehicles.

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T-90 Tank Appears to Have Survived TOW Missile Hit

For all the videos coming out of the Syrian civil war, a one minute, 31-second clip of a U.S.-made TOW missile slamming into a T-90 tank got more attention than most. In the video uploaded in February, Russia’s most advanced operational battle tank met one of the United States’ main tank killers on the battlefield.

The T-90 was Russian made, but likely crewed by Syrian troops. The missile was supplied by the United States — most likely via Saudi Arabia or the CIA — to the Hawks Mountain Brigade fighting near Aleppo.

For the participants, the whole experience might have been terrifiying. For most of the rest of the world, it was a chance to see what happens when state-of-the-art hardware from two major world powers violently collide in the Middle East.

The only good news is that nobody appeared to get killed. What happened to the tank … well, no one who watched the video was exactly sure.

We saw the wire-guided missile bob toward the T-90, which was parked on a crest between two low-slung buildings. Then the missile hit the tank’s turret with a tremendous flash which sent up a cloud of smoke. One of the crew members bailed and the video ended.

There was no fire and the tank didn’t “brew up,” meaning the fuel tank didn’t ignite and burn the crew to death. (The Syrian army has lost thousands of tanks since the war began in 2011.) This one, it seemed, survived.

A recent photograph circulated on Russian military forums shows what the tank looked like after impact. Sure enough, the T-90’s Kontakt-5 reactive armor appeared to save it. Reactive armor explodes outwards and stops incoming missiles from penetrating into the tank and killing the crew.

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Parts of the Russian T-14 Tank Were 3d Printed

The Russian defense industry has been using 3D printing technology to create prototype components for the T-14 main battle tank and the rest of the Armata family of combat vehicles. Eventually, Russian industry hopes to be able to build production standard tank components for the Armata and other armored vehicles.

“3D printing has been implemented to speed up trial production,” Anton Ulrich, manager of the rapid prototyping lab at Electromashina, told 3Ders.org.

“When a designer develops new products, he uses CAD software to produce a 3D model. So, using a 3D printer, we can quickly turn those 3D models into prototype parts. Now there is no need to order a sample component, and then, realizing that it doesn’t fit, have to order a re-run and waste metal. Furthermore, it is possible to produce not just small elements of a part, but the whole assembly, evaluating its mechanical characteristics before production.”

In the near future, Electromashina — which is a division of armored vehicle manufacturer UralVagonZavod — expects to start producing 3D printed titanium parts that are several meters in length for use in armored vehicles. However, in the short term, those components will be used for prototypes rather than for production machines.

“3D printed components can go straight to consumers in certain industries,” Ulrich told the trade magazine. “But in the defense industry, standards are much higher.”

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China Retiring Type 89 120mm Assault Guns

After 24 years of service, the PLA is now starting to decommission its 120mm Assault Gun fleet, the Type89. Unlike other Chinese AFV, The type89 is the only one of its kind with a NATO 120mm smoothbore main gun which is somewhat of a logistic nightmare to support. The standard PLA caliber is the 125mm in common with the Russian practice.

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Israel Converting Merkava 2 Tanks to Command, Logistics and Ambulance Vehicles

Superseded in frontline service by both the Merkava Mk 3 and Mk 4 variants, the Mk 2s that were produced in the 1980s have been held in reserve for years, but the IDF says it will cease training personnel to operate the tanks in the coming months.

The IDF says the retired tanks will be converted into battlefield logistics carriers, casualty evacuation, and command post vehicles. The IDF has already produced one prototype for the logistics role and a second is currently being produced for casualty evacuation. The Armored Corps is looking at additional possible roles and has not completed its decision-making process. The IDF declined to say how many Merkavas will ultimately be converted.

The Merkava Mk 2 conversion programme "came from the understanding that we can and should convert the purpose of old platforms for other needs. This both serves the needs of soldiers and saves on expenses," it said.

The platform is the latest in a series of attempts by Israel's defence establishment to create better-protected APCs to replace its fleet of thousands of M113 vehicles, which have been in service since the 1970s.

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British Decide to Scrap new Tank Program, Prolong Life of Challenger 2 due to Cost

Deciding that purchasing a new main battle tank would be too expensive, the British Army will likely stick with what has long been its plan A and proceed with a Challenger 2 life extension project (LEP) starting early next year, the Ministry of Defence said.

“During the concept phase of CR2 Life Extension Project (LEP) all options, from do nothing to buying a new tank, have been considered. As it stands, the manufacture and costs of a new main battle tank make it unlikely that the Army would seek this option. CR2 will be taken forward and the LEP is scheduled to enter the assessment phase in early 2016,” an MoD spokesman said.

Challenger 2 was essentially sidelined in the 2010 strategic defense and security review (SDSR), with the number of operational tanks slashed and capabilities allowed to atrophy. The question of how to keep Challenger 2 viable was given new impetus by the re-emergence of Russia as a strategic threat and the appearance of the new T-14 Armata main battle tank at a Moscow military parade in April.

The admission that a new tank was probably beyond the reach of the Army follows a recent media report that said the Army was considering such a move.

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British Looking to Build new Tank to Replace Challenger 2 in Response to T-14 Armata

Senior British Army officers and procurement officials are examining the future of the BAE Systems Challenger 2 main battle tank (MBT), including possibly buying a new vehicle.

The effort is a continuation of a project launched more than a decade ago to upgrade the British Army's tank fleet, but earlier this year army chiefs ordered a wider effort to look at radical solutions to the increasing obsolescence of the service's 227 Challenger 2s.

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Russian Tourists Fighting in Syria

A Russian Documentary on the T-14 Armata Tank

I'm not thrilled with the style, but its pretty much the same sort as what's being done in the US these days for similar subjects.  Watch for the propaganda.