Saturday, June 24, 2017

Russia's Next-Generation Main Battle Tank Can Fire Missiles At Twice The Range Of America's Abrams Tank

T-14 tanks with the Armata Universal Combat Platforms. © SPUTNIK/ EVGENY BIYATOV

Popular Mechanics: Russia's T-14 Tank Can Outshoot America's by Miles

The T-14 Armata will kill tanks from three times as far, but does it matter?

Russia's next-generation main battle tank can fire an anti-tank missile at targets more than seven miles away. That gives the T-14 Armata tank, set to begin testing with the Russian Army in 2019, nearly twice the range of the America's latest version of the venerable Abrams, the M1A2 SEP V3. Whether this extended range is all the useful is another matter.

The T-14 is a formidable-looking beast. Armed with a new 125-millimeter main gun, an unmanned turret, modular armor, and an active protection system designed to shoot down incoming missiles, the vehicle has caused a stir within NATO's tank community. One particularly dangerous feature is the Armata's ability to destroy targets at ranges of up to 12 kilometers, or 7.4 miles.

Read more ....

WNU editor: If the enemy has the ability to fire at you at a range that you cannot .... that never ends well for the one who cannot fire back.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Uhm yeah, but those tanks will never see american tanks.. .why? if russian and american tanks ever see each other, there won't be a tank battle.. the tanks are just sitting targets

fazman said...

It would be 91 again but this time Abrams is the T72!

fazman said...

It would be 91 again but this time Abrams is the T72!

Caecus said...

The T-72s in 91' were only export models, or worse, the Iraqi copy called the "Asad Babil" (Lion of Babylon).

As far as I know, no Abrams model is even equipped with anti-tank missiles. The Russians have been fitting them at least since the T-55/62 models. The Russian tanks fire the missile through the main gun.

RussInSoCal said...

There is the question of production. Can Russia build this rank in sufficient numbers? This tank looks expensive to produce.

War News Updates Editor said...

You nailed it right there RussInSoCal. Manufacturing these tanks have been (and will be) a problem for Russia.

James said...

Caecus,
Do you have an idea of what their rate of launch is? I'd be curious to know.

fazman said...

Yeah but apart from crap locally produced ammo the other problem was they simply lacked engagement ranged compared to the Abrams and were getting nailed without getting off a shot.
This will be the fate of the Abrams in the unlikely event of these 2 meeting in the Fulda gap.

fazman said...

Thay what they thought in 91 even with 100% air superiority major tank on tank battles still occured.

Jay Farquharson said...

The Korzina 6GTs-15 autoloader in the T-80/90 allows a rate of fire of one round every 6 seconds, and has a cartridge load of 24 rounds.


Because the 9M122 Cobra and it's successors, are a "folding missile" to fit in the cartridge, and use a manually added "ejection charge" to fire the missile out the barrel, the process is the autoloaded loads the missile head, unfolds the tail, the gunner rams the unfolded missile into the breech, adds a bagged ejection charge, and closes the breech.

Because it's a 3 stage process, it increases loading time to 10-15 seconds.

Loading times are based on T-80 times. It's not known if the T-90 is faster, and the Armata is a unknown.

While manually loaded Western tank guns are initially faster, 3 seconds for shells, 6 seconds for missiles, in a prolonged gunnery engagement, loaders tire and slow down, quickly,

and the actual tank firing speed limit is how fast a gunner/commander team can acquire and engage targets, not loading rates.

Massed tanks firing massed indirect fire as an artillary augumentation hasn't been used since the crossing of the Rhine.

Caecus said...

The missile also has to be guided to the target before you can fire again. So it also depends on the speed of the missile and the distance to the target. Refleks has a speed of 350m/s and a max flight time of 17 sec. The newer model used in the T-14 is the Invar-M which obviously has a greater range.

Jay Farquharson said...

Wiki claims a firing rate for the gun at 10 -12 rounds a minute, so a 5-6 second loading time, so about the same as the T-80/90,

It also notes that the gunners sight, and the commanders sight can be slaved to each other, but only the gunners sight has a laser designator,

If a laser designator were added to the commander's sight, they could have two missiles in the air, at the same time, on two different targets.

On the other hand, I don't think a Soviet/Russian tank, even in export, has ever fired a gun missile in anger. Probably too expensive and technical for the limited wars they have been used in.