Posted on 06/01/2017 6:18:38 AM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
A Russian innovation in armoured warfare has pushed Norway to replace many of its current anti-tank systems.
Active protection systems (APS) are being built into Russia's new Armata T-14 tank, posing a problem for a whole generation of anti-armour weapons, not least the US-supplied Javelin guided missile, used by the Norwegian Army.
The warning comes from Brig Ben Barry of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in London. He says this is a problem that most Nato countries have barely begun to grapple with.
APS threatens to make existing anti-tank weapons far less effective, and there is little real discussion of this among many Western militaries, he says.
Some countries are conducting research and trials to equip their own tanks with APS. "But they seem to miss the uncomfortable implications for their own anti-armour capabilities," he says.
Norway is one of the first Nato countries to grasp this nettle. Its latest defence procurement plan envisages spending 200-350m kroner (£18.5-32.5m; $24-42m) on replacing its Javelin missiles, "to maintain the capacity to fight against heavy armoured vehicles".
"There is a need for [an] anti-tank missile," it says, "that can penetrate APS systems".
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
What’s Armata?
Nuthin’ much, what’s Armata with you?................
I suppose there is a role for tanks still but how they did in the Iraqi campaigns seems to show they are very vulnerable to smart munitions from above.
I believe that once a significant form of rail gun technology gets moved into the ground forces, tanks will go the way of the horsed cavalry.
Even a small tungsten penetrator, going at 15% of the speed of light, will destroy any vehicle, and cannot be stopped by any system of defense.
The battlefield will once again be owned by the foot soldier.
Hope it scares the EU into paying for its own defense.
There are several landscapes where the T-14 would not be much of a big deal. In a forest environment, like western Russia or in Europe? I think it’d have an advantage. If you put in some mobile AD systems within the T-14 mix...keeping helicopters and fighters at a fair distance...the only thing left to worry about is the Predator systems.
I would be curious to see if the T-14 is made for sales value, or for Russian offense/defense.
I would say yes, this is concerning.
It’s the first modern Russian tank with the gun depression to fight like a Western tank - hull down behind a hill with just the turret exposed. It’s got a tried and proven active protection system to ward off most missiles or RPGs and a secondary function of being able to slew the gun onto the party that fired the missile at it; it can even automatically track and lead a helicopter gunship. The crew sit in the front of the hull in a heavily armored cell so if the tank is fighting hull down and the exposed turret gets hit, the crew are far less likely to be injured or killed and the tank is more likely to be able to motor off back to somewhere it can be repaired with no loss of crew, only a ruined turret.
Even if such a complicated APS works reliably, there are ways around it. It won't make Ivan invincible, just have to work at it a little bit.
You would need a tracked vehicle to be able to carry a railgun capable of breaching tank armor and the associated power plant. What do you call a tracked vehicle with a big gun and enough armor to ensure infantry don’t annoy the occupants?
A tank.
Interesting. The tank is relatively light - I assume because the crewless turret needs less armor. Many self proclaimed experts in the U.S. have pushed to make the next generation of tanks with a crewless turret, which I believe is a bad idea.
The US has been relying on its 1980s Abrams and 1990s Javelin designs way too long...
:o)
all we have to do is put stealth on missiles and the system is defeated
we can also jam the radar
If this is Arena III or IV, it has multiple sensors including IR and millimeter wave radar. Arena III has been shown to be able to resist jamming well enough to protect the tank despite that.
Pod of rockets is interesting, but it can see those and one optional function at the track commander’s discretion is basically counterbattery. You show up with a helicopter gunship and start rippling off FFAR rockets at the tank, the turret will snap around and the gun will elevate and track your helicopter, faster than the normal gun traverse which was already quick. All the gunner has to do is pull the trigger and send a 120mm greeting card to ruin your day.
Did I mention that Arena networks between multiple tanks operating together and can assign countermeasure targets for each tank in the unit? And it can fire at least 26 times before the system needs to be reloaded on each tank.
A stealth missile would cost more than the tank it was being used to kill. Also, a radar-stealthy missile still cannot solve the problem that it would be *highly* visible on IR - you can see a B2 flying through the air at night on IR if you get close enough from the heated leading edges of the wings. Nosecone of the missile, to say nothing of the RED HOT GLOWING ROCKET MOTOR would kind of tend to give that away.
Jamming has certain possibilities, sure. But in, say, urban warfare, jamming isn’t going to be terribly effective and you can’t generally get good artillery or close air support. Something about the buildings getting in the way.
Remember the neutron bomb? Designed specificaly to deal with the USSR’s tank superiority. Carter took it out, nothing in return.
Maybe I am wrong but the T-14 seems to have a much higher profile than Soviet Tanks starting with the T-54/55.
Our own tanks are highly vulnerable to an ERW or ‘neutron bomb’ - more so than Russian designs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb#Effectiveness_in_modern_anti-tank_role
“However, some tank armor material contains depleted uranium (DU), common in the US’s M1A1 Abrams tank, which “incorporates steel-encased depleted uranium armour”, a substance that will fast fission when it captures a fast, fusion-generated neutron, and thus on fissioning will produce fission neutrons and fission products embedded within the armor, products which emit among other things, penetrating gamma rays.”
Ok, there is no counter, the perfect weapon system
History says you are wrong
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