Armata soon to be in service.

[c3k]

(this never happened)

 

Google the story lol

 

Hence the "apocryphal" comment. It is, as noted, a great story that should not allow the truth to get in the way.  

[Battlefront.com]

They can definitely afford their current plan for experimental production. Mass production copies are going to be cheaper. From what I understand, they wanna gain more advantage through decease of numbers of different types of equipment. Which should seriously decrease overall costs and be far cheaper than previous vehicle creation model, and far more easy to maintain in future compared  to the current fleet. I'll expand this thought below.

Not from where I sit. First, at the moment Russia can only afford its current experimental path, and maintain it's current forces, if it sacrifices something somewhere. You can see in the current budget that social services, pensions, paychecks for government employees, etc. are suffering from the worsening economic crisis, but the military spending has increased. Even with the increase in military spending there have been cutbacks in some areas. The major expenses for waging war in Ukraine and posturing its forces in an offensive manner are certainly costing the Kremlin a lot of money that is coming at the expense of other things.

So I'd say it is not certain that the current program can be maintained as intended, not to mention go into full scale production in the near future. Possibly, but not definitely. Obviously if oil goes back up to $110+ then things look much better. But nobody is expecting that to happen for a very long time.

Second, absolutely for sure the new streamlining of vehicles will have a positive effect on logistics for those units which are outfitted with those vehicles. But Russia is still going to maintain a massive amount of older hardware in addition to these new vehicles. Which means that Russia's logistics are going to become MORE complicated instead of less. At least for the next 15-20+ years. Additional thoughts below.

 

No no no. It looks like we haven't discussed it enough. The question of hardware specifics and technology is actually very important. I'll ask you again, what are the high tech features they need to master that haven't been done in Russia yet? For Armata MBT.

I think Russia is very capable of tackling any one specific aspect, therefore I do not think there is any one thing that is a problem with Russia's current strategy. To me it is a "sum of the parts" problem. If I were in charge I'd try to see where some of the challenges could be put off for another day. This is how we we built CMx2. Nothing in CMx2 was beyond our capabilities as developers, but if we tried to put EVERYTHING in at once we would have failed. Battlecruiser 3000 is a perfect example.

 

And back to overall picture, production efficiency and commonality. If you'll look at existing Russian fleet of vehicles, and I mean ALL of them, including medium and heavy arty, SHORADs, command vehicles, etc, you'll see that they are a giant, giant mess, that uses all kinds of chassis. Even utility MT-LB is not used as a command vehicle. There's a separate MT-LBu chassis. Tunguska? Different chassis. 2S1 Gvozdika/2S34 Chosta? Different chassis. 2S3 Akatsiya? Different chassis. Msta-S? Unified with... T-80.

So the day they start producing A/K/B they are suddenly have none of these other vehicles to worry about? Of course not. So when is Russia projecting that these vehicles will all be retired? 2030?

 

It's a freaking zoo.

Yes, and the intention of the program to simplify everything into a few families is extremely smart. It is how all Western countries operate (at least in theory). I also understand that Russia has to start somewhere and that there is going to be a period of painful transition. My point is for a transition to happen they must produce new vehicles which are affordable enough to manufacture and field in quantities sufficient to replace all the old stuff. Otherwise they are not much better off than they are today. I do not see that happening because, I think, the designs being explored now are too ambitious for such a massive scale of production.

Obviously I could be totally wrong, but I don't think my skepticism is without merit or historical precedence. I'm pretty sure Russia planned to be operating only T-90s, BMP-3, and BTR-82 by this time.

 

Steve

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

 

 

The height of the horses in this thread is too damn high, time some necks were wound in to be honest.

 

Think there's some bridges that might need their trolls disposed of too.  

 

Steve summed up what I was getting at in a more orderly/coherent manner at least.  Sure it's only so much of the budget, but if you struggled to afford fairly  upgrades when the economy was similar/better at the height of oil prices, and now the economy is not doing as well, it lends to a skepticism that if accomplishing a small goal was hard with more money, why accomplishing a big goal with less money is reasonable.  Nothing has changed to make the Russian economy better, and nothing has changed to make large scale procurement of brand new trackpad to antenna AFVs cheaper.  

 

So if things go according to plan, interesting.  But clearly there's more than a few reasons to have doubts, both economic and technical about the program.

[Battlefront.com]

The height of the horses in this thread is too damn high, time some necks were wound in to be honest.

I totally agree. People who think there is absolutely no reason to be skeptical, and that the skeptics (who have explained their positions in detail) are fools, need to have their "necks wound in" because obviously they are defending a position based on nothing but blind faith.

I give LnL top marks for debating the points of skepticism that have been raised here. He has certainly caused me to take a second, third, and even fourth look at my position to see if I've maybe missed something. So far I have seen nothing that indicates I have, therefore I am now more confident of my position than I was when I first made it.

Specifically, LnL has made me realize the core of my skepticism comes down to three major points:

1. Although Russia is fully capable of tackling any individual part of its plan, I have doubts that it can tackle all of them in the allotted timeframe, on budget, with an outcome that justifies the investment.

2. Russia has already shown that it can not afford to pursue this strategy (at least short term) without a noticeable negative impact on non-military spending. In fact, there are indications that it can not afford to pursue this strategy without a negative impact on its military spending. This calls into question Russia's ability to fully fund the plan without significant compromises to it (I include delays as a compromise).

3. In order to fulfill the important goal of streamlining/simplifying Russian military design, production, support, and costs it has to produce a family of vehicles that are capable of being produced in very large numbers in a relatively short period of time (say, 5-10 years). Not only does this seem unlikely, it does not appear that Russia is even planning on doing this.

Notice that I've removed my "compete with NATO" point, as requested by LnL. If there is no intention to produce something that can go toe-to-toe with NATO equivalents then the overall plan is not flawed in that way. Though I still think it's flawed in the sense that they are taking on a lot of risks to compete against it's own hardware that's in the hands of much smaller neighbors who (generally) don't post much of a military risk even with today's hardware.

Steve

[Stagler]

This is boiling down to, "your not going to do this! You cant do this because of x y z" - "oh yes we are" - "oh no your not". Its like a panto. Nobody wants to listen to the other sides point anyway and nobody is going to change their mind.

My point is that we are all battling over speculation at the end of the day. Cmbs first expansion wont have this stuff in anyway, and I cant see that being until at least Christmas release at least. Lets pick this topic up at Christmas time when time has passed.

Simples.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Stagler

[L0ckAndL0ad]

Not from where I sit. First, at the moment Russia can only afford its current experimental path, and maintain it's current forces, if it sacrifices something somewhere. You can see in the current budget that social services, pensions, paychecks for government employees, etc. are suffering from the worsening economic crisis, but the military spending has increased. Even with the increase in military spending there have been cutbacks in some areas. The major expenses for waging war in Ukraine and posturing its forces in an offensive manner are certainly costing the Kremlin a lot of money that is coming at the expense of other things.

So I'd say it is not certain that the current program can be maintained as intended, not to mention go into full scale production in the near future. Possibly, but not definitely. Obviously if oil goes back up to $110+ then things look much better. But nobody is expecting that to happen for a very long time.

Second, absolutely for sure the new streamlining of vehicles will have a positive effect on logistics for those units which are outfitted with those vehicles. But Russia is still going to maintain a massive amount of older hardware in addition to these new vehicles. Which means that Russia's logistics are going to become MORE complicated instead of less. At least for the next 15-20+ years. Additional thoughts below.

 

Given the fact of where exactly you sit, compared to where I actually sit, you'd have to do more than citing oil prices and drawing some conclusions to prove your point. At the same time, you were the one who said that their current plan is very realistic, so I don't understand the change of heart really.

 

I think Russia is very capable of tackling any one specific aspect, therefore I do not think there is any one thing that is a problem with Russia's current strategy. To me it is a "sum of the parts" problem. If I were in charge I'd try to see where some of the challenges could be put off for another day. This is how we we built CMx2. Nothing in CMx2 was beyond our capabilities as developers, but if we tried to put EVERYTHING in at once we would have failed. Battlecruiser 3000 is a perfect example.

 

Okay, so you do not think that there's anything they can't do technology-wise in that regard. Noted!

 

The sum of the parts problem is less concerning in my understanding, and in practice. I will remind you that BMP-3 was faulty as hell when it first came into service. It took many years to correct those things. At the same time, it did not stop them from making them. And it did not stop other countries from buying it. That's your theoretical conclusions crush against real practices here.

 

So the day they start producing A/K/B they are suddenly have none of these other vehicles to worry about? Of course not. So when is Russia projecting that these vehicles will all be retired? 2030?

 

Just as your same question at the start of your post, yeah, that's a solid concern. Previous plan was to have 70% upgraded fleet by 2020 (NOT by newgen vehicles, just upgraded/repaired), but it was cancelled into another one that should come up in 2018, so I don't know the details. You are, however, missing the point. I was talking about production of new parts, about industry. As they produce new stuff, existing fleet can still be supported, but in decreased numbers, where some of the old vehicles are cannibalized for parts. The main point here is to start producing new stuff, instead of wasting resources on producing old designs.

 

Yes, and the intention of the program to simplify everything into a few families is extremely smart. It is how all Western countries operate (at least in theory). I also understand that Russia has to start somewhere and that there is going to be a period of painful transition. My point is for a transition to happen they must produce new vehicles which are affordable enough to manufacture and field in quantities sufficient to replace all the old stuff. Otherwise they are not much better off than they are today. I do not see that happening because, I think, the designs being explored now are too ambitious for such a massive scale of production.

Obviously I could be totally wrong, but I don't think my skepticism is without merit or historical precedence. I'm pretty sure Russia planned to be operating only T-90s, BMP-3, and BTR-82 by this time.

That's a solid concern that only time can solve.

Edited May 3, 2015 by L0ckAndL0ad

[L0ckAndL0ad]

This is boiling down to, "your not going to do this! You cant do this because of x y z" - "oh yes we are" - "oh no your not". Its like a panto. Nobody wants to listen to the other sides point anyway and nobody is going to change their mind.

My point is that we are all battling over speculation at the end of the day. Cmbs first expansion wont have this stuff in anyway, and I cant see that being until at least Christmas release at least. Lets pick this topic up at Christmas time when time has passed.

Simples.

 

I dunno, man. I'm having fun so far.

[Stagler]

I dunno, man. I'm having fun so far.

 

Haha, maybe matey. But there ain't no telling some people sometimes!

[Thewood1]

I totally agree.

[Battlefront.com]

Given the fact of where exactly you sit, compared to where I actually sit, you'd have to do more than citing oil prices and drawing some conclusions to prove your point.

Before the revised budget most economic experts (including Russian) crunched the numbers and said that Russia needed oil to be somewhere around $100-$110 per barrel in order to balance its budget. This was based on an examination of the Russian economy, not on politics. Oil is about half that now, so obviously the balance can not be maintained. Which is why Russia at the beginning of the year announced a 10% across the board spending cut on all non-defense related spending. Subsequently the bean counter types determined that a price of around $90 a barrel was needed to balance the budget at the reduced spending level. Oil is still far below that (~$60 range, some say could go down to ~$40).

The information is easy to find out there. Here's one article:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/russia-facing-budget-cuts-on-oil-price-western-sanctions-1421223776

An article from Moscow Times about the oil price "crushing" the Russian economy:

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/oil-crash-is-crushing-russia/517427.html

Now, with that said you can definitely adopt a position that the reduced economic capacity of Russia, as a nation state, will have no practical affect on it's ability to develop and produce the vehicles in question. I have no problem with disagreeing on that point.

 

At the same time, you were the one who said that their current plan is very realistic, so I don't understand the change of heart really.

In terms of the pacing of the development, it is entirely realistic. In terms of funding it and having it deployed to the extent necessary to see the benefits it needs from it... as I've said, I'm skeptical.

 

Okay, so you do not think that there's anything they can't do technology-wise in that regard. Noted!

Correct, given enough money and time I don't think there's any individual thing which is beyond Russia's R&D capabilities. It's ability to fund the R&D, manufacturing, and support of the collective feature list on the scale necessary for the investment to be worth it is where I am skeptical.

 

The sum of the parts problem is less concerning in my understanding, and in practice. I will remind you that BMP-3 was faulty as hell when it first came into service. It took many years to correct those things. At the same time, it did not stop them from making them. And it did not stop other countries from buying it. That's your theoretical conclusions crush against real practices here.

This is actually supporting my position. The BMP-3 was not a radical design shift and had no major leap in technology, yet it was a major "problem child" for a long period of time. It has been around for 20+ years and it's still in limited service. So why is it that you're so sure that a much greater shift with much more reliance on technologies that Russia presently doesn't have can be produced in much larger numbers without any significant deviation from the time tables for it?

 

Just as your same question at the start of your post, yeah, that's a solid concern. Previous plan was to have 70% upgraded fleet by 2020 (NOT by newgen vehicles, just upgraded/repaired), but it was cancelled into another one that should come up in 2018, so I don't know the details. You are, however, missing the point. I was talking about production of new parts, about industry. As they produce new stuff, existing fleet can still be supported, but in decreased numbers, where some of the old vehicles are cannibalized for parts. The main point here is to start producing new stuff, instead of wasting resources on producing old designs.

Yes, that is the point and as I said Russia "has to start sometime", which means that it's inevitable that there's going to be a period of overlap between the old and new. The issue that I don't think you're fully understanding is that I don't see Russia planning on ending the transition period. Instead, it will maintain it until A/K/G is superseded by another family of vehicles, yet to be even thought of, at some point in the next 20-30 years. Until then Russian industry will have to remain tooled to produce parts and services for the "legacy" vehicles. Russian military supply chains will have to continue stocking and distributing those parts and services for the "legacy" vehicles. Military planning will have to continue taking these factors into consideration when making deployment decisions.

The only way that can be overcome is by a rapid and extraordinarily expensive program to replace the old with the new within a short period of time. Past history has shown that the Soviet Union and Russia have *never* done this. Ever. It has always maintained a mixed legacy force for multiple decades. The exception was the process in WW2 was accelerated due to battlefield losses.

Which is why I would have suggested making the vehicles less expensive and risky in terms of their combat capabilities and instead focused on the manufacturing and logistics efficiencies. As I stated, this can be done if the object of these new vehicles is to ensure an edge against an adversary armed with upgraded Soviet type hardware, but not if the object is to go toe-to-toe with NATO. And since even the current plan isn't likely to result in being able to go toe-to-toe with NATO there's no point, IMHO, of developing vehicles which exceed the actual threat by far more than is necessary.

 

That's a solid concern that only time can solve.

Yes. Ultimately nobody can say what will be the case in 2019 and beyond. However, looking at the military legacy of Russia going back to the 1930s I see a very definite pattern that I do not see any signs of Russia breaking with. Therefore, I feel it's reasonable to make some "bets" on the future based on the past.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Nobody wants to listen to the other sides point anyway and nobody is going to change their mind.

It is contextual. I am listening to what LnL has to say because it is informed and interesting. I am not listening to what you have to say because, frankly, you aren't saying anything worth listening to.

 

My point is that we are all battling over speculation at the end of the day.

So what you're saying is nobody should ever have a discussion about the future because nobody knows what it holds? Well, isn't that an interesting perspective to have.

 

Cmbs first expansion wont have this stuff in anyway, and I cant see that being until at least Christmas release at least. Lets pick this topic up at Christmas time when time has passed.

Simples.

We don't need to wait that long. A/K/G will not be in the field by 2017 according to Russia's own plan. So if we include them in CMBS at all, it will be as a semi-fantasy role. The storyline would be along the lines of Russia being desperate enough to risk it's very small number of untried experimental vehicles in a one time push in one specific area. But without significant and reasonably accurate knowledge of what the A/K/G vehicles are (armor, features, performance, etc.) they won't go in even as fantasy vehicles.

 

 

I dunno, man. I'm having fun so far.

I feel we're having an excellent debate, therefore I'm enjoying it as well. You have certainly helped me refine my thinking and the reasoning behind it. That means you are challenging my thinking, which is the purpose of a debate.

Steve

[Stagler]

Don't debates have to have a point though?

And there's more than just you in this debate Steve.

Edited May 3, 2015 by Stagler

[Samoderzhets]

 

Russia's economy is still about where it was when the Black Eagle was too expensive.

 

According to World Bank Russian economy was size of 836 billion in 1999 and 2014 it was 3484 billion (and the military budget has grown by a similar factor). I am sure in the "reality" you live in that is about the same... Even in the internet it is rare to see someone having as strong bias as you show in everything related to Russia. It is astounding really.

 

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.MKTP.PP.CD

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

 

 

According to World Bank Russian economy was size of 836 billion in 1999 and 2014 it was 3484 billion (and the military budget has grown by a similar factor). I am sure in the "reality" you live in that is about the same... Even in the internet it is rare to see someone having as strong bias as you show in everything related to Russia. It is astounding really.

 

 

 

I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: 'O Lord make my enemies ridiculous.' And God granted it

[sburke]

According to World Bank Russian economy was size of 836 billion in 1999 and 2014 it was 3484 billion (and the military budget has grown by a similar factor). I am sure in the "reality" you live in that is about the same... Even in the internet it is rare to see someone having as strong bias as you show in everything related to Russia. It is astounding really.

 

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GNP.MKTP.PP.CD

One should do a little more research than just to find something that on it's surface supports one's argument especially if just a wee bit more looking totally undermines said argument.

 

price of oil $16   January 1999

price of oil $125 July 2008

price of oil $105 May 2014

Price of Oil $55   today and expectations are it may not hold at that number.

 

It will be real interesting what those World Bank numbers look like for 2015.

 

http://oilpricefrom1999to2008.blogspot.com/

Edited May 4, 2015 by sburke

[L0ckAndL0ad]

Now, with that said you can definitely adopt a position that the reduced economic capacity of Russia, as a nation state, will have no practical affect on it's ability to develop and produce the vehicles in question. I have no problem with disagreeing on that point.

 

On what point? I do not understand what you're saying.

 

In terms of the pacing of the development, it is entirely realistic. In terms of funding it and having it deployed to the extent necessary to see the benefits it needs from it... as I've said, I'm skeptical.

 

What you are trying to say here, as I understand, is that they won't be able to refit their entire fleet with new vehicles in a short term, after mass production starts? (post 2019-2020). Correct?

 

Correct, given enough money and time I don't think there's any individual thing which is beyond Russia's R&D capabilities. It's ability to fund the R&D, manufacturing, and support of the collective feature list on the scale necessary for the investment to be worth it is where I am skeptical.

 

Sure.

 

This is actually supporting my position. The BMP-3 was not a radical design shift and had no major leap in technology, yet it was a major "problem child" for a long period of time. It has been around for 20+ years and it's still in limited service. So why is it that you're so sure that a much greater shift with much more reliance on technologies that Russia presently doesn't have can be produced in much larger numbers without any significant deviation from the time tables for it?

 

Russia was able to produce 500+ BMP-3s from 1990, for it's own Armed Forces. I don't have anything better than Wikipedia at hand this early hour of the morning, but according to it, they've also produced ~1180 vehicles for export. This shows government's ability to buy them vs production capacities of factory in question as a whole. Knowing what kind of economical hell it had to went through between 1991 and 2010, it is not surprising that they didn't buy more. What I was trying to say here is that, still, even with all the faults BMP-3 had, they've still mass produced it (in numbers enough for it to appear in CMSF and CMBS), and fine-tuned/corrected it later down the road. And it become a very successful export vehicle for Russia. Even when "the sum of all parts" sucked at the begging (your argument), it did not stop them from producing it (my argument, based on precedent). Do you get what I'm saying here?

 

The numbers produced for it's own ground forces, with economy of the 90s and 2000s, 500+. Despite whatever some people want to believe here, today's Russian economy is far more capable than it was 25-15 years ago, like 2x or 3x times better (if not more, but I'm being conservative here). Do I need to say more? I would. There might be other factors involved. Chechnya. I've already showed you the pic of BMP-3 turret from Chechnya. Would you keep buying BMP-3s after seeing this? I won't.

 

At the same time, sometimes it happens that MoD might buy some stuff from the manufacturer to support it from going bankrupt. And because there's simply nothing better they can produce. And they kept buying them after Chechnya wars.

 

Yes, that is the point and as I said Russia "has to start sometime", which means that it's inevitable that there's going to be a period of overlap between the old and new. The issue that I don't think you're fully understanding is that I don't see Russia planning on ending the transition period. Instead, it will maintain it until A/K/G is superseded by another family of vehicles, yet to be even thought of, at some point in the next 20-30 years. Until then Russian industry will have to remain tooled to produce parts and services for the "legacy" vehicles. Russian military supply chains will have to continue stocking and distributing those parts and services for the "legacy" vehicles. Military planning will have to continue taking these factors into consideration when making deployment decisions.

 

No. You did not read what I said. If they start to produce new vehicles, they can decrease the number of older vehicles in service they have. And use some of decommissioned vehicles for parts, instead of producing new ones on the factory. BMP-1/2 are still in service today, so as T-72s, and they do not require production of new spare parts, they use existing mothballed fleet. Supply/logistics wise, this picture will hold for infinity, if you don't do anything at all. Doing something (like producing new, modular chassis/designs) is a way out. Transition period is inevitable in any case. The option of making 3 modular chassis is the easiest one to get out of this mess, IMO.

 

The only way that can be overcome is by a rapid and extraordinarily expensive program to replace the old with the new within a short period of time. Past history has shown that the Soviet Union and Russia have *never* done this. Ever. It has always maintained a mixed legacy force for multiple decades. The exception was the process in WW2 was accelerated due to battlefield losses.

 

Even if they'd just replace 2/3 of  their inventory with the new vehicles (based on A/K/B modular chassis design) in the next 10-20 years, that still would be a big win, don't you think?

 

Which is why I would have suggested making the vehicles less expensive and risky in terms of their combat capabilities and instead focused on the manufacturing and logistics efficiencies. As I stated, this can be done if the object of these new vehicles is to ensure an edge against an adversary armed with upgraded Soviet type hardware, but not if the object is to go toe-to-toe with NATO. And since even the current plan isn't likely to result in being able to go toe-to-toe with NATO there's no point, IMHO, of developing vehicles which exceed the actual threat by far more than is necessary.

 

You do realize that they'd have to be stuck with those vehicles for the next 20-30 years, right?

 

And this leads us to the meatiest part of this discussion. What would be "the less expensive" alternative? They want their vehicles to have max crew and passenger safety. What designs that are cheap and safe at the same time would you propose?

 

Yes. Ultimately nobody can say what will be the case in 2019 and beyond. However, looking at the military legacy of Russia going back to the 1930s I see a very definite pattern that I do not see any signs of Russia breaking with. Therefore, I feel it's reasonable to make some "bets" on the future based on the past.

 

I'd rather have some "bets" that can be solved quicker. Like, we have a parade in 5 days. Does anyone have any bets on what would we see unmasked, from under those tarps?

Edited May 4, 2015 by L0ckAndL0ad

[Hister]

Does anyone have any bets on what would we see unmasked, from under those tarps?

 

Small, medium and big guns? Joking aside I find this thread a good read. Slovenian defence minister is heading to the parade. Am wondering how many other EU representatives will go besides the Check ones? Anyone ahve any info on that?

[L0ckAndL0ad]

LOL, no need to wait for May 9th. Pictures from official MoD site:

 

http://мультимедиа.минобороны.рф/multimedia/photo/gallery.htm?id=21804@cmsPhotoGallery

 

 

Edited May 4, 2015 by L0ckAndL0ad

[AttorneyAtWar]

Very cool, its nice to see them without tarps finally!

 

The Armata looks very different compared to what i thought it was going to be, and I am surprised that the wheeled and tracked APC/IFV's towards the bottom are only armed with machineguns, I'd imagine those are modular though.

[agusto]

Thanks LoackAndLoad. Looks like there are lots of high tech sensors mounted on those turrets. The Kurganez 25 looks especially nasty. I cant wait to get some info on how they (would) perform in combat.

[L0ckAndL0ad]

All of them are just chassis. Boomerangs that are in Moscow were already fitted with proper turret, for IFV role. Still, since it is just a chassis for many other vehicles, only IFV version requires 30mm AC and ATGMs.

 

Oh, and let me remind you how the initial IFV turret mockup looked like:

 

http://nevskii-bastion.ru/epoha/

Edited May 4, 2015 by L0ckAndL0ad

[agusto]

Very cool, its nice to see them without tarps finally!

 

The Armata looks very different compared to what i thought it was going to be, and I am surprised that the wheeled and tracked APC/IFV's towards the bottom are only armed with machineguns, I'd imagine those are modular though.

 

Yeah the Armatas turret looks a bit odd to me too, a bit small, but i guess that is because of the crew beeing located in the hull. It also looks like the Russians dropped their concept of round turrets.

[agusto]

All of them are just chassis. Boomerangs that are in Moscow were already fitted with proper turret, for IFV role. Still, since it is just a chassis for many other vehicles, only IFV version requires 30mm AC and ATGMs.

 

Oh, and let me remind you how the initial IFV turret mockup looked like:

 

http://nevskii-bastion.ru/epoha/

 

But are those actual photographs or just images of the hull with the planned turret photoshopped on them? I mean is the above just "concept art" or are those actual vehicles in your post?

 

EDIT: Ah, i see. I should have clicked on the links you mentioned before posting.

Edited May 4, 2015 by agusto

[akd]

Very cool, its nice to see them without tarps finally!

 

The Armata looks very different compared to what i thought it was going to be, and I am surprised that the wheeled and tracked APC/IFV's towards the bottom are only armed with machineguns, I'd imagine those are modular though.

 

 

There are APC / IFV variants of both Kurganets and Boomerang, sharing the same modular weapon stations.  Armata IFV turret module is a little different, as smoke is located in traversable launchers on the hull instead of fixed launchers on the turret (I wonder what the rational for this is?).  It remains to be seen if there will be an Armata APC variant.

 

I think T-14 turret may have a sheet metal or thin armor shell giving it the current shape with its odd angles.  Maybe this is just an efficient way to provide minimal ballistic protection to turret components, or maybe it just meant to cover up the actual turret configuration, which is probably "ugly" like Object 195.  Also, no 30mm cannon, no gatling gun, so lol at all press descriptions.

Edited May 4, 2015 by akd

[L0ckAndL0ad]

These are the actual photos from the official MoD site. I've edited the link in my original post in case it won't work due to Cyrillic in it. (it should)