Modern Leopard --> Armata penetration

[sburke]

Given the video a while back of head-to-head tank trials around a track where the Chinese lumbering monstrosity came in dead last after a number of Russian-based variants, they probably now need to do some glazing of their own...

It was more about how much you can rely on China's friendship. I'd take a Russian tank over a Chinese tank any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

 

It may be many things, including none of the things it has claimed to be. But it is not untested or unproven.

Tested, probably. Russian engineering while differing at times on priorities from the West has still produced some innovative designs. Proven? Where? US has unfortunately had plenty of battle time to test our equipment and improve on it. Russia hasn't - 1. Had so much experience and 2. Proven themselves well. Most of their lessons learned have been how badly they need improvement. That is just the reality of everything they have gone through and the adjustments they need to make which they are in fact doing. Proving that those adjustments are valid though...well hopefully we won't see Armatas showing up in Ukraine cause that one might be a little hard for even Putin to brush off.

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

 

 

 But it is not untested or unproven.

 

It's like calling someone who inprocessed successfully at basic training "trained and combat ready!"

 

Early stuff has been completed, testing is underway. That testing is not yet complete and a final production vehicles does not yet exist is pretty solidly into the realm of "untested" and "unproven"

[Battlefront.com]

It may be many things, including none of the things it has claimed to be. But it is not untested or unproven.

Just like the Sgt York

Components of Armata are being tested and not yet proven. Others are proven and still need to be tested in the context of Armata. Nothing about Armata can be called proven in any meaningful sense of the word yet.

Steve

[LukeFF]

I sometimes wonder if the Tiger and/or Panther would have generated this much talk had the internet existed in the early 1940s.

[Abdolmartin]

Imagine the flame wars between communists and Nazis had the internet existed in the 1940s.

And I don't know where the forum moderators would be from. Sweden maybe?

[poesel]

The internet would have been Goebbels wet dream and worst nightmare at the same time. Probably more nightmare as the problems current dictators have to close it up.

[Sublime]

nah panthers and tigers wouldnt have generated this much talk because they.d be secret until seen in action

[c3k]

...or at least until a sample or two got bogged in the mud and gotten examined by the enemy about half a year before operational release.

 

...or at least until a brigade was operationally released before they were fully tested and lost a large number to non-combat losses like engine fires.

 

 

There's a large gap between an engineered "solution" and a combat-ready weapon system.

Edited June 11, 2015 by c3k

[Sublime]

but historically afaik panthers and tigers were unknown to the enemy until their combat debuts. anyways i doubt the authoritarian regimes of the soviets and nazis would let citizens debate or talk at all online. and even us and brits prpbably would have very restricted access. censorship amd all that

[Battlefront.com]

It's fun to think of! Personally, I think both sides in WW2 would have released informations similar to what Russia is doing now, but not in quite the level of detail. The purpose then would be the same as it is now... propaganda to bolster domestic confidence and shake the confidence of the opponent. Or at least bolster domestic confidence Let's not forget that the Nazi regime had the "V weapons" rumors designed to give people hope that military defeat wasn't inevitable.

Regarding Tigers and Panthers... C3K makes an excellent and totally relevant point. All three (we should include the King Tiger as a separate beast) had some pretty spectacular battlefield failures early on and never shook some of their technical problems before the war ended. Obviously there was wartime pressure on getting the designs into manufacturing ASAP, but that can only excuse some of the problems with the vehicles.

All three tanks turned out to be very capable designs, though many have argued that the Tigers weren't nearly as good as their reputation for many of the reasons I've put forward about Armata (cost, limited numbers, technically complicated, etc.). The Panther has many similar detractors, though not as much on the production side since Germany did manage to make a large number of them relative to their other AFV production.

Armata might turn out to be the most important leap forward in tank design for several decades, or it could be a catastrophic failure, or it could be somewhere inbetween. Until the vehicle is both tested *and* proven we can't possibly know where it falls on the spectrum.

Steve

[Kieme(ITA)]

Steve, by "proven" you mean used in actual combat?
Because that's a possibility that might (and let's hope that) not be possible, at least as a full scale combat experience such as a full scale war.

 

Italian Ariete tanks have been used in Afghanistan and Iraq but we can't say they have seen the kind of combat a tank is designed for.

[Sublime]

i honestly think the Tiger was the best proven and though i dont have figures probably most effective of the three designs. if i personally had to ride one into combat itd be the Tiger I. of course it having the longest service life probably helps its kill ratio. the panther was an excellent tank though transmission or drive train issues aside and weak side armor aside and its amazing how many the germans got jnto combat. the KT I consider a waste of time.

[c3k]

 C3K makes an excellent and totally relevant point.

Steve

 

Ahh. Sig material if there ever was... 

[Battlefront.com]

Steve, by "proven" you mean used in actual combat?

Because that's a possibility that might (and let's hope that) not be possible, at least as a full scale combat experience such as a full scale war.

Combat is the ultimate form of "proven", but it is an unnecessarily high standard for a new class of vehicles. Large scale production and fielding by units that actually put them to use (target practice, field maneuvers, etc.) is sufficient. You find out all kinds of things about reliability, longevity, and what not. Problems that would crop up in combat would likely be caught and have a chance to be fixed without actual battlefield experience.

 

 

i honestly think the Tiger was the best proven and though i dont have figures probably most effective of the three designs. if i personally had to ride one into combat itd be the Tiger I. of course it having the longest service life probably helps its kill ratio.

If you look at how many hours a Tiger actually spent running before it had to be repaired you'd understand why they had such long service lives Hard to wear out or lose a tank that spends most of its time in the shop being fixed There were times when Tiger Battalions had 10-20% of their onhand strength operational. Korsun is a great example of this. 34 tanks on hand, as low as 3-5 operational at one time for part of the battle. In roughly 1 month of fighting they lost 5 to mechanical/bogging problems, 1 to friendly fire, and 1 to enemy fire. Then they were surrounded and lost all by 7 tanks, mostly due to mechanical breakdowns that couldn't be rectified under the circumstances.

Despite that, the Tiger 1 certainly did a great job when it made it into combat. But with so few made and reduced numbers mechanically fit for combat it made far less of an impact on the war than something like the PzV or StuG III did. But that's an argument for an entirely different forum

Steve

[Sublime]

well of course stugs and pziv.s had a greater impact. there were thousands more of them. now do you think Manstein the father of the stug and assault gun was doctrinally right? should it have been stugs stugs stugs or less stugs more Pz IV long 75s? i said out of those three tanks id choose a tiger. the panther iirc had bad problems with service life and a distressiing tendency for early models engines to catch fire. the King Tiger was so big and over engineered plus you.d be the biggest bullet magnet ever. If I really had to choose 3 tanks to have to go into WW2 with none would be German. it.d be churchills, sherman jumbos or at least fireflies, or IS2s the last thrown in hesitantly... certainly not T34s. Certainly not earlier Shermans. churchills had great crew protection and were roomy. in FI i loved the I version with its 75 HE chucker and 2lber tank fighter. lol. Id ALWAYS pick them in CW matches though i felt the 75mm version was almost useless. not quite but close. i havent tried the AVRE. that is in the vehicle pack isnt it? but 75 mm Churchills with the 6lbers for AT work are as good as you can get for allies in summer of 44 besides fireflies and those cant shrug off hits from even 88s sometimes like churchies.

Edited June 11, 2015 by Sublime

[Battlefront.com]

well of course stugs and pziv.s had a greater impact. there were thousands more of them.

That's my point The average Sherman and T-34 were decent, average tanks. But there were 10s of thousands of them. I'll take a bunch of average vehicles over a handful of excellent vehicles any day of the week and CM shows why that is sound thinking.

My criticism of low production, expensive, difficult to maintain tanks in WW2 is the direction I'm expecting Armata to go in. Even if Russia manages to make the perfect tank out of this project, unless it is able to afford to build/field/maintain 1000+ it will have no strategic impact. Heck, even if Russia does do it I don't think it will have much strategic impact because the West isn't interested in tangling with Russia in a land war and if Russia starts one numbers alone will crush Russia.

Steve

[Sublime]

if Russia started one it.d end in a nuclear holocaust. i dont see anywaybit could be otherwise unless they won andni still dont see either side massively losing conventiomally and not employing NBC. yes russia i think is unable to do what the US can right now which was the German WW2 dream. ubertanks by the thousands....

[panzersaurkrautwerfer]

Simply because I <3 off topic:

 

1. I think the Tiger was actually not that bad of an idea.  It was conceived of at a time in which there wasn't a significant resource scarcity, and it was planned for and used in a reasonable manner (as a specialized heavy tank).  On the battlefield it was quite good, although it was certainly a maintenance whore (three steps worse than a mere hanger queen).  

 

2. The Panther was very much a case of someone being told to accomplish "y" and instead going out and accomplishing "4."  The real peril of the T-34, if there was any was a fairly plentiful, easy to produce tank with reasonable performance (same with the Sherman really).  While the Panther started off as an attempt to make a German T-34....it ended up as an exemplar of everything that was bad about the German procurement process (complex, mechanical unreliable, poor version control, expensive, high performing...but not enough to counteract the enemy's equipment or numbers in the wider sense).  

 

3. The Tiger II was terribad, as were all the various super-mega whatever armored vehicle the Germans cranked out.  Tactically it was quite scary, technically a mess, and again, building a very good tank to smash the enemy's inferior tanks is cool.   But as Steve pointed out it really doesn't matter terribly much if you only have a handful of them, and the enemy is able to mass armor elsewhere effectively.

 

Something either needs to be good enough that it really can trade 1:5 losses and have it mean something, or still available in enough numbers to have the superiority mean something above the tactical level.  It also needs to be part of a larger military structure capable of protecting and supporting that weapons system (which is something German logistics and air power/defense was not up to the task of).  

[Battlefront.com]

Yup. And I was recently reminded that Peiper didn't want the King Tigers to be part of his infamous Kampfgruppe for Wacht am Rhein. When a commander of the tip of the spear in the biggest offensive in a year says he doesn't want Germany's "best" tank, you know there's a story to explore His reasons were it was too slow, too heavy, and too unreliable. Not to mention poorly suited to the terrain.

To bring this back onto topic again, the problem Russia (and the SU before it) faces is that a key component in the quantity over quality equation is the enemy needs to have either inferior quality or inferior quantities. Since the 1970s NATO had generally superior quality and sufficient quantity. Which meant that, at best, the Warsaw Pact and NATO were evenly matched. But the 1980s changed that pretty thoroughly with NATO managing to dramatically improve the quality gap to an extent that whatever numerical advantage the Warsaw Pact might have had was no longer meaningful. The Soviet Union understood this and embarked on programs to modernizing its equipment that it couldn't afford. The result was a total collapse of the Warsaw Pact and stagnated Russian military improvements for well over a decade.

Russia's current strategy is, overall, sensible. Slim down the entire military to something that can be financially supported, spend significant energy on making it generally better than it has ever been, and focus extra resources on creating a "tip of the spear" force that is functionally equal to Western counterparts. While Russia has certainly made dramatic improvements since the 2008 reforms started, it's still suffering from some fundamental shortcomings of the old Soviet and early Russian Federation days. In particular reliance upon conscripts.

Part of this concept is the new family of vehicles. This is where Russia's strategy runs into major problems, IMHO. It is questionable if Russia can afford to adopt them in large numbers even by 2025. Until then they will be used by the "tip of the spear" force. Far too small to cause any worry to the West, but in theory a big problem for Russia's neighbors in the event of a war. But is it really?

Russia's neighbors break down into three categories:

1. Militarily ineffective -> most fit this definition

2. Militarily competent -> only Georgia and Ukraine are in this category

3. Militarily untouchable -> China and NATO

The first category can be easily squashed by Russia's current military, not to mention it's military of 10 years ago. So the new vehicles are completely unnecessary. For the second category the new vehicles might help tactically, but strategically there's bigger issues at play because the West supports both Ukraine and Georgia. In a direct armed conflict with either two Russia is going to have strategic problems to deal with that no Armata can fix. For the third category, for all intents and purposes a couple of border guards with angry stares is good enough since those countries do not pose a military risk to the Russian Federation and/or Russia would lose a war with them no matter what. So again, Armata serves no purpose.

There's also Russia's internal problems it has to worry about, in particular Chechnya. Russia's major failings in the 1st Chechen War was not equipment but rather leadership, training, doctrine, organization, and morale. Those are things which the 2008 reforms have largely fixed. Whether Russia goes into Grozny again with T-72s or Armata won't likely make any difference to the outcome.

OK, so let's assume my assessment is 100% correct. The conclusion is that Russia has no practical need for Armata and its sister vehicles for its own defense. But what about export contracts? In theory yes, but in reality not likely. Armata is projected to cost about the same as a Western tank, which means Russia doesn't have a competitive price edge as it traditionally has. Further, its list of former client states gets smaller by the year. And of those, many have continued to purchase Russian stuff because a.) it's really cheap and/or B.) it's mechanically the same as what they've had before (i.e. easy and cheap to maintain with its existing infrastructure). Armata and its sister vehicles, therefore, won't have much appeal outside of Russia. At least not to the extent to justify the R&D and opportunity costs associated with it.

Even if these new vehicles work as advertised (unlikely) and are the best in the world (very unlikely), they have little practical purpose for Russia beyond internal propaganda. Which is why I have been, and will remain, a major critic of the program as a whole. Russia simply can't afford it.

Steve

[LukeFF]

Simply because I <3 off topic:

 

1. I think the Tiger was actually not that bad of an idea.  It was conceived of at a time in which there wasn't a significant resource scarcity, and it was planned for and used in a reasonable manner (as a specialized heavy tank).  On the battlefield it was quite good, although it was certainly a maintenance whore (three steps worse than a mere hanger queen).  

 

3. The Tiger II was terribad, as were all the various super-mega whatever armored vehicle the Germans cranked out.  Tactically it was quite scary, technically a mess, and again, building a very good tank to smash the enemy's inferior tanks is cool.   But as Steve pointed out it really doesn't matter terribly much if you only have a handful of them, and the enemy is able to mass armor elsewhere effectively.

 

Something either needs to be good enough that it really can trade 1:5 losses and have it mean something, or still available in enough numbers to have the superiority mean something above the tactical level.  It also needs to be part of a larger military structure capable of protecting and supporting that weapons system (which is something German logistics and air power/defense was not up to the task of).  

 

That's pretty much the conclusion of Christopher Wilbeck (also a US Army armor officer) in his book Sledgehammers, which not only looks at the highs & lows of the Tiger program but also how the German armored warfare philosophy compared and contrasted with the nations it fought.