"'Meter of armor': Armata’s next supreme 152mm gun..." Topic

…to sport super-piercing shell.

"Russia's new T-14 Armata tank is going to get an even more powerful armament, as the next version of the main battle tank will be armed with previously rumored 152mm gun, revealed the official in charge of the defense industry.

Deputy PM Dmitry Rogozin told Izvestia newspaper that next-stage Armata tanks will be supplied with already-developed big bore cannon and brand new projectiles.

"We've got a new projectile for this tank than can burn through a meter of steel, we would arm Armata with that one," Rogozin said…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

How many shells are they going to be able to carry with that?

If I recall correctly, low shell capacity and the required battlefield logistics to keep them with a fighting load was what killed the Leopard 2 with the 140mm main gun.

Also, this creates yet another shell caliber after the 125mm gun (T-90, T-80/T-84, T-72, T-64), 115mm guns on the T-62 and the 100mm gun on the T-54/55 if they still have those around.

Fine. Let the Russians waste more time, money and effort to bring a new cannon on-line and reliably integrated into a tank. Their 125mm gun is already quite an effective weapon and a 152mm is merely overkill. They could better spend their money on matching Western optical targeting systems for their existing guns. They could then use their improved optics to look for a tank that actually has one meter of steel armor plating.

Methinks this is more propaganda meant to scare the Europeans. From the numbers of Western news sources reporting this, I think it is working.

How many shells are they going to be able to carry with that?

How does the shell compare to that used in the SU/ISU-152 assault guns back in WWII? That was able to pack 20 shells for the gun.

M551 Sheridan also featured 152 mm main gun with 20 or so rounds, though they might not have been very high velocity.

bigger after 120mm in tank guns does NOT mean better. faster means better. :)

as the next version of the main battle tank

I'm still waiting to see if anything comes of this version.

Great propaganda though!

Rogozin is a bat crap crazy politician whose role is to keep the Russian equivalent of the far right happy. He has discussed the use of nukes as if they were hand grenades. The Russian MOD has professional spokesmen that are much less fascist and much more accurate.

Martin, the Sov…err…Russians still have quite a large number of T-55s in storage.

Sheridan also featured 152 mm main gun with 20 or so rounds, though they might not have been very high velocity.

Very high velocity? They were snail-like.

29 rounds, mixed of shells and missiles.

Agree!

Amicalement
Armand

Out of interest, a pic of a Panther turret hit by a 152mm HE round :)

Wasn't the Panther's side armour vulnerable to HMGs?

The recoil from firing a 152mm APFSDS round is likely to take the turret off.

With how advanced Russia's ATGMs are I am suprised they are going for a better gun and not more ATGMs which have a much further range.

With how advanced Russia's ATGMs are I am suprised they are going for a better gun and not more ATGMs which have a much further range.

It wouldn't surprise me if the switch to the larger caliber was primarily to facilitate optional rounds like bigger missiles fired from the main tube (as they can already do with the 125mm gun) and, perhaps, the ability to select some larger calibre HE, maybe, for infantry support.

Maybe the APFSDS 150mm is not appreciably better than the 125mm round but – again maybe – that's not the point.

John T

And, the arms race continues……..

But it will have a 152mm gun – a gun-howitzer in its SPA variant – and the 1m of armour – well I suppose armour = protection and soil gives protection and the delayed fuse of the 152mm round allows it to make quite a deep crater then there you have it by a politians stretch of the truth.

M551 Sheridan also featured 152 mm main gun with 20 or so rounds, though they might not have been very high velocity.

Typical load was 20 rounds of HE, and 9 missiles. Which would work OK as long as all the missiles were fired first – the HE rounds tended to KO the missile fire control system!

I'm surprised that the Russians haven't tried to make something like the US's XM1111 Mid-Range Munition. It was a 120mm gun-launched ATGM, but it left the muzzle at nearly 1700m/s. This gave it a tank-guided range of over 8km, and a self-guided range of almost double that.

A 152mm bore makes for a big HEAT round, but it does horrible things to your ammo capacity. I wouldn't expect more than about 30 rounds total onboard any tank with a 152mm gun, though the MBT-70 in the German Panzermuseum has 42 rounds of HE/HEAT/APFSDS and 6 missiles.

Some thoughts.

The M1 Abrams has close to the equivalent of a meter of steel armor.

The Panther side armor was plenty thick enough to stop a machine gun round. That armor may have fractured if it was late war armor due to defects in the armor. By 45 Germany was short a lot of essential materials for their steel production and up to 80% of the steel was substandard.

Who do the Russians fear today? What was the Armata design to oppose. The West or Chinese tanks.

A 152mm high velocity tank gun on a chassis the size of the Armata? A couple of questions: 1) Just how many (or, rather, few) rounds are the Russians willing to accept as a loadout. My understanding is that the ammo is all carried in the autoloader in the turret. To get any kind of loadout, that turret is going to have to grow immensely. 2) How are they going to handle the recoil from such a beast. I remember how much we rocked in the M60 when firing (and that was a pukey little 105mm). Lord only knows how much this beast would shake, rattle and roll. 3) And just how much more effective will this uber round be over the 125mm? The 125mm can already penetrate most of the frontline MBTs (and the round can probably be developed further; just like ours).

No, methinks the good PM (who, as McKinsty pointed out, is a thorough going wackado) is talking out of his nether region….