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Ukraine update: Russia claims to be sending their own 'super tank' to Ukraine [1]
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Date: 2023-03-04
Development of the T-14 goes back to a project called Object 187 that was initially designed in the late 1980s. It was meant to directly address some of the traditional shortcomings of Russia’s fast-and-cheap tanks, without driving the cost per vehicle through the roof.
x The final production version of the T-14 Armata probably pic.twitter.com/NgG2pCxA4A — Kein Mensch Kein Tier (@KampfmitKette) May 5, 2022
The size and weight of the tank was raised from the 43 tonne size of a T-80, up to around 55 tonnes, putting it closer to the size of the original Abrams M1. That allows it to carry a good deal more armor, as well as a bigger engine and better gun. Also, the autoloader was redesigned in a way that is meant to avoid repeats of the astoundingly common ammo cookoff and turret toss that has been seen again and again in Russian tanks deployed in Ukraine.
Also there’s even been thought into something radically new in Russian tanks: Protecting the tank crew. That includes moving all of that crew down and forward, leaving the smaller turret in which no one rides. There are even some analysts who think the tank is equipped with a “hard kill” system that shoots down incoming anti-tank missiles. A system that would not just be effective against the older TOW generation missiles, but even Javelins and their equivalent.
It’s a very different tank than anything Russia now fields. There’s not a lot of evidence that it would be “super” in the sense of better than the Western tanks about to take the field, but on paper it certainly seems more competitive than anything Russia now has rolling around.
The problem for Russia has been building them.
The first T-14 rolled out in a parade in 2015. Russia signed a contract for a “test batch” of 100 tanks in 2016. None of them had been delivered as of 2020. Actual production of the test batch didn’t get underway until 2021.
Right now, depending on who you believe, there are somewhere between 15 and 40 T-14 tanks in existence. However, all of those tanks are part of that test batch. Some of them aren’t even full blown tanks, they are “test articles” created to debug issues with some specific issue of the frame, engine, or other systems. All of the T-14 tanks that exist to this point are early models created to test not just the systems in the tank, but the processes on the assembly line. Russian operators who have climbed into the existing handful of T-14s that will actually move around and shoot have had very little good to say about them. From the way they have reacted both in both parades and field demonstrations, these early prototypes appear to be more than a little unreliable and fragile.
In the last week, as the date for Western tanks to appear on the front lines draws closer, Russian sources have been repeatedly insisting that the T-14 Armata is coming. Maybe it is. However, it if does, there won’t be many, every one of them will be its own one-off beta test in building this tank, and absolutely no one in the Russian military will have any idea of how to maintain it or use if effectively.
In some ways, it would be kind of nice to see one hit the mud in Ukraine … long enough to see what a Challenger 2 can do with it.
Bakhmut and the big picture
In comments on Friday there was an extended discussion about the rate of loss for Ukraine vs. Russia. Daily Kos frequently posts the numbers of estimated Russian losses as issued by the Ukrainian general staff. We rarely cover Ukrainian losses, and when that happens it’s generally when covering a statement from U.S. or U.K. military intelligence in which they give a vague figure for estimated losses to date.
There are places we can go for a clue about what’s happening. For example, Oryx publishes only verified numbers concerning equipment losses, and from those it’s possible to determine something about the nature of losses in Ukraine.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/3/4/2155870/-Ukraine-update-Russia-claims-to-be-sending-their-own-super-tank-to-Ukraine
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