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Subject:
Tank- ghost with name T-95
sovdep
1/19/2008 8:31:58 PM
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Below you find direct translation of article from Russian Newspaper.
link
It was translated as is, with no comment. I found some parts of article very interesting and some very speculative.
Tank- ghost with name T-95
There is no new engine, no new gun or electronic-the is only promises.
The Chief of Armament of Russian Army general Makarov announce on December 22, that testing of new tank for Russian Army shall be completed in 2008.
The Russian Army suppose to get new tank in 2009. He told that this tank shall get new engine with transmission, new optic and electronic for gun. He also acknowledge that the factories of Russian Armament industry can't produce high quality parts for new tank.
The are a lot of speculations about new tank in Russia. Initially it suppose to be delivered to Army in 1994.Mr Batuev, the President of Union of Armament Industry of Sverdlovs, where main factory is located told in 2001 that production of new tank would begin right after order of 310 T-90 for India shall be completed. This announcement shocked Management of "Ural Wagon Factory"- the company that produce T-90 at that time. Vice President of this company A. Churikov told about this announcement: "I have no clue about any new tank that we suppose to produce, I don't even know what you are taking about.
At that time factory did not produce tanks for 10 years already. It was only one group of high quality workers who could assembled tanks and they were busy to work with few tanks that suppose to go to exhibitions.
T-95 became legends. There a lot of rumors how it suppose to look like.
Experts think that new tank for XXI Century suppose to be very compact, have high speed, hard to penetrate and have advance electronic. Weight suppose to be 50 tons, the crew suppose to be in highly protected capsule inside of body of tank and turret does not have a people. The turret suppose to have 135mm gun with autoloader, sensors and electronic jammers. Tank suppose to use composite armor with dynamic protection system Arena, that suppose to defeat automatically any incoming armor-penetrating rounds.
Tank suppose to use diesel with 1500-1800HP and it is possible, that it has X-shape.
This engine suppose to use new transmission that suppose to provide smooth ride.
However it is not clear if Russian Designers can develop engine like this.
There is one more problem:
The technology of production of Gun barrels was lost too.
The barrels that produced today can handle only 450 shots and if rockets are used, it can go as low as 50.
Russian manufacturers have same problem with electronic- T-90 that were sent to India used French termo displays and a lot of foreign components. Today we need to use even more foreign components, because production of electronic does not stay still.
Everybody know that the strongest part of Russian tanks is ration between price and reability. The foreign tanks are more expensive. The price for American Abrams, German Leopards-2AB, French Leclerk MK2, Italian Ariette-2, Israeli Merkava-4 and UK Challenger is 5 millions or more and can go up to 10 Millions with additional components.
At the low end of price range with price less than 5 millions we have Russian T-90 and base on it license copies produced in Iran, Poland, Chinese, Pakistan and Ukraine.
There are also South Korean clone of Abrams, tanks from Japan, Brazil and South Africa over there.
The experts think that a lot of armys begin the modernization of armor forces and expensive tank shall take markets share 55%. However cheap tanks suppose to take at list 45% of market and Russian hope that it will take at list half of this sum. |
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