* link

Sorry Link 2 should be Link 1.

I see that you use Vasily 's site Chem , you 're right and you learn fast ;-)

""So my question is has Russia focused on making
better ERA in favour of further development of composite armour more
commonly seen on Western MBTs, after all Russia was the first to use
composite (Combination K) on the T-64""

We don 't know really . It seems that the Russians are making excellent progress in active systems . By that , I mean "hardkill" systems as well as ERA . Russia has been using some very clever materials based on fiberglass and Kevlar for years .
I share the view that the Russians are correct in the choice they 're making .

In the old duel projectile vs armor , the projectile always won in the end and today hasn 't changed anything : an Hellfire or a Maverick will kill any MBT (exemple) .
So , to decide to go easy on the armor but to focus on defeating the incoming projectile is most probably the way to go .
If you can kill the APFSDS or the AT Missile before it hits , why would you need tons of armor made of steel or composites ?

Cheers .

Actually what you and Herlad are both saying makes sense. In the strategic view the Russians would use thousands and thousands of tanks in an assault, because they had so many, their armour needed to be just enough to ensure enough broke through the defensive lines, and as Herald said it is down to survivability statistics, the more tanks you have the less armour you can afford to put on them and still ensure mission success. This also works economically as it lowers to cost of each tank to the point you can afford to make thousands and thousands of them. The whole point of armour is to give a unit survivability on the battlefield, for the Russians survivability was also in numbers.

 

Now to what you said Blue about the Russian adoption of hard kill systems, as Russian tanks were designed as assault units, for use against soft targets and defensive infantry positions, so the biggest threat they would face would be anti tank missiles, which use HEAT warheads, which ERA can account for, and with the deployment of more lethal warheads like sabots and tandem HEATs, destroying the missile before it hits the tank becomes more desireable, enter the active protection systems.

As much as I like bashing BW because he's French I am getting pretty tired of every Posting turning into a Herald vs BW slugfest. It hijacks the thread and turns off a lot of other posters who have to wade through pages of invectives to find any nuggets of other posters OPINIONS.

BW and Herald, can't you both agree to disagree. BW please preface your posts with "In My Opinion" rather than presenting as a fact...and Herald please understan that you can say "I disagree because..."

This is really getting tiring...you both are prolific posters and I get a lot of entertainment from reading a lot of the info that you guys post but I can do without the back and forth insults.

 

A modest suggestion - could the Russians work on modular appliques (passive or active) because they are not confident in their quality control?  Easier to swap out a bad Arena or Kaktus (sp?) than an entire tank hull with one gaping fault in the front plate.  And I think it is no stereotype to say the Russians are not over their manufacturing problems. 

I dunno that I want to sell Russian material tech short. When they have to build it, they can be very good. Those clowns produced HEMISPHERIC shaped heat shields for re-entry bodies and some very esoteric alloys for their rocket motors we still can't match today. Its the QUANTITY and EXPENSE that throws them for a loop.  When you use the statistical numerical approach to things  as the Russians do, you tend to look at good enough as opposed to best possible when you have to produce in quantity.

If you can't produce quality plate and chain, crank out lots of scale or ring mail and hope for the best.

Another way to look at the analogy is to suggest that you have a choice as a poor king of 10,000 horse archers, Mongol style, or 1000 knights French style. Different tactics and different expenses-yield different technology solutions, and acceptable cost per unit limits.

I think the Russians operate within the limits of their transport logistics, their climate and terrain, their mass quantity production base, their available capital in manpower and resources, and their engineering talent pool [which is CONSIDERABLE and VERY good.].

Of course they have politics too, which is why we are flying Raptors instead of Black Widows, and why the French build crap  military hardware these days, instead of some of the excellent stuff they used to field.

It explains a lot about why MiG is still hanging around long after Sukhoi showed them what was what aeronautically.