The Truth About Russia's T-14 Armata Tank

[Music] in 2015 the russian army unveiled their next generation t14 armada tank and ever since then military analysts have been trying to figure out is this the world's greatest tank or biggest lie it boasted increased firepower hardened protection and more mobility than a russian ballerina a leaked uk ministry of defense intelligence memo warned that the t14 super tank was 20 years ahead of any armor that nato had in its entire force all this before the t-14 had even fired a shot in anger but some military western experts they analyzed this and they were skeptical they predicted that russia would never be able to actually mass-produce the t-14 so which side was lying to us russia say it isn't so t14 had a whole bunch of new capabilities with an upgraded 125 millimeter cannon a brisk top speed of 20 kilometers per hour faster than any of its competitors all while having a lower production cost cheaper than the m1 abrams and he'd even weighed comparatively little at 55 tons now i would never suggest the russian government is lying but those claims seem sus to me we need to investigate further it featured the world's first unmanned tank turret which was a technologically fancy digitally controlled system this thing was a departure from russia's historic approach to tanks which to be fair was to make them cheap and make them a lot one entity that believed the hype was nato that or they used it as an excuse to pump tons of money into making the larger 140 millimeter tank gun to counter the armada but then there were the first signs of cracks in the t14's armor figuratively speaking of course an incident happened in moscow at the rehearsal for the t14's first appearance it seemed to indicate that behind the scenes the tank development wasn't going as smoothly as we thought a brave individual leaked this footage of what looks like the t14 broken down deadlined in the middle of the road stuck there for like 15 minutes i swear this never happens to me which one of you leaked that video no seriously russia wants to know so they can send you on a free trip to siberia this was actually one of those many instances where it's kind of hard to tell what's true about the t14 armada because it later turned out that the media had gotten this situation all wrong the tank hadn't actually broken down at the rehearsal it was just some inexperienced driver accidentally engaged the tank's emergency brake way to go private dimitri i'm telling putin this was all your fault one of the key concepts with the t14 design was that it was developed as a revolutionary new armored vehicle concept with its universal chassis system so basically it aimed to make all armored track vehicles like the the troop carriers and the mobile artillery vehicles they would all share the same exact body and hole having all those parts in common would make maintenance much cheaper and much easier which i'm sure the thought of having easier maintenance makes every american tanker out there shout a great big unironic hua i think the closest russian equivalent to that phrase is tavarish our russian viewers can tell me if that carries the same amount of cringy connotation as hua does in this way the armada is actually very similar to the direction that the u.s army was planning to go in with their replacement for their own main battle tank the m1 abrams in the early 2000s except that the u.s prototype the xm 1202 program failed several times and never even made it through development far enough to even have the opportunity to stop working in public you can't say the us army next gen tanks are awful if you never make one so the 2015 press reports from the top russian tank manufacturer uvz they claim that by 2020 they would finish producing an initial run of 2 300 armadas which would be enough to replace about 80 percent of the front line units in russia again we seem to be coming up against lies here because obviously that hasn't happened not even a little ballooning unexpected production costs meant that there were only a handful of t14s in existence today they're like an endangered tank species i'm pretty sure it's a war crime to hunt them i'm sorry but can you blame me for feeling just a little bit lied to by the russian army they build this awesome next generation tank they dangle it in front of tank lovers and then they never deliver on the goods never mind a year later in 2016 they changed their mind and reported surprise russia's lethal t14 armada tank is in production then in 2018 they gave me whiplash real bad by backtracking again and cancelling the production seeing that they simply would just upgrade their old t-80s and t-90 tanks fair enough okay i'm at peace i accept the t-14 armada will never go into full production russia starts to mass-produce t14 armada tanks in 2022 quit playing games with my heart russia can only take so much this video exists for the purpose of attempting to cut through all of the deception and determine once and for all the t14 armada's actual strengths and weaknesses it's my attempt to put the entire development saga into historical context as a former infantryman i don't really have a dog in this race i'm not biased in favor of one tank or another i'm going to attempt to analyze what kind of new features the t14 armada has i want to see how it compares to the american m1 abrams and look at how this novel design hints at what's in store for the future of tank warfare there's a ton of russian propaganda on the one hand and oodles of western misinformation and skepticism on the other but i think enough dust has settled on the vehicle since its release in 2015 that we can investigate the truth about the t14 armada tank the origins of the idea for an unmanned tank turret and universal chassis system are hotly debated amongst tankers some say that the americans came up with the idea first and others angrily write articles claiming that the russians did either way i think we can all agree that tankers should never have been given internet access i think the truth is likely that the russians took some inspiration from the scrapped 1980s m1 abrams tank testbed prototype which had an unmanned remote controlled tank turret with an autoloader a three-person crew in a protected shell it shares a ton of design principles in common with the t-14 armada and the americans they ripped off the infantry fighting vehicle concept from the russians so all's fair in love and war right in fact the predecessor to the t14 armada started development in the russian army in 1995 and it had a lot of the same features that would end up making it into the t14 armada like the high output engine you had the taller turret profile and increased depression and elevation angle capability when the t95 was canceled in 2010 a lot of unfinished progress was rolled into the t14 project which began design at earl vagav zavad in the same year if you don't know much about russian tank production then at the very least you need to know about the company earl vegan zavod i mispronounced that with confidence right my old squad leader always told me cappy if you're going to be wrong this much at least be wrong with confidence hua today earl vegan bazaad is the world's single largest manufacturer of tanks the company was created as a train manufacturer in 1931 as part of joseph stalin's second five-year plan which was focused on modernizing russia's industrial power back then uvz was one of the many plants that were then converted into tank manufacturing during world war ii and they stayed that way all the way to today where they're struggling to pump out more than 100 t-14s in five years at one point they helped to create over 35 000 t-34s in world war ii which were instrumental in defeating the germans on the eastern front fast forward to 2010 and the russian ministry of defense gives the uvz tank manufacturer a specific task have the t14 next generation tank on the production line by 2015 or else well the best way to understand the armada's strengths and weaknesses is to break it down into the three main categories that we use to analyze any armored vehicle its firepower protection and its maneuverability the t14's firepower is a massive upgrade thanks to the new primary gun and ammunition the main 125 millimeter 2a82 1m cannon it's longer now at 6 meters this gives its rounds a 20 higher velocity than its opponents one russian source claims that the rounds travel at two thousand fifty meters per second hey guys you see where i parked my car it's white kind of crappy oh i guess i'll just walk to work it's a twenty percent accuracy boost over the last version of the weapon the max effective range for the armor-piercing fin stabilized ammo is 4.7 kilometers recently released open source information on the armada tells us that it can carry an extra 10 rounds in the abrams so it has a total of 45 shots the truth about the armada's main cannon is that most tank experts on both sides the russian and western side of the aisle believe that this is an awesome weapon it's better than the abrams they say a lot has been said about the t14's unmanned turret design because it's the tank's greatest distinguishing feature it's the design choice that informs every other decision on the tank it's a major departure from simple russian historic tank design by placing three soldiers in a separate protected crew shell in the front of the vehicle where they control the turret electronically one of the advantages of this approach in my opinion is that it makes the tank more lethal and it gives extra space for an autoloader now autoloader systems they automatically lift these heavy 50-pound munitions into the barrel this means you can operate the entire tank with one less member the abrams needs four soldiers but on the downside this means that you have less soldiers hands to help out when it comes to doing routine maintenance the other downside is if you're a tank commander you now have one less person to give details to and boss around private dimitri go find your american counterpart carl and tell him to stop drinking all the rip it an argument that auto loaders are slower than humans but the russian army claims that their auto loader can yied out 10 rounds per minute which is about the same rate of fire as the abrams but this video isn't about the lies of the t14 armada it's the truth about it personally i think the autoloader has more plus sides than downsides and it's an absolute necessity when we consider that the trend right now in military is going towards remotely controlled main battle tanks so it's going to need that autoloader the autoloader also allows for 100 millimeter larger munitions with its single piece ammunition instead of the old two-piece ammo the new rounds have greater armor-piercing ability able to cut through one thousand millimeters of rolled homogenous steel enemy armor at a distance of two kilometers a new kind of tank round can be fired from the main gun called the sprinter anti-tank guided munition which has the longest range of the tank at eight kilometers but its true range is actually capped at 7.5 kilometers because that's the max range for its laser range finder the ballistic computer can't create a firing solution for something it can't see right the weapon is connected to a radar tracking system which provides an automatic firing solution for each target before we get into the potential weaknesses of the t14s lethality i want to tell you about world of tanks it's a free-to-play video game with over 100 million players online you can test out more than 600 different tanks in this game there's light medium and heavy tanks from all different historical periods it's a great game to kick back relax unwind and destroy some enemy armor in you can tear across deserts climb steep hills and sneak through forests there are over 40 different battle arenas i can confirm this game is historically accurate and has authentic tank performance you'll earn experience modify and upgrade your personalized tank be sure to check out december's holiday ops that feature daily missions like the holiday spirit and commander arnold schwarzenegger click the link in the description use code tank mania to get your free 7 days of premium account time and 250 000 in-game credits you'll also get the premium tank excelsior plus 3 rental tanks for 10 battles each you'll get the tiger 131 the cromwell b and the t-3485m i'll see you guys in game russian defense company rostec ceo sergey kamiziov said quote the armada crew does not need to aim accurately it only has to aim the gun roughly electronics will do the rest it will accurately determine the distance to the target and aim the gun at it the vehicle uses artificial intelligence elements that help the crew deliver fire that sounds like a ton of fun until the onboard computer gets promoted before you do i can deal with the fact that most dogs in the military outrank me but i cannot tolerate russian computers that probably know my entire browser history but not all threats require the main pew-pew cannon for an anti-personnel and anti-drone engagements the t14 features a 12.7 millimeter machine gun which is like the 50 cal in the american arsenal it's got 300 rounds and it's positioned directly on the roof mounted commander's optical sight which operates independent of the main gun so it's not fixed to the cannon russian military sources claim the heavy anti-material machine gun is hooked up to the tank's radar system and that it can actually shoot down incoming rpg rounds look me in the eyes and tell me that machine gun actually shoots down rockets if it's true i'll give you 2 million rubles right here right now what do you mean that's only 5 usd so yes it's true russia did recently send the t14 armada into syria and they were kind of purposely insinuating that it got into combat operations there but the language that they used in the press release about it was purposely vague so they left it open to the idea that maybe it didn't get in combat maybe it did and the reason i think they sent it to syria was that they could get it into action get some actual hard performance data about how it performs in those conditions so they could use that information to better sell it to foreign countries that they're trying to sell the t14 armada to the commander's optical sight on the turret gives the vehicle 360 degree hunter killer ability which is this cool way of saying that the commander can search for and identify enemy targets at the same time as the gunner looks for separate targets and they can communicate to each other and send the signal if they spot one they can send the turret there and the driver can focus on not hitting the emergency brake again the russian army is currently developing a super 152 millimeter 2a 83 up gun version which is a full meter longer it's 7 meters long and it would be the largest caliber ever fitted on a tank don't worry while russia is working on creating super tank guns the us is drawing their entire defense budget into recruiting campaigns that strike fear into the hearts of their enemy so having a massive year cannon on top of your turret is only half of the equation in modern tank warfare the other half is the type of fire control system that the tank has military analysts agree that this is one of the aspects where the offensive abilities of the t14 armada could use a huge improvement the gunner's optical sights can only go up to 12 times magnification which means in good weather they can identify a tank sized target at five kilometers for comparison the abrams has a max zoom of 50 times which likely has better resolution better color and longer laser range finding abilities if you disagree with my minor criticisms of the t14 tank throughout this video then please take solace in the fact that i'm just an average former ground pounder standing in a tiny bedroom in my sweatpants on long island what do i know right historically the russian army has been at least a decade behind the american forces when it comes to the resolution on thermal imaging and the effectiveness of shooting on the move with these fire control systems ballistic computers are not up to par with the american abrams on the other hand the likelihood of a tank engagement past five kilometers it's incredibly rare especially in most parts of the world anyway this is why i continue to suggest to this day that the russian and us army should join forces and rule the galaxy together hashtag the empire did nothing wrong the t14 armada deploys a four layer protection system the first of which is the galax paint coating which reduces its signature to infrared and radar russian citizen used a thermal camera to capture footage of the t14 going down the street and you can see its ir signature is reduced the only place you really see a hot spot is where the exhaust port is in the back if that fails you're able to spot and fire at the armada it then uses its second layer this thing's crazy the afghanit active hard kill protection system is said to be even more effective than the famous israeli trophy active protection system russia actually claims that it can defeat an incoming tank round which no aps has done before as far as i know when we look at the russian patent we can see that it uses a different approach to aps it fires a shock core warhead at the incoming projectile which works better against small fast flying incoming tank munitions but on the other hand it has the disadvantage of needing to be more accurate so that ballistic calculation that tracks the incoming round needs to be more exact there's less room for error on the afghani system i'm always worried i'm going to be standing outside a tank and i'm going to throw some innocent item to one of my buddies standing on top of the tank and then the aps system is going to accidentally identify it as an incoming missile and shoot it down no just me on the soft kill side of the protection systems the t14 armada uses powerful infrared jammers and a unique automated smoke round to deflect incoming missiles like the javelin is this stuff okay to breathe in wow give me a bit of a head rush with the unmanned turret it can be smaller and requires less heavy armor which means more weight savings this means if you're ever in a situation where you're facing off against the t14 armada on the battlefield then you're going to want to aim for the least armored section the turret which also has the added benefit of possibly knocking out its cameras and totally blinding the tank crew making it useless unmanned turrets do have some weaknesses they rely far more on the electronics which are notoriously finicky it gives the crew less situational awareness russian defense writer oleg faleshnyav said quote it's not possible to turn the capsule like a turret so the emphasis is on optical means and electronics which can fail in battle if all those systems fail though then there's another layer of protection the new malachat dual explosive reactive armor we know that the last generation of era reduced incoming round penetration by 50 era is made up of these bricks of basically explosives that they're interconnected with systems that can detect when a missile's coming and they detonate right as the missile gets close which trips off the american tow missile warhead before it even hits the tank so in response the american tow missiles were upgraded to have tandem explosives so that the second charge would still go through even if the first one was tripped off in the event that a warhead gets through the t14 armada's explosive reactive armor there's still the whole armor there and it's made up of a brand new type of steel that the russians specifically designed for the t14 it's called the 44 s sv which supposedly reduces the weight by hundreds of kilograms 15 percent lighter overall vehicle from what i could gather the hull is also composed of titanium steel alloy carbon fiber nanotubes textalite ceramics and pockets of air projectiles would have to drive through all of that in order to defeat the tank the t14 armada was designed since inception to allow for remote control use with the intent to make it fully robotically controlled someday these features are easy to integrate into unmanned turret systems like the one already in use here many nato vehicles using hulls and system architectures designed during the cold war and in the 70s can't support unmanned remote controlled systems it's not suited for it t14 armada has an a85 3a turbocharged diesel engine with an output of 1500 horsepower which is placed in the rear compartment what it really means is that the t14 has a very high power to weight ratio since the weight is relatively low this is what gives it that 20 kilometers faster speed than other tanks the declared maximum fuel range on the road is a distance of 600 kilometers but the bottom line is that all of these aspects that we've covered so far don't really mean anything if you can't afford to mass produce the t14 armada obviously much of the conversation in and around the t14 focuses on the controversy over how much it actually costs to manufacture the vehicle was conceived in 2010 at a time when the russian economy was booming and their state coffers were filled with all the sweet sweet petro dollars since then the situation has rapidly reversed i've read a number of opinions from influential russian defense experts and a number of them have publicly expressed their doubts over the cost of the system alexander sharon the first deputy chairperson of the douma defense committee first it looked more than innovative and sparked explosive interest but the car was prohibitively expensive as a result the russian ministry of defense came to the conclusion that one cannot especially rush the large bashes of t14 armadas public estimates on the cost of the unit per vehicle vary widely from 3.8 to 9.5 million usd with it likely being closer to 9.5 million in 2015 they had already spent 17 million dollars on creating a production line and factory for the armada so i don't think the russian army was pretending to create this tank i don't think they were trying to deceive the west into thinking they had a next generation tank as some have suggested i believe they were actually planning to deliver the 2 300 armadas by last year but something went horribly wrong along the way so what was it that sidelined it i'm struggling to get a couch today so i can only imagine how difficult it is to get a tank if you think i'm being hard on the t14 by pointing out some of its flaws just remember that the american xm 1202 prototype main battle tank replacement has also been in various stages of development and cancellation for the better part of two decades if the t14 armada doesn't go into full rate production for another 10 years from now it would still likely be ahead of their competitors at that point it gives the russian army a platform to test out new armor and guns but its less effective optics and unrealistic production costs continue to hold it back in the short term russian army might have to take a play out of their old world war ii era playbook and look back at what some of their original tank designs did so well and made them so unbeatable thank you for watching i hope you enjoyed the video remember these are just my opinions on the t14 my thoughts and insights based on my military experience and the research i've done i don't claim to be a definitive source on this stuff if you have a different theory or you think i missed something please comment below i'll do my best to answer you because learning from all of you is easily my favorite part of having the opportunity to make these videos i'm your average infantryman chris cappy check out one of our other videos while you're here this is task and purpose

Channel: Task & Purpose

Views: 2,075,220

Keywords: armored vehicles, tanks, tracked vehicles, new russian tank, military history, task and purpose, chris cappy, 125mm cannon, armored warfare, armour vehicle, next generation tank, m1 abrams, us military, US army, special forces, anti tank system, javelin anti tank, rpg 7, APFSD, armor piercing fin stabalized, robot tank, unmanned turret, T-15 vehicle, T-72, Tank Battle, T-14 Armata tank explained

Id: Y2q10xGER5Y

Length: 22min 34sec (1354 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 17 2021