Introducing the T-14 "Armata"

As armored vehicle fans well know, the "Armata" tank became the “star” of the military news sites in these last few weeks.  We would like to share excellent news with you – the T-14 “Armata” tank will be featured in Armored Warfare! The developers have confirmed their plans to introduce the new Russian tank into their game.  The “Armata” will be available in the game as one of the high-tier main battle tanks, placed either on tier 9 or on tier 10, both of which will be added as a part of the future game development after its release.

The unified tracked “Armata” platform was develop during the last decade by the “Uralvagonzavod” company and will be used as the basis for whole series of vehicles. There are plans to replace the vehicles currently serving in the Russian army (including the T-80 and T-90 main battle tanks) with the “Armata” vehicle family and even the western experts predict the “Armata” to be at least on par with even the most modern version of the American “Abrams” main battle tank.

T-14 Armata tank main features

The T-14 “Armata” tank was partially created using the solutions developed for the previous experimental vehicles “T-95” and “Black Eagle”. The T-14 Armata features:

• A 125mm 2A82-1M smoothbore gun;
• An unmanned, remotely-controlled turret, which allows the crew to survive even an ammunition explosion;
• A multi-layer composite armor that protects the vehicle from all contemporary anti-tank rounds, complemented by the “Afganit” active protection system.

Currently, the Russian army has big plans for the use of the entire “Armata” vehicle platform. Their exact extent is still classified but it was already published that the platform family would not include only the T-14 “Armata” tank, but also a heavy infantry fighting vehicle (referred to by Russian sources as T-15), a heavy self-propelled gun, an armored recovery vehicle, a bridge-layer and an engineer vehicle.

The “Armata” tank – as well as other vehicles – is scheduled to be shown to the public during the Victory Day parade in Moscow in 2015, although a video of it recently appeared on the internet.

The T-14 “Armata” represents a revolution in the Russian armored fighting vehicle design. Its unmanned turret as well as the emphasis on crew protection are both new elements previously only tested on experimental Russian armor. The T-14 “Armata” clearly aims to become heavier and sturdier than any of its opponents. The western armored vehicles are expected to adopt the same approach in their future development, abandoning the manned turrets in favor of the remote controlled version. This not only allows the vehicle to protect the lives of its crew better but also saves some weight in the long run.

What is however possibly even more important is the existence of the unified “Armata” platform replacing the multiple essentially equal Russian designs of the past and simplifying the production. This is of course not the first attempt to unify the parts on former Soviet vehicles as the Russians developed what was essentially a unified turret for the T-64/72/80/90 tank series (project “Burlak”). It is also possible that certain parts of the T-14 “Armata” tank will find their use outside of the “Armata” vehicle series as well since the Armata’s gun (2A82) was tested on the T-72 hull as well.