Professionally I highly appreciate the deep technical discussion I've with you. Personally I hecking hate you Man for making me read these long ahh posts and then type one too.
Gee... thanks!!
Anyways, back to yapping
Definitely it'll be bigger than the cramped rounds in MZ/AZ auto-loader given now you've the whole length from turret basket to the top to play with...but, there's a catch.
The rounds are stored perpendicular to the breech so before shoving it in you must rotate the round to a neer horizontal position all while lifting it up. If the round is made too long then it'll either hit the turret roof or the beech block while it's getting rotated.
And to make things worse they decided to store the rounds in the inner circle rather than the other, by reducing this radius the potential maximum length of the round too got reduced.
So ultimately a very small increment with absolutely no growth potential to bigger 130mm or 140mm rounds as on contemporaries.
They kinda had to. I mean the propellant section has larger diameter than the warhead, so there really isn't a way to do it in reverse without reducing the number of shells and thus wasting a lot of space in the hull.
Personally, I'm not a fan of this autoloader design either.
It was the the Americans who'd got it right with their Meggitt mechanical autoloader in the M1 TTB. It didn't put nearly as much handicap on the ammo length, could hold more ammo (44 as opposed to 31 of the Armata) while simultaneously being more compact. Plus, it came with blowout panels AND individual armored bins for the rounds - this thing was basically perfection in its totality. That's the beauty of using single piece ammunition right there.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Erbny3wSlcA
I'd say the Russians missed a golden opportunity to finally move away from their bs 2-piece ammo by failing to copy the Murican system.
And if we indeed end up going the unmanned turret route for the upcoming FRCV, then I'd want the autoloader to be based on the American system rather than the Russian one. Heck, they may as well bring in Meggitt for consultation.
BUT!! Having said all that, the length penalty in the Armata's system is not nearly as pronounced as some make it out to be if we go by a recently filed Russian patent about a new APFSDS penetrator, likely designed with Armata in mind.
Here, take a look -
Here, link to the whole thing in case anyone maybe interested:
https://www.fips.ru/cdfi/fips.dll/ru?ty=29&docid=2805664
As you can deduce from the above diagram, the penetrator has nearly identical dimensions to the latest block of M829 APFSDS round
(rod length of ~790 mm).
So, while still not as potent as the projected 130mm rounds and above, it's still a LOT better than what is possible with the older T-series MBTs and is most certainly,
NOT
with absolutely no growth potential to bigger 130mm or 140mm rounds as on contemporaries.
Well, you CAN fit a larger caliber gun in the Armata, just that it will require more extensive modifications. And it's not as if they haven't done so already!! I mean we have the Obj. 292 as an example, now don't we??
If a T-80 chassis could hold a 152mm gun, then an Armata can surely do the same!!
But in case of the current and upcoming bustle type auto-loader you simply need just two very simple motions...a conveyor belt moves in XY plane and then the round is simply yeeted in the Z-axis. Technically you can even chamber an ICBM if you want. Technically though
True, true... but you need to consider WHY the Russians went with a carousel type autoloader in the first place. The answer?? To keep the turret as small and light weight as possible, much like what the Americans had intended with their M1 TTB.
And given the maximum weight of our FRCV being hard capped at ~57 ton, I don't think DRDO will be left with any choice other than a carousel configuration (without compromising on the protection that is).
The thing with most of the currently active tanks like M1A1 is that it was designed to use a human auto-loader so they've a big hole in the turret. Now auto-loaders got added later so that compromised portion is still there as it is. But with something like a K-2 bustle (just the bustle, overall it too suffers with the vulnerability of hull ammunition) that was designed from ground up to use an auto-loader this opening is much smaller.
In this pic itself you can clearly see the place where the sliding blast door should have been that got completely compromised. Now compare that opening (I'd guess 2 shells wide by 3 shells tall) to that on a K-2...
View attachment 15423
...a single (that side hole is an optional thing for back-up ammo loading in case the auto-loader fails) hole, just enough to pass a single round. Also you don't need the shutter (or door) to be strong enough to contain the pressure, you just need to have it hold its shape until the pressure finds the path of least resistance by blowing off the blow-out panels. It's easier to make a smaller piece of metal stronger compared to a larger if thickness is kept the same; the more area the more flex.
Good, we are on the same page then.
Okay...first thing first. My argument of "even after bustle auto-loader gets blown off you'd still have machine guns left" has nothing to do with the tank being salvageable. As soon as the propellants would burn the extreme temperatures would permanently change the heat treatment of the surrounding surfaces, melt away all the sensitive electronic and so on. If there's a blowout then there's a pretty high chance that the turret is a write off; maybe you can salvage parts of it like the gun or T&E mechanism or front armour module...but not the complete turret.
My emphasis on machine gun is that you'll have atleast something heavy to cover while the crew is dismounting the vehicle. As soon as a tank is disabled it's biggest "predator" becomes infantry looking to kill the crew.
Man, you need to put more work on your wording, seriously.
But yeah, this makes a lot more sense now.
A crew is way more valuable than any equipment even if it's a B2 Spirit in question as it takes years to get just one competent crew.
Absolutely.
Cont below...
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