Of course, the trunk is long, life is short
But artillery is far from just armor-piercing guns.
Well, it’s clear that the artillerymen from the special power artillery of the RGK had a significantly higher survival rate than the IPTAP soldiers. It is possible that they lived longer than others.
As for VET, there are interesting memories of one artilleryman on iremember.ru:
To me and, as far as I can judge from conversations with my comrades at the time, to my fellow soldiers, the picture of the battles seemed like this. After short but powerful artillery raids, the Germans attacked with tanks. Heavy vehicles, "Tigers" and "Ferdinands" reached heights in the depths of German positions and stopped at a distance of one to one and a half kilometers from our positions. The lighter and more maneuverable T-IVs continued to move along with a small number of infantry. It was pointless for us to fire at the cars standing behind us. Even in the event of a direct hit, the projectile could not cause serious damage at such a distance. And the German tank crews waited until our anti-tank defense was forced to open fire on the tanks moving forward. The gun that started firing and discovered itself immediately became a victim of an accurate shot from stationary heavy vehicles. It should be noted that the Tigers had very accurate sights and a very accurate firing 88-mm cannon. This explained the advice I received not to shoot until the last moment. Having opened fire at “pistol range”, you can count on being hit by the first or, in extreme cases, the second shell, and then, even if the gun is destroyed, you still end up with an unfavorable “exchange of pieces” for the Germans - a tank for a light gun. If you show your position prematurely, then, most likely, the weapon will be lost in vain.
That is, it really turns out that the life of an anti-tank gun on the battlefield was very short
But the death of a gun did not always mean the death of the crew. In 1645 IPTAP found a way out:
This also explains the additional changes made to the standard design of a gun trench. To the right and left of the gun, near the wheels, two slits were made - one for the gunner, the second for the loader. The ZIS-3 gun practically does not require the simultaneous presence of the entire crew at the gun. Moreover, the presence of only one person at a time is quite enough. The gunner, having fired a shot, could hide in the gap while the loader drove the next cartridge into the barrel. Now the gunner takes his place, aims, shoots, and the loader is in cover at this time. Even with a direct hit on a gun, at least one of the two has a chance to survive. The rest of the crew numbers are scattered along the cracks and side “pockets” of the trench. The practical experience that this regiment has accumulated since the Kursk Bulge made it possible to reduce losses to a minimum. Over the course of a month and a half of fighting on the bridgehead, the regiment changed its equipment three times, receiving new or repaired guns to replace the ones that were knocked out and destroyed, and retained its combat effectiveness, receiving almost no additional personnel.
... according to “completely reliable information” ranges from 0.1 seconds to 12 minutes. And for this very reason, the tank does not need durable [here you can insert any part of the tank and its crew, if we are talking about this].
It's just a stupid saying. Tale. They invented it for table bragging. They say that we are such brave kamikazes, on the verge of death, but we are not at all bashful, and even proud. And this is exactly what needs to be raised... There is nothing wrong with such bragging - men have always done and do this, it just strengthens their fighting spirit.
But for some reason, many take this seriously and try to draw conclusions about the structure of military equipment. Don't do that :) I'll explain in a simple way why you shouldn't.
Here you have an ordinary tank battalion of 30 combat tanks. And he enters into that very “modern war.” Let’s immediately discard the option where they hit the battalion nuclear strike megaton warhead. There aren’t that many warheads; they won’t waste them on every little thing. Also, we will not consider the brave (and suicidal) attack of BT-7 tanks on the dug-in Acht-acht division.
(note: 88 mm German anti-aircraft gun, first used against tanks during the Spanish Civil War. The 88mm anti-aircraft gun was one of the most formidable guns for British and American troops in North Africa and Italy, as well as our T-34 and KV tanks. The key to understanding the success of the eighty-eighth was the very high speed of its shells. It could hit most Allied tanks even when firing high-explosive shells, and with armor-piercing shells it became deadly.)
Let this be a normal war. Like in 1944 or how it seems today. A normal full-fledged modern army versus a comparable one.
Our battalion will first march, concentrate somewhere, march again, go to lines, go to other lines... But sooner or later it will enter the battle. Let's assume that full staff. It doesn’t matter whether as a whole or in separate platoons assigned to someone. AND?
And a comparable enemy will inflict heavy losses on him - a third irrevocable or for factory repairs. These are very heavy losses. It will still remain a battalion, but with greatly weakened capabilities. If the losses were 50%, then we would be talking about a defeated battalion, the remainder would be about a company. And if it’s even more, then this is a destroyed battalion.
Why are such gradations needed? – And then that you would like to achieve your goals and maintain the combat effectiveness of your strike unit. It is unlikely that you will want to lose it for these purposes - the war will not end in the evening. And will your goals be achieved if the battalion is defeated or destroyed in the process? Therefore, you won’t send your battalion to such a fornication. Or take him away while you still have him, in case of unpleasant surprises. Therefore, a third of losses is the upper limit of losses in a “normal” “modern” battle.
OK. And our rear service does an excellent job and replenishes the lost materiel with just a fly. A week later you have ten new tanks - the composition has been restored. And you go into a new harsh battle.
Just don’t think that battles are so intense that you lose a third of your equipment and l/s can be daily. Isn’t this our Kursk Bulge? And this way, any division will have enough for three days. No, if, after all, the Kursk Bulge, then it is possible. But it wasn’t like that there either. Some division disappeared as a factor in one day, others went the next day, and for them everything was not so sad. You cannot attack enemy positions again and again every day with huge losses with the same troops. So after three attacks your army will run out and you will have to stop this business. Or will you break the adversary, and then catch up, finish off, trophies...
Briefly speaking. A tough fight every week is a huge exaggeration, but let's say, let's say.
So, we will lose 10 tanks again. Of these, 6.7 will be from the initial number, and 3.3 from the replenishment. We bring in new ones again and again lose a third in another week. Well, one more iteration. This is what comes out.
After a month of fierce fierce battles, the battalion includes tanks with a service life of:
- 4 weeks – 6 pieces,
- 3 weeks – 3 pieces,
- 2 weeks – 4 pieces,
- 1 week – 7 pieces,
- new – 10 pieces.
Purely mathematically, the oldest tanks will never run out. And all the equipment will be on average and mostly old. And it will be necessary to fight on it until the service life of the engine and transmission is exhausted, and after they are replaced in the field, until the service life of the gun barrel is exhausted. That is, everything there must be strong, durable, repairable, and the crews must be trained.
Although everyone knows for sure that the life of a tank is modern combat…
Explosions of shells are exploding all around, bullets and shrapnel are whistling. The tanks are rushing forward, followed by the infantry, covered by armor, and aircraft are fighting in the sky. During a battle, life expectancy on the battlefield is measured in minutes and seconds, and everything is decided by chance - someone remains alive after passing through fire and flames, while someone dies from a stray shot.
However, constant military conflicts have shown that there is a certain pattern in war: losses during an assault differed from losses during defense. The picture of the battle is greatly influenced by the soldiers’ weapons, their training, and morale. Reports from the fields were carefully studied, processed and analyzed. [C-BLOCK]
Life to money calculator
This went on for centuries, until at the end of the 19th century, Russian banker and entrepreneur Ivan Bliokh published the book “Future War and Its Economic Consequences,” in which he combined and analyzed the military experience of all the leading European powers of that time. And although main goal The book was intended to show the incredible wastefulness, cruelty and unnecessaryness of wars; it became a reference book for all military leaders.
Bliokh was an entrepreneur and approached the war not so much from the side of tactics or strategy, but from the side of economics. He calculated what funds were spent on arming a soldier, how much his training, transportation and maintenance cost. And then he made calculations based on data from firing training and simulated various combat situations.
For example, consider the situation of an attack on a trench held by a hundred riflemen. It turned out that if soldiers begin to attack the line from a distance of 500 meters, then the 100 people who are needed for a conditionally equal fight already at the position will only reach it if the initial number of attackers is almost 650 people - i.e. almost seven times the number of defenders! And these indicators occurred at the end of the century before last, when we were talking about weapons with manual reloading, and the situation did not involve the support of artillery and other means of reinforcement.
According to the author's idea, the book was a universal calculator, where, no matter how terrible it may seem, human lives were converted into money. Bliokh hoped that these arguments would force politicians to abandon wars as an ineffective way to solve problems, but instead he gave them a convenient tool for more accurate calculations. [C-BLOCK]
Count by minutes
A lot has changed in modern warfare - weapons have become more powerful and faster-firing. Artillery support is more mobile, even hand-held examples have appeared. The equipment is better protected and more powerfully armed. But as before, calculations for combat missions are carried out on the basis of Bliokh’s theory.
For example, during the Great Patriotic War, calculations for breaking through the defense were based on the following indicators - they took the number of enemy guns located in the attack area, calculated the rate of fire, armor penetration and took the percentage of misses, to this they added the average speed of the tanks and the thickness of the armor, and based on these indicators they made calculations. It turned out that the average tank time in battle during an attack was 7 minutes, and in defense 15 minutes.
It was even harder for the infantrymen - in battle they were not protected by tank armor and powerful fire from large-caliber guns, so in individual cases their life time was calculated from the moment they arrived at the front line, and during the battle the life time of the unit was calculated. For example, the famous sniper Vasily Zaitsev in his memoirs “There was no land for us beyond the Volga” mentions that the infantryman who arrived in Stalingrad lived for about a day. And the infantry company (about 100 people) lived in the attack for about half an hour.
With aviation, the situation is different - there is a big difference in what kind of aircraft we are talking about, and life expectancy is measured not by time, but by the number of sorties. For example, bombers during combined arms combat last one mission. Attack aircraft - one and a half, and fighters - two and a half sorties. [C-BLOCK]
However, one must understand that all these numbers are abstract and have a rather mediocre relationship to reality. Lifetime does not necessarily mean death or death at all - if a soldier is wounded and cannot continue to fight, then he is also recorded as a loss. In addition, there are many examples when soldiers went through the entire war from the first to last day. The concept of “average life time in combat” was introduced to calculate the forces required to solve a combat mission, but in reality, many more factors influence the execution of an order.
Some features of modern combat are discussed in the article “The Character of the Future Battlefield,” published on the REX news agency website. It briefly describes the main points of armed struggle, both in large-scale war and in internal armed conflicts.
Sergey Kanchukov
Some features of modern combat are discussed in the article http://www..html “The nature of the future battlefield”, published on the REX news agency website. It briefly describes the main points of armed struggle, both in large-scale war and in internal armed conflicts.
This article examines two directions in the development of modern combat, including the “Struggle of Arms” and the “Struggle of People.” These two types of modern combat in the foreseeable present and future will determine the very nature of armed struggle and the means that will participate in it.
The main meaning of all the proposals set out in the article is that the saturation of modern combat with high-precision weapons, the improvement of the arsenal of anti-tank weapons, which have become common mass weapons, conducting modern real combat in most cases by remote means, requires an adequate response. The development of armored vehicle protection systems, using active and passive schemes, in modern conditions provides insufficient protection for armored vehicles, including tanks. Perhaps the development of science will make it possible to create more reliable protection systems based on laser or other technology, but these will be the same active-passive methods. We propose now to expand the arsenal of protective equipment used by all armored vehicles participating in combat, and based on the impact not only on the carriers of the weapons intended to destroy armored vehicles, but also on the ammunition that these weapons or weapon systems use. This method is partially implemented in the Zaslon complex and improved in the Shtandart and Afganit KAZ complexes, which should be installed on the promising Armata. These are close-range complexes, one might say, direct defense. And it is also necessary to develop and implement long-range complexes that make it possible to destroy both carriers and the ammunition themselves at the maximum reach of weapons. Already now, attack helicopters can launch a missile at a tank in a “fire and forget” system from a distance of 15 km, without entering the detection zone and destruction zone of armored vehicle weapons systems. And relying only on the tank’s existing close-in defense systems would be a mistake.
These are defensive complexes. But every armored vehicle must also have offensive systems that allow it to successfully fight the entire range of existing military equipment capable of participating in combat. For this purpose, it is necessary to provide for the possibility of operating the armament of armored vehicles through several independent target channels.
The article http://www..html “Armored vehicles (MRAP) - a look at the present and future in the Russian Army” examines the requirements for armored vehicles used mainly in internal armed conflicts and during post-crisis resolution, after the active phase of hostilities. In this article we will consider some of the requirements that must be taken into account when developing and combat use of main weapons ground forces- tanks.
New approaches to the composition and combat capabilities of armored vehicles will require the need to make changes to the tactics of combat use, to the structures of military organisms, and to combat manuals. All this will only increase the combat capabilities of both individual types of equipment and the military organization as a whole.
SOME QUESTIONS OF FUTURE BATTLE TACTICS
The combat use of armored vehicles is based on the provisions of tactics developed by military science, tested during exercises and confirmed directly in combat operations. And based on the conclusions obtained during the development of combat tactics, the basic requirements for the armored vehicles themselves are being worked out.
The first feature of modern combat is that today, when the intensity of the use of high-precision weapons by carriers has increased, their use increases the likelihood of hitting armored vehicles located in a certain defense area, or during the performance of another combat mission, the smallest tactical unit (platoon) comes to the fore. , which must protect itself from most weapons. Given the capabilities of individual ammunition declared by industry and manufacturers to hit targets with a probability of 0.8-0.9, the classic structure of tactical units (battalion, company, platoon) requires revision, and therefore it is necessary to revise the requirements for armored vehicles.
To protect the equipment of a tactical platoon-type unit, with the current organizational approach, the corresponding commander does not have sufficient capabilities. This means that the enemy is capable, using high-tech weapons, of destroying each platoon individually, and then transferring efforts to a higher level.
APPEARANCE OF A PROMISING BATTLE TANK
In the ground component, regardless of the size of the formations, armored weapons form the basis of its combat capabilities. The tank is quite effective means fighting enemy tanks, provided that it is superior to the latter in efficiency or at least not inferior to them. To increase the combat effectiveness of tanks, armor protection alone is no longer enough, even with active and passive dynamic protection. A modern tank lacks not only reconnaissance assets, but also other combat capabilities - anti-personnel, artillery, anti-aircraft. Constant support by aviation and helicopters is required, which cannot always be provided in all cases. New approaches are needed to solve these problems in order to effectively firepower the tanks themselves were fully realized.
A tank is a universal weapon capable of not only being at the forefront of an attack, in the first line of attacking or defending troops, but also with its fire and direct fire to fight the entire range of targets involved in modern combat, both in large-scale war and in armed conflict. Due to the fact that the tank has heavy armor, it is reliably protected from most weapons, and can perform its main task - fighting enemy tanks, can hit any other armored and unarmored objects, as well as fight enemy personnel. With the necessary range of ammunition, a modern tank can also fight enemy helicopters.
But first, let's briefly dwell on those main points that still require the creation of a new tank, and not the modernization of the old one. However, modernization, if it is carried out according to new requirements, may bring existing tanks closer to the combat vehicles that the army needs today and tomorrow.
Existing tanks were created according to the concept of combat when it was necessary to find approaches to increase their combat effectiveness on the battlefield compared to the enemy. At that time, the tactics of combat use of tanks were based on tactics last war, on their mass use in battle, despite the possible large losses, and the simultaneous possibility of their mass reproduction by industry. These approaches dictated the development conditions and limitations for subsequent modernization:
Low silhouette, to make it difficult to hit a tank at long and medium distances, allowing them to quickly approach a short distance and, due to the machine gun or loading mechanism, fire more shots at the enemy;
Weight limitation due to the lack of a more powerful engine, which means a reduction in the maneuverability of the tank, as intended by the developers, allowing the tank to maneuver on the battlefield and evade targeted fire;
Weak survivability of the gun, designed for a short time the life of the tank, until it is disabled or destroyed on the battlefield;
The lack of a complete range of necessary ammunition to carry out a combat mission, but this is also due to military science, which has not developed new tactics of use and does not take into account both our and the combat experience of using tanks in various armed conflicts;
Insufficient training of the crews, the inability of such a reduced (three people) composition to carry out combat missions with high quality for a long time;
Limited inner space for installation of modern weapons systems;
Limitation in increasing the quality of reservation, both in weight and in the capabilities of the existing chassis;
The practical impossibility of improving the ergonomics of a combat vehicle by increasing various equipment, and many others.
In modern combat there are already systems, in particular our Centimeter-type adjustable ammunition, which the Defense Ministry abandoned, that allow a tank to hit an enemy target without being in the field of view of its reconnaissance and surveillance systems. Determining the location of the object can be carried out using UAV equipment installed on each combat vehicle, with the transfer of target coordinates to the tank’s control system. Firing a shot and illuminating the target at the final section of the projectile’s flight path, which is a fraction of a second, can already occur automatically.
The development of science does not stand still, frozen at the turn of the 60s, but moves forward, which means that the implementation of the principle is already possible in the management system: discovered - made a decision.
What's happened discovered- this, through the equipment available on board the tank, reveals the entire situation on the battlefield (where the equipment can be squeezed into an existing tank), and is displayed on the monitor of the commander and gunner. The fire control system independently determines threats to the tank, by both recognizing silhouettes and determining their combat characteristics that threaten the tank, and automatically determining the most vulnerable places in the object and the type of ammunition that needs to be used. Additionally, the tank's control system receives information from other combat objects and systems conducting battlefield reconnaissance. A mandatory feature of this LMS is that decision the commander or gunner of the tank is displayed on the monitor screen (sight), say, by highlighting the target in a different color, all other participants in the battle, to distribute objects between the system (unit). This distribution is made automatically, and a neighboring tank or other combat vehicle of the system will no longer be able, without crew intervention, to fire at this object if the decision is made almost simultaneously. Thus, complete coverage of exposed targets and their distribution for destruction is achieved. Crew intervention is required in cases where it is necessary to reliably hit an object from an ambush, or there are no other objects, or in other necessary cases.
What's happened He has made a decision- this is when the vehicle commander or gunner decided to hit a specific target with a specific weapon system, and aimed the sight mark at the target. It is possible that in the future the system will make it possible to simply point at a target with a stylus or an arbitrary object, or by displaying information on a helmet-mounted system to point at a target by turning the head, and the control system will carry out independent guidance. The automation independently calculates the required lead, elevation angle, sight mark and points the gun at the most vulnerable spot of the target in accordance with the ammunition selected by the system, and fires a shot. With such capabilities of the fire control system, there is no need to carefully aim the sight at the target and hold the sight mark at the aiming point before firing a shot. After the shot, the system automatically determines the result of the shot, taking into account the target’s countermeasures revealed by the system, determining the degree of impact of the projectile on the target, the degree of damage, and provides the result for a second or additional decision. In the case of a guaranteed target hit, determined both visually by the crew and the fire control system, on the sight monitor the target is painted in the color of the target hit and remains there either until the entire situation is reset or until leaving the combat area, or at the command of the tank commander forcibly.
This is a semi-automatic machine, and in the future the machine gun must independently perform all the functions associated with the use of the main weapon against armored vehicles capable of causing significant damage to the tank itself. The remaining weapons of the tank will require the participation of the crew in its use for a long time only because modern combat is multifaceted in nature, and only human intelligence is able to comprehend the entire process and make the only right decision.
This is only a small fraction of what a tank's weapon control system should provide in modern combat conditions. In order for the remaining criteria to correspond to modern combat, it is necessary new tank, but if possible with the maximum use of existing developments.
The appearance of the new tank should make it possible to create a system that will surpass existing models and be able to use it to create a complex of weapons systems for modern combat. In modern combat, a tank must be able to simultaneously perform several combat, control and fire missions:
1. The ability to conduct combat operations in any climatic conditions, at any time of the day and in any theater of military operations;
2. The ability to automatically receive, without the participation of the crew, and simultaneously transmit to the unit’s management network information received using personal reconnaissance equipment, and receive relevant information from interacting and higher-level systems;
3. The ability to carry out radio exchange in a covert control mode between armored vehicles, inside and with other units, between objects participating in the battle;
4. Fight enemy tanks with the main weapon at all line-of-sight ranges, in any weather conditions, time of day, and beyond line of sight, through the use of high-precision guided ammunition, with mini UAV target illumination;
5. Fight against medium and lightly armored enemy targets at all ranges using both main and auxiliary weapons;
6. Fight against enemy infantry hidden in structures, trenches, buildings and structures, at actual fire range, using both main and auxiliary weapons;
7. Fight your own way personal protection with low-flying enemy aircraft at maximum range and helicopters using guided anti-tank weapons;
8. Use cannon fire to destroy long-term fire installations and buildings adapted for defense at short and medium ranges;
9. Blind the enemy with smoke shells at all ranges;
10. Resist, through built-in active and passive protection, the effects of all ammunition and anti-tank missiles from all angles of their use, including when affecting the upper hemisphere;
11. Resist used ammunition of all calibers and guided missiles by influencing them with tank weapons systems, while having four independent fire channels;
12. Resist the explosion and detonation of ammunition from the effects of anti-tank mines and landmines.
A special feature of this proposal is that the tank crew should consist of four military personnel: the tank commander; gunner; driver mechanic; charging. Why four people, and not three, as now. Despite the fact that a given tank must have a loading mechanism of a certain design, about which below, each crew member has his own responsibilities in the tank, and shifting them onto the shoulders of others, artificially reducing the crew, only entails a decrease in the combat effectiveness of the tank and its systems This also limits the tank’s fire capabilities to one full-fledged system, one target channel (cannon + coaxial machine gun). This includes the fatigue of the crew in battle, and their limited perception of the entire battlefield, due to the inability to simultaneously conduct observation in different directions. This also includes the need to perform minimal maintenance on the tank’s systems in between battles (refueling, loading ammunition, servicing weapons, reconnaissance and surveillance systems, etc.). Yes, and serving as the guard of your tank requires the allocation of time, and an additional soldier only increases the opportunities for the recovery of the crew and its readiness to effectively use highly complex and ultra-expensive equipment.
Layout of the new tank divides the internal volume into protected zones and includes:
The control compartment is protected from the front by an armor insert of at least 1200-1500 mm, and from the sides by side armor plates of the hull, fuel tanks and an internal armor wall, and additional side armor is side screens;
The fighting compartment, consisting in the upper hemisphere of an enlarged tank turret and an armored compartment in the tank hull, connected to the control compartment when the gun is positioned in a traveling position (forward);
Storage compartment for the main ammunition load (shells), in a conveyor (18 -20 shells, each in a protected container), horizontally located under the armored floor of the fighting compartment;
Storage compartments for additional ammunition ammunition, located behind the fighting compartment (in a horizontal belt conveyor, 30-40 pieces), and separated by an armored partition from the fighting compartment with an opening hatch for loading ammunition and a hatch for equipping the main conveyor with the necessary types of ammunition;
The engine and transmission compartment located at the rear of the tank.
Booking should include combined protection for the front projection of the hull and turret of the tank, allowing protection, as written in one of the above-mentioned articles, from a direct hit by a 140mm sub-caliber projectile with a depleted uranium core, and from a tandem, combined warhead of a cumulative projectile, at a certain angle of contact, at long and medium distances. Additionally, built-in active dynamic protection is installed on the frontal projection, turret roof, open elements of the upper hull sheets, side projections and additional side hull screens, on the rear of the tank and turret, along the entire perimeter, including in the rear hemisphere, which allows increasing durability armor at short distances when fighting in urban environments. The sufficiently high survivability of the tank in the event of penetration of the armor is ensured not only by a rational layout with separation of dangerous zones, but also by the presence of various active protection systems against all types of ammunition.
Tank body should be increased in height by 150 - 200 mm to the rear radius of the turret ring, and then to the stern by 300 - 400 mm, taking into account the circular rotation of the turret. The width of the body must be increased by no less than 100-200 mm, amounting to at least 2900 - 3000 mm in the center of the tracks. Increasing the width of the hull will make it possible to increase the thickness of the side walls of the hull, and due to additional screens with built-in dynamic protection, guarantee resistance to damage from all portable ATGMs and RPGs, as well as protection from 40 mm shells. This arrangement will create optimal conditions for crew ergonomics and equipment placement.
Tower a new configuration, increased in volume along the perimeter and height, in the front hemisphere, having a certain angle of inclination of the main and auxiliary armor in the front part, covers the driver's hatch from the upper hemisphere with a gun mask and bulges of armor. The side projection, extending beyond the turret shoulder strap, is located almost at the level of the side additional screens of the hull and chassis, having spaced armor. The rear projection of the turret, extended towards the stern, completely covers the additional space created by increasing the length of the tank hull, covering the area of the additional compartment of the main ammunition from above along the course completely, along other planes by 70-80%. Inside the turret, this volume houses the loading mechanism and equipment. On the top projection of the turret there are all the instruments and sights included in the tank’s weapon control system (WCS) and two hatches for the commander and loading tank that rotate around their axis by 360 degrees. To the right and slightly behind the commander's hatch there is a installation with a remote-controlled 12.7mm machine gun with pumping from -10 to +85 degrees and an autonomous sight. To the left of the loader's hatch, symmetrically to the commander's machine gun mount, there is a remote-controlled 7.62mm machine gun mount with pumping from -10 to +85 degrees and an autonomous sight. In the center of the turret projection, near its rear plane, there is a remote-controlled 40mm 6G27 “Balkan” grenade launcher with an autonomous sighting system with pumping from -5 to +85 degrees. All sighting systems have armored covers (flaps) that can be opened at the time of aiming or reconnaissance. On the outside of the turret, behind the reserved volume and additional active and passive armor, there is the tank’s auxiliary power unit and ammunition compartments for 12.7mm and 7.62mm machine guns and a 40mm grenade launcher. The design feature of these complexes provides for the use of the weapon's full ammunition without reloading it during combat and the automatic return of used belts and links after firing to the appropriate magazines. An additional compartment on the rear side of the tower has space for the crew's personal belongings. Access to this compartment is from the outside of the tank turret.
Mounted on the tower system for setting up curtains and optical-electronic countermeasures with protection from PTS with laser seekers and the action of laser rangefinders (LD). It includes 20 launchers of smoke and aerosol grenades and laser irradiation detection heads. An active protection complex (KAZ “Zaslon”) is installed in the stern of the turret to protect the sides and roof of the turret itself, as well as the roof of the auxiliary, auxiliary and mechanical equipment from the third generation ATGM type FGM-148 Javelin and other ammunition of a similar class. Additionally the system is installed "anti-sniper" to determine the presence of optical and optoelectronic devices at a distance of up to 2.5 km.
Tank base should be increased by one roller or in size by 900-1100 mm, which will balance both the weight and provide additional space for weapon systems. Increasing the base in combination with other approaches will not affect the maneuverability of the tank, as some authors write about this.
Tank suspension hydropneumatic, adjustable. The chassis is covered with power screens. Tank weight can amount to 60 tons, through the use of modern technologies.
Department of Management The tank is located in the front part along the axis of the vehicle. Protection of the control compartment in the frontal projection is carried out by a complex of combined armor and built-in dynamic protection, as mentioned above, which can withstand a 140 mm gun BPS. The control compartment is connected to the fighting compartment through the possibility of exiting under the breech of the gun, with its horizontal position and stowed position. To force the turret to rotate in the event of failure of the main and auxiliary drives, a manual drive for turning the turret horizontally must be provided in the control compartment. To the left and right of the control compartment, main fuel tanks are installed behind armored partitions, which have the function of filling the volume to prevent explosion and leakage of fuel. The second set of fuel tanks is located in the front hemisphere of the perimeter of the fighting compartment and is separated from the fighting compartment and the control compartment by armored partitions. The control compartment must have a hatch in the upper part of the hull, additionally protected from the upper hemisphere by an armored turret mask, which must hang over it when the gun is in position when the turret is rotated in any direction. The thickness of the hatch and the upper armor plate near the hatch cannot provide the necessary protection when hit by an RPG shot fired from the upper floors of buildings during street fighting. Especially if several shots are fired simultaneously at one aiming point, because for each new system Ways to counteract are always being developed. The Abrams tank has a pretty good solution in this regard, and there is nothing wrong with it if we take it into account too. The tank is controlled in a traveling manner when the gun is positioned in a traveling manner.
Combat compartment located in a tower of increased dimensions and space in the housing, separated from the rest of the volume by an armored capsule. On the right side of the fighting compartment there is a seat for the gunner (down in the hull in front of the fighting compartment) and the tank commander (in the turret, behind and above the gunner). On the left side of the fighting compartment there is a loader's workplace. In the roof, on both sides of the gun, there are hatches that open outward and rotate 360 degrees. The fighting compartment houses instruments and weapon control systems, communications equipment, and the crew’s personal weapons.
Engine compartment must be located in the aft part of the hull and be accessible for its maintenance, as well as for repair, maintenance at extended intervals or replacement, through the possibility of removing (opening) the aft armor plate. The engine, the heart of the tank, is required for such a vehicle with a power of at least 1500 - 2000 hp. For this purpose, it is best to use a gas turbine engine from the T-80, with appropriate modernization and an increase in both power and a reduction in fuel consumption by improving the blades and other systems. Installing a gas turbine engine will reduce the dimensions of the engine compartment, and increasing its height will allow the equipment to be configured so as to accommodate an additional powerful generator to provide the tank’s electrical equipment with the necessary power. Preliminary calculations show that it will be needed many times more. The tank's transmission must be automatic hydromechanical, allowing not only to automatically switch speeds, but also allow you to control the direction of rotation of the tracks to make turns. Drive to rear driving wheels. If the generator power and technical solutions make it possible to have an electro-hydro-mechanical drive of the drive wheels, then this will be a fairly advanced solution for the transmission and chassis of the tank. The presence of an auxiliary unit located in the engine-transmission compartment will allow powering the systems at stops, without involving the main engine.
Fuel located only in the internal volumes of the tank in four tanks, two are located to the left and right of the driver, in the control compartment. The other two are in the front hemisphere of the fighting compartment perimeter. All tanks are separated from ammunition and habitable compartments by armored partitions. There is also a stern tank installed behind an armored partition separating the engine-transmission compartment and the ammunition compartment. In total, there is an estimated 2,000 liters of fuel behind the armor, allowing the tank to have a range of about 600 km. The dynamism of the tank will be ensured not only by the power plant, but also by the overall layout, systems, and ergonomics, which will increase the average speed of movement, both on public roads and over rough terrain. This will allow the tank to make long marches over long distances (1500 km) and daily marches of up to 500 km on one refueling, with readiness to immediately enter into battle.
Tank combat effectiveness depends on many indicators, one of which is its weapons system, which includes the weapon complex itself, which allows it to be used through independent target channels, a complex of reconnaissance and surveillance systems, a complex weapon control system, and a complex of ammunition. A distinctive feature of the proposed scheme, in addition to other proposals, is the multi-channel nature of the tank’s weapon system.
Tank armament includes main weapon(130, 140mm) designed to destroy all types of tanks, armored objects, sheltered and openly located manpower, destruction of buildings and structures by direct fire, protection from enemy ammunition through the use of special ammunition, destruction of low-flying air targets, destruction of targets with precision-guided ammunition.
gun(130-140mm), installed on a tank, must necessarily have a liner. This will increase the survivability of the bore and its accuracy and efficiency, easily replace it in the field, and ensure high-quality full-scale combat training, after which there will be no need to destroy hundreds of thousands of tons of unspent on combat training in Peaceful time ammunition, and release untrained soldiers into battle. The gun pointing angles in the vertical plane are from -10° to +60°. The choice of gun caliber depends on:
From the dispersion of projectiles at the final point of impact under various firing modes;
From the direct shot range, the overall firing range and the power of ammunition for various purposes;
From the ability of the industry to install a liner in the barrel, which allows to significantly increase the survivability of the barrel bore and save enough money and time;
From the effective range of a direct shot. A range of 3000 m can be considered the maximum combat firing range of a tank under the conditions of its use on Russian territory, and it should be considered as the basis for the requirements for a future tank gun;
On the ability of the industry to produce new ammunition, without fail unitary with detachable tray.
The transition to unitary shots is due to the need to increase the penetration characteristics of armor-piercing sub-caliber projectiles, which in turn will entail an increase in their absolute length. This approach will require a change in the design of the loading mechanism.
Ammunition for the main weapon must have more advanced characteristics and increased ability to hit an object with the selected ammunition. List of ammunition, in contrast to the existing nomenclature armor-piercing sub-caliber, cumulative, high-explosive fragmentation, must be supplemented with other types of ammunition. The range of ammunition should include concrete-breaking, in high explosive and shrapnel versions, to destroy the enemy inside buildings and structures. Shrapnel, with remote detonation, to combat helicopters, UAVs, and enemy infantry hiding in trenches, buildings, and structures. With arrow-shaped striking elements, and with remote detonation, to combat openly located manpower. Smoke, to create interference for the enemy at various ranges. Lighting, light-noise, light-sound, to blind the enemy and influence him in a non-lethal way.
To combat enemy aircraft and ammunition, the range of cannon ammunition must include special precision-guided ammunition with remote detonation and creation of a continuous directed cloud of lethal elements
Can be used to destroy tanks guided missiles, only if the “fire and forget” principle is implemented and the price-effectiveness ratio approaches one in any situation. In other cases, due to the high cost of this ammunition and the impossibility of using it sufficiently in the process of training crews, the concept of missile and gun armament for tanks must be abandoned.
To defeat the entire list of objects for the tank's arsenal, it is necessary to adopt precision-guided ammunition, developed by "Russian concept of impulse correction" type "Centimeter". This concept allows you to have cumulative, high-explosive, concrete-piercing, shrapnel, and special ammunition that allows you to defeat enemy targets at any range using an integrated weapon system according to the principle: "projectile-target". These technologies have no analogues in the world and are hundreds of times more "efficiency-cost" superior to existing missiles. Currently, a modern tank’s ammunition rack contains only four precision-guided ammunition, and the use of this technology will make it possible to have the entire ammunition rack of precision-guided ammunition. Combat effectiveness increases hundreds of times when this approach is implemented.
Loading mechanism and conveyor The main weapon is combined and consists of several elements. The entire complex is controlled by the loader in semi-automatic mode. Loading a gun includes issuing a command to open the gun bolt when loading the first shot, issuing a command to load the type of ammunition selected by the commander or gunner, replenishing the main conveyor with the necessary ammunition, with their semi-automatic removal from the additional conveyor. The loading mechanism itself, with the rammer and the mechanism for ejecting the cartridge case tray, is located in the rear part of the turret and removes the shot from the underground horizontal conveyor, feeds it to the loading line, sends the shot into the barrel, extracts the cartridge case tray and removes it through a special hatch in the roof of the tower.
Main conveyor located horizontally under the armored floor of the fighting compartment, includes 18-20 cells for unitary projectiles, which allows you to simultaneously place three ammunition of the same type, the replenishment of which is carried out automatically or semi-automatically. In the armored floor, on the line of the gun's loading axis, there is an automatically opening hatch for removing the projectile from the conveyor using the loading mechanism. The hatch is also used to replenish the ammunition of the main conveyor.
Additional conveyor with ammunition is placed behind an armored partition between the combat and engine compartments, having a shape that allows the use of both the entire reserved volume and maximum amount placed ammunition, including, depending on the selected option 30-40 unitary shells. The delivery of shells into the main conveyor occurs semi-automatically, along the axis of the barrel bore using a rammer, both automatically and manually. The additional conveyor is loaded with ammunition through an openable hatch in the armored partition. It also serves as a reserve hatch for manual loading of the gun in the event of automatic failure. When using one type of ammunition, loading can occur directly, with partial use of the main conveyor.
In addition to the main gun, a gun mantlet, above the gun, is installed additional weapons, consisting of 30mm automatic cannon 2A72 with double-belt feed and barrel casing, with a pumping angle from -10 to +60. This weapon system allows for high-precision combat against various lightly armored targets at a considerable distance, including enemy aircraft and the ammunition they use. Standard ammunition 2000 shells, placed in the gun's power stores, located in the fighting compartment in the hull on both sides of the main gun, mounted on the armored floor of the rotating turret in the front hemisphere and covered with light Kevlar-based armor. In addition to the main ammunition for the gun (BT, BP, BOPS RMS303), it is necessary to develop a high-explosive fragmentation projectile with an explosion programmer that allows detonation of a projectile above a trench, in front of a wall, inside a wall or behind a wall, and the ability to transition to directed fragmentation flows.
Additionally, on the roof of the tower, in its rear hemisphere, with a ledge toward the stern, there are three remote-controlled weapon systems with individual systems and combined surveillance devices, including a 12.7mm machine gun mount, a 7.62mm machine gun mount and a 40mm grenade launcher.
12.7mm machine gun mount designed to destroy lightly armored targets, aircraft, including UAVs, manpower located openly and in various shelters, and conduct anti-sniper combat and combat weapons using optical sights. For this purpose, the installation is connected to the corresponding reconnaissance system in common system OMS. The installation is aimed in the range from -10 to +85 degrees vertically and horizontally at +180 and -180 degrees, taking into account the deduction of the safe angles of other installations located on the tower. The machine gun's ammunition capacity is 2500 rounds and is located in an autonomous compartment at the rear of the turret, having a single supply for the entire ammunition load. The ammunition load includes 12.7x108 rounds with armor-piercing incendiary tracer (BZT), armor-piercing incendiary (B-32) and instantaneous incendiary (IMZ) bullets. Additionally, the development of shrapnel fragmentation cartridges with a directed beam of fragments is required to combat aircraft and the missiles (ammunition) they use.
7.62 mm machine gun mount used to combat enemy personnel, both openly located and located in shelters, buildings, structures, and to combat light aircraft such as UAVs. The machine gun's ammunition capacity includes 5,000 rounds and is located in the compartment at the rear of the turret. The supply is carried out automatically for the entire ammunition load. 7.62x54R cartridges are used with bullets: light steel (LPS), tracer (T-46), armor-piercing incendiary (B-32) and increased penetration.
40mm grenade launcher 6G27 "Balkan" designed to destroy openly located manpower, manpower located in various shelters, including in buildings and structures, on military equipment, on the reverse slopes of heights, on the back side of buildings, in unarmored vehicles. The peculiarity of using this weapon system on a tank is the ability of the grenade launcher to combat shots from enemy ATGMs and RPGs by automatically determining the moment of the shot, using various reconnaissance systems, pointing the weapon in the direction of the shot and firing a warning extended burst. The detonation of grenades occurs sequentially from the shortest range to the range of a shot from a grenade launcher with the goal of simultaneously hitting the shot and the shooter. The ammunition used includes an upgraded 40mm 7P39 caseless grenade with a dual-chamber ballistic motor and the ability to remotely detonate and program the directionality of the fragment beam. It is necessary to modify the 40mm caseless shot to the possibility of programmed detonation of ammunition, during normal shooting at any range (up to 2500m), when shooting at ammunition at a distance of 10-20 meters from the edge of the barrel and creating a continuous ellipse (circle, beam) of fragments. An additional function may be the possibility of developing ammunition with a thermobaric warhead.
The crew is armed with personal weapons, consisting of a pistol and a machine gun (AKSU) with full ammunition, including 6 magazines. Additionally, it is armed with 10 F-1 hand defensive grenades and 10 RDG-M hand smoke grenades. The tank's collective weapons include two RPG-29 type hand grenade launchers located in special locations.
Weapon control system (WCS) The tank includes a complex of surveillance systems, reconnaissance, information exchange, and a computer designed to control all target channels of the tank’s weapons, both simultaneously and selectively for each crew member. It must ensure recognition of objects (targets) with determination of their characteristics, vulnerabilities, threat to the tank, making the necessary calculations for shooting and choosing weapons. Color displays should display the entire situation received from interacting, neighboring vehicles and targets within the field of view of their reconnaissance and target designation devices, displaying the real picture, transforming it into conventional signs. Converted targets into conventional signs and displayed on displays in conventional colors allow for semi-automatic distribution of targets between objects, taking into account their current state and position. Additionally, each crew member must have a color display showing the topographical basis and the situation developing in a given area in real time, both for ground and air targets. The visibility of the surveillance system in various modes (television and thermal imaging) should provide all-round visibility of the area. The control system must determine the location of the tank in real time, linking it to a cartographic basis and displaying the location of interacting objects in the combat formation and enemy targets.
One of the main functions of the control system, practiced in automatic mode, should allow, using the entire complex of reconnaissance equipment of the tank, to determine the shot of any enemy system larger than 20mm caliber, determine its trajectory, and issue a command for the proactive use of a certain type of weapon (30mm cannon, 40mm grenade launcher , 12.7mm machine gun, “Shtora” system for the purpose of primary damage to the ammunition or its complete destruction).
Gunner's and commander's control system with advanced color displays to display the tactical situation, includes combined day, night, television, thermal imaging, IR, laser rangefinders and gun guidance devices with 8 - 12x magnification, both with independent line of sight stabilization. Optical-electronic reconnaissance and detection devices were additionally installed optical sights, weapons systems control devices, including a passive object detection radar and an ammunition flight detection station. The gunner's and commander's control system with improved color displays to display the tactical situation simultaneously allows control of the main gun, an additional 30mm cannon, a 12.7mm machine gun mount with remote control and a combined sight located to the right of the commander's hatch using identical control panels. Machine gun pumping angles from -10 to -85 degrees. The gunner's and commander's control system must automatically calculate terrain visibility fields based on a digital three-dimensional topographic map of the area.
IN Loader's control system, in addition to the remote control and a set of equipment for controlling the loading of the main gun, it includes a control system with color displays for displaying the tactical situation and a control panel for a 7.62mm machine gun mount with remote control and a 40mm grenade launcher with remote control.
The peculiarity of the tank's control system is that it has an additional control panel with color displays for the 7.62mm machine gun and the 40mm 6G27 "Balkan" grenade launcher and allows tank driver mechanic(defense, ambush), or the loader, in various environmental conditions, participate in combat, controlling one of the specified weapon systems. Additionally, this system allows the driver to navigate the general situation of the battlefield, choosing the most rational route for the tank, taking into account the instructions of the tank commander.
Thus, we have reviewed the basic requirements and wishes we place on modern tanks, capable of qualitatively resisting the military equipment of a potential enemy, both independently and as part of a unit. Each battle tank, as a weapon system, must include a tank support combat vehicle (BMPT), a set of mini UAVs, a battlefield transport and loading vehicle based on the armored Typhoon-K, and an ammunition transport vehicle based on the Typhoon ( armored cab and partially armored body).
BMPT (tank support combat vehicle), allows you to expand the ability of the combination (tank - BMPT) to withstand ammunition, and provide comprehensive support to each tank when solving other tasks. Today, it is obvious that this type of combat vehicle (with appropriate modifications) allows you to cover a tank in various types combat, ranging from actions in the city to actions during an armed conflict or war. The requirements for this vehicle should be based on the need to reduce the number of crew, cover the main armament with sufficiently strong armor, including remote sensing, and the presence of independent target firing channels for various weapon systems.”
The BMPT is not an independent object that performs a specific set of tasks, but only part of a huge reconnaissance and strike system designed to perform a number of combat missions on the battlefield. The basis of this system is undoubtedly the tank, because in the ground component, regardless of the scale of the formations, armored weapons form the basis of its combat capabilities.
In combat conditions, the BMPT, in the interests of ensuring the survivability of the tank, must perform two equivalent tasks. The first task is to search and destroy objects that potentially threaten the actions of the tank on the battlefield (tank, anti-tank gun, mobile or portable installation of ATGM, RPG). The second task is to search and destroy ammunition (tank and artillery shells, ATGM missiles fired from a helicopter or ATGM launcher, RPG rounds, servicemen with PTMs) capable of defeating both the tank and the tank support combat vehicle itself.
The components of this combat complex, in addition to the heavy tank and BMPT, should be a heavy combat reconnaissance vehicle (TBRM), a heavy infantry fighting vehicle (TBMP), a heavy armored front-line self-propelled gun (152 mm), a heavy self-propelled mortar (120-140 mm), heavy self-propelled self-propelled gun with cannon and missile weapons, UAV complex.
Various artillery systems, including long-range MLRS, should become components of the fire complex.
Additional components should include a reconnaissance and attack helicopter, reconnaissance and reconnaissance and attack aircraft, reconnaissance optical-electronic and radar spacecraft, and others. various systems ground and air based.
By considering and manufacturing weapons only systematically and as a whole, it is possible in modern conditions to win victory in present and future wars and armed conflicts. The combat use of these complexes requires separate comprehensive consideration.
Everyone who had at least a tangential relationship with the army service or the defense industry has heard about the “lifetime in battle” - of a fighter, a tank, a unit. But what really stands behind these numbers? Is it really possible to start counting down the minutes until the inevitable end when going into battle? The prevailing ideas about the time of life in battle among the broad masses of military personnel were successfully depicted by Oleg Divov in the novel “Weapons of Retribution” - a book about the service of “Ustinov’s students” at the end of Soviet power: “They proudly: our division is designed for thirty minutes of battle! We tell them openly: we found something to be proud of!” In these two sentences, everything came together - pride in one’s suicide, and the transfer of a misunderstood tactical assessment of the unit’s capability over time to the lives of its personnel, and the rejection of such false pride by more competent comrades...
Mikhail Vannakh
The idea that there is a calculated life expectancy for individual units and formations came from the practice of staff work, from understanding the experience of the Great Patriotic War. The average period of time during which a regiment or division, according to war experience, remained combat-ready was called the “lifetime.” This does not mean at all that after this period all personnel will be killed by the enemy and the equipment will be burned.
Let's take a division - the main tactical formation. For its functioning, it is necessary that the rifle units have a sufficient number of fighters - and they leave not only killed, but also wounded (from three to six per killed), sick, legs worn down to the bone, or injured by the hatch of an armored personnel carrier... It is necessary that the engineer battalion had a supply of the equipment from which bridges would be built - after all, the supply battalion would carry everything that units and subunits needed in battle and on the march. It is required that the repair and restoration battalion have the necessary number of spare parts and tools to maintain the equipment in working / combat-ready condition. And all these reserves are not unlimited. The consumption of heavy mechanized bridges TMM-3 or links of the pontoon-bridge park will lead to sharp decline offensive capabilities of the formation will limit its “life” in the operation.
Disastrous meters
These are factors that influence the viability of a formation, but are not related to enemy resistance. Now let's turn to assessing the time of “life in battle”. How long can an individual soldier survive in a battle fought with the use of one weapon or another, using one or another tactic. The first serious experience of such calculations was presented in the unique work “Future War in Technical, Economic and Political Relations.” The book was published in six volumes in 1898, and its author was Warsaw banker and railway worker Ivan Blioch.
The financier Bliokh, accustomed to numbers, with the help of a unique team he assembled, consisting of General Staff officers, tried to mathematically evaluate the impact of new types of weapons - repeating rifles, machine guns, artillery pieces on smokeless powder and with a high explosive charge - for the types of tactics of that time. The technique was very simple. The battalion's offensive plan was taken from the French military manual of 1890. We took the probabilities of hitting a tall target by an entrenched shooter using three-line rifles, obtained at the training ground. The speeds at which the chain of shooters moved to the beat of drums and the sounds of horns were well known - both for walking and for running, which the French were going to switch to when approaching the enemy. Next came the most ordinary arithmetic, which gave an astonishing result. If, from a line of 500 m, 637 infantrymen begin to approach a hundred dug-in riflemen with repeating rifles, then even with all the speed of the French rush to the line of 25 m, from which it was then considered appropriate to switch to the bayonet line, only a hundred will remain. There were no machine guns, which were then used by the artillery department - ordinary sapper shovels for digging in and repeating rifles for shooting. And now the position of the riflemen is no longer able to be taken by the six times greater mass of infantry - after all, a hundred who ran half a mile under fire and in bayonet combat have little chance against a hundred lying in a trench.
Pacifism in numbers
At the time of the release of “The Future War,” peace still reigned in Europe, but in Bliokh’s simple arithmetic calculations the whole picture of the coming First World War, its positional impasse, was already visible. No matter how trained and devoted the soldiers are to the banner, the advancing masses of infantry will be swept away by the fire of the defending infantry. This is what happened in reality - for specifics we will refer the reader to Barbara Tuckman’s book “The Guns of August”. The fact that in the later phases of the war the advancing infantry was stopped not by riflemen, but by machine gunners who had sat out the artillery barrage in dugouts, essentially did not change anything.
Based on Bliokh's methodology, it is very simple to calculate the expected life time of an infantryman in battle when advancing from the 500 m line to the 25 m line. As we can see, 537 out of 637 soldiers died or were seriously wounded during the time of overcoming 475 m. From the diagram given in the book it is clear how The lifespan was reduced when approaching the enemy, as was the likelihood of dying when reaching 300, 200 m... The results turned out to be so clear that Bliokh considered them sufficient to justify the impossibility of a European war and therefore took care of the maximum dissemination of his work. Reading Blioch's book prompted Nicholas II to convene the first peace conference on disarmament in 1899 in The Hague. The author himself was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, Bliokh’s calculations were not destined to stop the coming massacre... But there were a lot of other calculations in the book. For example, it was shown that a hundred shooters with repeating rifles would disable an artillery battery in 2 minutes from a distance of 800 m and in 18 minutes from a distance of 1500 m - isn’t it, similar to the artillery paratroopers described by Divov with their 30 minutes of battalion life?
World War III? Better not...
The works of those military specialists who were preparing not for the prevention, but for the successful conduct of war, as the Cold War escalated into the hot Third World War, were not widely published. But - paradoxically - it was precisely these works that were destined to contribute to the preservation of peace. And so, in the narrow circles of staff officers not inclined to publicity, the calculated parameter “lifetime in battle” began to be used. For a tank, for an armored personnel carrier, for a unit. The values for these parameters were obtained in approximately the same way as Bliokh once did. They took an anti-tank gun, and at the training ground they determined the probability of hitting the silhouette of the vehicle. They used one or another tank as a target (at the beginning of the Cold War, both warring sides used captured German equipment for these purposes) and checked the likelihood of a shell hit piercing the armor or an action behind the armor that would disable the vehicle.
As a result of the chain of calculations, the very life time of a piece of equipment in a given tactical situation was derived. It was a purely calculated value. Probably, many have heard about such monetary units as the Attic talent or the South German thaler. The first contained 26,106 g of silver, the second - only 16.67 g of the same metal, but both never existed in the form of a coin, but were just a measure of account for smaller money - drachmas or pennies. Likewise, a tank that has to survive exactly 17 minutes in an oncoming battle is nothing more than a mathematical abstraction. We are talking only about an integral estimate convenient for the time of arithmometers and slide rules. Without resorting to complex calculations, the staff officer could determine how many tanks would be needed for a combat mission that required covering a particular distance under fire. We bring together distance, combat speed and life time. We determine according to the standards how many tanks should remain in service across the width of the front after they go through the hell of battle. And it is immediately clear which unit of what size should be entrusted with the combat mission. The predicted failure of the tanks did not necessarily mean the death of the crews. As driver-mechanic Shcherbak cynically reasoned in the story of front-line officer Viktor Kurochkin “In War as in War,” “It would be happiness if the Fritz rolled a blank into the engine compartment: the car would be kaput, and everyone would be alive.” And for the artillery division, the exhaustion of the half-hour of battle for which it was designed meant, first of all, the use of ammunition, overheating of the barrels and recoil arms, the need to withdraw from positions, and not death under fire.
Neutron factor
The conditional “lifetime in battle” successfully served staff officers even when it was necessary to determine the combat effectiveness of advancing tank units in the conditions of the enemy’s use of neutron warheads; when it was necessary to estimate how powerful a nuclear strike would burn out enemy anti-tank missiles and extend the life of their tanks. The problems of using gigantic power were solved by the simplest equations: they gave an unambiguous conclusion - a nuclear war in the European theater of operations must be avoided.
Well, modern combat control systems, from the highest level, such as the National Defense Control Center of the Russian Federation to tactical ones, such as the Constellation Unified Tactical Control System, use more differentiated and more accurate modeling parameters, which are now carried out in real time. However, the goal function remains the same - to make sure that both people and machines survive in combat for the maximum amount of time.