[Fabfire]

kevineduguay1 said:
Hello folks!

I finnaly made it onto this site.

M256, I like your ideas with the 120mm guns but also look at the sabot range as this effects long range hitting power also. Notice that the latter Russian 125mm guns have a greater sabot range than most if not all the 120mm's. This has to be looked at especially when in another post it was pointed out that the Russian ammo lost energy more quickly than the rounds used by Western countries.

Hi, kevineduguay1.

I'm glad you made it...

On your comments about newer Russian tanks capabilities, I quote the best source for modern Russian armor over the Internet, Vasiliy Fufanov's Modern Russian Armor:

The 2A46 and 2A46M lines of mainguns (internal designations D-81T, D-81TM) were developed by the Spetstekhnika design bureau in Ekaterinburg (former Sverdlovsk), and are manufactured at the Motovilikha artillery plant in Perm.

The 125mm high-velocity maingun was a huge overkill when it was first introduced on a T-64A MBT back in 1969. Today, however, it is barely able to keep on par with the modern Western mainguns like Rh-120. Its inability to reliably penetrate frontal projections of modern MBTs is the main reason why the Russian designers are developing a 152mm maingun to substitute the 2A46 gun on a perspective Russian MBT.

However, even with tungsten alloy rounds this gun remains a very dangerous adversary that assures penetration of any other projection at all battle ranges.

One of the drawbacks of this gun is that a high strain on internal surfaces during firing, as well as sheer size of it demands strict manufacturing discipline of which Soviet industry was never famous. This resulted in unsatisfatory dispersion characteristics of original models due to all kinds of manufacturing defects, including substandard materials, poor machining, barrel drooping, and so on. It is worth noting, however, that this problem has received due attention during the upgrading efforts (2A46M line of mainguns), including the purchase of the Western machining equipment. Improved manufacturing process and better stabilization and recoil equipment provided for increase in accuracy especially on the move and at medium to long ranges.
The barrel life of an original 2A46 gun was 210 APFSDS rounds or 840 HEAT/HEF rounds, or around 500 'generic' rounds, according to the Polish data provided by Mike Jasinsky. Russian sources give the figure of 900 rounds, but it is not known of what type. The barrel life of 2A46M guns is unknown, but modernization included the addition a more robust internal chromium liner and provided for a simple gun barrel replacement in field conditions.

As a last note, the unique feature of all Russian mainguns is the ability to launch guided rounds through the barrel.

Specifications (2A46M-2 with T-90 FCS and autoloader):
Designation 2A46M-2
Internal designation D-81TM-2
Type Smoothbore
Caliber 125 mm
Features Bore Evacuator, Thermal sleeve, Chromium liner
Barrel replaceable in field conditions
Recoil devices 2, symmetrical
Free recoil until the round clears the barrel
Recoil length 300 mm
Barrel length 6383 mm
51 caliber
Barrel life >500 shots
Gun weight 2500 kg
Max.barrel pressure 5200 N/cm2
Ammunition separately loaded
w/semicombustible propellant case 4Zh63
Ammunition types: APFSDS, HEAT, HEF, ATGM

Practical ROF
autoloader 8 rds/min
manual 2 rds/min
ATGMs out to 5km
with autoloader 3 rds/min

Effective range
direct fire vs. 2m high target
HEAT 1010 m
APFSDS 2120 m
with FCS
HEAT/APFSDS 4000 m
HEF 5000 m
HEF indirect 10000 m
Max.range with APFSDS >80 km

Fab