The United States Armed Forces with the M1 Abrams, the UK with Challenger 2 tanks and Germany with Leopards are engaged in an allied operation to transfer hundreds of main battle tanks to Ukraine in an attempt to stop the Russian advance and recover the territory lost in the east of the country after the invasion ordered by Vladimir Putin. Russia intends to confront the Western battalions with the deployment of its most advanced tank, the T-14 Armata. He Russian General Sergey Lipovoy He has ensured that the Kremlin tank is technologically far superior in one aspect over the variants committed by the Western allies.
The Russian military high command, in statements to News.Ru, assured that the T-14 Armata offers an advantage over the Abrams, Leopard and Challenger in the protection of the crew from enemy shells thanks to its armored design. In western tanks, the expert explained, the crew is uniformly positioned inside the hull, while in the T-14 it is in an armored capsule, with an empty turret, which increases the survivability of the crew when attacked by anti-tank weaponssaid Lipovoy, president of the organization “Officers of Russia” and distinguished as a hero of the Russian Federation.
In the event of a direct attack on the front, the crew can continue firing and will not suffer damage, it adds. The manufacturer of the tank has claimed in the past that it is the first case in the world in which the tank crew is separated from the ammunition load.
Another advantage between the T-14 and Western combat vehicles is that the russian tank is lighter, revealed the general, which in his opinion increases the maneuverability of the tank on the battlefield, especially in swampy soils.
Other Russian experts say that the Armata can travel up to 150,000 kilometers compared to 10,000 for the Leopard. In addition, they add that another important advantage is the invisibility of the machine in the radar and thermal observation spectra due to the special thermal coating. In 2015, the designers of the T-14 claimed that it would be the world’s first invisible tank.
This week Russia has officially recognized for the first time that the T-14 Armata has been deployed in Ukraine in a special operations area, although at the beginning of the year the Ministry of Defense of the United Kingdom had already reported on the possible deployment of the T -14 Russians in the neighboring country.
The T-14 Armata has been developed by the Uralvagonzavod corporation, which presents the tank as the only third-generation tank in the world. The vehicle is equipped with a 125mm 2A82 gun and holds up to 40 shells in a autoloader, machine guns and a full digital remote control system.
The useful life of the T-14 engine is at least two thousand hours and the weight it displaces is 55 tons with a speed of up to 75 kilometers per hour.
This tank was first presented in June 2016, although development began in 2010. Since the end of 2022, Russian soldiers have been training to drive this vehicle in the training camps in Donbasin eastern Ukraine.
