Why is it taught that the life of a tank is minutes. Military pensioners for Russia and its armed forces

Everyone who had at least a tangential relation to military service or the defense industry. But what is the reality behind these numbers? Is it really possible to start counting down the minutes before going into battle? The ideas that exist among the broad masses of military personnel about the time of life in battle were successfully portrayed by Oleg Divov in the novel "The Weapon of Retribution" - a book about the service of "Ustinov students" at sunset Soviet power: “They, proudly: our division is designed for thirty minutes of battle! We openly told them: we found something to be proud of! Everything came together in these two proposals - pride in one’s own mortality, and the transfer of a misunderstood tactical assessment of the unit’s viability in time to the life of its personnel, and the rejection of such false pride by more literate 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 the experience of the war, remained combat-ready was called the "time of life." This does not mean at all that after this period all the personnel will be killed by the enemy, and the equipment will be burned.

Let's take a division - the main tactical unit. For its functioning, it is necessary that there be a sufficient number of fighters in the rifle subunits - and they leave not only killed, but also wounded (from three to six per one killed), sick, with their legs worn to the bones or injured by the armored personnel carrier hatch ... It is necessary that the engineering battalion had a supply of the property from which bridges would be built - after all, the supply battalion would carry everything that the units and subunits needed in battle and on the march along them. It is required that the repair and restoration battalion has the necessary amount of spare parts and tools to keep the equipment in working / combat-ready condition. And all these reserves are not unlimited. The use of heavy mechanized bridges TMM-3 or links of the pontoon-bridge park will lead to a sharp decrease in the offensive capabilities of the connection, limit its "life" in the operation.

Deadly meters

These are the factors that affect the viability of the connection, but are not related to the opposition of the enemy. Now let's turn to the estimation of the "life in combat" time. How long can an individual soldier live 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 The Future War in Technical, Economic and Political Relations. The book was published in six volumes in 1898, and its author was the Warsaw banker and railroad worker Ivan Bliokh.

Accustomed to numbers, the financier Bliokh, with the help of a unique team he assembled, consisting of officers of the General Staff, tried to mathematically evaluate the impact of new types of weapons - repeating rifles, machine guns, artillery pieces on smokeless powder and with a blasting charge - on the then types of tactics. The technique was very simple. From the French military leadership of 1890, they took the battalion offensive scheme. They took the probabilities of hitting a growth target by a entrenched shooter from three-line rifles obtained at the training ground. The speeds with which the chain of shooters moves to the beat of drums and the sounds of horns were well known - both for the step and for the run, to which the French were going to switch when approaching the enemy. Then came the most ordinary arithmetic, which gave an amazing result. If from a line of 500 m, 637 infantrymen begin to approach a hundred entrenched shooters with magazine rifles, then even with all the speed of the French impulse, only a hundred will remain at the line of 25 m, from which it was then considered appropriate to move into a bayonet. No machine guns, which then passed through the department of artillery, - ordinary sapper shovels for digging in and magazine rifles for shooting. And now the position of the shooters is no longer able to be taken by a six-fold superior mass of infantry - after all, hundreds of those who ran half a verst under fire and in bayonet fighting have little chance against hundreds lying in the trenches.

Pacifism in numbers

At the time of the release Future war“Peace still reigned in Europe, but in the simple arithmetic calculations of Blioch, the whole picture of the coming World War I, its positional impasse, was already visible. No matter how learned and devoted to the banner the fighters, the advancing masses of infantry will be swept away by the fire of the defending infantry. And so it 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 the arrows, but by the machine gunners who had sat out the artillery preparation in the dugouts, essentially did not change anything.

Based on the Blioch technique, it is very easy to calculate the expected lifetime of an infantryman in battle when advancing from a line of 500 m to a line of 25 m. As you can see, 537 out of 637 soldiers died or were seriously wounded during overcoming 475 m. From the diagram in the book, you can see how the life time was reduced when approaching the enemy, as the probability of dying increased when reaching the lines of 300, 200 m ... The results turned out to be so clear that Blioch considered them sufficient to justify the impossibility European war and therefore took care of the maximum distribution of his work. Reading Blioch's book prompted Nicholas II to convene in 1899 in The Hague the first peace conference on disarmament. The author himself was submitted for Nobel Prize peace.

However, Blioch'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 incapacitate artillery battery in 2 minutes from a distance of 800 m and in 18 minutes from a distance of 1500 m - doesn't it look like the artillery paratroopers described by Divov with their 30 minutes of division life?

Third world? Better not...

The works of those military specialists who were preparing not to prevent, but to successfully conduct a war, to develop a cold war into a hot Third World War, were not widely published. But - paradoxically - it was these works that were destined to contribute to the preservation of peace. And so, in the narrow and not inclined to public circles of staff officers, 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 much the same way as Blioch once was. They took an anti-tank gun, and at the training ground they determined the probability of hitting the silhouette of a car. One or another tank was used as a target (at the beginning cold war both opposing sides used captured German equipment for these purposes) and checked with what probability a shell hit would pierce the armor or an armored action would disable the vehicle.

As a result of the chain of calculations, the very lifetime of a piece of equipment in a given tactical situation was displayed. It was purely a calculated value. Most of you have probably heard of these monetary units, like the Attic Taler 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 of them never existed in the form of a coin, but were just a measure of counting smaller money - drachmas or pennies. Similarly, a tank that will have to live in an oncoming battle for exactly 17 minutes is nothing more than a mathematical abstraction. We are talking only about an integral estimate convenient for the time of arithmometers and slide rulers. Without resorting to complex calculations, the staff officer could determine how many tanks would be needed for a combat mission, during which it was necessary to cover one or another distance under fire. Putting the distance together combat speed and lifetime. We determine according to the standards how many tanks in the ranks should remain in the width of the front after they go through the hell of battle. And it is immediately clear what size unit should be entrusted with the combat mission. The predicted failure of the tanks did not necessarily mean the death of the crews. As the driver Shcherbak cynically argued in the story of front-line officer Viktor Kurochkin “In war as in war”, “It would be happiness if the Fritz rolled a disc into the engine compartment: the car is kaput, and everyone is alive.” And for the artillery battalion, the exhaustion of half an hour of battle, for which it was designed, meant, first of all, the depletion of ammunition, overheating of the barrels and recoilers, the need to leave positions, and not death under fire.

neutron factor

The conditional "time of life in battle" successfully served staff officers even when it was necessary to determine the combat capability of advancing tank units in the conditions of the use of neutron warheads by the enemy; 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 tasks of using gigantic powers were solved by the simplest equations: it was they who gave an unambiguous conclusion - nuclear war on 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 one system Constellation Tactical Command uses more differentiated and more accurate simulation parameters, which are now conducted in real time. However, the objective function remains the same - to make both people and machines live in combat for the maximum time.

Some features of modern combat are discussed in the article "The nature of the future battlefield", published on the REX 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 website. It briefly describes the main points of armed struggle, both in large-scale war and in internal armed conflicts.

This article considers two directions in the development of modern combat, including the "Struggle of arms" and "Struggle of people". These two types of modern combat in the foreseeable present and future will determine the very nature of the armed struggle and the means that will participate in it.

The main meaning of all the proposals outlined in the article is that the saturation of modern combat with high-precision weapons, the improvement of the arsenal of anti-tank weapons that have become ordinary mass weapons, the conduct of modern real combat in most cases by remote means, requires an adequate response. The development of protection systems for armored vehicles, using active and passive schemes, in modern conditions provides already 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 already now to expand the arsenal of protective equipment used by all armored vehicles participating in the battle, and based on the impact not only on the carriers of the means intended to destroy armored objects, but also on the ammunition that these means 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 complexes of the near border, one might say, direct protection. And it is also necessary to develop and implement long-range complexes, which make it possible to destroy both the carriers and the ammunition itself at the maximum range of the weapon's reach. Now, attack helicopters can launch a missile at a tank in the “fire-and-forget” system from a distance of 15 km, without entering the detection zone and the zone of destruction of armored vehicle weapon systems. And relying only on the tank's existing short-range defense systems would be a mistake.

These are defensive complexes. But each armored object must also have offensive systems that allow it to successfully deal with the entire range of active military equipment capable of participating in combat. To this end, it is necessary to provide for the possibility of operating 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" considers the requirements for armored vehicles used mainly in internal armed conflicts and in the course of post-crisis settlement, after the active phase of hostilities. In this article, we will consider some of the requirements that must be taken into account in the development and combat use of the main armament. ground forces- tanks.

New approaches to the composition and combat capabilities of armored vehicles will require changes in the tactics of combat use, in the structure of military organisms, and in combat regulations. All this will only increase combat capabilities, both individual samples of equipment, and military organization generally.

SOME QUESTIONS OF THE TACTICS OF THE FUTURE COMBAT

The combat use of armored vehicles is based on the provisions of the tactics developed military science, tested during the exercises and confirmed directly in combat. And on the basis of the conclusions obtained during the development of tactics for combat use, the basic requirements for the samples of 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 is increased, their use increases the likelihood of hitting armored objects located in a certain defense area, or in the course of performing another combat mission, the smallest tactical unit (platoon) comes to the fore , which should carry out its protection from most weapons. With the capabilities of individual ammunition declared by industry and manufacturers to hit targets with a probability of 0.8-0.9, the classical structure of tactical units (battalion, company, platoon) needs to be revised, which means that the requirements for armored vehicles must also be reviewed.

In order to protect the equipment of a tactical unit such as a platoon, with the current organizational approach, the corresponding commander does not have sufficient capabilities. This means that the enemy is able, using the WTO, to destroy each platoon separately, and then transfer efforts to a higher level.

THE APPEARANCE OF A PERSPECTIVE BATTLE TANK

In the land component, regardless of the scale of formations armored weapons forms the basis of its combat capabilities. A tank is a very effective means of 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 equipment, but also other combat capabilities - anti-personnel, artillery, anti-aircraft. Constant support by aviation and helicopters is needed, which cannot always and in all cases be provided. New approaches are needed to solve these problems in order to effectively firepower tanks themselves was fully implemented.

A tank is a universal means capable of not only being at the forefront of attack, in the first line of attacking or defending troops, but also with its fire, 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 manpower. 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 those combat vehicles that the army needs today and tomorrow.

Existing tanks were created according to the concept of battle, when it was necessary to find approaches to increase their combat effectiveness on the battlefield, in comparison with the enemy. At that time, the tactics of the combat use of tanks was based on the tactics of the last war, on their massive use in battle, despite possible heavy losses, and the simultaneous possibility of their mass reproduction by industry. From these approaches, the development conditions and restrictions on subsequent modernization were dictated:

Low silhouette, to make it difficult to hit the tank at long and medium distances, allowing them to quickly approach a short distance and fire more shots at the enemy due to the automatic or loading mechanism;

Mass limitation due to the lack of a more powerful engine, which means a decrease in the maneuverability of the tank, as conceived by the developers, allowing the tank to maneuver on the battlefield and get away from aimed fire;

Weak survivability of the gun, designed for a short 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 already connected with military science, which has not developed new tactics for use and does not take into account both our and combat experience in using tanks in various armed conflicts;

Insufficient training of crews, inability in such a reduced (three people) composition to perform combat missions with high quality for a long time;

Limited internal space for the installation of modern weapons systems;

Limited in increasing the quality of the reservation, both in terms of weight and the capabilities of the existing chassis;

The practical impossibility of improving the ergonomics of a combat vehicle by building up various equipment, and many others.

In modern combat, there are already systems, in particular our corrected ammunition of the Centimeter type, which the Ministry of Defense abandoned, allowing the tank to hit the enemy object without being in the field of view of its reconnaissance and surveillance systems. Determining the location of the object can be carried out by means of the UAV equipment installed on each combat vehicle, with the transfer of the coordinates of the target to the tank control system. The production of a shot and the illumination of the target in the final section of the projectile's flight path, and this is a fraction of a second, can already occur automatically.

The development of science does not stand still, having frozen at the turn of the 60s, but is moving forward, which means that even now in the SLA it is possible to implement the principle: discovered - made a decision.

What discovered- this is, by means of the equipment on board the tank, the entire situation on the battlefield is revealed (where the equipment is to be squeezed into the existing tank), and displayed on the monitor of the commander and gunner. The MSA independently determines the 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. In addition, the SOU of the tank receives information from other combat facilities and systems conducting reconnaissance of the battlefield. The essential feature of this SLA is that decision by the tank commander or gunner is displayed on the monitor (sight) screen, for example, by highlighting the target in a different color, all other participants in the battle, to distribute objects between the system (unit). This allocation is made automatically, and an adjacent tank or other fighting machine the system will no longer be able, without the intervention of the crew, to fire at this object if the decision is made almost simultaneously. Thus, full coverage of exposed targets and their distribution for destruction is achieved. Crew intervention is required in cases where it is necessary to hit an object from an ambush, or there are no other objects, or in other necessary cases.

What He has made a decision- this is when the commander of the vehicle or the gunner decided to hit a specific target with a specific weapon system, and aimed the mark of the sight at the target. It is possible that in the future the system will allow simply pointing at a target with a stylus or an arbitrary object, or pointing at a target by turning the head by outputting information to a helmet-mounted system, and the OMS will carry out independent guidance. Automation independently calculates the required lead, elevation angle, sight mark and aims 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 SLA, there is no need to carefully point the sight at the target, to keep the mark of the sight at the aiming point until the shot is fired. After the shot, the system automatically determines the result of the shot, taking into account the countermeasures of the target discovered by the system, determining the degree of impact of the projectile on the target, the degree of damage, and gives the result for a second or additional decision. In the case of a guaranteed hit of the target, determined both visually by the crew and the FCS, on the monitor of the sight, the target is painted in the color of hitting the target and remains there either until the entire situation is reset or until the exit from the combat area, or at the command of the tank commander forcibly.

This is a semi-automatic, and in the future the machine should independently perform all the functions associated with the use of the main weapon against armored vehicles capable of inflicting a significant defeat on the tank itself. The rest of the tank's weapons will require the participation of the crew in their use for a long time only because modern combat is multifaceted in nature, and only human intelligence is able to cover the entire process and make the only right decision.

This is only a small part of what the tank's weapon control system should provide in modern combat conditions. In order for the remaining criteria to correspond to modern combat, a new tank is needed, but, if possible, with the maximum use of existing developments.

The appearance of the new tank should allow you to create a system that allows you to surpass existing models and be able to create a complex of weapons systems for modern combat on its basis. In modern combat, a tank should be able to simultaneously perform several combat, command and fire missions:

1. Ability to lead fighting in any climatic conditions, at any time of the day and in any theater of operations;

2. The ability to automatically receive without the participation of the crew and simultaneously transmit information received with the help of personal reconnaissance equipment to the control network of the unit, and receive relevant information from interacting and higher systems;

3. The ability to carry out radio exchange in a covert control mode between armored objects, inside and with other units, between objects participating in the battle;

4. To carry out the fight against enemy tanks with the main weapon at all ranges of line of sight, in any weather conditions, time of day, and out of line of sight, through the use of high-precision guided munitions, with mini UAV target illumination;

5. To carry out the fight against medium and lightly armored enemy targets at all ranges using both main and auxiliary weapons;

6. To carry out the fight against enemy infantry, sheltered in structures, trenches, buildings and structures, at ranges of actual fire, using both main and auxiliary weapons;

7. Fight against low-flying enemy aircraft at maximum range and helicopters using guided anti-tank weapons on their personal defense;

8. Destroy long-term firing structures and buildings adapted for defense at short and medium ranges with fire from a gun;

9. To blind the enemy with smoke shells at all ranges;

10. Resist, through the built-in active and passive protection the impact of all ammunition and anti-tank missiles from all angles of their use, including when exposed to the upper hemisphere;

11. Oppose used ammunition of all calibers and guided missiles by influencing them with tank weapon systems, while having four independent channels of fire;

12. Resist the explosion and detonation of ammunition from impact anti-tank mines and landmines.

A feature of this proposal is that the tank crew should consist of four servicemen: tank commander; gunner; driver mechanic; charging. Why four people, and not three, as it is now. Despite the fact that this tank should have a loading mechanism of a certain design, which is described below, each crew member has his own duties in the tank, and shifting them onto the shoulders of others, artificially reducing the crew, entails only a decrease in the combat effectiveness of the tank and its systems. This is the limitation of the tank's fire capabilities to one full-fledged system, one target channel (cannon + coaxial machine gun). This is the fatigue of the crew in battle, and the limited perception of the entire battlefield by them, due to the inability to simultaneously monitor in different directions. This is the need to perform minimal maintenance of tank systems in between battles (refueling, loading ammunition, maintenance of weapons, reconnaissance systems, surveillance, etc.). Yes, and serving to protect your tank requires the allocation of time, and an additional soldier only increases the possibilities for the restoration of the crew and its readiness to effectively use the super-complex and super-expensive equipment.

The layout of the new tank divides the internal volume into protected zones and includes:

The control compartment, protected from the front by an armor insert of at least 1200-1500mm, and from the sides by side armor plates of the hull, fuel tanks and an internal armor wall, and additional side armor are 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 in the stowed position (forward);

Storage compartment for the main ammunition load (shells), in a conveyor (18-20 shells, each in a protected container), located horizontally under the armored floor of the fighting compartment;

Compartments for storing additional ammunition ammunition, located behind the fighting compartment (in a horizontal belt-pull 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 compartment, located in the stern of the tank.

Booking should include combined protection of the front projection of the hull and turret of the tank, which makes it possible to protect, as it is 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 meeting angle, at long and medium distances. Additionally on the frontal projection, tower roof, open elements top sheets hulls, side projections and additional side screens of the hull, built-in active dynamic protection is installed on the stern of the tank and turret, along the entire perimeter, including in the rear hemisphere, which makes it possible to increase the resistance of armor at short distances in urban combat. Sufficiently high survivability of the tank in case of penetration of armor is ensured not only by a rational layout with the separation of dangerous zones, but also by the presence of various systems active protection from all types of ammunition.

tank hull should be increased in height by 150 - 200 mm to the rear radius of the turret, and further to the stern by 300 - 400 mm, taking into account circular rotation towers. The width of the hull should be increased by at least 100-200 mm, amounting to at least 2900-3000 mm in the center of the tracks. Increasing the width of the hull will increase the thickness of the side walls of the hull, and due to additional screens with built-in dynamic protection, guarantee resistance to damage by all portable anti-tank systems 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, it covers the driver’s hatch from the upper hemisphere with a cannon mask and influxes of armor. The side projection, going beyond the shoulder strap of the tower, is practically at the level of the side additional screens of the hull and undercarriage, having spaced armor. The rear projection of the tower, extended towards the stern, completely covers the additional space formed from the increase in the length of the tank hull, covering from above along the course completely, along other planes by 70-80% of the area of the additional compartment of the main ammunition. Inside the tower in this volume is the loading mechanism and equipment. On the upper projection of the tower are all the instruments and sights included in the tank's weapon control system (FCS) and two 360-degree hatches for the commander and the loading tank. To the right and slightly behind the commander's hatch there is an 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 remotely controlled 7.62mm machine gun mount with pumping from -10 to +85 degrees and an autonomous sight. In the center of the projection of the tower, near its rear plane, a remote-controlled 40mm grenade launcher 6G27 "Balkan" with an autonomous sighting system with pumping from -5 to +85 degrees is installed. All sighting systems have armored covers (flaps) that can be opened at the time of aiming or reconnaissance. FROM outside towers, behind the reserved volume and additional active and passive armor, there is an auxiliary power plant of the tank and compartments for ammunition of 12.7mm and 7.62mm machine guns and a 40mm grenade launcher. The design feature of these complexes provides for the use of a full ammunition load of the weapon without reloading it during the battle and the automatic return of used tapes and links after firing to the corresponding stores. In the additional compartment on the rear side of the tower there is a place for the personal belongings of the crew. This compartment is accessed from the outside of the tank turret.

Mounted on the tower system for setting curtains and optoelectronic countermeasures with protection against PTS with laser seeker and the action of laser rangefinders (LD). In the composition - 20 launchers smoke and aerosol grenades and laser irradiation detection heads. An active protection complex (KAZ Zaslon) is installed in the stern of the tower to protect the sides and roof of the tower itself, as well as the roof of the DO, OS and MTO from third-generation ATGMs of the FGM-148 Javelin type and other ammunition of a similar class. Additionally installed system "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 rink or by 900-1100 mm in dimension, which will balance both weight and get additional space for weapons systems. Increasing the base in combination with other approaches will not affect the maneuverability of the tank, as some authors write about it.

tank suspension hydropneumatic, adjustable. Chassis covered by force screens. Tank weight can be 60 tons, due to the use of modern technologies.

Department of Management the tank is located in front of the axis of the machine. 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, withstanding BPS 140 mm guns. The control compartment is connected to the fighting compartment by means of the possibility of exiting under the breech of the gun, in its horizontal position, and in the stowed position. For forced rotation of the turret in case of failure of the main and auxiliary drives, the location of the manual drive for horizontal rotation of the turret must be provided in the control compartment. To the left and to the right of the control compartment, the main fuel tanks are installed behind the armored partitions, which have the function of filling the volume to prevent an 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 should have a hatch in the upper part of the hull, additionally protected from the upper hemisphere by an armored mask of the turret, which should hang over it when the gun is in position when the turret is turned 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 simultaneously fired at one aiming point, because countermeasures are always developed for each new system. The Abrams tank has a pretty good solution on this matter, and there is nothing shameful here if it is taken into account with us. The tank is stowed when the gun is stowed.

fighting compartment is located in a tower of increased dimension and space in the hull, separated from the rest of the volume by an armored capsule. On the right side of the fighting compartment is the seat of the gunner (below 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 is the workplace of the loader. 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 personal weapons of the crew.

Engine compartment should be located in the aft part of the hull and be able to be accessed for its maintenance, as well as for repair, maintenance at extended intervals or replacement, by means of the possibility of removing (opening) the aft armor plate. The engine, the heart of the tank, is required for such a machine 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 decrease in fuel consumption by improving the blades and other systems. Installation gas turbine engine will allow to reduce the dimensions of the engine compartment, and an increase in its size in height, will allow the equipment to be arranged in such a way as to place an additional powerful generator in it to provide the electrical equipment of the tank with the necessary power. Preliminary calculations show that it will need many times more. The transmission of the tank should be automatic hydromechanical, allowing not only to automatically switch speed, but also to control the direction of rotation of the tracks to make turns. Drive to the rear drive wheels. If the power of the generator and the 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 running gear of the tank. The presence of an auxiliary unit located in the engine compartment will allow powering the systems at stops, without involving the main engine.

Fuel placed 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 perimeter of the fighting compartment. All tanks are separated from ammunition and habitable compartments by armored partitions. A stern tank is also provided, installed behind an armored bulkhead separating the engine compartment and the ammunition compartment. In total, according to the calculation, there is 2000 liters of fuel behind the armor, allowing the tank to have a cruising range of about 600 km. The dynamism of the tank will be ensured not only power plant, and in general the layout, systems, ergonomics, which will increase average speed traffic, both on public roads and on rough terrain. This will allow the tank to make long marches over long distances (1500 km) and daily crossings up to 500 km on one gas station, ready to immediately enter the battle.

combat effectiveness tank depends on many indicators, one of which is its weapons system, which includes the weapons complex itself, which allows it to be used through independent target channels, a complex of reconnaissance and surveillance systems, a weapon control system complex, and an ammunition complex. A distinctive feature of the proposed scheme, in addition to other proposals, is precisely the multi-channel weapon system of the tank.

Tank armament includes main gun(130, 140mm) designed to destroy all types of tanks, armored objects, sheltered and openly located manpower, destroy buildings and structures by direct fire, protect against enemy ammunition through the use of special ammunition, destroy low-flying air targets, defeat targets with precision-guided munitions.

gun(130-140mm) installed on the tank must have a liner. This will increase the survivability of the bore and its accuracy and efficiency, it will be easy to replace it in the field, it will ensure high-quality full-scale combat training, after which it will not be necessary to destroy hundreds of thousands of tons of unused weapons. combat training in peacetime ammunition, and to 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 shells at the end point of impact in various firing modes;

From the range of a direct shot, the total range of fire and the power of ammunition for various purposes;

From the ability of the industry to install a liner in the barrel, which makes it possible to significantly increase the survivability of the 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 range of a tank in terms of its use on the territory of Russia, and should be considered as the basis for the requirements for a future tank gun;

From the ability of the industry to make new ammunition, without fail unitary with a separating pallet.

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. With this approach, a change in the design of the loading mechanism will also be required.

Ammunition for the main gun should have more advanced characteristics and an 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 and concrete-breaking, in high-explosive and shrapnel execution, to destroy the enemy inside buildings and structures. Shrapnel, with remote detonation, to combat helicopters, UAVs, enemy infantry hiding in trenches, buildings, structures. With arrow-shaped submunitions, and with remote detonation, to combat openly located manpower. Smoke, to interfere with the enemy at various ranges. Lighting, light-noise, light-sound, to blind the enemy, and influence him in a non-lethal way.

To fight aircraft and enemy ammunition in the nomenclature of cannon ammunition must have special precision munitions with remote detonation and the creation of a continuous directional cloud of lethal elements

To destroy tanks, it is possible to use guided missiles, only if the "fire-and-forget" principle is implemented and the "price-efficiency" ratio approaches unity in any situation. In other cases, due to the high cost of these ammunition, the impossibility of their sufficient use in the process of training crews, the concept of rocket and gun armament of tanks must be abandoned.

To defeat the entire list of objects for armament of the tank, it is necessary to take precision munitions developed according to « Russian concept 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 hundreds of times by the criterion "efficiency-cost" outnumber existing missiles. Now the ammo rack of a modern tank has only four precision-guided munitions, and the use of this technology will make it possible to have the entire ammunition rack of precision-guided munitions. Combat effectiveness, with the implementation of this approach, increases hundreds of times.

Loading mechanism and conveyor the main gun is combined and consists of several elements. The entire complex is controlled by the loader, in a semi-automatic mode. Loading the 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 semi-automatic removal of them from the additional conveyor. The loading mechanism itself, with a rammer and a mechanism for ejecting the cartridge case tray, is located in the aft part of the tower and extracts a shot from an underground horizontal conveyor, feeds it to the loading line, sends a shot into the bore, extracts the cartridge case tray and removes it through a special hatch in the roof of the tower.

Main conveyor is located horizontally under the armored floor of the fighting compartment, includes 18-20 cells for unitary shells, which allows you to simultaneously place three of the same type of ammunition, the replenishment of which is carried out automatically or semi-automatically. In the armored floor, on the line of the loading axis of the gun, there is an automatically opening hatch for extracting the projectile from the conveyor by 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 compartment, having a shape that allows you to use both the entire reserved volume and the maximum amount of ammunition placed, including, depending on the option chosen 30-40 unitary shells. The shells are sent to the main conveyor semi-automatically, along the axis of the bore using a rammer, both in automatic and manual mode. The additional conveyor is equipped with ammunition through an openable hatch in the armored bulkhead. It also serves as a backup hatch for manually loading the gun in the event of a failure of the automation. When using one type of ammunition, loading can take place directly, with partial use of the main conveyor.

In addition to the main gun in the gun mask, above the gun, additional armament, consisting of 30mm automatic gun 2A72 with two-tape feed and barrel cover, with a pumping angle from -10 to +60. This weapon system makes it possible to conduct high-precision combat against various lightly armored targets at a considerable distance, including enemy aircraft and the ammunition used by it. Regular ammunition 2000 shells, placed in the gun supply stores located in the fighting compartment in the hull on both sides of the main gun, mounted on the armored floor of a rotating turret in the front hemisphere and covered with light Kevlar-based armor. In addition to the main ammunition (BT, BP, BOPS RMS303), it is necessary to develop a high-explosive fragmentation projectile with a detonation programmer that allows the projectile to be detonated 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 to the stern, there are three remotely controlled individual systems and combined weapons system surveillance devices, including a 12.7mm machine gun mount, a 7.62mm machine gun mount and a 40mm grenade launcher mount.

12.7mm machine gun mount designed to engage lightly armored targets, aircraft, including UAVs, manpower located openly and in various shelters, and conduct anti-sniper combat and combat weapons using optical sights. To this end, the installation is connected to the corresponding intelligence system in common system SLA. The installation is guided in the range from -10 to +85 degrees vertically and horizontally by +180 and -180 degrees, taking into account the deduction of the safe angles of other installations located on the tower. The ammunition load of the machine gun is 2500 rounds and is located in an autonomous compartment in the rear of the tower, having a single supply for the entire ammunition load. The ammunition load includes 12.7x108 cartridges with armor-piercing incendiary tracer (BZT), armor-piercing incendiary (B-32) and instantaneous incendiary (MDZ) bullets. Additionally, the development of fragmentation-shrapnel cartridges with a directed beam of fragments is required to combat aircraft and the missiles (ammunition) used by them.

7.62 mm machine gun mount It is used to combat enemy manpower, both openly located and located in shelters, buildings, structures, and to combat light aircraft such as UAVs. The machine gun ammunition includes 5,000 rounds and is located in the aft compartment 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 defeat openly located manpower, manpower located in various shelters, including buildings and structures, on military equipment, on the reverse slopes of heights, on the back of buildings, in unarmored vehicles. The peculiarity of the use of this weapon system on a tank lies in 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 producing a warning extended burst. Grenade detonation occurs sequentially from the shortest range to the range of a shot from a grenade launcher with the aim of simultaneously hitting the shot and the shooter. The ammunition used includes a modernized 40-mm 7P39 caseless grenade with a two-chamber ballistic engine and the ability to remotely detonate and program the direction of the fragment beam. It is necessary to refine the 40mm caseless shot to the possibility of a programmed detonation of ammunition, during normal firing at any range (up to 2500m), when firing at ammunition at a distance of 10-20 meters from the barrel edge and creating a solid 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 machine gun (AKSU) with full ammunition, including 6 magazines. Additionally armed with 10 F-1 defensive hand grenades and 10 RDG-M hand smoke grenades. The collective weapon of the tank includes two RPG-29 type hand grenade launchers located in special places.

Weapon Control System (SMS) tank includes a complex of systems for surveillance, reconnaissance, information exchange, computer, designed to control all target channels of the tank's weapons, both simultaneously and selectively by each crew member. It should provide recognition of objects (targets) with the determination of their characteristics, vulnerabilities, threats to the tank, the production of the necessary calculations for firing and the choice of weapons. The color displays should display all the situation received from the interacting, neighboring vehicles and the targets that fell into the field of view of their reconnaissance and target designation devices with the display of the real picture, converting it into conventional signs. Targets converted into symbols and displayed on the displays in a conventional color allow for semi-automatic distribution of targets between objects, taking into account their current state and position. In addition, each crew member must have a color display with a displayed topographic base and the situation that is developing in the 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 MSA should determine the location of the tank in real time, linking it to the cartographic basis and displaying the location of interacting objects in the combat formation and enemy targets.

One of the main functions of the SLA, which is being worked out 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 give a command for the preemptive use of a certain type of weapon (30mm cannon, 40mm grenade launcher , 12.7mm machine gun, "Shtora" system for the purpose of primary destruction of ammunition or its complete destruction).

SLA gunner and commander with advanced color displays for displaying the tactical situation, includes combined day, night, television, thermal imaging, IR devices, laser rangefinders and gun guidance devices with 8 to 12x magnification, both with independent stabilization of the line of sight. Additionally, devices for optical-electronic reconnaissance, detection optical sights, weapons systems control devices, including passive radar station object detection and flight munitions detection station. The SLA of the gunner and the commander with improved color displays for displaying the tactical situation, at the same time allows you to control 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 through the same control panels. Machine gun pumping angles from -10 to -85 degrees. The fire control system of the gunner and the commander should automatically calculate the field of view of the terrain based on a digital three-dimensional topographic map terrain.

AT LMS loader, in addition to the remote control and a set of equipment for controlling the loading of the main gun, there is an FCS with color displays for displaying the tactical situation and a control panel for a 7.62mm remote-controlled machine gun mount and a 40mm remote-controlled grenade launcher.

A feature of the tank control system is that it has an additional control panel with color displays for a 7.62mm machine gun and a 40mm 6G27 Balkan grenade launcher and allows tank driver(defense, ambush), or loader, in various conditions of the situation to participate in combat, controlling one of the specified weapons 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.

In this way, we considered the main requirements and wishes that we present to 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 have a tank support combat vehicle (BMPT), a set of mini UAVs, a transport-loading battlefield 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 ligament (tank - BMPT) to withstand ammunition, and provide comprehensive support to each tank in solving other problems. Today, it is obvious that this type of combat vehicles (with appropriate refinement) allows you to cover the tank in various types of combat, from operations in the city to operations 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 availability of independent target firing channels for various weapon systems.

BMPT is not an independent object that performs a certain 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, of course, is the tank, because in the land component, regardless of the scale of formations, armored weapons form the basis of its combat capabilities.

BMPT in combat conditions, in the interests of ensuring the survivability of the tank, must perform two equivalent tasks. The first task is to search for and destroy objects that potentially threaten the actions of a tank on the battlefield (tank, anti-tank gun, mobile or portable ATGM, RPG). The second task is the search and destruction of ammunition (tank and artillery shells, an ATGM missile fired from a helicopter or an ATGM installation, an RPG shot, a soldier with anti-tank guns) capable of inflicting damage both on a tank and directly on a tank support combat vehicle.

The constituent parts of this combat complex, besides heavy tank and BMPT, should become 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), a heavy self-propelled ZSU with cannon and missile weapons, a complex UAV.

The components of the firing complex should be various artillery systems, including long-range MLRS.

Additional constituent parts should become a reconnaissance and attack helicopter, reconnaissance and reconnaissance and strike aircraft, reconnaissance optoelectronic and radar spacecraft, and various other ground and air-based systems.

Considering and manufacturing weapons only systematically and in a complex, it is possible in modern conditions to win in present and future wars and armed conflicts. The combat use of these complexes requires a separate comprehensive consideration.

Reading time:

Everyone who had at least a tangential relation to the army service or the defense industry has heard about the “time of life in battle” - a fighter, tank, unit. But what is the reality behind these numbers? Is it really possible to start counting down the minutes before going into battle? The ideas that exist among the broad masses of military personnel about the time of life in battle were successfully portrayed by Oleg Divov in the novel “The Weapon of Retribution” - a book about the service of “Ustinov students” at the end of Soviet power: “They, proudly: our division is designed for thirty minutes of battle! We openly told them: we found something to be proud of! Everything came together in these two proposals - pride in one's own mortality, and the transfer of a misunderstood tactical assessment of the unit's viability in time to the life of its personnel, and the rejection of such false pride by more literate comrades ...
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 the experience of the war, remained combat-ready was called the "time of life." This does not mean at all that after this period all the personnel will be killed by the enemy, and the equipment will be burned.
Let's take a division - the main tactical unit. For its functioning, it is necessary that there be a sufficient number of fighters in the rifle subunits - and they leave not only killed, but also wounded (from three to six per one killed), sick, with their legs worn to the bones or injured by the armored personnel carrier hatch ... It is necessary that the engineering battalion had a supply of the property from which bridges would be built - after all, the supply battalion would carry everything that the units and subunits needed in battle and on the march along them. It is required that the repair and restoration battalion has the necessary amount of spare parts and tools to keep the equipment in working / combat-ready condition. And all these reserves are not unlimited. The use of heavy mechanized bridges TMM-3 or links of the pontoon-bridge park will lead to a sharp decrease in the offensive capabilities of the connection, limit its "life" in the operation.

Deadly meters
These are the factors that affect the viability of the connection, but are not related to the opposition of the enemy. Now let's turn to the estimation of the "life in combat" time. How long can an individual soldier live 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 The Future War in Technical, Economic and Political Relations. The book was published in six volumes in 1898, and its author was the Warsaw banker and railroad worker Ivan Bliokh.

Accustomed to numbers, the financier Blioch, with the help of a unique team he assembled, consisting of officers of the General Staff, tried to mathematically evaluate the impact of new types of weapons - repeating rifles, machine guns, artillery pieces on smokeless powder and with a high charge - on the then types of tactics. The technique was very simple. From the French military leadership of 1890, they took the battalion offensive scheme. They took the probabilities of hitting a growth target by a entrenched shooter from three-line rifles obtained at the training ground. The speeds with which the chain of shooters moves to the beat of drums and the sounds of horns were well known - both for the step and for the run, to which the French were going to switch when approaching the enemy. Then came the most ordinary arithmetic, which gave an amazing result. If from a line of 500 m, 637 infantrymen begin to approach a hundred entrenched shooters with magazine rifles, then even with all the speed of the French impulse, only a hundred will remain at the line of 25 m, from which it was then considered appropriate to move into a bayonet. No machine guns, which then passed through the department of artillery, - ordinary sapper shovels for digging in and magazine rifles for shooting. And now the position of the shooters is no longer able to be taken by a six-fold superior mass of infantry - after all, hundreds of those who ran half a verst under fire and in bayonet fighting have little chance against hundreds lying in the trenches.
Pacifism in numbers
At the time of the publication of The Future War, peace still reigned in Europe, but in Blioch's simple arithmetic calculations, the whole picture of the coming World War I, its positional impasse, was already visible. No matter how learned and devoted to the banner the fighters, the advancing masses of infantry will be swept away by the fire of the defending infantry. And so it 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 the arrows, but by the machine gunners who had sat out the artillery preparation in the dugouts, essentially did not change anything.

Based on the Blioch technique, it is very easy to calculate the expected lifetime of an infantryman in battle when advancing from a line of 500 m to a line of 25 m. As you can see, 537 out of 637 soldiers died or were seriously wounded during overcoming 475 m. From the diagram in the book, you can see how the life time was reduced when approaching the enemy, as the probability of dying increased when reaching the lines of 300, 200 m ... The results turned out to be so clear that Blioch considered them sufficient to justify the impossibility of a European war and therefore took care of the maximum distribution of his work. Reading Blioch's book prompted Nicholas II to convene in 1899 in The Hague the first peace conference on disarmament. The author himself was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
However, Blioch'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 - doesn't it look like the artillery paratroopers described by Divovy with their 30 minutes of division life?

Third world? Better not!
The works of those military specialists who were preparing not to prevent, but to successfully conduct a war, to develop a cold war into a hot Third World War, were not widely published. But - paradoxically - it was these works that were destined to contribute to the preservation of peace. And so, in the narrow and not inclined to public circles of staff officers, 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 much the same way as Blioch once was. They took an anti-tank gun, and at the training ground they determined the probability of hitting the silhouette of a car. One or another tank was used as a target (at the beginning of the Cold War, both opposing sides used captured German equipment for this purpose) and checked with what probability a projectile hit would pierce the armor or an armored action would disable the vehicle.

As a result of the chain of calculations, the very lifetime of a piece of equipment in a given tactical situation was displayed. It was purely a calculated value. Probably, many have heard of 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 of them never existed in the form of a coin, but were just a measure of counting smaller money - drachmas or pennies. Similarly, a tank that will have to live in an oncoming battle for exactly 17 minutes is nothing more than a mathematical abstraction. We are talking only about an integral estimate convenient for the time of arithmometers and slide rulers. Without resorting to complex calculations, the staff officer could determine how many tanks would be needed for a combat mission, during which it was necessary to cover one or another distance under fire. We bring together distance, combat speed and life time. We determine according to the standards how many tanks in the ranks should remain in the width of the front after they go through the hell of battle. And it is immediately clear what size unit should be entrusted with the combat mission. The predicted failure of the tanks did not necessarily mean the death of the crews. As the driver Shcherbak cynically argued in the story of front-line officer Viktor Kurochkin “In war as in war”, “It would be happiness if the Fritz rolled a disc into the engine compartment: the car is kaput, and everyone is alive.” And for the artillery battalion, the exhaustion of half an hour of battle, for which it was designed, meant, first of all, the depletion of ammunition, overheating of the barrels and recoilers, the need to leave positions, and not death under fire.
neutron factor
The conditional "time of life in battle" successfully served staff officers even when it was necessary to determine the combat capability of advancing tank units in the conditions of the use of neutron warheads by the enemy; 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 tasks of using gigantic powers were solved by the simplest equations: it was they that gave an unambiguous conclusion - a nuclear war in the European theater of operations must be avoided.
And modern combat management 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 simulation parameters, which are now conducted in real time. However, the objective function remains the same - to make both people and machines live in combat for the maximum time.

Deadly meters

Pacifism in numbers

At the time of the publication of The Future War, peace still reigned in Europe, but in Blioch's simple arithmetic calculations, the whole picture of the coming World War I, its positional impasse, was already visible. No matter how learned and devoted to the banner the fighters, the advancing masses of infantry will be swept away by the fire of the defending infantry. And so it 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 the arrows, but by the machine gunners who had sat out the artillery preparation in the dugouts, essentially did not change anything.

Based on the Blioch technique, it is very easy to calculate the expected lifetime of an infantryman in battle when advancing from a line of 500 m to a line of 25 m. As you can see, 537 out of 637 soldiers died or were seriously wounded during overcoming 475 m. From the diagram in the book, you can see how the life time was reduced when approaching the enemy, as the probability of dying increased when reaching the lines of 300, 200 m ... The results turned out to be so clear that Blioch considered them sufficient to justify the impossibility of a European war and therefore took care of the maximum distribution of his work. Reading Blioch's book prompted Nicholas II to convene in 1899 in The Hague the first peace conference on disarmament. The author himself was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

However, Blioch'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 - doesn't it look like the artillery paratroopers described by Divovy with their 30 minutes of division life?

Third world? Better not!

The works of those military specialists who were preparing not to prevent, but to successfully conduct a war, to develop a cold war into a hot Third World War, were not widely published. But - paradoxically - it was these works that were destined to contribute to the preservation of peace. And so, in the narrow and not inclined to public circles of staff officers, 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 much the same way as Blioch once was. They took an anti-tank gun, and at the training ground they determined the probability of hitting the silhouette of a car. One or another tank was used as a target (at the beginning of the Cold War, both opposing sides used captured German equipment for this purpose) and checked with what probability a projectile hit would pierce the armor or an armored action would disable the vehicle.

neutron factor

The conditional "time of life in battle" successfully served staff officers even when it was necessary to determine the combat capability of advancing tank units in the conditions of the use of neutron warheads by the enemy; 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 tasks of using gigantic powers were solved by the simplest equations: it was they that gave an unambiguous conclusion - a nuclear war in the European theater of operations must be avoided.

And modern combat management 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 simulation parameters, which are now conducted in real time. However, the objective function remains the same - to make both people and machines live in combat for the maximum time.

Then came the most ordinary arithmetic, which gave an amazing result. If from a line of 500 m, 637 infantrymen begin to approach a hundred entrenched shooters with magazine rifles, then even with all the speed of the French impulse, only a hundred will remain at the line of 25 m, from which it was then considered appropriate to move into a bayonet. No machine guns, which then passed through the department of artillery - ordinary sapper shovels for digging and magazine rifles for shooting. And now the position of the shooters is no longer able to be taken by a six-fold superior mass of infantry - after all, a hundred who ran half a verst under fire and in a bayonet battle have little chance against a hundred lying in a trench.

Pacifism in numbers

Based on the Blioch technique, it is very easy to calculate the expected lifetime of an infantryman in battle when advancing from a line of 500 m to a line of 25 m. As you can see, 537 out of 637 soldiers died or were seriously wounded during overcoming 475 m. From the diagram in the book, you can see how the life time was reduced when approaching the enemy, as the probability of dying increased when reaching the lines of 300, 200 m ... The results turned out to be so clear that Blioch considered them sufficient to justify the impossibility of a European war and therefore took care of the maximum distribution of his work. Reading Blioch's book prompted Nicholas II to convene in 1899 in The Hague the first peace conference on disarmament. The author himself was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

However, Blioch'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 - doesn't it, doesn't it look like the artillery paratroopers described by Divovy with their 30 minutes of division life?

Third world? Better not!

The works of those military specialists who were preparing not to prevent, but to successfully conduct a war, to develop a cold war into a 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 and not inclined to public circles of staff officers, 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 much the same way as Blioch once was. They took an anti-tank gun, and at the training ground they determined the probability of hitting the silhouette of a car. One or another tank was used as a target (at the beginning of the Cold War, both opposing sides used captured German equipment for this purpose) and checked with what probability a projectile hit would pierce the armor or an armored action would disable the vehicle.

We bring together distance, combat speed and life time. We determine according to the standards how many tanks in the ranks should remain in the width of the front after they go through the hell of battle. And it is immediately clear what size unit should be entrusted with the combat mission. The predicted failure of the tanks did not necessarily mean the death of the crews. As the driver Shcherbak cynically argued in the story of front-line officer Viktor Kurochkin “In war as in war”, “It would be happiness if the Fritz rolled a disc into the engine compartment: the car is kaput, and everyone is alive.” And for the artillery battalion, the exhaustion of half an hour of battle, for which it was designed, meant, first of all, the depletion of ammunition, overheating of the barrels and recoilers, the need to leave positions, and not death under fire.