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Oplot Main battle tank - Armament characteristics
Oplot Main Battle Tank (Oplot MBT) |
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The Oplot MBT armament includes a 125mm gun, 7.62mm
coaxial machine gun and 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine gun. The tank crew is also
equipped with sub-machine guns, hand grenades and a signal pistol.
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Oplot MBT clearly showing its 125mm main gun |
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The main armament comprises a stabilised 125mm KBA3 smoothbore gun fed by a carousel-type
automatic loader and fitted with a thermal sleeve and fume extractor (bore evacuator).The gun is stabilised in both
elevation and traverse. The main gun has a quick-replacement barrel which can be changed under field conditions without the
need to remove the gun from the tank.
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125mm KBA-3 gun |
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Turret traverse is electric while gun elevation is hydraulic. The turret can be slewed through 180°
in less than 5 seconds,
as the rate of traverse of the turret on the hull is up
to 40 °/s. Manual gun and turret controls are provided for emergency use.
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Turret traversing mechanism |
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The Oplot has a total of 40 rounds of separate
loading ammunition (projectile and charge), of which 28 rounds are placed in the
automatic loader. Seven rounds are carried in the hull to the right of the
driver. Mounted in the turret bustle is an armoured compartment with stowage for
an additional five rounds. Types of ammunition that can be fired by the gun
include APFSDS (armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot), HEAT (high
explosive anti-tank), HE-FRAG (high explosive fragmentation) rounds as well as
laser beam-riding guided missiles.
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The
specific feature of the tank is that it is fitted with a guided missile system
to enable the main gun to fire a laser guided missile and engage
targets out to 5000 m.
The missiles are stowed in the automatic loader in the same way as conventional
ammunition.
The missile can be fired while both the tank and target are moving. The missile has a tandem warhead to defeat targets fitted with explosive reactive armour as well as modern spaced armour, optimised against HEAT
attack.
Although the primary role of the missile is to
engage battle tanks and other armoured vehicles operating at ranges beyond the effective range of the
tank
gun firing conventional ammunition, it has the potential for a considerable
number of other uses. For example, the missile-armed helicopter poses a very
dangerous threat to the tank and is very difficult to hit because of its small
size, high speed and manoeuvrability. The guided missile system gives the tank a
useful capability against hovering helicopters
firing stand-off missiles, which is
a decisive factor in its favour,
as, obviously, the
tank must be able to take some effective action against anti-tank helicopters itself and not rely on other weapons always being
available to protect it. With the advance of technology guided missiles will most probably be able to engage
even fast-moving and agile targets. Nowadays the guided missiles can also be fired against other battlefield targets such as
pillboxes as well as against various soft
targets such as buildings and bunkers.
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The coaxial machine gun can be aimed and fired from either
gunner's or commander's station.
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The anti-aircraft machine gun is mounted on the commander's
cupola and is intended for use in the ground/air and ground/ground roles being
aimed and fired while remaining in the vehicle under full armour protection from
the commander's station. The machine gun can be elevated from -5° to +70° and
traversed through +/-75° to the right and left of the vehicle longitudinal
axis, or through +360° together with the tank turret. The machine gun is fitted
with a vertical stabilisation system providing stabilisation in the vertical
angle range of -3° to +20°.
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KT-12,7 anti-aircraft machine gun |
