Russia’s T-14 Armata, touted as one of the best tanks that was ever built, and the most advanced Main Battle Tank to date, has indeed faced cost and production challenges, which have limited it in its deployment in Ukraine or elsewhere on the battlefield.
Even though the T-14 was advertised to possess innovative capabilities including an unmanned turret, active protection systems, and significantly superior firepower when compared with most rival MBTs, it has never been seen in the theater.
The T-14 Armata has some intriguing features, including an unmanned turret with APS, very much improving situational awareness through sophisticated optical gear and sensors.
This design was far from what was the case in Soviet-era tanks, where often not much care for survivable crews was considered.
The tank is fitted with a 125mm smoothbore gun, which can shoot long-range advanced munitions, including guided missiles. The engine that powers the tank gives out as much as 1,500 horsepower, which would naturally make it lighter and potentially more agile compared to the American M1 Abrams.
But superior technology has a significant price tag: the unit cost for each T-14 runs between $5 million and $9 million, expensive for Russia’s relatively modest defense budget. The logistics of operating such tanks in combat worsens the problem.
Russia has opted for large numbers of less-costly Soviet-era tanks such as the T-72, which has performed satisfactorily in the Ukraine conflict.
The problems with T-14 Armata hint at an even more fundamental problem modern militaries have today: the tension between advancing the technological curve and being practically affordable to support.
Such expensive systems tend to be mismatched at birth or to strike their respective points of diminishing returns in long, grinding campaigns.
In the same light, Russia had to step backward and rethink the approach toward deploying more focused attention toward cheaper and trustworthy alternatives.
T-14 Armata was only shipped to Ukraine with much trepidation, kept off the outskirts of intense war zones.
The tanks were withdrawn when the armor was engaged, and extra protections, such as drone attack shields, were added, which speaks toward the critical threat environment in Ukraine.
This is indeed unfortunate that its theoretical capabilities are so much lesser than what is reflected in its limited deployment.
The T-14 Armata’s experience is, more generally, part of the general experience of other modern MBTs.
The United States M1 Abrams is still in extensive use, even though it is older than most MBTs would likely be by the time it became obsolete; newer designs, such as the British Challenger 3 and the German Leopard II, experience problems with cost and complexity as well.
In other words, even though it may well constitute one giant leap for tank technology in the T-14 Armata, the practical limitations are stark enough that Russia had to make do with cheaper, more traditional options.