Putin's new tank designed to 'outclass the West’ breaks down
Russia’s state of the art T-14 Armata tank stops during final rehearsal for Saturday’s Moscow commemorations
One of the tanks moving on Red Square suddenly stopped while others drove away Photo: AP
By Our Foreign Staff
3:28PM BST 07 May 2015
A new Russian tank announced with much fanfare as superior to Western machines stalled during a dress rehearsal for Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on Thursday.
The T-14 Armata, making only its second public appearance, ground to a halt on Red Square, opposite Vladimir Lenin’s mausoleum.
Sergei Shoigu, Russia’s defence minster, was reportedly forced to approach the tank to find out what had happened; servicemen then tried to hook it up to another military vehicle and tow it away.
That attempt was unsuccessful but the tank finally moved off after an expert from the Urals factory - where it was made - took the controls, according to Alexei Zharich, the deputy general director of Uralvagonzavod, the tank’s manufacturer.
“Just imagine how worried the lads [crew] are, driving this new military vehicle for the first time,” he tweeted. “Their training is still continuing.”
A T-14 tank with the Armata Universal Combat Platform, pictured during rehearsals for the Red Square parade (RIA Novosti/Getty)
He later deleted that tweet and wrote another, saying: “The Armata is fully operational and left under its own steam.”
Another military source confirmed to Russian media that the incident was likely due to driver error rather than a technical failure.
Air defence missile launchers, intercontinental ballistic missile carriers and tanks rumbled through central Moscow in a rehearsal of the military parade to be held on Saturday, when Russia marks the 70th anniversary of the end of what it calls the Great Patriotic War.
The stalled tank – which was stationary for about 15 minutes - was an embarrassment for the military. Dmitry Rogozin, the deputy prime minister in charge of defence, called the T-14 “a beauty” earlier this week, and Russian experts have been lauding its superiority to Western rivals such as the US Abrams and British Challenger.
The T-14 Armata is to be the main battle tank of Russia’s ground forces, and 2,300 are expected to be produced for the army by 2020. It has a remotely-controlled turret with an automatic weapons loading system and an armoured capsule for the three-man crew.
As a “combat platform”, the Armata can be also adapted as other tracked vehicles such as an infantry fighting vehicle and a self-propelled artillery unit.
Russian website gazeta.ru quoted an anonymous military source last month saying that the Armata had broken down twice during practice runs for the May 9 parade at the Alabino training ground near Moscow.
An estimated 200 pieces of military hardware and 16,500 troops are expected to take part in the parade.
