The T-14 Armata (; industrial designation ) is a Russian main battle tank (MBT) based on the Armata Universal Combat Platform.
The Russian Army initially planned to acquire 2,300 T-14s between 2015 and 2020. By 2018, production and fiscal shortfalls delayed this to 2025, before Russia announced the apparent cancellation of the main production run on 30 July 2018. However, , the Russian state-owned TASS media agency claimed the Armata had been expected to begin serial production in 2022, with delivery of a test batch of 100 to the 2nd Guards Tamanskaya Motor Rifle Division expected to begin in 2022. The tanks are planned to only be officially transferred following completion of all state tests. In December 2021 the Russian state conglomerate Rostec stated that serial production had commenced, with "more than 40" Armata tanks anticipated to be delivered to Russian troops after 2023.
History
After the cancellation of the T-95 in 2010, Uralvagonzavod began the OKR Armata (Armament) design study. The study resulted in the Object 148 based on the T-95 (itself based on the Object 187). The Russian Army curtailed T-90 orders beginning in 2012 to prepare for the arrival of the new tank.
The T-14 first publicly appeared in March 2015, when several tanks with covered turrets were seen loaded on train carriage in Alabino. It was subsequently revealed on 9 May during the 2015 Moscow Victory Day Parade. During the 2015 rehearsals, one of the tanks suddenly stopped moving, and after attempts to tow it failed, it moved away under its own power after about 15 minutes.
At least seven T-14 Armata tanks appeared in the 2015 and 2016 Moscow Victory Day parade, five in 2017 and 2018. Four were anticipated in promotional materials in advance of the 2019 parade.
The state trials of the tank started in early 2020. This became known in April 2020, when Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov stated the T-14 has already been tested in combat conditions on the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic. Subsequently in July 2020, testing of an unmanned version of the T-14 called "Tachanka-B" () was announced.
In November 2022, The Moscow Times and Newsweek reported that the state program under which the T-14 Armata is being developed had been halted because the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine necessitated radical changes to the planned expenditure for urgent needs. The same month, several videos and photos of T-14s appeared on social media, apparently training at the same grounds as Russian military personnel who were mobilized. The videos were located to a training ground in Kazan, where cadets of the Kazan Higher Tank Command School train.
Procurement
In 2016 the Russian Defence Ministry announced that it had signed a contract for a "test batch" of 100 T-14 tanks to be delivered by 2020, with the full project to be extended until 2025.
In July 2018, Deputy Prime Minister for Defence and Space Industry Yury Borisov said there is currently no need to mass-produce the Armata when its older predecessors, namely the latest variants of the T-72, remain "effective against American, German and French counterparts", saying, "Why flood our military with Armatas, the T-72s are in great demand on the market(s)." Instead, a modernization program of the T-72s, T-80s and T-90s in-service will take precedence. In August 2018, at the ARMY2018 Forum outside Moscow, the Russian Ministry of Defense signed a contract for the purchase of 32 T-14s tanks and 100 T-15 infantry fighting vehicles, with delivery to be finished by 2021.
In February 2019 it was announced that the first 12 tanks would be delivered by the end of that year. In August 2019, the Russian Military-Industrial Courier reported that out of a contractually agreed 132 Armata-platform vehicles over three years to 2021 (including T-14 tanks, and also T-15 IFVs and T-16 BREM ARVs (:ru:Т-16 (БРЭМ)), assuming production of 44 vehicles a year, only 16 would be delivered by the end of 2019. This implied a shortfall of at least 28 vehicles that year. By November 2019 the delivery forecast slipped to "late 2019 or early 2020."