Quote:
Originally Posted by Vespers War
The nail in the coffin for Ob.640 was the First Chechen War, where the poor performance of the T-80 convinced the Armor Directorate to cancel all gas turbine developments.
I suppose one other possible platform for Kaktus if Ob.640 had entered service would have been the BTR-T for use in urban combat over the BMP-3. The BMPT Terminator was just getting prototyped in the late 90s, while the BTR-T was a (relatively) quick and simple conversion of a T-55 to a heavy APC like Achzarit. The actual BTR-T uses Kontakt-5, but I could see them being used like the BMPT, with one or two BTR-T providing anti-infantry protection to one or two Ob.640 and being outfitted with Kaktus instead of Kontakt to simplify logistics and improve protection.
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Kaktus is the only 'soviet' ERA that can be placed on a vehicle with less than 30mm of 350BHN RHA equivalent (Soviet armour was 550 BHN so it's about 1.3x equivalent armour) so it can go on much lighter vehicles. This is why it ended up on the BMP-3