Russian engineer troops interested new Armata tank chassis to replace old engineer vehicles 2304133.

"The mission and performance requirements are prepared by the command since the end of last year, in cooperation with the direction of the Uralvagonzavod plant in Nizhny Tagil (Russia) who works on Armata," said the source.

The military needed the technical documentation of the new tracked chassis to start the design. Only then, the name and code of the official vehicle will be unveiled.

"As soon as the chassis is ready, it will take us three years to design and fully testing the new vehicle. Everything depends of the factory in Nizhny Tagil," said the source.

Uralvagonzavod press service says it has not yet technical mission or contract for the design of the new vehicle. The factory has not commented the idea of the Russian Defense Ministry who is ready to provide these documents not before, but after the Armata design.

Moreover, according to sources of the Russian Ministry of Defence, a new crossing and landing vehicle must be created on the Armata platform. This equipment is intended for the army, the navy, air force, space defense and strategic missile troops.

The new machine is expected by the military, even if they do not really complain about the old BAT-2 and IMR-2. One engineer officer of the Russian Army has explained that the absence of a standard engineer vehicle was a problem today.

"All our vehicles are built on different platforms. IMR-1 is built on the chassis of the T-55 and IMR-2 on the chassis of the T-72. They are completely different tanks.

The BAT-M platform is based on the AT-T tractor, and his successor the BAT-2 is based on the MT-T.

They are different vehicles, "he said.

According to him, the diversity of chassis requires a large inventory of spare parts, consumable materials and oils. Many of spare parts and products are no longer manufactured and there are no more in stock. Many vehicles of engineer battalions are out of service and cannot be repair anymore. "The army really needs a common chassis with the main battle tank," concluded the officer.

"All of our brigade vehicles - South Military District - are from year 1970-1980, or 1960. Less than a third is operational. Nothing works on the vehicles, -Engines, winches, ..,- most are out of service" he said.

Those who remain have very poor operational performance continued the officer. But is not simple with the new project of Armata chassis. The independent military expert Alexei Khlopotov says”The new projects will be very expensive.”

"Armata is not only expensive but also very heavy. Now, Russian ground forces need a new engineer vehicle. It would be better to make a vehicle based on an existing platform, as the T-72 and T-90" , says Alexei.

The Armata design has some problems. According to reports, the first model tank is being designed, the chassis and the turret are only partially completed.