T-84 Armament characteristic
The T-84 MBT armament includes a 125mm gun, 7.62mm coaxial machine gun and 12.7mm anti-aircraft machine gun. The tank crew is also equipped with sub-machine guns, hand grenades and a signal pistol.
T-84 MBT clearly showing its 125mm main gun
The main armament comprises a stabilised 125mm KBA3 smoothbore gun fed by a carousel-type automatic loader and fitted with a thermal sleeve and fume extractor (bore evacuator).The gun is stabilised in both elevation and traverse. The main gun has a quick-replacement barrel which can be changed under field conditions without the need to remove the gun from the tank.
125mm KBA-3 gun
Turret traverse is electric while gun elevation is hydraulic. The turret can be slewed through 180° in less than 5 seconds, as the rate of traverse of the turret on the hull is up to 40 °/s. Manual gun and turret controls are provided for emergency use.
Turret traversing mechanism
The T-84 has a total of 40 rounds of separate loading ammunition (projectile and charge), of which 28 rounds are placed in the automatic loader. Seven rounds are carried in the hull to the right of the driver. Mounted in the turret bustle is an armoured compartment with stowage for an additional five rounds. Types of ammunition that can be fired by the gun include APFSDS (armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot), HEAT (high explosive anti-tank), HE-FRAG (high explosive fragmentation) rounds as well as laser beam-riding guided missiles.
The specific feature of the tank is that it is fitted with a guided missile system to enable the main gun to fire a laser guided missile and engage targets out to 5000 m. The missiles are stowed in the automatic loader in the same way as conventional ammunition. The missile can be fired while both the tank and target are moving. The missile has a tandem warhead to defeat targets fitted with explosive reactive armour as well as modern spaced armour, optimised against HEAT attack.
Although the primary role of the missile is to engage battle tanks and other armoured vehicles operating at ranges beyond the effective range of the tank gun firing conventional ammunition, it has the potential for a considerable number of other uses. For example, the missile-armed helicopter poses a very dangerous threat to the tank and is very difficult to hit because of its small size, high speed and manoeuvrability. The guided missile system gives the tank a useful capability against hovering helicopters firing stand-off missiles, which is a decisive factor in its favour, as, obviously, the tank must be able to take some effective action against anti-tank helicopters itself and not rely on other weapons always being available to protect it. With the advance of technology guided missiles will most probably be able to engage even fast-moving and agile targets. Nowadays the guided missiles can also be fired against other battlefield targets such as pillboxes as well as against various soft targets such as buildings and bunkers.
The coaxial machine gun can be aimed and fired from either gunner's or commander's station.
The anti-aircraft machine gun is mounted on the commander's cupola and is intended for use in the ground/air and ground/ground roles being aimed and fired while remaining in the vehicle under full armour protection from the commander's station. The machine gun can be elevated from -5° to +70° and traversed through +/-75° to the right and left of the vehicle longitudinal axis, or through +360° together with the tank turret. The machine gun is fitted with a vertical stabilisation system providing stabilisation in the vertical angle range of -3° to +20°.