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Sturgeon's House

The Merkava, Israel's Chieftain?


Life_In_Black

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On 3/23/2017 at 3:12 PM, Marsh said:

Not a thing! Great find. For some reason, the hull reminds me of something. Can't place it. I wonder if it is a Frankenstein conversion of an existing AFV in IDF service, rather than a new build.

The IDF were always opposed to light tanks, which makes this beast all the more interesting.  

 

According to a post from For the Record, this picture came from this Hebrew language book.   

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This picture is meant for the select few I've met, that thought the Trophy installation required removing much of the armor module.

 

And SS (from FTR blog) seems to have missed the added info I've posted when I first shared the source (book) in AW forums.

It was developed in parallel with Mark 4, at least from what I've found, and its suspension is NOT based on the Merkava tanks. The whole deal about it and its relation to Yehiam is that he had to develop a suspension from scratch, on a principle he had no prior experience with, and still manage to complete it in record time.

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That helmet design is really nice and very slick. A seriously impressive piece of kit there!

 

When I've sat down and really thought about this whole idea for giving vehicle crews all around vision like the Iron vision project is setting out to do I came to the conclusion that you almost want/need 2 different display systems integrated into the helmet simultaneously.

 

For running in immersive VR while buttoned up or etc you'd kinda want something like an easy to remove or flip up display like the META 2 / Occulus Rift.

 

Then for augmented reality where you're riding with your head out maybe Manning an MG or etc you'd want something more like the layered RGB Holographic Optical Element setup Microsoft is working to make work with their headset which basically overlays HUD style info into your line of sight without compromising your ability to see through the pair of goggles or etc the HOE's are embedded in.

 

Luckily for Israel they have multiple different companies working with both display types etc and elbit already offers some pretty slick and easy to integrate augmented reality display setups.

 

My reasoning behind possibly needing two different display types mountable on the same helmet comes down to it actually being likely to be easier to do it that way and likely would make for better results. Primarily because you wouldn't have to make your augmented reality lense system do funky polarization things or have REALLY difficult to achieve brightness levels in a thin and still "optically transparent" lens layer of your augmented reality display. Additionally with the flip down and completely non transparent immersive over visor/goggle and augmented reality display combination you could likely have your AR display essentially overlaying data in the main focal plane thickening up resolution and helping to create a "more 3d" immersive experience. You could also have the AR handle most of the display duties for areas you're eyes aren't directly focused on  including peripheral vision and etc.

 

I'm really curious to see how all of this develops and I am probably wrong or missing something in my thought process etc WRT this entire thing. But at least I'm thinking about how to best do any of this.

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11 minutes ago, Spiggy said:

Can anyone please advise as to why some Israeli tanks have short lengths of chain suspended from the rear bustle of the turret ?

 

Welcome to SH, Spiggy.

The chainmail aventail on the Merkava is to protect against RPGs.  I am not sure if it behaves like spaced armor, slat armor, or has some unique mechanism of its own.

 

2Y3CvPC.jpg

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Hi,

 

i can can well understand that the large amounts of chain fixed to this Centurion might well negate RPG's, but the chain added to some Israeli tanks in the one location I referred to consists of lengths about a foot long and are spaced about six or more inches apart. Surely a RPG is likely to pass between the lengths rather than strike any of them ?   If this measure is anti RPG would it not be better to hang the chain lengths with virtually no space between them as per the Centurion ?

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The spacing is not randomly made. While they're definitely not too wide to hit any known AT weapon, they cannot be too tight. They have to be spaced in a way that gives a high chance of disabling the warhead itself (usually done by disconnecting it from the fuze). 

 

Premature detonation is also enough to render RPGs largely ineffective against the turret rear armor that is between the upper edge and the turret ring.

ATGMs however, may be too much for the chains but they're too unlikely to ever hit there.

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