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SH_MM

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Everything posted by SH_MM

  1. SH_MM
    Patents are not a good source for accurately scaled drawings, but if you look at scale drawings from other sources, interior photos of the tank or photos from the upgrade process, you'll see that the location of the gun trunnion is essentially the same as in the patent drawing. This is the result of wanting a thick mantlet armor block recessed into the turret armor (the gun shield is optimized for frontal impacts only, hitting it from the side would result in lower protection, I suppose due to the arrangement of the NERA sandwich plates). There is a German documentary which includes footage from a KMW factory from the Leopard 2A5 upgrade. The trunnion seems to sit slightly in front of the turret ring and to overlap it at the center section.
  2. SH_MM
    Yes, some countries like the Ukraine even have competitions to decide which crew will be send to Grafenwoehr. However as mentioned earlier, the German unit didn't know one year ahead of time that they will participate at SETC 2018, because the original plans saw another unit participating.
  3. SH_MM
    The article from Jane's daily. Same text, but a better illustration of the working principle. No primary sources, but it is not going to be very much.
  4. SH_MM
    Denel is testing improved interceptors against heavy ATGMs and KE penetrators. Previously the cooperated with SAAB (delivering the interceptors for the LEDS-150 APS), but it was canceled after nobody wanted to fund it.
  5. SH_MM
    On the website of the Austrian Truppendienst magazine (the official magazine of the Austrian military), a summary has been published by the Major of the Panzerbataillon 14: https://www.truppendienst.com/themen/beitraege/artikel/die-setc18-im-rueckblick/ The Swedish team didn't finish first, because one of their soldiers got an injury during the last task, the "tanker olympics". Sweden got the last place in this discipline as a result. The Polish team didn't bring its own training ammunition (is there a shortage in the Polish army?), so they did all live fire tests with high explosive ammunition (!). As this was proper HE ammo and not HE training/practice ammo, they were always the last to shoot (the hosts didn't want to replace the targets in the middle of the competition). This might also explain the poor score compared to other Leopard 2 users... Leclerc required more maintenance than other tanks, but French army send more/better people to take care of that Aparently the rules of the competition were slightly changed, so that having a three men crew wasn't indirectly punished (i.e. three men crews had to do less in certain competitions than four men crews). The Leclerc did a poor job at spotting targets. The UK might reconsider the idea of equipping one tank regiment with AJAX vehicles, because the Challenger 2 performed quite well. Supposedly the better shooting results of tanks with smoothbore guns might affect the decision wether the Challenger 2 LEP will adopt such a gun or keep the old rifled one. The T-84's fire control system did not perform (significantly) worse than that of NATO tanks. The old Soviet-derived autoloader provided similar reload speeds compared to the manned tanks.The crews had combat experience and knew how to properly deal with drones (something that the US team apparently didn't knew). Originally another German team was meant to participate, but a short time before the competition it was swapped. Still they were giving some preparattion. The Germans had higher physical fitness than others. The stabilizer of (one or multiple) Leopard 2A6 tanks from Germany failed due to the unexpectedly high temperatures (and probably because they weren't replaced in the past years, as spare parts are low...). The gunners of the Leopard 2A6 tank(s) could compensate the lack of a stabilizer to some extend. Germany will co-host next year's SETC aswell, but the Bundeswehr decided that they will only send teams to the challenge, which never participated before. Canada, Croatia, Denmark ,Greece, Switzerland and the Netherlands had observers at the competition. Canada and Denmark will definetly not participate next year (Canada has no tanks in Europe, Denmark is switching from Leopard 2A5 to 2A7), the other countries might. It doesn't? Given that half of the participants are former members of the Warsaw Pact, I would expect that it might include some... I've read different things regarding this shoot-off. Some sources say that it was the "inofficial" 14th task (the SETC however only included 13 rated tasks, unless something was changed from last year), which not all contenders did serious (like the Swedes according to the Truppendienst article). Based on videos the "shoot-off" seems to be done from static positions at a shooting range with the targets being clearly visible. The offensive and defensive ops (for which exact scores were leaked) are also including gunnery, but from the move and without always knowing the location of the targets (the crews have to spot them).
  6. SH_MM
    That is not what Hilmes wrote. According to him the aim was to defeat armor array providing protection equivalent to 1,000 mm RHA (depending on range). That is a big difference. There is a graph in a classified document, which shows how the armor protection of future enemy tanks was expected to increase, it would have reached 1,000 mm by 2010. The area covered by the graph is divided into three colors: one is representing reactive armor, one is representing ceramic armor and one is representing steel armor. The DM53 and DM63 are believed to be segmeneted penetrators, which would fit well to such an "armor array", as Rheinmetall's patents specifically mention that they've improved the segmented penetrator design to work better against ceramic armor. It is worth mentioning that the company has said on multiple times that they do not want to measure penetration into RHA anymore, because modern MBTs use special armor and RHA does not reflect the protection properties of such armor (IMO implying that Rheinmetall's ammunition does relatively worse against RHA than special armor targets).
  7. SH_MM
    I don't think anybody ever claimed a Leopard 2's hull side or bustle armor would survive an ATGM.
  8. SH_MM
  9. SH_MM
    Unless the gunner's sight was moved forward (which is not easy to do given that it's channel has to be cut within the steel structure of the tank), the armor thickness in front of the gunner's sight is a lot lower, because it is missing the latest version of the armor block.
  10. SH_MM
    It's missing the additional armor block under the gunner's sighter, probably due to the location of the driver's hatch... not clever.
  11. SH_MM
    Latest armor upgrade offer from IBD Deisenroth Engineering (the company behind AMAP and the Leopard 2 Evolution): IMO a combination of AMAP and ADS (maybe as a "less active" protection system, which operates similar to ERA, as it only detects the projectile on impact). Edit: Article on Jane's: http://www.janes.com/article/80769/smart-solution-against-tandem-warheads-es18d1
  12. SH_MM
    But it doesn't sit closer to the turret ring... The trunnion actually sits closer to the turret ring than on the Leclerc, if the top-view drawing of the Leclerc's turret is correct. So it all comes down to Serge saying the Leclerc is more accurate without a source. Or the lower weight in front of the trunnion affects the gun stabilization (however using more powerful stabilizers would solve that). "A more convenient gun balance" compared to which tank? There are too many unknown factors, but assuming that the Leclerc is superior without any prove is silly. Maybe the Leclercs just had bad crews in all competitions and trials, maybe they did not.
  13. SH_MM
    https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/landwarfareintl/eurosatory-2018-franco-german-industry-unveils-new/
  14. SH_MM
    New ASCOD 2 medium tank based on the Oto-Melara HITFACT II turret: http://www.monch.com/mpg/news/land/3529-ascod.html
  15. SH_MM
    I however think that most radar systems used for active protection systems can be outranged by modern ATGMs. Take for example Iron Fist: the system makes use of the RPS-10 radar from RADA. The same company lists in a document the range at which the RPS-42 radar panels - which are physicially larger and consume more energy, therefore they should have a greater range - can spot "short range missiles" up to a distance of 5 kilometres. Iron Fists' RPS-10 and also the ELM-2133 from ELTa should have a shorter range, simply based on panel size. Even the RPS-42 is too short-ranged to properly spot the launch location of modern ATGMs like Kornet-EM, Spike-ER, Spike-LR 2 etc. fired from the maximum possible distance. Afganits radar might very well be able to track large aircrafts at a distance of 100 kilometres, but ATGMs are much smaller and therefore harder to track. The RPS-42 radar can spot and track heavy transport aircraft at a distance of 50 km and fighter aircraft at a distance of 25 km according to RADA. The smaller the target, the shorter the distance. I think using a radar for tracking the launch location of an ATGM makes sense for the IDF, who frankly are not expecting to fight against enemies with high capacity electronic warfare systems in the near future. So there is really no downside to having larger radar detection ranges. For countries in other geopolitical situations I would suggest a combination of APS with short-ranged radar and other sensor systems, such as optical sensors, acustic sensors and laser warning systems, to detect the location of enemy ATGM squads.
  16. SH_MM
    Given that the Leclerc ended up with lower shooting scores in all trials and competitions, I seriously doubt that there are issues with firing on the move. At the maximum speed that the Leopard 2 realistically reaches off-road, it can accurately hit its targets. Driving along flat roads with higher speeds shouldn't negatively affect its accuracy. I guess you are mixing something up with the Leopard 1, which could not accurately fire on the move at speeds higher than 20-25 km/h...
  17. SH_MM
    You marked the left turret front as "380 to 400 mm" KE, but if it offered less than 400 mm protection, the portion of the tank's surface with "400 mm or more" KE protection would be far below the ~19.75% shown in the leaked graph. It is 40 mm thick.
  18. SH_MM
    The radar emissions are much easier to spot from a distance. The range of a typical launcher based APS' radar is several times smaller than the range at which modern SIGNIT aircraft or ground-based radar systems can spot the vehicle. Also note that a radar doesn't allow you to spot the location of an ATGM squad or artillery system, if they are located outside the maximum range. Then the only option is to calculate the vector of the incoming round and extrapolate the possible location of the shooter based on this; ADS should be able to do the same.
  19. SH_MM
    Seeing the scores from the last two SETCs and the Greek tests, it would certainly be better. Leclerc turret on Leopard 2 hull would not really offer any advantages (shorter gun, lower armor protection, less accuracy...). Re: topic title... it has yet to be decided how the MGCS will look. Concept phase hasn't really finished. Four proposals were made, the best one has yet to be found.
  20. SH_MM
    APS systems and at which range they can be spotted by radar systems according to the ADS manufacturer...
  21. SH_MM
    An undisclosed Asian country ordered ADS in 2011, when it wasn't ready for service. Maybe that's Singapore. On the other hand Turkey has been requesting the system since 2016... You mean like this?
  22. SH_MM
    There were 13 tasks, the image shows only the scores of two.
  23. SH_MM
    Germany won. https://www.dvidshub.net/news/280177/germany-takes-prize-strong-europe-tank-challenge-winner Sweden got the second place, Austria came in third. Like last year, the lower places probably won't be officially revealed.
  24. SH_MM
    Yes, even their ministry reported that: http://www.mil.gov.ua/en/news/2018/06/05/strong-europe-tank-challenge-2018-offensive/
  25. SH_MM
    Already adressed in other discussions. The conclusion is rather simple: it's not a reliable source, given the various incorrect statements in the article. As for your new protection estimate: that doesn't fit to the armor coverage. If ~19% of the total frontal surface should have at least 400 mm protection, then you cannot remove half of the area with this protection level from the previous model. That the right side of the turret is better protected is hardly a suprise given that the armor there is thicker and the armor block behind the EMES-15 will result in a much higher LOS path for flank shots hitting the upper half of the turret.
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