Mighty_Zuk

JLTV with Spike LR ATGMs, mounted on a Samson RCWS.

Experimental floating cage armor, 1984, Lebanon.

IAI debuts an improved version of its MMR radar. Well, the radar remains the same, but it gets a ton of new sensors added:

Tyler Rogoway, as usual, with an expertly written list of all the available information, in an easy to read format: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/28504/at-least-one-oil-tanker-is-on-fire-in-the-sea-of-oman-reports And thankfully, he's also updating articles all the time so it's going to be relevant even hours from now. At first, I was extremely skeptical that Iran would do this, and couldn't for the life of me figure out who could be the culprit. Unfortunately for Iran, they miscalculated in the amount of information they decided to give the public. They claimed all 44 crewmembers were rescued by them and moved to the port city of Jask. One ship has 21 crewmembers, and another has 23, for a total of 44. The USN, however, officially announced that USS Bainbridge, an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, has rescued 21 of the crewmembers, i.e all the crew of one of the ships. Both statements are directly contradicting each other. So from my own personal analysis, if Iran is lying about the number of rescued crew members, it's the culprit. Because an innocent state actor would not have to lie about such things.

No doubt. But Soucy's current position is a good refernce point since they're one of the biggest names in rubber composite tracks. All I needed apparently is a short google image search to see the steel tracks on the Lynx.

So I was wrong on the Lynx. Thanks.

3/4 of warheads were neutralized. Rafael claims 50% rate IIRC, while IMI's fragment-free grenade offers 90% rate.

You definitely misunderstood what I said. We are in agreement. What I said, to make it more clear, is that these countries saw more benefits to ERA than cons.

Yes but with the onboard systems on the T-90 the input must be either from one of the crewmembers catching a target with the sights, or some external source with 3D coordinates generator. The latter is irrelevant for the current discussion.

And IIRC, the Lynx KF41 has a GVW of 50 tons with rubber band tracks.

The range of HE is lower than that of APFSDS, in a consideration of only the flight characteristics of the projectile. However, what limits APFSDS range is not really how long it can fly. It can go for tens of kilometers with ease. It just won't retain the necessary velocity to penetrate a target. A specific APFSDS could be effective to 3km for one target, 1.5km for another more armored target, and completely ineffective to another even more armored target. HE is not range-limited, and with fin stabilizers could fly out to a pretty good range. Russia (UVZ) claims the T-90 can fire its HE shell out to 12km. It's physically possible, but the bottleneck would be the sights that probably won't even recognize the pixel they're looking at, at that range. So if you can see a target 6km away, you can be sure lobbing HE shells is possible. In the IDF it's fairly routine to practice firing them out to 5km, and that's not really an exceptional feat in the west or anywhere. 2)That would never be necessary. 60's era tanks with 105mm guns, with APDS/APFSDS are abundant on the market right now. Even the poorest countries have these. If munitions are still an issue then worry not. A 105mm will do a crap ton of external damage as well, but with a much better RoF and actually existent munition stockpiles. And if it comes down to fighting against a more technologically capable enemy, then tanks are actually a liability. Guerilla warfare becomes key.

Those aren't stupid questions. Unfortunately some people here are too conservative and early to bark at people for raising questions for which the answers only seem obvious to them. 1)The question of ERA versus NERA is a matter of design philosophies, and wargame analysis. In absolute terms, neither ERA nor NERA are more effective from one another. They both have a linear tradeoff of capabilities. It is a function of single-hit protection, i.e how effective would one type be against only 1 shot, and the total number of shots that armor can take. In a very rough comparison, an ERA can interact with 1 projectile resulting in X penetration reduction. And a NERA armor would defend from 2 projectiles, with only X/2 penetration reduction at a time. On average, they are mathematically equal. On the battlefield, certain scenarios will show the superiority of one over the other. To better understand the situation, you must first understand that actually both western and eastern tanks use NERA of some form, as the key component of their armor. Only for a short time was ERA ever dominant over NERA, and that was at the time of tanks like Leopard 1, AMX-30, and M48/60, because proper composite armor did not exist yet with the quality needed to defeat HEAT or APFSDS. Next comes the impact probability analysis. If a certain area is considered likely to be hit multiple times in tight groupings, over the course of a single engagement, then NERA is the preferred solution, even though again the Soviet tanks used NERA as much as western tanks. If a certain area is only likely to be hit once in a single engagement, then ERA is preferred. This is why on most western AFVs, the first type of applique to appear for side protection was ERA, and only after certain advancements, it moved on to NxRA (will get into that later). And finally is the system's longevity analysis. Or basically how long the tank is expected to survive in either case. Soviet tanks were considered more disposable than NATO tanks. Although fiercely competing with the west to create the higher quality tank, part of the philosophy was that even an advanced tank won't survive for very long on the battlefield. Minutes at best. Thus ERA, being more effective for a single hit, would basically double the number of shots required to take out the tank, in some of the more likely scenarios. And when you double some capability, for seemingly no cost at all, that's something worth doing, and is no longer an incremental upgrade. In the west, tanks were expected to be more survivable, hence for example the human loader that was more of a spare than an actual necessity for normal operation of the tank. With a focus on higher overall longevity of the platform on the battlefield, the ERA would not be more than a minor addition over potent NERA. It would be a single use item in an environment in which designers believed a tank needs to be able to sustain many hits, even if only for the sake of recovery. Plus, it would encourage a bad culture of crewmembers' false reliance on a single use item, perhaps not fully understanding the extent of the danger in such belief. But wherever sufficient NERA was not possible, western philosophy did not exclude ERA at all, and you can see the Bradley for example entirely covered in ERA. 2)Depends who you're looking at. USA - Wanted Trophy more than a decade ago but Raytheon lobbied hard enough to delay its acquisition until it can complete its own system, which it eventually never has. Reallocation of funds was also time consuming. Army doesn't always get what it wants, and almost never on time, unless Congress is especially generous. Rest of NATO - For three reasons mainly. First, they are very much disconnected from their MIC and will more often try to subvert the MIC than help it, because of a perceived sense of security. Second, rest of NATO are being led, not leading new technological trends. Their innovators are their MIC which they don't do nearly enough to support. Third, the acquisition of arms in Europe is done with the intent of deterrence, not the actual usage of said equipment in combat. Hence why you can still see Leopard 2A4 as the main MBTs of certain countries. I've explained a long while ago, in depth, the economical effects of an APS. One of the conclusions was that it is economically unviable to buy AFVs without APS, if the AFVs are to be used during their lifetimes at least once in a medium to high intensity combat scenario. Most combat today is hybrid warfare, which is medium intensity. So basically for most of the combat we see globally, an APS is a must. It is only viable to buy a tank without an APS if the tank is not expected to see combat. That is why countries like the US, Israel, Russia, Ukraine, and Turkey, are seen investing in APS. Even poor Syria does. A Leopard 2A7V, and its ancestor the Leo 2, form a lineage of 40 years of service in Germany. At no point were they used in serious combat by the Bundeswehr. Only the VJTF is supposed to be deployed abroad and expected to see combat on short notice, which is why the VJTF tanks will receive an APS. It just didn't get much publicity. Of course, there are some within NATO who see the importance of capability maintenance and building regardless of the probability of war, and are investing in APS as well. The Netherlands for example are probably going to be the first in Europe to use an APS, on their CV90. 3)Russian ATGMs are not really a good comparison. They simply were never really effective weapons. Only effective within a small range of conditions. A proper GLATGM would be something like a Spike downsized to 120mm, but today it's hardly necessary. There are two main considerations to this - tools, and tactics. Tools - a tank battalion never drives alone. It will have infantry support. Infantry on the battalion level will always have an AT element capable of launching ATGMs at standoff ranges, and their vehicles have ATGMs as well, to multiply the output. Other than that, available tools include artillery, that in the modern day use long range guided missiles (+20km range), guided rockets, and guided/unguided shells. Tactics - when spotting a tank formation of any size, 6-8km away, other options are preferred. Ambush with short range engagement from prepared positions is ideal. The next best alternative is actually calling artillery or aviation, because the effects of a sudden barrage are going to be far greater, as opposed to an ATGM volley that would have the core of the formation maneuver away and screening their maneuver, when they see the first missile flying. The third best option would be to lob HE shells, not ATGMs, at enemy tanks too far away. The reason is that HE can do a lot of damage to the optics, gun, stabilizers, and other external equipment that is key for the effective use of the tank. It could even outright disable tanks by hitting the tracks or the UFP close to the driver's hatch. ATGMs pack an HE payload as well, but are far less versatile and substantially more expensive, to the point where it's worth asking whether allocating vital space for them inside the ammo rack is even worth sacrificing other ammo types. HE-MP is just too versatile to not want it in greater numbers. 4)Basically all current MBTs can take a hit from a 152mm howitzer. That is, the crew will live, but the tank will be disabled. This question is perhaps irrelevant, because howitzers on the battlefield are used in direct mode only rarely and in emergencies. BONUS: Today there is something called NxRA. It differs from NERA and is somewhat of a replacement to it, rather than a competitor. Anyone can feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, but basically: NERA - Non Energetic Reactive Armor. It does not produce any energy on its own. It relies on the energy produced by the projectile and impacts the projectile with proportionately produced energy. It's reactive, but more often than not regarded as passive because of its lack of independently energetic components. NxRA - Non eXplosive Reactive Armor. Much like ERA, and unlike NERA it produces its own energy. However, it's not the blast you'll see with an ERA. It's more tame. And the results are an armor that is as survivable as the NERA, but quite substantially more effective per shot than it. Not as effective per shot as ERA or SLERA (self limiting ERA), but it's somewhere close. Because of this, NxRA is considered more effective than the NERA and ERA, because its per-shot-effectiveness to survivability ratio, is higher than both of them. You can even see that the NxRA is gaining traction, and is now armoring tanks like the Merkava 4 entirely (or almost entirely), is offered for advanced variants of the Leopard 2, and armors the UAE's Leclerc. It's also used on a plethora of medium AFVs like the CV90, Ajax and ASCOD, etc. It's just not going to replace ERA everywhere because of a not too good volume efficiency that could make certain vehicles too large. It really was one of the dumbest arguments I've ever heard when rationalizing combat capability degradation programs. Basically every army that saw actual combat, decided the potential risks posed by ERA to infantry are greatly outweighed by the risk reductions it offers. When APS became operational, only then has this idea become a frequent talking point. But APS is far less dangerous than ERA because it neutralizes the projectile's warhead without initiating it. All because Raytheon couldn't deal with their loss. LAHAT is only a shitshow if you insist on analyzing its capabilities OUTSIDE of its historical background. It was devised for the Merkava 2 tank, long before the Spike even had half the capabilities it has today. At the time, you needed LoS to the target to fire off a Spike, while the LAHAT allowed you to fire it off without LoS. Another point you've forgotten is that a helicopter is not required for remote designation. It can be done via infantry. In any event of invasion into Israel, the first line of troops will be border brigades, not equipped with tanks and heavy weapons, but with a great deal of observation and intelligence capabilities. They, and the spearhead units', have plenty of infantry they would allocate to target spotting and designation either for artillery, AF, and whatever. They can easily designate targets for MBTs or helicopters using LAHAT. And they themselves would have a low combat signature. Caliber is of course a non-factor because of top attack, hence why Spike missiles (except for SR) always had a relatively weak warhead compared with contemporary designs, even other similar sized missiles developed by the same company. Only today are LAHAT missiles irrelevant, hence their withdrawal from service a long time ago, and their marketing to non modern armies. It's not very accurate. The Namer and Merkava 3 and 4 may have ERA in some places. It's not confirmed but the Mark 4 has armor plates with the inscription "explosive", and the Mark 3 and Namer have armor modlues with box shapes, suspiciously ERA-like. Besides, certain Nagmachon variants can still be seen with the old Blazer ERA.

Less of a need than today, because the tanks they would replace would be only about a decade old when the program was already shut down. The MBT-70 program began somewhere in the 60's and cancelled in 1971. The M60, on the other hand, was introduced in early 60's. I think 1960 was first unit delivery. Today you're looking at tanks whose core structure was designed close to 50 years ago, and their structural age is in the 20-40 years range on average. The Cold War is not a serious factor here. An arms race exists even today, and the likelihood to use these tanks on the battlefield has remained high enough. If neither Germany nor France field a production-ready tank by the set deadline, they are basically going to get a British castration for their armored forces. Oh and that's not only going to be them, but all their other European allies, unless they in turn choose American tanks. In which case a huge economical loss in the defense market is to be expected. Had they set a deployment date for 2025, and not 2035/2040, then I would totally agree with you that there is room for failure and reconsideration.

But it would give an APS to those most urgently in need. The risk to the platform when given a turret rises because of its reassigned purpose. Maybe not all protected platforms will need a turret, but then we're talking about a 50/50 split that would occur within the SBCT.

Seems to be a new WildCat brochure as well: http://www.imisystems.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Wildcat-Web.pdf

Great. Maybe that will show them that they need to look at the bigger picture and make a comprehensive and integrated upgrade, and not look for many small incremental upgrades that are completely disconnected from one another and thus complicate integration works. Rafael offers the Trophy as a standalone system, but it also offers it as an already integrated system on a 30mm turret, in which they can also add their new cockpit design. The key is pairing the turret with an APS. Why is it such a difficult task to combine the efforts?

I knew you would bring up the Euroturtle program, but I still insist that it is not an equivalent. As I've said, it's about the timeline. The MGCS deployment date is 2035 for Germany. 2040 for France. If we are generous and pessimistic, it means development of the tank commences around 2025-2027. A more realistic option would be 2030. I believe an accurate timeline was posted somewhere but can't find it. That means that if the program is killed even at the earliest stage of development, both France and Germany, plus any country that depends on the program, will have to either buy competing designs off the shelf, or retire tanks without proper replacement, or keep tanks in service despite becoming nearly obsolete and beyond their projected end-of-life point.

Also some more successful programs like Merkava - eventually it became profitable with a high return (at one time reported 3:1 return on investment) that any benefit in buying Abrams was gone. The K-series tanks as well. Despite common issues along the way, including recent engine issues, they kept going with the program and were not tempted with direct Abrams imports. In both cases, the creator and chief user are facing some of the world's most volatile and dangerous environments at their doorstep, so they must have the ability to quickly customize and upgrade their tanks and other gear. Of course, these aren't international, but they're relevant. Because none in South Korea or Israel would even dare propose shutting down tank production or R&D.

Where did you find this abomination of CGI?

Because of the timeline set for it, this program is inherently too big to kill. Therefore any political meddling will be of minor effect.

First of Israel's Sa'ar 6 ships laid, pending a ceremony. By end of 2019 it should arrive in Israel, where it will undergo a refitting process of approximately 1 year. A total of 4 ships are planned. They're not big and bad. Their *armament is modest. But they'll serve well. *armament: 16x unspecified anti-ship missile. 32x Barak 8 SAM. 40x C-Dome SAM. 1x 76mm gun.

https://www.rafael.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/rocks032019.pdf Rafael has uploaded a new brochure for the ROCKS rocket. They now say it has dual terminal guidance options - optical guidance via scene matching, and anti-radiation guidance, making it quite the multipurpose missile.

Rafael has redesigned their website, and have added some new brochures in the process. One of them is the Samson 30, integrating a whole bunch of elements developed internally in Rafael: https://www.rafael.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Samson-30-integrated-RWS.pdf The only weird part is that although they're offering the turret with armor up to level 6, they're now not giving the full specs like they used to, and instead posted just the minimal protection level plus weight of the turret. The next one is the Suite for Future Armored Vehicles: https://www.rafael.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Future-Armored-Vehcile.pdf (apparently no spelling checks?) They're basically describing again this system: They're also showing the roles of each operator in the OMFV. Also notice that they're specifically referring to the OMFV, perhaps pitching this technology for the US Army. And the last one for AFVs is the Fire Weaver: https://www.rafael.co.il/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/FIRE-WEAVER-brochure.pdf It's now pitched to the IDF and other armies as the next gen of BMS. Worthy of note is their claim that the Fire-Weaver provides accurate Geolocation of targets independently of GPS.

The Eitan is not rated at level 6. Rafael only publicly lists certain products, but in the end the solution it creates for the customer is tailor-made and will often deviate from the standard levels. Back to the Eitan, it is not a NATO vehicle. Neither are the Merkava and Namer shown in the video. The reactive armor Rafael makes for these vehicles is actually hybrid, not reactive alone. Meaning there's a thick layer of passive armor before the ERA, or the reactive armor could be entirely NxRA. The Eitan uses 2 very thick walls of armor, and between them an ERA array. It thus gives it substantially higher protection levels than STANAG 4569 level 6, and a very high level of protection against HEAT. The front lacks the ERA layers but its passive armor is substantially thicker even over highly sloped surfaces, than competing vehicles that only strive to reach level 6. That is because the reference threat for the IDF is one that will use elevation to its advantage, so there's less reliance on sloped armor designs.

The timeframe seems to match the MTHEL (Nautilus) laser system, if it's really the XM1200 from the FCS. An M230 and Stinger pack seems like a recent addition though. When was the picture taken?