Mike E

I saw some talks that frontal upper plate simply did not had ERA that was planned, so what we see is 'naked' armor, a pockets/modules for/with ballistic/NERA protection. Although this is just speculation.

Interesting, I'll have to keep my eyes out for any possible information on it. 

UFP "ERA" Plates are too big, one hit from RPG would uncover like 1/5th of the UFP. This is a lot, compared to Kontakt-5 protected T-80U and T-90s. Size of roof ERA modules is much smaller, compared to that ERA (if it is ERA) on the front. 

I noticed that. Historically Russian vehicles favor a greater number of smaller blocks, and not the opposite. As you mentioned this could be the new NERA/ERA solution as shown on the roof of the vehicle, but that still is fried in one shot. 

I don't think that Leclerc's protection is mostly based on steel laminates; it would be a lot less bulky if that were the case.  I just think that it has steel laminates underneath.

 

The French were, AIUI, some of the first to really nail the metallurgy on that stuff.  Not surprising they'd swagger a bit about it.

 

My guess?  It's NERA on top of a steel laminate structure.  Why NERA?  Because fucking everything is NERA these days.

 

Some pictures earlier in this thread establish pretty convincingly that the flat steel plates we see on armata are just sheet steel covers, and not the actual armor.

 

Most likely explanation IMO is that armata has modular armor packages, just like leclerc or merkava IV, and we haven't seen the definitive armor package yet.

I should have specified earlier; the turret base, with no modules, is THS. The modules/boxes could be anything the French want it to be, ceramics, maybe even NERA. 

On T-14's turret yes, but the important section is the hull, or Glacis to be specific. 

Supposedly T-14 has an armor package based on weight, with the shown models being the "middle" option with a stripped variant, and a loaded one.

For those who haven't followed our little community, forum member Xlucine (Xlu) did some measurements with an ultrasonic probe on an early chieftain at Bovington tank museum.  Chieftain MBT has a reputation for extremely good armor protection based on armor thickness figures that have been repeated for years... and are completely wrong.  Chieftain was in fact only a bit better armored from the front than M60A1.

 

And holy shit, I hadn't seen all of those pictures before, Life.  That does look thin.

 

Did the IDF ever claim that the engine and transmission improve crew protection?  I've come to interpret that line as outside interpolation.  It doesn't really make sense; the engine provides no frontal protection to the driver whatsoever because it's to the side of the driver.

 

Poking around a bit, I think Merk IV's hull protection is substantially based on what's underneath the hull armor.  The fuel tanks add extra protection vs. HEAT (and who knows, maybe they're the really fancy fuel tank designs that work well against KE too), and there are supposed to be some sort of bulkheads down there too.  The thickness between the driver and threats across the LFP looks OK, and is probably filled with fuel tanks and magical composites.  It's the glacis itself that's not so hot.

 

Not entirely unlike an abrams, although the abrams has a slopier and smaller glacis.

Chieftain has always been overrated in regards to armor, and IMO same goes for the Challenger series. 

Sure does look thin...and the modular turret (as in, the one hiding under the add on armor) does too. 

It has been an outside claim for years at this point. "Merkava putting the engine at the hull front protects the crew further" almost sounds like a consensus at this point, even if it isn't really true. 

I agree; "if anything it is just 'well-armored' but with good methods of containing a penetration"

​Fuel tanks really would not do much outside of HEAT, and if the Abrams' is using JP...a DU penetration wouldn't be nice. 

Abram's glacis is just plain steel, albeit angled more. 

No modern MBT worth a damn will have most of the protection based on steel, even fancy laminate or micro-crystal steel (whatever that is).

 

There are several reasons:

 

1)  Triple hardness steel is limited to 150mm thick, at least as of the writings of Technology of Tanks.  The problem is that it's made of a sandwich of softer steel, ultra hard steel and then softer steel again ("softer" being a relative term here).  There are limits to how thick the ultra hard steel can be made, probably as a result of heat flow during heat treatment.  If a piece of steel is too thick, the heat doesn't transfer through it quickly.

 

Triple hardness steel has something like a 1.5x effectiveness, both in terms of mass and thickness, vs. RHA against KE and CE is my understanding.  So, a 150mm thick piece of triple hardness steel sloped at 60 degrees would be the rough equivalent of 450mm of RHA... which could be penetrated by 115mm HEAT rounds from the mid 1960s.  That's just not good enough.

 

2)  Ultra-hard steels are difficult to work with.  It was only in the 1970s when they figured out how to weld them without the welds cracking from vehicle vibration.

 

3)  As mentioned above, their protection relative to mass is uninspiring.  There are fancy composite arrays that are, pound for pound, at least twice as good.

 

So why use the damn things at all?

 

1)  Triple hardness steel and other fancy steel are some of the few technologies that are better than RHA on a thickness basis.  Many things outperform them on a mass basis, but they are all much bulkier.  So, when you need an area well-protected on a tank, but you can't make the armor there very thick (like say on the sides; tanks need to fit on trains), fancy steel is a good option.

 

2)  Fancy steel is still steel, so it's a suitable structural material for bearing loads.  Loads mostly generated by the better armor you put on top of it.

Thanks for the very informative response, I appreciate it. 

1) If that's true the Leclerc is not as well armored as I originally thought. I know for a fact its' armor is based on THS with possible ceramic inserts. LOS of the Leclerc is greater than that though, so it must contain a lot of spacing. 

2) Correct...though 44c seems somewhat easy to work. Makes me wonder why they didn't just have it be the primary steel.

3) The idea is to have the high-hardness steel be part of the composite or laminate, not just a stand-alone. 

Not knowing Armata's ME is killing me for some unexplainable reason... Almost certainly it is higher than the older Soviet vehicles because of using ceramics. NxRA worked good but not fantastic. 

    IDK, maybe parts were removed from UFP before making this photo. Hard to say how thick it actually is, because vehicle is giant, which creates feeling that glacis is nothing to speak about.

Kind of doubt that... It appears like the Glacis is a simple two-material laminate or composite angled at around or just over 60 degrees. My guess would be it is roughly 100 mm thick, and unless it has a super high ME that angling will only make it a few hundred RHAe. Though RHAe can not simulate the effects of a composite on any round. I think IDF took the easy excuse of "well the engine is up there" in order to get away with this. 

That picture also makes the hull roof look to be around half of the Glacis in thickness.

That's the Glacis of a Mk.4? Doesn't look all that thick to be honest...nor is it sloped enough to not need to be well-sloped...

Corvettes need to bring back the pop ups 

Also, the modular turret armor won't hold up if it gets un-angled in any way. I used to think the Merkava was super-heavily armored, if anything it is just "well-armored" but with good methods of containing a penetration. 

Now that we know Armata won't be using the new steel for its' armor, does any one have a clue what specification steel it will use? Leclerc uses Triple-Hardness and the Type-10 one superior to that... I'm by no means worried about T-14's protection but using an advanced steel wouldn't hurt, maybe outside of budgets. 

And is there any credible information on the ME of Armata's armor as a whole? 

Sorry for the questions 

Sputnik can be...very off in regards to military-focused articles. 120 mm mortars are small enough to be mounted on Kurganets or even BMD-4M's platform, no need for them on Armata IMO. 

So Koalition will be used for ground-to-ground, ground-to-ship, and ship-to-wherever. 

Thank you for completing my thoughts.

Wankels have a few advantages (very compact in size & literage, light weight, and a high torque curve IIRC) but they also require a load of maintenance when stressed. They also are legendary for burning oil (probably due to the simple yet complex design they use) and not being the most fuel-efficient thing out there. Making a diesel version would be more of a pain, because the diesel requires high-pressures to ignite. The inherit design of Wankels mean the gas gets super-compressed into one of three stages, and then ignites. It is seemingly possible for the diesel to hence ignite early, and cause engine failure. The fact that diesel Wankels have not been produced says it all, IMO.

All being said, this 'vehicle' he drew up lowers his already bottom-level reputation.

As a response to him;

A crew of five would be a disaster and everyone knows it. Combine a smallish-vehicle with a mid-size turret and five crewmen...yeah it doesn't work well. Low profile vehicles like the T-72 and T-90 can get away with having a small crew compartment because they don't need to store a fourth crewman. Having two loaders means the turret needs to accommodate at least three crewmen, AT LEAST, along with a load of armor per the Abrams and Leopard 2. That simply won't work...and why have two loaders in the first place? NATO rounds are exclusively single-piece in tanks, and two men aren't needed to lifting a single rounds. All that will do is make the turret more crowded, making it harder AND slower to load as a result. Being as I've followed his content for the past seven years; I can tell you his argument for more crew is that if need be, you have more man-power to be mobilized outside of the vehicle...but they are in a vehicle, mobilizing them is pointless and risks more lives. All that means it more people will be fatally injured if the vehicle is penetrated or destroyed.

T-72's take half of fourteen seconds to reload, and one would be hard-pressed to find a loader that could reload in four seconds...never mind in repetition.

By "smaller less powerful" ammunition he was referring to Soviet & Russian carousels, which have historically had a maximum length cap of the ammunition, namely APFSDS. Still no reason for him to generalize, as almost every other type of autoloader (note this problem lies in the way of storing munitions....not even the AL) can fire long-length projectiles. And while autoloaders introduce a new possible failure point, manned vehicles have one too; it's called the loader. Heavy ammunition breaking the AL is so off it almost isn't funny.

Diesels do not have sparkplugs but a lot of them use a 'hotplug' (whatever they are called) which are basically elements....but they almost never need replacing, and I'd be worried if the average tanker couldn't replace one (a decimated engineer is just...without words).

Referring a tanks armor profile with percentages is beyond retarded. 20% Chobham....whhhaaaaaaa?

Colli nailed the problem with such nano-particles. They are strong at the nano-scale, because of their carbon bonds... At the larger scale, imperfect bonding would be numerous and the quality of the material low. It's just like steel armor; simple imperfects at the smallest of levels can compromise performance. This is why RHA was developed, and also why steel continues to be improved with changes in grain. The difference is that Carbon won't be easy to worth with, like steel...

Larger than an Abrams but much lighter... Must be that 60% Carbon :/ Why bother making the vehicle larger *even it were lighter*, simply put it means a larger target, and one that's considerably harder to transport...yet BTD hates on weight, for making vehicles harder to transport... Once again, there are no words to describe this insanity.

Low-ground pressure from the vehicle being LOW? Please.... He doesn't seem to realize that wider-tracks are *heavier*, and actually lower the agility of said vehicle. Ground pressure is important not that important...and since is making a vehicle unrealistically wide a good thing? At 16 feet wide, it could hardly fit on a road regardless of lanes, never mind bridges, tunnels, or dare I say it; aircraft! In regards to thinking ground pressure will solve all the vehicles problems; I....just....don't...know...

Has more power and torque and weighs less; in his imagination. Yes, no current tank could catch up to one that is in mans' head.

Wankels by themselves are on the boundaries of being failures for any use... They guzzle fuel and oil like nothing else out there. - His main argument against the Abrams was it not being fuel efficient. Oh, the irony. (Oh, and it being a diesel....)

And a howitzer....it's like he removed his brain and threw it out the window. To begin, the gun he is describing would not be a howitzer... The 2A82-1M gun (still 125 mm) has 17% more muzzle energy than the LONGER L/55 gun, which itself has noticeable improvements over the L/44. Euro 140 mm guns would have even more power than the 2A82, never mind a 145 mm... Honestly he must have made this all up on the spot. Muzzle energy =/= effective range, at least not directly.

Didn't a Chally or Chally 2 nail a tank at over 5 km once? The effective range of the L/44 probably isn't much over that, especially with heavy ammunition like the M829A3 (it travels at under 1600 m/s point-blank...so I doubt it'll go very far out past 4 km). Newer FCS/gun could probably manage a hit on an Abrams before the Abrams could directly hit it...but the chances of a penetration are almost nil. As for areas of engagements where this would be possible; don't ask me.

BTD also apparently doesn't understand rifle ammunition. Surprise surprise.

How can a MANNED TURRET be stabilized? That's stupid beyond belief....and exactly what is a hull stabilizer? Torsion bars are used because they are cheap and easy to maintain, if needed they can be further improved with hydro-pneumatic add-ons, as rumored to be on Armata.

I laughed when he claimed a tank-mounted autocannon lessens the need of SPAAG systems... Whatcha going to do, point it in the air and blind fire? This sounds less and less like a tank design and more of toddlers creation. He even acts like it will fend off fixed wing aircraft, sure it will...just...sure...

In the comments he actually made it SIX crewmen...not five, SIX. I guess the whole engineer thing was serious. I also love how he came up with fake figures, like the turret being 20 tons and able to traverse 360 in four seconds. Must have taken BTD 'four seconds ' to think that up.

He also continues the argument that if one crew member in killed in a T-62, you lose 1/3 of the crew. He fails to mention that in the "T-Wolf", two crewmembers would be lost...at least... Then he claims rifled guns are superior to smoothbores...

BTD posted this eight years ago, but he deserves no mercy. An absolute idiot he must be...

I do, but I haven't played since the time-limited alpha tests. How is it?

I like it...the vehicle tree system is well laid out and less intensive than WoT. Battles are hard to get into due to a lack of players but entertaining & dynamic nonetheless. 

Any of you guys have Armoured Warfare? Just got my account up.

Well mocking him is no problem 

I'm saying he ain't worth our time in regards to "figuring him out". MS is almost certainly a fraud. 

There's no point in trying to figure him out, Sparks does not deserves anyones' attention. 

Possibly this with 'India's Warrior' underneath? Hate to request, especially so late...but you do a great job!

Mike, never mind that BTD has the identical style, content and font used for Sparky's videos presentations on different sites over the years? Have a google search for "Black Tail Defence and Mike Sparks", 

Undoubtedly inspired by the man doesn't mean it is him. IP however.... 

Sparks used to be a complete ****head to talk to, even politely. BTD is actually willing to talk on his videos, *most of* the time. 

Honestly I wouldn't know... 4S24 is the less potent side panel module and should have less mass explosives than say, K-5. 4S23 could easily have more due to its' multi-layer design. Because we are getting so specific into ERA we should continue the conversation there. 

 

Aha, I see what you mean now.  Nohz is potentially much less effective if the penetrator hits the top of the plate rather than the bottom.

Vice-versa as LoooSeR noted and described. Thank you to him. 

Relikt use 2 kg of exposives, Kontakt-5 have ~0.5kg. Nozh module have 2-2.5 kg of explosives. Oplot-BM side armor modules have 3 layers of ERA, which would be interesting to see how it detonates and results of such boom.

Maybe my source was mistaken... 4S24 uses 1/2 the explosives as 4S20. 

The set of K-5 weighs ~1.5 tons, and the larger (ie more coverage) Relikt kits on the T-72B2 supposedly weighed ~2.3 tons. Considering Relikt uses more mass in metal with multiple charges/plates, that is not a dramatic weight gain. I'd wager that it uses more explosives than K-5, but much more. 

Black Tail Defense appears to be linked to Mike Sparks. Yes the bloke who devised the name "Gavin" for the M113 and insists it be referred to as such, even though in reality it never has been given that designation. Frankly those who have had any kind of dealings with the man on Tank Net et al, believe he has some mental health issues. I wouldn't take anything written by Black Tail Defense, as being worth analysis or rebuttal.

I've been following his content for many, many years now (not to say I agree with it outside of a few things) and BTD doesn't seem to be connected with Sparks. They share a general opinion, but Sparks had his own channel for a while and just died off eventually. 

BTD raises a few good points on the validity of decisions US politicians and Army officials make, besides that it can be a lot of fluff.

Sure thing Mike E, the discussion of ERA is here.

 

All ERA only works when it is at some obliquity to the threat, Nozh isn't unique in that respect.

Thanks for letting me know.... IIRC Relikt does indeed use less explosives in mass than K-5, possibly I misunderstood and they meant each charge weighed 50%. 

Nozh is especially susceptible per; 

rather than the ideal...

Welcome to the forum, Mike E!

Thank you Sturgeon. 

@Tied Where I am at, 'based' just means you don't care what other people think, but it's fine. 

Welcome Mike E!

There were some pictures in this very thread earlier that, IIRC, showed what looks like chain detonation of Ukrainian ERA.

As was discussed in another thread, Nozh uses a novel mechanism to defeat threats; the ERA is filled with linear shaped charges. As to whether this actually works, the jury is still out (Russian computer modelling suggests that Nozh does not work).

I've seen those pictures and even a few others... It's all due to the large number and high explosive power of Nozh bricks.

Nozh & Duplet in theory work great, but their design prohibits consistent performance. If the 'knives' do not break or shatter the incoming long-rods, they will have little impact. An impact flat on a brick will also yield little performance for the ERA, as the round will only be hit with one or maybe two 'knives'. Mind telling me what thread this was discussed in? This one here is what attracted me so I haven't had the time to look over any others.

@Tied I'm pretty stuck in...but like anyone else, accepting to change opinion.

Thank you as well.

Ukrainian Oplot-M in Pakistan, it showed itself as better vehicle for Pakistan than MBT-3000, according to Tarasenko Andrey's information.

The Ukr/Paki nuts at PD were going nuts and claiming the Oplot will actually be acquired. Simply put, Pakistan has rejected the MBT-3000, and hence the Oplot-M is the only vehicle they current have in possession, that they are actually considering. - Ukraine does not have the industry to build a few, nevermind a few hundred.

In regards to a possible deal with Ukraine, Pakistan would do it is as a way of keeping commonality with their T-80UD's, which will allegedly receive a few upgrades including either Nozh or Duplet.

Outside of that, the Oplot-M didn't offer them anything that other vehicles do not. T-80UD's even had heat issues in the Pakistani Deserts, IIRC.

This isn't completely relevant to the above, but Nozh (never-mind the more powerful Duplet) has major problems with detonating neighboring ERA modules, and even blowing inserts/track-covers off the vehicle... Ukraine went for the easy solution by adding more explosive, but that came with drawbacks (aforementioned issues and just the weight... Oplot-M has FIVE TONNES of the stuff). Relikt actually uses less mass of explosives (roughly 50% less) than K-5, yet achieves twice the performance against KE.