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T-14 turret has much less chances of being hit by anti tank fire compared to manned tank turrets. Firstly because of the very small volume/surface which if hit would result in mission kill compared to manned turrets (from the front, the T-14 turret vulnerable area is around the same size as other tanks mantlet which are also weak points) and also the APS which is claimed, not proven, to intercept APFSDS.

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3 minutes ago, alanch90 said:

T-14 turret has much less chances of being hit by anti tank fire compared to manned tank turrets. Firstly because of the very small volume/surface which if hit would result in mission kill compared to manned turrets (from the front, the T-14 turret vulnerable area is around the same size as other tanks mantlet which are also weak points) and also the APS which is claimed, not proven, to intercept APFSDS.

Small size from the front, yes, from the side it's not that small.

Mantlet on some tanks is weak, but others like the 2A5 isn't, though that's mostly an exception to the rule.

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4 hours ago, Scav said:

Small size from the front, yes, from the side it's not that small.

Mantlet on some tanks is weak, but others like the 2A5 isn't, though that's mostly an exception to the rule.

The mantlet being reinforced with composite armor, perhaps to the point of being nearly as strong or as strong as the rest of the turret front, is neither unique to the Leopard 2A5-7, nor is it very uncommon.

 

Other tanks like the Abrams, Merkava, and perhaps the T-tanks (barring the T-14), plus maybe the Challengers (though not too sure) have well protected mantlets.

 

Leclerc, K2, T-14 etc are perhaps closer to being the exception.

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13 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

The mantlet being reinforced with composite armor, perhaps to the point of being nearly as strong or as strong as the rest of the turret front, is neither unique to the Leopard 2A5-7, nor is it very uncommon.

 

Other tanks like the Abrams, Merkava, and perhaps the T-tanks (barring the T-14), plus maybe the Challengers (though not too sure) have well protected mantlets.

Hm, Abrams seems to have quite a thin mantlet in comparison with the rest of the turret though, Merkava is definitely also one that has good protection around the gun, but the T-series really does have a weaker area around the gun than the rest of the turret, even on the T-90A it's only protected by normal steel blocks, Challenger 2 did seem to have an OK mantlet but it's still thinner than the rest of the turret front, so unless there's some armour block or spallshield behind that I would still consider it weaker than the rest of the turret.

Spoiler

Image result for Challenger 2 cast turret

 

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6 hours ago, LoooSeR said:

Meanwhile...

Whoever made this, IMO in attempt to make "naked" turret he kinda overdid that  - I mean, he got rid of all APS launcher "tubes" mounted on turret, and kept only those which T-15's hull already has. So APS now covers only ~120 deg frontal arc, and (unlike what T-14 actually has) in some situations could not be quickly pointed towards threat elsewhere, because one needs to rotate entire hull to do that.

 

On the other hand 299 - and also 299-based HIFV - has about 20-25 (depending on the picture) modules of what seems to be some version of APS Arena mounted around its turret

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  • 2 weeks later...
14 hours ago, alanch90 said:

Guys has anyone made actual progress trying to measure T-14 UFP thickness? Because i think that i got something

Officials claim 900mm (of what? ERA and armor, or armor after ERA?). I think it's definitely possible. But it's not really relevant at all. With the removal of most of the armor from the turret, they have a lot of weight to allocate to the hull front. 

So we can basically treat the hull front as tough as shit, and turret as weak shit, as a rule of thumb.

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1 hour ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Officials claim 900mm (of what? ERA and armor, or armor after ERA?). I think it's definitely possible. But it's not really relevant at all. With the removal of most of the armor from the turret, they have a lot of weight to allocate to the hull front. 

So we can basically treat the hull front as tough as shit, and turret as weak shit, as a rule of thumb.

Link?

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20 minutes ago, LoooSeR said:

Link?

I guess I'm going by 2015 information right now because it seems I can't really find any sources for that anymore. Even the links posted to the wiki page on multiple languages were either changed or outright deleted.

From now on it's just rule of thumb then. Not that armor thickness past perhaps the 500mm is of any importance anyway.

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When i get back home from work ill make a longer post about the issue, but ill say for now that i find highly likely that T-14 uses the same or very similar armor package as the one on the T-90A turret. In fact T-14 UFP could very well have the exact same LOS thickness as the maximum LOS thickness of T-90A turret from the front (about 900mm).

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37 minutes ago, alanch90 said:

When i get back home from work ill make a longer post about the issue, but ill say for now that i find highly likely that T-14 uses the same or very similar armor package as the one on the T-90A turret. In fact T-14 UFP could very well have the exact same LOS thickness as the maximum LOS thickness of T-90A turret from the front (about 900mm).

I have my doubts, but why would it matter? The T-14 has clearly a lot more available weight to spare for additional armor.

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2 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

I have my doubts, but why would it matter? The T-14 has clearly a lot more available weight to spare for additional armor.

Yes of course. The real advantage of the design is the potential (both in weight limit and volume available) to mount much stronger and heavier armor modules in the future. But at least for now i think that its mounting the same (or derived) "bulging plates" array as in T-90A. Meaning that we could reasonably calculate the base armor effectiveness.

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In first place i want to enphasize that what is below is highly deductive and speculative, and therefore could be totally wrong:

So i was thinking lately a lot about how to get a more precise idea of how well the T-14 was protected. Since that tank uses a lot of "recycled"  late soviet technology, the best starting point to try to figure out T-14 capabilities would be to take a look at those prototypes. So thats how i got to the Obj 187, the competing design against would would become the T-90.  Both tanks were using the latest soviet developments on NERA armor, the famous "bulging plates" whiose first version was mounted on the T-72B. In terms of armor design, the main difference between Obj 187 and Obj 188 was that the latter only featured such NERA array at the turret, since that couldn´t fit into its hull, relatively "thin" and heavily sloped. On the contrary, Obj 187 featured a much less angled UFP, but with much more volume available, ideal for mounting a NERA array, the ALWAYS TRUSTY Wikipedia states that Obj 187 hull had an LOS thickness of 950mm (of course the link to the source is dead), which doesn´t seem weird, since the turret (if im not mistaken) had an equal LOS thickness. Years passed and nowadays the T-90 models still use that exact NERA array (granted, since A model, in a welded turret which increases the overall effectivenes by 10-15 percent). In other words, russian engineers don´t consider those "bulging plates" obsolete, nor sort of a "bottleneck" in protection performance. Even more, since its introduction,  T-90 has seen a major armor upgrade only once, and that was an upgrade to the outer ERA (Kontakt 5 into Relikt), leaving the same base armor untouched.Perhaps in the coming years we´ll even see a new version of T-90 but replacing Relikt with Malachit, who knows.
 

Now, think about this: if T-14 was using a completly new, "next gen", "wunderwaffe" base armor, then why bother adding ERA, and even more, not Relikt but an even more advanced type? The only explanation i find is that the russians don´t consider the base armor by itself as enough against present and near future threats, its not like tomorrow NATO tanks are going to start rocking the Rh130. Hell, the americans aren´t even sure if they are going to replace the Abrams with a tank or something that uses a conventional gun. So, in the face of not-so-changing threats, why using a fancy new base armor risking for its capabilities/design being leaked? Oh, and when it comes to soviet/russian tanks, there is a tendency for sensitive stuff to be leaked, for example just from the first public showing of the T-14 we got a PRETTY GOOD look at its composite roof armor. And here we come to the "over 900mm of effectiveness", claimed at various websites, without any substantial evidence. It just so happens that figure is roughly the equivalent of what a T-90M (+Relikt) could be considered, so stating "over 900mm" is just the same as to say that T-14 has higher protection than the aforementioned tank.

So these things were going in my head when i started considering that perhaps the T-14 was using that exact same ´bulging plates´ array and the increased frontal protection was to be explained mainly with the addition of the more advanced ERA. Considering the near future threats, the risks of leaks, and the need to keep costs down, using the tried and mastered armor makes a hell lot of sense, and when it comes to weapon design, the russians are pragmatic above everything else. So, to prove my point i had to be sure that T-14 has enough LOS thicknes at the UFP to mount such an array, meaning that it needs to be as minimum as thick as the T-90A turret. We know that the maximum LOS thickness of said turret is around 900mm, but the estimates (many of those on this very thread) vary from  more than 1000mm to less than 500mm.  What was needed was actually an image showing T-14 and T-90A from the same distance and perspective, and then i remembered this image:

 

Spoiler

sYkT0IxvOjecN5eop8yO1BHRwzJLb7AmJgvj_wpI


The next step was to edit the image so that the turret armor and T-14 UFP would be side by side and see what comes up:

 

 

Spoiler

f2x6ViY.png

The top comparison features both tanks without any scalling on my side. For the bottom one, i tried to scale the T-9A turret down a bit, since it is closer to the camera and because of that in the original picture it appears as larger when compared to T-14 hull. Of course that IM NOT a profesional at image analysis nor i have any kind of "pro software" i just made that edit by eye using the tankers (specifically, their headgear) for reference. As you can see, in the rough "scaled" comparison T-90A armor package would fit like a glove into T-14 UFP. Needles to say, any kind of a real professional at this kind of analysis (which i presume are abundant on these forums) can pick it up from here and make a proper comparison.

Conclusion:
IF Malachit ERA needs some empty space in relation to base armor in order to function as designed, IF therefore T-14 frontal armor is angled more like Obj 187, IF the russians are still using the same armor package as the one equipped on T-90A, THEN we can estimate T-14 base armor as comparable as to the T-90 frontal turret at its thickest LOS.

 

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So, having proved that T-14 most likely can fit a 900+LOS thick armor module at the front, and hinted at the posibility that said module may be housing the good old bulging plates that have been in service since T-72B, i went ahead and tried to make an estimation to try to see if that armor package could meet the protection needs of the tank. For reference, i used the article about T-72B on tankograd (https://thesovietarmourblog.blogspot.com/2017/12/t-72-part-2-protection-good-indication.html#nera) since it is the best and most in depth insight into the bulging plates armor in english.  I tried to extrapolate the estimation methods on that article for the T-72B/90 turret and adopt them to a 950mm thick armor, with both front and back plates sloped at 45 degrees.


Estimation:

Spoiler

 

The figure of 950mm LOS is not random, if we take the numbers on tankograd seriusly, its the exact maximum LOS of T-72B  turret module (sloped at 55 degrees from the gun) and it would fit like a globe on a T-14 front hull, as demonstrated in my previous post. Lets remember that the armor composition on T-72B turret, from the 30º is 

130 CHA + 280 NERA cavity  + 45 HHS + 90 CHA. Also, the 45º slope i took it from Obj 187 hull and it is a good compromise between the added protective properties of sloped armor and the volume required. For the final estimation, i converted the cast steel into normal RHA of medium hardness, as used in the turret of T-90A.

 

So for my estimation i took the front and back plates (130+45+90) as they are and slopped them to 45º (the fact that those plates have no slope in the turret at 30º attacking angle proves that they are enough for their intended purposes), resulting in a total of 375 LOS ´passive´ steel, and leaving 575mm LOS of empty space in the 950mm hull for mounting the NERA sandwiches. The amount of sandwiches that can fit in that space depends in their own sloping, each sandwich having a total thicknes of 30mm and a 22mm of separation with the next sandwich, so each one needs 52mm. On the other, hand, as noted on tankograd, those sandwiches should be placed at an optimal slope between 60-70 degrees (in this case, from the vertical) for achieveing full effectiveness. After comparing how many could fit in 60-65-70 degrees, in concluded that 60 degrees would be the optimal slope, with a total of 5 sandwiches fitting comfortably, but i also made separate calculations for the possibility of a 6th sandwich could be ´squeezed´ into the array. In comparison with T-72B turret, a shot from 0 degrees at the front should go into 3-4 sandwiches although they wouldn´t meet the incoming projectile at an optimal angle, on the other hand, a shot from a 30º would go into 3 sandwiches but from an optimal angle for their action.

-For calculating the total LOS steel in this hull array, i estimated 615mm counting 5 sandwiches and 663mm if a 6th could be fitted. Following the method in the Tankograd article, we can get the effectiveness vs CE by mulitplying those numbers by 1.4 resulting in in 861mm or 928mm respectively. In addition, the change from CHA to RHA should result in an overall improvement in protection performance in the order ot 10-15 percent rising the effectiveness to 990/947mm and 1067/1021mm vs CE. If i screwed the calculations when converting the types of steel (totally possible i always sucked at math) it wont change by much my conclusions, listed at the end of this post.

 

- As for estimation on KE effectiveness, the method is different. The author considers that the 30º side of T-72B turret at a LOS of 650-700mm has an effectiveness of no less than 600mm vs APFSDS, from those numbers we can deduce a modifier and i selected the 700mm LOS to keep my estimation as conservative as posible, and that results in a 80 percent effectiveness in relation to LOS thickness. By extrapolating that into a 950mm thick block, we should get 760mm of effectiveness vs KE. By aplying the 10-15 percent increase in overall performance with replacement of CHA, we should get 874/836mm of effectiveness vs KE. As a caution, the estimation method does not take into account the increased number of sandwiches and their optimal placement, since a calculation that exact on the effectiveness of individual and colective NERA sandwiches was not done by the author.

 

 

Summary:

Spoiler

 

- For KE, even if we take the lowest estimate of 760mm, we can conclude that the armor module in the hull by itself is enough to protect the crew against every APFSDS in service. It should be noted that most of APFSDS in service are almost a decade old, and new ones (M829A4, L28) are incoming shortly or are already began fielding. Also, the introduction of newer gun of higher muzzle energy (Rh120 L55A1, XM360, etc) justifies combining this base armor with ERA. As a side comment if T-14 is using newer and better steel types and/or even marginally improving the performance of the bulging plates, reaching the 900mm of RHA effectiveness  as claimed on media could be a possibility.  

- For CE, even my higher estimates indicate that the base armor by istelf is not enough to defend against currently fielded HEAT warheads. The presence of ERA is needed to supplement the insufficient protection performance of the fron hull. However, reaching and exceeding the 1400mm of RHA with the addition of ERA is highly likely.

 

- In the end, we can conclude that the good old bulging plates array does provide enough base protection to the tank, and that combined with the economic convenience of said array makes it highly likely that the T-14 is indeed using this armor.

 

 

 

TL;DR:

Yep, the russians are totally using the 35 year old bulging plates array and getting away with it.

Lastly: as i said before, i suck at maths so all this could be totally wrong. Please be nice in your responses. And happy new year!

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0.615 (los steel) x 2.3 (width) x 0.8 (height, lessor guess) x 7.8 = 8.8tonne

 

0.663 x 2.3 x 1.0 x 7.8 = 11.9 tonne

 

So approximate range for front upper glacis armour is between 9 and 12 tonnes, using assumptions above.

 

That is heavy.

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