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1 hour ago, Collimatrix said:

He specifies what he thinks appropriate levels of protection are.

 

No, he does not.

 

1 hour ago, Collimatrix said:

I want to see the calculations showing that frontal turret protection against 125mm APFSDS, frontal hull protection against HEAT and engine compartment protection against 14.5mm plus ten degrees of gun depression is possible at 40 tonnes.

 

It may not be. I wouldn't know. I agree with his general point that trying to completely proof AFVs against powerful weapons will be a losing battle, and at some point you have to accept that you will lose some sometimes.

 

And if you don't think manufacturers and procurement arms are trying to push that kind of shit, you need to take another look. 

 

6918127061_2256d25e16_o.jpg

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Given how portable scary ATGMs are, I can't see much difference between the likely specifications of modern tanks and the protection he specifies for the 40 tonne example. Who is trying to protect much more than just the turret front against 125mm? His 'lightweight shaped charge' threat (that the crew capsule sides must stop) sounds like everything short of an anti-ship missile

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6 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

 

No, he does not.

 

 

In this blog post maybe not, but he seems to think that. The author of the Defense and Freedom blog is a member of differnet discussion forums; I remember him suggesting that there is no need for a tank gun to penetrate the frontal armor of enemy tanks and there is no need for enough armor to survive a direct hit... essentially he wanted some Leopard 1 tank. When asked (by me) how these tanks should stand a chance against modern MBTs, he said that they would always ambush the enemy and never attack the armored frontal arc... essentially his tank would be useless for offensive actions and rely on the enemy being incompetent in defensive actions.

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Just now, SH_MM said:

 

In this blog post maybe not, but he seems to think that. The author of the Defense and Freedom blog is a member of differnet discussion forums; I remember him suggesting that there is no need for a tank gun to penetrate the frontal armor of enemy tanks and there is no need for enough armor to survive a direct hit... essentially he wanted some Leopard 1 tank. When asked (by me) how these tanks should stand a chance against modern MBTs, he said that they would always ambush the enemy and never attack the armored frontal arc... essentially his tank would be useless for offensive actions and rely on the enemy being incompetent in defensive actions.

 

Ah, well. Too bad. I think his core point, at least, is worth saying. :\

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Hello, I found this in my blog's traffic, so I'll get the opportunity to provide clarifications:

 

@SH_MM; that's decent job at tracking, but you missed some other places. I posted very little at the gaming forums and I left WHQ much longer ago (no ban; feel free to check the account) on my own.

 

Regarding Collimatrix's irrelevant Soviet MRD inventory case; (line of sight) combat troops are a minority among overall troops in the field and an even smaller minority in entire armies. A brigade may nowadays be tasked to operate on its own in a 50x50 km area, or even 100x50 km. Even back in the Cold War it was about 77 brigade equivalents for 1,000 km frontage in Central Europe. The planet did not shrink, but there are now few brigades in the field until a bloc (or India, China) mobilised fully. This means that the few powerful AT systems would rarely even only encounter hostile MBTs before those could wreak havoc among support elements.

Slow ATGMs don't cope well with multispectral smoke that deploys in less than a second. Their effective range may be well below a km, even for those with a much greater nominal range. (That's part of why I argue for HVMs.) My hypothetical compromise tank is marginally less protected against RPG-29 than a Leo2 or Abrams. It's about as capable of defeating slow ATGMs as them. It's different -though not necessarily weaker- against MBTs. It's far from being as vulnerable as the example tanks of 1939-1941 were relative to their threats, in quantity matchup, qty/area and in qty/frontage.

 

"lightweight shaped charges" = about 40-75 mm calibre HEAT (rifle grenades, UBGLs, RPG-26). This would add little weight in addition to the requirement for 30 mm APFSDS proofing because spaced armour is available on hull sides.

 

"hull front 60° protected against portable threats" = Eryx (137 mm  tandem HEAT). One  should probably make the cut at 120 mm tandem HEAT, though. That would be about 850 mm RHAeq CE (assuming the rule of thumb multiplier of 7.2 that applies to the optimum shape, tantalum liner and best explosives used in HEAT).

 

I explicitly mentioned HVMs (things like LOSAT, CKEM) in the example for a more modest tank design. This means the MBT would -despite 105 mm gun- still be able to penetrate as well as with a 130 mm gun, though not at very short ranges (approx. 0-500 m or so) since the HVMs first need to accelerate. It might actually end up being MORE able to penetrate than a MBT with a 125-130 mm gun.

Furthermore, T-14 Armata appears to use rather weak turret protection that is likely not be impervious to 105 mm. The important turret component are on the outside and can at most be bulletproofed anyway. Even a 105 mm HESH hit could easily mission kill a T-14 (mobility or firepower kill, depends on where it hits).

HVMs also offer advantages that even a 130 mm gun couldn't offer. There's a much higher rate of fire, possibly including the ability to arrange for two impacts with 0.2-0.3 seconds delay, so even a hard kill APS that could defeat long rods would fail to defeat the second incoming HVM. Ambush situations on road marching tanks would allow the gunner or commander to target & track four tanks, launching four HVMs in ripple fire for up to four kills with less exposure time than any detection-to-kill drill for tank guns (~7 seconds depending on type, crew and circumstances) could exploit.

The main disadvantage of HVMs is the long acceleration distance (which is undisclosed but a couple hundred metres). Published LOSAT tests were done at 700 m and longer distances.

 

About protection; MBTs need to sprint from cover to cover. It's rarely possible to expose only the frontal 60° during this (even if threats are limited to a 30° cone), so even the heaviest-protected MBT is going to expose areas in combat that a 105-130 mm gun can penetrate. This is particularly true for the hull, which has to be oriented into driving direction, unlike the turret which can be stabilised in (one) threat direction. The hull can also be protected in hull down positions, so there's a good case for preferring a compromise in glacis protection over turret front protection (unless the latter is unmanned, then the case is reversed, see T-14). That's why I pointed out the potential compromise of not hardening the hull against high-end KE threats.

 

"essentially his tank would be useless for offensive actions"

Explain how German tanks succeeded in 1939-1941. They were inadequately protected against every single ATG and field artillery piece, for sure. I pointed this out in the blog text, which makes it kinda frustrating to see someone insist on a prejudice that appears to be in an irreconcilable conflict with an already stated fact.

 

"The author is supremely confident in pontificating about things he clearly has no technical knowledge of."

That remains to be proven, but it's self-evident that you have little knowledge about what I know and what I don't know. I have knowledge about what I do know, and nobody has much knowledge about what I don't know.

 

"I want to see the calculations showing that frontal turret protection against 125mm APFSDS, frontal hull protection against HEAT and engine compartment protection against 14.5mm plus ten degrees of gun depression is possible at 40 tonnes."

MUCH higher protection levels are possible at 50 tons, this has been stated by experts like Hilmes repeatedly. The Japanese Type 10 has a bigger gun and some other weight-increasing extras and still only 44 t empty weight. PLA 125 mm are no doubt the threat that the Japanese looked at.

Glacis protection against HEAT is fairly simple and not terribly heavy because the sloping makes reactive amour very effective on the upper glacis and much depth is available for a very weight-efficient CE protection. Such a glacis would weigh much less than the T-14's because the latter is no doubt also meant against 120 mm L/55 U-238 KE threats.

Besides, I wrote "at about 40 tons". That would be anything from 37-43 metric tons.

 

Finally a note before I leave:

Target the message without misrepresenting it, don't try to shoot the messenger.

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1 hour ago, S O said:

@SH_MM; that's decent job at tracking, but you missed some other places. I posted very little at the gaming forums and I left WHQ much longer ago (no ban; feel free to check the account) on my own.

 

 

I didn't track you, I just am registered in all the previously mentioned forums. At least in these forums you kept using the same name, hence you are easy to recognize once you are noticed.

 

1 hour ago, S O said:

The planet did not shrink, but there are now few brigades in the field until a bloc (or India, China) mobilised fully. This means that the few powerful AT systems would rarely even only encounter hostile MBTs before those could wreak havoc among support elements

 

Assuming the units with the capable AT weaponry are not mobile and the intrusion of (hostile) MBTs is not noticed or tracked before they get to the support elements. Unlikely against a competent enemy. 

 

1 hour ago, S O said:

"lightweight shaped charges" = about 40-75 mm calibre HEAT (rifle grenades, UBGLs, RPG-26). This would add little weight in addition to the requirement for 30 mm APFSDS proofing because spaced armour is available on hull sides.

 

With current armor technology, there is a big difference between protecting against KE penetrators and shaped charge rounds, specifically considering that there are also light-weight tandem-charge RPGs that have a greater efficiency against special armor of all sorts.

 

1 hour ago, S O said:

I explicitly mentioned HVMs (things like LOSAT, CKEM) in the example for a more modest tank design. This means the MBT would -despite 105 mm gun- still be able to penetrate as well as with a 130 mm gun, though not at very short ranges (approx. 0-500 m or so) since the HVMs first need to accelerate. It might actually end up being MORE able to penetrate than a MBT with a 125-130 mm gun.

 

To reach the same performance as a 130 mm smoothbore gun, the hypothetical HVM following the same design as LOSAT or CKEM would need a very large and very powerful rocket engine - essentially it wouldn't be fitting inside a tank. So the HVMs would need to be carried outside, which increases costs, size and weight (or you accept the option of a firepower kill by some dude with a HMG or by an IFV). Limiting the ability of a tank to fight against only four enemy tanks in the most common situation (statistically tanks are most likely to meet each other within the frontal arc) is a bad idea that no real tank commander would accept for his vehicle.

 

1 hour ago, S O said:

About protection; MBTs need to sprint from cover to cover. It's rarely possible to expose only the frontal 60° during this (even if threats are limited to a 30° cone), so even the heaviest-protected MBT is going to expose areas in combat that a 105-130 mm gun can penetrate.

 

No, because in modern militaries tanks are not used as single vehicles operating completely on their own. For an enemy to get a significant probability to hit outside the frontal 60° arc, the enemy has to be able to outmaneuver your unit. In reality tanks operate in platoons or larger units and never alone - infantry, IFVs and other vehicles are there to support the tank unit. When a tank (or rather a platoon) makes a move, the other elements of the military are meant to provide cover of the flanks. That's basic knowledge that you'll learn in every armor school in NATO.

 

Also the whole concept of "We can't achieve that the frontal arc faces the enemy at all times, so let's give up on trying to protect the area that is most likely hit by the enemy" is just wrong. Why even try to fight a war, when there is a chance of loosing it?

 

1 hour ago, S O said:

Explain how German tanks succeeded in 1939-1941.

 

They fought against badly organized and in many regards incompetent enemies, which hadn't fully understood how to utilize modern technology (such as the tank, radios, etc.) to their maximum potential.

 

1 hour ago, S O said:

MUCH higher protection levels are possible at 50 tons, this has been stated by experts like Hilmes repeatedly. The Japanese Type 10 has a bigger gun and some other weight-increasing extras and still only 44 t empty weight. PLA 125 mm are no doubt the threat that the Japanese looked at.

 

Hilmes didn't state that a 40-50 tons tank is well protected enough for the modern battlefield nor did he claim that any of these tanks would meet your protection requirements. He has mentioned several weight-optimized tanks (usually without a turret or with an un-armored unmanned turret) that can achieve a protection level similar to your requirements.

 

The Type 10 has less a lot armor than required by you. Side armor along the crew compartment is usually not enough to resist 30 mm APFSDS (i.e. Leopard 2's side hull armor was designed to withstand 20 mm DM43 APCR rounds), the Type 10 doesn't have the protection against "lightweight shaped charges" nor is it protected against 10 kg TNT mines (although this requirement - probably based on the NATO STANAG 4569 level 4a/b - is rather bad, because EFP mines have a much bigger potential to destroy MBTs... but NATO has yet to accept a standard for testing vehicles against EFP mines).

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Oh boy, this condescension is all-too well-known. People assuming they know what I know or don't know - even after I told them they cannot have such knowledge. The all-too obvious unwillingness to comprehend texts is all-too typical as well.

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"essentially it wouldn't be fitting inside a tank. So the HVMs would need to be carried outside "

 

Congratulations, you just repeated what I wrote in the first place. HVMs carried in merely bulletproofed launch tubes at the rear of the turret. It's annoying that you pretend to know this better.

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"With current armor technology, there is a big difference between protecting against KE penetrators and shaped charge rounds "

 

Congratulations, you again repeated what I wrote. Same.

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"That's basic knowledge that you'll learn in every armor school in NATO. "

 

I can't learn this because I learned it decades ago already.

Too bad you didn't understand my point at all (keyword text comprehension). A threat in a 30° cone leaves only 30° for manoeuvring left or right before one leaves the 60° near-immunity cone, and that's impractical. Especially taking into account that the commander doesn't know the threat cone for sure and must not be restricted by an unreliable guess.

Even the most-protected tanks are going to expose soft spots when they manoeuvre on a battlefield between covers. Even an immune glacis would thus be degraded in its utility by the necessity of individual tank manoeuvre.

Besides, the trend goes towards more dispersion and thus towards smaller and smaller elements of manoeuvre. Lone platoons as small as 4 vehicles have very limited flank security. Essentially, with every turret facing into a different direction you will have 3 turrets facing the wrong way. Which in itself means 3/4 are exposed. Or they only observe different directions, then 4/4 are exposed if they guessed the threat direction wrong.

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"They fought against badly organized and in many regards incompetent enemies, which hadn't fully understood how to utilize modern technology (such as the tank, radios, etc.) to their maximum potential."

 

They sure shot well with their 25, 40, 47 and 75 mm guns and knocked out many tanks. This did still not matter much because tanks don't need to be impenetrable or come close to being so. Their protection is already valuable when they reduce the density of threat weapons and munitions to a tolerable one.

The successes in '40 weren't only on the operational level either. The breakout at the Sedan bridgehead and many other actions were victories of the thinner-protected tanks in face of many weapons that were capable of penetration.

T-34s also kept being the mainstay of the Red Army's tank force at a time when their protection had become flimsy. Same for Shermans in '44, and Panzer IV soldiered on despite being very vulnerable. These were tanks that must have been "useless for offensive actions" except that military history proved the opposite.

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"Hilmes didn't state that a 40-50 tons tank is well protected enough for the modern battlefield nor did he claim that any of these tanks would meet your protection requirements. He has mentioned several weight-optimized tanks (usually without a turret or with an un-armored unmanned turret) that can achieve a protection level similar to your requirements."

 

I'm not talking about a single video. That dude published books and articles for decades.

He made that remark years ago in the context of FCS already, for example.

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By the way; the original blog post wasn't really about keeping the weight down first and foremost. People get drawn to the weight issue by some invisible hand.

I was thinking much more about keeping the costs of the electronics (hard kill APS, for example - which is as much about protection as passive armour is) at a modest level.

Combat aircraft had a development in which avionics rose to more than half of the fly-away price (much of the rest is the price of the engines). Tanks are following on that path, and it leads into the same death spiral.

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On 9/30/2017 at 4:20 PM, S O said:

 

Regarding Collimatrix's irrelevant Soviet MRD inventory case; (line of sight) combat troops are a minority among overall troops in the field and an even smaller minority in entire armies. A brigade may nowadays be tasked to operate on its own in a 50x50 km area, or even 100x50 km. Even back in the Cold War it was about 77 brigade equivalents for 1,000 km frontage in Central Europe. The planet did not shrink, but there are now few brigades in the field until a bloc (or India, China) mobilised fully. This means that the few powerful AT systems would rarely even only encounter hostile MBTs before those could wreak havoc among support elements.

 

This is GMTI imagery, which incidentally I found on your blog, so you should be familiar with the technology and its implications for ground vehicle detection:

JsdufwE.jpg

 

Look at the Spring 2017 Hama offensive in Syria vs the Autumn 2017 Hama offensive.  Or look at the Ukrainian conflict.  Modern surveillance is very good at picking up the movement of formations of armed vehicles even with basic day-only optics.  With advanced radar technology like GMTI the situation will be more like that facing the panzers in France in 1944; whether to risk force concentration and attract attacks or to disperse and become ineffectual.

 

Finally, and most importantly, I don't know if you've looked at a globe but not everywhere on Earth is Eastern Europe.  Modern weapon systems are expensive, and offsetting those costs means foreign sales.  Tanks that are designed to fight extremely well in one type of terrain at the expense of others don't exactly fly off the shelves.  Look at the Merkava.  Who would buy a tank that is intended only to penetrate enemy lines where they are overstretched, but cannot force an assault on a strongpoint?  Isn't breaking fixed defenses what tanks were invented for in the first place a century ago?

 

On 9/30/2017 at 4:20 PM, S O said:

 

Slow ATGMs don't cope well with multispectral smoke that deploys in less than a second. Their effective range may be well below a km, even for those with a much greater nominal range. (That's part of why I argue for HVMs.)

 

That's another problem with your idea; you assume that your tank will have HVMs and that the enemy will not ("slow ATGMs").  But ATGMs, while expensive relative to other infantry weapons, are much cheaper than tanks.  Why are you assuming that your relatively expensive tank will maintain an asymmetrical technological advantage against ATGMs, a much cheaper threat technology?

 

On 9/30/2017 at 4:20 PM, S O said:

My hypothetical compromise tank is marginally less protected against RPG-29 than a Leo2 or Abrams.

 

Yes, your hypothetical compromise tank is only marginally less protected in general than a T-90, and yet it is a few tonnes lighter.  And it's much lighter than the Western MBTs, again, despite not having much lighter protection.  How realistic is that?

 

About 50% of the weight of an MBT is armor.  If you want a lighter tank (which I agree makes sense in light of logistics and strategic mobility), protection level is probably the first thing you'll have to compromise on.  But the idea of a tank that you sketch out compromises very little on armor thickness relative to extant MBTs.  So, realistically, it isn't shaving much weight there.

Another way to make a tank lighter is to reduce the protected volume while maintaining armor thickness.  Soviet tanks took this approach.  Your idea does not.  You want ten degrees of gun depression, vice five for Soviet tank designs.  Yes, the breech of the 105mm M102 howitzer is shorter than an L7, but by a mere 220 mm.  Taking the sine of the gun depression times the round length, I get that an L7 that depresses five degrees requires less height than an M102 that depresses ten degrees.  But if you have more precise diagrams showing the thickness of the breech block and the CoG of the gun the matter could be settled more firmly.  Bottom line though, you aren't saving much weight by going to the howitzer, and you may in fact be making your tank heavier than it would be if you had a more traditional tank gun that sacrificed depression.

 

This is suspiciously similar to the idea that Blacktail Defense had about tank design.  He would often rail against needlessly large main guns on tanks and advocate that they be armed with howitzers instead.  But it simply isn't a sensible tradeoff.  The armament of a tank is 12% of its total weight, at the very most.  Compromising on armament doesn't save much weight, but reduces offensive potential enormously.

 

On 9/30/2017 at 4:20 PM, S O said:

Even a 105 mm HESH hit could easily mission kill a T-14 (mobility or firepower kill, depends on where it hits).

 

If you think this, you are not familiar with the extensive literature on the (in)effectiveness of HESH.  HESH is for poking holes in walls.  And nothing else.  It's that simple.

 

For some reason, the military reform movement (and the British military) had a sexual fetish for HESH ammunition, but you should listen to neither of these groups of people on matters of tank design.

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12 hours ago, S O said:

"hull front 60° protected against portable threats" = Eryx (137 mm  tandem HEAT). One  should probably make the cut at 120 mm tandem HEAT, though. That would be about 850 mm RHAeq CE (assuming the rule of thumb multiplier of 7.2 that applies to the optimum shape, tantalum liner and best explosives used in HEAT).

 

 

So that makes you pretty much entirely vulnerable to most modern ATGMs, especially the Russian Kornet which will get a serious overmatch. 

ATGMs are something you can swarm pretty easily, and is readily available to concealable infantry. Smoke will give a chance at evading them, for a while. But it's a very limited solution.

And APS is not enough to replace passive armor modules.

 

12 hours ago, S O said:

I explicitly mentioned HVMs (things like LOSAT, CKEM) in the example for a more modest tank design. This means the MBT would -despite 105 mm gun- still be able to penetrate as well as with a 130 mm gun, though not at very short ranges (approx. 0-500 m or so) since the HVMs first need to accelerate. It might actually end up being MORE able to penetrate than a MBT with a 125-130 mm gun.

Furthermore, T-14 Armata appears to use rather weak turret protection that is likely not be impervious to 105 mm. The important turret component are on the outside and can at most be bulletproofed anyway. Even a 105 mm HESH hit could easily mission kill a T-14 (mobility or firepower kill, depends on where it hits).

 

 

Want to add missiles? Give it to the IFVs, or have a gun-launched missile. Limiting yourself to using the gun only against medium-armored targets or soft targets, and only using ATGMs (HVMs) against tanks sounds a lot like what an IFV does. 

You know what's the good thing about NOT going your way? You actually have dual capabilities. You have the freedom to fire off missiles before you have a line of sight with an enemy, softening them up, and then reliably engaging them with a powerful main gun that you can know will pierce their armor. You don't limit yourself to just one capability that greatly limits you to a very certain range of engagement. If they get point blank, you're dead.

 

12 hours ago, S O said:

HVMs also offer advantages that even a 130 mm gun couldn't offer. There's a much higher rate of fire, possibly including the ability to arrange for two impacts with 0.2-0.3 seconds delay, so even a hard kill APS that could defeat long rods would fail to defeat the second incoming HVM. Ambush situations on road marching tanks would allow the gunner or commander to target & track four tanks, launching four HVMs in ripple fire for up to four kills with less exposure time than any detection-to-kill drill for tank guns (~7 seconds depending on type, crew and circumstances) could exploit.

 

First, that depends highly on the APS itself. Developing a tank to use HVMs as its main anti-tank weapon is a very expensive undertaking. It takes billions. Updating an APS to utilize different launchers to avoid the physical restriction in time delay is nothing in comparison.

Second, this advantage in ambush situations is dwarfed by the fact that you never send a single tank to do anything alone. You send a platoon of 4 at the least, or you send a company, and even without HVMs they can deliver a LOT of firepower in a very short time. Short enough for a whole column to not realize what's hitting them. 

 

12 hours ago, S O said:

About protection; MBTs need to sprint from cover to cover. It's rarely possible to expose only the frontal 60° during this (even if threats are limited to a 30° cone), so even the heaviest-protected MBT is going to expose areas in combat that a 105-130 mm gun can penetrate. This is particularly true for the hull, which has to be oriented into driving direction, unlike the turret which can be stabilised in (one) threat direction. The hull can also be protected in hull down positions, so there's a good case for preferring a compromise in glacis protection over turret front protection (unless the latter is unmanned, then the case is reversed, see T-14). That's why I pointed out the potential compromise of not hardening the hull against high-end KE threats.

 

Hulls are already traditionally less armored than turrets. But it probably has nothing to do with sprinting from cover to cover. If you have still plenty of targets in LoS, that can also fire directly at you, you don't sprint anywhere. 

 

12 hours ago, S O said:

MUCH higher protection levels are possible at 50 tons, this has been stated by experts like Hilmes repeatedly. The Japanese Type 10 has a bigger gun and some other weight-increasing extras and still only 44 t empty weight. PLA 125 mm are no doubt the threat that the Japanese looked at.

Glacis protection against HEAT is fairly simple and not terribly heavy because the sloping makes reactive amour very effective on the upper glacis and much depth is available for a very weight-efficient CE protection. Such a glacis would weigh much less than the T-14's because the latter is no doubt also meant against 120 mm L/55 U-238 KE threats.

Besides, I wrote "at about 40 tons". That would be anything from 37-43 metric tons.

 

What you're essentially proposing is another Challenger 2. Not in its characteristics, but in its design philosophy. That's shit-tier. You leave no room for improvement. The UK MoD thought they could do with a tank gun that couldn't actually pierce modern armor properly. It was okay for a couple of years. But very shortly after, still when it was young, its gun became obsolete. And because of short-sightedness they need a crap-ton of money to put the firepower at a merely adequate level, for less than half their tanks. 

Same here. You want a tank whose firepower is easily countered but NOT easily replaced. You want a tank that is only lightly protected, but still go toe to toe with modern MBTs?

 

Just a little side note; The T-14's turret can be replaced. They won't do it for now, but if they'll feel it's necessary, they can either bolt on armor or have the turret replaced with something more mechanically resilient to add armor on it, whereas changing a gun to deal with such a change would require a tremendous logistical effort.

 

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GMTI long range radars like ASTOR and J-STARS are long range only till they are jammed. The Russians have had such jammers for a long time already (SPN-4, for example). It's questionable whether they would survive far enough forward in face of supercruising fighters with long range missiles anwyway.

Substantial forces slip through picket lines even on rather confined training areas. This is in part about counter-reconnaissance efforts and deception efforts.

 

I didn't write about penetrating or spalling the hull of Armata with 105 mm HESH. I wrote about firepower or mobility kill. That requires to affect the turret or blowing up the running gear. Frankly, anyone who doesn't know what HESH/HEP blast does to roadwheels, tracks, optics should read and ask questions instead of pretending to know better. The very fact that I wrote explicitly about mobility and firepower kill shows that I knew about the issue that HESH has with thick non-homogeneous armour packages.

To not know about the effects that HESH/HEP has on road wheels, tracks, sensors and even gun alignment is disqualifying for a discussion on tanks and HESH.

 

"not everywhere on Earth is Eastern Europe "

True, but there's no rational reason to look at any other terrain if you are a Western European. Morocco isn't going to invade Europe, Egypt isn't going to, Algeria isn't going to, Turkey is still allied for now, and Iran isn't going to attack Turkey either. The only not utterly nonsensical defence scenario is about Eastern Europe, particularly the Baltics and North/East Poland. Every single scenario in which European forces are on a different continent is nonsense, and not about defence at all.

So either European NATO forces should orient themselves mostly to Eastern Europe or shrink to a core competencies-retaining skeleton force to save public funds.

 

 

I don't have more time for this. Too  much nonsense here.

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25 minutes ago, S O said:

I didn't write about penetrating or spalling the hull of Armata with 105 mm HESH. I wrote about firepower or mobility kill. That requires to affect the turret or blowing up the running gear. Frankly, anyone who doesn't know what HESH/HEP blast does to roadwheels, tracks, optics should read and ask questions instead of pretending to know better. The very fact that I wrote explicitly about mobility and firepower kill shows that I knew about the issue that HESH has with thick non-homogeneous armour packages.

To not know about the effects that HESH/HEP has on road wheels, tracks, sensors and even gun alignment is disqualifying for a discussion on tanks and HESH.

 

I didn't say anything about penetration either.

 

5 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

If you think this, you are not familiar with the extensive literature on the (in)effectiveness of HESH.  HESH is for poking holes in walls.  And nothing else.  It's that simple.

 

For some reason, the military reform movement (and the British military) had a sexual fetish for HESH ammunition, but you should listen to neither of these groups of people on matters of tank design.

 

See?  That's what I said.  I never claimed that HESH is impotent because it cannot penetrate.  I am saying HESH is impotent because it's impotent.

But do you know what's funny?  We had this exact same argument two years ago, and you argued in the same cringing, cowardly manner you are now.  Also, you said some hilariously insane shit, like claiming that gun-launched HESH rounds are "30+ kg."  Bitch, an entire M830 MPAT round is under 30 kg!  RDX has a density of under 2 gm/cm^3.  A 120mm wide 30 kilogram cylinder of RDX would be 1.3 meters long, or about 30% longer than an entire round of M829.

Do you know what I love though?  That you can maintain this attitude of haughty superiority when you say things that are so easy to show are wrong.  You must slay with chicks.  I can just imagine you walking up to a woman at a bar and spitting a line of bullshit about being a space shuttle door gunner in the dinosaur wars while there's visibly diarrhea leaking down your leg.  How do you manage it?  What is your secret, great master?

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6 hours ago, Collimatrix said:

 

 

I didn't say anything about penetration either.

 

 

See?  That's what I said.  I never claimed that HESH is impotent because it cannot penetrate.  I am saying HESH is impotent because it's impotent.

But do you know what's funny?  We had this exact same argument two years ago, and you argued in the same cringing, cowardly manner you are now.  Also, you said some hilariously insane shit, like claiming that gun-launched HESH rounds are "30+ kg."  Bitch, an entire M830 MPAT round is under 30 kg!  RDX has a density of under 2 gm/cm^3.  A 120mm wide 30 kilogram cylinder of RDX would be 1.3 meters long, or about 30% longer than an entire round of M829.

Do you know what I love though?  That you can maintain this attitude of haughty superiority when you say things that are so easy to show are wrong.  You must slay with chicks.  I can just imagine you walking up to a woman at a bar and spitting a line of bullshit about being a space shuttle door gunner in the dinosaur wars while there's visibly diarrhea leaking down your leg.  How do you manage it?  What is your secret, great master?

 

"Bitch", I will tell the others here some facts, so they see how much nonsense you write.

 

The 30+ kg quote was in the context of the 142 mm ACRA gun. 120 mm cartridge weights are irrelevant. One should abstain from discussions if one cannot muster the attention and concentration to follow them.

Here's another example of Collimatrix failing at paying attention:

I wrote (where he linked to) of a "30+ kg HESH warhead" in a never edited forum post, and he replied

"What?  Only the malkara ATGM had that much explosive."

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/427314-french-142mm-acra-gunlauncher/page__pid__8686951#entry8686951

http://forum.worldoftanks.com/index.php?/topic/427314-french-142mm-acra-gunlauncher/page__pid__8687144#entry8687144

So either he doesn't know the difference between warhead (= "shell" or "projectile" in this case) and explosives or he failed grossly (and evidently today as well) at mustering the attention and concentration to read properly.

And that's the kind of discussion that I really dislike; when people are hostile, go ad hominem, are arrogant, and insult me for their own inability to understand simple texts.

 

An excerpt from the link that Collimatrix provided to show what utter nonsense he spouts:

Quote

Yes; RPG-29 has a HEAT warhead.  A ginormous HEAT warhead with enough HE that it is a useful comparison to a non-penetrating HESH hit.

 

RPG-29 fires the PG-29V tandem HEAT munition which has 1.6 kg of explosives. That's not "ginormous" in the context of tanks.

http://defense-update.com/products/r/rpg-29.htm

 

an example 105 mm HESH has 3 kg explosives.

http://armscom.net/products/105mm_tk_hesh_t_m393a3_e

 

an example 120 mm HESH has 4.1 kg explosives and weighs 17.86 kg (projectile, not cartridge)

http://jcammo.com/large-calibre-120-mm-l31-a1-hesh-t/

 

165 mm HESH had about 18 kg of explosives.

 

PG-29V is nowhere near representative for tank gun HESH, not even from the mere filler weight.

 

A linear enlargement of the 120 mm HESH shell to 142 mm would be 17.86 kg * (142/120)^3 = 29.59 kg. There's no reason why the fuse  or cage would need to grow like that, of course.

155 mm shells are typically around 42 kg, historical 140 mm naval guns had 82 lbs = 37 kg HE shells (as well as even heavier shells). The 82 lbs /37 kg figures in this line were shell weight, not filler weight.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

And to settle the question of mobility kill, here are test results of what a tiny 76 mm HESH (whole shell weighs only 5.6 kg, explosive likely well below 1.5 kg) does to an AFV's wheels, idlers and tracks:

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/348021.pdf

That's not "impotent", even at such a relatively small calibre.

That HESH ineffectiveness against AFVs is about penetrating or spalling behind thick layered armour; the effect on stuff on the outside is usually devastating, as is the effect on thin armour (typical BMP/BTR/BMD vehicles) and of course buildings.

 

Thick skirts can protect a running gear against HESH/HEP to some degree, but them getting blown into the running gear can cause mobility kills as well. Hardly any Russian tanks have thick skirts (though Armata has).

-----------------------------------------------------

 

I understand one may prefer a modern HE shell like the German DM 11 over HESH -and with smoothbore guns there's not even much of a choice, but there's a problem with the alternative of a modern HE shell; Back in Chechnya in the late 90's Russian tank companies had a rotation of a few MBTs providing direct fire support and others resting and reloading. They spent hundreds of HE shells on some villages each.

The Americans spent hundreds of shells on single villages with 90 mm armed tanks in Vietnam, despite the flimsy construction of Vietnamese villages.

 

We're not going to procure enough DM11-like modern HE shells for MBTs because these shells are expensive and the (political) deck is stacked against a good ratio between platform procurement and supplies procurement, but HESH is dirt cheap by comparison and could be procured in huge quantities. Plain HE without a modern ET fuze is not really superior to HESH.

 

So a solution could be a hi/lo mix, with low cost shells to achieve munition stock sizes that properly contribute to our deterrence effort.

HESH is an option for this, and it is the best choice in those scenarios where the consumption of tank gun munitions is the highest; shooting at buildings.

 

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S O, can you please explain to me the logic in firing HESH to disable an MBT, since you're already talking about nonsense?

 

You can do a ton of damage to any tank by firing HE practically everywhere on it.

But you dont see anyone doing it. It's probably not written in anyone's doctrine.

 

When you develop a type of munition, your aim is not to inflict severe damage. You aim to absolutely obliterate the target and give the full package in one hit.

 

Hit the running gear and you disable the tank for a while. But he can still fire at you, so you have to GTFO before you get FUBAR. 

Hit the turret and he can still run back, recover, and probably back in action within a few days.

 

However, hit the target, penetrate it, and inflict enough damage to do a mission kill almost regardless of where you hit, and make the tank inoperable to the point it has to be abandoned, and you just scored a victory.

 

Why spend numerous shells when you can spend one?

 

Maybe just abandon the 105mm HESH and gatling and go for just a standard 30mm cannon because a few of its shells can blind a tank and do severe damage to it.

Or, or... If you just throw enough pianos at it, it'll eventually be crushed.

 

Off to calculate the maximum piano threshold of a T-14.

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