Bronezhilet

Visible barrel length vs actual barrel length of a Leopard 2A6 barrel:

Visible barrel length vs actual barrel length of a Leopard 2A6 barrel:

You want them to impact them at about the same time as to not give him time to react.
 
But that doesn't even matter if you can't get them to hit in the same place in the first place. Both projectiles are so ballistically dissimilar it's hilarious.
 
Lets just quickly compare the data of two projectiles I have a bunch of data of, M829A1 and M830. Lets say you have everything dialed in so that they should hit the same thing at 3 km, but lets say you...:
calculated crosswinds wrong, it's 10 m/s more than you thought. The impact point of M829A1 shifts by about 1 meter, the impact point for M830 shifts 16 meters. calculated the wrong muzzle velocity, it's 20 m/s more than you thought. The vertical impact point of M829A1 shifts by about 0,5 meters, for M830 it's 2,8 meters. used a wrong expected amount of drag, it's 5% less than you thought. The vertical impact point of M829A1 shifts by about 10 centimeters, for M830 it's 3 meters. Lemme rephrase that last one, for only a 5% decrease in drag, M829A1 will still hit the target, but M830 overshoots the target by about... 76 meters.
 

I know we already have a topic on the Arjun, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't have another thread about how DRDO can't make anything.
 
I mean, the Arjun program started in 1974 (according to Wikipedia) and the thing got produced 30 years later, in 2004. Should we take a look at the list of tanks that got developed at around the same time period?
 
T-72
T-80
Type 88
Type 96
Type 74
OF-40
Merkava 1
Merkava 2
Merkava 3
Leopard 2
M1 Abrams
Challenger 1
M-84
K-1
Type 90
Leclerc
T-90
PT-91
Zulfiqar
C1 Ariete
Challenger 2
TR-85
T-84
...and many more
 
A keen I will have noticed that these are both second and third generation tanks, which is right, because the development of the Arjun took place during two generations of tanks. Of note is that the Israelis managed to make three Merkava variants in the time DRDO took to develop the Arjun. And if that wasn't enough, he Challenger 1 was developed, build, accepted for service, and taken out of service by the Brits in less time than it took DRDO to deliver the first batch of Arjuns. What the fuck.
 
Alright alright I'll stop the bashing! So lets take a look at the armour of the Arjun:
 
Okay now that we've taken a look at the armour of the Arjun, we can take a look at something of which the Indians pretend is armour.
First, the turret 'armour':

The first good thing to note about the turret armour is that the left front is decent. The second good thing about the turret armour is that it's so bad I can spend a whole post on burning it down.
 
The mantlet looks thick in this model, but it looks like it's not modeled right since it seems to be fused with the frontal armour itself. This is what the actual armour in the gun mantlet looks like:

It's fairly thin, like in the Leclerc, but even worse is that it does not cover the whole gap in the turret. Seriously DRDO, what the fuck? Of course there are pictures of a fully assembled model, but it seems that the completed mantlet is no more than a sheet metal box around the structure shown in the above photo. I mean, look at this:

You can see the weld lines and shit on top of the 'mantlet', there is no reason to believe this is a solid steel block.
 
These pictures bring me nicely to the next two points:
1. The turret side basically lacks any and all side armour
2. The gunner sight barely has any armour
 
The green blocks on the turret side in the first picture are actually storage boxes, not armour. The majority of the side is only a few cm thick steel plate. Lets just compare this to the Leopard 2A4 for a second:

(Thanks to @Militarysta for making this picture)
 
You can see that the turret side protection extends way, way further back on the Leopard 2A4 than it does on the Arjun. The Arjun only has to rotate the turret slightly to be completely vulnerable to even low caliber autocannons. And as you can imagine, that's not good.
You can also see that the armour block behind the gunner sight is around 660 mm LOS, the same spot in the Arjun is estimated to be around 300 mm thick. Don't worry about the lower part of the gun sight, that has no armour at all. The sight itself looks like this:

 
So the turret has negligible side protection, horrible frontal protection, and a shit mantlet.
 
But wait, there's more!
 
The turret roof is really thin. If you take a look at this picture you'd say that it has a decently thick roof:

 
See? That looks to be like a solid few cm thick. So why say the roof is really thin? Well, take a look at this as well:
 

That hatch/cupola is raised. So what looks to be a roof that's a few cm thick is just a raised cupola. Which means that the turret roof itself is horribly thin. And since the front third is sloped forward that means APFSDS can easily yaw into the crew compartment, and lets not speak about attacks from above because that'll end in tears for the Arjun.
 
Is there anything not shit about the Arjun turret?
 
...
 
No! Actually!
 
A sharp-eyed reader will already have noticed that the turret ammorack has absolutely no protection at all:

 
The inside of the turret itself is a horrible fucking mess, just look at it:

That's right, those cables are hanging from fucking string.
 
Since the gun is also in the turret, surely that must be a good part of the turret, right? Right!? I mean, they had until 2004 to select or make a good gun!
 
Aahahahahahahha, no. It's a rifled 120 mm. In 2004. Helloooooo India, welcome to Britain, 19-fucking-80s.
 
...well maybe they have very good ammunition!
 

No. That's about the same as DM23. Which was introduced in 1983. 1984 saw a medium-high L/D (20+ L/D) penetrator for the US, 1987 for Germany and 1986 for the Soviet Union. We got high L/D (30+ L/D) penetrators in the early 90s. India's still rocking that good-ol' 17 L/D trash.
 
 
 
Sooooo will the hull be any better?
 

No. Access hatch in the upper glacis.
 
On TS I was talking to @Collimatrix about how the driver's position most likely makes the upper glacis in front of him thinner, but that turned out not to be true, since...

...his position doesn't reach the fucking glacis in the first place.
 
Not only that, look at how fucking horsewank thin that glacis is. With how thin it is, it's most likely just solid steel instead of NERA, even though the Indians claim it uses NERA, and they have this to say about their NERA:
Literally fucking what
 
I could probably go on and on and on about the retardation that's called Arjun, but I won't. I have subjected myself to too much stupidity already since I had to go to fucking places like defenceforumindia which was completely fucking malarious. And if you don't know what that word means, it's a combination of malaria and hilarious since reading defenceforumindia is equal parts sickening and hilarious.
 
 

The best way to deal with Damian is to let him roast himself:

The best way to deal with Damian is to let him roast himself:

The earlier mentioned P5050 lives on, but it’s been reduced in scope, and is now a technical lifetime extension (instead of a proper MLU). This was to be expected considering the age and state of the tanks, the fact that certain parts are out of/has been replaced in production, and that there will be no replacement tank before 2025.
 
More details here:
https://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:572045-2018:TEXT:EN:HTML&src=0
https://kgv.doffin.no/ctm/Supplier/Documents/Folder/163257
 
In other somewhat Leo 2 related news, the new Wisent 2 ARVs have begun entering service with Norwegian Army units, so there is some neat footage of the beasts out there:
 

 

 
"There is always a bigger fish"
 

https://forsvaret.no/forsvarsmateriell/presserom/de-første-bergingspanservognene-er-overført-til-hæren
 
I also recall mentioning that the Norway was interested in acquiring new AEVs a few months ago, and it’s been announced that we have opted to buy another 6 Wisent 2s in the AEV and mine breeching configurations: https://forsvaret.no/forsvarsmateriell/presserom/forsvarsmateriell-møter-studentene/hæren-får-pansret-ingeniørpanservogn
 

@Ramlaen just an FYI, the BTS8 PELE round has about the same drag coëfficient as normal 125mm HEAT.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-46245686
 
ARA San Juan has been found

MREs: The Threat Next Door

IS-3 on Shikotan island.

 
 

https://www.kalashnikov.ru/u-istokov-abakana/
TKB-0111 by Korobov. Semi, auto (500 RPM) and 3 round burst (1700 RPM), 3.69 kg, 0.93 m long. Was considered the least promising.

 
 
TKB-0136-3M by Afanasyev. 2000 RPM with 2 or 5 round burst. 3.57 kg.

 
TKB-0146 by Stechkin. Shifted in time recoil (with 2 round burst, 2000 RPM) fullauto - 400 RPM. Was considered as most promising together with Nikonov's design.

 
AEK-971 by Tarev. Was dropped out in the middle of trails. Had 3 round burst, 1500 RPM.

 
 
AEK-978 by Pikinsky. No burst mode. 1000 RPM.

 
AKB-1 by Kalashnikov V.M., no burst mode, 800 RPM.

 
AS and ASM by Nikonov

 

And now there is a video of that thing
 

I find it interesting that a lot of people, especially in the EU, seem to forget/ignore just how gigantic the USA actually is. For me a one hour drive is a long drive because that means I'm either halfway across the country, or I've driven into Germany.

Another Israeli variant of the good ol' Sherman. 
In 1958, Isaac Jacobson, commander of the 2nd maintenance center in Tel Hashomer, proposed to shorten the Sherman (I don't know which variant) by 30 centimeters, to make its silhouette somewhat closer to that of the T-54.

 
The new tank was called 'Degem Yud' (Model Yud). Yud is a Hebrew letter that sounds somewhat like Yehudi (Jewish), which symbolizes the circumcision the tank underwent.

typical gas station in Norway during the NATO exercise #WhereIsTheFuelThereWeAre

About two and a half years ago i've stumbled across some russian book about western IFVs, which apparently was a mere compilation of articles from western magazines translated into russian. There was a mention of some 58-ton heavy IFV, called SAIFV, which was described as vehicle baised on Abrams chassis, and they also claimed that a prototype was biult and tested. (which seems dubious to me now) Than, two years ago, I've stumbled across this article about SAIFV https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-u-s-army-wanted-to-replace-the-bradley-38-years-ago-dffb6728dd11 which has 3 drawings - "artist conceptions". Than, half a year ago I was reading some US DOD bidget hearings transcripts about MICV/IFV development, and stumbled across mentions of 50-55 metric tons $800,0000 - 1,000,000 SAIFV of Crizer study, and than I've googled a Mobility analysis of IFV task force alternatives (1978-07) report (which is allmost the same as Appendix D of that report which is described below). Unfortunatelly there weren't any proper pictures, (and also i've thought that those 3 drawings from medium.com article are modern "artist conceptions", not one from 1978). 
Than several things happend in the right time and place, which invlolved twitter, AUSA-2018, NGCV-OMFV, and author of that arcticle at medium.com, and when I asked him about that article - it turned out that there is a report about SAIFV, which is readily available on the internet there http://cdm16635.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/singleitem/collection/p16635coll14/id/56079/rec/1


884 pages, with 7 normal chapters and chapter 8 which consists of 6 appendices.
 
 

cost figures from Appendices F and B:


things like those cost figures, coupled with deceiving percents like this (Ch. IV p.17):
(there were also other versions mentioned in Senate hearings of FY1978-1980s - 91.6%, 92%, 95%, and also they've mentioned soviet motorized rifle division instead of tank regiment)

apparently saved Bradley. Although in 1979 those $370,000 turned out to be $472,000 (in same FY1978 dollars), - and later according to FY1983 bidget hearings - $1,350,000 (which is about $880,000 in 1978 dollars). 
 
 
...
btw, GAO's report  "Army's Proposed Close Combat Armored Vehicle Team" (12 dec 1977) has following thing on page 23:

and that was BFV project manager's responce (hearings on military posture and h.r. 10929, part 2 of 7, p.183) several mounths later (somewhere in feb-apr 1978):

Seeing that Damian still keeps posting his crazy theories about the M1A1 AIM/M1A2 SEP having DU armor in the hull, here is a rather recent document (answer by the NRC to a licence request for storing and using DU armor by General Dynamics):
 
www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1505/ML15057A184.pdf
 

 
Note that there is no mention of the hull, but the turret is specifically mentioned.
 
Applied for the renewal of the licence on 13th of June 2014, letter dated 16th of December 2014, fully approved on 25th of February 2015.

 

No, absolutely not.
 
The only thing related to thermal energy during hydrodynamic penetration is the impact flash, nothing else.
 
It's still being debated whether or not the jet is actually melted or not. Which doesn't even matter since hydrodynamic penetration does not depend on thermal energy even in the slightest. With hydrodynamic penetration the only thing that has a significant effect on the penetration distance is density. Even the strength of the materials are not always relevant. Yes, they have an effect on penetration, but on very high impact velocities the penetrator strength is assumed to be 0.
 
And no, velocity doesn't matter when you're above the hydrodynamic limit of the materials involved.
 
As a matter of fact, an accurate calculation for the penetration depth of a hydrodynamic penetrator is simply p=L*sqrt(ρp/ρt). Which is to say: Penetration depth = Length of penetrator multiplied by the square root of the penetrator density divided by the target density.
 
Source: "Armour; Materials, Theory and Design" by Paul J. Hazell

Agreed and seconded.
 
I think this puts an entirely new spin on being

So this is where we will get to post all those pictures of burned out Leo 2's belonging to Turkey?  Cool.

Much like the Yamato.

Much like the Yamato.

It's almost like admins can do admin stuff.