Belesarius

Gun crime is still a big deal.
 
The way they're going about trying to fix "gun crime" is the issue.

Starhopper is done.
 
https://mobile.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1083567087983964160

This concrete cross in the middle of the Arizona desert is mute testimony to the American spirit of can-do and getting things done, even if it's hard.
 
In the 1950s, the United States had taken upon itself the essential task of spying on the Soviet Union.  Why the hell they wanted to spy on a bunch of miserable commies waiting around in bread lines is beyond me, but the point of this story is that Americans can do anything they set their mind to, regardless of whether it's a good idea.
 
To this end the US contracted Lockheed to design the elegant U-2 spyplane.  This worked for a while, but eventually the damn commies developed a habit of shooting these things down.
 

 
Clearly, the commies weren't going to make it easy to spy on them.
 
The solution was to put the commie-spying-on camera on a platform that was both unmanned and in space.  To this end, the Corona satellite family was developed:



There was just one problem; while the astrogation systems (star trackers that could keep the satellite pointed at Earth), calibration systems (the big concrete crosses the satellites could focus on), and launch systems were all mature, digital communications had not yet been refined to the point where the satellites could beam over the images as a series of radio signals.  Film images from the satellites were printed on physical film.  The solution?  Shoot the film canisters out of the satellite and catch them mid-fall with a cargo plane.  Seriously:


 
These two films describe the process in more detail:
 
 
 
Eventually, high-bandwidth radio communications would be developed which would obviate the need for the mid-air snatch operation.  This was significantly less awesome, but also much more practical.

This whole thread is worth it just to see Lord James pretend to be OG.

Yeah SH_MM posts neat shit.
Below the Turret ring is a member blog.
 

That ‘below the turret ring’ link I posted has several (7, I counted) pictures explicitly labeled ‘secret’, and a couple leaked Chinese armor arrays for good measure  

If you broke the rules on another forum is this really the place to complain about it?

Gurkhan's post about 2A82-1M cannon

 

 
Also from text and number of material bought for cannons production says that no T-14s were finished in 2018 and only 24 cannons could be/were made so far.
 
From otvaga - patent was found for 2A82, another link.

Tillman IV-2 blueprint

Nice family drawing (same as one of our member's signature, but with names over them this time). Lacking Nota, though.

Pages of Unflown Wings, some of them are drug-fueled creations for sure.

Massive boost to French naval capabilities 
 

This is a list of materials I've found in the papers I have about SLERA, NxRA and NERA. It is by no means complete or containing only materials that are actually fielded, it's just what I've found:
Glycidyl azide polymer (GAP) hardened with Desmodur N100 GAP (hardened) with CaCO3 GAP (hardened) with Guanidinazotetrazolat GAP (hardened) with varying amounts of RDX "Rubber or GAP" with a layer of Dottikon Perbunan NBR PU FKM SI Dyneema HB26 Carbon reinforced rubber Glass reinforced rubber Kevlar reinforced rubber PBO reinforced rubber But there's probably more, this is all I could find in the grand total of three papers I have on this topic.
 

F-117N concept art.
 

Oh boy, we already had Uralvagonzavodskis vs Kharkovites, now we got KMW vs IBD as well? Nice!

The modular Evolution armor package from IBD Deisenroth is designed to provide a similar level of frontal protection as the armor arrays used on the Leopard 2A5/2A6/2A7, while also including add-on armor on the sides of turret and hull, an additional module for the hull front, a mine protection plate and a layer of lightweight armor for the roof.
 
The whole upgrade package was designed to stay within a weight of 60 metric tons, when all modules are adopted but nothing else is changed with the tank. That means it offers a cheap upgrade path for even the oldest Leopard 2 tanks without the need for modifying the suspension. The Polish army wanted more changes for the Leopard 2PL (like for example adding an APU), so certain armor elements had to be dropped in favor of staying within the weight limit.
 
There are different configurations of the Evolution package (based on photographs of various prototypes and series production versions), so it is hard to make any definitive statements about how much each armor modules weighs and what level of protection it provides. Some versions include composite armor at the turret bustles, others have slat armor covering the complete rear section of turret and hull, while a third version lacks any sort of armor at the bustle section. Some versions have a flat & box-shaped turret front (like the Leopard 2SG and the proposed variant for Indonesia), while others have a slightly sloped & egdy turret front (Leopard 2PL, series production variant for Indonesia). An explanation could be that the former variant might lack some parts of the frontal armor array.
 
According to marketing material from IBD Deisenroth, the frontal arc of the tank is protected against current 120 and 125 mm APFSDS rounds and large caliber ATGMs without specifying any range or types. Rheinmetall stated in different interviews/advertorials, that the Leopard 2PL's turret would provide a higher level of protection than the Leopard 2A5's turret or the same protection as the Leopard 2A7's turret. Again no statements were made about range, threats and other conditions.
 
 
The side armor modules for the sideskirts have resists penetration by the PG-7VLT (Bulgarian tandem-warhead ammunition for the RPG-7 with 550-600 mm penetration) in tests. A similar shaped armor module with large empty space and a steel plate (claimed to simulate the side hull armor of an unspecified tank) managed to resist penetration by a German-made tandem warhead with 800 mm penetration (simulating the PG-7VR warhead for the RPG-7). Given that the turret add-on armor is thicker (both at the front and sides) than the hull's side armor modules, one could expect a comparable level of protection, unless the armor optimizitations against APFSDS rounds had negative effects on it.
 
 
It is worth noting that AMAP is extremely weight-efficient (if Rheinmetall's marketing claims are correct, the Leopard 2 Evolution has a higher protection level than the Stridsvagn 122B with mine protection kit, while weighing some 4-6 metric tons less - but who knows, marketing people have a tendency to exaggerate), but only because it lowered volume efficiency, is rather expensive and - being a lightweight composite armor - has likely a limited multi-hit capability, which might have been a problem in certain tests based on statements from other forum members.
 
 
The Leopard 2A7+ weighs a lot more than 64 metric tons. The first batch of German Leopard 2A7s has a combat weight of 63.9 metric tons - without the hull add-on modules and without the enhanced roof protection, that all newly built Leopard 2s feature. The weight of these components can be roughly estimated by comparing the Swedish Stridsvagn 122 (62.5 metric tons), which features both these components, to the German (nowadays Polish) Leopard 2A5 at 59.5 metric tons. The Hungarian Leopard 2A7+ likely will weigh 67 metric tons, unless the weight of the armor has been reduced by either modifying its composition or by excluding it from the Hungarian variant.
 
 
The Leopard 2A6 of Germany seems to feature turret armor in "D" technology and hull armor in either "C" or "D" technology (depending on what armor array was mounted on each specific converted tank). Export customers might have purchased tanks with newer armor packages (unless KMW decided to not continue improving the armor technology and kept selling 1990s armor to Spain and Greece - the latter country received its first series production 2A6 tank in 2006 or 11 years after Germany adopted the Leopard 2A5). According to Jane's IHS, the Leopard 2A7 features a new generation of passive armor, rumors/speculations say that this would be called "E" or "F" technology.
 
The wedge armor of the Leopard 2 is actually made by the same company as AMAP and even called AMAP in some of their more recent brochures. Originally it was called MEXAS-H ("H" for heavy), but when MEXAS was replaced by AMAP, a lot of old products were renamed. So it is an older version of AMAP (unless IBD has decided to rename all AMAP products as part of their new ProTech and NanoTech product lines).
 
The Swedish office of IBD Deisenroth actually has created a demonstrator for the Swedish army, which replaces the old add-on modules with newer ones; this frees up weight while staying at the same protection level, so that more weight can be invested in side armor against RPGs and in a mine protection kit. It has been called the Stridsvagn 122B Evolution.
 

Re-posting from otvaga.
 

 
 

Side note, but does anyone else get the impression that future APS systems are rapidly going to develop into layered systems in pretty much the same way that CWIS systems did?
 
So you'll end up with one or two radars, an electro-optical system, short and long-ranged interceptors, decoy/chaff/smoke etc, but all miniature?

These are the magazines of the same author - Vladimir Kamzolov. The first one has a plastic case, and the second one is made of steel.
They are from the same project "Poplin"(1971), and have the same index - "M100" (100 rounds 5.45x39). 
On the RPK-16, this magazine is installed to draw attention to modern developments in this direction.
 
And a little more history:

Dassault-117 Concept.
 

I'm stuck working, but Merry Christmas to all.   May your day be non-stressful and your family be at least entertainingly crazy.  I hope we can all overindulge in good food of your choice.  (Roast Striploin on the menu for us.)