Molota_477

Here are some images and diagrams  that show the elevation mechanishm. The main components are located underneat the main gun in front of the breech block. I tried to be as generic as possible  without compromising the actual shape of the mechanism as much as possible.  Froggy and DarkLabor helped quite a bit with images and some general information.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

For the mean time:
 
 
Updated Special Armor Locations:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Fuel Tank Locations:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Main Gun Ammunition Locations:
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Crew Locations:
 
 
 
 
 
 
Armament Locations:
 
 
 
 
 
Powerpack Location:
 
 
 
 
 
 

The HL-70 CIV, HL-60 GPS and periscopes (bright green):
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Gun elevation mechanism (blue) and turret traverse mechanism (salmon):
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

i am really exhausted
my feet are killin me
first i will try google pics
if it doesnt i have to upload them to imgur
feel free to share them(except for tanknet.forum! F.U. tanknet!)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/hSSBM66MUsiYTteC8

Yes, this piece gave me trouble and I had reservations of this being part of the fuel tank system because of the awkward location and shape. Taking a closer look of the image of the frunt hull special armor bay I have come to the conclusion that this colume is most likely taken up by the the special armor array. Like this update:
 
 
 
This seems to be a far cleaner solution and simplifies the design. 4-5 liters of fuel would not be worth the hassle of putting a "mini" fuel tank in that location:
 
 
 
This is a far cleaner and simpler design solution. Thank you for the feedback !

wednesday i will be there and see by myself

Your ability to see equipment that tanks don't have is strange. Maybe you can see ghosts of dead people or tanks from the future?
 
 
 
   Here is a list:
 
   So over a 1000 of those 3500 tanks are "modern", with bulk of them being given to units in Western/S-W part of Russia. Also, there are more T-90As or T-72B3 UBKhs than Challengers 2, kek.

No idea where this rumormonger came from, obvious full of nonsense, nothing is true in fact.
What he said such as the magic ceramic/composite applique armor tiles on 99 and 96 which is a 10+ years old rumor widely spreaded in Chinese forums and other internet platform..

mk4 turret front plates?

Was posted on otvaga, saving here.

Armour dimensions of the M1A1 in the American Heritage museum (made by a friend):
Hull: 24" or 609.6mm to weldline, rumoured 4" plate behind that (101.6mm)
(Quoting friend)
Seems like there's some empty space there, or he could've missed something, but he agreed that LOS thickness was ~732mm.
 
Turret cheek loader: 29" or 736.6mm perpendicular
From front face to loader's hatch on outside: 78" (he had to hook the tape over, so -3" on the pic you see)  and from loader's hatch on inside to armour = 41", so turret cheek armour from front = 37" or 939.8mm.
 
Turret cheek gunner: 29" or 736.6mm perpendicular, less angled than loader's side, no measurement to commander's hatch and inside to get overal thickness but we assumed  same inner plate thickness.
(maybe the GPS wouldn't be able to fit if it was bigger?)
 
So, hull of M1 (1980) was same thickness and turret most likely the same too (732mm LOS), so how come they gave turret higher protection values than hull?
Seems a bit odd, CIA gave turret 400mm KE (on a turret variant, we don't know which) and 750mm CE, but hull generally gets values of 350mm KE and 750mm CE.....

In any case, reference threat for XM-1 (FSED I think) was XM579E1 (simulating 115mm APFSDS):
Penetration was estimated at 161mm @60° and 1470m/s (either PB or 500m ish).
UK estimated XM-1 at 320-340mm, which coincides with the 115mm at 800-1200m requirement:
As previously pointed out in this thread.
This doesn't talk about the XM-1s before the FSED it seems (why would they talk about an outdated design?).
 
So either CIA was talking about IPM1 turret ("long turret") or they somehow increased KE values for turret while keeping CE the same OR CIA was overestimating own armour?....
 
Anyway,  BRL-1 or early versions of Chobham don't seem to be very good against KE relatively speaking, NERA part itself seems to do very little for KE, simulated ammo (XM579E1) isn't the best against composite materials or complex targets.
Perhaps OG M1 only had ~350mm effective against KE on both hull and turret and IPM1 increased this to 400 or slightly higher, but I don't think that increasing the thickness of the turret with more NERA seems very efficient against KE.
IPM1/M1A1 probably have below 470mm against KE on turret (XM579E1), but maybe more against old slug type APFSDS and definitely less against 80s long rods.
 
This probably led to DU equipped M1s...... to compensate for relatively poor KE protection.

some more

@SH_MM If I had to guess, maybe it's kind of like why Uranium alloys won out in the US for penetrators? Abundance and ease of manufacturing. Staballoys are easier to extrude and turn on a lathe than Tungsten alloys, they can also be drawn and cold rolled with less difficulty. WC and WHAs are often both sintered into a near-net shape because of the difficulty of machining them. Comparing between Oak Ridge's guide to machining depleted uranium and Midwest Tungsten Service's machining guide for their MT series heavy alloys, with a density of 17 g/cm3, the tungsten alloy requires a higher spindle speed, a slower feed rate and a slightly shallower depth of cut on roughing. In the worst case for both metals (slowest spindle speed, slowest feed rate, shallowest cut depth), you can turn tungsten at about half the rate of Uranium on a lathe.
 
1" Uranium bar Roughing: 573 RPM, 0.012"/rev feed, 0.050" cut depth = 1.080 in3/min metal removal rate
 
1" WHA bar Roughing: 764 RPM, 0.008"/rev feed, 0.030" cut depth = 0.576 in3/min metal removal
 
WHA lets you go significantly faster than uranium on finishing however, again comparing the worst case scenarios for both metals we get
 
1" Uranium bar Finishing: 1050.423 RPM, 0.002"/rev feed, 0.002" cut depth=0.013 in3/min metal removal
 
1" WHA bar Finishing: 954.930 RPM, 0.004"/rev feed, 0.010" cut depth=0.120 in3/min metal removal
 
This is why WHA penetrators are manufactured as close to the finished shape as possible while Uranium penetrators can afford to be further off from the complete shape.
 
Tungsten Carbide is an absolute bitch to machine too, requiring specialized inserts like Polycrystalline Cubic Boron Nitride and cutting rates during roughing that approach the finishing speeds of Uranium
 
There is also another difference between the two materials that's worth noting, how they interact with the actual cutting tool. Uranium is frequently compared to austenitic steel in Oak Ridge's literature, described as being susceptible to work hardening and built up edges. Tungsten on the other hand varies between class 4 alloys which behave like a highly abrasive version of grey iron with a risk of chip hammering, to the less dense class 1 and class 2 alloys whose behavior is closer to Uranium.

AMX Leclerc Series 1 Special Armor distribution in the hull and turret (not including the spaced heavy side skirts). Once the model is complete i will use it to do some vulnerability modelling along the lines the data presented in the Swedish Tank Trial diagrams:
 

 
 
 
 
 

 
 

@SH_MM
 
Here are the pictures in question (credits goes to @Gun Ready):
 


 
I agree with MM there, the abbreviations still aren't ringing a bell, but it look a hell of a lot like stages/documents on the program.
 

AAV-P7A1 CATFAE (Catapult launched Fuel Air Explosives).  Troop carrying capabilities were exchanged for 21 fuel-air ordnance launchers for the purpose of clearing minefields and other obstacles during an amphibious assault.
 

ELC EVEN
 
There are quite a few different turret:
 
Twin 30 mm:
 
 
Smoothbore 90mm:
 
 
Recoiless 120 mm:
 
 
SS-11 and/or SS-12:
 
 
They were the entry in competition with the AMX design for the ELC project:
 
 
 

More ATMOS 2000 howitzers for Thailand, as well as Spear mortars.
 

 
 

Danish Piranha V:



 

Stefan Kotsch has published the following excerpts from East-German documents regarding the reliability of the T-72 on Tank-Net.
 


 

Here comes more T-64 stuff. Seems the Kharkov factory, 1972. 
I don't own any of this material. Enjoy.
 

 
 
 
 
 

KMW has research different types of special armor for a while, but they have not developed their own solutions and never fielded anything, because that would require a lot of ressources that the company is not interested in investing. Given that Germany (and LEOBEN) are deciding what will be adopted to the Leopard 2, there wasn't much of a incentive to develop optional armor modules; before the Leopard 2 PSO, all Leopard 2 users just bought variants of the Leopard 2 developed for Germany and nobody bothered to purchase different armor kits. KMW seems to have(nearly) shut down all research at some point of time, resulting in a loss of experienced personnel. Dr. Gerd Keller, who funded GEKE Schutztechnik, worked for some time for Krauss-Maffei.
 
The Leopard 2 PSO armor package might be an own development by KMW, but I couldn't find any source to confirm this. It was developed as a private venture (thus Germany didn't dictate what parts to use), but at the first few times the Leopard 2 PSO prototype was showcased, the armor modules were just mock-ups.
 
KMW as a system integrator is not capable nor interested in developing every company on its own. Last year they invited more than 200 representatives from other companies (i.e. companies like Tencate, IBD, etc., which develop special armor) to discuss possible ways to reach STANAG 4569 level 6 armor protection and solutions against RPGs and IEDs.
 
I am not the one "hotly favouring" any company, you exclaimed that the fact that KMW would provide its own special armor modules to certain tanks, this would mean the end to armor modules from other manufacturers. That is however not true.
 
 
Sorry, but this protection isn't really special armor. The modules are designed and made by KMW, but they are hollow and meant to be filled with Schüttgut (bulk material like sand or gravel). The corrugated exterior shape is the result of KMW trying to keep the steel shell as light-weight as possible, while providing enough structural strength to support the weight of the Schüttgut. KMW did not patent any sort of filling material and the design is optimized for low costs, so it seems to be just a fancy kind of modern sandbag armor (unless KMW buys filling material such as SAAB's soft armor from other companies).


 
The whole armor design is explained in the patent DE102016111285A1 "Panzerungselement zur Anordnung an einem Fahrzeug". This armor isn't optimized for protection against shaped charges, but (EFP-)IEDs. For protection against kinetic energy (medium caliber rounds, artillery fragments), Denmark has chosen to adopt another armor layer made by Scanfiber Composites A/S.  Germany - demanding protection against RPGs - is using IBD Deisenroth's AMAP for the Bergepanzer 3 Büffel, while the AEV Dachs wasn't fitted with any add-on armor due to other vehicles being used in Afghanistan.
 
 
The Leopard 2A4M CAN uses the armor kit developed for the Leopard 2 PSO and also been offered for the Leopard 2A7. The original Panzerschnellbrücke 2 prototypes kept the original hull armor of the Leopard 2A4 with C-technology or with D-technology (depending on prototype), but to deal with the increased weight of the Leopard 2A7(V), the latest prototypes have been based on the Leopard 2A4M CAN hull. This variant has an upgraded suspension and thus can deal with a larger weight. The add-on armor is identical to the Leopard 2A4M CAN's, but the last skirt armor module was removed to save weight. The series production model might loose the add-on armor modules.

Concept of 40-ton tank was also mentioned there http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a358002.pdf (proceedings of 1998 Combat Vehicles Conference) on some pages starting from 46th (accoring to a pdf viewer page counter)
https://imgur.com/a/IOJcNHT
 
This conncept without a doubt appeared on pages of magazines of that time too, though a lot of those of those are not available on the internet now, like Jane's IDR for example. I mean - this russian article on wartank.narod.ru was taken from Zarubezhnoye Voennoye Obozreniye (Foreign Military Review) magazine, 1998-12. And there were articles in polish magazines like Raport WTO and Wojskowy Przeglad Techniczny i Logistyczny which talked about this this concept or at least printed pictures of similar vehicles