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Met749

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  1. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to Laviduce in French flair   
    Here is a diagram with the crew (blue) and special armor volumes (red) highlighted. Spaced armor (i.e. mantlet, heavy side skirts, right front hull, etc.) is not highlighted:
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
  2. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to Laviduce in French flair   
    For the mean time:
     
     
    Updated Special Armor Locations:
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Fuel Tank Locations:
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Main Gun Ammunition Locations:
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Crew Locations:
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Armament Locations:
     
     
     
     
     
    Powerpack Location:
     
     
     
     
     
     
  3. Tank You
  4. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to Timothy Yan in AFV Engines   
    The "D" version of the 150HB V12 engine of the ZTZ-99A. No, it's not a copy of MTU engine. It has a 60 deg V, 150mm cylinder and DOHC value train.
     
     

     

     

  5. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to Scav in The Leopard 2 Thread   
    ^additional information: mantlet couldn't be salvaged/saved, they're working on a new one but had a deadline, so instead they put a camo net over the mantlet to cover it up.
    This is TVM MIN as indicated by the license plate (Y 907 793)
    TVM MAX was Y 907 792:
    Y 907 794 was the last 2A4 from 8th batch.
     
    If Y 907 792 was indeed MAX (as indicated) then how come an 8th batch, modified 2A4 had B tech internal armour + D-2 add-ons as shown in the Swedish trials?
    That would mean they changed the inserts to B tech (huh, cost maybe?) when they did the conversion, or these two tanks were B tech from the start (doesn't make much sense).
    There's a third option:
    KVT (modified 5th batch), which was converted to IVT, was also "shown" to the Swedes (for the IFIS), perhaps the Leopard 2 "Improved" slide talks about that one?
    Seems a bit of a stretch.
     
    However, if the TVM indeed did use B + D-2 and was the "German solution" we see in the Swedish comparison, then the improvement in armour might just be down to the add-on and not a better internal armour.
    Turret add-on definitely changed, hull one we don't know about.
    So, turret was a rather small improvement, but hull was ~80mm on upper hull/roof (82° AoA means you'd only need an additional 11mm RHA for the add-on thickness).
     
    Did they mess up with the indicated armour, or does a B tech leopard 2 with add-on reach these numbers?
     
    As previously posted in this thread:
    28mm sandwich + 71mm air + 28mm sandwich @ 65° = ~950mm protection against CE.
    Looks quite similar to the wedges for leopard 2A5.
     
    2A5 prototypes: 1720mm-1850mm CE protection on turret from 0° front
    -950mm from wedge = 800-900mm for main turret armour
    B tech requirement: Milan 1 or 600mm+ CE (probably 650-700mm from front)
    That leaves 250-100mm which isn't explained, could be due to airgap allowing the jet to disperse more before hitting the main armour.
     
    If we assume these armour arrays (or similar ones) were used in the wedges for leopard 2A5  and that the 250-100mm discrepancy can be explained or falls within margin of error, then it does seem plausible that B + D-2 = Leopard 2 "Improved" and that 2A5 uses B tech or a modified version thereof as base armour.
     
    Only thing that isn't entirely explainable is the (massively) increased KE protection.... but then again, even small impact angle changes (yawing LRP) can have massive consequences.
  6. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to David Moyes in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Puma's powerpack:
    MTU 10V 890 (MT 892) + Renk HSWL 256
  7. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to skylancer-3441 in The Soviet Tank Thread: Transversely Mounted 1000hp Engines   
    That and Obj.199 aka nowday-BMPT both remind me of BMP-3 and earlier BMP-3 prototype - object 688, although it had one 30mm autocannon instead of two




    SHOPPED image of Obj.199 (BMPT with crew of 5) - alike vehicle created using Obj. 781 sb.7-1 and Obj.688 as "spare parts"
     
    SHOPPED image of Obj. 781 sb.8 - alike vehicle created using Obj.199 BMPT, BMP-3 w/Arena-E APS, and Obj.781 sb.8 itself as "spare parts"
     
    SHOPPED image of Obj. 781 sb.8 - alike vehicle created using Obj.199 BMPT, latest version of Obj.199 BMPT, BMP-3 w/Dragun unmanned turret and Achzarit HAPC as "spare parts"
     
  8. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to skylancer-3441 in United States Military Vehicle General: Guns, G*vins, and Gas Turbines   
    that photo and 3 more - allmost identical and made within several seconds - from twitter in its maximum size of 3 Mpix :

    and another photo of the same event made by another photograph - from some news site - in 16 Mpix

    and 2 hi-rez photos of workers in M1's hull
     
  9. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to Wiedzmin in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    so solid, much protection...lol
  10. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to LoooSeR in The Soviet Tank Thread: Transversely Mounted 1000hp Engines   
    T-34, 1941

  11. Tank You
  12. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to Ramlaen in CV-90, why so much love ?   
  13. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to LoooSeR in Jihad design bureau and their less mad opponents creations for killing each other.   
    ISIS BMPyota captured by SDF.

  14. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to SH_MM in Britons are in trouble   
    "brand new welded turret"
  15. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to Wiedzmin in DRDO; India's Porsche   
  16. Tank You
  17. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to LoooSeR in Jihad design bureau and their less mad opponents creations for killing each other.   
    Yemen - ATS-59G + D-30 = SPG

  18. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to SH_MM in Polish Armoured Vehicles   
    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.
     
  19. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to alanch90 in GLORIOUS T-14 ARMATA PICTURES.   
    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:
     
    Summary:
     
     
    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!
  20. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to Valryon in Polish Armoured Vehicles   
    First 3 Leopards 2PL delivered to Bumar Łabędy.

     
    Another pic from Tomasz Dmitruk. 

  21. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to Militarysta in The Leopard 2 Thread   
    Well sometimes knowledge in silver but shut the fuck up is pure gold. That what I think about those on AW forum.
     
    Point by point:
     
    Yes, mostly true.
    PT-91M/M1 have better vs KE armour then Leopard 2A4 and as base armour - mucht more weaker then L2A4 against HEAT. But PT-91M/M1 whit ERAWA-2 is mucht better protected then Leopard 2A4. Sad, but it's fact. But from the other hand - Leopard 2A4 outdated PT-91 in all other aspects and tank crews don't event want to lisen about T-72M1/PT-91/Pendakar tank. They just want's Leo-2.
     
     
    yes, it's true in case old 2A4.
     
    No, not true. AMAP-B is OK, "base armour" in Leopard 2A4 is shit -that's the problem.  Whole protection accoding to polish PGZ shoud be "over 2A5 level" but on test WITU dicover that is not even on this level. Rest is classify but definetly AMAP-B is not problem...in relatio to weight is very good. 
     
     
    Part of polish MoD is working on G2G whit USA about take  300-400 M1A1 and upgrade it in Lima.  Estimated cost is ~3bln $ It's forced against polish industry (PGZ want's to deal whit Germans or mod.PT-91M) or Army (they want Leopard 2 tanks). It's just slowly doing by last year - IMHO chance are 50/50 couse nobody (despite part od MoD) want's M1A1PL in Poland. 
     
     
     
  22. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to skylancer-3441 in General AFV Thread   
    so M113A3-style external fuel tanks at the back of the vehicle were not good enough for them, and also they decided against putting fuel tanks into engine compartment
     
     
    Igel (Hegehog), Panther, MMWS...
    some pics from early 2000s magazines:




  23. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to SH_MM in StuG III Thread (and also other German vehicles I guess)   
    Btw. according to Rolf Hilmes, the Swiss add-on armor developed by RUAG for the Panzer 87WE was optimized for protection against handheld anti-tank weapons such as the RPG-7 rather than against kinetic engery penetrators. For anti-KE purposes the Swiss could have adopted the Leopard 2A5 instead, as they (together with Germany and the Netherlands) funded the development of the 2A5 upgrade.
     


     
     
    Without knowing his sources, there is nothing but speculation. In general there seems to be some copying going on (different authors either use the same source or are basing their statements on other authors). Krauss-Maffei could have simply revealed at the time that the Leopard 2A4 from 1988 started to feature new and improved armor. In the end the tank was still being offered on the export market - including to the British tank program. The Leopard 2 from 1991 however entered service at a time when the Leopard 2A5 was in development and marketed to Britain and Sweden.
     
    One fact to consider is that nobody specified that only the skirts were changed - they might be the only visible change. While Lobitz book is rather detailed, he isndoesn't list all changes for each variant that are sometimes mentioned by other authors.
     
    One can argue that the fact that Lobitz doesn't mention a change in the base could imply that it wasn't changed, but that is the only argument that I've seen against the existence of a "D" technology base armor coming from you. 
    I'd consider it a fact that there is a "D" technology base armor package for multiple reasons including that the Leopard 2A5 turrets for Germany feature "D" technology base armor. The Krauss-Maffei data delivered to Sweden includes a table which by formatting implies that "D" technology base armor exists (and it also includes three different sub-variants of it, labelled "D-1", "D-2" and "D-3"). A graphic from the same documents shows a flat-sided Leopard 2 with the three dates 1979, 1988 and 1991 corresponding to the armor packages. Last but not least an armor package was offered to different operators of the Leopard 2 with "B" generation armor during the 1990s, which could stop the LKE1 APFSDS at 2,000 m, but didn't include a add-on module.
     
     
    The light skirts consists of perforated steel plates sheathed with rubber. The light skirts are ~12 mm thick.

     
    The turret applique armor kit for the Leopard 1A1A1 uses such perforated steel plates with a thickness of 5 mm, 20 mm and 25 mm. It is possible that the skirt armor consists either of one or two 5 mm perforated steel plates or there also was a 10 mm perforated steel plate.
     

     
    You can see the rubber-covered perforations at the right side of the following image.


     
    What I meant in my previous post regarding the skirts + side armor at 15° providing more protection than the frontal armor is not related to the light skirts. According to Lobitz, both heavy ballistic and light skirts are made in "D" technology for the Leopard 2A4 from 1991. This means that the frontal section of the side armor should be able to stop 120 mm APFSDS rounds with 700 mm penetration and 143 mm single shaped charge warheads with 1,000 mm penetration (1,270 mm protection during ballistic tests) along the frontal 30° arc - given that the frontal turret armor of a Leopard 2A4 with "C" technology armor array is supposedly equivalent to only 500-550 mm steel vs KE (based on the Swedish leaks) and 420 mm steel along the frontal 60° arc. There would be quite a disbalance in armor protection, given that the Leopard 2's hull (and apparently most hulls) aren't designed with the same protected frontal arc as the turret!
  24. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to Zadlo in Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) and Euro Main Battle Tank (EMBT)   
    Oh, and this is finally the heavy version from Rheinmetall
     

  25. Tank You
    Met749 reacted to skylancer-3441 in United States Military Vehicle General: Guns, G*vins, and Gas Turbines   
    from this article and comment section https://fromtheswedisharchives.wordpress.com/2018/10/16/the-american-s-tank/ 
    so - I guess, that means 14 concepts, with 8 of them posted so far

    ....Including a couple of infantry carrying vehicles - Heavy IFV with tank-like protection, and another vehicle with remote-controlled turret (and machineguns) and protection against radiation
     
    https://fromtheswedisharchives.wordpress.com/2018/11/07/us-afv-concepts-no-5/


     

    https://fromtheswedisharchives.wordpress.com/2018/11/17/us-afv-concepts-no-8-armored-infantry-carrier/



    ...
    and another proposal, which reminds me of Soviet (Chelyabinsk) BMPT prototypes from late 80s - same idea of providing something better than port hole for every dismount, coupled with doctrine which demands to distmount as little as possible, coupled with reducing number of dismounts to 4-5.
    https://fromtheswedisharchives.wordpress.com/2018/11/19/us-afv-concepts-no-9-armored-combat-carrier/
     

     
    and another proposal - lightly armored this time
    https://fromtheswedisharchives.wordpress.com/2018/11/22/us-afv-concepts-no-10-infantry-carrier-low-profile/


     
     
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