SH_MM

Some more IDEX 2017 photos from twitter: BTR-4E K21: K9 Thunder: Leclerc:

IDEX 2017 PMMC G5 from FFG fitted with remotely controlled turret (looks like the Samson Mk II RWS, but there is a sticker from Dynamit Nobel Defence at the side?) New UGV from Rheinmetall:

http://www.monch.com/mpg/news/14-land/837-idex-zf2.html I just think the photos look nice.

More from IDEX:

I have seen two documents with Dutch authors on the topic; one is published by two authors from the TNO Prins Maurits Laboratory and Royal Netherlands Army National Supply Agency. I cannot find the second document atm., but I think it was also from the TNO. The ballsitic testing was done with scale APFSDS penetrators in the Netherlands, testing of full scale APFSDS was done in cooperation with W. Odermatt in Thun (Switzerland).

This is my blog. I don't know if you got confused by the placement of the photo showing the T-72B's armor array, but the text is not related to the T-72B. The way Mr. Hilmes describes the development of bulging plates armor (sandwich plate NERA) is essentially that people took conventional multi-layered spaced armor, vulancized rubber at the back and added thin steel plates to it. This might be how the first types of NERA were developed in Germany. According too him, the T-72M1M/T-72B's turret armor, the armor essentially acts like spaced armor against APFSDS ammunition and provides no gain in effective protection, no type of similar looking bulging plates armor is supposed to provide enhanced protection against KE. The statement from the blog was focused on thicker armor components mounted in front of the general NERA arrays that seem to be part of any modern tank. I mentioned the Leopard 2A5 and the Kontakt-5/Relikt ERA of Soviet/Russian tanks as example. The wedge-shaped armor of the Leopard 2A5 for example consists of two to three (depending on location) rather thick (~70 mm) sandwich plates, which supposedly are made of high-hardness steel. Similar NERA sandwiches have been tested in Germany and the Netherlands against APFSDS and shaped charge warheads with great effect. (This is what a NERA sandwich with two 16 mm HHS plates does to a L/D 20 tungsten rod). The Soviet Kontakt-5 ERA has an areal density of 500 to 550 kg/m², which equals roughly 60 to 70 mm steel per m², or slightly more steel than two of the NERA sandwiches of the T-72B's turret when seeing the armor array directly from the front. The explosive filler leads to a much greater plate bulging/movement than on the T-72B, making it even more effective. The values were for shaped charges, not for APFSDS rounds. AMAP-B can have a mass efficiency of 5 against kinetic energy projectiles, but only against bullets. The effiency against large calibre penetrators has to be much lower, otherwise a modern day Leopard 1 would be immune to most 120 mm rounds. Can you please explain this a bit more? According to R. Lindström, the T-80U send to the Swedish tests had essentially the same armor, just slightly different thickness.

Source? Because he says pretty much directly the opposite about the T-72B's (T-72M1M's) armor in his book "Kampfpanzer heute und morgen: Konzepte - Systeme - Technologien", page 382.

That sounds pretty reasonable. I wouldn't be surprised if the same "glass/ceramics are super" myth has repeated itself with other technologies (I am looking at you, heavy metal alloys in armor!).

Toxn, I think you are making a wrong conclusion. While glass can have a very high thickness and mass efficiency in laboratory testing, it won't have such an efficiency in actual applications. Glass is one of the weird materials (much like ceramics vs KE ammunition) that losses efficiency when sloped. You can see how the thickness efficiency of different steel-glass-steel sandwiches is influenced by the slope in "Glass Armour and Shaped Charge Jets" by Dr. Manfred Held. The most effective glass and steel sandwich plate provided a thickness efficiency of about 3 when not sloped, but sloping the armor at 60° resulted in a decrease of TE to only ~1.1. This value was however measured against "jet guns" (extremely unoptimized shaped charge warheads (e.g. something comparable to WW2 quality) at only 10 inches (254 mm) standoff distance. Based on assuming that the tested glass has the average density of standard civilian glass, this would result in a mass efficiency of up to 5.47 when not sloped, but only 2.0 when sloped at 60°. The biggest issue with such experiments and laboratory testing is however that the TE and ME are always exaggerated as a result of the test setup. An nice example is the different glass armor tested by Dr. Held against a 115 mm Milan K (Milan-2) warhead with a standoff distance of 345 mm. The reference plate was spaced 16 calibres (1840 mm !) away from the the glass armor module, in order to allow making high-speed radigraphic photos of the distrubed shaped charge jet. The huge distance between armor module and reference plate affects the TE and ME drastically, as the disturbed shaped charge jet losses much more penetration power than in a regular armor layout. This can be somewhat seen in another test by Dr. Held, where "conventional" NERA consisting of a 2 mm steel plate, a 20 mm Dyneema plate, and a 4 mm steel plate were used as NERA sandwich against a Milan K warhead. The warhead was placed 350 mm in front of the armor, which was sloped at 60°. The distance to the reference target was 1700 mm. This armor reduced the penetration of the 115 mm shaped charge by 400 mm, i.e. the thickness efficiency (not accounting the empty space) would be 7.7! Given that the Dyneema has an extremely low areal density (21 kg/m²) the ME would be 23.4! This is an incredible level of protection per weight, but cannot be achieved on actual tanks, due to the limitations to the armor volume and the need of layering the armor. Glass armor and ceramics have a very different defeat mechanism. Glass has a bulging effect (a result from glass locally changing it's density during penetration), thus can be used as an interlayer material for NERA. Ceramic armor on the other hand does not have such a behaviour, Chinese tests of aluminium oxide against shaped charges show a TE of ~1.0-1.1 and a ME of ~2.2-2.3.

Panther is not the only tank taller than (or as tall as) a Tiger though

There are multiple different sources. Nii Stali used to host a general description of armor technology on their old website (before they redesigned it), afaik the T-80U's armor array was claimed to provide 30 to 40% better protection against shaped charges than conventional steel armor. This is the whole (composite) armor array, including the steel parts. It is not sure if this also includes the cast turret structure or only the inserts. The same value was used to describe the effectiveness the bulging plates armor of the T-72B turret. According to unconfirmed forum posts, there was a study after the Cold War in Germany, which showed that such armor (ploymer filled cells) might be able to reach a mass efficiency of up to 5 vs shaped charges. However I was not able to find any source for these posts. A Chinese study on composite armor using a sinlge liquid-filled cell was published in the 28th International Symposium on Ballistics (2014). This study tested different liquids (water and five different types of polyether polyol) as part of a five layer armor array (steel - aluminium - liquid - aluminium - steel) against a 56 mm shaped charge. The results show a mass efficiency of up to 2.25 against shaped charges. A multi-layered array using specially developed liquids might reach the mass efficiency of 5 mentioned earlier. https://books.google.de/books?id=Gm-6BAAAQBAJ

Maybe it's an estimation error - 50 mm protection difference is not really much. But it also might have another reason. The quote from the US document says that "one version of the M1 turret armor is rated as [...] 400mm RHA against kinetic energy munitions." It is not specified which part of the turret armor has this level of protection: is it the frontal armor, when directly hit from the front? Is it the side armor when hit at 30° impact angle (so worst case in the frontal ±30° arc)? Is it the turret armor hit from ~20°, so that the horizontal slope is nullified? Which line equals the 400/750 mm RHA equivalent protection? Red, blue, green, yellow? Which line is used by Rheinmetall (or their German sources) for armor estimations? The Rheinmetall-made graph also shows no information of what part of the tank has the estimated protection level. The value for the Abrams tank might be a wrong estimation of the frontal turret armor when directly hit from the front; it might be a value for the lowest level of armor protection along the 30° arc. The value also could reflect the minimum protection when hitting the turret so that the horizontal slope is negated. Sweden at least tested the armor in such a way: In theory these estimations for armor protection might even be a composite value/average (300 mm frontal hull armor + 400 mm turret armor = ~350). It's hard to say without having a more detailed description for both sources. However what I think is well reflected in the estimated protection levels, is the relation between protection increase from M1 Abrams to M1A1 Abrams to M1A1HA/M1A2. We roughly know how thick (or thin) the added steel plates added to the M1E1 for simulating the increased armor weight are. Suggesting that the M1A1 Abrams has a protection level of ~600 mm RHA equivalent vs APFSDS doesn't make much sense, unless the weight efficiency of the armor made a giant leap. Even more so the values of the M1A2, which are based on Paul Lakowski's old Armor Basics with incredible mass efficiency and thickness efficiency (in general Steel Beasts values seem very questionable - Leopard 2A6 turret with 1380 mm vs APFSDS...). The M1A1 with T158 tracks (59.1 metric tons) is only ~ 2 tons lighter than the M1A1HA with first generation DU armor (61.2 metric tons). Two metric tons are equal to about ~254 mm RHA per square metre. Given that M1A1's turret cheeks cover an area of ~1.73 m², this means the armor weight increase is roughly equal to 147 mm RHA. So seeing the estimated protection level increase from 490 to 650 mm (+160 mm) makes some sense. It depends on how the armor exactly looks, but based on the penetration calculator from W. Odermatt's website, hardened DU (alone, no other armor elements) requires about 37 more weight for a given protection level compared to normal RHA (300 BHN). So there must be some very strong magic involved to boost the frontal turret armor to 820 mm (Steel Beasts value). The M1A2 has second generation DU armor, but armor weight stayed pretty much constant given the addition of APU, commander's sight, driver's thermal viewer, GPS system and new electronics. The SEP upgrades seem to have added more armor than the transition from M1A1HA to M1A1HA+/M1A2. This is not the case. This is a presentation from Rheinmetall, that's why it most likely doesn't include any M829 variant in the penetration graph. However Rheinmetall has mentioned in numerous other occasions, that the current APFSDS are optimized against special armor. You shouldn't read it as "can penetrate X amount of steel armor", but "can penetrate composite armor, that provides protection equal to X mm steel against conventional APFSDS ammo". According to German sources, the DM53 + L/55 can penetrate special targets that are equivalent to 1,000 mm RHA, but it cannot penetrate 1,000 mm RHA. How this armor target exactly looks is unknown, but another presentation mentions that Germany/Rheinmetall expected tanks with 1,000 mm RHA equivalent armor, consisting of ~220 mm protection provided by ERA, ~380 mm protection provided by steel and ~400 mm by ceramic and composite materials. The Danish Army has chosen DM53 over the KEW-A2 APFSDS, even though the latter is 30 mm longer and has a 30 m/s higher muzzle velocity - because the Rheinmetall APFSDS performed better against complex special armor targets. Turkey has tested the current South Korean, Israeli and German APFSDS rounds; the South Korean round performed worst, while being faster (1,750 m/s vs 1,720 m/s of DM53) or respectively shorter (750 mm vs ~700 mm M338?).

That's interessting. So the FCS of the T-72B3 can handle all known Russian 125 mm APFSDS rounds and all Soviet ones. What does this "R4/5/6/7" and "R12/13/14" mean? Are these two switches that need to be set on the corresponding value for firing? The other two images are very interesting. Where are they from and from what year are they? The blue triangles seem to indicate 120 mm APFSDS ammunition; in 1986 there is one at ~510-520 mm penetration - this might be 120 mm DM33 (if the ammo is German, which is somewhat indicated by the language). The next two APFSDS rounds are located at 600 mm penetration (1992) and 750 mm penetration (1994) - this might be DM43 and DM53 or both might correspond to one round fired from a different barrel length. The solid blue line is labeled "US-Schutz" (US protection), the solid red line is labeled "RU-Schutz" (Russian protection). If we take a look at the numbers, it appears that the German (?) estimates for US armor are much lower than the (IMO often overexaggerated) protection estimations from the internet. German (?) armor estimates vs KE: US tank pre-1980 (M60): 250 mm RHA US tank from 1980 (M1 Abrams): ~350 mm RHA equivalent US tank from 1985 (M1A1 Abrams): ~490 mm RHA equivalent US tank from 1992 (M1A2 Abrams): ~650 mm (!) RHA equivalent Soviet tank pre-1976 (T-64): 320 mm RHA equivalent Soviet tank from 1976 (T-80B?): 400 mm RHA equivalent Soviet tank from 1985 (T-72B): 520 mm RHA equivalent Soviet tank from 1987 (T-72B? T-80A/U?): 540 mm RHA equivalent Soviet/Russian tank from 1990 (T-80U with K5/T-90?): 720 mm RHA equivalent

All of the initial German Leopard 2A7 were once (Dutch) Leopard 2A4 tanks. The Leopard 2A5-2A7 tank upgrades are however a bit more time- and work-consuming, because it requires a lot more work than simply adding external armor modules. Aside of working on the torsion bars, upgrading a 2A4 to a 2A7 also includes cutting open the roof of the armor modules, replacing the armor modules, raising the EMES-15 sight and fitting an armored "doghouse" around it, removing the PERI R17A1 and replacing it with the PERI R17A3, which is moved to a different position. The new mountings for the add-on armor have to be added and the gun mantlet mounting is altered. Then a large number of internal components has to be replaced (incl. the gun) and spall liners will be installed at the interior walls. Wiedzmin from the Otvaga forums has found a document from the Leopard 2AV development on weight reductions. Accoding to this snipplet, the armor protection is designed against the Milan ATGM (600-650 mm penetration) and a 105 mm APFSDS round with 38 mm "core" (projectile most likely). No 105 mm APFSDS or APDS round with 38 mm core/projectile diameter entered service with the German Army, but there was an APFSDS round with 38 mm diameter for the 105 mm smoothbore gun of the original 10 Leopard 2 prototypes. This APFSDS round might be identical to the 120 mm DM13 APFSDS (same projectile diameter, same weight), but has a lower muzzle velocity. As there is no exact data on range and on which part of the tank is required to have this level of protection (hull front? turret front? 30° frontal arc?), this doesn't tell very much about the actual protection level.

RUAG's Leopard 2 Midlife Upgrade (MLU). An interesting fact is that RUAG (or rather GEKE Schutztechnik GmbH, which was acquired by RUAG in 2009) has delivered the mine protection kits for the Leopard 2A6M/2A7, the Marder 1A5, the Puma IFV and the Boxer. The roof armor of the PzH 2000, the Puma and Boxer is also made by RUAG/GEKE. This means that at least three companies are contracted for delivering the Puma's armor systems: RUAG for roof and mine protection, IBD Deisenroth with the passive ballistic and shaped charge protection, while the reactive HL-Schutz (formerly CLARA) armor is made by Dynamit Nobel Defence. Since 2015 an upgrade of the German Leopard 2A6M tanks to the Leopard 2A6M+ configuration is under way. The 2A6M+ designation is not official, but it is being used to distinguish non-upgraded and upgraded 2A6M tanks. The 2A6M+ upgrade includes the improved PERI R17A3 commander's sight (with third generation ATTICA thermal imager and eyesafe laser rangefinder), the SOTAS-IP communcation system (also adopted on the Puma IFV), and using the Deugra fire suppression system with the extinguishing agent DeuGen-N FE36 (the fire suppression system was originally removed on older tanks due to the Halocarbon-based extinguishing agents not meeting environmental protection standards). Furthermore new display panels are installed at the commander's and loader stations. The tank is also fitted with ultracapacitors, which deliver more energy at a faster and more stable rate. Externally the Leopard 2A6M+ can only be distinguished from the small bulge created by the ultracapacitors and the spaced armor layer above the electronic compartments (afaik the SOTAS-IP is located there). Fifty tanks will be converted from 2A6M to 2A6M+, of which 48 will be operated by the German Army. Meanwhile there are current news on the 103 Leopard 2A4 tanks, which the MoD wanted to buy in since 2015... While the upgrade of 84 Leopard 2A4 to the Leopard 2A7 configuration (or 2A7V configuration, if the development of the upgrade was finished and funding is possible) is planned for 2017, there is a major issue. The tanks are owned by the industry and no contract has been made yet! The main reason for this is Rheinmetall: the planed contract sees 1/3 of the work/money going to the company; however they want more, which KMW doesn't agree with. So KMW doesn't want any changes in the proposed contract, while Rheinmetall doesn't want to accept the current contrat. Honestly both sides have some arguments speaking for them, at least form a political and historical perspecitve. KMW was (and still is) the main contractor for the Leopard 2 tank, it consists of the two companies that developed the hull (Krauss-Maffei) and the turret (Wegmann). The Leopard 2 has been the main product of KMW for a while, now with Rheinmetall winning export contracts (Leopard 2PL, Leopard 2RI), the profits are getting smaller. Rheinmetall is a much larger company (about eight times the employees of KMW) and has bought (among many other companies) MaK, which produced 45% of all Leopard 2 tanks. In worst case this means that the Leopard 2A7 contract will be delayed so much, that the German elections in September will cause a time out (government might not want to approve it close to the elections) - depending on the outcome of the elections, it might be reduced or canceled.

I am still very sceptical about the Abrams using perforated DU armor; there is no trustworthy source. It started as a speculation (remember Chobham armor being the "honeycomb-shaped ceramic armor matrix") that has been repeated over and over again. The diagram shows that jaw can be extremely effective at reducing the penetration power of APFSDS ammunition; however sloped ERA and NERA plates also induce jaw at a penetrator, while also having other advantageous defeat mechanism. DU being used as purely passive armor type shoudln't lead to a very high mass efficiency. Which will never happen thanks to trajectory and uneven ground

Ever wondered why Rheinmetall calls the LANCE turret a modular turret system (MTS)? Here is the explanation: It's like lego, well at least sort of. That's why the Scout-SV turret is looks so different, while being based on the LANCE MTS modified by Lockheed Martin (afaik mainly allow the much different feed mechanism for the gun):

I have seen these rumors about "a DU mesh" acting like perforated armor at other places. However it was always either Wikipedia (without mentioning a source) or another website/forum quoting Wikipedia. There seems to be no reputable source describing the DU armor in the Abrams' turret as mesh or perforated plate. DU supposedly has a higher ME against shaped charges than steel (old source on tank-net, unfortunately Google blocks access due to phishing claims). I have never seen perforated armor against anything larger than HMG bullets. It works well against bullets, but longrod penetrators should behave quite a bit different than those. Probably the tip might break away when impacting a heavy metal perforated armor system, but the majority of the rod might stay intact. Furthermore I wonder if a perforated DU plate would be a feasible option in terms of protection per weight compared to a NERA-based array. The Leopard 2 is rumored to incorporate tungsten and titanium in it's armor since the 2A4 variant, while the Leclerc according to some books features a "tungsten-titanium non-explosive reactive armour system".

The British military experimented with DU as NERA material. Probably the DU armor in the US tanks follows the same design.

The EGS also had a torsion bar suspension. According to cross sectional drawings, there are two elastomer mounting elements: one around the support bearings, which connect the running gear module to the hull and one around the torsion bar, acting as air-tight seal. Unfortunately I am not sure if this is the correct translation of the German terms. Here is a image from a patent showing a vehicle with a decoupled running gear (and diesel-electic drive). The elastomer connection is marked as 10. On the drawings of the EGS suspension, there is another elastomer connection/seal at the torsion bar. I suspect the M113 might have a similar system.

The running gear (suspension, wheels, etc.) are not directly fixed to the hull (by welding/bolting) except for the part necessary for the power transmission; instead they are connected to the hull only via elastomer mounting elements. The elastomer connections can negate some of the vibrations and oscillation when moving; this leads to a slightly smother ride, but mainly reduces the generated noise; according to German studies by some 20-25 dB(A). The first German vehicle to be fitted with a decoupled running gear was the M113 driver training tanks, but only for noise reduction. On more modern vehicles such as the Puma, the choice of decoupling the running gear also has other advantages: There are no penetrations of the hull bottom and sides (except for the transmission/final drive), which greatly enhances the protection agianst mines. Furthermore on the Puma the fuel tanks are located within the decoupled running gear, so that armor penetrations won't result in burning fuel leaking into the crew compartment. BAE Systems recently presented the Bradley Next-Gen prototype, on which also all fuel was moved outside of the crew area. On modular vehicles such as the NGP and the Swedish SEP, decoupled running gears allow easier integration of modules. Edit: just to clarify, the noise is only reduced inside the vehicle.

Those drawings are an artist's impression and not related to the real Panzerkampfwagen 2000 project. It was canceled before first designs were made. The EGS and PzKW 2000 might be related, but the status of the PzKW 2000 project was a bit unclear for some time. While it wasn't part of the German Armed Forces plan (Bundeswehrplan) of 1989, which would imply that it was canceled, the project was apparently re-added to the Bundeswehrplan 1990 to 1992. Unfortunately these documents are hard to find (while some newer ones can be simply downloaded after a shorter google search)... An interessting side note of the Bundeswehrplan 1990 was the idea to replace the Marder IFV with two different non-IFV vehicles: one version armed with an autocannon (only for defence against helicopters and low-flying aircraft) that transported the infantry, while another vehicle armed with a 120 mm smoothbore would be responsible for anti-tank duty and fire support. You are speaking about reading comprehension, but end up being the one with the biggest troubles understanding the English language. NGP was not canceled, but transformed into different other programs; first all non-IFV versions were cut, then during multiple different projects the requirements were all completely transformed. The first project was called NeSPz, then it became Panther, then Igel, then Panther MMWS, SPz Panther, and finally Puma IFV. While not all nomenclature and designation changes are directly related to changes in the requirements (how could the German military dare to purchase a vehicle that bears the same name as a famous Nazi tank!), the final result of all this developments has nothing to do with the NGP. The Puma fails to satisfy any of the original NGP requirements. It is not armed with a 50 mm Rh 503 chaingun (rather a gas-operated Mauser MK-30), it has nowhere near the frontal protection and weight class of the NGP (more than 70 metric tons), it doesn't have a hardkill active protection system, it doesn't have two men crew, it carries less infantry than desired and most importantly, it is not a modular vehicle, that can be reconfigured to any specific type of combat vehicle, by swapping out a module containing the turret. This is why the Puma has nothing to do with the original NGP project. It's a single vehicle, designed for a single role. The NGP was a common family of modularily reconfigurable vehicles, not a fixed version that fails to meet any of the core requirements (aside of having a decoupled running gear). Aside of ballistic protection, a key feature tested in the EGS were stealth charactersitics of all sorts. Reducing thermal signature, reducing the radar cross section and also reducing the noise signature. That's why the engine was fitted with a muffler, similar to the one adopted on the Swiss Panzer 87 Werterhaltung upgrade. No idea on the location of the cooling vents though. A similar (or maybe even identical) muffler on the Panzer 87 (Leopard 2) after the Werterhaltung upgrade. Note that the normal air vents are still being used.

If you are to stupid to find a book, after knowing it's exact name, then I cannot help you. It's not my task to serve you anything on a silver plater; you can buy the book, ask someone who owns the book or go to a library. Meanwhile you still have failed to provide any sort of source. Suspensions means suspension, what you meant was a decoupled running gear. I already said that you have problems with terminology, just like you have a serious lack of manners or reading comprehension yourself.

Just stop trolling and move on. We got better things to do. You want pictures of me providing sources? Maybe read the replies in this topic next time... You want pictures of you claiming the EGS used a hydropneumatic suspension? Here you go, fam: (Adoption of the EGS suspension = torsion bar, which is incorret. But you have proven to have troubles with terminology already earlier.) So, now you can go and try to learn something about the topic of this discussion before starting a topic on this forum with 0 accurate informations. People might get dumber because of all this missinformation you are spreading here.

No, it is not. Modular armor existed a long time before the EGS was build, the decoupled running gear was developed by Krauss-Maffei since the 1970s. But hey, I guess it's hard to admitt one is wrong, when one does start a topic without having any sources on the matter. Btw: The EGS used torsion bars, Puma has a hydropneumatic suspension.