That_Baka

I figure this would be a good time to bring this back.
 

 
Though, I might need to go from 4 to 6 armed Shiva to add some of DRDO more recent *creations*
 
 

I'm on mobile so picture quality is garbage, but where do you see the UFP? When looking at the drawing I posted the armour is thin enough to suggest that it's solid steel. There's no way NERA thin like that is going to stop anything significant.
 
Not just defend, they aggressively attack anyone who even suggests something that isn't positive. One kept screaming and yelling even after there was picture proof to show he was wrong. He said that there was 800mm of armour behind the gunner's sight. Which means that the gunner is literally inside the commander. His solution for that? Just place the gunner next to the commander, inside the gun! ...waitwhat
 
And as proof of that he posts a render with the gunner clearly in front of the commander.
 
So if you were wondering why some Western tank 'experts' argue like shitheads, the answer is Indian forums. Or they're dipshits, that's also possible.

You can see different multiple layers around the driver's hatch, it's barely visible though. It looks to me like multiple layers but I could be wrong.

The small arms section has an SME that would make gary roberts, mike sparks, AND Tony Williams all look like Colonel motherfuckin Chinn!

So I understand Indians themselves defend this creation?
Also, you forgot my lovely Merky 4. That's the entire family of prominent models within just the lifetime of a single Arjun.
Though you gotta admit it, it's pretty advanced for a mid-70's development.

Worse than just defend, go to DefenseforumInida or other such places sometime (seriously, It's actually even WORSE than he says) and just read the blind fanaticism for the Arjun they have and how amazing it is and any other piece of fucking shit DRDO has turned out over the past few decades (INSAS, Tejas, LCH, their all of 4 ICBM submarine that's trash, etc etc etc.)

Aside from the flipflops in a tank factory, it seems that the UFP is made of some sort of multi-layer armor.
 
It looks like they took the leopard 2 design and made it worse on purpose in every aspect possible. Deleting the special armor array behind the gunners sight, having no armored ammo compartment in the turret bustle with blow-out panels, having a rifled 120mm gun, having an engine based on the leopard 1 engine and having worse turret side armor coverage.
 
The leopard 2 has it's design flaws and the Indians manged to amplify that. Kudos to them for achieving that.

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.
 
 

I spent a couple hours last night digging into these books.  The Isayev book is only 200 pages but it's really information dense.  He obviously spent a lot of time in the archives, digging up details about the size, readiness and equipment makeup of the various units involved in the battle.  The translation is decent, although every once in a while I run across a somewhat clunky sentence or phrase.  
 
I don't think I realized what I was getting into with the Zamulin book.  The first 80 pages are just on the historiography of the Battle of Kursk, that is, a description of what has been written on the battle and the flaws of those previous works.  It's some serious historian nerd type stuff. 

As I posted in the other thread, the game goes into beta this month, meaning ordering even the cheapo pack on this list will give you access
 
https://www.escapefromtarkov.com/preorder-page
 
Note the other shit from the more expensive packs is handy (I got the 75, mostly because Alpha access a few months ago and the few day head start for when the game goes gold and is live were the only shit I cared about that much.), but, while they're handy and will give you a small advantage for a bitr, if you think they're P2W or unobtainable ingame by yourself without a bit of effort, You'll be sadly mistaken the first time someone who paid alot less than your impatient ass pops you in the dome with a VSS or VAL, or the second time, or third time, or....you get the idea.
 
The Atmosphere is like if a group of Russian mad scientists (or LoooSeR clones) did horrific genetic experiments and made a monster that consisted of the DNA of DayZ, PUBG/H1Z1 KOTK with the atmosphere and some features from S.T.A.L.K,E.R. and it lived like some Slavic Frankenstein into a game, the game is ruthless as fuck and you won't survive 2 seconds playing carelessly and unplanned with your team if you have one.
 
......Does this sound like the type of game you want to play? OF COURSE IT DOES, Closed Beta time is upon us soon!
 
https://www.escapefromtarkov.com/news/id/68?lang=undefined
 
That's also a confirmed list of features coming with the beta release.

sekreit weaponez

Any of my Dutch friends would kill you where you stand if you called them a Belgian...

T-80UE1 ammo control pannel:
 

 
BM9
BM15
BM22
BM48
C1
C2
G1
B32

Isayev is great, he does a lot of video talks and lectures in addition to his written work. I don't think I've read anything by Zamulin, but he has a ton of publications under his belt.

I got a couple of review copies of some new books from Helion & Company.  Both are Russian authors translated into English.  Initial impressions are that these are both well done and serious books written by true historians.  
 

 

 
So I have a bit of reading ahead of me. 

In Georgia.

Disrupter unmanned vehicle equipped with a mini-gun. It was demonstrated at the US Army Network Integration Evaluation 16.1  in October 2015. 

I always forget just how freaking complicated Javelin is.

For those that wondered how wave shapers (like in the Panzerfaust 3) actually change the detonation wave:

 

The Armored Combat Vehicle Puma started as a privat-venture betwen Krauss-Maffei and Diehl in 1983. The two first prototypes were ready first in spring 1986 with a Kuka 20mm two men turret and second in autumn with a Diehl 120mm mortar turret. 
ACV-Puma was intented as an export armored vehicle of the 16-28 t class. 
 

 
By 1983 original concept, it was offered with two engine options (400/600hp) to cope with the level of armor protection asked.
The running gear was a mixt of both Leopard-1 and 2 components :
- Leo-1 : road wheels, track support rollers, torsion bars and even the driver's seat ;
- Leo-2 : track adjuster, cooling system components and sproket hub.
It was possible to run the engine outside of its compartment. 
 
In 1988, the concept was improved further :
- the class range reached 38t ;
- the engines offer was 440 or 750hp strong ;
- the chassis was now available in two length (5/6 road wheels) and  hight/low profil hull (20cm).

The ACV-Puma was a contender at the Norwegian IFV programme from 1991 and the Turkish 1987 relaunched TIFV programme.
Norway chose CV-90 and Turkey, the AIFV.
(If anyone have information about how it was a serious contender, I'm interested)
It was also evaluated by the Swiss army in 1991. I don't know if it took part to the Char de grenadiers 2000 programme. 
 

In 1983´s concept, the difference betwen the low profil hull and the 20cm higher hight profil hull was obtained by a "box shape vertical raised" rear compartment. With the 1988's design, the front slop is now different to achieve a better ballistic protection. 
 
When considering documentations of this period, it's important to note the mine/IED protection was not a priority like today. 
 
I'll post soon a scan showing general layout of the troop compartment. It's a Marder/BMP old fashion one with soldiers facing outside. 
 
Even if it was not a success at exportation, I think ACV-Puma must be known because of both :
- the outdated combat beliefs of the 80's (still vigourous today) ;
- and advanced proposal  such as the differential hull length from the drawing board. 
 
I have a question :
Does anyone known if a 6 road wheels chassis was ever built ?

Soviet study of U M46 tank.
Very detailed (in russian) . But general conclussion briefely -
poor tank, week protection, low mobility, big profile, bif but very uncomfortable... " seriously behind domestic tanks of the same period of time"
http://btvt.info/5library/vbtt_1953_03_m46.htm
 
 

Yes because clearly 1 random video not showing 1 particular thing about a pure export tank model = tells everything about the tech between China and the West even though it doesn't!

Sprut and BMD-4s

Jim Warford pointed out this CIA document from the Korean war over at Tank Net.  Anyone know if this is true?  It claims there were IS-3s in North Korea that were abandoned in the Pyongyang area during the war.  
 
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP82-00457R005400350002-6.pdf