TokyoMorose

1 hour ago, Serge said:

Yes. And they will carry 85% of the infantry. The 15% left will follow running. 

Nah, they'll be in the FV432.

1 hour ago, Serge said:

The Jaguar is a specific design with very French inputs.

-1 : French cavalry considered video sighting is not mature enough. So, optical backup sight was asked for both the gunner and the tank commander. 
-2 : the DGA procurement agency introduced special requirements. The most noticeable one is the bubble like driver hatch. At the beginning, the driver hatch was supposed to be a Leclerc MBT one. But DGA asked a 10RC one. They think it’s safer when driving opened hatch. This choice is the worst because of its complex impact on armor. 

How could it possibly be 'safer'?

2 hours ago, Beer said:

I wonder why modern military vehicles tend to have so unnecessarily complicated shapes of everything. To me it just feels very wrong and inefficient design. 

The Jaguar was not designed for maximum efficiency - it was designed to strike a balance between capability and low cost. There are several subsystems and design features that were chosen specifically for cost and logistics/maintenance reasons.

3 hours ago, SH_MM said:

 

Negative. The DEF STAN 95-25 is the successor the IT90G standard used for the Chieftain base turret and hull. DEF STAN 95-26 was first issued in 1997, i.e. a long time after Stillbrew and Challenger 1. RARDE 823 was issued in 1985, after Challenger 1 production. The table apparently lists only excerpts from DEF STAN 95-25 and DEF STAN 95-26. DEF STAN 95-24 has multiple classes of armor steel defined (depending on thickness and application) - I'd assume that this is also the case with DEF STAN 95-25 and 95-26. The German TL 2350-0002 for cast armor steel also defines multiple "grade classes" for the steel.

You can find 95-25 and 95-26 publicly available. It does not specify multiple grades in terms of any physical, ballistic, or chemical properties. The specs listed in that image are the sole acceptable bounds.

7 hours ago, Zadlo said:

 

Meanwhile cast steel used in Challenger 2 (made according to DEFSTAN 95-25) is a lower quality than the one used in Stillbrew Chieftain and possibly Challenger 1 too (made according to RARDE 823 aka DEFSTAN 95-26).

 

Compare with data from http://btvt.info/5library/vtp_1953_bronja_m26_m46.htm - in particular this chart.

DEF STAN 95-25 grade castings have hardly changed material formulation and quality from WW2 era US castings. Which the Soviets lambast heavily in that piece.

2 hours ago, Zadlo said:

 

Meanwhile cast steel used in Challenger 2 (made according to DEFSTAN 95-25) is a lower quality than the one used in Stillbrew Chieftain and possibly Challenger 1 too (made according to RARDE 823 aka DEFSTAN 95-26).

The quality for DEFSTAN 95-25 CHA is really impressively poor, it's on par with that used for making the pattons.

11 hours ago, TINDALOS said:

also it has an electromechanical stablizer similar to 2E58, while ZTZ-99A still uses a hydroelectrical stablizer

Getting rid of hydraulics is nice, and a certain safety feature. But it doesn't necessarily imply better performance - the very hydraulic stabilizer of the M1A2 was consistently called out for praise as the best stabilizer in the Greek trials (the electric system on Leo 2 improved being #2 ahead of the electric systems on LeClerc and CR2).

4 hours ago, Serge said:

I found this :

I just cannot get over how the Redback has that large, and totally unprotected and un-cooled exhaust right up front.

6 hours ago, Lord_James said:

There were quite a few projects at the end of the Cold War for autoloading SPG’s, but a lot of them were cancelled. Same for 5+ inch guns. Now, about 30 years later, the exact same weapons and features are being trialed (autoloading artillery, 130 or 140mm guns, active protection, reduced crew/crew less vehicles, etc.)... huh, really makes you think. 

Well sure, the magical funtimes of the 90s when they can cancel everything everywhere because we've reached the end of history and major war will never happen again (right, Fukuyama?) were never going to last and a lot of people active then were furious at the peace dividend, but politicos and a good chunk of brass were confident that their late 80s hardware would be all that would be needed for the foreseeable future. Heck, some western armies went as far as doing things like outright shutting down their armored units due to a lack of possible use (in the view of the time.)

That said, pour one out for the XM2001. Wouldn't need to be bothering with this XM1299 work, and the LV-100-5 would have made it into production for the never-ending Abrams family.

6 hours ago, 2805662 said:

No surprises on AJAX. As they say; “but wait! there’s more!

 

https://twitter.com/ftusa284/status/1397158253692432393?s=21

What a trainwreck, WCSP dead and now quite possibly Ajax dead. This is some brilliant procurement.

It should be noted, the US *has* exported DU rounds in the past - even some 829A3s were exported.

The lack of DU exports and the existence of the KE-W line seems to be reluctance from the importing nation, not a fundamental refusal to sell DU rounds to close allies.

On 4/26/2021 at 12:28 PM, Beer said:

Correct me if I am wrong but wasn't the only major thing taken from the T-43 to the T-34/85 the turret and even that one with different gun? I mean the torsion bar suspension, the new gearbox, removal of bow-gunner/radio operator, different fuel tanks and other new features never migrated to the T-34 and thus claiming that T-43 evolved into T-34/85 seems to me to be a bit over the top. 

On 4/26/2021 at 2:16 PM, LoooSeR said:

   T-43 turret was chosen just because it had space and was ~ready for production. There is nothing more in this story, really.

It would be remiss to not note that the T-43 turret wasn't even new! It was a mild reworking of the T-34M turret developed by Kharkovites before the war started.

9 hours ago, delete013 said:

Sure, they did also damage, just not likely so much. The "projectile" category alone would be dubious but not if there is a separate category of hand held AT weapons!

 

Not the most convincing AT asset. It is clear that tigers and perhaps those stugs had by far the best chances of destroying armour. From Strausberg, tigers had a nice view of the area. The type of tanks was made for such dueling.

Gee it's awfully funny that all of the personal combat logs whine about panzerfausts, and German records recall there being literally hundreds of them in the AO - but the fact that they didn't report the losses as being to them must mean it never happened. And yes, the losses to fausts were so low that the Soviets didn't improvise bedspring armor in a desperate attempt to do something against them, and that the soviets most certainly didn't bother capturing and reverse engineering them. Not at all. I think it is far more likely someone on the soviet side simply messed up (records are hardly faultless on any side!) with recording the losses rather than all of the combat logs being wrong and the hundreds of panzerfausts in the area apparently doing absolutely nothing despite being in a perfect situation.

And yes, Norge's *nominal* AT assets are quite sad. But given the condition of the battlefield I would bet money at least some bigger AT guns were attached to them ad-hoc from other battered units. Nobody records every ad-hoc attachment, look at the utter mess of ad-hoc formations during Bagration and Zitadelle - these are well known to exist but their exact composition is never going to be fully known.

On 4/23/2021 at 9:00 AM, delete013 said:

Which one?

 

I didn't! 503 admits to the loss. This is just another indicator that tigers were there.

 

There weren't any other AT guns in the area beside 9 tigers and 5 stugs! 

 

They didn't inflict all the losses of Hgr. Weichsel, but lions share. With Stugs, they were the only AT cannon-equipped unit in the area. There was nobody else to do that job there.

 

Soviets had several failed attacks, not just recce attempt. tankarchives is wrong here and critical mass provides overview based on combat reports.

 

Because of tremendous concentration of forces were Sovietstl delayed only for a few days. One doesn't need three days to get from Grünow to Berlin. Soviets had 120 IS-2 before Strausberg! Plus T-34 and assault guns.

 

Come on lads, I'm repeating myself.

See, I get the feeling that just like Critical Mass - you only read bits and pieces.

If you read the whole comment chain, there were other units that likely had AT guns attached - in particular the Norge PanzerGren regiment. Which does have organic AT in their TO&E, and probably had supplementary AT attached (largely because as the German army slowly disintegrated, attaching stragglers from wiped out units to surviving ones was extremely common.)

Also I highly doubt that with over 600 panzerfaust in the area, that they did little damage. Soviets spend time whining about panzerfausts, and we know from German records that about 1,300-,1400 men armed with at least 600 panzerfausts were in the area. The whole crux of the argument rests on the soviets saying "projectile impact" - but who is to say the local Soviet commander didn't count Panzerfausts as projectiles? They certainly are projectiles.

15 hours ago, delete013 said:

Full capacity of the production model was 84. Without rear turret stock, 68. Plus what they can store elsewhere. Plus what others can give him. Better go back to sleep.

 

Considering the treat, they likely put more AP shells that HE. But unless we have some testimony, I can't say for sure.

 

The report doesn't say that there were no other causes. But enough to get mentioned. Smth which very likely happened considering the availability and reliance of WAllies on artillery. This artillery was mostly indirect l that rarely hit the vehicle directly. Hence, k.o. is a matter of interpretation. Mobility kill, I guess.

Almost all failed German armoured attacks that Americans casually attribute to their skill and tanks were stopped this way. With many many many artillery shells (or by CAS). This usually had two important effects, destruction or retreat of German infantry and damaging of tanks. After the artillery finished, US tanks and infantry shot up what was left on the field. This includes a lot of immobilised and abandoned vehicles then appearing as kill claims, which is understandable. The only direct fire unit that likely did destroy many manned German tanks were TDs, because they were a dedicated defensive weapon with a single task of waiting in the back for panzer breakthroughs and placed on potential venues of attacks.

For one the turret stock is 22 - which both the official documents and captured examples show, 2 racks of 11. Furthermore, while the official claim was 86 (where in gods' name did you get 84?) rounds stowed - examination of actual, captured field issue tanks shows that the standard fitting was in fact 70. It would seem that not all of the official racks were actually issued, probably for ergonomic reasons. And yes, I will happily take what was found issued in tanks over what they say they will have issued any day.

15 hours ago, delete013 said:

Considering the treat, they likely put more AP shells that HE. But unless we have some testimony, I can't say for sure.

TO&E doesn't magically change based on short-notice intel, and the German intelligence apparatus was notoriously insufficient in any case. How would this German unit *know* they were about to get slammed by nothing but armor and not some other mix of forces, and thus load only AP?

15 hours ago, delete013 said:

The report doesn't say that there were no other causes. But enough to get mentioned. Smth which very likely happened considering the availability and reliance of WAllies on artillery. This artillery was mostly indirect l that rarely hit the vehicle directly. Hence, k.o. is a matter of interpretation. Mobility kill, I guess.

Almost all failed German armoured attacks that Americans casually attribute to their skill and tanks were stopped this way. With many many many artillery shells (or by CAS). This usually had two important effects, destruction or retreat of German infantry and damaging of tanks. After the artillery finished, US tanks and infantry shot up what was left on the field. This includes a lot of immobilised and abandoned vehicles then appearing as kill claims, which is understandable. The only direct fire unit that likely did destroy many manned German tanks were TDs, because they were a dedicated defensive weapon with a single task of waiting in the back for panzer breakthroughs and placed on potential venues of attacks.

How do you propose that the artillery managed to penetrate the drive sprocket covering the final drive housing and the final drive housing itself without also penetrating the sides of the tank and causing more direct issues? The total LOS thickness on the sides to strike the final drives is roughly 40mm thick give or take a few mm. And from the front, it'd have to penetrate both the track and the housing for a pretty similar LoS.

You also seem, in your wanking of frontal armor here, to wantonly ignore Hoak directly whining in the report that the armor was frequently penetrated by anti-tank *and* tank fire. While simultaneously 100% trusting him that it was totally the arty that blew up his final drives.

10 hours ago, delete013 said:

The key to that report is that artillery can damage drive train and that recovery was usually impossible. Allied tanks featured similar problems if hit by artilley, only that German artillery wasn't much present in the west.

 

Or is it because Körner was in a tiger B?

I apologize for reading the Tiger B as JT (I was very, very tired) - not that the Tiger B was known for having really any better mobility. And if he, good boy that he is, was following orders by this point in the war - his Tiger B wouldn't be carrying much more ammo than a JT. With the turret stowage verboten, he gets only 48 rounds per tank.

And since this is a *tank* unit and not a *TD* unit, it means that a good chunk of his ammo is gonna be HE which is not going to do much to the IS-2s frontally to say the least. And even with 48 rounds of AP, with every shot a killing hit, *you still don't have enough ammo for all of the kills he claimed*. This is far and away the logically hardest argument in favor of him talking shit - it is physically impossible for them to have knocked out more tanks than they had ammo for.

And yes, Artillery can cause immense problems - often of the 'oh god the front plate caved in' sort the ML-20 was famous for. But you'll note he didn't claim artillery knocked out the tanks, just that somehow it only broke track links and final drives. Track links are somewhat understandable as pressure and shrapnel from near bursts can blow off links - but the final drive is such a tiny target that is covered from most angles that nobody else in the war recalls final drives being destroyed by arty to be an issue. You don't even see other Panther/JgPanther units trying to blame arty for their final drives exploding.

22 hours ago, delete013 said:

It is even stated! Perhaps not all but clearly enough to be exposed as a reason. Why would he lie?

Because, as I stated in my sarcastic suuuure line, the final drive is a very small target (and it's only exposed from some angles!). You'll note other armies have a conspicuous lack of 'oops all our final drives were hit by arty what a shame'. So either the man is bullshitting as to why the final drives broke, or the allies are actually putting their very best marksmen on artillery teams - with strict orders to aim only for final drives.

It's rather comparable to exclaiming that the enemy was scoring nothing but headshots on your infantry.

20 hours ago, Beer said:

 

This is also humble Nazi reporting... On 29th April 1945 Karl Körner from SS S.Pz.Abt 503 was awarded a Knight's cross for destruction of over 100 tanks in the past week including an encounter in which he claimed destruction of 39 tanks in  matter of several minutes (that was supposed to be part of an encounter in which his platoon of three Königstigers allegedly destroyed 11 IS-2 and 120-150 T-34 at once, i.e. roughly 3 brigades destroyed with 3 tanks). 

 

Not John Rambo, not even Topper Harley could do this. With all seriousness the only person ever walking this Earth capable of something like that is Chuck Norris and he's the only one.

You'd think the Germans would realize that it's a wee bit unlikely that Karl and Ko destroyed *more tanks than they carried ammo combined*. Seriously, each JT carries 40 rounds at 100% stowage. Where did the ~30 extra kills come from, repeatedly limping into them with the JT's famous agility?

19 hours ago, delete013 said:

I also think these numbers are extreme. I'm not sure historians are clear on what happened there. To my info Körner encountered dozens of tanks rearming and refueling in a counter attack. There he could have begged many. I would never choose such unclear case to prove some point.

Thankfully, we have the soviet combat logs - Körner was ran over in a few hours, and they don't even bother to record meeting the vehicles in their logs. They spend more time whining about Panzerfausts.

https://www.tankarchives.ca/2014/05/cheating-at-statistics-7-korner-conjurer.html

11 hours ago, Ramlaen said:

https://breakingdefense.com/2021/04/omfv-why-small-biz-mettleops-has-a-shot/

My reply in that interview would be a very dry and sarcastic - "Well BAE thinks a warmed over bradley is good enough, how could we possibly not at least match that?".

13 hours ago, BaronTibere said:

 

I don't know if 5mm of extra bore and steel can make up for all this extra volume (excuse the use of steel beasts):

 

  Hide contents

 

 

 

 

 

See, I have never understood why spool sabots weren't cast (metal) / molded (for a resin sabot) with an internal hollow. APFSDS rounds are quite pricey things, and you would think that the extra cost of making them hollow wouldn't be much compared to the weight savings. In ballistics, much like rocketry, every gram counts.

And for reference, here is Noak's commentary from the later period. Final drive and track failures come back with a vengeance (yes, I'm suuure all of your final drives, the tiny targets that they are were miraculously hit by enemy artillery and that is why they failed).

3 hours ago, Beer said:

Does anyone have Panzer Tracts No.9-3? This is alleged quote from there. It would be good know more info especially when that report was created.

 

 

Why yes, I do. Lets open it up. Nothing to suggest the incident in October 28th was anything but an above-average batch. Final drive complaints come back when fighting with the 654th picks back up in November.

10 hours ago, BaronTibere said:

Weren't the old soviet sabots also much smaller because the use of steel for the projectile didn't require nearly as many teeth/groves between the sabot and perpetrator? Seems like a totally irrelevant comparison.

Yes, the old ring sabots were a lot smaller due to material choices for the penetrator and the use of full bore fins, but on the contrary they were made usually of mild steel - an extremely weight-inefficient material, and they had to cover a wider bore (so wider if not as long).

I would think that the use of mild steel and a wider sabot would more than make up for the sabot length difference, given the strength/weight ratio of laid-up composites versus mild steel.

3 hours ago, TWMSR said:

Bore size plays it's role, but double-ramp sabots, developed for high elongation penetrators, needs to be long to properly support the rod during firing. Sabot design is not all about reduction of parasitic mass, it should be light enough, but it has other important tasks. Old Soviet 125 mm metal sabots got it's merits, but using ring sabots and full-bore fins and low elongation penetrators today might be considered as suboptimal.

 

Changing sabot material, as in case of M829A1>M829A2, is one way to go (btw. where did you find information that sabot of M829A3 is 30% lighter than one of shorter's M829A2). The other is novel sabot design. And this is the way that Rheinmetall is said to choose in new developments (DM 73 probably not, KE2020Neo probably yes).

Oh, I am aware of the limitations of soviet APFSDS and Sabot design - it's just that it beggars belief that ye olde soviet metal sabots had a better mass fraction despite the shorter rods and the fin situation. The Soviet ones were not made of a particularly weight-efficient material, having been primarily chosen for manufacturability and durability. I also didn't criticize the 130mm Sabot having such a high mass fraction as that thing is still in development, works at unprecedented pressures, and has a notably wider bore.

5 hours ago, SH_MM said:

The M829A3 sabot mass is 3 kilograms.

I am not sure how to square that with the numbers above from AMPTIAC given the ~4.4kg sabot mass of 829A1.

17 hours ago, TWMSR said:

Great idea It is so silly to put parasitic mass into design, why do not use zero-mass sabots instead? And why waste so much energy on muzzle blast? All energy should go into penetrator, it must be easy task.

I know all about the issues of parasitic mass and the like, 35% just seems to be a very high mass fraction for a modern 120mm (obviously, bore size plays a huge role in 'proper' sabot mass fraction) sabot made using a composite material. Old Soviet 125mm metal sabots had a *superior* mass fraction (approx 30-31%), with a wider bore requiring a larger sabot.

For what it is worth, the sabot mass fraction is ~20% of total projectile (Sabot + Rod) mass on 829A3. (Approx 2 kg sabot, calculated from the 4.4kg sabot of 829A1 plus AMPTIAC's numbers of Sabot weight savings generation over generation. 829A2 Sabot was 35% lighter than 829A1's Sabot, and 829A3's Sabot is 30% lighter than A2's.)

13 hours ago, TWMSR said:

DM 53 is 13 MJ at the muzzle - with sabot. For penetrator only it would be about 8,5 MJ at muzzle, and a bit less of impact energy at 2000 m. It seeems that Ascalon gives 10 MJ penetrator's energy (muzzle or 2000 m) from the start.

 

If the DM53 wastes 35% of its total energy on the Sabot, the ammunition team needs to be rounded up and fired.

5 hours ago, Chanou said:

They talking maybe bout the energy at impact and not during firing

That's possible, but according to Rheinmetall the Rh-M-120 L/55A1 is already a 15MJ muzzle energy gun (technically 14.95MJ, taken from the known 13MJ launch energy of DM-53 out of the L/55 and adding 15% to meet Rheinmetall's claimed 15% energy increase). You would have to lose over 15% of your muzzle energy to have a 13MJ impact energy with a 15MJ shot out of the L/55A1  - and in what circumstances is an APFSDS going to lose 15% of its energy mid flight?

I would wager they don't lose 10% of their energy mid flight (other rounds are much draggier and lose more, but energy isn't really important for non-KE rounds).