The Leopard 2 Thread

[Militarysta]

29 minutes ago, Scav said:

So, the numbers and the exact position of the "kvarts" core are incorrect?

 

No, they are correct. Dimensions for 30. degree for T-72M1 are checkt in 3 diffrent blueprints - Polish, russian and one other country-manufacurer.

 

All 530-540mm LOS for 30.degre whit exatly those values.

[rob89]

1 hour ago, Scav said:

Only decent testing footage I've found:

 

Does look rather minimal, but I still don't want to be near that when it goes off, though I guess most combat clothing/vests will protect the infantry.

So, safe to say it's probably not lethal unless it hits the head/armpits with the larger fragments, but minor injuries are still very much possible it seems.

 

I'd still prefer a proper analysis, but I guess we'll have to wait for that....

 

The explosions of a HEAT against an AFV or the AFV itself are not so healthy for the nearby infantry.
Neither are the explosions of artillery sub-munitions or airburst shells.

 

AFVs in modern army are very few; their main threats is / will be in the NLOS/PGM/top attack systems.

 

I think that all the "old" conventional tactics of MBT/IFV plus dismounted infantry should be revisited in the lights of the developments of weapons systems
and, accordingly, the AFV design.

[Mighty_Zuk]

Aye. APS development should not necessitate a revision of infantry tactics at all. In fact, the thought of that alone proves a great deficiency in current tactics and thinking.

 

Statistically, an APS will actually reduce the chances of infantry casualties.

Therefore, sending troops to an area where an APS may be activated, is already a far more dangerous action than the one they're trying to prevent that would provide an alternative.

 

That's why when an IDF official finally commented on BreakingDefense about the rumor of tactics being revised to address an alleged threat to infantry, he concluded the whole story with a longer version of what could be summed up as "This is BS!". 

 

Basically, if you're sending your troops to a place where ATRs or ATGMs are abundant, the line of sight is far and wide, can be surrounded by enough enemies to be confident enough to engage with an MBT, and you are aware of it to be able to tell your grunts to keep a distance from the tank and from each other, then that's far more fucked up than the possibility of friendly fire through APS.

 

[VPZ]

About how safe Trophy is:

• Independent tests prove minimal risk to civilians, dismount troops and nearby vehicles
• Pre-defined safety zone for friendly troops on the ground can be obtained

[Andrei_bt]

7 hours ago, Militarysta said:

 

No, they are correct. Dimensions for 30. degree for T-72M1 are checkt in 3 diffrent blueprints - Polish, russian and one other country-manufacurer.

 

All 530-540mm LOS for 30.degre whit exatly those values.

 

Turret top view is incorrect.

[Wiedzmin]

16 hours ago, Scav said:

So, the numbers and the exact position of the "kvarts" core are incorrect?

nope, just art critic from ukraine have low iq and can't understand such thing as geometry(and many other things), especially considering the fact that the sections are redraw according to the real drawing

 

but if you don't belive  you can take 541mm part(section) and incline it up to 37-38 degree for example

 

 

and i posted corrected version if you didn't notice

[Zadlo]

On 12/23/2018 at 9:14 PM, Militarysta said:

And 390-400mm vs KE value is for 30 degree for longitiudal axis. So 530mm LOS. For 650-950mm it's 480-700(!)mm RHA.  Thats reson why polish PT-91 was able to windstand DM33A1 and other mucht never APFSDS during trials for Peru

They are some rumors that old PT-91 whit aditional 40mm plates windstand in 1999/2000 trials in Poland while M1 shoot 5x M829 in hull frotn :-)

 

And additionally PT-91 model tested against DM33 and M829 (and all PT-91M built for Malaysia) had a bit different special armor layers.

In place of traditional (in export T-72) two layers of STEF this PT-91 received 10 thinner layers of STEF.

[Militarysta]

And M829 was rather weak APFSDS-T.

[Ramlaen]

29 minutes ago, Militarysta said:

And M829 was rather weak APFSDS-T.

 

I always wonder about those sort of claims, where exactly would they have gotten an M829 to test.

[Militarysta]

42 minutes ago, Ramlaen said:

 

I always wonder about those sort of claims, where exactly would they have gotten an M829 to test.

 

You are writing my claim about "weak" M829 or mythical polish-US test in 1999?

 

In case some strange test - after polish join NATO in 1999 there were a lot of tests betwen RFN, GB and US and Poland -mostly in case equipment. Polish ERA vs germans Pz-3T and IT300, American MLRS + Ah-64A vs polish mod GECKO (while Victore Strike ind Drawko in 2001 polish Sa-8 anihilated whole Ah-64A regiment despite it was supported by MLRS) and other stuff.

And in case half-mythical PT-91 vs M829 - I have heard it twice from two diffrent retired polish army offciers. In they claimed PT-91 whit aditional "mobilisation" 40mm HHS plate on hull frotn + ERAWA was shoot by 5x M829 whit no penetration and 1x M829A1 whit penetrtion. Of course I han't any hard proof (in sources) so for my it's half-mythical.

BUT

Knowing what was tested in 1999-2003 in Poland after joined NATO I can belive that sucht test was really possible, couse other strange tests are confirmed in "hard" sources.

 

 

[Ramlaen]

My comment was about mythical tests, be they by Poland or India or whomever.

[Xlucine]

A 40mm plate on a T-72 hull is a significant upgrade, that's >4" LoS

[Liberator]

1 hour ago, Xlucine said:

A 40mm plate on a T-72 hull is a significant upgrade, that's >4" LoS

in theory, it gives almost as much steel as T-72B(1985-1989)

[Andrei_bt]

[Zadlo]

4 hours ago, Ramlaen said:

My comment was about mythical tests, be they by Poland or India or whomever.

 

40 mm HHS plate in PT-91M in place of standard 16 mm in T-72M1 is a Polish invention. 

[Ramlaen]

8 minutes ago, Zadlo said:

 

40 mm HHS plate in PT-91M in place of standard 16 mm in T-72M1 is a Polish invention. 

 

That isn't what is being questioned.

[Wiedzmin]

13 hours ago, Andrei_bt said:

you don't have cuts for turret, and trying to comapre later turret overall view( let me guess 077 sb ?) with my mid turret cut 073 sb ? 

 

and even here it soooo "wrong", lol

 

[Andrei_bt]

That “mid cut” of turret corresponds to overall view of turret including slope angle.

 

[Scav]

22 hours ago, Militarysta said:

And M829 was rather weak APFSDS-T.

To be fair, I think M829 seems to be often overestimated, I've seen a lot of pictures pointing out a 540mm long penetrator, but when I measure it it's often below 500mm, mostly around 490mm, ofcourse, those are just picture measurements, not actual ones.

That combined with the tip that seems to be derived from M774, normal conical tip without any kind of break-off design (unlike DM33 which does seem to have a special one) would hamper performance against high angles.

M829A1 still has that, but it's way longer so that will probably make up for it.

When I put M829 through L/O with the picture measurements I get around 540mm at PB 60° and not at 2KM 60°.

 

Do you know if that 40mm appliqué plate was the same HHA as on the T-72M1?
 

[Liberator]

4 hours ago, Scav said:

To be fair, I think M829 seems to be often overestimated, I've seen a lot of pictures pointing out a 540mm long penetrator, but when I measure it it's often below 500mm, mostly around 490mm, ofcourse, those are just picture measurements, not actual ones.

That combined with the tip that seems to be derived from M774, normal conical tip without any kind of break-off design (unlike DM33 which does seem to have a special one) would hamper performance against high angles.

M829A1 still has that, but it's way longer so that will probably make up for it.

When I put M829 through L/O with the picture measurements I get around 540mm at PB 60° and not at 2KM 60°.

 

Do you know if that 40mm appliqué plate was the same HHA as on the T-72M1?
 

Spoiler

 

[Bronezhilet]

Visible barrel length vs actual barrel length of a Leopard 2A6 barrel:

[SH_MM]

On 12/23/2018 at 11:11 PM, Wiedzmin said:

and often when it comes to real war/test tank can't resist most of this threats , there is a tons of methods to make you new tank shiny and  glorious in the eyes of future customer(government or any export), but when you start to use this tanks in battles, well all this " shiny and  glorious " became rusted remain 

  

for example take T-64A/B,T-72A/M1,T-80B and M111, soviet test their tanks at this moment only against theirs shitty ammo, and when they encountered not so shitty ammo, here is where the fun begins...  

 

Well, you are right, but I think we are looking at the tanks from different perspectives:

You ask the question wether the requirements were well suited for the tanks and focus on the actual situation on the (hypothetical) battlefield. In this regard you are clearly correct with your assessment.

In my previous posts in this discussion, I was more focused on the perspective of the requirements, i.e. how the engineers try to meet their goals. The Leopard 2 with "B" technology armor's lower level of KE protection clearly is a negative factor in real life combat, but based on the Swedish leaks it seems that the gun mantlet still reaches 350 mm steel equivalent protection vs KE or more when seen directly from the front, which is rather impressive as this seems to be the desired protection level along the frontal arc (so the main turret armor will also provide roughly ~350 mm protection vs KE when hit in such a way, that the slope in the horizontal plane is negated) - in other words, the tank seemed to have a rather consistent level of protection, but the protection requirement was too low in hind-sight.

 

The T-72A/M1 seems to have been built with a higher level of protection against KE, but less consistent coverage. The Challenger 1's lack of a gun mantlet might have been the best solution when only looking at armor coverage (trying to minimize weakspots), but made replacing the barrel and accessing the gun a nightmare.

 

On 12/23/2018 at 11:11 PM, Wiedzmin said:

or you can take Leo2AV which have fuel cell as main frontal hull armor, and germans trying  to deceive the americans about the real weight of the tank during trials(tank for mobility trials did not have armor package for example )

 

The Leopard 2AV was not a good tank, pretty much a prototype. They couldn't spend lots of time on the design stage and testing all changes, because the deadline to participate at the US trials was too close. The decision to integrate the fuel tanks into the hull armor was however made following a suggestion by the US Army.

 

According to the testimony of a West-German general to the US officials (indirectly to the US Congress) it was a "mistake" that the weight demonstrators in the mobility trials didn't correlate with the true weight of the tank, but their is a large probability that this was a lie. Both sides (US inudstry/Army and the Germans) were focused on doing their best to get the US Army to spend millions on buying their respective tanks. The US government originally agreed to send all design and development papers of the XM1 designs to West-German, but declared them "top secret" after having received the Leopard 2AV designs... such behaviour from both sides is rather counterproductive when trying to make sure that NATO has the best possible equipment - unfortunately it is still common.

 

On 12/23/2018 at 11:11 PM, Wiedzmin said:

CR2 have even greater weak spot, is there any hits in this area ?

CR1 and CR2 lowermost edges of turret

 

I think you may have misunderstood me. I never intended to say that the T-72 (and other Soviet designs) was worse in all aspects regarding tank design, armor protection and the focus on trying to minimize weakspots than all NATO tanks. There are places where the T72's armor layout and design is better than that of the Leopard 2, there are places where the Challenger 1 is worse and there are places where all contemporary NATO tanks are worse than the T-72A.

 

I believe that the Challenger 1 is not a good design in many aspects, which is likely related to the low development effort and its origin as an export tank. The MBT-80 would have been a lot better in pretty much every category bar costs.

 

Btw. according to Hilmes, the gun trunion/cradle length of the T-72A is just 870 mm, while it was extended to 1,510 mm on the T-72B. A longer gun trunion/cradle means the gun is less affected by oscillations and easier to stabilize; but on the T-72A, the area of the trunions is the weakened section in the center of the turret - so does the T-72B have a larger weakened area than the T-72A?

 

On 12/23/2018 at 11:11 PM, Wiedzmin said:

Leo2 lowermost edges of turret(photo from bellow, but you can find good frontal pics, zone will be not much smaller) 

 

Yes, the lowest edges are always an issue, but subjectively I thought that it was a bigger issue than on the Leopard 2. Maybe I was wrong, I've never seen a lot of data regarding this (aside of comparisons between scale drawings). Maybe these weakspots are similar in size, but they just are a lot easier to see on the T-72(B):

 

On 12/23/2018 at 11:11 PM, Wiedzmin said:

and of course all tanks  design is based on the probability of hitting of some elements(what will be probability of hitting mantlet during tank vs tank combat on move when you aiming in tank center, and shell have some dispersion, stabilizer has errors etc, or what is better - to have almost all ammo in turret with blow off panels and make it safe for crew but increasing the chance of hitting the ammo, crew allive - good, you don't have tank platoon from first hit - not good, or you have all round/charges in hull which is supposedly constantly covered by the landscape, if you hit ammo crew and tank dead, but whole platoon can have success because tanks doesn't get hit in ammo, etc, it's not that easy to say, when you watching youtube and some guy with rpg destroying tank with 1 grenade in city you think oh that tank is crap, but in real war with other country this tank can have other "destiny", ooor can be same pice of shit tank lol ) have some  as well as the tactics of their use(you don't have side protection vs PRG and ATGM, but there is no infantry around you, because you just nuke them all lol, etc)  

  

the main problem with tanks is that they are designed on the basis of some(any) statistics, and if the statistics are incorrect(or analyzed wrong) , then a tank built with this statistic in mind may be a mistake

 

I agree; as I said, tank designs are trade-off. Sometimes there isn't one perfect answer to a question (for example how to protect the gun mantlet area), but there are different options. For example eliminating the gun manlet, having a smaller weakened zone, but needing to lift the turret of the tank everytime there needs to be work done on the tank. Having a large gun mantlet covering the complete gun cradle allows a much easier access, but also means a larger weakened zone - which when adding more armor to this area can be reduced, but never eliminated. Having a small gun mantlet with lower level of protection is also a valid solution, which can be better than the former - if you don't get hit on the smaller mantlet.

 

On 12/23/2018 at 11:11 PM, Wiedzmin said:

by who ? i saw that people can't understand what is 420mm part, thats all.

 

Well, the situation is a bit messy, because the original photograph printed in Krapke's book is rather small (whole image is 2.4 x 7 cm) with limited resolution. Maybe you are right and the edges are proturding over the armor block; but by how much? Is the extrusion at the top completely part of the proturding edges (as assumed by you) or only partial? Also note that the center section of the mantlet includes a plate for the gun trunion to screw into, which is actually proturding even further than the edges - but what is it made of? Steel, aluminium, titanium? Is it hollow or solid?

 

On 12/23/2018 at 11:11 PM, Wiedzmin said:

you trying to protect Leo2 as Damian protects M1, thats obviously 

 

If you think so, maybe I am. I am obviously biased in regards to thus statement and I disagree. I'm willing to change my mind, I specifically phrase my sentences carefully when speculating and/or questionable (note that I'm often using words like "supposed", "might", "could", "allegedly") to show that this is either not confirmed or that this is supported by "weak" sources only.

 

I am willing to change my mind and not using outdated or incorrect sources rather than having an opinion set in stone (e.g. I am not considering a table in an overview document citing "Gary's Combat Vehicle Reference Guide" as source to be better and more accurate than official reports from NCR). I also don't dislike any sort of technology (be it a gun, a tank or anything civilian) because of a personal dislike of certain people/countries (unlike our favorite Abrams' fanboy, who hates stuff just because it is German and Germany conquered and occupied Poland during WW2).

I do however not accept incorrect statements or unreasonable bashing. I wouldn't say that I am "protecting the Leopard 2" specifically, due to my language skills, nationality and personal connection/experience it is however the MBT for which I happen to have access to the largest number of souurces and I hope that this way I can provide the most to discussions. If I'd speak French, I'd probably buy and read lots of books and articles regarding their military hardware - just like I would probably have a deeper interest in Soviet/Russian tanks, if I spoke Russian. I however do not and secondary sources (like for example the rather limited "Osprey New Vanguard" books) are often rather bad. I wouldn't mind you posting more information about other tanks, so I'll keep on learning about them. As translated by Cicerio, scio me nescire.

 

On 12/23/2018 at 11:11 PM, Wiedzmin said:

what british test have to Leo2 armor ? nothing, you just trying to get and "good" for expected level(expected  by you)

 

As I said I don't know how the Leopard 2's armor does perform in this regard; I specifically pointed that out. The UK however believed that the Leopard 2's armor is a copy of Chobham armor, so it seems relevant to this discussion; if you have better sources, please post them.

 

Based on the estimated armor weight (difference between values from Spielberger regarding the weight of the steel construction minus special armor and HImes regaridng the weight of the "naked" tank with special armor) and the Swedish leaks, the overall special armor of the Leopard 2 seems to be have a mass efficiency 1.1 and 1.3 against APFSDS for the left turret cheek. There are no accurate informations regarding CE protection and the exact construction of the gun mantlet (how thick are the cover plates for the special armor?), so there isn't much more to say.

 

[heretic88]

1 hour ago, SH_MM said:

Maybe these weakspots are similar in size, but they just are a lot easier to see on the T-72(B):

Sorry that I meddle in this, but on that photo, is not a T-72B. Late T-72A from 1983.

[SH_MM]

3 minutes ago, heretic88 said:

Sorry that I meddle in this, but on that photo, is not a T-72B. Late T-72A from 1983.

 

Thanks for the correction. I typed "T-72B" into google and that came up. Didn't pay attention to the details.

[heretic88]

3 hours ago, SH_MM said:

Thanks for the correction. I typed "T-72B" into google and that came up. Didn't pay attention to the details.

On the other hand, what you were trying to say, also applies to this model, 172.10.100sb turret was also used by T-72B in the beginning. It is very similar to the final 172.10.113sb variant. (what are the differences btw?)