K2 hull question - blow plates?

[Militarysta]

Hi,

I have a question - couse K2 looks like Leclerc without it's flaws - there is posibility that hull K2 have separate ammo whit blow-plate under ERA tiles?

 

 

 

 

I'm crusious if K2 have separate ammo in hull. And I can't find photos or video whit answer.

 

Any idea?

 

[Laviduce]

There seems to be a ammunition magazine in the location you highlighted:

 

 

[Collimatrix]

I am curious if this ammo is isolated as well.  But I propose that isolated ammunition stowage doesn't make as much difference in a hull rack as it does in a turret bustle.

 

With a turret bustle like on the Abrams, the ammo is behind the crew and the blast door is between the crew and the ammo.  In order for the blow-off panels to do their magic and vent the overpressure of the burning ammunition propellant to the outside, those blast doors need to be both closed and intact.

 

This is actually fairly likely in the case of the Abrams, because within the arc of the most likely lines of fire, it is probable that a round could go through the bustle but not penetrate the crew compartment and the blast door.  The residual penetration of the threat round would exit the back of the turret.  The rounds would then cook off, but the crew would remain alive.

 

But with a hull rack, the blast doors are going to need to be between the turret ring and the rack, and there will need to be a firewall between the driver and the ammo.  There aren't that many angles where a round can penetrate the hull rack from a frontal hit but not penetrate the blast doors.  Unless of course the round has exactly enough penetration to get through the hull armor and the ammo compartment, but it craps out before penetrating the blast door.

 

So, an isolated hull rack is good because it protect the ammo from cooking off in case of, say, a fuel or lubricant fire (or at least it means the ammo takes longer to cook off), but I don't know that it helps that much against incoming fire.

[Lord_James]

@Militarysta, in each of your pictures, there doesn’t seem to be a hole, but a cavity for armor / ERA. Unless the bottom of that cavity is really thin (which I doubt, since it’s suppose to support armor / ERA), it wouldn’t perform like a blowout panel. 

 

One question, though: does it say anywhere that it has a blast door near there? It doesn’t look like there is an any of those pictures or Lav’s diagram.