Perforated armor vs Spaced Armor

[Indigo]

Hey y'all, long time no see. I Thought I understood the premise of perforated armor, but earlier today I realized I probably don't. I thought perforated armor was just supposed to damage/decelerate a projectile as it passed through, but then I realized that I thought that's what spaced armor is for, so what's the difference. I also realized I may not really know what perforated armor is at all. I realized that I simultaneously associate two fairly different images with perforated armor.

 

I imagine this as just breaking small projectiles as they hit it. But then there's this

which appears to have slots all throughout it, which is more of what I think of when I think of something being perforated, but this doesn't look like it really serves the same purpose, nor do I have any idea what purpose this does serve now that I think about it. So what am I missing about perforated armor(and whatever one of these things is if not perforated armor)?

[Kal]

That is not perforated armour, its a modesty bra for merkava N?RA.

 

Its a type of NERA, each line of slots presume an airgap between sandwiches. So 4 rows of slots indicate 5 NERA sandwiches. 

 

Good thing about Merkava iv, no other tanks visually exposes so much of whats underneath as a merkava iv.  Cant really tell whats in a forty year old abrams, but merkava is really unmodest.

 

Israels need to recycle tanks and crew if yom Kippur war re-occurred.  Merkava iv is optimised for field repair.

[Indigo]

Oh wow really? I've never seen NERA packed so closely like that. Then again I don't exactly get to see tons of actual photographs of NERA anyway.

[Wiedzmin]

[Jackvony]

8 minutes ago, Wiedzmin said:

 

Spoiler

 

Couple questions.

Is the perforated view on the start of this thread some kind of end plate and behind are the bare plates, like seen in the damaged Merkavas? 

Also, is the armor of the Merkava's especially fragile compared to other vehicles? This seems like a lot of damage to the armor for a single hit.

[Indigo]

1 hour ago, Jackvony said:

Is the perforated view on the start of this thread some kind of end plate and behind are the bare plates, like seen in the damaged Merkavas? 

Yeah this is what I'm wondering now. I'd seen the exposed NERA before but I assumed the other image was something else entirely. I suppose an end plate or "courtesy bra" does make sense. I always thought it looked like steel with some slots dug through it and wondered how that didn't make the vehicle extremely heavy.

[Wiedzmin]

3 hours ago, Jackvony said:

 

Also, is the armor of the Merkava's especially fragile compared to other vehicles? This seems like a lot of damage to the armor for a single hit.

 

https://i.imgur.com/YXh0cXr.mp4

 

there was old vid of iraq M1A1 vs SPG/RPG where it lost side armour panel

 

as for Mk4 modules, like on any other tank heavy modules is only on front, sides doesn't have same level as on any other tank

 

if you don't have thick enough base, "modules" will be destroyed pretty quickly 

 

 

 

 

 

[Jackvony]

It is just with the Merkava's it seems to be a lot more common. Most of the times I've seen damaged M1's, the outer shell remains (unless of course they have been partially dissembled, even when hit by stuff with a massive HE content, like the AGM-65.

Spoiler

 

Maybe it has to do with the thickness of the outer plate or how they are attached to the structure?

[Wiedzmin]

 there is no Maveric's hit on this tank side turret, and i'm very doubt that turret front was hited by it either

 

turret side was hited from another M1A1 with M830A1, and as you can see 19mm plate and 6mm weld is cracked, of course it's better than Merkava, but... all modern tanks have problems with multiply hits and stuctural durability

[Indigo]

The exposed mess underneath doesn't seem too surprising. I've only seen a handful of images like that though the same few show up alot alongside those famous images of a totally unzipped Abrams. I'm actually not sure how many images of that there are or whether it's the same tank from a few different angles. Either way though, it seems like that kind of damage is actually pretty common for those tanks that do see combat. Plenty of images with absolutely trashed T tanks. Then awhile back there were all those poor Leopard 2A4's.

[Kal]

On 4/7/2020 at 1:00 AM, Jackvony said:

Also, is the armor of the Merkava's especially fragile compared to other vehicles? This seems like a lot of damage to the armor for a single hit.

 

Kinda, but plenty of those images are where other tanks have even less armour.

 

but for the turret, the sloped geometry allows Merkava to omit the buster plate (Challenger, Abrams) and use a thin N?RA instead.  It appears optimised for precursor/RPG 7 size, and when main charge goes off, it is trashed.

 

thing is, Merkava armour modules are field swappable,  same level of repair for Abrams/Leclerc would require the tank sent back to manufacturer in a different continent.  high cost in availability and time.

After about 4 years, an Abrams tank needs about $1m in field repairs in that year (and increasing each year), vs a reset is also about $1.2m.  they just expensive to maintain, it doesn't take much Abrams maintenance to fund new tanks from alternatives