Tanks, thermal imaging, weapon loadout and ammunition

[kuIoodporny 45]

Shooting a little lower would make it ricochet on the "soft" hull of the tank?

That was the trick to destroy a tank with a single shot in BF2, but there you were doing damage twice.

Bullseye.

[the_demongod 31]

The entire reason any "balancing" of the tanks needs to be done is because the jet, probably the most effective method for engaging armor (besides maybe helicopters), is made out of a cardboard tube, has an m16a4 as its main gun, and has the thrust of a large computer fan. If anybody has used John Spartan and Saul's F-18 mod (I really recommend it), they will understand what I mean.

[PantherAl 11]

I second that motion on the F/A-18 Mod: that thing is the gold standard as far as I go. :)

[Damian90 696]

And your proof is? Wikipedia? If its so classified, how do you know?

Different kind of documents I had opportunity to read.

Listen I am not a teen gamer, but a serious men who likes to play for time to time but also have a deeper interest in this subject. I am a student of homeland security in my country, my goal is to work in ministry of defence on this subject (armor mechanized forces) and my passion are all kinds of AFV's and especially their protection.

Besides this, there are also such things like mathematics and physics, and there are some serious people that are making serious calculations for this kind of stuff, did you ever heard about Paul Lakowski and his work "armor basics"?

So no my friend. Wikipedia is not a source for me.

If you want to know more about composite armor of a NERA type, you should read some documents at British The National Archieve, mainly the ones called "Burlington files", or try to find some documents from ballistics symposium where some declassified results were presented.

Of course it does not mean that I have access to whole data, but I had opprotunity to see some interesting informations. ;)

I though APFSDS (or any hyper-velocity projectile) had an extremely low chance of ricochet? Something to do with materials behaving like water at the energy levels involved?

This is truth, modern APFSDS have extremely low chance of ricochet, in fact such penetrator to ricochet, would need to hit armir plate at nearly horizontal angle to the plate surface.

Modern APFSDS ammunition is designed such way, that it actually better penetrate angled armor.

The most modern 120mm L55 guns can currently penetrate any existing armour...

Tests in Greece do not support this claim. Leopard 2HEL turret during ballistic tests, was capable to stop allmost all projectiles (most likely Israeli origin as far as our research goes) besides two which hit the turret in a weak spot where gunner primary sight is installed (a known flaw in Leopard 2 turret design), Greekes tested their tanks against their own armament.

Using manufacturer advertisement site is not a good idea you know?

armour wil now noeed soem time to catch up but at this point there will be already a new and better gun.

MBT's frontal armor protection allready surpassed capabilities of currently used KE and CE ammunition. Of course still APFSDS is the most effective way to defeat MBT but it is not that easy with the most modern ones.

The only real alternative are guns of 140mm calliber or bigger, or a new method of propelling projectile (railgun). However there are problems with these, railgun demands huge amount of electric energy, so it is still a no go for a tank, while 140mm or bigger gun, use huge ammunition, which means problems with storing it inside vehicle. However as far as I remember from some book about this subject, 140mm gun was capable to fire projectile that achieved 14 MJ, which is more than around 8-9 MJ of 120mm.

[DogNine 1]

Different kind of documents I had opportunity to read.

Tests in Greece do not support this claim. Leopard 2HEL turret during ballistic tests, was capable to stop allmost all projectiles (most likely Israeli origin as far as our research goes) besides two which hit the turret in a weak spot where gunner primary sight is installed (a known flaw in Leopard 2 turret design), Greekes tested their tanks against their own armament.

Are you saying that they tested the L55 or just what they had?

I had wondered about the wisdom of a hole in the armor for the sight but then I read somewhere that it was about probability of a hit versus the vulnerability of an exposed sight. Which makes sense, that no one can shoot the sight without the gunner seeing them.

Bigger gun. Bigger armor. Bigger gun. Bigger armor. Where does it end? More importantly, which is more fun for a game? Personally I think bigger armor is more interesting (prolonged fights) but I can see how it would be frustrating to shoot at. Arma rewards the careful one shot one kill, taking that away makes things very hard for squishy infantry.

[Damian90 696]

Are you saying that they tested the L55 or just what they had?

Greeks trailed their Leopard 2HEL (which is one of the most advanced variants) against their own armament, this is Rhinemetall Rh-120/L55 gun, using if my memory serves me well, Israeli APFSDS ammunition M338 or M332, I don't remember well Israeli designation codes.

During trails turret was without additional NERA armor (these wedge shaped things on front) and armor of turret was capable to defeat penetrators besides two that hit gunner primary sight assembly which is a weak zone. Normally front armor on Leopard 2 is ~800mm thick on the turret left side, and right side below gunner main sight, however behind main sight there is additional ~650mm thick armor module, below the module there is significant weak zone in form of a hole cut in armor plates for sight optical channel for gunner.

This weak zone was never really eliminated despite all best efforts of engineers, simply because it means complete redesign of turret, which is too expensive.

I had wondered about the wisdom of a hole in the armor for the sight but then I read somewhere that it was about probability of a hit versus the vulnerability of an exposed sight. Which makes sense, that no one can shoot the sight without the gunner seeing them.

Leopard 2 turret design is unacceptable. In fact it was done that way due to several reasons. First, Leopard 2 initially was never meant to use advanced composite armor, in fact Leopard 2 was just slightly larger and heavier Leopard 1 with bigger gun and engine. However Americans and British agreed to support Germans and provided them with data about "Burlington" armor developed by British engineers under lead of mr. Gilbert Harvey. Earlier Americans agreed to use "Burlington" in their M1 tank, and later British used it in Challenger 1.

"Burlington" is a proper and only codename for special armor, that is called by popular media and such sources as "Chobham".

Another reason why Germans needed to do this that way was EMES-15 sighting system. It was allready designed such way, reliable, and they did not had money and time to start work from scratch.

On the other hand EMES-15 starts to show it's age these days, and it's inferior compared to sights like the one used in Merkava Mk4, M1A1SA/M1A2SEP or Leclerc SXXI.

Interesting thing is that Leclerc shares similiar weak zone to Leopard 2, although photos of "naked" Leclerc turret are extremely rare.

Bigger gun. Bigger armor. Bigger gun. Bigger armor. Where does it end? More importantly, which is more fun for a game? Personally I think bigger armor is more interesting (prolonged fights) but I can see how it would be frustrating to shoot at. Arma rewards the careful one shot one kill, taking that away makes things very hard for squishy infantry.

It would be possible to have a better armor system, but this needs a very detailed vehicle vurnability model. Which means that BIS would need to hire someone that have idea about the subject and could explain them all these things like weak zones, their placement on vehicle surface etc.

[Beagle 684]

RH 120mm L55 can only show its full power if you use the especially for that barrel lenght developed KE DM63 round that features a heavier penetrator... it can still use the old DM53 round but those do not deliver much more penetration from a L55. Adn since Rheinmetall is currently the only manufacturer of DM63 the Greek army obviously did not tset the new gun with the right ammunition...hey...thats reminds me of how they told Howaldswerfe they would not pay for the the two 214 subs they have in service because those would not perform as promised...do I see a scheme here?

Edited October 4, 2013 by Beagle

[Damian90 696]

It is the other way, DM53 uses more energetic propelant charge than DM63, however this more energetic propelant, also increases wear and tear of the gun barrel, and makes firing DM53 dangerous when fired from more weared L55 or standard L44. DM63 use the same penetrator design as DM53 but with different propelant charge.

As for Greek tests, I do not see a reason to disregard their results.

[HarryVonRedpigs 1]

Regarding the Thermal imaging being too clear.  the Thermal imaging on a carry-able weapons system like the Javelin is SUPERB. It is crystal clear, As I remember it I could see how flush your cheeks were from 200M. Then switch to NV and see your lips moving from 300M away, zoom was awesome and there was no grain at all.

Edited January 8, 2017 by HarryVonRedpigs