Russian Tank guns Ammunition

The 30kg HEAT warhead is multipurpose and will have armour penetration aspects and HE Frag aspects too to ensure whatever it hits it will do the max damage.

The Vikhr has a switch that can be set at launch to determine whether it penetrates lots of armour or sends out lots of fragments and I suspect the Hermes will do the same.

GarryB wrote:The 30kg HEAT warhead is multipurpose and will have armour penetration aspects and HE Frag aspects too to ensure whatever it hits it will do the max damage.

The Vikhr has a switch that can be set at launch to determine whether it penetrates lots of armour or sends out lots of fragments and I suspect the Hermes will do the same.

Yes it must have the same configuration as the Vikhr since KPB tula states on their website that Hermes-A will have 1200mm RHAe penetration capability.
And the AT or Air engagement mode you mean doesn't changes which warhead it will set off but what fuze it use, against Armor contact fuze and against air targets or infantry targets on the ground it sets the proximity fuze at 60 to 200cm radius to the target sets in the proximity fuze giving it an airburst like capability against infantry targets, both explosive charges will blow off regardless of armor or aircraft target.

Yes, what you are saying is essentially correct, there is only one HE charge, but there are multiple fuse positions and detonation options.

A HEAT warhead needs a fuse at its extreme rear to be set off at the precisely correct time so the plasma beam is formed and stable by the time it reaches the armour. A fuse somewhere else within the explosive and the plasma beam will not even form and the HEAT liner simply become fragments.

Garry, I was thinking of using HESH in urban combat to destroy brick walls.. I'm curious as to why modern Russia has no HESH rounds? What do they use to blow brick walls away efficiently?

kjasdu wrote:Garry, I was thinking of using HESH in urban combat to destroy brick walls.. I'm curious as to why modern Russia has no HESH rounds? What do they use to blow brick walls away efficiently?

Probably because they have HE-FRAG rounds.

As Zivo points out.... HE FRAG rounds with impact and delay fuses will flatten any brick wall you care to fire it at.

Perhaps a better question would be to ask why the British bother with a type of ammo no one else in the world uses on their front line vehicles.

All modern MBTs have smoothbore barrels because they are light weight and allow higher velocities to be achieved for a given propellent charge...

The Main Anti Armour rounds used around the world... APFSDS and HEAT do not like to be rotated in flight at high speed... they are more effective fired from a smoothbore.

With most modern vehicles using applique armour HESH is useless as an anti armour weapon and is not as effective at killing enemy troops as HE FRAG.

Whilst in Somalia ,our Canadian troops in LAV Cougars destroyed a cache of T-55s/54s with their 76mm HESH rounds,While seeming not to have penetrated the outer skin, the interior spalling effect was enough to deduce it would kill/disable both crew and vehicle.The spalling scabs were literally  dinner plate to 1/2 metre in size.Against older armour HESH is a very effective anti-armour round.HESH will also be very useful in scouring large areas of reactive armour tile,exposing hull/turrets to more lethal fire.

Pugnax wrote:Whilst in Somalia ,our Canadian troops in LAV Cougars destroyed a cache of T-55s/54s with their 76mm HESH rounds,While seeming not to have penetrated the outer skin, the interior spalling effect was enough to deduce it would kill/disable both crew and vehicle.The spalling scabs were literally  dinner plate to 1/2 metre in size.Against older armour HESH is a very effective anti-armour round.HESH will also be very useful in scouring large areas of reactive armour tile,exposing hull/turrets to more lethal fire.

Great job destroying a T-55 like no other ammunition type could have done that.
HESH is worthless on modern battlefield, tell me one tank in a modern army that today can be destroyed by HESH rounds?

And when you are firing with HESH rounds upon an ERA covered tank it wan't make any difference if there is ERA or not, since rifled guns are not capable to provide any firepower to have a good effect on hard armored targets, while you are wasting time firing HESH rounds upon the Enemy he will do it with actual ammunition that can penetrate armor.

The Bundeswehr maintains large stocks of HESH,and nobody thought a 76mm gun could kill a t-55 on the front glacis at any decent combat range.As for the hesh effect,throw a ball off silly putty at a contoured surface and watch the spread...imagine this over a large surface of ERA tiles.Im not saying it will kill a modern MBT but it allows older,less capable systems a chance to play a role on the battlefield.

I think even with light era, you are prolly not gonna do any damage to the main armor with HESH because if you set off the ERA it will blow the outer plate the moment the shockwave touches the
explosive layer. With heavy ERA you will most likely not set it off(millions of psi needed) but you may spall the explosive -outer plate interface.

Whilst in Somalia ,our Canadian troops in LAV Cougars destroyed a cache of T-55s/54s with their 76mm HESH rounds,While seeming not to have penetrated the outer skin, the interior spalling effect was enough to deduce it would kill/disable both crew and vehicle.The spalling scabs were literally dinner plate to 1/2 metre in size.Against older armour HESH is a very effective anti-armour round.HESH will also be very useful in scouring large areas of reactive armour tile,exposing hull/turrets to more lethal fire.

Old exported T54/55s didn't have modern layered armour so HESH would be very effective, but even the field expedient of adding an extra layer of armour spaced from the main armour would defeat HESH and render it useless.

And when you are firing with HESH rounds upon an ERA covered tank it wan't make any difference if there is ERA or not, since rifled guns are not capable to provide any firepower to have a good effect on hard armored targets, while you are wasting time firing HESH rounds upon the Enemy he will do it with actual ammunition that can penetrate armor.

Not strictly true... the ERA should act as a layer of spaced armour so the spalling effect would be defeated and the vehicle left operational... so you got your first shot with your 76.2mm gun and you have no chance of penetrating... now they get a shot at you with their 100mm rifled gun... you might be in trouble if they know what they are doing... fortunately as often as not they didn't.

The Bundeswehr maintains large stocks of HESH,and nobody thought a 76mm gun could kill a t-55 on the front glacis at any decent combat range.As for the hesh effect,throw a ball off silly putty at a contoured surface and watch the spread...imagine this over a large surface of ERA tiles.Im not saying it will kill a modern MBT but it allows older,less capable systems a chance to play a role on the battlefield.

Against non armoured targets HESH is effective enough... it can demolish walls, or take out trucks and heavy non armoured vehicles.

As you mention, it gets its effectiveness from spreading on the target and then detonating with the shockwave travelling through the targets armour with light elements of the internal armour flaking off and bouncing around inside the tank with lethal effect... the problem is that if you have ERA blocks on the outside of the tank the spalling will occur on the back of the ERA blocks directly onto the main armour and will not penetrate into the crew compartment. The crushing effect of the HESH will not blow the ERA blocks off the vehicle they will more likely just compress them against the main armour and render the ERA ineffective for the next hit. The chance of hitting the target in the same place with the next shot is very low, and you have just alerted the target to your presence.

It would make rather more sense to try to work your way round to a flank and try to kill the tank with APFSDS rounds... or use a cheap missile like Metis-M1.

The relatively cheap and simple addition of anti spall liners also makes HESH rather less effective... any hit where the projectile comes within about 10% of penetrating the tank armour can create spall in a tank so anti spall liners are actually rather commonly used.

Werewolf i totally agree,the boys at Kharkiv Morozov definitely spruced up the T-55AG to be a contender on a modern playijng field.As i have witnessed intense .50 cal HMG fire cook off ERA i have no doubts that a decent HESH round does the same.

Which model ERA?

The stuff used since the late 1980s that also reduces the penetration of APFSDS rounds has a much thicker outer plate and should be rather effective as both ERA and Spaced armour.
Newer ERA uses less and less explosive so the risk of sympathetic detonation is also greatly reduced.

If you have to hit the target multiple times to have a chance of penetration then it might be time to upgrade your weapon and ammo.

Pugnax wrote:The Bundeswehr maintains large stocks of HESH,and nobody thought a 76mm gun could kill a t-55 on the front glacis at any decent combat range.As for the hesh effect,throw a ball off silly putty at a contoured surface and watch the spread...imagine this over a large surface of ERA tiles.

I don't know the details of those........alleged.......engagements in Somalia of T-55s with LAV's 76mm HESH shells (L29A5 ?) , but is absolutely clear that no HESH round at world is even only barely efficient in classical anti-armoured operations and that those Canadian LAVs , if those engagements ever happen really, have very likely executed them exploiting huge ISR advantages on the enemies (a true classic for western engagements against theirs usual third world opponents) at example engaging them from very close distance in night operations or while those tanks was motionless for maintenance or refueling.

The reason is very simple HESH rounds are terribly slow and moderately unstable (the up-cited L29A5 shell's muzzle velocity barely surpass 500m/s and even the 120 mm L31 don't surpass 670 m/s at the barrel !) and therefore are totally incapable to hit literally anything at tactically useful ranges in the classical MBT/IFV high mobile offensive and counter-offensive ground operations characterizing War operations against a major enemy....except at ranges so reduced that even an RPG would represent an enormously more efficient and cheap solution, for not say infinitely less exposed to detection too ).

Said action was at night,750m,warlord tanks were clustered around a copse of trees,crews were at hand but disembarked.

While on the topic of tanks vs buildings, take a look at this.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=272_1383045077

Clearly a HEAT round, and the camera survived. I doubt the guys by the camera stuck around.

HE capability is very important.

Zivo wrote:While on the topic of tanks vs buildings, take a look at this.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=272_1383045077

Clearly a HEAT round, and the camera survived. I doubt the guys by the camera stuck around.

HE capability is very important.

Great find. Not the first video where tanks are using HEAT instead of HE-frag. Why is that?

Regular wrote:

Zivo wrote:While on the topic of tanks vs buildings, take a look at this.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=272_1383045077

Clearly a HEAT round, and the camera survived. I doubt the guys by the camera stuck around.

HE capability is very important.

Great find. Not the first video where tanks are using HEAT instead of HE-frag. Why is that?

Not sure, maybe the SAA do not have a large supply of them.

Zivo wrote:

Regular wrote:

Zivo wrote:While on the topic of tanks vs buildings, take a look at this.

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=272_1383045077

Clearly a HEAT round, and the camera survived. I doubt the guys by the camera stuck around.

HE capability is very important.

Great find. Not the first video where tanks are using HEAT instead of HE-frag. Why is that?

Not sure, maybe the SAA do not have a large supply of them.

I think the answer is just much simplier tha that.

The tank was just a few dozen meters from his spotted target/nest away, a HEAT round was propably already in the tube and had to be unloaded by hand than giving its position in the autoloader to load it in and than to load a HE-Frag round that all would take roughly a minute, while the "prey" could have run away, so it is much more practical just to shout the loaded round and the next round would have been a HE-Frag, a shortage of HE-Frag rounds is possible but i don't really know if they have delayed fuze in their HE-Frag rounds what would explain why they are using HEAT rounds in urban warfare.

Without delayed fuze HE-Frag rounds are rather impractical to smoke out a covered position.

Most HEAT rounds have a significant anti personnel effect which makes HE Frag a little redundant.

Carrying a mix of APFSDS rounds and HEAT rounds means plenty of anti armour capability and anti bunker capability at the same time.

In fact some times the HE Frag round lacks forward effect as the fuse is mounted in the nose so a high velocity round entering a building most of the most effective fragments go sideways as it is the shell walls that create the most uniform even sized fragments... with a HEAT round there is still material going directly forward from the explosion.

but i don't really know if they have delayed fuze in their HE-Frag rounds what would explain why they are using HEAT rounds in urban warfare.

Without delayed fuze HE-Frag rounds are rather impractical to smoke out a covered position.

The standard HE round fired by all T series tanks with a 125mm gun have a safety cap and detonator setting that allows for delayed action or impact detonation as standard.

The standard HE round fired by all T series tanks with a 125mm gun have a safety cap and detonator setting that allows for delayed action or impact detonation as standard. wrote:

That wasn't what i've refered too.
I know that russian have HE-Frags with programmable fuze for airburst capability and anti-aircraft capability. AFAIK the 125mm HE-Frag rounds have no delayed fuze on Impact with its target.
What i've meant is if some rounds have a fuze like in russian 3UOF8 / UOF84 30mm HEFI rounds with contact delayed fuze of 0.025-0.001ms that it has a slight path into its object and than detonate in it to increase the actual damage on light armored or unarmed targets rather than making "cosmetic damage" on the surface by direct impact fuzes.

I know that russian have HE-Frags with programmable fuze for airburst capability and anti-aircraft capability.

That is ANIET and is only fitted to some T-80 and most T-90 vehicles.

It is a time based fusing system that when used in conjunction with a laser range finder and ballistics computer sets the detonator to go off after a very specific period of time.

Here is info about ANIET:

http://fofanov.armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/ARM/apers/ammo.html

AFAIK the 125mm HE-Frag rounds have no delayed fuze on Impact with its target.

Read this:
http://fofanov.armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/ARM/apers/overview.html

Specifically the bit about the HE Frag, HE, and Frag settings.

HE Frag = 0.01 second delay before explosion which means if it impacts a wall it will pretty much detonate inside the wall.

HE = 0.1 second delay means if it hits the outside wall of a building it will detonate inside the room... and equates to a delayed fuse detonation.

Frag = 0.001 second delay... which is practically no delay at all... it explodes on impact.

rather than making "cosmetic damage" on the surface by direct impact fuzes.

When talking about a 125mm HE shell I don't think cosmetic damage is the correct phrase...  

Syrian tanks are probably taking with them mostly HE shells (plus a few HEAT or APFSDS shells just in case).
It may simply be because the tank had already fired all of its HE shells.

GarryB wrote:

I know that russian have HE-Frags with programmable fuze for airburst capability and anti-aircraft capability.

That is ANIET and is only fitted to some T-80 and most T-90 vehicles.

It is a time based fusing system that when used in conjunction with a laser range finder and ballistics computer sets the detonator to go off after a very specific period of time.

Here is info about ANIET:

http://fofanov.armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/ARM/apers/ammo.html

AFAIK the 125mm HE-Frag rounds have no delayed fuze on Impact with its target.

Read this:
http://fofanov.armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/ARM/apers/overview.html

Specifically the bit about the HE Frag, HE, and Frag settings.

HE Frag = 0.01 second delay before explosion which means if it impacts a wall it will pretty much detonate inside the wall.

HE = 0.1 second delay means if it hits the outside wall of a building it will detonate inside the room... and equates to a delayed fuse detonation.

Frag = 0.001 second delay... which is practically no delay at all... it explodes on impact.

rather than making "cosmetic damage" on the surface by direct impact fuzes.

When talking about a 125mm HE shell I don't think cosmetic damage is the correct phrase...   

Well the last mode sounds really nasty with such a sensitive fuze, when i read it i get the image of holding a gallon of nitroglycerin on a catwalk.

Well the last mode sounds really nasty with such a sensitive fuze, when i read it i get the image of holding a gallon of nitroglycerin on a catwalk.

It is the setting to use for shooting down balloons...   But not in the rain...

It may simply be because the tank had already fired all of its HE shells.

Or it might have something to do with what the gunner thought might be inside the target.