Tank Warfare: Russian Armour vs Western Armour

Interlinked wrote:

Mindstorm wrote:

The most correct sentence would be: " T-90 represent at today the most technically/cost efficient mass produced MBT at world conceived for large scale conflicts"
But you would never get so much intellectual honesty

How can I contradict you if you worded it that way?    This is, of course, a completely different can of worms that I do not want to open in a thread about the T-72, which has already been derailed by silly stuff about autocannon ammunition. We can continue this particular topic in the T-90 thread if you wish.

Mindstorm wrote:

You are too busy using half-facts , constructed cases, false inferences while contemporaneously attempting to focus other’s attention on some details of vehicle's design or weapon suits, in your opinion, "favouring" western-built types ,- like your debate here around KE ammunitions for IFV - to ever notice that domestic samples show very often features and capabilities ,immeasurably more decisive in actual large scale conflict against a peer/near-peer opponent, not having ANY western counterpart to even render possible to execute a comparison
Only to remain in the above mentioned debate about IFVs :

- Where is the western IFV equivalent of the domestic amphibious capability of БМП/БМД family allowing them to pass and attack from : rivers, lakes, canals and even sea ? This capability singlehandedly allow to achieve force concentration overmatch both on the offensivee than in the defensive operations against enemy forces self-channeled around bridges ,engineering companies or elevated coast sectors and complicate enormously placement of defensive area defense assets -such as minefields-.

- Where is the western IFV equivalent of the domestic БМП-3/БМД-4 capability to shoot 100 mm ammunition (both in direct and indirect fire ) while retaining capability to shot medium caliber 30 mm autocannon ?
This capability allow to destroy enemy installations, radars, bunkers, FOB, or infantry ATGM fire positions stationing safely from well outside their engagement footprint  - including any version of BGM-71 or FGM-114 - while retaining full mobility to evade artillery fire barrage.

- Where is the western IFV counterpart of the domestic БМП-3/БМД-4 capability to shoot long range GLMs ,at any extend immune to know ECM systems, on the move ?  

- Where is the western IFV counterpart of the domestic БМП-3/БМД-4 capability to allow transported soldiers to shoot MANPADS directly from the moving ?
A capability always most important in modern UAV-rich battlefield.

-Where is an enemy IFV offering a similar so small target area to enemy LOS fire like БМП-3/БМД-4 ?
A defensive feature truly decisive in maneuvering battlles against enemy MBT/IFV/APC.

-Where is western-built IFV that can be air-dropped directly behind enemy defensive lines with the crew within like БМД-4 ?
-Where is a western-buit IFV with the same strategic mobility БМП-3/БМД-4?  (mostly thanks to theirs very low volume and weight)

- Where is a western-buit IFV with a medium-caliber cannon with similar rate of fire of domestic 2A42/2A72 ?

This feature allow not only a reliable engagement ,at vastly greater range in comparison with cannons with lower RoF, of helicopters and UAVs but also of enemy IFV/APC (that obviously never maintain a constant speed and direction in actual battles.  
And so on……

Just because I think that modern Russian IFVs require a decent APDS (or APFSDS) round doesn't mean that I despise Russian IFVs. My position was never to degrade Soviet or Russian arms and armoured vehicles; I provide constructive criticism where it is necessary. Does the 2A42 have a high rate of fire? Yes. All the better for the crew to choke on gunpowder fumes. They tried to solve this issue by installing the cannon in an external mount like the Marder 1, but couldn't because the turret could not maintain a seal good enough to work in a contaminated environment. I would know. I wrote a fairly extensive piece on the BMP-2.



Speaking of the Marder 1, it has an Rh202 20mm cannon that fires at 800-1000 RPM and can fire DM63 APDS rounds that have slightly more penetration than M791 rounds for the Bradley's M242. Also, the faster 20mm and 25mm APDS rounds make it much easier to hit moving targets at long range, so saturation fire isn't the most optimal solution. It's a viable solution, but it comes with a bunch of disadvantages. Is the 2A42 really that special? It's a good, dependable and effective weapon, but it's not like it's a miracle or anything, as you were implying.

Having a 100mm low pressure gun isn't necessarily the bee's knees. The new "Epoch" turret doesn't have one, and there have been no further developments in this direction for a long time. The current trend is larger caliber autocannons; 40mm, 57mm, etc. Indirect fire is left to hardware designed for indirect fire, and keeping a 100mm gun just to be able to conduct direct fire may not be the wisest choice if it is incompatible with other, more promising concepts, such as unmanned turrets. We can appreciate the BMP-3 and BMD-4 (and I do), but don't go around praising it like it's the second coming of Christ.

Practically all Western IFV allows its passengers to pop out of a roof hatch to fire MANPADS at air targets while the vehicle is moving. How will BMDs parachute behind enemy lines? Wouldn't a great big cargo plane be seen from hundreds of miles away? The BMD series are good for rapid response situations, but parachuting behind enemy lines is just implausible, and has been for many years. I'm sure I missed one or two of your other points, but you have to remember that this is a thread about the T-72. If you want to talk about BMPs and BMDs, take it to the appropriate thread.

Mindstorm wrote:

Said that is important to remember that any choice in military systems design is a compromise (for example employing the same materials you cannot reach the same level of ballistic protection of a Puma IFV with a vehicle within the weight class of БМП-3/БМД-4); but is clearly evident that any western designer would have rushed to integrate in theirs IFV design the previously mentioned features ,producing immeasurably greater impact on battle efficiency  (instead of enormously increase internal volume and weight to obtain in return only a middle increase of ballistic protection or invest in costly ammunitions only for partially off-set the lower caliber/rate of fire of theirs IFV autocannons in comparison with those standard of theirs likely enemies) owning the technological and engineering base to do that.

I won't bother talking about what you think about Western IFVs vs Soviet/Russian IFVs or what fantasies you have in general, but it is factually incorrect that Western autocannons lacked the technological and engineering base to produce quick-firing autocannons. Having smaller calibers and generally lower rates of fire does not indicate that there was a technological hurdle that they failed to cross. It was a question of accuracy and first round hit probabilities. That was actually one of the reasons why APDS was chosen for the M242 from the beginning. The high rate of fire of the 2A42 badly affects its accuracy, even in bursts. If you want to have a laugh, go watch a video of BMP-2 gunners trying to score even one hit at the firing range:





Why use APDS? Because the chances of scoring a hit and doing some damage are higher than if they used AP-T. That's basically it. It's mentioned somewhere in here: http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a262492.pdf

Funnily enough, the document also says this (take note GarryB):

"The M792 HEI-T round will not be considered. The round-to-round random dispersion of the HEI-T is significantly greater than that of APDS-T which would presumably lead to significantly different results"

So a full caliber round has greater dispersion than an APDS round. Well, how about that...

Mindstorm wrote:

But i image that for an enthusiast with a “weakness” for western-built military systems is better to focus the attention on the characteristics of M791 or M919 round (conceived clearly to offset the hard limitations produced by projectile mass/muzzle energy/rate of fire of theirs 25 mm cannon against the standard gun 30 mm of the OPFOR) against 3УБР-6 sustaining that 3УБР-8 (domestic version) is not produced for Federation forces

Just for the chronicle that is what offer today for export Rosoboronexport (export version)

Unfortunately, the facts do not entirely line up in your favour. The chamber pressure of the M242 ranges from 360-410 MPa, depending on the ammunition it fires. M919 would be at the high end, of course. Chamber pressure of the 2A42 when firing 3UBR-6 is only 353 MPa. Let's not even bother comparing the 2A42 to a 30x173mm chain gun, eh?

Oh sure, they offer 30mm APFSDS in the 30x165mm caliber. Too bad the Russian Army doesn't get any of it.

Mindstorm wrote:

Obviously this photo represent a simulation with domestic APFSDS    (tests employing actual foreign samples of any kind, collected from both from theatre of conflicts of foreign Armies or by operatives of the illegal spy network, are obviously covered by strict State secrets to prevent potential opponents to get any hint on the level of our knowledge about the specifics of theirs sytems. The same is true aboard).

But ,as you well know, the point in question was, from the beginning, the size of those KE penetrator's holes in MBT targets im ,in mine thesis some times bigger (from 2 to 4 times) than its diameter with a variance dependant on distance of fire, yaw, residual or parassitic spin (for very long distance shots) and material composition of, it in your thesis equal to its phisical diameter.

The relatively large diameter of the cavity you see is - as I have patiently explained - due to the presence of a jacket. I have given you multiple examples of the types of holes created by unjacketed monoblock rounds like DM33.

Mindstorm wrote:

1) You should learn to read what other write (that is also true for the documents you cite supposedly at support of your thesis   )  ....and possibly also understand......

Mindstorm wrote:

Mindstorm wrote:When delivered at very short range and/or against some kind of targets (like some alluminium alloy surfaces or.......paper made fire-range targets ) where.......you will obserbe small APDSFS holes"

Obviously, as your standard, you have failed also to take into account difference in size of the target (the APFSDS target is almost 3 times bigger)
Facts also on those kind of not dense/viscous target, physical holes of APFSDS is always bigger than diameter of the KE penetrator.
If your theory would hold some water on each side of those 1 square meter your could put side-to-side 40-50 APFSDS holes (2/2,5 cm diameter), instead those are 3 -4 times bigger.
Thanks to have proved mine point  

Where did I misread you? You said that small APFSDS holes are created at very short range, but the photos I show are for ranges of 1.7 km, and those targets aren't exactly dense. BTW, all of the squares in all of the targets are 1 m^2. They didn't triple the size of the squares to shoot APFSDS at... How do you keep on inventing these fantasies?  I am really tired of this. Here it is, all in one picture. MPAT on the left, APFSDS on the right. Take out a ruler or something and slap it on your screen, and I'm pretty sure that those holes will come out at 80mm and 24mm (give or take a few millimeters), MPAT and APFSDS respectively. EDIT: Actually I did it for you using MS Paint and comparing pixels. Size of the MPAT holes comes out to 76mm and APFSDS holes is 26mm. Close enough.



I do not need or want to say any more.
   

Mindstorm wrote:

To be continued about the study of M. Held on hit distribution in pasted conflicts used by Interlinked to prove its thesis" in exact opposition to its finding.......

To be continued indeed. I hope your theory about quantum tunneling or whatever it is isn't based on that photo of the T-54 turret hit by 100mm APCBC... If you want to rant, just PM me. Do not force these good people to suffer.

that's cute coming from you.....Real dam cute and how utterly ignorant.

Interlinked wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Hum Which real world scenario stacks up the odds of a face off head on at 70%?

Base scenario of the three last world wars I know has been that armored threats have always been targeted on their weakest points.

I didn't say that 70% of shots landed on the front of tanks and IFVs. I politely said that the majority of shots landed on a 70 degree frontal arc.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

The fact the defending or attacking force would like to show their strongest side, means literally nothing. While the Frontal glacis may have a relevance in a mechanized push along a front (hint check why there are arcs of fire to cover when moving), in any other scenario (especially indirect fire support, especially against an asymmetrical force) that is garbage.

You clearly ignored the part where I said this:

Interlinked wrote:
The only situation where tanks are indeed hit more often on the sides or rear is when they are used in urban locations. Unconventional warfare in an urban area like in Chechnya showed that most of the hits suffered by Russian tanks were sustained on the sides, the roof of the turret and the rear of the hull. That is undisputed. However, if you are talking about tanks shooting at other tanks, then you must recognize that the vast majority of hits land in the frontal arc, which was determined by Soviet analysts to be 70 degrees, hence the shape of the T-64/72/80 turret.

If you aren't actually reading what I write, then I won't bother writing. Seems like you are only focused on boosting your own ego by trying to be right, talking about how I "don't get war" and that I "do not have real time with warfare", as if you are some super-duper strategic genius or something.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Do you happen to know about Frag kits or are you REALLY that dense? Have you actually even sat into an uparmoured vehicle or is this another one of, i am willing to show as little as possible blabla?

B-kits on the M1151 and Frag Kits (5/6/7) on the M1114 were not "composite" armor but bolt on armor with slots for anti EFP charges. without the Slots (that looked like huge radios) the bolt-on armor was 45mm RHA. It added between 1 and 1.5 tons to the M1114 and proved crappy. Mostly because the vehicles were already struggling with the power and also because bolt on is not always a safe bet.

Here what a bolt on FRAG kit looks like on previous variants (M1165 Frag 3)

What does this have to do with anything? Was I talking about Frag kits? Take a long, hard look at what I wrote before trying to respond.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

The JRVV's they have a baseline 65mm on RHA that should not be penetrated by 23mm, but still, shit happens.

The insulation foil for the B-kit that is also applied to the MATV/LATV/JRVV depends on requirements but it is never under the 15mm.

Once again, I would like to remind you that nobody actually expresses protection level in RHA. If you actually measured the thickness of the base armour to be 65mm of pure steel, then please share your evidence with us. I am very interested in your findings.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

The point however still stands, the 2A42 and 2A72 will have no issue whatsoever with the main threats they will be facing, infantry carrying vehicles, heavy APCS (with AP-T/ATGM/LATW carried on board) and trucks.

It would have a big issue with an M2A2/A3 Bradley at any range worth mentioning, even if a BMP-2/BMP-3 manages to take up better positions and score multiple side hits. Sure, old M113s and Ferret scout cars aren't a challenge, or even other BMP-2s for that matter, but that's not exactly a high bar to pass.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

500mm against CE? That's the minimum value if I take the angle. You can search for the Video which was posted during the battle for Mosul Hospital by Daesh. The Tandem Bulgarian warhead used went through the tank's front right hull at an angle of 20° give or take, If i have to trust this :



It hit dead in the overlap between the front capsule and the mainstay of the hull. Basically in both cases it did something It should have not been possible to do. But it did.

Now we have, omg the initial description is crap.

Many Iraqi Abrams tanks were knocked out, and I can't really visualize what happened from your description. You need to give a link so we can see it.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Sources? Which ones?

I gave you four. The study penned by Manfred Held is the most important one.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Let me tell you one thing that you might fucking get through you ears.

Tank fire in WW2 killed less than 17% of the other armored vehicles. For the US tanks it was 7.5%. Which means that 83% of the the vehicles put out of combat were probably engaged elsewhere than in their frontal 70°, by something else than tanks.

This has absolutely nothing to do with the distribution of hits on tanks, and the sources I listed also included hits from ATGMs and other weapons. You would know if you bothered to check them, so you clearly didn't. Why should I even talk to someone who is as stubborn as you?

KoTeMoRe wrote:

The round turrets of the T-series were made to cover flanks when showing front (skirting) but see how the hull wasn't made in a round shape, guess why? Oh I know stupid, incapable Soviet engineers. And they also tried to have an ovoidal hull as well, no need to tell me. However that skirting used on the turret, was done so to save both weight and material, by having the maximum amount of coverage WHILE SHOWING FRONT. However SHOWING FRONT is not a god given right.

Wow, you are so very rude. I'm pretty sure that you are breaking some forum rule right now, actually. But moving on:

1. Hull shapes other than regular rectangles are difficult to pull off.
2. What is "skirting"? Tank turrets don't have skirts.
3. T-64 came with "gill" armour that flipped out and provided shaped charge protection for the hull for a 60-degree frontal arc.
4. Soviets technical documents show that they quantified armour protection at a side angle of 30 degrees, and that one of the most important criteria for tank turrets was to be able to survive hits from a 30 degree side angle.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Now as for AT immobilization hits, the US found out of their sample, that most of the hits by AT guns (i stress out this) were on rear and tracks. Most in this case being 69%. So 69% were hit on weaker spots and Flanks/rear.

I don't know if you realize this, but you should should be informed that the information I shared did not contradict this at all. I said that the frontal arc of 70 degrees of the tank received the majority of hits, but it seems that you saw the word "front" and lost your shit thinking that I said that the majority of hits landed on the front of the tank. The frontal arc includes the sides of the tank, but side shots do not necessarily mean hitting the side of the tank at a perpendicular angle. Most shots impact at an angle to the side, and the distribution of hits at different angles is what I am referring to.

KoTeMoRe wrote:
So which is this source that shows that you are going to get hit frontally on 70% of the time. The idea of head on attack works if you have a careful situational awareness and positional skill. However it is VERY rare that you get to lead an assault through head on. The actual very idea of conventional mechanized warfare is one of pivot and covering your damn flanks. WHY? Because at some point you are going to have three things happening to your damn attack.

1. Break through & Focus on exploitation. This causes you to have the brunt of the enemy on your back. Yes a kettle will open the way for enemy reinforcements to hit you on your back.
2. Wood and icing. Your attack hits hard wood and it starts to stall, you get pinned and the enemy WILL ABSOLUTELY try to go around.
3. Transition period after break through that will see you and the enemy in limbo. Looking for each other.


In a nutshell, you will be able to get the enemy in front of your sights if you manage other areas of combat that do not need your tank have super duper Sabot rounds. Those areas will allow you to maintain a high percentage of advantage and initiative (ergo showing the strongest part of the armor to the enemy). There's a causality there, but it is not automatic.

I never asked for your opinion on head on attacks, nor did I say that head on attacks are where tanks are going to get hit frontally. I also didn't say that tanks get hit from the front 70% of the time. I said that the 70-degree frontal arc of a tank receives the majority of hits. You are utterly confused, you poor, poor man.

I already listed the sources that I referred to. Your eyesight must be absolutely terrible...

Grigoryan, V.A, Tank Armour (Защита Танков), 2007

Grigoryan, V.A, Ammunition (Боеприпасы), 2005

Shevchenko, Ya.V, Actual problems of protection and safety: Proceedings of the Eighth All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference (Актуальные проблемы защиты и безопасности: Труды Восьмой Всероссийской научно-практической конференции), April 4-7, 2005

Held, M, Warhead Hit Distribution on Main Battle Tanks in The Gulf War, 2000

KoTeMoRe wrote:

With the new portable threats, the very strength of the armored vehicle is being challenged, especially in an exploitation movement. A light vehicle, with an ATGM provides, more mobility, less footprint and detectability than the said tank. There is no sense to bringing tank to tank combat idiocy when we are talking about how the Marder M1A3 is ill suited into a discussion as a far superior APC/IFV than the BMP2. If you are going to box the BMP to front only then you are indeed cherry picking.

It's pretty clear that you are confused, because you think that I said "70% of hits land on the front of a tank", and that the BMP is going to be hit from the front only. I'm really surprised, because you definitely acknowledged that I said "70 degree arc" in an earlier comment, as you can see:

KoTeMoRe wrote:
2. You are looking at this equation in a very narrow way and i am willing to take your "70° arc protection" as a sounding absurdity. The Enemy will not attack you on your strongest side, that's nonsense.

Come back to talk once you are sober, or just PM me. This is getting a little off topic, especially if you continue to ramble on like you did.

No I will not get back when I am sober.

For a couple of reasons.

1. You are cherrypicking. Mindlessly. In Ukraine when both sides had the same kind of armor, tank to tank combat was so freaking rare, that if you know about it, you wouldn't brink tank to tank combat into a scenario that was looking at the Marder survivability in a hot war.
2. There are a lot of current detailed studies, that are critically evaluating the role of armor today. Lost armour has a complete list of lost mechanized assets, with debates about their fate. You will see that in most cases the tanks lost were due to hits out of the 70° arc.

3. The BMP2 30mm gun now has to have an issue with the Bradley? Oh wow which one? Not being able to out gun it? Not being able to take out most of its most valuable assets? Namely the Engine, the TOW launcher, the Driver post?

Actually you start with a foregone conclusion and base yourself on wars that were as distant and different from one another.

Kuwait and the Gulf war saw 90% of the Iraqi armor decimated by anything else but tanks. It saw the US having total intelligence superiority and the Iraqis being unable to mount any kind of resistance. Ironically, the Saudis using better tanks that the US, but employing them like crap in a damn arid desert, get rear ended each and overtime by weapons that were allegedly unable to kill them and out of the 70° arc. Allegedly. So you tell me.

You are taking completely lopsided confrontations and producing them as examples on how things are going to go.

Well If i put mike tyson on his prime against a toddler, there's little chance the toddler will win. But that is not a real comparison of strength.

Now let's get to the "you don't read me" argument. You said the 30mm would have big issues to get out anything but jeeps. Well Iraqi M1114's with Frag kit 5's seemed to disagree. Mosul Hospital was such a shit show that uparmored "jeeps" couldn't even withstand basic KPV fire and other ZSU-23's mounted on Hiluxes and L300's. Yemenis seemed to have no issue whatsoever with their Iranian 23mm SR's in immobilizing, penetrating and disabling MATV's. But the 30mm, even with AP-T, that seemed to be a mystery to you, would be useless against other threats...

Listen, as I said, you read to much numbers in your internet pages, while I am looking to the aftermath of obsolescent weapons applied into indestructible Western Machines.

I am not drunk, I am waking you up to the fact that real life comes at you fast. And more than often numbers don't add up.

Also you don't know the term skirting? Oh Jesus?

Check when a woman with a skirt turns around. The skirt forms a perfect circular shape with hides what's on her back side. Same for the turrets of the later T-series. The front when pointed properly, covers fully the unevenly armored rear of turret, that's what skirting is.

Ironically the M60 was still based on that idea, albeit being higher and narrower, made the whole skirting affair more complex.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

No I will not get back when I am sober.

For a couple of reasons.

1. You are cherrypicking. Mindlessly. In Ukraine when both sides had the same kind of armor, tank to tank combat was so freaking rare,   that if you know about it, you wouldn't brink tank to tank combat into a scenario that was looking at the Marder survivability in a hot war.

There are other reasons for this, one of them being the type of war being waged there. Broadly speaking, there was very little use of air power, and there were few territorial gains on both sides after months of fighting. Tanks could hardly be used in their intended role in such circumstances, and artillery was so much more useful. If you think that all the wars involving Russia in the future will unconventional or semi-conventional like in Ukraine, then sure, I don't disagree with you. I am talking about conventional warfare, as I have repeatedly mentioned in my previous comments. Even in Ukraine, you'll probably find that even if most of the lost tanks were due to hits on their weaker sides or rear (if they weren't knocked out by artillery), the distribution of hits should probably be quite balanced across the entire tank. When fighting in urban areas, there will be more hits on the sides and rear than in the front.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

2. There are a lot of current detailed studies, that are critically evaluating the role of armor today. Lost armour has a complete list of lost mechanized assets, with debates about their fate. You will see that in most cases the tanks lost were due to hits out of the 70° arc.

There is a logical disconnect here. There is this story about armouring certain locations of B-29 bombers that you should read. Sure, in most cases the tanks were lost due to hits outside of a 70 degree frontal arc, because the 70 degree frontal was the best-armoured part of the tank. Hitting a tank in that location would have a much lower chance of knocking it out of action. It's irrelevant that most tanks were lost from hitting their weak flanks or rear, what's relevant is the proportion of hits across the entire tank. That's what Manfred Held's study was investigating. They were taking all hits into account as data, not just the ones that went through, and the histogram of the data shows that the majority of hits are on the frontal arc. The exact size of the arc changed over the years, and the histogram was almost flat for the Gulf War, and there were reasons for that as well (very fast advance of Coalition forces allowed them to outflank Iraqi armour).

I would like to see such studies, if you are willing to oblige.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

3. The BMP2 30mm gun now has to have an issue with the Bradley? Oh wow which one? Not being able to out gun it? Not being able to take out most of its most valuable assets? Namely the Engine, the TOW launcher, the Driver post?

Well, yes, actually. The engine and driver are in front, and the frontal armour of the M2A2/A3 Bradley is very thick and rather well sloped. AP-T rounds would do very poorly. The TOW launcher is an extremely small target, and is not near the center mass of the vehicle, so hitting that is unlikely. Except for the luckiest hits, 3BR-6 isn't going to cut it.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Actually you start with a foregone conclusion and base yourself on wars that were as distant and different from one another.

Kuwait and the Gulf war saw 90% of the Iraqi armor decimated by anything else but tanks. It saw the US having total intelligence superiority and the Iraqis being unable to mount any kind of resistance. Ironically, the Saudis using better tanks that the US, but employing them like crap in a damn arid desert, get rear ended each and overtime by weapons that were allegedly unable to kill them and out of the 70° arc. Allegedly. So you tell me.

You are taking completely lopsided confrontations and producing them as examples on how things are going to go.

Was I talking about the primary causes of tank losses? No. I was talking about the distribution of hits.

Is Russia going to use their tanks like Iraq? Is Russia going to use their tanks like the Saudis? No. You've flown out of the discussion and into your own world. Do you even remember the point of the original discussion? I was talking about how the majority of hits land in a 70 degree frontal arc for both tanks and IFVs, so you can't reliably knock out a Marder 1A3 with a BMP-2 by targeting the side armour.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Well If i put mike tyson on his prime against a toddler, there's little chance the toddler will win. But that is not a real comparison of strength.

Now let's get to the "you don't read me" argument. You said the 30mm would have big issues to get out anything but jeeps. Well Iraqi M1114's with Frag kit 5's seemed to disagree. Mosul Hospital was such a shit show that uparmored "jeeps" couldn't even withstand basic KPV fire and other ZSU-23's mounted on Hiluxes and L300's. Yemenis seemed to have no issue whatsoever with their Iranian 23mm SR's in immobilizing, penetrating and disabling MATV's. But the 30mm,  even with AP-T, that seemed to be a mystery to you, would be useless against other threats...

And where is the evidence for any of that? How many were lost? Was Frag kit 5 even rated for 14.5mm fire? Were those vehicles simply immobilized and later destroyed with other weapons or were they actually penetrated by bullets? What were those M-ATVs rated for? Level 2? You can give as many examples as you want, but as far as anyone knows, all of these vehicles were only rated to take small arms fire, and that includes Frag kit 5.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Listen, as I said, you read to much numbers in your internet pages, while I am looking to the aftermath of obsolescent weapons applied into indestructible Western Machines.  

I am not drunk, I am waking you up to the fact that real life comes at you fast. And more than often numbers don't add up.

I wasn't the one handing out unverifiable numbers regarding the armour of MRAPs; numbers that have not been substantiated by any source or evidence. With the numbers that you gave... of course they don't add up.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Also you don't know the term skirting? Oh Jesus?

Check when a woman with a skirt turns around. The skirt forms a perfect circular shape with hides what's on her back side. Same for the turrets of the later T-series. The front when pointed properly, covers fully the unevenly armored rear of turret, that's what skirting is.

Ironically the M60 was still based on that idea, albeit being higher and narrower, made the whole skirting affair more complex.

Skirting usually refers to the skirts on cars and tanks, because those actually resemble skirts. They're thin, light, and they cover the lower part of the vehicle. Think about it. Why would a skirt be on the turret? The parts of the turret on either side of the gun are referred to as the "turret cheeks". The area around the gun barrel is called the "mantlet".

Guys discussion has gone off-topic

I'm not telling my background to you, just as I'm not telling my age, because you are clearly a very hostile individual.

Your age is 18 years old... it says so below your avatar.

Funnily enough, the document also says this (take note GarryB):

"The M792 HEI-T round will not be considered. The round-to-round random dispersion of the HEI-T is significantly greater than that of APDS-T which would presumably lead to significantly different results"

So a full caliber round has greater dispersion than an APDS round. Well, how about that...

All that proves is that the HEIT round was a copy of a soviet round obviously.

And shooting at aircraft is largely pointless with AP rounds... few have enough armour to warrant AP rounds and punching little holes in them wont do enough damage to bring them down efficiently.

Guys discussion has gone off-topic

It definitely has.

Well, yes, actually. The engine and driver are in front, and the frontal armour of the M2A2/A3 Bradley is very thick and rather well sloped. AP-T rounds would do very poorly. The TOW launcher is an extremely small target, and is not near the center mass of the vehicle, so hitting that is unlikely. Except for the luckiest hits, 3BR-6 isn't going to cut it.

Actually the bradley's frontal is extremely poor due to being only 25mm of aluminum.



Also the bushmaster has a very poor ROF, no HE, and is so poorly designed that poisonous exhaust gases seep into the crew compartment from it.
Its definitely inferior to the 2A42. Even with APCBC, the 2A42 can destroy most IFVs and other AFVs that it would encounter, including bradleys, VBCLs, Patria AMVs, definitely the POS known as the stryker, Warrior, and marders. The only AFVs that it needs APDS to destroy are the Puma and CV90. Currently there is no info on the AFSDS 2A42-72 russian made ammo, but a belgian company produced some. I'm sure that the MOD would easily procure such ammo if the need arised, effectively making the 2A42 very powerful.

Also by your logic the RARDEN and the 30mm gun on the CV90 are worthless because they have an even lower ROF than the 2A42-72.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:
Actually the bradley's frontal is extremely poor due to being only 25mm of aluminum.



Also the bushmaster has a very poor ROF, no HE, and is so poorly designed that poisonous exhaust gases seep into the crew compartment from it.
Its definitely inferior to the 2A42. Even with APCBC, the 2A42 can destroy most IFVs and other AFVs that it would encounter, including bradleys, VBCLs, Patria AMVs, definitely the POS known as the stryker, Warrior, and marders. The only AFVs that it needs APDS to destroy are the Puma and CV90. Currently there is no info on the AFSDS 2A42-72 russian made ammo, but a belgian company produced some. I'm sure that the MOD would easily procure such ammo if the need arised, effectively making the 2A42 very powerful.

Also by your logic the RARDEN and the 30mm gun on the CV90 are worthless because they have an even lower ROF than the 2A42-72.

Blacktaildefence

I know that we are still off-topic, but I think that you should know that a 32mm steel plate was added on top of the 1-inch thick aluminium frontal armour in the M2A2 upgrade in 1988. Also, that video is 98% garbage. 100%, maybe, since the presentation is so smug and arrogant.

GarryB wrote:
Your age is 18 years old... it says so below your avatar.

I can be as old or as young as I wish, unlike in real life, sadly. The forum rules do not require anyone to disclose any personal information of any kind, and I did not. That said, maybe some people would be less belligerent if I claimed that I was 40 years old or something.

GarryB wrote:
All that proves is that the HEIT round was a copy of a soviet round obviously.

Another straw man argument... This has nothing with Soviet tank shells, other than the fact that they must also obey the same laws of physics as everyone else.

GarryB wrote:
And shooting at aircraft is largely pointless with AP rounds... few have enough armour to warrant AP rounds and punching little holes in them wont do enough damage to bring them down efficiently.

The discussion is already far enough off-topic without you saying more stuff that has nothing to do with anything at all.

Interlinked wrote:

KomissarBojanchev wrote:
Actually the bradley's frontal is extremely poor due to being only 25mm of aluminum.



Also the bushmaster has a very poor ROF, no HE, and is so poorly designed that poisonous exhaust gases seep into the crew compartment from it.
Its definitely inferior to the 2A42. Even with APCBC, the 2A42 can destroy most IFVs and other AFVs that it would encounter, including bradleys, VBCLs, Patria AMVs, definitely the POS known as the stryker, Warrior, and marders. The only AFVs that it needs APDS to destroy are the Puma and CV90. Currently there is no info on the AFSDS 2A42-72 russian made ammo, but a belgian company produced some. I'm sure that the MOD would easily procure such ammo if the need arised, effectively making the 2A42 very powerful.

Also by your logic the RARDEN and the 30mm gun on the CV90 are worthless because they have an even lower ROF than the 2A42-72.

Blacktaildefence

I know that we are still off-topic, but I think that you should know that a 32mm steel plate was added on top of the 1-inch thick aluminium frontal armour in the M2A2 upgrade in 1988.




The discussion is already far enough off-topic without you saying more stuff that has nothing to do with anything at all.

Like all western fanboys, you can only make ad hominems on Blacktail's videos.

Also, do you have a source that specifically states that spaced armor was added to the bradley's front hull armor?

I couldn't find anything. The closest I got to was this sight: http://afvdb.50megs.com/usa/m2bradley.html#M2A2

But it only mentions that spaced armor was added to the turret front and doesn't mention any upgrade to the hull front protection.

Sorry for offtopic, but BS about the supposed greatness of the Crapley needs to stop.

BTW, you failed to refute my other points.

There are other reasons for this, one of them being the type of war being waged there. Broadly speaking, there was very little use of air power, and there were few territorial gains on both sides after months of fighting. Tanks could hardly be used in their intended role in such circumstances, and artillery was so much more useful. If you think that all the wars involving Russia in the future will unconventional or semi-conventional like in Ukraine, then sure, I don't disagree with you. I am talking about conventional warfare, as I have repeatedly mentioned in my previous comments. Even in Ukraine, you'll probably find that even if most of the lost tanks were due to hits on their weaker sides or rear (if they weren't knocked out by artillery), the distribution of hits should probably be quite balanced across the entire tank. When fighting in urban areas, there will be more hits on the sides and rear than in the front.

Bullshit. The actual reason was very poor intelligence gathering from both parties at war, small forces involved and huge fronts to cover.

The territorial gains made by one side were actually abysmally big. The losses suffered by the UA side were absurd. They had lost 65% of their active force in theatre. The political calculus of one side, isn't the military result of that war. Icing of the conflict was decided in Moscow, not in Donbass.

Conventionnal warfare isn't always a full spectrum affair. There has been, is and will be a conventional war between less gifted parties that will wage war in bigger settings and that will give way to a shattering of "war treatises".

KoTeMoRe wrote:

2. There are a lot of current detailed studies, that are critically evaluating the role of armor today. Lost armour has a complete list of lost mechanized assets, with debates about their fate. You will see that in most cases the tanks lost were due to hits out of the 70° arc.

There is a logical disconnect here. There is this story about armouring certain locations of B-29 bombers that you should read. Sure, in most cases the tanks were lost due to hits outside of a 70 degree frontal arc, because the 70 degree frontal was the best-armoured part of the tank. Hitting a tank in that location would have a much lower chance of knocking it out of action. It's irrelevant that most tanks were lost from hitting their weak flanks or rear, what's relevant is the proportion of hits across the entire tank. That's what Manfred Held's study was investigating. They were taking all hits into account as data, not just the ones that went through, and the histogram of the data shows that the majority of hits are on the frontal arc. The exact size of the arc changed over the years, and the histogram was almost flat for the Gulf War, and there were reasons for that as well (very fast advance of Coalition forces allowed them to outflank Iraqi armour).

Proportions of hits? What? There is no way in hell to count how many hits were scored on the tank before it got knocked out. There's also the very specific point of suppressing or luring the tank to show the weakest part. But again, i would enjoin you to check the Paste-it files of Syrian Terrorist attacks on Syrian Army armor. It encompasses all kinds of weaponry use. From ATGM's to B-10's. A twitter source detailed it as followed. 61% of the hits were on sides, 15% were upfront, rest was on rear or roof.

Another source in Arabic has all the Yemeni hits on Saudi and auxiliary forces. Over 73% of hits were on sides. None of these were within built in areas, but well outside.

3. The BMP2 30mm gun now has to have an issue with the Bradley? Oh wow which one? Not being able to out gun it? Not being able to take out most of its most valuable assets? Namely the Engine, the TOW launcher, the Driver post?

Well, yes, actually. The engine and driver are in front, and the frontal armour of the M2A2/A3 Bradley is very thick and rather well sloped. AP-T rounds would do very poorly. The TOW launcher is an extremely small target, and is not near the center mass of the vehicle, so hitting that is unlikely. Except for the luckiest hits, 3BR-6 isn't going to cut it.
[/quote]

Ok i know that you have never seen a Brdley driver hatch, in your life. EVER. It is already listed as a weak spot in the damn IOC papers, and as such it was quickly up-armoured with ERA. The Driver hatch is uplifted so as to provide direct sight. Instead of episcopes as in the BMP, the driver's face is net on the ballistic glass.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Actually you start with a foregone conclusion and base yourself on wars that were as distant and different from one another.

Kuwait and the Gulf war saw 90% of the Iraqi armor decimated by anything else but tanks. It saw the US having total intelligence superiority and the Iraqis being unable to mount any kind of resistance. Ironically, the Saudis using better tanks that the US, but employing them like crap in a damn arid desert, get rear ended each and overtime by weapons that were allegedly unable to kill them and out of the 70° arc. Allegedly. So you tell me.

You are taking completely lopsided confrontations and producing them as examples on how things are going to go.

Was I talking about the primary causes of tank losses? No. I was talking about the distribution of hits.

Is Russia going to use their tanks like Iraq? Is Russia going to use their tanks like the Saudis? No. You've flown out of the discussion and into your own world. Do you even remember the point of the original discussion? I was talking about how the majority of hits land in a 70 degree frontal arc for both tanks and IFVs, so you can't reliably knock out a Marder 1A3 with a BMP-2 by targeting the side armour.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Russia is not going to use their tanks like Iraq, but there's is little sense that a peer contestant is going to use their assets like the Iraqis either. In a draw game situational combat will change the way the combat flows.

The pain the initial discussion caused me is that most hits on a tank will be on its 70° frontal arc.

Israelis that were no idiots, got scored by Syrian ATGM teams mostly on the move, mostly on the sides, mostly on ambushes in peri-urban areas. Ironically the US instructors that taught the Syrian terrorists these last 6 years, taught to aim for weak points. So how does this click? The major purveyor of know how, teaches to avoid frontal areas?

But they don't. There is no possibility to predict that you are going to get hit mostly on a 70° arc. It doesn't work like that.

Well If i put mike tyson on his prime against a toddler, there's little chance the toddler will win. But that is not a real comparison of strength.

Now let's get to the "you don't read me" argument. You said the 30mm would have big issues to get out anything but jeeps. Well Iraqi M1114's with Frag kit 5's seemed to disagree. Mosul Hospital was such a shit show that uparmored "jeeps" couldn't even withstand basic KPV fire and other ZSU-23's mounted on Hiluxes and L300's. Yemenis seemed to have no issue whatsoever with their Iranian 23mm SR's in immobilizing, penetrating and disabling MATV's. But the 30mm,  even with AP-T, that seemed to be a mystery to you, would be useless against other threats...

And where is the evidence for any of that? How many were lost? Was Frag kit 5 even rated for 14.5mm fire? Were those vehicles simply immobilized and later destroyed with other weapons or were they actually penetrated by bullets? What were those M-ATVs rated for? Level 2? You can give as many examples as you want, but as far as anyone knows, all of these vehicles were only rated to take small arms fire, and that includes Frag kit 5.

You understand that Frag kits were supposed to be against EFP charges rated up to 300mm with the cases and at least 100mm?

Listen, as I said, you read to much numbers in your internet pages, while I am looking to the aftermath of obsolescent weapons applied into indestructible Western Machines.  

I am not drunk, I am waking you up to the fact that real life comes at you fast. And more than often numbers don't add up.

I wasn't the one handing out unverifiable numbers regarding the armour of MRAPs; numbers that have not been substantiated by any source or evidence. With the numbers that you gave... of course they don't add up.
[/quote]

So Frag Kits rated for EFP's they only protect from small arms fire? Wtf?

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Skirting usually refers to the skirts on cars and tanks, because those actually resemble skirts. They're thin, light, and they cover the lower part of the vehicle. Think about it. Why would a skirt be on the turret? The parts of the turret on either side of the gun are referred to as the "turret cheeks". The area around the gun barrel is called the "mantlet".

that's why I say you have no experience with real time tankers or soldiers for that fact.

Interlinked wrote:
Skirting usually refers to the skirts on cars and tanks, because those actually resemble skirts. They're thin, light, and they cover the lower part of the vehicle. Think about it. Why would a skirt be on the turret? The parts of the turret on either side of the gun are referred to as the "turret cheeks". The area around the gun barrel is called the "mantlet".

You say what?

I can be as old or as young as I wish, unlike in real life, sadly. The forum rules do not require anyone to disclose any personal information of any kind, and I did not. That said, maybe some people would be less belligerent if I claimed that I was 40 years old or something.

Hahaha... so yesterday it said you were 18 years old, and now it says you are 27 years old.

Clearly you were either lying or are lying now as you cannot be both.

GarryB wrote:

I can be as old or as young as I wish, unlike in real life, sadly. The forum rules do not require anyone to disclose any personal information of any kind, and I did not. That said, maybe some people would be less belligerent if I claimed that I was 40 years old or something.

Hahaha... so yesterday it said you were 18 years old, and now it says you are 27 years old.

Clearly you were either lying or are lying now as you cannot be both.

I explained in another thread why I put 18 as my age. To be brief, it's because some websites and forums require members to be at least 18. You don't like the number 27? I can change it just for you

KoTeMoRe wrote:
Bullshit. The actual reason was very poor intelligence gathering from both parties at war, small forces involved and huge fronts to cover.

The territorial gains made by one side were actually abysmally big. The losses suffered by the UA side were absurd. They had lost 65% of their active force in theatre. The political calculus of one side, isn't the military result of that war. Icing of the conflict was decided in Moscow, not in Donbass.

Conventionnal warfare isn't always a full spectrum affair. There has been, is and will be a conventional war between less gifted parties that will wage war in bigger settings and that will give way to a shattering of "war treatises".

We can debate the exact reason why tank-on-tank combat was rare in Ukraine, but you have to realize that I gave only one of the reasons. I didn't say that it was the only reason.

The territorial losses were big at certain points in the war. A big chunk of it was stagnant.

No, conventional war does not have to involve air power, but the consensus is that the war in Ukraine is unconventional, because it meets the very definition of that term. One side was being externally supplied, sponsored and trained by a neighouring state to wage war against a regime, and due to the smaller scale of that conflict, unconventional tactics were used by the rebels to fight the bigger and more established Ukr forces.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Proportions of hits? What? There is no way in hell to count how many hits were scored on the tank before it got knocked out. There's also the very specific point of suppressing or luring the tank to show the weakest part. But again, i would enjoin you to check the Paste-it files of Syrian Terrorist attacks on Syrian Army armor. It encompasses all kinds of weaponry use. From ATGM's to B-10's. A twitter source detailed it as followed. 61% of the hits were on sides, 15% were upfront, rest was on rear or roof.

Where the hell did I say that it was about counting how many hits were scored on a tank before it got knocked out? I said that all hits were counted in the data I cited. Please don't try to twist my words.

You can talk about tactics all you want, and I don't disagree with you, but the data shows a different picture.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Another source in Arabic has all the Yemeni hits on Saudi and auxiliary forces. Over 73% of hits were on sides. None of these were within built in areas, but well outside.  

And can we see this source? I don't doubt for a second that Saudi forces used their tanks rather foolishly, so it was easy to use guided missiles to target the weaker sides of the tank. In this case, Saudi tanks were used as artillery in static positions that were rather close to the enemy.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Ok i know that you have never seen a Brdley driver hatch, in your life. EVER. It is already listed as a weak spot in the damn IOC papers, and as such it was quickly up-armoured with ERA. The Driver hatch is uplifted so as to provide direct sight. Instead of episcopes as in the BMP, the driver's face is net on the ballistic glass.

So a BMP-2 gunner has to pray that he hits the driver's hatch instead of the other 95% of the vehicle? Those aren't very good odds.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

Russia is not going to use their tanks like Iraq, but there's is little sense that a peer contestant is going to use their assets like the Iraqis either. In a draw game situational combat will change the way the combat flows.

I don't think that a conventional war involving military peers will erupt any time soon either. I'm not disputing that. In any realistic situation that would likely arise in the future, the convention that most of the tanks land on a 70 degree frontal arc is not going to be true. However, it was historically true when we look at previous major conventional wars like the Yom Kippur conflict in 1973. No, it was not true in the 2006 war in Lebanon, and I wasn't arguing that it is.

KoTeMoRe wrote:

The pain the initial discussion caused me is that most hits on a tank will be on its 70° frontal arc.

Israelis that were no idiots, got scored by Syrian ATGM teams mostly on the move, mostly on the sides, mostly on ambushes in peri-urban areas. Ironically the US instructors that taught the Syrian terrorists these last 6 years, taught to aim for weak points. So how does this click? The major purveyor of know how, teaches to avoid frontal areas?

But they don't. There is no possibility to predict that you are going to get hit mostly on a 70° arc. It doesn't work like that.

Don't bring this up with me. Bring it up to the people that collected this data.

KoTeMoRe wrote:
You understand that Frag kits were supposed to be against EFP charges rated up to 300mm with the cases and at least 100mm?

So Frag Kits rated for EFP's they only protect from small arms fire? Wtf?

And a layer of ERA with a thin back plate can stop an RPG rated up to 500mm, but remain insensitive so that it does not react to small arms fire at all. What's your point?

KoTeMoRe wrote:
that's why I say you have no experience with real time tankers or soldiers for that fact.

There is different slang among different soldiers for various things. Not everyone refers to the same thing in the same way.

KomissarBojanchev wrote:
Like all western fanboys

I run this little blog...

KomissarBojanchev wrote:

Also, do you have a source that specifically states that spaced armor was added to the bradley's front hull armor?

I couldn't find anything. The closest I got to was this sight: http://afvdb.50megs.com/usa/m2bradley.html#M2A2

But it only mentions that spaced armor was added to the turret front and doesn't mention any upgrade to the hull front protection.

Sorry for offtopic, but BS about the supposed greatness of the Crapley needs to stop.

BTW, you failed to refute my other points.

This really does not belong in this thread. If you want an answer, then PM me.

Militarov wrote:

You say what?

Ah, yes, I forgot about that standard issue multi-coloured anti-missile rubber sheeting...

Good one.

d_taddei2 wrote:

Militarov wrote:

Interlinked wrote:
Skirting usually refers to the skirts on cars and tanks, because those actually resemble skirts. They're thin, light, and they cover the lower part of the vehicle. Think about it. Why would a skirt be on the turret? The parts of the turret on either side of the gun are referred to as the "turret cheeks". The area around the gun barrel is called the "mantlet".

You say what?

If I am correct that was a T-34-85 Serbian used in NATO balkan's war. This is rubber sheets used not only for additional protection but also help to reduce heat signature. The same type of tank was used against uk Royal engineers stationed in a bunker the T-34-85 opened fired destroying bunker a injuring the UK soldiers. The gun of the T-34-85 is still useful in such conflicts like Syria.

This photo is from war in Bosnia few years earlier, it was one of many, many field modifications done. Ammunition boxes filled with sand, rubber sheets, wood... etc etc.

These rubbers were added to increase survivability aganist HEAT, mostly M-80 Zolja.

Once again, no matter what you think about your sources, predicting hit percentage, hit areas, ammo expenditure, supply lines, rationing and fighter accuracy is akin to going to the casino.

German studies on WW1 hit to shot ratio were roughly at 12 000 rounds per dead enemy. US ratio in WW2 was anywhere from 15K To 120K, and in Vietnam it even went to 250 K (that number has stood the test of time with the GAO counting as much per dead talitubbie in Afghanistan).

So it is just impossible to point out a pattern of all these things that make an armed conflict. Especially as it becomes a challenge to previous paradigms.

No we don't have to speculate about the low number of tank vs tank battles in eastern Ukraine/Donbass. There is a specific timeline of that conflict. That timeline points out to the total chaos among both belligerents on operational level and intelligence level. For about 4 months the insurgency had almost no armor and the Ukrainians had a poor motor pool both in quality and condition. This meant that until September 2014 there was little chance of tank to tank battle. Even during the most pressing Insurgent push there were only 5 occasions of tank fights (all of them in the Illovaisk cauldron).

The biggest armor action ironically took part way after the Illovaisk annihilation, roughly around the 5th September and was undertaken by Russian tankers in the rear of the Ukrainian armored forces (big remnant of the border sealing attempt in July and Augustus) with over 40 tanks destroyed on the move out of the border area towards Mariupol. This also because intelligence broke down when the Ukrainians were cutoff in up to the Svitlodarsk salient.

When the front was iced and the Insurgents decided to pluck out the Debaltsevo salient we had the first systematic tank on tank combat, that once again turned wild against the Ukrainian forces albeit the Insurgents were clearly less efficient in their approach to the Ukrainian lines, with a lot of losses due on both sides to ineptitude to read maps (Bahmutka/Sanxharovka mine fields).

Air Power being scarce should have facilitated AFV combat, but it didn't. This mainly because the units were loosely coordinated on both sides.

KoTeMoRe wrote:
Once again, no matter what you think about your sources, predicting hit percentage, hit areas, ammo expenditure, supply lines, rationing and fighter accuracy is akin to going to the casino.

"No matter what the evidence shows, I am still right"

Interlinked wrote:

KoTeMoRe wrote:
Once again, no matter what you think about your sources, predicting hit percentage, hit areas, ammo expenditure, supply lines, rationing and fighter accuracy is akin to going to the casino.

"No matter what the evidence shows, I am still right"

Evidence shows that predicting a war based on past wars cherry picking is at best a con job of academically encensed proportions.

Tank to tank combat in Western Europe is definitly going to defy your assumption over Frontal Arc hits.

I was "out" for some weeks for work and a serious bereavement in my family.....anyway better to attempt to return to normality.

Interlinked wrote:My position was never to degrade Soviet or Russian arms and armoured vehicles; I provide constructive criticism where it is necessary.

Oh yes, sure  

Interlinked wrote:........Does the 2A42 have a high rate of fire? Yes. All the better for the crew to choke on gunpowder fumes

How to condradict your statement after only few words.

Interlinked wrote:They tried to solve this issue by installing the cannon in an external mount like the Marder 1, but couldn't because the turret could not maintain a seal good enough to work in a contaminated environment. I would know. I wrote a fairly extensive piece on the BMP-2.

You would know ? You wrote an extensive article ?
You couldn't write even the preface of an article with a semblance of technical reliability about any military equipment.
What i have seen there ("your" blog) is, at best, a badly selected, collected and mounted "copy and paste" work from several different sources; you do not possess neither the info/data neither the specific technical knowledges to offer to the reader any significant information or observation about domestic armoured vehicles that cannot be found with immensely more accuracy, authority and reliability in serious sources about those subjects.

About the subject in question you have meanly "taken" some problems concerning the extraction of gun's fumes encountered at the beginning of '70 years - 1972-73 - in the development of the 2A42 gun - a product anyhow absolutely revolutionary for the time - including the solution's attempt with the "Об. 680", to attempot to hint that the very-high rate of fire of the 30 mm 2A42 gun would be in some way not exploitable for this reason; what idiocy !
You should know that solution to the issue was already resolved in march of the 1974 year by the second engineer team of СКБ КМЗ (under the direction of renowed Александр Александрович Благонравов) with a system of electrodynamic braking of exhaust ventilator collimated with burst salvo.

Interlinked wrote:Speaking of the Marder 1, it has an Rh202 20mm cannon that fires at 800-1000 RPM  

The same concept that you could name (in the hopeless attempt to find some kind of "equivalent" among western products to this '70 years domestic product   ) the 20 mm Rh-202 in a debate about the engineering hurdles in reaching the rate of fire of the 30 mm 2A42 gun - when even only the difference of the recoil force is from 6 to 10 times ! -

Interlinked wrote:and can fire DM63 APDS rounds that have slightly more penetration than M791 rounds for the Bradley's M242.

Oh my....
Practically you not even remember what YOU write ! (a thing that happen when someone, like you, "copy and paste" and venture in far-fetched inferences without understanding what it report).


"A presentation claims that M791 penetrates 44mm of RHA at 0 degrees at 2000 m, placing it on equal footing with 3BR8 at that range, however:

Knowing that the standards for certifying armour penetration differ between the East and the West, the discrepancy between the two rivals is actually even bigger. The Russians use V80 to certify their ammunition...."

"Sloped at 45 degrees, the turret of the BMP-2 has a LOS thickness of 46.7mm. This means that the front of the turret is essentially immune to .50 cal M2 AP bullets, .50 cal M903 SLAP-T, 14.5mm B-32 bullets and 14.5mm BS-41 bullets from point-blank range. It is also immune to 20x139mm DM41 APCR fired from the Rh202 autocannon from point-blank ranges, but it is vulnerable to the newer 20x139mm DM63 APDS introduced in the mid-80's as that is capable of penetrating exactly 35mm of steel sloped at 45 degrees at 1000 meters. However, since the type of steel target was not mentioned, we can only assume that it was NATO standard hardness steel of some 360 BHN.

The level of resistance to 25mm shells offered by the turret is not much different from its resistance against 20mm ones. Despite the difference in caliber, M791 does not have much of an edge over the 8 year-newer DM63, so M791 shells should be able to perforate the BMP-2's turret at 1600 meters at the very most."

Interlinked wrote:the faster 20mm and 25mm APDS rounds make it much easier to hit moving targets at long range, so saturation fire isn't the most optimal solution.

It is the exact opposite !!    
If you would lose less time in badly copy and pasting for that little blog you would had known that fire density (number of shot in a burst for unitary time) is, by a very long margin, the primary factor in achieving a reliable interception of variable-speed moving targets at over 1500 m ranges with unguided munitions, as anyone can esasily see from any corollary Raileigh or Markov-chain burst formula, while the degree of speed difference in existing medium caliber rounds produce much lower impact ; this is the main reason behind the historical ever growing requirement for high RoF for guns with primary and secondary AD role.
Even more you should be perfectly aware that for “long range” engagement with unguided rounds (over 1500 m for today medium-caliber guns within 35 mm) of targets moving with not-linear delta of velocity and arbitrarily changing direction, a degree of burst’s dispersion is an highly desiderable feature because it partially counterweight for the unavoidable greater bias-error, so assuring that several shots will anyhow eventually hit the intended target.

Burst’s mean time between shots ,“fire density”, become exponentially important at the growing of the distance from target and its capability to variate its movement’s vector in the unitary time (a critical factor for the engagement, at example, of the today ubiquous small tactical UAVs) so that at medium and long range the same number of shots in a burst will achieve a drammatically different Phit against a moving target on the basis of the mean time between shot in that burst.

Therefore only an highly biased ignorant could have or suggest a laugh of a……anyhow clearly purposely researched and selected…..portion of a clip showing in reality would allow a BMP-2 ,if it would employ the 2A42 high-rate automatic setting, to engage at the first burst a Bradley with a very high percentage of several hits at ranges where the latter, cause the much lower RoF and ammo reserve of its gun , would struggle to execute even only mere range-in attempt with single round tracer.

Laughs ? Yes sure, particularly thinking how terribly outgunned and outmaneuvered are western IFV operators cause the always widening technological gap that theirs AFV designers suffer against domestic ones.

Interlinked wrote:Unfortunately, the facts do not entirely line up in your favour. The chamber pressure of the M242 ranges from 360-410 MPa, depending on the ammunition it fires. M919 would be at the high end, of course. Chamber pressure of the 2A42 when firing 3UBR-6 is only 353 MPa. Let's not even bother comparing the 2A42 to a 30x173mm chain gun, eh?

I name muzzle energy (a measure highly related to real , not advertisement, penetration performances) and you respond with chamber pressure.…….i do not want to know the source……moreover accurately selecting the round for 2A42 ?  Please.

Interlinked wrote:Oh sure, they offer 30mm APFSDS in the 30x165mm caliber. Too bad the Russian Army doesn't get any of it.

You recall to my memory a guy i had a debate with in the year 2014; it sustained that the domestic Калибр with a range more than one and half times greater than the most advanced BGM-109 was a ridiculous phantasy on the basis that in western professional military analysis of domestic missiles and simulation of threath the range was always 300 km, how could them be so badly wrong about an offensive element so crucial ? The same was true X-101 ,obviously still..... in the opinion of western professionals experts....in development stage up to at least end oif this decade.
Reality impacted directly in its face and those of western analysts at US Naval Academy and CentCom only few months after.........  

Whant to see what is for employment -still for few years before transistion to new line - for domestic IFVs those days for what concern subcaliber 30 mm KE ammunitions ? See from 1:03.....(a good 80% of what you see in the video is out of possibility of any western -built IFV today).

     

Interlinked wrote: Having a 100mm low pressure gun isn't necessarily the bee's knees.

 
Having the 100 mm gun in IFV produce enormous effects up to the level of tactical concept of operation for Federation’s opponents.
Only to name few : it prevent sigle-handedly enemy IFVs, APCs and ATGM teams to station in advantageous static defensive positions- penalty is to be reduced to burning scrap from stand-off without getting even a chance to retaliate. That force particularly enemy IFVs in a full mobile long-range battle where the combination of theirs lack of a gun-launched long range missile and significantly lower rate of fire will leave them in a huge disadvantage.    

Interlinked wrote: The new "Epoch" turret doesn't have one, and there have been no further developments in this direction for a long time.

Central concept of the design of Курганец-25 (like for Бумеранг and Армата family) is the complete modularity of the fighting module without any modification of the chassis; actually in Курганец mechanized formations the caliber of the gun integrated for the same task  among the vehicles will be greater than that of БМП-3 and with immeasurable better performances.
Tactical task will not only reamin but will be carried out better with far less logistical problems and major ductility .

Interlinked wrote:The current trend is larger caliber autocannons; 40mm, 57mm, etc.

Current trends (and in this field ,that is not mine area of work, Federation's Companies are the trend-setter worldwide) are : modularity, robotization, formation/single vehicle multilayered APS and guided rounds (from that the domestic selection of very large caliber rounds capable to host aerodynamics actuators and guidance/homing elements allowing the reliable destruction of very small targets (in particular air delivered PGM and UAVs ) at very long range with 1-3 rounds.    
About the first two priorities (talking of "first round" hit probability against stationary targets see from 4:56....)



To be continued, returning in topic with tank's rounds.

This doesn't belong in a thread on the T-72. In fact, I really don't appreciate Mindstorm trying so hard to flex his intellectual "muscle" when I clearly showed a willingness to compromise and move on to a more relevant (and civil) discussion on the T-72.

I agree with Interlinked to move the debate about IFV's weapons into a more appropriate thread (Future of Russian IFV/BMPT could be just fine)



About me i do not want to flex any muscle neither usually i have the time or even less the wish to follow internet's warrior's "crusades"; at the same time i do not simply do not appreciate but plainly hate people attentively selecting or, even worse, "twisting" sources to promote an agenda (usually for western-loving or inferiority complex afflicted people : tarnish the image of domestic system in the most improbable way   ).



I was writing a risposte about historical analysis of penetration of KE rounds in various targets (with extracts from Медведева Н.П works and even the same M. Held analysis cited by Interlinked itself......and by me some 6 years ago..... proving how in actual measurements of the input and output holes of MBT's gun KE penetrators in relatively recent conflicts - Gulf Wars, South Ossetia mostly- those holes results virtually always bigger than the actual penetrator's diameter ,often of 3-4 times, and how distribution of majority of hits are concentrated progressively far from the aimed center of mass at the growing of the engagement distance (with majority hitting the turrett area and the very edge of the target projection at the shoting point, for mobile engagements); but for someone that in all those weeks (where i had well more serious thoughts in my head cause an unexpected bereavement) has even failed to grasp the sense of the pic with the MBT bombarded by 100mm and 57 mm rounds showing holes way bigger than the caliber of the shooting guns attempting without any sense to talk of the difference between APFSDS and APCBC probably it is all wasted energy  

Your use of big words and flowery language to express simple concepts is not impressing anyone. Example: your tirade on the ventilator in the BMP-2, which I covered in my BMP-2 article, which you clearly did not read. Why pass judgement on something you did not read? All you can do is cherry pick some lines to support your own preconceived notions (which is probably what you did in your unpublished "riposte". Prove us wrong). Whatever you've written, at least you will still get an A+ for your vocab, since you can't resist opening a thesaurus whenever you type. Good thing is that you're not alone. There are others that do this too, and here's what people think of them: https://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/comments/7lxf0u/my_one_friend/

Some select comments:

"I love when people try to use glamoricious words to try and sound more intellectuable, but just sound rediculousish"

"Prime example of trying too hard as soon as his vocabulary opens up, or rather, his thesaurus."

"Did you know? Using unnecessary sentences to describe something that can be also said with fewer words just for the sake of sounding smarter actually makes you sound dumb?"

(DISCLAIMER: Not my opinion)

Even your username is pretentious and pseudo-intellectual    You've done a great job stirring up trouble that was already resolved, and yet you still managed to avoid answering what I asked (removal of anti-neutron lining), which is actually pretty remarkable. Why not go do something else? Why don't you create a thread about your "riposte"? I'm sure many people would like to see it, myself included.