MBT's

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Change the above "Post" TORD Post #427 vice #227-sorry editor clock again.

Regards,
Pat

[DRG]

Originally Posted by FASTBOAT TOUGH

1)
4) This issue that concerns Don to some degree will in some cases some of the Soviet era and current Russian tanks might be "over protected" I do know one thing is for sure neither side of this discussion will be pandered too and a fair and honest review will be done for again both sides of this issue. I think after a cursory review some Russian tanks might benefit due to the ERA in the area of protection against HEAT (Chemical.) rounds.

The thought that perhaps we'd been too generous with later Russian tank protect was premature speculation.

In many cases there have been increases in protection in the OOB's and that goes for the western tanks as well. If I had to sum it up it would be to say we were far too conservative in the amount of protection we gave the newer generation tanks all around.. I've looked at a number of sources not just Prado. Some numbers we used were closer than others but the general trend in the next set of OOB's will be upwards in regard to protection levels. in some cases, dramatic jumps, in others not so much but in the end this is all speculation from us and the "real experts". The best of the best tanks have not come directly head to head and if we are lucky they never will.

All tanks are vulnerable some place. Catch an Abrams or Challenger or Leo or T-90 or T-14 or Merkava in the side with modern ammo and there will be a hull breach. There HAS TO BE because the newer penetrators are just too good and you cannot armour a tank all around like you armour the front hull and turret and still be mobile


Don

[Imp]

1) There seems to be just a "little" confusion about the armor protection tables I submitted from the armorsite.com website concerning the ABRAMS and later in Post #227 for the LEOPARD 2A4/5&6, T-80UM and T-90/90S. The tables for the ABRAMS and LEOPARDS only take into consideration STEEL armor (RHAe) it does not consider any added composite armor applications i.e. DU for the ABRAMS. I have found general parity between the ABRAMS and LEOPARDS is RHAe as those tanks have developed (And I'm not surprised by this.). Please read the note within the box under those RHAe values as they clearly support my above comments.

Not entirely sure about that Pat, for sure Russian takes into account the ERA as its part of the armor package.
I would have thought though the RHAe given for the second ABRAMS included DU.
If not the turret benefited from DU plus 200 RHAe of composite armor.

Further down just above armor levels for M1A2 SEP it says

The M1A2 SEP also has an improved armor package, which includes third generation steel encased depleted uranium armor, which makes it one of the best protected main battle tanks in the world.
The chart below shows the estimated protection levels:

One thing that looks a bit strange is the turret HEAT protection for the LEO
KE Hull - Turret 600 - 900 approx.
HEAT Hull - Turret 750 - 1800 approx.
So 50% more KE protection yields 150% more HEAT protection.
The sharp slope must be very effective at defeating HEAT.
Turret is

[DRG]

With any of this it's open to interpretation and I'm sure if I gave the job of estimating in game armour values to 20 people I'd get 20 different results and the above example

KE Hull - Turret 600 - 900 approx.
HEAT Hull - Turret 750 - 1800 approx.
So 50% more KE protection yields 150% more HEAT protection.

I read 900 KE protection and 1800 HEAT protection as double the HEAT protection not 1.5 X .............150 % of 900 is 1,350

There is a considerable amount of material added to the front turret of the Leo2

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

Good points all however,

1) The tables on armorsite.com do make a clear distinction, if you look to the upper left corner box below the "title" of each table it will show the tank in question. The Russian T-80UM and T-90/90S are the only ones to indicate the table values include BOTH RHAe and ERA in these cases KONTAK-5. The para below the values again emphases the tables only use RHAe values and in the last sentence states "Modern composite (CHOBHAM) may be several times more efficient against Chemical Energy then RHA of the same thickness." that's the "out" and or "disclaimer" for the tables.

2) As I've already stated math can be a deceptive thing but we all generally know about "the law of averages". My issue hasn't really been about RHAe (Steel Armor) as much as it's about Composite Armor such as the DU issue and unfortunately I suspect many more just if you think about any modern tank built over the last 20-25yrs. And to be clear ERA is not Composite Armor. Similar function (ERA) but different methodology to achieve results but not as good.

3) We think so far that Composite Armor is about 2.5 times stronger than RHAe. I went and crunched the numbers between the M1A1HA and M1A1 and by applying "the law of averages" can mathematically show that as compared to the M1A1HA the M1A1 RHAe was 13% stronger overall. But I left myself an "out" in ...

"I did give you the out and am more concerned and hopefully have made the case for ABRAMS to get the increased survivability to 7 increase. And it's hard for me to sit at my desk and look at the raw data to include comparing the OOB ABRAMS to the better of about 6 contemporary tanks from other OOB's across time. I don't know what calculus is used to drive the armor values for the game. Is an honest reassessment warranted based on what we now either knew/or know about DU armor qualities that's your call and I know it'll be done honestly and within game parameters if you proceed. My feeling is an increase allowing for DU armor is somewhere in the 5% to 8% range but I'm a raw numbers guy so if you take the M1A1HA table 1991 vs M1A1 table 2002 getting an average of the numbers involved and compare them against the first two tables and rounding the differences by % you get the following increase in protection by % from 1991 to 2002...
Turret- KE/+28% HEAT/+20%
Glacis- KE/0% HEAT/+17%
Lower Front Hull- KE/+11% HEAT/+4%

And since you can do anything you want with numbers by taking all of the above %'s you come up with an overall increase in protection of +13% between the M1A1HA of 1991 to the M1A1 of 2002. If you take that 13% increase for that time period (As you would need to recalculate between all the tables.) the range I've offered above might not be too much off in allowing for just the DU armor improvements. The rest would represent steel armor etc. improvements. That time period as already noted would represent the transition from DU armor of the 1st Gen to 2nd Gen."

At the time I assumed that, as you have too have a starting point/theory with math/science that a simple formula was needed that was conservative in it's assumptions-simply take the RHAe percentage improvement and "dumb it down" some I.E. my 5-8% improvement to the M1A1 over the M1A1HA and as we don't have a separate column to show Composite Armor the only thing to do is apply it the STEEL and HEAT current values.

This is not fun nor is it easy, I somewhat wish I hadn't brought it up (This is no pity party either-so don't think about it. )but most issues out here that need fixing are never fun and always seem to turn into a PITA much like a few years ago between a few of us out here when we spent as much time for about two years cleaning up the OOB's as we did adding or changing equipment (MP's anyone?).

Certain people call me "The Senator" because they enjoy the "status quo" and I to shake it up a little as we have little room for mistakes at work. I'm not trying to be "The Senator" here, maybe "PROVOCATEUR"

If I can help I will but I must move on after all I still owe someone some possible Russian ICON work at some point.

I think it's time for a nice walk. Anyone have a pier, it's kind've warm out there!!

Regards,
Pat

[Imp]

Originally Posted by DRG

With any of this it's open to interpretation and I'm sure if I gave the job of estimating in game armour values to 20 people I'd get 20 different results and the above example

I read 900 KE protection and 1800 HEAT protection as double the HEAT protection not 1.5 X .............150 % of 900 is 1,350

There is a considerable amount of material added to the front turret of the Leo2

HEAT jumped from 750 to 1800
600 KE gave 750 HEAT in the older model, looks reasonable
900 KE gives 1800 HEAT in the newer model, HEAT is twice as effective as the KE?

[Imp]

Just out if intrest Pat & just looking at front KE as represented in game.

Unit 23 M1A1 (HA) T-67 H-60
Unit 203 M1A1HA+ T89 H61

Turret is by maths a 32% increase, hull not a lot.
So if I understand you correctly hull is what could do with a slight boost.

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

The actual STEEL as in what the tanks are made of might be correct. My concern (now apparently) is that the armor doesn't seem to take into consideration the increased protection offered from the Composite Armor (CA) (DU/TUNGSTEN/Specialized ALUMINUM/KEVLAR etc. either separately or in combination.) tiles they are built with. Again ERA is not CA these are separate applications that can be used in combination but, are still not the same.

I do know that the M1A1HA+ did have it's frontal armor array improved over the M1A1HA. Array implies multiple facets and the sources I looked at indicated those improvements related to the CA and DU backing tiles. Now I wonder, are we spinning our wheels here? But I think Don said this issue wasn't considered in assigning armor values to the games current armor.

Well you'll probably be thankful for this answer versus the one I just lost.

Remember when writing long you have to log back in again normally not an issue your post well, posts. If however you log incorrectly, you can re-log in however if you didn't know before, you will lose your post. Well that's 45 minutes I'll never get back-oh well tomorrows another day!

John will be grateful and Don wishes it would've happened to a post meant for him!?!

Regards,
Pat

[Suhiir]

Since the real data on modern tanks is unknown or classified as hell all we can really do it look over the instances where they have been in battle and take a best guess. Of course even finding accurate battle data can be challenging.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85dno0cGn-A
Stuff like this only bears a passing resemblance to real data. OK they hit a tank and there was a lot of dust kicked up by the explosion, but what condition was the tank in afterwards?

[FASTBOAT TOUGH]

I was looking into some data for a Serbian tank, when I came across this. I didn't check the Russian OOB here or the one for WinSPWW2 as quite frankly I'm beat. The tank in question is the T-34-85-l the first source below is reporting this tank as a fake tank and to their credit, admitted they initially bought into it as well. They stress all the points I continually bring up here i.e. read and review, multi-source and find conscious, submit and as Don is well aware followup on to make adjustments as required, most recently the development of the ADF HAWKEI for over six years now and India's ARJUN tank that still has a issue or two to be addressed. The last two refs. support the correct variants of the T-34-I hope!?!
http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww...Fake_Tanks.php
http://www.achtungpanzer.com/panzerk...an-service.htm
http://www.soviet-empire.com/1/military/tanks/t34/

Regards,
Pat