Arjun Mk 2 vs. "You name it" Tank

[LaVictoireEstLaVie]

I wanted to know how the new Arjun Mk2 compares to the likes of Leclerc XXI, Abrams M1A2 SEP, T-90S, Challenger 2 , ZTZ 99A2, etc. in terms of firepower, mobility and protection. Any feedback or input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks !

 

[hitesh]

Arjun mk2 is the most advanced and superior tank in terms of firepower ,protection ,protection, crew comfort India Ever had .
It is the tank that has integrated best solutions/systems from allover the world .
It has 6+ Km ranged ATGM launching capability.

Once fielded it will worlds most advance Tank in its region

Now stop creating a whole thread for such simple questions .Do some effort to go through our exist threads on ArjunMk2

 

[militarysta]

In terms of the protection pakistani T-80UD seems to be still the best in the region. Im writing this without beeing on Indian od Pakistani side in this conflikt, I just can juge known fact or this what I known. And pakistani T-80UD is helly good armoured.
In opposite to Arjun T-80UD have VERY small weak areas.
In opposite to Arjun T-80UD have constans wery big LOS (line of sight thickness) for turret.
In opposite to Arjun T-80UD have very good coverage by ERA turret and hull.
In opposite to Arjun T-80UD have very thick hull front.

In terms of firepower existing NOW pakistani APFSDS is far better then existing now 120 and 125mm APFSDS in India, when new APFSDS will be DOI in India both countries will have comparable rounds. But not now - anotehr advantage of the pakistani tanks (better munition). Ukrianian FCS and stabilisation mehanism and gun are good. Maybe Arjun II have now silgty better FCS but without better ammo its worth nothing... :-/

GLATGM like LHAAT doesn't means firepower advantage:
a) HEAT warhed cal. 105mm can be not enought even vs main armour in T-80UD
b) soft kill APS (Warta) on T-80UD can lunched smoke grandes and hide tank.
c) LHAAT is slower then APFSDS, and typical fire range is mucht closer then 6km...

IMHO Arjun will have better mobility, and slighty better FCS, but till now T-80UD have better protection (mucht better) and propably bigger firepower (ammo + gun + stabilisation).

 

[LaVictoireEstLaVie]

Arjun mk2 is the most advanced and superior tank in terms of firepower ,protection ,protection, crew comfort India Ever had .
It is the tank that has integrated best solutions/systems from allover the world .
It has 6+ Km ranged ATGM launching capability.

Once fielded it will worlds most advance Tank in its region

Now stop creating a whole thread for such simple questions .Do some effort to go through our exist threads on ArjunMk2

Thanks for the info but Kunal Biswas had this to say after i posted the same question in Arjun mk2 thread:

"This is not compression thread, Its only for MK2 ..

Make another thread to discuss .."


Btw, Militarysta, i thought the only major difference between a T-80U and T-80UD was that the T-80UD has diesel engine instead of a gasturbine and that the armor suite is more or less the same.

 

[militarysta]

Btw, Militarysta, i thought the only major difference between a T-80U and T-80UD was that the T-80UD has diesel engine instead of a gasturbine and that the armor suite is more or less the same.

Oh, no no no

Armour composition is really diffrent in fact T-80UD have really improved armour whit mucht better protection.

I was writing about this many times in MBT topic on this forum

And here:

T-80UD hull composition and assumed protection:

hull composition:
(for 0. degree)
66mm RHA
gap for ERA on hull
135mm RHA
80mm ceramics
135mm HHS
gap whit distanser
80mm ceramics
135mm RHA.

Protection is at least:
630-640mm vs APFSDS without ERA
750mm vs HEAT without ERA

Turret composition for 30 degre (perpendicular to the surface):

98mm cast steel (HB270)
30mm air gap whit holders
25mm SHS or RHA plate
40mm ceramics
25mm SHS or RHA plate
40mm ceramics
50mm SHS or RHA plate
50mm HHS plate
190mm cast steel (HB270)

This layout give protection (for 30. degree):
~500mm vs APFSDS(!) without ERA
~550mm vs HEAT without ERA
Those valuesa are for smaller LOS in turret front (550mm LOS) for 0. degree when LOS is the biggest (circa 700mm LOS) we had much greater protection:
~630mm vs APFSDS, [without ERA
~700-750mm vs HEAT without ERA

For this values shoud be added protection given by ERA (Kontakt-5 and it's Ukrainian clone)
+120mm RHA vs APFSDS in style like M829
+500-600mm RHA aginst HEAT warhed
Of course ERA shoud not be count as main armour for sevral obious resons:
1) HEAT warhed (SC) whit precursor will canceled ERA so it will be main armour vs main SC warhed
2) difrent APFSDS and HEAT warhed will be response in difrent way. In reaction whit ERA - for one (example: 3BM42,M829A1, or MILAN) ERA casette can reduce penetration abilities a lot , but for other cases (DM53, DM63) ERA will not reduce penetration at all. In other way ERA will help but whit marginal effect. So it's really fluent factor - depend on type of At-weapons.

And older T-80U composition is that:

hull:
25mm RHA + gap for ERA + 50mm RHA + 35mm STEF +50mm HHS or RHA +35mm STEF +50mm RHA

for 68. angle (so slopped 22. plate) we have:
66mm RHA + gap for ERA+ 133mm RHA + 93mm STEF + 133mm HHS/RHA + 93mm STEF + 133mm RHA what give us: ~540-580mm vs APFSDS without ERA

turret composition is this:



as You can see - two very diffrent compositions

 

[LaVictoireEstLaVie]

So much comparison to do between so many tanks man

IMO, the current Arjun mk.2 seems to have plenty of improvements in fire control and protection, RCWS is new which adds to a good firing power, it needs some work on main turret armour though, it has good era cover on one side but nothing on the other, missile guidance unit placed there may prove to be a problem, one good hit and the tank runs out of heat missiles ability.

A2 Abrams is probably the best of the lot, too much development gone in it, too good ammunition and fire control system, excellent m256 120 mm L44 gun based on german tech though Leo 2A6 has more powerful L55 gun

Chally 2 is also good in fcs and optics but falls short with an age old rifled gun with not so good ammo to fire apart of Charm DU rounds. Burlington compsite armour is makes it perhaps the most well protected mbt in the world today, perhaps comparable to M1A1HAs.

Our LecLerc tropical are very rugged and agile in desert arena, good ammo and excellent fcs paired with a good gun and decent armour protection, there is also a era option on it.

Thanks for the response !

The Challenger series of tanks seems to have fairly weak front hull with large weak zones (large lower glacis, driver periscope, driver glacis) compared to the Leopard 2 , Abrams and Leclerc series of tanks. The Brits seemed to have attempted to address the issue of the weak lower glacis by mounting a (Dorchester?) armor module in front of it on their latest Challenger 2 (TES) tank named "Megatron". So where as the front turret armor is most likely pretty good and comparable to a Leopard 2A5/A6/A7 , M1A2 SEP, M1A1 AIM, and Leclerc XXI, the front hull armor is not.

Does the Arjun Mk2 hull armor scheme follow Russian design principles ?

 

[sayareakd]

Tanks are made on the basis of the user requirement and which is based (in case of India) GSQR. GSQR is based on doctrine of war. So two tanks can hardly similar.

Arjun MK-2 is based on the feed back from the user and its request to improve on the existing Mk1.

Mk-1 is based on GSQR of Indian army.

Lots of things which MK2 could have been improved upon but DRDO cant do it as it has to based on user requirement, or else user will not have it and audit will be at their throat for wasting public money.

 

[JBH22]

Pakistanis T-80 is the only thing that I envy they have in their inventory.
We should have taken more from Ukraine Defence Industry in terms of technology.

I don't know how Arjun Mk2 fits in Indian doctrine,but what I can say that is it not economically/logistically feasible to have armoured corps with 2-3 types of tanks.

 

[methos]

I wanted to know how the new Arjun Mk2 compares to the likes of Leclerc XXI, Abrams M1A2 SEP, T-90S, Challenger 2 , ZTZ 99A2, etc. in terms of firepower, mobility and protection. Any feedback or input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks !

Do you really need to ask this question? Shouldn't the answer be obvious in most cases?

The Arjun MK-2 is a big improvement over the earlier Arjun, but it fails at addressing most of it's big shortcomings. The new commander's sight with thermal sight is good, but the MK-2 still retains the old 120 mm rifled gun which performs considerably worse than it's smoothbore counterparts. While people here tend to claim that there is new improved ammunition (which should be better than the sub-400 mm penetration of the earlier one), there hasn't been any footage of it.
The armour was improved by adding ERA (of questionable origin) to the front, but the large weakspots all remain uncovered leaving about half of the (unnecessary wide) turret free of ERA.
And now the engine, which was actually quite nice for a 58 tonnes tank (except it's incredible high fuel consumption), has to deal with a much greater weight.

The Arjun MK-2 does not compare favourably with top of the line tanks like the M1A2 SEP, Challenger 2 or Leclerc XXI.

A comparision between the Arjun and the T-90 can be found here: Arjun vs T-90 and here to some extend here: Indian T-90S a sub standard tank?

The Challenger series of tanks seems to have fairly weak front hull with large weak zones (large lower glacis, driver periscope, driver glacis) compared to the Leopard 2 , Abrams and Leclerc series of tanks.

The bulge type turret of the Leclerc with it's huge gun mantlet actually is also a quite large weak zone (larger than the weakspots on M1 & Leopard 2, but considerable smaller than the ones on the Arjun turret).

 

[militarysta]

It may be interesting in comparing Arjun and idnian T-90S, I had wrote this some time ago:

it's sure that india got:

1) 42 redy tanks in 2001 from Russia - named T-90S (Ob.188S) whit cast steel turrets and well known simple armour from Ob.184 (T-72B) (I had describe it dozens time)
2) second batch in 2002 (82 tanks) got welded turret whit diffrent armour -it's technology impossible that those 82 tanks have the same armour like previous cast turret tanks from 2001. So armour must be diffrent, but from the other hand - there is no way* that Russia sold it's "own" armour - it's some export armour version.

And after that we have contract form 2002 about licence prodyction 186 Bishma tanks - and those tank propably have Indian armour couse Russia doesn't sold armour technolgy to India. Af course Avadi factory was unable to produce those tank (quality and technolgy problems) so in 2007 India bought in Russia next 124 redy and produced only in Russia tanks (so whit export russian armour) and partial-redy kits to licented montage next 223 tanks - propably again whit pure Indian armour.


* I don't know any one example when Soviet/ Russia sold armour/weapons technolgy on it's "own" level. All export variants have "E" or "S" names and they are approved for export - they are just downgraded. Only exceptions are then when some weapons sytem is really outdated but still produced in Russia but the newest version is avaible soon. For exmaple:
Russia sold to India in 2001 those 42 T-90S whit cast turret and armour like in Russian erly T-90S (or T-72B model 1989) so on technology level on middle 1980s., but in the same time new welded turret whit new non-export armour was avaible in Russia and very soon was DOI.
Another example - Russia sold to India 3BM42 outaded rounds (1986) - and those rounds is still in service in Russia (and even produced). But in the same time newest 3BM42M (Lekalo) was avaible and newest- newest 3BM60(?) Sviniec-1 was ended both are not allowed for export still, becouse it's newest and top technology.
So it's sure that russia do the same like US and sold tanks whit export armour, or whit really outaded armour technology.


(...)
Propably Indian industry have compare between next Kanchan armour models and Ob.184 armour (T-72B) becouse the same armour -based on cast steel and simple NERA plates was used in fist bathes Ob.188 (T-90) whit cast turret and first variants T-90S. And first bath 40 tanks was sent to India propably whot the same armour as Ob.184 or Ob.188 - it's almoust sure in comanders tansk (K indeks). So im almoust sure that Indian industry and army have chanse to compare obsolate T-72B armour (put in first T-90S) whit new Kanchan. And yes - kanchan shoud be better then those cast steel -NERA plates - RHA plate - cast steel T-90S armour. Russian T-90A (Ob.188A1/A2) carry propably completly diffrent armour, but first bath send to India had propably orginall armour from T-72B and erly T-72s so Ob.1888 do layter T-90 (erly).
And this will explain a lot I suppose.

IMHO whole talking about superior Arjun protection over T-90S it's taking from simple fact: if both tanks have the same armour (Indian prodcution) then thickness of this armour is bigger on Arjun -so it will be slighty better armoured. Arjun left turret side have circa 800mm LOS while in T-90A those valu is only for 0. degree. For 30. degree from longitudal turret axis it's only circa 630-670mm LOS. So it was anought to tested both tanks for sucht angle to achive better protection in Arjun. But for the other side - T-90S have mucht smaller weak spots.

 

[militarysta]

In my search for Kanchan armour, i found that Indian establishment has tested it on both t-90s and Arjuns, considering Arjun's front armour, Kanchan should do fine, if NERA layer with ceramics is added, its only better. Some enlightened member please shed more light on it.

As I found Kanchan looks to be rather whole family of armour and it's still be developing while new technology are avaible in India.
http://i.imgur.com/VCgUI.jpg

And Kanchan looks preatty simmilar to the polish CAWA-2 armour. I'm mean - lack of the "active" layers inside armour (NERA, NxRA, SLERA, etc) - just passive mulitlayerd layout whit cermaisc steel and other materials. Of course I can be wrong, but I didn't find any mentioned about active or semi-active layers inside Kanchan... This kind of protection is helly far far away form western orgin Burlington (1965) clones: Cobhan (UK), Startflower (USA), Dorhester (UK vol.2), BRL (USA vol.2) and german solutions. But it doesn't meant that Kanchan is bad. I posted layout inside T-80UD - only passive multialyerd layout and protection is really big. Of course obvious cost is the weight of this solution. Western armour is bigger (volumen) but lighter. Anyway - kanchan looks simmilar as polish CAWA-2 in general idea:

What more - Indian industry not only copied (or not - sorry Archer ) russian Kontakt-1 and Kontakt-2. Indian industry had developed quite good loking NERA armour:

NERA is simple in devleoped and working mehanism, but it works quite good. IMHO those strange "ERA" on Arjun II hull is NERA layers... And Indian industry had hundret NERA leyers to test inside T-90S from Russia.

So in fack in India we have cloned (or not ) ex soviet ERA, devleoped NERA armour, and developed rather passive in working Kanchan armour - what can be quite effective (vide T-80UD) if we don't care about turret weight.

 

[militarysta]

I have the previliige to see t-80ud and al khalid up close and personal, the armour protection (front) is of better and thicker composite layers in al khalid but t-80ud has more uniform frontal era protection.

I seriously doubt.
In what way is thicker in Al-Khalid? Are you sure?

 

[militarysta]

Chinese original type-99 was not very good tank, it had several flaws in turret design and engine was quite problematic, transmission sucked but the gun was overly powerful, it was a copy of 2a46M, a soviet design with autoloader but had a double chrome plating to avoid wear and tear. .

Any more datails about chineese tanks?
There is a lot of the shitty propaganda from sinodefense - If You had any expirience whit chinesee tanks any infos will be welcome.

 

[shuvo@y2k10]

@ militarysta

there is very little publication regarding kanchan armour in public domain so any kind of speculation/comparison with other armour is purely futile.all we know is that it is similar to burlington composite armour but having different composition and is periodically upgraded.drdo also has manufactured nera(honeycomb designed) and era indegeneously which can be integrated into kanchan armour or used as applique armour modules.
Science & Technology For Upsc - Singh - Google Books

 

[militarysta]

But alkhalid that i saw has thicker block like covering in the front, not to mention they at HIT have been making/ mixing all sorts of composite material, heck they even had plates named "classified material, do not touch". I wonder what the material could be but it was dull grey color with no shine on it.

I estimated the frontal turret thickness with 7 different layers with that classified material sepaerated by HHS steel plates at around 700-750+ mm for 0 deg angle without reactive plates. (its just my estimate with + - )

i dearly apologize for my drawing skills, bear with me but depicting what i saw there

Interesting
In Al Chalid I made some estimatouse few yers ago -of course they are very imperfect, but I was consider Al-Chalid thema.

I had based on ZTZ-96 tank:
estimatous:

reality:




In Al Chalid I have on good photo whit dismounted armour modules:

however, there are things which i cant say on a public forum, hope you understand

Yep, I have the sam about Leopard-2A4 in polish army

 

[militarysta]

, tech they got from austria, and the AZ autoloader was repeteatedly modified to fit long rod apfsds rounds, once there was a round that almost fit the carousel width with perhaps few milimeter gap in between.

yep, I had calculate this, many times

If you want to have max catrige lenght (and the same -40 to 60mm = max penetrator lenght) in Soviet carousel autoloader you have:
6ETs40 (T-64B)
T-6ETs43 (T-80U)
6ETs43-2C (T-64BM Bulat)
max lenght in casette in autoloader is circa 710-730 mm so penetrator lenght max 650-680mm.

AZ seriee (T-72 and clones example T-90S) max APFSDS lenght in casette: circa 640mm so penetrator lensght circa 600mm
AZ seriee modernizated (T-90A, Rogatka, etc) max APFSDS lenght in casette: 740mm so penetrator circa 680-700mm

Bigger then 750mm max APFSDS lenght in casette seems to be not really possible...

The current zpt-98 gun fielded with type-96G and type-99As is very powerful and has seen improvement several times over its life span, it has 1200-1500 EFC for apfsds, dont recall for HEAT rounds though.
Muzzle velocity reached 1780 m/s, chamber pressure exceeds around 650-680 bar, INSANE stuff for a 125 mm 2a46m design really.
.

Insane?

Well im not so sure if insane

EFC is insane - this value is possible ONLY for trening munition (APFSDS-T-TP) not for normal APFSDS.
No way - US, German, British and French have more more advanced metalurgy then China, and their barrels have smaller EFC liftime. Here is no mirracle - this value is for trening munition not for normal APFSDS. There is no other option
Standard EFC for APFSDS-T-TP is 1500-1600 rounds (german L-44 Rh120)
as Methos long time ago said:
260 rounds is realistic, for 120 mm DM 53 the German round with the highest barrel wear. 120 mm DM 63 is in the area of 400 - 600 rounds per barrel and for non-KE rounds it is 1,500. You are aware that EFC is a way of measuring via index? M829 equals 3 EFC, M829A1 equals 4 EFC, DM 53 equals probably 6 EFC
German lightweight Rh 120LLR L/47 120mm have lifetime
- 800-1400 for trening munitions (sabot/HEAT)
- 600 for DM63
- 200 for DM53





Muzzle is not so important factor. USA M829A3 have muzzle 1555m/s but due to ultralight composite sabot and heavy long rod it can transfer huge MJ to the traget. From other side - mucht shorter but faster DM53 do the same (Methos check this some time ago):

MJ muzzle penetrator + sabot:
DM53 L-55 -1700m/s 13,5MJ
M829A3 L-44 -1555m/s 12,1MJ

MJ penetrator during fly:
DM52 L-55 5,8kg 8,8MJ
M829A3 L-44 ~7kg between 8,1 and 8,4MJ

for rod only trnsfered energy should looks like this:
DM53 L-55 4,9kg 7,5MJ
M829A3 L-44 weight between 6 and 6,5kg so we have between 7,2 and 7,7MJ

20% shorter DM53 give as the same MJ for target as longer M829A3




Chamber preassure for chinese gun is "standard" and propably it's max preassure value.

Ukrainian 125mm KBM1M have circa 650MPa, 2A46M-2 simmilar.
German "old" Rh120 L-44 have 670MPa, new L-44 have 710MPa, lightweight Rh 120LLR L/47 have 700MPa, etc.

and here you have very interesting diagram:

On pink you have older then DM53 german ammo and L-44 gun
for orange you have DM53 and both barrels: L-44 and L-55. As Yo can see the pick preassure is not in chamber but in first 2m of the barrel - it's almoust 950MPa(!) this is insane. But it's explain DM-53 abilities...

 

[militarysta]

are you sure this is alkhalid turret? the one i saw had longer/thicker composite cavity, looks more like the type-85III cavity.

Yes, im in lets say 90% sure.

this looks close to what i saw

Yes, I know this:



And I had tried to recalculate this:

but error is quite big

 

[sayareakd]

i doubted it too but had a tour in 2004, they were making the first batch back then.


fact is that the t-80ud has better 30+ deg onwards armour protection due to turret geometry, as depicted in the pics from andrei's blog, its very much the same in real.

But alkhalid that i saw has thicker block like covering in the front, not to mention they at HIT have been making/ mixing all sorts of composite material, heck they even had plates named "classified material, do not touch". I wonder what the material could be but it was dull grey color with no shine on it.

I estimated the frontal turret thickness with 7 different layers with that classified material sepaerated by HHS steel plates at around 700-750+ mm for 0 deg angle without reactive plates. (its just my estimate with + - )

i dearly apologize for my drawing skills, bear with me but depicting what i saw there

however, there are things which i cant say on a public forum, hope you understand

if you say it is that good then why they need ERA, plus look at Chinese Type99 tank they had to put in extra protection all over the tank. This goes on to show that Chinese find their tanks without adequate protection.

 

[militarysta]

ERA + armour module is one whole "system"

is like NERA wedges + 840mm thick main armour in Leo-2A5, or like ERA + 700mm thick main armour on T-80U, etc

it's just complex way to proect tank against all suspected danger

 

[militarysta]

I saw the zpt-98 in firing range and the at gun factory many years ago, it had a double chrome plating to prevent wear generated by deliberatedly increased muzzle pressure. This design had its limitations as it wore out too soon. It could be because early apfsds rounds in china had several issues with penetrators so they increased the chamber pressure to get extra MJ from the round. Usual Russian 2a46 (pre-M1 version) had a single plating.

Interesting, bt form the other hand - APFSDS alwayes will destroy barrel quite fast. For example - eacht shoot by DM-53 tore from barrel circa 125g of mettal :-/ After circa 200 shots barrel must be replaced.
And polish PT-91 had (using standard 3BM22 :-/ :-/) after few yers not 125 but 127..128mm caliber Ech...always problem is the same.