Arjun Main Battle Tank (MBT)

blueblood

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Why are you worried about weight? Surely it is power to weight that is the worry? If it weighs more, give it a more powerful powerpack.
Concern about weight is because of the infrastructure support on both sides of border, i.e Punjab. Bridges are not strong enough and canals can be a pain in the butt. Leaving only deserts of Rajasthan.

Power to weight ratio is already excellent and will be better if DRDO cut down the weight to 55 tons.as they promised.
 

Scalieback

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Concern about weight is because of the infrastructure support on both sides of border, i.e Punjab. Bridges are not strong enough and canals can be a pain in the butt. Leaving only deserts of Rajasthan.

Power to weight ratio is already excellent and will be better if DRDO cut down the weight to 55 tons.as they promised.
Fair one, forgot about bridges. Reminds me of an exercise I did eons ago (can't find an emoticon on :eek:ld:} :)
 

Bhadra

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Well, rifled gun is just outdated technology.

Rifled gun have lower service life compared to smoothbore.

Rifled gun needs higher pressure to fire projectile at the same velocity as smoothbore gun.

Rifled gun is problematic when firing HEAT, because HEAT do not like spin effect, so to overcome this problem, designers designed a non rotating warhead mounted to the outershell by ball bearings so the shell can spin, but warhead won't. This makes projectile design more complex and also probably expensive.

Rifled guns are used because of HESH, but HESH is not a good and modern solution. First problem is it's anti-armor propersties, HESH can be stopped by a simple metal screen, because of it's working mechanism. Also HESH is not really good against infantry, because to be HESH it needs very thin shell, which means that there are less fragment of less weight that can harm infantry than in case of traditional HE round.

Rifled guns are currently minority, especially in 120mm calliber, not much modern ammunition is designed for them, actually non modern ammunition is made for them, maybe besides British round for L30 gun, but that ammo is also not manufactured any more and is a 3 piece ammo, that won't fit to the guns other than L11 and L30 series.

Rifled guns are more accurate, this is one of basic arguments of fans of rifled guns, but in fact, there is no proof that at typical distance where conventional ammunition is fired, smoothbore is accurate. In fact in all NATO competitions and tests, rifled guns were not better than modern smoothbores at such typical distance up to 4,000m where conventional ammunition is used. Beyond that distance guided munitions must be used.

Besides that, all the stories about long range fire engagements with use of rifled guns are not accurate descriptions of what really happend. For example that tanks firing at such distance were commanded by high ranking officers, normal crews can't waste ammunition in such way. ALso nobody says how many rounds were fired before one of them hit target eliminaing it.

Instead smoothbore guns offer:

Longer service life.

Easier production and costs reduction due to less of them need to be changed thanks to longer service life.

Can fire projectiles at higher velocities with less pressure.

Simpler and cheaper ammunition.

Are manufactured en masse, big variety of different types of ammunition avaiable on market.

Accuracy not worser than rifled guns on typical engagement ranges with use of conventional ammunition.

More modern ammunition, for example instead of HESH, far more effective modern HE ammo with programmable fuze, that enables for example air burst mode to defeat target behind cover (e.g. sand berm) or delay fuze mode that enables to defeat hard targets from bunkers, other structures to lighter armored targets and even older tanks (see American AMP round test photo where AMP HE round with programmable fuze defeated side turret armor of T-55 tank, this is ~100+mm steel cast armor, impressive for a HE round), such ammo is invurnable for light steel screens effective against HESH.

And many other points can be pointed out in favor of smoothbore guns.

@Kaustav.

XM1111 MRM-CE can't be really compaed to other GLATGM's like LAHAT, CLGM or others, because it is a completely new quality for such guided ammunition for tanks. XM1111 besides that can be guided by platform that fired it or other platform that see the target, can also be fired in the direction of detected enemy forces in autonomous mode, and it will find it's targets by itself.
Thank You Damain for a nice and kind reply. Now please tell me what are the performance difference between a rifled Gun and Smooth bored ones for APFSDS etc. I have seen 106 mm RCL guns of American origin being rifled doing very well for HEAT rounds ! Of course with a rotating ring...
 

Kunal Biswas

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yes thats what it is T-90 has more ERA coverage than ARJUN mk2 ,which means arjun mark 2 has to rely on active protection system to compensate it.
Soon or latter both tanks will have Hardkill Active protection suits..

ERA cover on MK-2 only Increase Protection level, But the points methos mentions are left untouched..
 

Kunal Biswas

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Concern about weight is because of the infrastructure support on both sides of border, i.e Punjab. Bridges are not strong enough and canals can be a pain in the butt. Leaving only deserts of Rajasthan.

Power to weight ratio is already excellent and will be better if DRDO cut down the weight to 55 tons.as they promised.
Canals are fine, In Wartime both Tanks have to swim accross the canals only, Coz most bridges are disabled..

55 tons is specified for FMBT or MK3 of Arjun in future, MK-2 will be a 62-65tons..
 

Bhadra

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Canals are fine, In Wartime both Tanks have to swim accross the canals only, Coz most bridges are disabled..

55 tons is specified for FMBT or MK3 of Arjun in future, MK-2 will be a 62-65tons..
I am surprised to get an answer from an expert like you. Firstly, it will too much for a tank to swim during an assault. It is not the strength for existing bridges which can be improved but the strength of replacement army bridges that will be laid to cover gaps, that matters.

Engineers bridges could be as costly as tanks !

In fact weight is related to Civil infrastructure, capacity of civil transport, classification of existing bridges and load capacity of assault equipment, mobility of tank and its maintenance problems. It in fact is not one problem.
 
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Damian

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Thank You Damain for a nice and kind reply. Now please tell me what are the performance difference between a rifled Gun and Smooth bored ones for APFSDS etc. I have seen 106 mm RCL guns of American origin being rifled doing very well for HEAT rounds ! Of course with a rotating ring...
About what performance You are asking? About penetration values? Well non manufacturer and no army share such data, there are only estimations.

Such like these ones.

British L11 and L30 rifled guns:

UK L15 120mm APDS round 355mm at 1km/340mm at 2km (1965)

UK L15A4 120mm APDS-T 450mm at 2km (1970s, and exported to Iran before Revolution)

UK L23 120mm tungsten APFSDS round 450mm at 2km (Apr 1983)

UK CHARM-1 L26 120mm DU APFSDS round 530mm at 2km (1991)

UK CHARM-3 L27 APFSDS 120mm DU 720mm at 2km (1999)

UK L28 120mm APFSDS 770mm at 2km (200X) - Note from me, it appears that this round is not manufactured and neither in production, also estimated penetration levels seems to be in fact overestimated due to fact that a 3 piece ammunition used by these British guns, is somewhat prohibiting to use very long penetrators.

German Rh-120/L44 and Rh-120/L55 smoothbore guns:

German 120mm DM13 390mm at 2km (1979)

German 120mm DM23 470mm at 2km (1983)

German 120mm DM33/Japanese JM33 550mm at 2km (1987)

German 120mm DM43A1/US KEW A1 590mm at 2km (1994)

German 120mm DM53 tungsten 700mm at 2km (1996)

German 120mm/L55 DM53 760mm at 2km (2001)

German 120mm DM63/Israeli M338 tungsten 680mm at 2km (2006)

German 120mm/L55 DM63 tungsten 720mm at 2km (2006)

US M256/L44 smoothbore:

US M829A3 120mm DU 765mm at 2km (2003) (Russian estimate 795mm)

US M829A2 120mm DU 730mm at 2km (1994)

US M829A1 120mm DU 610mm at 2km (1991) (Russian estimate 700mm)

US M829 120mm DU 552mm at 2km (1987)

US M827 120mm tungsten 450mm at 2km (never fielded by US)

US Olin GD120 120mm tungsten 520mm at 2km

US/Egyptian KEW-A2 120mm tungsten 660mm at 2km

But all of these are only estimations. They do not show actuall penetration values, but only estimations, nothing less, nothing more. And there are more other estimations from other sources that should be treated in similiar way.
 

Bhadra

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@Damain

my idea of asking you that question was if rifled guns improve performance of APFSDS... as that is going to be the main tank killer ammo in direct fire...
 

Damian

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@Damain

my idea of asking you that question was if rifled guns improve performance of APFSDS... as that is going to be the main tank killer ammo in direct fire...
Rifled or smoothbore guns, as a design do not nececary improve performance of APFSDS ammunition. Many things depends here on projectile itself. Material from which it is made, it's design, lenght, diameter, velocity etc.

But of course everything, ammunition, weapon that is firing this ammunition and in the end platform that use this weapon and ammunition, are a system.

Smoothbore gun gives You some benefits over rifled guns, it gives some benefits for at least some types of ammunition, and in the end it gives benefits for the platform that use it and the army that is operating such platform.

This is why most countries go with smoothbore guns, they just give more benefits than rifled guns.

And You must know, that even in late 1980's to early 1990's, some countries that were or still are big AFV's designers and manufacturers, were experimenting with both, big calliber (130mm to 152mm) guns for vehicles, both smoothbore and rifled ones, and in the end, smoothbore option was choosen as the more promising one.
 
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Bhadra

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Rifled or smoothbore guns, as a design do not nececary improve performance of APFSDS ammunition. Many things depends here on projectile itself. Material from which it is made, it's design, lenght, diameter, velocity etc.

But of course everything, ammunition, weapon that is firing this ammunition and in the end platform that use this weapon and ammunition, are a system.

Smoothbore gun gives You some benefits over rifled guns, it gives some benefits for at least some types of ammunition, and in the end it gives benefits for the platform that use it and the army that is operating such platform.

This is why most countries go with smoothbore guns, they just give more benefits than rifled guns.

And You must know, that even in late 1980's to early 1990's, some countries that were or still are big AFV's designers and manufacturers, were experimenting with both, big calliber (130mm to 152mm) guns for vehicles, both smoothbore and rifled ones, and in the end, smoothbore options was choosen as the more promising one.
Damain, such an expert as you are, is skirting the issue. Tell me if spin imparted to an APFSDS is better or the one imparted kinetic energy of a sommth bore gun? To my mind spinned round has better velocity, stability and penetration.

What do you say ??
 

Damian

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No spin is not good. Especially when we talk about penetrating a modern protection of modern armored fighting vehicles.

Spin might increase vurnability of penetrator to yaw and breaking that are caused by a dynamic reaction of some of vehicle protection components, for example ERA or composite armor with dynamic elements in it's design.

I do not understand what velocity have to spin and gun being rifled? It have nothing to do with it. As I said, smoothbore can fire projectile with the same velocity as rifled gun, but with less pressure inside gun needed to propell projectile. So if a x pressure value for rifled gun is it's maximum achievable safe pressure, for smoothbore it's x pressure value firing a projectile of such type might not be the end of capabilities.

As for penetration, penetration is a sum of many factors, like velocity, lenght, diameter and material from which penetrator had been made. Actually spin effect caused here by a rifled gun is or irrelevant or can cause some problems I mentioned above.

Of course I do not have access to data from tests, so I can't really tell You how this looks like. But what we know, sources that we have, and a simple fact that most of the world switched from rifled to smoothbore, indicates, that smoothbore is overall better solution.

PS. I think that Methos can say more here, he have greater knowledge about ammunition than I have. My interest is more in armor and overall vehicle design, not ammunition.
 
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Bhadra

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No spin is not good. Especially when we talk about penetrating a modern protection of modern armored fighting vehicles.

Spin might increase vurnability of penetrator to yaw and breaking that are caused by a dynamic reaction of some of vehicle protection components, for example ERA or composite armor with dynamic elements in it's design.

I do not understand what velocity have to spin and gun being rifled? It have nothing to do with it. As I said, smoothbore can fire projectile with the same velocity as rifled gun, but with less pressure inside gun needed to propell projectile. So if a x pressure value for rifled gun is it's maximum achievable safe pressure, for smoothbore it's x pressure value firing a projectile of such type might not be the end of capabilities.

As for penetration, penetration is a sum of many factors, like velocity, lenght, diameter and material from which penetrator had been made. Actually spin effect caused here by a rifled gun is or irrelevant or can cause some problems I mentioned above.

Of course I do not have access to data from tests, so I can't really tell You how this looks like. But what we know, sources that we have, and a simple fact that most of the world switched from rifled to smoothbore, indicates, that smoothbore is overall better solution.

PS. I think that Methos can say more here, he have greater knowledge about ammunition than I have. My interest is more in armour, not ammunition.
Thank a lot. But for a lay man a spinning projectile of very hard metal such as depleted Uranium has better penetration like a drilling machine rather than a rambo direct hitting shot which will break at an impact and would behave still worst on reactive armour.

For reactive armour an spin less shot would be easy to deflect rather than an spinning object.
 

Bhadra

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Secondly, Tell me Damain

Is it ever an idea to employ tank as artillery pieces that is to be employed as in direct support role? Or tanks will lead in a battle alwyas and everywhere taking the Infantry to the objectives.

Why can not the tank be in supporting role firing on objective as artillery pieces?
 

Damian

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Thank a lot. But for a lay man a spinning projectile of very hard metal such as depleted Uranium has better penetration like a drilling machine rather than a rambo direct hitting shot which will break at an impact and would behave still worst on reactive armour.

For reactive armour an spin less shot would be easy to deflect rather than an spinning object.
Penetrator is not acting like a drill. Also explosive reactive armor is not deflecting projectiles it looks more like... like projectile being destroyed by ERA if ERA is advanced enough or projectile is not designed to defeat ERA. Spinning is irrelevant here in fact. I recommend You to search X-Ray photos of ERA and projectile interaction, there are some in the internet. There You can see how it look like.



Like this.


Watch this video, there is shown computer simulation showing how ERA is working against APFSDS penetrator.

I seen somewhere more computer simulation videos on YT showing how this working mechanism looks like, but can't find them now.

Secondly, Tell me Damain

Is it ever an idea to employ tank as artillery pieces that is to be employed as in direct support role? Or tanks will lead in a battle alwyas and everywhere taking the Infantry to the objectives.

Why can not the tank be in supporting role firing on objective as artillery pieces?
Who said You that tanks can't do that? Of course they can act as small artillery, but in the end, firing conventional ammunition from a tank gun is a waste of ammo, this is why for very long range engagements, the only suitable options seen by armies and designers were and are guided munitions.
 
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Kunal Biswas

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I am surprised to get an answer from an expert like you. Firstly, it will too much for a tank to swim during an assault. It is not the strength for existing bridges which can be improved but the strength of replacement army bridges that will be laid to cover gaps, that matters.

Engineers bridges could be as costly as tanks !
Bhadra Ji,

In times of War it is a common practice to destroyer bridges to slow down the advance this goes of all kind of vehicles, Regarding Bridge factor is over exaggerated, But i am not saying any where that there are bridges that are specified to only 40tons most, In some cases cant even take T-72 tanks...

In Punjab area, Engg & there Bridges decides the mobility of the army, though BMP & T-90/72, Arjun can do without one..
 

Bhadra

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I do agree with you that imparting spin to fins may not be a good idea. APFSDS should act like a shell rather than a shot? Do you agree or you still feel APFSDS is a shot at the armour ? Tell me?
 

Damian

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I'am not sure if I understand You correctly but. For me APFSDS is just a kinetic energy ammunition, so it hit's target and starts to penetrate it, that's all. It might be that because english is not my primary language, I might be not able to answer to that.

BTW Bhadra, this might help You understand how ERA is working.

http://fofanov.armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/EQP/era.html

It's an old site of Vasily Fofanov, but it is still very good.
 
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Bhadra

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I'am not sure if I understand You correctly but. For me APFSDS is just a kinetic energy ammunition, so it hit's target and starts to penetrate it, that's all. It might be that because english is not my primary language, I might be not able to answer to that.

BTW Bhadra, this might help You understand how ERA is working.

Modern Explosive Reactive Armours

It's an old site of Vasily Fofanov, but it is still very good.
Everything is fine with you. And thanks a ton !
 

Kunal Biswas

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Thank a lot. But for a lay man a spinning projectile of very hard metal such as depleted Uranium has better penetration like a drilling machine rather than a rambo direct hitting shot which will break at an impact and would behave still worst on reactive armour.

For reactive armour an spin less shot would be easy to deflect rather than an spinning object.
Any APDSFS round would spin regardless of what gun it fired from as it have its own fins to rotate it when fired..





 

Damian

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No Kunal, finas are not to cause a spin, but to stabilize projectile during flight.
 

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