Main Battle Tanks and Armour Technology

[Akim]

I think the North Korean "Pokpung-ho" is a rather interesting tank. But there are many unkown variables.

Composite armour could be based on the T-72M1 with "ultrafarforov" rods inside the Combination-K. It is known that at least a single T-72M1 was imported from some third world country, but this technology might also have been transfered from Lybia or Iran (both countries with which the North Koreans traded arms). Alternatively, they could use the "reflecting foil" (NERA) armour of the T-72S, which could have been bought from the Iran or acquired from old Soviet tanks bought for scrapping from Russia. It seems harder to gain access to real BDD armour from the T-55AM or T-62M, because less countries actually use this tanks to which North Korea has relations. Maybe via Cuba or bought from Afghanistan (one theory says that the North Koreans got their T-72M1 from Afghan mujahideen).
North Korea also might have started to develop their armour themselves or got some technology from China..

Pyongyang in 88th got a license to the production of Т-72B. It is an only country, which had a fully"soviet tank", but not offcut product .

 

[Damian]

No, I don't make that mistake.
You think that military stuffs are uber technologys, but in fact, it is in civil knowledge limit. Let us begin with carbon nanotube, no matter how hard military scientists are trying, they can't gain anything better than its theoretic UTS widely known. Steel as materials is deeply researched in many field, car manufacturing, aerospace, also other like titanium or composite as well. And quite the opposite, military stuff is hardly the best stuff because they need industry capacity and many other requirement. They can't put the best tech there.
You think carbon nanotube is hard, I don't know what to say with you.

Military keeps it secrets as secret, some countries like Russia have strange habits to spread it's secrets all around the world to prove it's "superiority", some others are smarter and keep their secrets as secret, You think why even after so many years, the original versions of Burlington that for today standards are obsolete are still kept as a secret?

And of course military can put the best tech out there, the problem is not every country can pay for this... especially not Russia.

As for carbon nanotubes, it is widely known that this is one of the strongest materials known to humanity, there are different types of carbon based nano materials, some of them harder than diamonds while not as fragile as diamonds.

All in all, it is not that hard when guessing about military techs like you imagined. You need a wider angle when viewing something. Even steel in micro scale can reach 10 GPa but at macro scale, they can't make it. Carbon nanotube is exactly similar to that, you are so naive about it. Civil scientist reseach in every materials, when you think there is something super uber in the military, is like there is a element military knows but not known in the periodic table.

I think You do not understand that a plate made from carbon nanotubes is not made from bigger carbon tubes, but exactly from nanotubes. The real question is how thick it can be made, and You again forgot that such plae will not work alone, but will be probably encased in a steel, or in a bigger composite array, with metal plates acting as a backing. The exactly same way is used for ceramics that have metal backplates that increase their protective characeristics.

Graphite is graphite, you think there is a super graphite civil researchers don't know? You think there are super uber titan alloy civil scientists don't know? Very unrealistic, but assume it exists, how do they work with thing like quality control, product quantity, safety margin? Or you think something just can pop out not nothing and just put it all on your tank?

I think You again not understand. There is such thing as a disinformation. Of course americans can use pure graphite (Paul Lakowski said that graphit will add a 5% in protection characteristics to the steel encased depleted uranium package armor array), or it can be just disinformation for different carbon based material. Speculation? Yes, but very probable, and DARPA spent at least more than 10 years on researching advanced, lithgweight armor materials, that will give superior protection than steel. Same research was conducted in western european nations.

Only because You didn't seen something, it does not mean it is immposible.

Of course I don't know about real structure of armor, so do you. So to keep the best estimation, keep it close to known thing in reality, not your imagination. Armor tech is well known in many countries, but if you think there is really a revolution in armor design, they will put priority in AFV, but FCS failed badly. You love words like carbon, nano, but you know nothing about them more than words, your estimation about them are just hope and imagination.

And when I done any estimations eh? Do You seen any for carbon based nano materials done by me? Maybe first learn how to read with understanding?

And of course there is revolution in armor technology, IBD Deisenroth company is great example here. And Future Combat Systems was a wider program, not only focused on developing new armor materials, but on many, many more aspects, like deep digitalization of armed forces, improved fuel efficency by wide spread of hybrid engines, deep automatization and robotization etc.

So we actually have a use of nano armor in form of addons in Leopard 2 series. Japanese claims that their Type 10 tank use sort of nano armor. I provided a document froma reaserch that says that nano technology is very promising for armor development, in case of that document it was a body armor.

Somehwere I found informations about lightweight nano armor for light armored vehicles and helicopters designed to defeat 12,7mm armor piercing (which is kinetic energy ammunition not chemical energy) ammo.

So I find it rather amusing that people from some less technologically developed nations try to make these material developments irrelevant, when we allready have a progress in to adapting this technology for armor usage.

Or that materials other than steel are not unable to provide sufficent KE protection, even if they do not know exactly how these armor arrays work, neither what is exact composition, weight, density etc.

And this in my opinion is merely based on political views from people living in former soviet states or other socialist countries that have a deep hatret towards anything western, especially american made. And this isn't something new, when I watch old documentaries, I seen exactly the same rethorics "we are superior, they are inferior".

 

[Damian]

Zaloga calls the T-72A/T-72M1's armour also Combination K and the "sand rods" or "sand bars" are according to him "ultrafarforov" what according to him is the Russian word for "ultra porcelain". How are the sand rods hold in place?

As far as I know, Combination K was never used in pre T-72B, T-72 tanks, in such case Warsaw Pact countries would recive Combination K armor as well, we never did.

As for Sand Rods/Bars, there are several possibilities, it can be similiar method as in case of ultrafarforov, which means that they are inside a metal filler cast, perhaps placed inside during cast process by a metal mesh.

 

[313230]

So I find it rather amusing that people from some less technologically developed nations try to make these material developments irrelevant, when we allready have a progress in to adapting this technology for armor usage.

Or that materials other than steel are not unable to provide sufficent KE protection, even if they do not know exactly how these armor arrays work, neither what is exact composition, weight, density etc.

And this in my opinion is merely based on political views from people living in former soviet states or other socialist countries that have a deep hatret towards anything western, especially american made. And this isn't something new, when I watch old documentaries, I seen exactly the same rethorics "we are superior, they are inferior".

lol, hell no, don't put pride on here, your Poland is not a developed nation. And it depends on individual knowledge, someone on Russia maybe better than average American, I don't want the thread to go on this direction, keep it on the knowledge, not the nationality. I do not say material provides better TE than steel is impossible, but it is a well know estimation, you should respect that more than your imagination.
I know far better than you about politics and macro things, but it is not the topic here. And I find it rather amusing that someone claims about material just by reading advertisements

 

[Akim]

Look. If North Korea produced Т-72B, then she is known technology of armour of "semiactive type" of a 1 generation, which in is the West named by NERA. + if Chinese ERA , then she best Kontakt- 5 excels, which communist Korea had also.

 

[Damian]

lol, hell no, don't put pride on here, your Poland is not a developed nation. And it depends on individual knowledge, someone on Russia maybe better than average American, I don't want the thread to go on this direction, keep it on the knowledge, not the nationality. I do not say material provides better TE than steel is impossible, but it is a well know estimation, you should respect that more than your imagination.
I know far better than you about politics and macro things, but it is not the topic here. And I find it rather amusing that someone claims about material just by reading advertisements

1) My country indeed have a problems with technology, but we do not claim that we are superior to anyone.
2) Of course there are materials better than steel, but it seems You do not understand that I'am not making any estimations, do You even read what I'am writing? I only do not agree with a fantasy of some people that western composite armors, that use more different and advanced materials are inferior to some primitive protection of obsolete tank like T-72B.
3) We have only advertisements, because none, respecting itself manufacturer or a whole country will spread across the world detailed informations about it's classified developments, still we have some declassified documents, like for example the early variants of Burlington, that shows ME vs KE as 1,5 and ME vs CE as 3 comparred to the steel armor, this is for 1960's-1970's period of that armor development, and in the following years we had further evolutions of this type of protection, there is also mentioned in the document that Burlington shows capability to be tuned for pure CE protection, pure KE protection and universal KE-CE protection, this means that it is far more flexible design than Soviet composite armors. I also see western claims as more credible than these of Russians, which are completely ridicoulus and based mostly on their inferiority complex towards the west, than in the actuall understanding of the western developments. Lidsky many times proved that he actually know nothing about non Russian tanks, their history of development, combat use and technical details. Yet he makes all his claims that anything designed in Soviet Union was superior... which is complete and utter BS.

There is of course mor than this. In 2003 British Challenger 2 was hit in F-F incident by American tank. It is not known precisely with what type of ammunition that it was APFSDS. In 2003 the basic combat APFSDS was M829A2, as older M829 and M829A1 were or withdrawn froms ervice as obsolete, or stored in magazines as reserve ammunition. M829A2 achieve penetration levels of more than 700mm at 2,000m. So in the end it seems that Burlington and later armor based on it provides sufficent protection.

There are more of these. For example in 1991 one M1A1 was bogged down in mud and was left behind with it's crew to wait for recovery teams. Tank was attacked by 3 T-72's, each fired at least on APFSDS and one HEAT round at it, none succeed, but wat is more important, when the initial recovery was unsuccessfull, HQ ordered destruction of tank. What is interesting is that M1A1's that were escorting ARV's, were unable to perforate it's turret side armor (in 1991 ammunition used was M829 and M829A1) untill they fired at more proper angle. What I assume is that they were firing at angle lesser or biggerthan 90 degrees from turret longitudinal axis, and they achieved perforation when firing at angle closer to 90 degrees.

Other examples, during ballistic tests in Greece, naked Leopard 2 turret (without NERA addon wedge shaped armor installed), survived hits from APFSDS ammunition of penetration levels of more than 600mm. What is important is that there are place in Leopard 2 frontal armor where it have only thickness of ~650mm, similiar to the front hull armor. Details are unknown, but if armor there survived a such hit, then hull armor is also capable to do so.

And there are of course national armor tests in each country. I doubt that Germans or Americans were not testing their tanks armor, against their own APFSDS ammunition that is superior to anything Russians or Chinese have.

Look. If North Korea produced Т-72B, then she is known technology of armour of "semiactive type" of a 1 generation, which in is the West named by NERA. + if Chinese ERA , then she best Kontakt- 5 excels, which communist Korea had also.

I doubt that North Koreans obtained T-72B and Kontakt-5. As for Chinese ERA better than Kontakt-5, I also doubt this.

 

[methos]

Pyongyang in 88th got a license to the production of Т-72B. It is an only country, which had a fully"soviet tank", but not offcut product .

Very interesting, Akim. Do you have some source (website, book or article in some military magazine) which confirms that the North Koreans got the licence to build the T-72B and Kontakt-5 reactive armour?

3) We have only advertisements, because none, respecting itself manufacturer or a whole country will spread across the world detailed informations about it's classified developments, still we have some declassified documents, like for example the early variants of Burlington, that shows TE vs KE as 1,5 and TE vs CE as 3 comparred to the steel armor, this is for 1960's-1970's period of that armor development, [...]

The values 1.5 and 3 are mass efficiency (EM).

 

[Damian]

The values 1.5 and 3 are mass efficiency (EM).

Sorry my mistake. Corrected. But still it does not change a fact that it is superior than steel. Besides this we do not know the thickness of internal armor plates, neither their weight and density.

The question that also should be rised here is what is TE and, weight and density of combined materials, compared to steel plate.

 

[313230]

3) We have only advertisements, because none, respecting itself manufacturer or a whole country will spread across the world detailed informations about it's classified developments, still we have some declassified documents, like for example the early variants of Burlington, that shows TE vs KE as 1,5 and TE vs CE as 3 comparred to the steel armor, this is for 1960's-1970's period of that armor development, and in the following years we had further evolutions of this type of protection, there is also mentioned in the document that Burlington shows capability to be tuned for pure CE protection, pure KE protection and universal KE-CE protection, this means that it is far more flexible design than Soviet composite armors. I also see western claims as more credible than these of Russians, which are completely ridicoulus and based mostly on their inferiority complex towards the west, than in the actuall understanding of the western developments. Lidsky many times proved that he actually know nothing about non Russian tanks, their history of development, combat use and technical details. Yet he makes all his claims that anything designed in Soviet Union was superior... which is complete and utter BS.

I am more than pleased to see evidence the claim of 1.5 TE vs KE while keeping 3 TE vs CE compare to steel, really a miracle IMO. And also, what steel it is compared to, because current RHA definiton of US is different than that of 70s 80s. And if they compare it to some construction steel then it is very normal.

 

[Akim]

that use more different and advanced materials are inferior to some primitive protection of obsolete tank like T-72B

Armor Т-72B is not primitive - is an error. She is much more difficult than armour of Т-72М1. It is not simple increasing the thickness of of layers...

 

[Damian]

I am more than pleased to see evidence the claim of 1.5 TE vs KE while keeping 3 TE vs CE compare to steel, really a miracle IMO. And also, what steel it is compared to, because current RHA definiton of US is different than that of 70s 80s. And if they compare it to some construction steel then it is very normal.

Why a miracle? ME (as corrected) of 1.5 and 3 is completely achievable. As I said, only because in some country it was not possible to be achieved, does not mean in other countries was also not achievable.

Also You should belive in to these values as they are taken from official document about Burlington armor development that is stored in one of British archieves.

There is of course one more thing. It is still not known if Burlington armor used ceramics or not. What is definetly known is that the wide spread claims about how ceramics are used seems to be disinformation, however if ceramics are used then some of them are interesting. Be it Boron Carbide, Silicon Carbide, or a little interesting thing called Syndite.

But as I said, claims that Burlington or other types of composite armor are unable to achieve the same protection values against KE threats, are just failed.

Of course there is also a problem with armor thickness estimations. For example most estimations based on drawings says that turret front armor of M1A1/M1A2 is below 1,000mm thick, however I contacted a person that made a 100% detailed 3d model of M1A1 tanks and he said that from his messurements on 3d model at proper scale, at 0 degrees from turret longitudinal axis, front turret armor is 1,000mm + thick, and this is not very unlikely that hull armor also can be more than 650mm thick, it can be ~700mm thick or more in reality.

I made my own research to confirm this, and this is very likely, the M2HB machine gun barrel is approx 1,100mm long, and placing the barrel lenght on front turret armor, we gain similiar thickness for armor (approx 1,000mm).

Armor Т-72B is not primitive - is an error. She is much more difficult than armour of Т-72М1. It is not simple increasing the thickness of of layers...

Of course it is more advanced than T-72M1 armor, but it is definetly more advanced than Burlington or later western composite armors.

 

[Akim]

Very interesting, Akim. Do you have some source (website, book or article in some military magazine) which confirms that the North Koreans got the licence to build the T-72B and Kontakt-5 reactive armour?

Official sources I confirms nor deny, but this information has long been known.

 

[Damian]

Official sources I confirms nor deny, but this information has long been known.

Can You tell something more about these?

Of course it is more advanced than T-72M1 armor, but it is definetly more advanced than Burlington or later western composite armors.

Upsss, a typo, I mean definetly not more advaned than Burlington or later western composite armors.

 

[Akim]

Can You tell something more about these?

Upsss, a typo, I mean definetly not more advaned than Burlington or later western composite armors.

I wrote before, I am a not technologist. I simply know it in general. Well and a bit principle of action. If will find material in the Internet - and suddenly he is not truthful? And I by means of him will give an answer. Why to take on his conscience lie...

 

[313230]

Why a miracle? ME (as corrected) of 1.5 and 3 is completely achievable. As I said, only because in some country it was not possible to be achieved, does not mean in other countries was also not achievable.

Also You should belive in to these values as they are taken from official document about Burlington armor development that is stored in one of British archieves.

There is of course one more thing. It is still not known if Burlington armor used ceramics or not. What is definetly known is that the wide spread claims about how ceramics are used seems to be disinformation, however if ceramics are used then some of them are interesting. Be it Boron Carbide, Silicon Carbide, or a little interesting thing called Syndite.

But as I said, claims that Burlington or other types of composite armor are unable to achieve the same protection values against KE threats, are just failed.

Of course there is also a problem with armor thickness estimations. For example most estimations based on drawings says that turret front armor of M1A1/M1A2 is below 1,000mm thick, however I contacted a person that made a 100% detailed 3d model of M1A1 tanks and he said that from his messurements on 3d model at proper scale, at 0 degrees from turret longitudinal axis, front turret armor is 1,000mm + thick, and this is not very unlikely that hull armor also can be more than 650mm thick, it can be ~700mm thick or more in reality.

I made my own research to confirm this, and this is very likely, the M2HB machine gun barrel is approx 1,100mm long, and placing the barrel lenght on front turret armor, we gain similiar thickness for armor (approx 1,000mm).



Of course it is more advanced than T-72M1 armor, but it is definetly more advanced than Burlington or later western composite armors.

No, I thought it is TE as thickness equivalence, not mass equivalence as you corrected. Mass equivalence can be achieve easily with armor structure, even when you only using steel, just make several thin layers with space between them to disrupt the jet and increase protection greatly. Against KE, something like Leopard 2a5/a6 wedge is very light but effective. So mass equivalence is not so hard to achieve, but thickness equivalence is totally different, you fill the air in the leo 2a5 with steel, it will be much better.

Even dense material are not much better than steel in TE, sometimes are worse. Do you see any estimation that protection against KE is much greater than LOS thickness even with all the ceramics, Burlington..? For general, IMO, real protection against KE is worse than LOS thickness, especially consider the need for that armor to protect against CE. Not totally true but worth the mention.

 

[Damian]

But the working mechanism of at least early Burlington is well known. It was observed that in case of kinetic energy projectiles, armor will induct yaw to the penetrator, in worst scenario only bending it, in best breaking it in to pieces.

This is also important to understand that at least in case of the M1 series, even if somehow penetrator would go through armor array of the hull front, the fragmented penetrator mostly will not be very dangerous and with ease can be stopped by fuel tanks.

As we know from Dr. Harvey work, he was also working on a fuel tanks that are integral part of vehicle protection, there were different variations among them such with additional armor layers inside a fuel tank. It is more than likely that Americans used one of these design to improve hull front protection.

In a document about these fuel tanks development, it was written that front hull of the Conentious light tank, with integral fuel tanks as protection, would give a front hull protection equivalent to the ~200mm thick steel armor.

If this was a truth for Contentious, then why not for a tank with much more modern protection like the M1?

On TankNet Sebastian Balos calculated that 1,000mm long fuel tanks, will add ~200mm vs KE and ~400mm vs CE. If we assume in worst case that "beak" that contains a composite armor, gives only approx ~500mm vs KE and ~800mm vs CE, with a fuel tanks these gives a protection of 700mm vs KE and 1,200mm vs CE, and this is for early M1/M1A1's without a heavy armor package.

If we assume that with heavy armor package, front hull "beak" armor increased to ~600mm vs KE and ~900mm vs CE, we can assume that with calculated protection aded from fuel tanks, protection increased to ~800mm vs KE and ~1,300mm vs CE.

It is not bad result, especially when we consider that Lidsky is right (I doubt he is), but as we can see I use the worst possible scenario for the front hull armor.

Turret is also well protected from the front, and I'am 100% sure that front turret armor thickness is +/- ~1,000mm, so there is enough space for enough composite armor to be placed there.

Still M1 or other western tanks can recive additional protection, be it ERA or other, there is then no reason to belive that soviet tanks are protected better or are have more modernization potential.

No, I thought it is TE as thickness equivalence, not mass equivalence as you corrected. Mass equivalence can be achieve easily with armor structure, even when you only using steel, just make several thin layers with space between them to disrupt the jet and increase protection greatly. Against KE, something like Leopard 2a5/a6 wedge is very light but effective. So mass equivalence is not so hard to achieve, but thickness equivalence is totally different, you fill the air in the leo 2a5 with steel, it will be much better.

Even dense material are not much better than steel in TE, sometimes are worse. Do you see any estimation that protection against KE is much greater than LOS thickness even with all the ceramics, Burlington..? For general, IMO, real protection against KE is worse than LOS thickness, especially consider the need for that armor to protect against CE. Not totally true but worth the mention.

IMHO this is wrong thinking based on obsolete estimation techniques for homogeneus armors used for composite armors.

As I said composite armor is not just stopping projectile, it is literally destroying it during penetration process just like ERA do. There is no reason to belive that modern composite armor will give less protection than simple one layer of steel.

Of course the protection will not be the same as whole thickness, but it will also not be very worse.

As example above, the front hull of the M1 is in fact a very complex composite and spaced armor array, which even if we consider lower KE protection, is still efficent enough to give protection even against more modern ammunition.

BTW in American sources it is said that steel encased depleted uranium was developed to increase mainly protection against kinetic energy projectiles, not against chemical energy projectiles. It is more than possible that it's design greatly differ from what Russians assumed. Especially if instead of thin plates that they used, there are thick plates of DU encased in thinner SHS/HHS plates.

 

[methos]

On TankNet Sebastian Balos calculated that 1,000mm long fuel tanks, will add ~200mm vs KE and ~400mm vs CE. If we assume in worst case that "beak" that contains a composite armor, gives only approx ~500mm vs KE and ~800mm vs CE, with a fuel tanks these gives a protection of 700mm vs KE and 1,200mm vs CE, and this is for early M1/M1A1's without a heavy armor package.

He did not calculate. He simply said that British files shows that a 1 m long fuel tank should offer 320 mm RHAe protection vs CE (400 mm with foam) and guessed that this would offer 200 mm RHAe vs KE. There is a huge difference between guessing and estimating.

 

[Damian]

He did not calculate. He simply said that British files shows that a 1 m long fuel tank should offer 320 mm RHAe protection vs CE (400 mm with foam) and guessed that this would offer 200 mm RHAe vs KE. There is a huge difference between guessing and estimating.

Ok, then my wrong. Still however this do not contradicts with my estimations.

Even if we take a lower protection values, then "beak armor would give"

~500mm + (let's say) ~150-200mm vs KE = 650-700mm vs KE and ~800mm + ~320mm vs CE = 1,120mm vs CE.

As we can see the fuel tanks give really good protection.

And 200mm vs KE added by fuel tanks is not very unlikely:

This is one of proposed front hull designs with integral fuel tank for Contentious light tank, descriptions says:

It was rated that a section of fuel tank with outer and inner bulkheads 51mm thick with outer and inne screens with thickness and inclination, (properly for outer and inner) 30mm at 70 degrees and 15mm at 60 degrees is equivalent in protection to a 220mm thick homogeneus steel armor.

If we assume that M1 tanks front hull fuel tanks, have similiar inner screens, the protection these fuel tanks add is higher than 200mm vs KE and 320-400mm vs CE. It is still however classified how internal structure of fuel tanks is designed. But as we can see, such armor gave a light tank, interesting increase in front hull protection comparable with medium and perhaps even heavy tanks of that era.

The problem however is that we do not know the exact thickness of the "beak" armor of the M1 hull front. The mostly wide spread estimation is ~600-650mm, but I have a different opinion that minimum it is ~650-700mm, after using the known lenght of M2HB that is 1,100mm. If we use this lenght on the turret front, we gain not much less thick armor Ä…pprox ~1,000mm, and the hull front is also rather thick altough I do not know how much, but ~650mm minimum and ~700mm as avarage seems to be resonable.

 

[hest]

Protection coefficient



Green: Cumulative

Red: APFSDS

Multi-layered composite armour - Anti-cumulative ERA - Kontakt-5 ERA - Relikt ERA - 3rd genereation ERA - 4th generation ERA

From article

 

[hest]

Interesting part of article (russian)

Противостоять поражающим элементам современных боеприпасов за счет простого поглощения их кинетической энергии, срабатывания и торможения при имеющихся ограничениях по массе и толщине бронирования далее не представляется возможным. Ð’ любом случае им должен наноситься деструктивный и дестабилизирующий ущерб активным контрвоздействием со стороны брони. По-видимому, дальнейшее совершенствование баллистической защиты от поражающих средств будет идти, с одной стороны, по пути более точного и дозированного деструктивного воздействия на поражающие элементы, с другой — по пути снижения разрушающих нагрузок на несущие конструкции бронирования.

We can see that composite armour does not longer allow to efficiently improve protection due to mass (weight) and volume, thickness limitations. To further increase protection more active means are required, to affect projectile.