Main Battle Tanks and Armour Technology

[The Last Stand]

@farhan_9909, I had asked several times source for ALAS before, you must have expected it.

So, Pakistan is just seeing them, and only Lazar has been bought. Interesting.

 

[farhan_9909]

@farhan_9909, I had asked several times source for ALAS before, you must have expected it.

So, Pakistan is just seeing them, and only Lazar has been bought. Interesting.

And i dont like this about pakistan..they never make it public when the buy something.the news about Pak bought lazar is also confirmed from serbian defence ministry.nothing confirmed from pak side and might never be confirmed.

ALAS could be next.but i am looking for the latest local ATGM

 

[The Last Stand]

And i dont like this about pakistan..they never make it public when the buy something.the news about Pak bought lazar is also confirmed from serbian defence ministry.nothing confirmed from pak side and might never be confirmed.

ALAS could be next.but i am looking for the latest local ATGM

But nothing from Pakistan, some sort of confidentiality clause? Also, what is the unit price for ALAS?

So Pak Def Min is paranoid just like Ind Def Min. )

 

[Austin]

The first tank "Hold" for Thailand

bmpd - Первый танк "Оплот" для Таиланда

 

[Andrei_bt]

"bmpd" - fake materials...

 

[Kunal Biswas]

No wonder, We are using a variant of Kanchan there too..

And seemingly, we third world countries received the worst tech SU had on offer.

Perhaps you have more details on these differences? I suppose the gun barrel, autoloader, engine etc. were degraded.

 

[Damian]

No wonder, We are using a variant of Kanchan there too..

But where? I mean, did India manufactured T-72M1 on licence? If yes then yup, some of these can have Kanchan armor. However replacing old armor in older tanks, in case of turret, is immposible due to manufacturing process of the turret and how armor inserts are placed in turret cavities.

Of course we can consider a possibility that there are manufactured new turrets with Kanchan armor.

In case of hull, armor replacement is possible.

And don't get me wrong, this problem is not my invention, but in Poland we faced similiar problems during R&D phase of the CAWA-2 armor, where there were performed attempts to replace T-72M1 turret armor with CAWA-2.

 

[The Last Stand]

But where? I mean, did India manufactured T-72M1 on licence? If yes then yup, some of these can have Kanchan armor. However replacing old armor in older tanks, in case of turret, is immposible due to manufacturing process of the turret and how armor inserts are placed in turret cavities.

Of course we can consider a possibility that there are manufactured new turrets with Kanchan armor.

In case of hull, armor replacement is possible.

And don't get me wrong, this problem is not my invention, but in Poland we faced similiar problems during R&D phase of the CAWA-2 armor, where there were performed attempts to replace T-72M1 turret armor with CAWA-2.

DRDO said, T-72's armour inserts were replaced with Kanchan.

@militarysta did state this problem regarding T-72, and IMHO, if more experienced European engineers were unable to perform this task, how did DRDO do it?

@Kunal Biswas, do you have the source for that statement?

 

[Kunal Biswas]

There are some pure T-72M1 which have soviat making, there are some which dont have...

Kanchan armour have array of varients for T-90S/72M1 and Arjun / tank - ex, that patterns are not same for all..

But where? I mean, did India manufactured T-72M1 on licence? If yes then yup, some of these can have Kanchan armor. However replacing old armor in older tanks, in case of turret, is immposible due to manufacturing process of the turret and how armor inserts are placed in turret cavities.

Of course we can consider a possibility that there are manufactured new turrets with Kanchan armor.

In case of hull, armor replacement is possible.

And don't get me wrong, this problem is not my invention, but in Poland we faced similiar problems during R&D phase of the CAWA-2 armor, where there were performed attempts to replace T-72M1 turret armor with CAWA-2.

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Its from DRDO focus serise PDF, I guess i have also posted a screen shot of it, too lazy to search now, I just step into my house need a cup of tea, My head is buzzing...

@Kunal Biswas, do you have the source for that statement?

 

[The Last Stand]

@Kunal Biswas @methos @militarysta @Damian @Lidsky M.D. @Akim @ersakthivel @p2prada @pmaitra

Interesting research on Shaped charges for usage in Off route AT mines buried deep underground. by DRDO

http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/dss/2010/dss2010.pdf

Starts on page 62 of the book and page 75 in actual terms.

Seemingly, shaped charge from 10 metres away has penetrated upto 80 mm RHA plate and research is on to do more. Is 80 mm really enough for lower belly area. Also, are mines buried that deep

Also includes something about increasing combat effectiveness of MBT.

 

[The Last Stand]

Also, we are reaching close to 400 pages now!

And I found a few more on nanomaterials and stuff, I will post them tomorrow, lots of Homework to do now

Damn homework.

 

[Damian]

@Kunal Biswas @methos @militarysta @Damian @Lidsky M.D. @Akim @ersakthivel @p2prada @pmaitra

Interesting research on Shaped charges for usage in Off route AT mines buried deep underground. by DRDO

http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/dss/2010/dss2010.pdf

Starts on page 62 of the book and page 75 in actual terms.

Seemingly, shaped charge from 10 metres away has penetrated upto 80 mm RHA plate and research is on to do more. Is 80 mm really enough for lower belly area. Also, are mines buried that deep

Also includes something about increasing combat effectiveness of MBT.

Belly armor of most MBT's is approx 20-40mm thick, however it is possible to improve protection, for example the C-IED kit (a part of TUSK kit) for M1 Abrams tanks, have per avaiable sources, additional V shaped belly plate that is approx 150-200mm thick, however it is not known from what materials it is made and what structure it have.

 

[The Last Stand]

Belly armor of most MBT's is approx 20-40mm thick, however it is possible to improve protection, for example the C-IED kit (a part of TUSK kit) for M1 Abrams tanks, have per avaiable sources, additional V shaped belly plate that is approx 150-200mm thick, however it is not known from what materials it is made and what structure it have.

So later version of this shaped charge has possibility to be effective against such armour? And can you share what is known belly armour for T-series tanks? Thanks.

 

[Damian]

So later version of this shaped charge has possibility to be effective against such armour? And can you share what is known belly armour for T-series tanks? Thanks.

Well, AFAIK for "T" tanks there were also upgrades for belly armor. I don't know how it looks in Russia or Ukraine, but for example in Poland, our T-55 modernization, the T-55AM "Merida" had improved protection of the hull belly, I heard that this improvement was also slightly problematic due to shape of additional belly plate, which could cause some downgrade of vehicle mobility in difficult terrain.

The T-55AM "Merida" is very similiar to other upgrades of the T-55 tanks, like T-55AM2B and T-55M so it is very possible that all of them had the same belly protection, just as they share BDD addon armor for turret and hull.

Also T-72M1 upgrade, the PT-91 "Twardy" have improved belly protection.

If I am correct, BM "Oplot" also have improved belly protection, Andrei can say more probably.

However standard belly protection, is as I said, approx 20-40mm thick RHA plate.

 

[methos]

DRDO said, T-72's armour inserts were replaced with Kanchan.

http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/techfocus/2011/TFApril2011.pdf

Page 4 mentions that Kanchan is used instead of Textolite (i.e. the glass reinforced plastic used in T-72 glacis) on the T-72 tank.

 

[Akim]

Interesting research on Shaped charges for usage in Off route AT mines buried deep underground. by DRDO


Starts on page 62 of the book and page 75 in actual terms.

Seemingly, shaped charge from 10 metres away has penetrated upto 80 mm RHA plate and research is on to do more. Is 80 mm really enough for lower belly area. Also, are mines buried that deep

Also includes something about increasing combat effectiveness of MBT.

Cumulative AT.mines is not effective. There are many obstacles to its application. It is better to apply high-explosive AT mine. It is much more effective against the tank and its tracks., also less subject to physical shock and is easier in device.

 

[Damian]

http://drdo.gov.in/drdo/pub/techfocus/2011/TFApril2011.pdf

Page 4 mentions that Kanchan is used instead of Textolite (i.e. the glass reinforced plastic used in T-72 glacis) on the T-72 tank.

So it might confirm what I said, turret armor was immposible to be replaced, so they just replaced glacis plate armor.

 

[Andrei_bt]

Also T-72M1 upgrade, the PT-91 "Twardy" have improved belly protection.

If I am correct, BM "Oplot" also have improved belly protection, Andrei can say more probably.

However standard belly protection, is as I said, approx 20-40mm thick RHA plate.

what is it exactly? What is "belly"?
Maybe this - http://btvt.narod.ru/raznoe/vbtt_1991_afgan.files/image001.jpg (t-55, 62 for A-stan)
http://btvt.narod.ru/raznoe/vbtt_1991_afgan.htm

 

[ersakthivel]

Source for this fact? I have not heard of any exports to Pakistan so far.

Penetration of 800 mm RHA, does not mean penetration of 800 mm LOS composite armour. As @militarysta and @Damian have mentioned so many times, penetration reduces drastically against composite armour for HEAT warheads. And we still don't know much about what warhead this missile has.

And Arjun isn't a heavy tank. It is a MBT. I don't see why you keep calling western style tanks as heavy and eastern as medium

Well every fighter in airforce is called a combat aircraft,Then why are people calling tejas as LCA and 5th gen stealth fighters is named as AMCA?

Tejas has a lesser range and weapon load than Su-30 due to it's smaller size specs,

The same applies to tanks too,

tanks that have bulky separated safe ammo storage with 4th crew men in place of auto loader,

to completely eliminate the possibility of ammo cook off in any case off seep through explosion

are made to survive and save crew. So these tanks end up as heavy no matter whether there is any classification as heavy or medium tanks,

IMHO ,Tanks that don't have the above features are light and medium MBTs.

 

[ersakthivel]

All is depend on context.
1. Indian Army haven't modern APFSDS and havent any APFSDS able to slighty overpas ERA armour. So Kontakt-5 on T-80UD is serious problem.
2. Basic T-80UD armour is quite good. LOS thickenss is smaller then T-80UD then in Arjun generally, but it doesn't means that armour is weaker.
3. Arjun have huge weak zones - gun mantled mask and main sight. It's more serious problem then in Leo-2A4.

More or less IMHO T-80UD is better armoured.

according to DRDO press releases rounds that are capable of stripping a tank of ERA are in development. So pure reliance on ERA alone won't be good enough in future.

tanks that don't have all around thick composite armor and relying simply on turret geometry and ERA alone will have problems against these types of rounds in future.

Once ERA is stripped they won't have the same level of protection of a heavy tanks that rely on inherently heavy composite armor for protection.