Tank Warfare: Russian Armour vs Western Armour

Abrams" against Russian tanks: information wars and combat reality.

https://zvezdaweekly.ru/news/t/20187241125-9EcHF.html

JohninMK wrote:

dino00 wrote:
Abrams" against Russian tanks: information wars and combat reality.

https://zvezdaweekly.ru/news/t/20187241125-9EcHF.html

That is a really long article in Russian. Any chance of a Russian speaker around here doing a little summary?

I don`t understand a word of Russian...If you can try use a tranlator

I used Google translate.

Summary: In the past lots of Western articles were written judging Abrams best tank, Leopard2, Leclerc & Merkava also superior to T-72/T-90.

Since those tanks have all now taken part in combat vs enemies with modern ATGMs showing the Western tanks to be just as vulnerable as Iraqi T-72s, Abrams actually coming out worst while T-90 has shown itself able to survive hits that others haven't, those articles pretty much stopped.

Then a bunch of stuff about how good T-90 is & then a bunch of Armata is much better.

Couple of interesting bits about T-90: in a comparison test T-90 hit 7 targets 1.5-2.5km range in 54secs while moving at 35km/h beating previous best Leopard2 which was shooting while stopped & couldn't have matched the RoF while moving due to manual loading, Russians estimate in 10 Abrams vs 10 T-90s the T-90s would kill 5 or 6 Abrams with ATGMs before the Abrams could even get into firing range.

Copy and paste this link into the address bar of a new open tab on your browser:

https://translate.yandex.ru/translate

Across the top of the page there will be a link saying Tekct, which is for translating separate bits of text (ie paragraphs you want translated), the next link says CANT but the N is back to front and has a ~ over it... that pretty much means site... make sure that is selected and next to it is a dialog box.

Copy and paste the link to the website above into the box and click on the button next to it.

The lower half of the screen has two tabs, the left shows the original site and the right hand one shows the english translation (a small percentage to the right of the translation tab shows it translating... it just does the visible bit at a time so as you scroll down it keeps translating)

hoom wrote:

Couple of interesting bits about T-90: in a comparison test T-90 hit 7 targets 1.5-2.5km range in 54secs while moving at 35km/h beating previous best Leopard2 which was shooting while stopped & couldn't have matched the RoF while moving due to manual loading, Russians estimate in 10 Abrams vs 10 T-90s the T-90s would kill 5 or 6 Abrams with ATGMs before the Abrams could even get into firing range.

Yeah, Andrey Tarasenko used to mention something like that on his BTVT website. He wrote like it would require 2-3 Reflex ATGMs to destroy any modern tank from front. I sorta doubt it, since Abrams and Challenger 2 are generally said to have superior front armour than T-90 versions. And that's considering, that T-90 servived TOW-2 without any ptoblem in Syria...

Even if a reflex does not destroy a western tank it could do serious damage to the optics or hull front... Abrams tanks can be destroyed from the side by Konkurs... at 5km+ range would the western tanks know the direction of the attack or would they be operating with turrets covering all attack directions?

If you have your turret facing sideways or backwards then a hit from the front will either hit the hull front armour or the side or rear of the turret armour....

With all 10 Russian vehicles carrying missiles all ten could fire on the enemy tanks at once, and the speed western tanks can move at suggests perhaps two shots before they started firing back...

Currently the makers of the Kornet are suggesting a top attack capability by directing the missile up and commanding a dive at the last second to effect an attack on the upper armour of the target... the Kornet is a laser beam riding missile... just like the tank gun launched missiles Russia uses... it would be a software issue... a diving top attack gun launched missile would be devastating to all western tanks whose top armour is just as weak as Soviet and Russian top armour...

Is there any plans to change the 2A46M-5 cannon on T-90 with 2A82-1M to give access to the 3BM69 shells ,adding more prenetration cababilities against western tanks from front ?

And where would those shells fit exactly? The T-90M's carousel has already been expanded pretty much to the limit of the tank chassis.

lancelot wrote:And where would those shells fit exactly? The T-90M's carousel has already been expanded pretty much to the limit of the tank chassis.

Oh my God, just place the shells not horizontally, but at an angle.
Is it so difficult to reconfigure the location of ammunition for an automated loader?

Overkill. The 3BM-69/70 subcaliber shots are massive; they utilize a recalibrated version of the Object 195 vertical carousel:


They also pierce only slightly less armor than actual 152 mm APFSDS on account of the slower muzzle velocity - as they use pretty much the same shafts. As they are these rounds would have no problems piercing the very latest M1A2 SEPv3 at 3km, front to back.

Instead the 3BM-69/70 are almost exclusively designed to counter an Armata-level threat. Anything lower and 3BM-59/60 is more than enough.

Not that it matters much, since the 3BM-59/60 rounds have already done one of their main tasks without being fired once in anger. By forcing the Aybraps to adopt even more deadweight armor they pushed the weight of the Abrams way past the point of capacity of NATO's military and civilian transport infrastructure:

Good luck deploying and sustaining these hunks of steel in Eastern Europe's less developed infrastructure. Instead of an unbreakable spear tip NATO got a heavy ball and chain in the Aybraps - great job btw.

Russia has enough tools and industry to deal with the west threats, but for the customers of Russian weapons , will be better if they receive much more than the current export version of Mango .

My concern was highlighted after checking the below video .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c5XkP1ywpk

My concern was highlighted after checking the below video .

Anyone else thinking that enormous area of upper hull with a super thin sheet of plain old metal armour with no layers or special materials that stops very energetic rounds simply because of the plate angle means it is slicing down the metal rather than punching through is a bit suspect?

I mean such a thin piece of steel will heat up with the penetration, and a battle zone is not flat... if it is driving downwards the plate is exposed to a much shallower angle... I mean even a shaped charge hand grenade or 40mm grenade launcher grenade would punch through that like a hot knife through butter... it seems to be a small area at line of sight but from above it is a huge area that most shaped charge top attack weapons could penetrate easily.

The video above shows the APFSDS penetrator being obliterated by the impact but is that true?

The forces on the penetrator are enormous but would it just vapourise like it appears to do in that simulation?

When penetrating vertical armour plate it would be pushing aside rather more material than what it is pushing aside in this simulation, and Soviet and Russian penetrators tend to be thicker and heavier than much thinner western penetrators...

The video above shows the APFSDS penetrator being obliterated by the impact but is that true?

The simulation shows perfectly fine penetration.
It is designed to work like that in order to minimalize ricochet.

Let's focus on some principles here.
The top hull plate of M1 is made of steel 2' thick.
TWO INCHES.
That's it.
Seeing it for the first time, one can be surprised.
It is very sloped indeed, but at the end of a road, we have approx. 380 mm of RHAe LOS equivalent.
And that should tell us one more thing: this is a base level of protection M1 was constructed with and applies to every single part of a frontal armor package varying from 350 to about 400 mm of RHAe.
That's it.
And that applies to ALL western tanks of the era, that is L2 and Ch2 as well. Actually, Ch2 was even less protected, the project for shah was designed with maximal protection of about 350 mm. A quantum leap over the Chieftain's 250 mm of mild steel, yet ...

So only by having the basics, we can make calculations and opinions.

What we have is a perfectly fine penetration made with old projectile, and appliable to every single M1 in service, no matter the fancy letters.
This penetration leaves the driver dead, and the tank out of action with 99% guarantee.

These simulations are quite fine but do not consider one important parameter.
That is the angle of impact.
Even very fast penetrating rods are not being shot with a 0 angle for longer distances. For 2000m, it won't hit absolutely head-on, which is the simulation's most important element. Adding even a few deg to the impact geometry makes the relative LOS lower.
As Garry mentioned, tanks are dynamic. The terrain is dynamic. So those sims are only valid to some degree.

That reminded me of my nice chit-chat with already mentioned lt. col. with his "even Hellfire haven't managed!" contested with Soviet-era 3BK29, which pierced 850 mm - much better than the Hellfire

ahmedfire wrote:
My concern was highlighted after checking the below video

The shaft design is all wrong - GIGO:

The 3BM42 APFSDS is a 1986 round with a complex segmented Tungsten penetrator design - one of the first such examples, if not the first. The Aybraps upper front plate is the same sheet of steel since the first M1 obr. 1978 designed when the Soviets were using all-steel ammo.

Use your common sense.

These sims also have some funky stuff going on with replicating normalizations - namely they can barely do them.

Also the front hull armor of the Aybraps has never been updated until the latest models.

Just goad them to attack out in the open and even the Mango will pierce the hull front to back.

That depends on what you consider "the latest models".
Different NERA panels structure was introduced quite fast, as only they figured that a brand new tank is actually behind the Soviet competitors decade older.
Still it was not a Wunderwaffe, just implementing some non metallic layers, and finally dense DU made net/rods.
Nothing fancy if we keep in mind "combination K" or "kvarz" or "korund" fillers used by the evil backward Soviets since the 60s.

Well, if all other tools fail Russia still has those little FAB-3000 bombs.

Kh-38 will deliver a 250kg payload to a target 40km+ away, which is about five times heavier than the 50kg IEDs that took out Abrams tanks in the Middle East.

An anti armour LMUR with a 30kg shaped charge warhead would be interesting if they don't already have it...

But Vikhr and Kornet and even Ataka and Khrisantema are already overkill.

There is a Combat Approved episode about Khrisantema where they actually have a cube of armour over 1m square that they hit and penetrate with a Khrisantema...

If you are using Smerch or Grad or Uragan then top attack HEAT submunitions would easily defeat an Abrams... the surface area of the front hull and the top of the enormous turret and the huge engine deck would make it an enormous target for top attack submunitions...

Grouping them together for an offensive it is going to be difficult to get enough fuel trucks in such a small area without being noticed.

The cheapest and probably the best way to disable the Abrahams - or any other tank for that matter.



But to be honest all these "super tanks" will enter this battlefield with a huge disadvantage against Russian anti-armour weapons.

Agreed... all the super HATO training in the world means nothing against enemy artillery and air power attacks...

Last year we read the panicked accounts of ex-HATO special forces veterans who fought in Afghanistan and Iraq and all sorts of other places as heroes leaving the conflict in Ukraine because they didn't like it when their own air power and artillery didn't work and the enemy had working air power and working artillery.

That sort of paradigm shift is all that is needed to make a fun game (where they die all the time in large numbers and your side rarely loses a tiny few or none at all) to a not so much fun game anymore.

During the cold war their enemies were tougher because they were supported and assisted, but post cold war their enemies have largely been on their own.

This is their first real peer enemy for 30 odd years... which is not to day the Serb air defence should have been a wakeup call for them just as an example.

Not to mention: