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How did the Soviets get their IS-2's so tough?


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Well not reliably and consistently at least. I've had one Panther literally fire almost its entire ammo loadout (37 shots) at one IS-2 at 1200m. As soon as an IS-2 is only slightly angled, its turret just shrugs off everything that comes flying at it. In fact I have noticed Panthers to refuse to shoot at angled IS-2, presumable estimating their chances of destroying it rather realistically.

Yes, I wrote that in haste. Let me clarify by saying that the Panther can penetrate the lower hull out past 1000 meters. The upper hull is pretty much impossible for anything short of -- maybe -- a Jagdtiger. The rounded front turret and mantlet will give highly variable results, similar to Soviet 85mm or US 76mm vs. the Panther turret.

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I recall a Russian tanker anecdote that they were impressed with the lack of spalling from American armor. Russian armor was very hard - and very brittle. After the war US developed 'laminate' sandwich armor for its armored cars. The outer layer was very hard, the inner layer was softer and had more give. The ultimate evolution of that was ceramic armor. A very hard ceramic plate backed by very soft steel.

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Why would any Soviet tank commander take up hull down positions with an IS-2? They were breakthrough tanks, designed to shrug off, or at the least not explode, when they were hit by any of the main weapons manning the forward defensive lines.

WW2 tanks couldnt accuratley fire on the move. So exchanging rounds with an enemy meant stopping the tank. Why not use the advantage of a hull down position if the tank has to stop moving anyways?

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Going back to the point how IS-2 was so much "lighter" than comparable German designs.

IS-2 had both the engine and the transmission/final drive at the back. German WWII tanks (at least from PzKpfw III on up) had the transmission/final drive in front. That means you have a heavy driveshaft running the length of the vehicle. On heavier tanks, just that adds several tons. But this also results in the need for a taller profile, and larger armored volume, adding additional weight, which in turn requires a more powerful engine and stronger suspension ... Coupled with the German weapon designers' tendency to overengineer everything you get the vicious circle idea.

Granted, the German approach has its benefits. The turret can be placed more in the middle (see how forward IS-2's turret is). The middle placement reduces crew compartment "travel" especially over rough terrain, creating more comfortable crew conditions. The chance to stick the gun in the mud in an unexpected "dive" is also lower. You spread the weight of the turret more evenly on the suspension. And you don't have to turn the gun back during transport.

I am less certain about the claimed degree of additional protection forward transmission placement gives to the crew. On one hand, there's more iron/steel between the incoming round and the crew. On the other hand, it doesn't cover the whole front - moreover, it is fairly low in the hull, where the chances of hit are not big to begin with. Also, now there is a greater chance that even a non-penetrating hit might disable the transmission and immobilize the tank, which greatly increases the vulnerability.

In the end, I believe history has provided the verdict - to the best of my knowledge, no modern main battle tank has the engine and transmission/final drive at opposite ends of the vehicle...

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Why would any Soviet tank commander take up hull down positions with an IS-2?

We've had this same discussion forever regarding PzIV. A hull-down PzIV is going to get hit on its 50mm front turret plate. A fully exposed PzIV is going to share some of those hits with the thicker hull armor. So hull-down seems disadvantageous. If I recall the original discussion the crucial factor was range. A reduced target size at a great enough range greatly reduced the chance of being hit at all. But at relatively close range hit probablility goes up - and hit probability on a hull down vehicle means turret front hit probability.

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That seems like a bit of a fallacy. The choice is not between

1) shell hits turret or hull

and

2) shell hits turret

but rather

1) shell hits turret or hull

and

2) shell hits turret or ground beneath turret

Or to put another way, if the enemy gunner is good enough to be hitting where he aims then he'll aim for the turret regardless of whether the tank is hull down or not.

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Or to put another way, if the enemy gunner is good enough to be hitting where he aims then he'll aim for the turret regardless of whether the tank is hull down or not.

Every gunner has a distribution, usually a bell curve. A better gunner just has a narrower one.

Unless the gunner and the situation are such that there is no realistic chance of a miss on a turret-sized target at all the hull-down situation leads to less hits.

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In the end, I believe history has provided the verdict - to the best of my knowledge, no modern main battle tank has the engine and transmission/final drive at opposite ends of the vehicle...

The Merkava has its drive in the front. It's also rather heavy. :)

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Engine and transmission both up front aren't 'opposite ends', though, ;)

Merkava is not exactly a design success. For one thing it had an annoying problem with heat ripples coming off the forward engine deck distorting the view through the gunner's sight. And to uparmor that big bow you need to do a LOT of uparmoring, its like a manmade mountain.

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Engine and transmission both up front aren't 'opposite ends', though, ;)

Merkava is not exactly a design success. For one thing it had an annoying problem with heat ripples coming off the forward engine deck distorting the view through the gunner's sight. And to uparmor that big bow you need to do a LOT of uparmoring, its like a manmade mountain.

/OT on

Read an article on a mil magazine that the Merk was really a compromise with the engine up front design. The Israelis lacked good metallurgy to produce decent composite armor, hence put the engine box in front to protect the fighting compartment behind it.

Considering a small and recent nation Israel is I tend to think it says the truth.

/OT off

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Skwabie - and you would be wrong. The earliest mark I model - based on British designs incidentally - had only rolled homogenous armor, and the mark II model had only that plus spacing. But the mark III had modular composite armor, and the current mark IV Merkava has a "composite matrix of laminated ceramic steel-nickel alloy" (sloped, modular).

The mark IV appeared in 2003. So for over a decade, the Merkava has had (nearly) state of the art composite armor.

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Skwabie - and you would be wrong. The earliest mark I model - based on British designs incidentally - had only rolled homogenous armor, and the mark II model had only that plus spacing. But the mark III had modular composite armor, and the current mark IV Merkava has a "composite matrix of laminated ceramic steel-nickel alloy" (sloped, modular).

The mark IV appeared in 2003. So for over a decade, the Merkava has had (nearly) state of the art composite armor.

JC I've apparently sold off the mags last time I moved apartment. But it was a rather nice article which went in-depth about Israeli Merks. IIRC even the Merkava IV's composite armor was still not up to par with the latest western design at the time, hence they used heavy sloping and whatnot. But knowing these stuff is still class, I digress.

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That seems like a bit of a fallacy. The choice is not between

1) shell hits turret or hull

and

2) shell hits turret

but rather

1) shell hits turret or hull

and

2) shell hits turret or ground beneath turret

Or to put another way, if the enemy gunner is good enough to be hitting where he aims then he'll aim for the turret regardless of whether the tank is hull down or not.

That's not the way it works as gunners and rifle men tend due to training aim centre of mass, as you're trying to maximising the hit chance to qualify during qualifcation shoots.

on a fig 11 images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS5AMwuN99xxHO62FQ4OTC6SeEQLL9u7SFXGlJ_QgrJL2ah04MbKAPWrF4 shot grouping is around the stomach or chest depending if the shooter is prone or standing unsupported and relative height of the butts to the shooter.

on a fig 12 your looking at a lot of shot groups around the chin/throat 354802396_9ec3252232.jpg

If a tgt is exposing it's head/turret then the centre of the turret is your aim point , if it's the entire person or afv you're aim point is it's "centre".

One is aiming to hit the target which is maximised by centre of mass aimponts, not bits of it of it like the head or turret.

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That's not the way it works as gunners and rifle men tend due to training aim centre of mass, as you're trying to maximising the hit chance to qualify during qualifcation shoots.

[snip]

One is aiming to hit the target which is maximised by centre of mass aimponts, not bits of it of it like the head or turret.

That's all true, but consider how that works out in practice. When the whole tank is exposed, the gunner aims for the center of mass, which would be somewhere in the upper part of the upper hull most likely. Given a random distribution of hits around the aim point, a percentage of those hits are likely to strike the turret or mantlet. Now take the case where only the turret is visible. The gunner, still aiming at the center of mass, aims at the center of the mantlet. Since it is a smaller target, on average he gets fewer hits overall, but it get worse. Now instead of rounds hitting above the aim point and striking the turret, they may miss the tank entirely or merely glance off the roof. Seems to me that going hull down is almost always a winner, even if the turret armor is somewhat less substantial. Apparently tankers agreed with me, as that is what they tried to do when circumstances allowed it.

Michael

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That's all true, but consider how that works out in practice. When the whole tank is exposed, the gunner aims for the center of mass, which would be somewhere in the upper part of the upper hull most likely. Given a random distribution of hits around the aim point, a percentage of those hits are likely to strike the turret or mantlet. Now take the case where only the turret is visible. The gunner, still aiming at the center of mass, aims at the center of the mantlet. Since it is a smaller target, on average he gets fewer hits overall, but it get worse. Now instead of rounds hitting above the aim point and striking the turret, they may miss the tank entirely or merely glance off the roof. Seems to me that going hull down is almost always a winner, even if the turret armor is somewhat less substantial. Apparently tankers agreed with me, as that is what they tried to do when circumstances allowed it.

Michael

Should be "centre of visible mass" that they're aiming for then Emrys, else you have to do a mental imaging calculation on the bits you can't see. Null argument.

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