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Artillery is underpowered against vehicles


Armorgunner

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On 06/12/2016 at 2:14 AM, IICptMillerII said:

Airburst does not equal armor defeating. If an HE shell set to explode before hitting the ground goes off above a tank, all its doing is spraying the tank with small metal fragments. Will it shred antennas and ruck sacks and the like on the outside of the tank? Yes. But its not going to destroy a 120mm/125mm main gun. Its also not going to damage optics, because optics are protected behind blast shields that are operated by the crew. All airburst artillery is in CM is a shotgun going off a few meters off the ground aimed down.

[...]

Ofc Airbust rounds would not penetrate armor, but it would probably mission kill a tank by destroying most of its lightly armored external components : masts, antenas, optics eventually depending of the angle.

I don't think ingame you can close the blast shields. And if you are suprised, you might not have the time to close it. Would be interesting though to have the options of closing the blast shields.

Do we have sources about crew members being blasted by overpressure in case of a direct hit from a shell ? I know occurence of RPG-7 boucing on an APC but not exploding resulting in crew members being blasted, with internal injuries, deaf, dizzy, etc. It's likely that a shell hit would also serverly blast the crew, even if most of the enrgy spreads out of the cabin.

 

Edited by FoxZz
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1 hour ago, FoxZz said:

Would be interesting though to have the options of closing the blast shields.

Would be interesting to know how they are opened and closed on various tanks. For example, on the T-72B3 the blast shield over the gunner's thermal sight is held in place by 4 screws that must be removed manually.

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On 12/6/2016 at 8:06 AM, TheForwardObserver said:

@IICptMillerII Just curious, are you under the impression that an Abrams in real life could sustain this many direct hits from 155 HE-quick and still function?
bossabrams2.jpg

Well he does state that 

  • Artillery is able to kill tanks, however it takes a lot of ammo and a bit of luck

He's firing RUS arty, Ill bet. And If I'm correct, your screen is from a US v US game.

Way different # of rounds needed to achieve direct hits.

This is maybe clouding the subject a bit, but it could relate to RUS frustrations trying to nail US tanks with arty - the simple quantity of shells needed to achieve the desired results can feel like the rounds have no effect, when its possibly also a function of their inherent RUS inaccuracy.

 

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8 hours ago, Vanir Ausf B said:

Would be interesting to know how they are opened and closed on various tanks. For example, on the T-72B3 the blast shield over the gunner's thermal sight is held in place by 4 screws that must be removed manually.

On the Abrams it's two levers for the gunner's primary (you turn one and then the other to close both doors).  CITV rotates to the rear where there is a plate to mask the optic itself.  

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On 12/1/2016 at 4:06 PM, Codename Duchess said:

This discussion reminds me of my own cadet war story though from when I did Army things. The second summer at USMA is a month in the field ("Buckner), meant to be more tactical and also expose you to the various branches of the army (it was a lot broader in the past with cadet vs cadet tank fights at Ft. Knox). One day is Field Artillery day where you rotate through the FDC, gun line, and actually on a hill calling in 5-7 round 105mm missions on old tanks. There was a female in my platoon, maybe 5'2" and never speaking more than a sentence per week. Most of us were pretty lousy at our first ever fire mission but she gets up there and the first spotting round emits a loud "PING" Garand style as it bounced off the top of the M60 or whatever she called it on. We all kind of revered her in awe after that. She got to set the pile of excess propellant bags on fire too which was the hottest fire I've ever seen (like burned my face from 100 yards hot).

You have a better first fire mission story than me.  I sat on a hill, hadn't seen a woman in 12 weeks at that point, and didn't hit anything.   
270481_10151379949745817_1351940927_n_zp

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2 hours ago, TheForwardObserver said:

You have a better first fire mission story than me.  I sat on a hill, hadn't seen a woman in 12 weeks at that point, and didn't hit anything.   
270481_10151379949745817_1351940927_n_zp

Mine was much less spectacular than hers. I fired my spotting round, told the NCO what I thought the correction should be. He, somehow coming across as bored, adjusts my adjustment and tells me to fire for effect. Obliterates the target. I don't think he even looked up to watch.

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How my call for fire went down:

Me: So how'd I do?

NCO: Good. 

Me: What I get?

NCO: A 90%.

Me: Why not a perfect score?

NCO: We can't give everyone 100s, dude.

Me: Oh.

Everyone else in my squad got a perfect score. 

I also thought it was funny that we didn't call in fire or shoot AT-4s at any old tanks. I'm 95% those rusting hulks were the M60A2 Starships the Army ended up hating so much they condemned them to being shot at by inexperienced  numskull cadets for half a century.

Purgatory for tanks, basically. 

Edited by Currahee150
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  • 1 month later...

According to STANAG 4569 Level 4: A hit from a 14,5mm HMG, corresponds to  a 155mm HE at 30 meters away.

According to STANAG 4569 Level 5 A hit from a 25 mm APDS-T, Corresponds to a 155mm HE at 25 meters away

Most APC´s, and IFV are not capable of defending against an  25 mm APDS-T. Maybe in the frontal 60-90 degree, for some. And thus APCs and IFVs would be more vulnerable to 152/155mm HE inside a 25 meter radius in CMBS.

I know that a 155mm at 20-25 meters away is not a guaranteed penetration, and clearly not a kill every time. But if one of the big fragments come the right/wrong way, it certainly will penetrate. And maybe do some damage. If it lands closer, say 10-15 meters away. It should be a great amount of damage (penetrations) from fragments (not even calculating the blast damage)

Since STANAG 4569 Level 6 corresponds to protection against : 30 mm APFSDS or AP at 500 m, and : 155 mm High Explosive at 10 m  

 

Edited by Armorgunner
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  • 2 months later...
  • 7 months later...

An M1A1 Abrams tank could survive a direct hit from a 155mm howitzer HE shell, real life.

An M1a1 Abrams will not survive any splash damage within 3 meters of any side from a 155mm howitzer HE shell.

 

I was in mechanized field artillery battalion ( 3\18 FA BN) and was deployed to Iraq in 2003. We got frag orders Sept 2002, so we started preparing. In preparing not only did we have to know our jobs, we had to know what our munitions were fully capable of doing. We had to know which munitions were effective against different armors, in the case that we actually had to do a direct fire (shoot a target we could see). A couple of the pictures, I remember the most was one of an Abrams that had a 155 HE land within 2 meters of it's second road wheel. The tank literally looked like Swiss cheese. Another picture I remember was one of a 155 HE direct hit to a T-67, there was a slight dent and crack in the armor but no massive damage; on the same paper was a 155 HE splash damage (shell impact was about 6 meters away from the left side) to a T-67, If any crew members survived they were in a world of hurt. The shrapnel from the rounds literally went through both tanks, though there was more blocked by the T-67 due to where the round landed.

 

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5 hours ago, Erwin said:

So the shrapnel from the adjacent burst went through the Abrams.  A direct hit doesn't allow shrapnel to form?

That was exactly @HerrTom's point previously on this thread:

Anyone with interest in the topic must also go through his outstanding analysis on the following thread - lots of RL evidence there from the war in Ukraine as well:

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Very little shrapnel goes to the point of the shell. It (the shell) is -designed- for shrapnel to explode radially along the long axis. Hence, the target which gets directly hit does get the kinetic energy of the round (in the milliseconds before the fuse train detonates the HE mass). The energetic particles (shrapnel) expand to the side. Directly under the shell is relatively "safer".

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On 11/20/2017 at 11:39 PM, c3k said:

Very little shrapnel goes to the point of the shell. It (the shell) is -designed- for shrapnel to explode radially along the long axis. Hence, the target which gets directly hit does get the kinetic energy of the round (in the milliseconds before the fuse train detonates the HE mass). The energetic particles (shrapnel) expand to the side. Directly under the shell is relatively "safer".

I wish I could remember the illustration from artillery school, but if you can imagine two cones starting at the fuse and base of the shell, those have dramatically fewer fragments.

 

E: Not exactly, but close enough!

main-qimg-0f4dc0f7ab69dcfff4bcc581ccfd68

Edited by DougPhresh
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Nice graphic. ^^^

The energy in an HE shell is the chemical explosive. The kinetic energy of the shell (1/2*mass*velocity^2) is a factor for direct hits. However, the shrapnel, propelled by the power of the HE filler, is where the real energy is. Vehicles just to the side of the impact will get hit by the fragments....which are propelled at a velocity close to the ignition rate of the explosive. That's fast. The shell itself is relatively slow. 

Artillery shell design school must be a pretty cool place. ;)

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19 hours ago, c3k said:

Artillery shell design school must be a pretty cool place. ;)

 Maybe I should package up my tool so we can all play artillery shell designer... It's all very interesting stuff!

19 hours ago, c3k said:

The energy in an HE shell is the chemical explosive. The kinetic energy of the shell (1/2*mass*velocity^2) is a factor for direct hits. However, the shrapnel, propelled by the power of the HE filler, is where the real energy is. Vehicles just to the side of the impact will get hit by the fragments....which are propelled at a velocity close to the ignition rate of the explosive. That's fast. The shell itself is relatively slow. 

 Good summary! Fragment velocity tends to be  around 1/4 the detonation velocity, 1-3 km/s for Octol's 8 km/s detonation velocity. Fragments remain much more dangerous than the blast itself also  due to being denser and hence retaining their energy better and concentrating it more than a detonation wave that will attenuate it's energy much faster!

Man, I forgot about that white paper I was writing...

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19 hours ago, c3k said:

Artillery shell design school must be a pretty cool place. ;)

 Maybe I should package up my tool so we can all play artillery shell designer... It's all very interesting stuff!

19 hours ago, c3k said:

The energy in an HE shell is the chemical explosive. The kinetic energy of the shell (1/2*mass*velocity^2) is a factor for direct hits. However, the shrapnel, propelled by the power of the HE filler, is where the real energy is. Vehicles just to the side of the impact will get hit by the fragments....which are propelled at a velocity close to the ignition rate of the explosive. That's fast. The shell itself is relatively slow. 

 Good summary! Fragment velocity tends to be  around 1/4 the detonation velocity, 1-3 km/s for Octol's 8 km/s detonation velocity. Fragments remain much more dangerous than the blast itself also  due to being denser and hence retaining their energy better and concentrating it more than a detonation wave that will attenuate it's energy much faster!

Man, I forgot about that white paper I was writing...

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