Ukrainian "Guardian" Tank Supporting Vehicle

[Battlefront.com]

4 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Not suggesting it would deal with a top attack munition like Javelin or Excalibur, but might it not have an impact on weapons like Bil or TOW-2B?

As others have said, yup it can be effective against a TOW-2B.  That's because the TOW-2B is not a top attack missile and therefore within its design parameters.  Against Javelin it doesn't do a blessed thing unless the Javelin is being fired in "Direct Attack Mode" (i.e. NOT Top Attack Mode).

Steve

[akd]

19 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

As others have said, yup it can be effective against a TOW-2B.  That's because the TOW-2B is not a top attack missile and therefore within its design parameters.  Against Javelin it doesn't do a blessed thing unless the Javelin is being fired in "Direct Attack Mode" (i.e. NOT Top Attack Mode).

Steve

There is confusion here because TOW-2B / Bill are flyover top-attack weapons, rather than a diving top-attack weapon like Javelin / Spike.  That the former might be in the modernized Arena's envelope is just a guess.

Trophy launcher can tilt fairly far skyward, so can probably deal with flyover munitions and some high-angle plunging attacks.

Edited October 17, 2017 by akd

[Battlefront.com]

4 minutes ago, akd said:

There is confusion here because TOW-2B / Bill are flyover top-attack weapons, rather than a diving top-attack weapon like Javelin / Spike.  That the former might be in the modernized Arena's envelope is just a guess.

Yeah, I was making the guess as well.  But whether the computer is up to the computations I don't know.  If the computer was designed to assume the round is coming towards the tank, instead of over it, it's possible that it might not formulate an effective intercept.

Also, it's probably not such a good idea to have that big of a missile detonating directly overhead of a tank, which is more-or-less what would happen.  Better than having it strike, but I'm not sure if the tank would remain tactically operational.

Steve

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

The missile won't detonate properly I'd doubt it would be much more significant than an airburst HE round of moderate size. 

Most of an ATGM's power lies in the shaped charges and these are catastrophically effected by fragmentation and also need to be detonated at a very precise time/distance to function properly in the first place.

The latter is also a big problem for Nozh ERA, which simply cannot work as advertised:

http://sturgeonshouse.ipbhost.com/topic/1528-no-nozh-doesnt-work-as-advertised/

This is presumably why it appears to have been discontinued? 

Edited October 18, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

The missile won't detonate properly I'd doubt it would be much more significant than an airburst HE round of moderate size. 

Most of an ATGM's power lies in the shaped charges and these are catastrophically effected by fragmentation and also need to be detonated at a very precise time/distance to function properly in the first place.

For penetration, obviously.  But not necessarily for damage.  Remember, TOE-2B is quite useful against non-armored targets due to the size of the explosive head.  Compared to other things being chucked at tanks by AT launchers, the TOW-2B packs quite a punch with 6kg of explosives.  Kornet, by contrast, has only 4.6kg of explosives and a lighter warhead.  RPG-7 AP rounds are .7kg to 1.4kg, HE rounds are somewhere over 2kg.  A US 81mm mortar round has about 1kg of explosives.  It's a big difference.

My point is, when you detonate 6kg of explosives directly over a tank, I'm guessing there's a good chance something mission critical is at risk.  Engine decks, for example, are notoriously susceptible to damage, as are optics, radio masts, etc.

Steve

[akd]

Well, CM considers HE explosions near tanks mostly irrelevant.  There is an interesting thread on that here somewhere.

 

edit: this one, I think:

 

Edited October 18, 2017 by akd

[Battlefront.com]

5 minutes ago, akd said:

Well, CM considers HE explosions near (not against) tanks mostly irrelevant.  There is an interesting thread on that here somewhere.

Well, depending on what "near" is that sounds right to me.  I'm guessing what that thread is talking about isn't "2m above the engine deck" or "1m directly above the turret top".

Steve

[akd]

i think thread above details distance vs. HE and fragment potential

Edited October 18, 2017 by akd

[Machor]

12 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Let's not forget that APS doesn't defeat top attack missiles.  There's some speculation that came up that the APS on the Armata family could do it, but IIRC after looking into it further we (the group here) concluded it does not.

Steve, @Vanir Ausf B said Armata can soft-kill Javelin:

Here's the thread, in case you missed it:

[OK, I'm about to post this, I linked to a thread I started, and I'm seeing a still from Back to the Future. I'll hit 'Submit Reply' and hope the post comes out normal.]

[HerrTom]

2 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Well, depending on what "near" is that sounds right to me.  I'm guessing what that thread is talking about isn't "2m above the engine deck" or "1m directly above the turret top".

Steve

I'm definitely not talking about ATGM warheads!  I was looking at artillery shells in nearby hits within around 10 meters.  It's the fragments from the shell that pose a danger though, not the blast itself.  As far as I know, ATGM warheads don't produce much heavy fragmentation, so you'd only be worried about the 'jet' of metal from the HEAT warhead.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Machor said:

Steve, @Vanir Ausf B said Armata can soft-kill Javelin:

 

I did miss the thread, thanks!  But that's not what he said and that's not what the article said and it's not what we've been talking about   There's a difference between soft and hard kills.  Especially a soft kill system that relies upon smoke which is notoriously "fickle".

As with the other Russian technologies we've talked about, the general track record is they over promise and under deliver.  It could be that the new system gives an Armata SOME hope of not getting killed with a 90% certainty, I very much doubt it is "good enough" by most people's standards.

Let's also not forget that there's a lot of Javelins out there for each Armata.  Even if an Armata gets lucky once, with everything going favorably for it, there's plenty of opportunities to get unlucky the next time.  With a limited supply of Armatas, that's a problem.  And because of the costs and production issues, limited supply is all they're going to have for a very long time.

All that said, it is likely that the best protection from something like a Javelin is through some form of active measure (soft kill) system combined with an active measure (hard kill) and passive measures (reactive and base armor).  Soft kill does its best to confuse/misdirect the threat, hard kill tries to damage those that make it through, and armor absorbs the energy of whatever manages to get through that.  This is pretty much how things work right now, but not against vertical threats.

Oh, and there's Hellfire missiles to consider.  Javelin isn't the only thing out there in mass quantity that comes in from above.

Steve

[BTR]

3 hours ago, akd said:

Well, CM considers HE explosions near tanks mostly irrelevant. 

While in reality 

[Kinophile]

It almost sounds like there's a mission here for an tactical, platoon level, anti-ATGM, force protection vehicle. An MBT still with a main gun but with Extra APS ammo/systems/sensors to group protect its immediate neighbours. It could be 1 per platoon. Retaining the main gun & say 50% ammo would be a fundamental priority. 

Or use a specialist AFV but as I understand it, tankers don't like having less protected vehicles integrated into their immediate platoons, for very sound tactical reasons. 

Oh daydreaming, it's always fun. 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

It's a misconception that APS causes the incoming round to explode, they actually put fragments through the shape-charge liners and thus when the incoming rounds detonate the AP jets are asymmetric and malformed, losing much of their ability to penetrate armour (IIRC one small hole in the liner reduces penetration by around 40-50%).

Armata has a lot of soft-kill munitions dedicated to top attack weapons, what appeared to be an armour panel now seems to be a VLS array for two dozen more munitions.....You can just about see it here on the left side of the turret, behind the traversable munitions dispenser: 

One has to assume that all these munitions are good for something. 

Much better, but un-linkable pictures of the system can be found here:  http://sturgeonshouse.ipbhost.com/topic/131-glorious-t-14-armata-pictures/?page=45

Edited October 18, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[akd]

smoke

[Sgt.Squarehead]

No doubt.....But it appears to be intended to cover the top of the vehicle and that's something new.  Time will no doubt tell, but it's surely a very interesting vehicle (family). 

[Battlefront.com]

There's a VERY long thread about Armata from a while back.  We've covered all of this in detail there, especially the APS scenarios.  As far as I know there's been no new confirmable information since then so that thread is still relevant.  I'd give Search a try and poke around in it.

The basic conclusion is that Armata's APS isn't likely to be that useful against tank rounds or top attack missiles.

Steve

[MikeyD]

What is that other AT weapon that (almost) does what Javelin does but a lot cheaper? Spike. I had heard a perhaps apocryphal story that Spike had been developed in US government labs in competition with Javelin in the early 80s but the US was wedded to (expensive) Javelin come hell or high water. So they basically just handed the design over to Israel.  (Just 'cause I heard it doesn't mean it's true. ) Its interesting that South Korea fields both Spike (on  Baengnyeong and Yeonpyeong Islands) and the Russian Metis-M. I don't know if their new Hyeongung ATGM is equivalent to Javelin or Spike.

 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Spike seems to be selling well now, apparently the UK bought it on the quiet. 

[Oleksandr]

"Pursue one great decisive aim with force and determination." 

- Carl von Clausewitz

[IMHO]

TOW fly-over has an EFP warhead. HE energy transfer is not exactly relevant 

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Exactly, if the liners are penetrated the EFP will be malformed and it will lose at least half of its punch.

[IMHO]

1 hour ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

Exactly, if the liners are penetrated the EFP will be malformed and it will lose at least half of its punch.

My guess it's true for a jet-forming HEAT but it's a kind of overstatement for an EFP. IMHO major downside you'll have is an aerodynamic instability. I'd guess the penetration ability for close distances will be just a fraction less than the loss of weight of the main penetrating core. And TOW's EFP liner has enough mass against thin top armour. I'd say counter-measure HE deforming effect is more dangerous for EFP liners than a small puncture if well off the center. Correct me if I misread EFP core formation process.

Edited October 20, 2017 by IMHO

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Good points, TBH it's not something I understand fully, but I'm trying to get my head around it as it seems to be the future of AFV defences.....I'm currently reading over on SH that Afghanit uses a EFP/MEFP charge rather than a fragmentation round like Arena.

Cool MEFP pic, stolen directly from the thread there:

How precise does the triggering process have to be for the EFP(s) to be correctly formed & targeted? 

 

Edited October 20, 2017 by Sgt.Squarehead

[IMHO]

56 minutes ago, Sgt.Squarehead said:

How precise does the triggering process have to be for the EFP(s) to be correctly formed & targeted? 

What do you mean?

1. It's not a focussed jet so distance to the target is not as significant. I imagine the main trick is in keeping the differences of velocities between the center of the core and periphery within the limits. If you achieve this at the end of the core formation stage then the distance does not matter that much. It's just if the core travels really far enough then the initial miniature differences in speeds will start to manifest themselves.
2. It's not the case of multiple explosive lenses so broadly speaking as long as both the liner and the explosive are uniform you can always play with the the cavity form and/or liner thickness to achieve the desired form of the core. All you need is enough distance for the penetrator to form. You don't need ns/ps initiation precision here.

All are IMHO

Edited October 20, 2017 by IMHO