IMHO

Nope, I'd say Russia has much more diverse MBT base. Russia is old Soviet zoo PLUS newly minted ones. And many variants going under the same name actually differ from one another - changes to transmissions, engine, targeting etc. You can imagine what a waste of resources it is. Having incomparably lower military budget Russia has many times more platforms in every class.
In early eighties Soviet Union did a strategic assessment of how well it can stand against Chinese Army. And the conclusion was in conflict limited to Far East the Soviet Union would need to resort to nuclear weapons to stop a potential Chinese thrust. Mainly due to logistical issues - limited road network, a sole railway link etc.

And add to this it's T-90s of all modifications and in all kinds of state of readiness. Meaning some of them work only on paper and some better be left in peace rather than risk a fight against say a Leclerc or a later Leo model.
...by NATO's absolute domination in airspace.

I'd suggest the following reasons as well:
Different schools of thoughts: ex-Soviet military school is very much about maneuver warfare whereas Syria is still stuck somewhere in the past long gone. This defines commanders decisions. Road network and transport platforms in Syria. Road network is very much hub-and-spoke of highways and cities. Fighting platforms come in the form of civilian 4WDs and civilian buses and trucks provide for transportation. Since they require quality roads so it makes the task of controlling transportation hubs so important. Syrian war turns a "real" all-out war only in the very brief periods of intensive fighting (if at all...). Fully encircles cities of hundreds thousands live in full encirclement for years. That means encirclement does not mean real sealing out - an absurdity from a military point of view. So why practice maneuver if it does not give any advantage? All points are IMHO...

FIRE MISSION!!!

My second scenario is now available on the Repository.  You can download it here.
 
The scenario features a US Scout Section finding itself in the path of a larger Russian mechanized force.  I tried to do something a little more experimental with this scenario and give it a bit of a TDG or "in media res" feeling.  Contact has already been made and now you, as the player, must develop the situation in accordance with your higher command's objectives and intent (or at least that's the idea).  To that end, the briefing intentionally does not discuss the details of your objectives, any point values, reinforcement details, etc. - instead, there is a briefing within the briefing, from which the player is intended to determine what needs to be done.  Specific objective and reinforcement details are included in the Designer's Notes tab as a fail-safe.
 
The scenario is pretty small, with the US player eventually receiving the bulk of a mechanized Scout Platoon plus attachments, and plays out on a new 1200 x 800m map featuring four Red AI plans.  Although I would recommend real time play, both my testers got on pretty well doing WEGO.  It is playable as Blue only; there are no Blue AI plans and it is not balanced for H2H play.
 
Special thanks to knightsabret and bangalor44 who gave me great feedback during testing.
 
From the briefing:
 



 
At the risk of sounding like I'm blowing my own horn, I really enjoyed this scenario while I was testing it.  Even knowing the enemy's possible courses of action, it can turn into a real nail-biter.  As I said in my WIP thread, I've had results ranging from a cakewalk, to my CO and a couple Humvee drivers holed up in a church with only a few AT4s to hold off a platoon of Russian armor.  Depending on your decisions and the breaks it can be really tough, and Blue cannot afford to throw away a single asset if they want to win.  The Red AI plans and number of tactical options available to the player, combined with a relatively short timeframe, should give this scenario some significant replayability - if things don't go your way, another crack at it should be fruitful.  Comments from my testers seem to echo the intensity and replayability.
 
As always, any feedback whatsoever is highly appreciated whether by post here, PM, or email to astanocmscens @ gmail . com, and I'm always interested to hear how people do with the scenario.

Tough guy technical

Sigh.

My contention is this:

We throw a wild party for Battlefront, and all of us are in attendance.  We all get positively rip-roaring drunk, do stupid things.  At the height of the party I'm demonstrating armor maneuver by going full sprint through the office swinging my arm wildly to indicate turret direction while screaming "Death before dismount." I certainly 100% do damage.

However it's hard to separate the next morning what specifically was damaged by my "Thunder Run" vs what other parties did too.  Sure there's my tanker boot treads all over the shattered remains of someone's desk...but I "ran" it over after someone else already kicked it down screaming "THIS IS SPACE LOBSTER COUNTRY!" I contributed my share to the massive pile of bottles yes....but I wasn't even the one who drank the most.

Within the context of both fights, US artillery and aviation certainly did destroy things.  This is a known variable.  However pointing to the rubble of Mosul and chittering how it was all those damned Americans and their bombs, or Raqqah and placing all the blame on 18 heavily abused 155 MM howitzers is a bit disingenuous.  

ISIS vigorously practices scorched earth type tactics.  Our "Friendly" and friendly forces all practice firepower warfare vs manuever (or they're going to shoot the objective with every weapon they have for an hour, THEN move to a closer firing position to repeat the same tactic, and then maybe five hours later, short on ammo move onto the objective).

Both of those cities felt the full weight of a 3rd World conventional military attack, a suicidal bomb happy defender, and then some Western precision fires.  Between those three, those fires certainly did their part in damaging those cities.  But again the contention that basically, without those fires the attacks would have left either of those cities pretty much intact is very much a falsehood.  Aleppo for instance serves as a really good example of what happens without the US precision fires, and with the opposition not being generally ISIS tier individuals.

So.  Again not denying there's collateral damage, but it's just idiotic to lay the preponderance of the damage at the feet of 18 howitzers while ignoring the effects of thousands of ground combatants, tanks, conventional artillery from both parties, IEDs in all guises all duking it out in close quarters.

Well that is by definition what a suicide bomber does.  

Quite literally, yes. Just go ahead and google "ISIS suicide bomb" and it should clarify nicely for you. If it doesn't then nothing else anyone here will say can help you.

You may well be right.There's some hard data in "Report on protection..." - they have the number of penetrations for M107 at 20 and 50 feet against different armour thickness. So it gives the number of fragments with different energy levels. Can be extra/interpolated.
I've gone through good WWII-era ML-20 data but it was quite a time ago. They specifically tested HE and HEFRAGs against German armour. I don't remember where I took the reports. Most interesting were PzV and PzVI tests. For Krasnopol/Excalibur there're some show-off vids against tank targets. Overall it's also proved by Haiduk's Lostarmor pics. And here are the pics from the Field Artillery Journal.

CMBS setup
12 T-90As vs 12 spotters and 12 Paladins, firing Excaliburs. Three runs in three columns. Damage indicates only tracks damage as even direct hits are able to damage no module but tracks (though one can destroy the vehicle outright).
destroyed 1 2 1 immobilized 5 1 2 red circle 1 0 1 yellow circle 0 2 3 yellow square 2 1 1 no damage 3 6 4 Penetrations / Direct hits 1/3 2/3 1/3
Reality check source
Who Says Dumb Artillery Cannot Kill Armor by Maj. (Ret.) George A. Durham, Field Artillery Journal, Nov-Dec 2002, results of the four year US Army study for 155 HEs
Effect of a direct hit:
Real-life: "A direct hit with an HE round with a PD fuze consistently destroyed the various target vehicle" - I assume they mean 100% destruction CM - 4/9 ~44% destruction Effect of a near miss:
Real-life: "155-mm rounds that impact within 30 meters cause considerable damage". I'd say from the context and photos by considerable they mean enough damage to take the tank out of battle though it may be available for further out-of-battle repairs. Out-of-battle repairs would be out of the CM context so they equal to total kills.
CM:
The damage model provides for track damage only - no damage to gun, targeting etc. whatsoever. I didn't test with other vehicles but it may be CM engine models the damage only for penetrations. I.e. the engine first calculates whether the projectile is able to penetrate and IF it penetrated CM calculates the damage it may cause inside. It may be true for all the armour present in the game or it may be limited to ERA-equipped vehicles and/or tanks/heavy armour. Moreover I saw cases when a projectile hits ERA (text label) then it "goes though the tank", creates the crated and disabled the tracks.
Track-damage - approximate meters, except for 2-3 cases all craters were at the sides of the vehicle
1-2m - immobilized
3-4m - red circle / yellow circle / yellow square
5-6m+ - no damage whatsoever
@Battlefront.com, does it qualify for a steps 2-3-4? To propose a remedy one has to know how the engine works inside. Or it will be wild dreaming.

Description:
A bit different setup to speed up testing - 100 experiments in five batches of 20 each:
All tubes and spotters are Elite Fire mission is preplanned to the points where tanks are Mission effect is set to General, I assume it denotes something like Variable-Time vs. Point-Detonation, HE vs. HEFRAG Results:
Direct hits 3 4 10 6 7 Module damage 1 0 4 0 1 Knock-outs 1 2 6 4 3 Analysis:
Unlike previous tests I had module damage here - weapons, smoke launchers, targeting etc. If direct hit does not result in the module damage then it resulted in severe tracks damage though ALWAYS a step or two short of total immobilization. I didn't count tracks as modules in the table so these cases are reflected in direct hits less module damage and knock-outs. Comparing to the 100% of severe damage from the direct hits as given in the Field Artillery article I gave above we'll have different results depending on what we count as severe damage in CMBS context: If we equal knock-outs AND module damage AND severe tracks damage to "severe damage" then 100% of direct hits resulted in severe damage If we count knock-outs AND module damage as severe damage then 22/30=73% of direct hits resulted in severe damage If we use only knock-outs then we have only 53% of direct hits Since I used different experience level and point fire command instead of direct aiming the ratio of shots to direct hits is not comparable to the first data set. Near miss NEVER results in module damage - only tracks damage. I didn't do all distance measurements between tanks and points of impact in near misses but a rule of thumb is: Light tracks damage starts at ~8m from the tank Total immobilization requires 1-2-3 meters In-between those two we have varying degrees of track damage IMHO:
All non-airburst direct hits from 155mm HE should result in total knock-outs - whether PD or delayed. Arguments: All direct 155mm HE hits are named as lethal for tanks in "Who Says Dumb Artillery Cannot Kill Armor" by Maj. (Ret.) George A. Durham, Field Artillery Journal, Nov-Dec 2002 Even at 10 feet airburst for each M107 there are three fragment penetrations for 2" RHA plate. Source: Report on protection from fragments from HE ammunition by Aberdeen Proving Grounds of 1961. At point detonation there should tens of them with much higher energies. I figure even Abrams top of the nose should have multiple perforations save turret or engine compartment Assorted Russian language sources: Krasnopol 152/155mm HE testing. Krasnopol is a Russian equivalent of Excalibur WWII tests of ML-20 152mm howitzer Near misses within 10/20/30m should result in total immobilization AND considerable module damage BUT NO crew casualties. Arguments: Field Artillery Journal gives 30m as "considerable damage" distance Russian 152mm HE damage tables give 20m as an equivalent distance Judging from "Report on protection..." give 6-10m as the distance with enough fragments to penetrate 25-30mm RHA; tracks and wheels are not RHA but side/back tank armour is thicker

Thanks! Here you go!
ztst_155HEvsT90.btt
ztst_155HEvsT90 0.bts

By the way, instant ATGM launch acquisition works for Javelin teams as well. But what's the real life story behind it? Javelin's regular CLU does not have a laser rangefinder to set off LWRs, Javelin launch is undetectable by Doppler radars at all reasonable launch ranges... So what's the magic that allows CMBS tanks to know they're fired upon when real life tanks do not know?

CMBS setup
12 T-90As vs 12 spotters and 12 Paladins, firing Excaliburs. Three runs in three columns. Damage indicates only tracks damage as even direct hits are able to damage no module but tracks (though one can destroy the vehicle outright).
destroyed 1 2 1 immobilized 5 1 2 red circle 1 0 1 yellow circle 0 2 3 yellow square 2 1 1 no damage 3 6 4 Penetrations / Direct hits 1/3 2/3 1/3
Reality check source
Who Says Dumb Artillery Cannot Kill Armor by Maj. (Ret.) George A. Durham, Field Artillery Journal, Nov-Dec 2002, results of the four year US Army study for 155 HEs
Effect of a direct hit:
Real-life: "A direct hit with an HE round with a PD fuze consistently destroyed the various target vehicle" - I assume they mean 100% destruction CM - 4/9 ~44% destruction Effect of a near miss:
Real-life: "155-mm rounds that impact within 30 meters cause considerable damage". I'd say from the context and photos by considerable they mean enough damage to take the tank out of battle though it may be available for further out-of-battle repairs. Out-of-battle repairs would be out of the CM context so they equal to total kills.
CM:
The damage model provides for track damage only - no damage to gun, targeting etc. whatsoever. I didn't test with other vehicles but it may be CM engine models the damage only for penetrations. I.e. the engine first calculates whether the projectile is able to penetrate and IF it penetrated CM calculates the damage it may cause inside. It may be true for all the armour present in the game or it may be limited to ERA-equipped vehicles and/or tanks/heavy armour. Moreover I saw cases when a projectile hits ERA (text label) then it "goes though the tank", creates the crated and disabled the tracks.
Track-damage - approximate meters, except for 2-3 cases all craters were at the sides of the vehicle
1-2m - immobilized
3-4m - red circle / yellow circle / yellow square
5-6m+ - no damage whatsoever
@Battlefront.com, does it qualify for a steps 2-3-4? To propose a remedy one has to know how the engine works inside. Or it will be wild dreaming.

You may well be right.There's some hard data in "Report on protection..." - they have the number of penetrations for M107 at 20 and 50 feet against different armour thickness. So it gives the number of fragments with different energy levels. Can be extra/interpolated.
I've gone through good WWII-era ML-20 data but it was quite a time ago. They specifically tested HE and HEFRAGs against German armour. I don't remember where I took the reports. Most interesting were PzV and PzVI tests. For Krasnopol/Excalibur there're some show-off vids against tank targets. Overall it's also proved by Haiduk's Lostarmor pics. And here are the pics from the Field Artillery Journal.

Description:
A bit different setup to speed up testing - 100 experiments in five batches of 20 each:
All tubes and spotters are Elite Fire mission is preplanned to the points where tanks are Mission effect is set to General, I assume it denotes something like Variable-Time vs. Point-Detonation, HE vs. HEFRAG Results:
Direct hits 3 4 10 6 7 Module damage 1 0 4 0 1 Knock-outs 1 2 6 4 3 Analysis:
Unlike previous tests I had module damage here - weapons, smoke launchers, targeting etc. If direct hit does not result in the module damage then it resulted in severe tracks damage though ALWAYS a step or two short of total immobilization. I didn't count tracks as modules in the table so these cases are reflected in direct hits less module damage and knock-outs. Comparing to the 100% of severe damage from the direct hits as given in the Field Artillery article I gave above we'll have different results depending on what we count as severe damage in CMBS context: If we equal knock-outs AND module damage AND severe tracks damage to "severe damage" then 100% of direct hits resulted in severe damage If we count knock-outs AND module damage as severe damage then 22/30=73% of direct hits resulted in severe damage If we use only knock-outs then we have only 53% of direct hits Since I used different experience level and point fire command instead of direct aiming the ratio of shots to direct hits is not comparable to the first data set. Near miss NEVER results in module damage - only tracks damage. I didn't do all distance measurements between tanks and points of impact in near misses but a rule of thumb is: Light tracks damage starts at ~8m from the tank Total immobilization requires 1-2-3 meters In-between those two we have varying degrees of track damage IMHO:
All non-airburst direct hits from 155mm HE should result in total knock-outs - whether PD or delayed. Arguments: All direct 155mm HE hits are named as lethal for tanks in "Who Says Dumb Artillery Cannot Kill Armor" by Maj. (Ret.) George A. Durham, Field Artillery Journal, Nov-Dec 2002 Even at 10 feet airburst for each M107 there are three fragment penetrations for 2" RHA plate. Source: Report on protection from fragments from HE ammunition by Aberdeen Proving Grounds of 1961. At point detonation there should tens of them with much higher energies. I figure even Abrams top of the nose should have multiple perforations save turret or engine compartment Assorted Russian language sources: Krasnopol 152/155mm HE testing. Krasnopol is a Russian equivalent of Excalibur WWII tests of ML-20 152mm howitzer Near misses within 10/20/30m should result in total immobilization AND considerable module damage BUT NO crew casualties. Arguments: Field Artillery Journal gives 30m as "considerable damage" distance Russian 152mm HE damage tables give 20m as an equivalent distance Judging from "Report on protection..." give 6-10m as the distance with enough fragments to penetrate 25-30mm RHA; tracks and wheels are not RHA but side/back tank armour is thicker

You may well be right.There's some hard data in "Report on protection..." - they have the number of penetrations for M107 at 20 and 50 feet against different armour thickness. So it gives the number of fragments with different energy levels. Can be extra/interpolated.
I've gone through good WWII-era ML-20 data but it was quite a time ago. They specifically tested HE and HEFRAGs against German armour. I don't remember where I took the reports. Most interesting were PzV and PzVI tests. For Krasnopol/Excalibur there're some show-off vids against tank targets. Overall it's also proved by Haiduk's Lostarmor pics. And here are the pics from the Field Artillery Journal.

Description:
A bit different setup to speed up testing - 100 experiments in five batches of 20 each:
All tubes and spotters are Elite Fire mission is preplanned to the points where tanks are Mission effect is set to General, I assume it denotes something like Variable-Time vs. Point-Detonation, HE vs. HEFRAG Results:
Direct hits 3 4 10 6 7 Module damage 1 0 4 0 1 Knock-outs 1 2 6 4 3 Analysis:
Unlike previous tests I had module damage here - weapons, smoke launchers, targeting etc. If direct hit does not result in the module damage then it resulted in severe tracks damage though ALWAYS a step or two short of total immobilization. I didn't count tracks as modules in the table so these cases are reflected in direct hits less module damage and knock-outs. Comparing to the 100% of severe damage from the direct hits as given in the Field Artillery article I gave above we'll have different results depending on what we count as severe damage in CMBS context: If we equal knock-outs AND module damage AND severe tracks damage to "severe damage" then 100% of direct hits resulted in severe damage If we count knock-outs AND module damage as severe damage then 22/30=73% of direct hits resulted in severe damage If we use only knock-outs then we have only 53% of direct hits Since I used different experience level and point fire command instead of direct aiming the ratio of shots to direct hits is not comparable to the first data set. Near miss NEVER results in module damage - only tracks damage. I didn't do all distance measurements between tanks and points of impact in near misses but a rule of thumb is: Light tracks damage starts at ~8m from the tank Total immobilization requires 1-2-3 meters In-between those two we have varying degrees of track damage IMHO:
All non-airburst direct hits from 155mm HE should result in total knock-outs - whether PD or delayed. Arguments: All direct 155mm HE hits are named as lethal for tanks in "Who Says Dumb Artillery Cannot Kill Armor" by Maj. (Ret.) George A. Durham, Field Artillery Journal, Nov-Dec 2002 Even at 10 feet airburst for each M107 there are three fragment penetrations for 2" RHA plate. Source: Report on protection from fragments from HE ammunition by Aberdeen Proving Grounds of 1961. At point detonation there should tens of them with much higher energies. I figure even Abrams top of the nose should have multiple perforations save turret or engine compartment Assorted Russian language sources: Krasnopol 152/155mm HE testing. Krasnopol is a Russian equivalent of Excalibur WWII tests of ML-20 152mm howitzer Near misses within 10/20/30m should result in total immobilization AND considerable module damage BUT NO crew casualties. Arguments: Field Artillery Journal gives 30m as "considerable damage" distance Russian 152mm HE damage tables give 20m as an equivalent distance Judging from "Report on protection..." give 6-10m as the distance with enough fragments to penetrate 25-30mm RHA; tracks and wheels are not RHA but side/back tank armour is thicker

Description:
A bit different setup to speed up testing - 100 experiments in five batches of 20 each:
All tubes and spotters are Elite Fire mission is preplanned to the points where tanks are Mission effect is set to General, I assume it denotes something like Variable-Time vs. Point-Detonation, HE vs. HEFRAG Results:
Direct hits 3 4 10 6 7 Module damage 1 0 4 0 1 Knock-outs 1 2 6 4 3 Analysis:
Unlike previous tests I had module damage here - weapons, smoke launchers, targeting etc. If direct hit does not result in the module damage then it resulted in severe tracks damage though ALWAYS a step or two short of total immobilization. I didn't count tracks as modules in the table so these cases are reflected in direct hits less module damage and knock-outs. Comparing to the 100% of severe damage from the direct hits as given in the Field Artillery article I gave above we'll have different results depending on what we count as severe damage in CMBS context: If we equal knock-outs AND module damage AND severe tracks damage to "severe damage" then 100% of direct hits resulted in severe damage If we count knock-outs AND module damage as severe damage then 22/30=73% of direct hits resulted in severe damage If we use only knock-outs then we have only 53% of direct hits Since I used different experience level and point fire command instead of direct aiming the ratio of shots to direct hits is not comparable to the first data set. Near miss NEVER results in module damage - only tracks damage. I didn't do all distance measurements between tanks and points of impact in near misses but a rule of thumb is: Light tracks damage starts at ~8m from the tank Total immobilization requires 1-2-3 meters In-between those two we have varying degrees of track damage IMHO:
All non-airburst direct hits from 155mm HE should result in total knock-outs - whether PD or delayed. Arguments: All direct 155mm HE hits are named as lethal for tanks in "Who Says Dumb Artillery Cannot Kill Armor" by Maj. (Ret.) George A. Durham, Field Artillery Journal, Nov-Dec 2002 Even at 10 feet airburst for each M107 there are three fragment penetrations for 2" RHA plate. Source: Report on protection from fragments from HE ammunition by Aberdeen Proving Grounds of 1961. At point detonation there should tens of them with much higher energies. I figure even Abrams top of the nose should have multiple perforations save turret or engine compartment Assorted Russian language sources: Krasnopol 152/155mm HE testing. Krasnopol is a Russian equivalent of Excalibur WWII tests of ML-20 152mm howitzer Near misses within 10/20/30m should result in total immobilization AND considerable module damage BUT NO crew casualties. Arguments: Field Artillery Journal gives 30m as "considerable damage" distance Russian 152mm HE damage tables give 20m as an equivalent distance Judging from "Report on protection..." give 6-10m as the distance with enough fragments to penetrate 25-30mm RHA; tracks and wheels are not RHA but side/back tank armour is thicker

CMBS setup
12 T-90As vs 12 spotters and 12 Paladins, firing Excaliburs. Three runs in three columns. Damage indicates only tracks damage as even direct hits are able to damage no module but tracks (though one can destroy the vehicle outright).
destroyed 1 2 1 immobilized 5 1 2 red circle 1 0 1 yellow circle 0 2 3 yellow square 2 1 1 no damage 3 6 4 Penetrations / Direct hits 1/3 2/3 1/3
Reality check source
Who Says Dumb Artillery Cannot Kill Armor by Maj. (Ret.) George A. Durham, Field Artillery Journal, Nov-Dec 2002, results of the four year US Army study for 155 HEs
Effect of a direct hit:
Real-life: "A direct hit with an HE round with a PD fuze consistently destroyed the various target vehicle" - I assume they mean 100% destruction CM - 4/9 ~44% destruction Effect of a near miss:
Real-life: "155-mm rounds that impact within 30 meters cause considerable damage". I'd say from the context and photos by considerable they mean enough damage to take the tank out of battle though it may be available for further out-of-battle repairs. Out-of-battle repairs would be out of the CM context so they equal to total kills.
CM:
The damage model provides for track damage only - no damage to gun, targeting etc. whatsoever. I didn't test with other vehicles but it may be CM engine models the damage only for penetrations. I.e. the engine first calculates whether the projectile is able to penetrate and IF it penetrated CM calculates the damage it may cause inside. It may be true for all the armour present in the game or it may be limited to ERA-equipped vehicles and/or tanks/heavy armour. Moreover I saw cases when a projectile hits ERA (text label) then it "goes though the tank", creates the crated and disabled the tracks.
Track-damage - approximate meters, except for 2-3 cases all craters were at the sides of the vehicle
1-2m - immobilized
3-4m - red circle / yellow circle / yellow square
5-6m+ - no damage whatsoever
@Battlefront.com, does it qualify for a steps 2-3-4? To propose a remedy one has to know how the engine works inside. Or it will be wild dreaming.

Abrams armor plates


Chobham/Burlington armor of Chieftain

Merkava armor

And the last but not the least... T-72B armor

@IICptMillerII, I believe we can be fairly sure no one passed the "dreaded secret" of Chobham armor to the Soviet Union. It's just the laws of the physics are the same be it US, UK, Israel or the Soviet Union so the engineers come to the same designs when concieving similar things. I can tell you even more:
The effect that forms the basis of the spaced composite armor / NERA (Chobham armor) was first used in the armor of the Soviet tanks albeit in a different, considerably less efficient setup And even more, the way Kontakt-5 ERA works is the same as NERA, it's just NERA uses the energy of incoming projectile while ERA - the energy of chemical explosion

Seems like US commanders do not share your opinion that Abrams does not need ERA.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/8144/u-s-army-m1-abrams-tanks-in-europe-are-getting-explosive-reactive-armor

----------
My understanding is by saying "infantry held AT weapons being fired from complex geometries" you meant ligher hand-held RPGs as an antithesis to heavier tripod-based ATGMs. No doubt Trophy provides protection against RPGs as well but I believe your statement that was the main intention of Trophy development is invalid. Here's an excerpt from "Hezbollah anti-amour tactics and weapons. Assessment of the Second Lebanon War By Col. David Eshel":
Realizing the capabilities of the Merkava 4 tank, Hezbollah allocated their most advanced weaponry to combat this advanced tank, engaging these tanks exclusively with the heavier, more capable missiles such as 9M133 AT-14 Kornet, 9M131 Metis M and RPG-29. RPG-29 and 9M113 Konkurs (AT-5) were employed mostly against Merkava 3 and 2 while non-tandem weapons, such as Tow, Fagot and improved RPG 7Vs were left to engage other armored vehicles such as AIFV My points:
In many interviews after 2006 Lebanon War Israeli said that they underestimated the threat posed by modern heavy ATGMs and Israli tanks sustained considerable losses. Second Lebanon War's battles was fought mostly in rural rather than urban settings. Israel dispatched a special diplomatic mission to Russia to compain s"pecifically about Syria's passing of its Russia's supplied Kornet heavy ATGM to Hezbollah. Israel sped up testing and system selection for APS right after the war. Since hard-kill APS poses a considerable danger to nearby infantry Israel changed their urban warfare doctrine after the Trophy was inducted into the armored force. Infantry now follows tanks at a distance. This difficulties in infantry-tank cooperation was actually one of the main criticism of the Trophy implementation. So I do believe your statement that "TROPHY is intended to protect tanks in urban environments from infantry held AT weapons" is misleading.
----------
Can you provide specific names/models for those "most modern and lethal ATGMs, which only exist in double digit numbers"?
----------
Kornet vs. American Abrams, 2003 Iraqi War: from 2 to 4 reported penetrations, tanks disabled. Iraqi military possessed limited number of Kornets as they have never been officially supplied, only few were smuggled from Syria. RPG-29 vs. American Abrams, 2003 Iraqi War: 3 reported penetrations, crews wounded/killed. RPG-29 vs. Challenger 2, 2003 Iraqi War: one known FRONTAL ERA penetration, crew wounded. RPG-29 has way less armor penetration than Kornet yet American military prohibited post-Saddam Iraqi Army from buying them http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/weekinreview/big-guns-for-iraq-not-so-fast.html.
"He [General Jassem of Iraqi Army] also complained that the United States wants to supply his troops with RPG-7's, the Soviet-era rocket-propelled grenade launcher. 'Why are they always giving us the oldest models?' he asked, saying he likes the more modern, larger caliber RPG-29, which penetrates armor better. But such weapons could raise a threat against the United States if they fell into the wrong hands ... "The RPG-7 is more versatile than other antitank weapons, which really only have one use -- destroying armor," the senior American officer said."
----------
Israel is well known for putting specific emphasis on tanks protection. If we put aside the argument that a way more modern Merkava-4 is less protected than American Abrams just by pure magic of it not being American then 2003 Lebanon War may be a good proxy for evaluating modern tanks protection level against current ATGMs.

Seems like US commanders do not share your opinion that Abrams does not need ERA.
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/8144/u-s-army-m1-abrams-tanks-in-europe-are-getting-explosive-reactive-armor

----------
My understanding is by saying "infantry held AT weapons being fired from complex geometries" you meant ligher hand-held RPGs as an antithesis to heavier tripod-based ATGMs. No doubt Trophy provides protection against RPGs as well but I believe your statement that was the main intention of Trophy development is invalid. Here's an excerpt from "Hezbollah anti-amour tactics and weapons. Assessment of the Second Lebanon War By Col. David Eshel":
Realizing the capabilities of the Merkava 4 tank, Hezbollah allocated their most advanced weaponry to combat this advanced tank, engaging these tanks exclusively with the heavier, more capable missiles such as 9M133 AT-14 Kornet, 9M131 Metis M and RPG-29. RPG-29 and 9M113 Konkurs (AT-5) were employed mostly against Merkava 3 and 2 while non-tandem weapons, such as Tow, Fagot and improved RPG 7Vs were left to engage other armored vehicles such as AIFV My points:
In many interviews after 2006 Lebanon War Israeli said that they underestimated the threat posed by modern heavy ATGMs and Israli tanks sustained considerable losses. Second Lebanon War's battles was fought mostly in rural rather than urban settings. Israel dispatched a special diplomatic mission to Russia to compain s"pecifically about Syria's passing of its Russia's supplied Kornet heavy ATGM to Hezbollah. Israel sped up testing and system selection for APS right after the war. Since hard-kill APS poses a considerable danger to nearby infantry Israel changed their urban warfare doctrine after the Trophy was inducted into the armored force. Infantry now follows tanks at a distance. This difficulties in infantry-tank cooperation was actually one of the main criticism of the Trophy implementation. So I do believe your statement that "TROPHY is intended to protect tanks in urban environments from infantry held AT weapons" is misleading.
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Can you provide specific names/models for those "most modern and lethal ATGMs, which only exist in double digit numbers"?
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Kornet vs. American Abrams, 2003 Iraqi War: from 2 to 4 reported penetrations, tanks disabled. Iraqi military possessed limited number of Kornets as they have never been officially supplied, only few were smuggled from Syria. RPG-29 vs. American Abrams, 2003 Iraqi War: 3 reported penetrations, crews wounded/killed. RPG-29 vs. Challenger 2, 2003 Iraqi War: one known FRONTAL ERA penetration, crew wounded. RPG-29 has way less armor penetration than Kornet yet American military prohibited post-Saddam Iraqi Army from buying them http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/28/weekinreview/big-guns-for-iraq-not-so-fast.html.
"He [General Jassem of Iraqi Army] also complained that the United States wants to supply his troops with RPG-7's, the Soviet-era rocket-propelled grenade launcher. 'Why are they always giving us the oldest models?' he asked, saying he likes the more modern, larger caliber RPG-29, which penetrates armor better. But such weapons could raise a threat against the United States if they fell into the wrong hands ... "The RPG-7 is more versatile than other antitank weapons, which really only have one use -- destroying armor," the senior American officer said."
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Israel is well known for putting specific emphasis on tanks protection. If we put aside the argument that a way more modern Merkava-4 is less protected than American Abrams just by pure magic of it not being American then 2003 Lebanon War may be a good proxy for evaluating modern tanks protection level against current ATGMs.

Abrams armor plates


Chobham/Burlington armor of Chieftain

Merkava armor

And the last but not the least... T-72B armor

@IICptMillerII, I believe we can be fairly sure no one passed the "dreaded secret" of Chobham armor to the Soviet Union. It's just the laws of the physics are the same be it US, UK, Israel or the Soviet Union so the engineers come to the same designs when concieving similar things. I can tell you even more:
The effect that forms the basis of the spaced composite armor / NERA (Chobham armor) was first used in the armor of the Soviet tanks albeit in a different, considerably less efficient setup And even more, the way Kontakt-5 ERA works is the same as NERA, it's just NERA uses the energy of incoming projectile while ERA - the energy of chemical explosion