Invincible M1A2 Abrams?

[Neepster]

Let me preface this by saying it is in the demo.

However, I just witnessed something I am not all sure is feasible. An M1A2 was hit by TEN, count them, TEN 125mm main gun round from multiple T-72Ms from less than 200m in less than 60 seconds (granted, in the frontal to side arcs) and did not die. Instead it methodically killed my T-72Ms as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

Now, I know the M1A2 is incredible. Probably the best tank in the world (with the possible exception of the Leopard 2A6). However, this seems excessive to me. We aren't talking a gun that is underpowered here, it is a 125mm 2A46 with a muzzle velocity likely over 1600m/s...

Speaking of this, since the M1A2 has Chobham armor, how does CM2 do the armor penetration modeling anyway? Is there a separate post on this?

[jomni]

Not me. In my demo game, 3 M1 Tanks bites the dust and one gets immobilized.

[Guest]

You know, this whole thing is reminiscent of some problems I've seen before... I wonder if a few variables are being given random values unintentionally? Or it's intentional and the random number generator is bad?

People's results seem to vary so much. One player has 1 in 4 decent QBs. Some players have an M1 survive under a barrage of 125mm fire, while another has three die immediately. My infantry performs wonderfully, then gets slaughtered in the same scenario and situation twenty minutes later. Yeah, there's luck, but all of our experiences seem to be all over the map. I wonder if it could be something so simple.

Unlikely.

Weird, though, isn't it?

[metalbrew]

The game underrates the Syrians currently.

The Syrians usually fire HEAT at M1s rather than APFSDS. They rarely fire their ATGMs at all. A prepared Syrian fighting force would not fire main gun rounds at M1s unless they had clear side or rear shots. They would fire the ATGMs. If they chose to fire main gun rounds at all, the only choice they should make is APFSDS. Of course, being only 200m away may have meant that the ATGMs were too close to fire depending on the T72 and model of ATGM they carried.

With all of that being said, the M1 should be able to easily live through 10 hits from the 125mm gun with high quality munitions as long as the rounds always hit the frontal armor.

[JonS]

Abrams are essentially invulnerable over the frontal arc. You can cause damage to tracks and gun over this arc though.

Abrams are reasonably easy to kill from the sides and rear.

[Battlefront.com]

The Syrian APFSDS are useless against the front of an Abrams, so they fire HEAT in the hopes of causing some sort of damage. Flank and rear shots... totally different story.

As with CMx1, the ballistics are calculated very deliberately. Only when there is a marginal chance of penetration does CM "roll" to see if it gets through. Same was true for CMx1 penetration changes. Unlike CMx1 all armored surfaces are tracked in more detail in CM:SF. Therefore, you will see more variation on things like flanks because hitting the side of the turret, side of the hull, or side of the lower hull makes a BIG difference sometimes. Depends on angles and what not as well.

Steve

[John Catsack]

I have yet to see a syrian tank fire APFSDS. Even against the sides and rear of M1s and against other syrian tanks. They'll fire every other type of round, just no AP.

[metalbrew]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The Syrian APFSDS are useless against the front of an Abrams, so they fire HEAT in the hopes of causing some sort of damage.

Is this Syrian doctrine or a best guess from BTS?

The inverted T below the Abrams main gun and in the vicinity of the driver's hatch should be vulnerable to a well placed APFSDS. At least the Russians say this is vulnerable. Is the inverted T modeled in the game?

What's going on with the reluctance to use the only weapon they have that can kill the Abrams (ATGMs)?

[mocdra]

Generally the East built 115 or 125 mm Sabots are less effective as West Guns. Less Accuracy,Range and Armor Penetration Values.

The Rheinmetall 120 mm Gun of the Leopard 2 and the M1 has a Muzzle Vel. of 1600 m/s and a effective Range of 3500 m.

Some Hits of m1a1 penetrates 2!T72 staying side by side behind a Sand Wall at once

In my Opinion East AP Shells (APFSDS Rounds an HEAT Rounds) are not able to penetrate the Frontal Turret Armor of the most Western Tanks

The Front Armor of the M1a2 is very massive.

900mm sightable thickness. In the frontal Armor is included a heavy DU Plate then 2 Layers of Chobham Armor and a kind of Bulkhead Armor( Like the Triangular Sections on the Leo2a6). All that is mantlet by heavy reinforced armor.

In the Inside is in the Crew Compartement a Spall Liner.

The Frontal Armor is able to withstand several Hits of the older Russian AP Rounds (up to t80 guns).

The inverted T below the Abrams main gun and in the vicinity of the driver's hatch should be vulnerable to a well placed APFSDS. At least the Russians say this is vulnerable. Is the inverted T modeled in the game?

The inverted T below the Abrams main gun and in the vicinity of the driver's hatch should be vulnerable to a well placed APFSDS. At least the Russians say this is vulnerable. Is the inverted T modeled in the game?

I believe that it is modeled, but the most Shells hits the Front Turret Frames and not the Hull .

Somtimes a Hit gets in the Gun Mantlet causing a Gun Jam but not more. Some Front Arc Hits downhull causing Immobilitys due Track Hits.

Driver Hatch Hits or Upper Hull Hits are not occured in my Missions or not implementet in the Armor Model i think.

Greetings

Moc

[ August 14, 2007, 03:16 PM: Message edited by: mocdra ]

[birdstrike]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

The Syrian APFSDS are useless against the front of an Abrams, so they fire HEAT in the hopes of causing some sort of damage. Flank and rear shots... totally different story.

In the Allah's Fist scenario, a single surviving Abrams was put out of action by a lucky shot of a T-62MV firing with HEAT. The M1 was not destroyed, but it couldn't move and fire, so I used it for some target practice with the rest of my T-62MVs. The range was about 600m. I fired off all available munition, and indeed the Sabot did not penetrate from the front, it just bounced off. The ATGM's exploded but also didn't destroy it. Finally I drove up to the M1 and around to his back and killed it with the first shot right up is a.. - anyway, until then I also didn't like it when my Syrian tanks would refuse to fire Sabots at the enemy, but now I've completely changed my mind. It really seems that HE and HEAT rounds have the best chance to do some damage to an Abrams from the front.

[Nemesis Lead]

Funny--I had a couple M1A2s destroyed by T-55s at 100 meters. Frontal shots.

That surprised me.

[Battlefront.com]

Charles just downgraded the Abrams frontal armor (ack... I can't remember which surface) a little bit in terms of resistence to certain shaped charge weapons. It probably won't make any practical difference, but there could be a situation where something like an RPG-29 could get through. Very unlikely though.

The reason for the downgrade was seeing two Challenger 2's knocked out by RPG-29s. The Challenger 2 uses a similar armor to the Abrams, but there are slight differences in the properties and composition. Also angles and thicknesses are different as well. Anyway, that plus something else made Charles guess that he over calculated the ability just a little bit (less than 10% IIRC).

Problem with all this stuff is we can only guess at what the values should be since nobody knows what the real values are. The information is classified and there are hardly any battlefield examples to draw upon and most of those are on much older models of Abrams. There are also no materials tests like those conducted during WWII to glean info from. It's all "best guess" stuff.

Steve

[Neepster]

After reading the wiki article for the M1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams

Particularly the armor part, I am less concerned that this behavior is unrealistic. Sounds like even the M1 has trouble killing the M1 in real life from the front and that there are documented cases of multiple APFSDS rounds to the frontal armor not penetrating...

I guess I will make sure never to attack them from the front then...

[fritzthemoose]

Originally posted by Neepster:

After reading the wiki article for the M1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abrams

Particularly the armor part, I am less concerned that this behavior is unrealistic. Sounds like even the M1 has trouble killing the M1 in real life from the front and that there are documented cases of multiple APFSDS rounds to the frontal armor not penetrating...

I guess I will make sure never to attack them from the front then...

in the german wikipedia it says

Mit seinem Schutzniveau ist der M1A2 mittlerweile als veraltet anzusehen.

translated by now the protection level of the m1a2 has to be considered obsolete

[Neepster]

Hmm... that sounds rather optimistic unless they are comparing it solely against tanks even newer (I think the Chinese have the Type 99 and the Russians have the T-90)...

I read something similar in the mid 90s as well, which obviously wasn't true against the T-72s and T-80s of Saddam...

[John Kettler]

Steve,

Don't know whether it'll help or not, but I found a MUSEUM ORDNANCE in which an Iraqi T-72's composite armor array interior is exposed. Also, I find it wonderfully ironic that the Russians are allowed full details of the original Chobham armor (via Willy Brandt's defense minister), but even though the vanilla M1s with same are being scrapped under a classified contract (learned this on a Boneyards episode), we don't even get to see the obsolete system. BTW, www.warfare.ru has tons of great material on systems directly pertinent to CMSF and modules. Also, relatively easy to hide tank ammo upgrades can make a big difference, even with older tank models. Call the jump from hardened steel to tungsten or even DU worthwhile! Note, too, the marvelous detail on the Kontakt V ERA system, to include an ultra high speed radiograph of the system while defeating a HEAT round.

http://www.warfare.ru/?lang=&catid=314&linkid=2390

Regards,

John Kettler

[ August 14, 2007, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[fritzthemoose]

Originally posted by Neepster:

Hmm... that sounds rather optimistic unless they are comparing it solely against tanks even newer (I think the Chinese have the Type 99 and the Russians have the T-90)...

I read something similar in the mid 90s as well, which obviously wasn't true against the T-72s and T-80s of Saddam...

I think they did not only compare against the russian and chinese tanks but also against the Leopard, Leclerce, Challanger Typ-90 Merceva and so on

[Neepster]

Originally posted by fritzthemoose:

I think they did not only compare against the russian and chinese tanks but also against the Leopard, Leclerce, Challanger Typ-90 Merceva and so on

Hmm... ok, that makes a bit more sense, but given that we hopefully won't be fighting the French, the Brits, the Isrealis or the Germans, I hope it doesn't matter

[stikkypixie]

Originally posted by Neepster:

Hmm... that sounds rather optimistic unless they are comparing it solely against tanks even newer (I think the Chinese have the Type 99 and the Russians have the T-90)...

I read something similar in the mid 90s as well, which obviously wasn't true against the T-72s and T-80s of Saddam...

Saddam never had T-80's if I'm not mistaken. Not that it would matter.

[Flanker15]

I don't know how strong it is but I had a M1 ignore 5 AT-4 hits to the area of the turret ring just under the barrel. I usually think of that area being the weakest place on front turret armor but I could be wrong, also shouldn't the hits atleast damage the gun?

[metalbrew]

Originally posted by Flanker15:

I don't know how strong it is but I had a M1 ignore 5 AT-4 hits to the area of the turret ring just under the barrel. I usually think of that area being the weakest place on front turret armor but I could be wrong, also shouldn't the hits atleast damage the gun?

Syrian AT4s (Russian designs) or the US AT4 (Swedish designs)?

[Flanker15]

Syrian ATGM design.

Also for people being unhappy about their T72 using HEAT against M1s at least yours don't fancy HE rounds as an AT weapon, mine do (4 HE shots into a M1 before changing to HEAT is my record)!

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

Charles just downgraded the Abrams frontal armor (ack... I can't remember which surface) a little bit in terms of resistence to certain shaped charge weapons. It probably won't make any practical difference, but there could be a situation where something like an RPG-29 could get through. Very unlikely though.

The reason for the downgrade was seeing two Challenger 2's knocked out by RPG-29s. The Challenger 2 uses a similar armor to the Abrams, but there are slight differences in the properties and composition. Also angles and thicknesses are different as well. Anyway, that plus something else made Charles guess that he over calculated the ability just a little bit (less than 10% IIRC).

Problem with all this stuff is we can only guess at what the values should be since nobody knows what the real values are. The information is classified and there are hardly any battlefield examples to draw upon and most of those are on much older models of Abrams. There are also no materials tests like those conducted during WWII to glean info from. It's all "best guess" stuff.

Steve

Steve, I only know of one RPG-29 incident involving a Challenger 2. Three CR2s have had their protection compromised - 1 blue-on-blue where a HESH round hit the open commander's hatch, 1 RPG-29 casualty and one severely damaged by an IED.

[Barleyman]

Saddam never had T-80's if I'm not mistaken. Not that it would matter. [/QB]

..Especially as it has same gun as T-72.

Now some Tungsten ammo goodness on the other hand..

[fritzthemoose]

Originally posted by Flanker15:

I don't know how strong it is but I had a M1 ignore 5 AT-4 hits to the area of the turret ring just under the barrel. I usually think of that area being the weakest place on front turret armor but I could be wrong, also shouldn't the hits atleast damage the gun?

the german wikipedia claims that it is possible to penetrate the front armour with an at-4 more often than not