Challenger 2 Blog inaccuracies

I increasingly think it’s ridiculous that gaijin relies on player research to fix vehicles in the game, we’re not even developers, and gaijin doesn’t pay us anything. It is entirely the developer’s job and responsibility to conduct detailed research on the vehicles in the game. We just love the game and spend our time and our money in exchange for an incredibly arrogant attitude that is really dismissive. Sometimes players don’t even expect gaijin to fix their problems right away, they just need the dev team to admit that they got it wrong and they need time to work on them. I really don’t know what the business logic is like in Russia, the vast majority of players are even consumers of this game but in exchange for such an arrogant attitude.

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Only glorious russia is capable of producing effective applique armor. It doesnt matter that russia has fallen behind in every conceivable metric of technology, contact 1 is still better than anything the united kingdom could produce, including these massive composite blocks which are like 4 times thicker. Dont you know the soviets already hit the limits of material science? Igla is the absolute best manpad possible, no western alternative can maneuver better. No western era can do better either

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The disconnect between what you and Gaijin claim seems to be how “±30° from centreline” is interpreted. You claim that it should apply to the individual ASPRO-HMT blocks themselves, Gaijin, as indicated by the screenshot by TrickZZter and what they write in their latest Devblog about this, seems to think this means from the centreline of the vehicle. If your interpretation is correct it would probably help if you could provide documentation that supports that.

My knowledge of this is limited, but what I’ve read so far seems to indicate the latter interpretation is correct. I’ll attach what I found on it:

Here the example is a vehicle. If you want to apply it to a block, you replace the vehicle model with block. Done

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Why does the document not mention that? It only talks about vehicles as a whole. So does STANAG 4569. Why are Armor Shield R blocks on the front of the Bradley about a third of the thickness as the ones on the side when they’re supposedly rated on their own, without taking vehicle configuration into account?

Hey there!

I’ve looked into this pretty extensively and you’re right - There’s two interpretation of the “±30° from centreline to frontal arc” One for the angle of attack to the brick itself as seen below:


If you use this interpretation, then the bricks in game are NOT STANAG 5.

Full penetration can be achieved by 25mm Autocannon at 500m and 30 degrees angle.

The other interpretation as you’ve outlined is the heading of the vehicle / centreline of the vehicle.
Gaijin’s official stance is this interpretation. However, this does not hold water i’m afraid.
Firstly, the official data sheet for ASPRO-HMT (The bricks on TES) makes no mention of being applied on a specific vehicle, position or angle. Just that it overall meets STANAG 5 requirements. This interpretation also completely throws roof mounted ERA and any non-side mounted ERA out the window, as you’d be shooting into their sides (STANAG level 5 requires 0 elevation. You cannot adjust to fire at the front/strike face and would therefore be shooting into the brick sideways if mounted anywhere that isn’t sideways.)

The other major issue with this interpretation is that again: it is not reflected in game:
image
Here’s 30 degrees from centreline, rather than angle of attack. The angle of attack here is something akin to 70 degrees. I’m using Dardo’s PMB-090 APFSDS, at 500M distance, 0 degrees elevation, and firing at 30 degrees from centerline as Gaijin suggests.
While the protection analysis tool will show you that it cant penetrate - it is taking into consideration the back plate, the airgap and the hull as well. Firing the round and following it top down shows complete penetration of the ASPRO-HMT block, failing the STANAG 5 requirement yet again.

In BOTH interpretationso of the STANAG 4569 document, the TES/OES applique armor fails to prevent 25MM darts from penetrating under the set conditions.

Furthermore, here’s some actual footage of STANAG 4569 testing. You can see here, it’s being shot at with a 0 degree angle. An angle ONLY possible if you follow the “Angle of attack” interpretation of the document. You cannot fire from 0 degrees offset when considering the vehicles heading/centreline as standard.

Hope this explains it :)

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I’ve never witnessed a gaming community who puts in so much effort to support the developers…

…and also never witnessed a game developer who shuns help from the community as much as GJN does.

Worth noting that in the main carcrash devblog I posted two images in game of Russian 14.5mm AP MG rounds going straight through the OES ERA at 90 degrees. So it isn’t even achieving STANAG level 4 protection according to those charts.

I’ve emailed Rafael to ask about the angles of attack on their blocks. ± 30 degrees frontal arc including sides does sound like GJNs definition, but as you’ve already pointed out it doesn’t even meet those requirements.

All of this is mentioning ballistic performance of the ERA too. GJN haven’t even really commented on whether the effectiveness against chemical rounds is performing correctly (it isn’t).

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Their interpretation is based solely off of protection analysis which is a flawed narrator.
I’ve shown in all my reports and writeups it’s not making STANAG 5 requirements and the 30/400 protection values are not right

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The same is true for Armor Shield R on the Bradley, despite using two significantly different blocks for its front and sides. Advertisement brochures rarely go into configuration details. They also single out CE projecticles for 360° protection and 14.5 mm AP (STANAG Level 4, angles not specified in your image) for some reason. If it can stop 25 mm APFSDS at any angle you’d think they’d advertise that? Certainly more impressive than 14.5.

At 30° from vehicle centreline 25 mm APFSDS stops within the ERA. Yes, it goes through two blocks and whatever is between them, but it doesn’t make it to the backing plate. If you go with the “±30° from centreline” it should thus meet STANAG Level 5 specification as it does not penetrate. That’s the only thing that matters for the specification.

STANAG 4569 Level 1 specifies a 360° Azimuth against 7.62x51 Ball. So they would of course be testing at the worst possible angle. It doesn’t have the “±30° from centreline” ambiguity.

ASPRO-HMT actually advertised 0.3 AP (30mm) at 90 degrees. I didn’t include this in my research yet but…why say 25MM when you can advertise your higher calibre?
SOURCE3A

I’d be really careful drawing conclusions between ASPRO-HMT and Armor Shield R. One is an explosive reactive armor, the other is a hybrid Passive/Active armor hybrid. They’re not really comparable products and was never used by the UK. The blocks themselves are what the data sheet are referencing, and thus the STANAG 5 claim on the data sheet is exclusive to them as a whole. No configuration details as the tests are standardised in 4569.

You’re mistaken here, the blocks themselves are STANAG 5. Not the backing plate. that’s a custom solution made by the vehicle operators, not Rafael. They penetrate right through the blocks and hit the back plate before failing pen. This means they failed to meet STANAG 5 requirements. The blocks are STANAG 5. Not the plate or vehicle they’re mounted to.

[quote=“StepBomber, post:15, topic:67919”]
STANAG 4569 Level 1 specifies a 360° Azimuth against 7.62x51 Ball. So they would of course be testing at the worst possible angle. It doesn’t have the “±30° from centreline”

I was more trying to show, the materials are tested based on the projectile angle of attack, not the vehicles heading/centerline.
You would end up with wildly different metrics for what makes a product STANAG 5 if you tested using the vehicle centreline method, rather than testing the bricks themselves.

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ok so first of all the stanag level CANNOT take the vehicle into account. aspro only makes the era/nera block and just because they say it provides a certain stanag level it doesnt mean you will have that level of protection in every vehicle. vehicles are diferent and as such the protection levels are different.

secondly the protection against 25mm apfsds is on a full 30º angle from the center 0º, that means it protects at 30º at 25º at 10º and at 0º, its not that hard and they provide a coloured picture for ppl who cant compreend angles.

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Thank you for your post and your extensive work @Legwolf

This is some great and detailed research, I hope Gaijin recognizes that and implements the findings accordingly.

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I’m pretty sure that in this context 0.3 AP means 0.3 inches. AKA .30 cal / 7.62mm

It’s a bit ambiguious hence why I omitted it from my research and just went with the STANAG 5 claim :P

That would leave no room for interpretation, but if that’s what they mean there you have to agree they fucked up their description. Why is “0.3 AP” 30 mm when “12.7 AP” is .50 and “14.5 AP” is 14.5 mm? The box on the right also specifies “armor piercing (AP) projectiles from heavy machineguns”, not autocannons.

I know they’re different. The point I’m making is that they’re obviously taking vehicle configuration into account as they applying different Armor Shield R blocks to front and sides, presumably because it takes more to bring the side up to the desired protection level. That contradicts that the panels are just rated without any consideration of where they are placed.

But it doesn’t make it to the backing plate at that angle. It stops in the second block. Which should meet the criteria if you’re rating the add on armour array as a whole. That’s what Gaijin presumably thinks is true too. It would really help your point if there was unambiguous documentation that the blocks are rated in isolation and not as they would be arranged on the vehicle.

360° coverage, 0° elevation 30 m are very specific requirements. How else would you test that? Everything other configuration than the one tested in your video would just increase protection.

It’s pretty ambiguous yeah, but I don’t think they’re counting this as the entire array. If you shoot centre of the array, it meets STANAG 5
If you shoot the last block, it goes through, and fails.

They have to be tested to the individual spec as blocks themselves, not on any particular vehicle.

They will ignore any feedback from this like in Abrams and Leopard case so your effort is meaningless.

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They literally addressed my feedback in the latest blog post twice.
Stop being so defeatist

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We will see. In other tank cases I saw no such things, they bricked themselves with one option and thats it.

Any updates on all of this thread? It has been forever and, regardless of the dispute on the exact effectiveness, there are still issues, compounded by the fact they feel like further nerfing the mobility and weight for nonexistent armour.