Wrong era lad… it’s ASPRO-HMT
Morning chaps!
It gets a bit confusing, as ASPRO-HMT is an offshoot product of another ASPRO product, and ASPRO products are part of the Armor Shield protection line (ASPRO) but Armor Shield R is not in use by the Royal Army.
It’s a specific model, ASPRO HMT. At its core, it’s a multiple layered sandwich of angled passive and reactive elements, layed out as tiles. Think plate of Dorchester, then a plate of ERA, over and over, about 20 or more times.
Unfortunately, ASPRO-HMT is just STANAG 5, however its designed to combat chemical munitions above all else. More specifically, it should provide great defence or total immunity to the Russian made PG7-VR, tamdem stage anti tank round, developed in 1988. So you’re looking at anywhere between 800-1200MM of CE
That’s not to say it won’t be good against KE. The defence for ASPRO-HMT is rated to 25MM APFSDS rounds, at ± 30⁰ @ 500m
So taking Dardo and its APFSDS round as standard, the absolute minimum value it can defend is 84mm of KE, which combined with the airgaps, composite screen and hull, gives you a healthy 250MM or so of KE on the tanks sides at 0⁰
Worth noting though, ASPRO-HMT being STANAG 5, the KE protection can be anywhere between this 84mm value, and the max pen value of a 30MM autocannon. So it ranges drastically. I just provided absolute minimum (literally +1mm beyond the pen) to provide a baseline. The real value would probably be 300-350KE on the sides.
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Rafael original composite, not chobham. Afaik there is no chobham(dorchester) in that, but composite made by rafael.
I’ve not yet seen any mention of the actual composite, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a composite made by Rafael inhouse. I just used Dorchester here as my example, not the actual material present :)
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I would be even more suprised if MoD gave their top secret golden baby Dorchester to anyone outside
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What frustrates me the most about this issue report is that it completely got the ERA wrong, and was nerfed based on ERA that TES never mounted.
This “30mm autocannon” thing is from people looking at Armor Shield Rs brochure and going “yeah makes sense. Must be TES’ armor” and because of this myth, the TES now has ERA that can’t even stop an RPG-7s single stage round.
Insanity. Also insane that they think the screen on 2Fs sides and TES giant armor slabs do the exact same protection values…fairly sure our TES cant even survive BMP1 main cannon rounds.
That might change in the future, Cr1, 2E and 2F might get a buff 500ce 82ke on the VARMA blocks
https://community.gaijin.net/issues/p/warthunder/i/XjZOqesJYDXe
As it also affects 2E and 2F (2F has VARMA “Late” but we get no data so we roll with that)
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I said something very similar to this here on the old Challenger 2 thread and in my challenger 2 Megatron suggestion and I got laughed at. I estimated the protection levels of TES add-on armour kit from what we knew at the time and what we knew was.
Challenger 2 DL2E add-on armour should have around 85/90mm against kinetic and around 600mm against chemical before adding on the tanks main hull armour.
Challenger 2 DL2F should be the same except for the lfp add-on armour which should have brought its protection levels to around 400mm against kinetic and around 1000mm against chemical.
Challenger 2 TES add-on armour kit should have around 180mm against kinetic but once when you add the tanks main hull armour on to that it goes up to at least 255mm against kinetic and around 1000mm against chemical and again when you add the main side hull armour it goes up to at least 1100mm against chemical. Because the side hull armour is made up of 25mm RHA plus space filled with fuel then 50mm RHA before you enter the crew conpartment.
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So to be extra super clear:
Challenger 2 TES and OES use ASPRO-HMT bricks as their side skirt ERA. The turret sides are NERA and are likely just dorchester.
The ASPRO-HMT package provides STANAG 5 protection which is defence against 25MM autocannon APFSDS at 500m and 30⁰±
The ASPRO-HMT package should be able to completely defeat any single stage HEAT and HEAT-FS. Given its a 2007/2008 ERA, it should be able to defeat the RPG-7VR tandem round from 1988 as well. Wouldn’t make much sense if it couldn’t given its size and timeline.
Its not technically ERA or NERA, it’s a mix of the two. Some explosive elements, some passive elements, as a “dual purpose” ERA.
.50cal, HEAT, and anything smaller should be unable to do much against this package.
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What we know about the make up of TES and OES hull add-on armour is its made up of 3 layers.
- 40mm RHA back plate
- then 200mm VARMA/composite armour
- ASPRO-HMT ERA
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Sounds pretty accurate to me, honestly. Only issue I take up with, is 180mm of KE for the TES ERA if that’s what you mean. The bushmaster APFSDS only provides 110mm of pen, so our KE value must be between 84 and 110mm but not exceeding that, as it isn’t a STANAG 6 product.
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40mm RHA backplate.
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VARMA has around 85/90mm against kinetic with around 500/600mm against chemical.
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ASPRO-HMT has around 90/110mm against kinetic with at least 500mm against chemical.
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Hull armour goes from 38mm RHA up to 75mm RHA not including the fuel tanks.
But currently in total the side hull should have around.
Kinetic - 253/293mm
Chemical - 1100mm+
Is there actually any justification for the tandem protection? I know they’re big blocks but from the Rafael datasheets nothing suggests that it can defeat a tandem round, I would expect them to advertise it was rated against tandem systems.
What about resistance to missiles with Tandem-charge Warhead
The biggest problem in the game right now is that any enemy missile with a Tandem-charge Warhead will cause CE to drop to a pitiable 100-200 range
If I had to guess is that ASPRO-HMT by it’s self wouldn’t be able to stop tandem warhead’s but when you had the VARMA series 1 into the mix then it could definitely defeat tandem warhead’s !!
Thing with these addon packages is they often take the existing armour of the vehicle into account when advertising the protection levels. So if the system was rated at STANAG Level 5, I suspect that includes the backing plates etc.
Obviously we can only speculate due to the nature of the armour we’re discussing. But if Rafael isn’t advertising it, I wouldn’t expect the TES/OES to defeat them.
I dont think its a case here. Unless ASPRO-HMT is a thing made only for TES/OES, then it will not include the backplate, as the composite backplate is unique to TES/OES
Not sure if the ASPRO blocks are added on top of VARMA or not. Depends on how thicc the ASPRO is by itself
Currently what we know with all current information is that Rafael ASPRO-HMT can’t stop tandem warhead’s by it’s self that is known.
But as I have been explaining is that challenger 2 add-on armour kit TES was designed to defeat Tandem warhead’s and how they achieved it was with three layer’s of armour.
- 40mm RHA armour backplate
- VARMA series 1 at least
- ASPRO-HMT
When you add all that together it would definitely defeat Tandem warhead’s.