Is the main problem with challenger 2s hull just the drivers port weakspot? I’m wondering what would need to be changed.
Challenger 2s hull from my point of view is actually really good because the composite covers about 75% of the hull all the way up to the turret cheeks. Leopard 2 which has a great looking hull head on has thin armor after that composite block ends, same goes for the Abrams which is even worse. My idea is Challenger is a better compromise vs attack helicopters and other frontal top attacks.
The drivers viewport looks like a compromise to get the composite to extend to the turret. As we know the Challenger has its TES kit that in reality I’m sure would negate the main drawback of the massive LFP.
I’m pretty sure the steel thickness values in general are just off in war thunder, I think it has much thicker sides for example on the hull that would make ricochets easier across a wider arc.
Whilst I think we can say with confidence that the CR2 wouldnt come close to the survivability of a 2A7. It is almost certainly underperforming in pretty much every single regard to its survivability and I think should be one of the harder to kill tanks at top tier, which is then balanced by its older round (though should be more capable than it is currently) and slow speed.
Gaijin’s modeling has it be one of the weakest in every category despite numerous bug reports accepted and simply ignored
The drivers port of the Challenger 2 is not a significant weakness of the Challenger 2 hull, the main issue of the hull is the fact it’s tied to an outdated engine and is overall large and heavy.
Tanks don’t snipe for weak spots in real life, the drivers port is only going to get hit out of bad luck on the Challengers part. The T72, T80, T90 etc… all have similar drivers port weakspots, they just are an internal armour cutout rather than an external one.
The unfortunate reality of tank hull design is the driver needs somewhere to get out of, so the hull front will always have a weakspot.
Ideally the new hull would remove the front cutout, but this is mostly just a precaution, which is overblown by the fact 90% of people tanks knowledge online is based off War Thunder which is a horrible representation of real armoured combat
Thing is wouldn’t the Turret be the issue as it’s manned? It’s just easier to eliminate crew that way with top attack. I think the future direction is shaping up to be unmanned turrets with capsules in the hull. The issue is providing enough armor on the turret to defend the FCS, and other systems… What balance would that be?
You want a meaningful weight reduction, but you still want the tank to be effective when attacked by FPVs, and top attacks.
My point is that the drivers cutout is to reduce the hit probability against a top attack. The other tanks have a thin layer of steel and that’s it along the hull roof. As said tank hits are about probability and I would argue frontally the drivers viewport is not negligible but a trade off for top hull protection as having composite that far back means the drivers area will need to be recessed.
Call me a teaboo but I don’t think a CR2 with its TES package is any less survivable than a 2A7V for a multitude of reasons.
CR2 has ammo in the hull with wet stowage and none in the turret.
It has what looks to me like a composite screen lining the turret roof.
Hull composite extends to turret front as said which is good against missiles and arty.
The mantlet is decently armored irl.
If a tank fires at any tanks lfp it will blow up so it being 70mm doesn’t matter, if you are shot there you have failed the survivability onion. Does suck against autocannon fire with no TES kit, though so does leo 2 even with the 2A7Vs addon armor.
I think Chobham in general underperforms against KE by quite a bit and CE by a lot even on CR1. I don’t think CR1s values in those sources were tested against 3bm22 but a more advanced NATO round.
Genuine pros of leopard is that it has blowout panels for its turret ammo.
It has better LOS thickness, though I’m not sure how much that matters depending on what the composite actually is. Challengers could be denser or use some magic anti apsfds… I dunno.
It has composite coverage in it’s hull sides, which is nice to have.
Main thing is the turret roof is flatter, no exposed cupola. I’m not sure how much of a weakspot it is on challenger 2 and now 3 but it looks like one with the way the sights look and how tall it is. Maybe it isn’t and its just badly modelled in war thunder but I don’t know.
The way I see it is they found the layout worked with Chieftain and have decided that is just what it needs to be based on hit probability and averages across varied attacks as that’s what Vickers said they designed it around.
I wonder if they are keeping wet stowage for Challenger 3 or if that is gone now with the new ammunition.
There isn’t much space for improvement and it’s heavy. Overall it’s just better to have all the crew in the hull. The Abrams will struggle with this as the hull has a very small profile for its size. So fitting crew and protection with it is gonna be rough. Same with the chally hull.
I actually didn’t know that. What’s crazy is the Merkava LIC has a stronger and with more coverage size composite. If you angle that entire side is almost immune to most darts that aren’t extremely strong close range.
I wish the Chally had such a thing. It would make angling worth it if your upper hull is showing.
The Challenger 3 uses DM63A1 and soon DM83, which are both inert munitions.
Therefore they have essentially zero chance of exploding when hit, so wet ammo storage isn’t required.
To note, neither of these ammunition types are ingame and the CR3TD uses DM53 which it never used in real life. It’s lack of blowout panels shouldn’t be an issue ingame if it had the correct ammo, luckily the actual CR3 has blowout panels regardless, so any ammo is fine.
I look at merkava and think that might actually be one of the best generally protected tanks, it looks good for urban warfare which I guess is what it was designed for. I’m not sure how it would fair against modern KE though as it’s design looks to me like they’ve prioritised composite coverage for HEAT weapons.
Remember this is the same game where inert apfsds heads exploded upon introduction in CR1s turret and it was a battle for them to change it. I was there 3000 years ago. I reckon they add it and it still explodes.
Keep in mind it fires DM63A1, not DM63, which is the improved version
DM63A1 and DM63 use the exact same penetrator as DM53 just with inert propellant for DM63A1. The difference in velocity is negligible, so realistically the firepower would be about the same if not identical
