Also, I’m the guy who made the Tiktok you were talking about above.
2 Likes
We KNOW the backplate of the turret armor array (turret sub-structure) arrives to the plant in sheets of high hardness rolled steel. They are assembled and at no point softened. We know this because there is a myriad of evidence for it on google alone, and it is in the OP. The basis for the turret structure is also something you wouldn’t want to soften in the first place, this isn’t a battleship.
The other thing is that we can see the armor and standoffs do not change from assembly to in-service. There are no add-on layers to the interior of the turret armor. This means that perforation will cause spalling regardless of what you do to stop it. The best you can do is mitigate spalling, and it’s obvious no steps were taken to do so. Spall vests. That’s what we got, and is all we got. The kevlar backing to the composites doesn’t do us any good in that regard.
Okay, so why is it so hard to admit there is no internal spall liner? I’ve already said as much that Gaijin could improve the spalling, armor, ballistics of the game. No one is even trying to argue against those points at all… it just seems like you want to do anything but admit the Abrams has nothing to stop spalling on the interior of the crew compartment.
So yeah. People who arent from the US military need to stop pretending to be professional linguists on US Military lingo. Trust the guys who know what theyre talking about, are native english speakers, and quit running with hyperbolic sematics
You say this… your claim to fame here is that you were a crewman and would know. As were I. Let’s stop the nonsense and pretense that the time spent in service would allow either of us the forward knowledge of spall prevention strategies taken by Detroit when they designed the Abrams armor.
What I am discussing is based on the evidence seen in the OP and on the internet. Spending a few years sweeping the concrete lot that these tanks are sitting in… writing about how broken they’ve gotten in the last decade on your weekly maintenance worksheet is not going to give you advanced knowledge on the armor performance or composition. Get off tiktok, it’ll rot your brain.
1 Like
Then there’s not enough mitigation of spalling, and the spalling effect is a T-34 effect treating the armor as if it were homogenous and at 300 Brinell or 400 Brinell hardness all the way through.
An example of a test shot with a 105mm HEAT round.
Actual spall from a 105mm tandem HEAT PG7VR RPG.
One (Gaijin’s damage model) kills all three crewmen.
The other (real life) missed the gunner from behind, took out the NBC hose, and both tank commander and gunner caught some light fragments that their flak vests largely stopped.
There is spall mitigation already in the armor layers.
I.E. THERE ARE SPALL LINERS.
Now I know that this doesn’t go with your presupposition of ‘there’s no internal spall liner on Abrams’, because that’s what you wanted to argue, but that’s not what I’m arguing. I’m arguing that the spall mitigation is already there in the volumetric armor of the tank itself.
Of course, you and I should know that Gaijin only has volumetric shells.
If they had volumetric armor, they would need to code all of that (which is a pain). Further, there would be a LOT more APFSDS rounds shattering on extreme angles that might help certain vehicles (including the Ariete) survive.
So why wasn’t this finished and brought out of the Dev Server, and instead only brought in with APDS and a few very early-gen APFSDS?
See above statements.
Frankly it just sounds like you want to win a damn debate because evidence heavily and strongly suggests that the “spall mitigation” IS multiple spall linings and softer hardened steel alloys interspersed in the armor scheme.
You showed a sh*tload of ignorance and arrogance to a lot of people, just there and now. I won’t speak any further on that subject with you, other than to say you’d do well not to reiterate such opinions in the open public eye.
13 Likes
I totally agree, we’re on the same page here.
While this is the resultant spalling - it did not pass through much armor. If you scroll up you’ll see me complaining about how ridiculous the level of post-pen damage of HEAT warheads is in-game. This has nothing to do with spall mitigation on the Abrams, though… especially concerning the fact that it never passed through armor with any level of spall mitigation to speak of.
Now, I don’t know if you’re being intentionally misleading or not by showing the resultant penetration of the hull armor on the opposite side of the tank from which the round entered after passing through nearly a dozen other objects… but it certainly seems that way.
Anyhow, here is a the complete photo collection of the incident you mentioned and I’ll explain each step along the way. I’m going to go over each picture and what is being shown here, but you can view each picture in the album here as well.
Summary of the incident and why this is a bad example for comparison:
The tank in question was penetrated in the #4 right side skirt. This is an armored skirt, a thin layer of metal with composites inside of it. This may have easily been defeated by the initial warhead if it was truly a tandem… but it certainly wouldn’t have stopped a single older HEAT warhead either.
The warhead penetrated above the track and below the side hull compartment (hull sponson). This means it passed through the one perfect spot where it had the least amount of armor to deal with on its’ way into the tank. Let me show you why.
Here you can see a bare metal Abrams tank hull, and the hull side armor is visible from the interior of the tank. Below the image is the highlighted portion done by me. The red part is above the skirt hinges, and the green part is where the RPG hole is coming into the tank. This RPG warhead has only had to pass through 60mm of hull side armor and a composite skirt at this point.
Source for image
The warhead then penetrated the hull, of which we have established there is no composite or dedicated anti-spall liner. Here is a close-up of that hull penetration on both the outside and the insite.
Once it made it to the interior of the tank, it passed through the thin skirt safety guard and a rubber air hose.
At this point it passed partially through the gunners backrest on the right side of the turret and ahead of where the tank commanders shins would be resting. Seen is the gunners spall vest as well.
Once it made its’ way across the turret it partially passed through the loaders storage box to the left of and below the breech… under the coaxial machine gun ammo storage.
After passing through this box it made its’ way through a circuit breaker box on the left side of the turret wall and then finally exited into the side armor on the entire opposite side of the turret.
It is at this point that @Dinfire showed us the resultant “spalling”. Not only was there a rocket propelled grenade warhead instead of a larger HEAT one - it passed through the entire width of an Abrams tank, going through a composite skirt… hull side armor… gunners backrest… loaders storage box… circuit breaker… and into the opposite wall. That is nearly 9 feet of interrupted “space” with the largest portion of metal it had to pass through being 60mm thick.
We know based on the fact that the round appears to have hit 90 degrees (perpendicular from the side) that the turret was traversed slightly to the right. This put the gunners back at almost the #4 skirt. This is also why the components that were damaged got damaged (not a straight line through the turret as it would look in the games’ hanger).
I would LOVE to re-iterate that I agree with Dinfire. The spalling from HEAT projectiles is too high in War Thunder, but using the RPG-7’s tandem warhead as an example probably isn’t the best case scenario for comparison.
Nothing shown has indicated the Abrams has spall liners. We know from documentation that there are Kevlar epoxies in the turret frontal array, and possibly the side array. This may reduce or mitigate spalling prior to the baseplates, but does not stop spalling that occurs from the baseplate. I’ve been saying this for weeks now.
I have been very aware of what you are arguing. What Gaijin wants to see is an internal spall liner. I am also arguing that the spall liner is not surrounding the turret from the hull as you insinuated, but rather only behind composite arrays. This is because the primary purpose of the Kevlar and epoxy is not as a spall liner. It’s just a backing for the composite array.
It hasn’t been brought in because their ballistics model is sorely in need of an update and it didn’t work well when it was here. It’s been simplified and reduced as much as possible.
Frankly, this conversation will not bear any fruit because I have the advance knowledge that Gaijin isn’t going to be implementing a spall liner for the Abrams in the same fashion as the T-90M. You want the spall mitigation? Report it and back up the sources really well. If you have useful data it can be submitted as a suggestion.
You’d be well not to speak of things with authority you know nothing more than the rest of us about. You served on the tank, you did not manufacture the tank. What you are doing is guessing. You made a comment on a tiktok and feel the need to back it up and that’s fine - just check your sources next time. We’ve all said something confidently and been wrong before.
2 Likes
I recreated the shot directly with a round that has only 400mm of penetration, and it states that it kills all three crew in Gaijin’s damage models. Whether you see that as “not a best case scenario” when comparing to a tandem HEAT round with 750mm of penetration is entirely your view in that matter.
What you say Gaijin wants is not what I desire.
And it’s faulty still.
Considering that an aggregate number of sources have shown that Gaijin’s furthest research relies entirely on only the HAP-1 armor modules without depleted uranium from the Swedish trials, I’d argue there’s very little we can get “wrong” when the tank and its subsequent variants is presented as is.
As I stated in my TikTok, I don’t treat this as a U.S. Abrams. To me this is at best an export model.
Also, my speaking with authority here is to tell you that your arrogance was to say “TikTok will rot your brain”. That sort of behavior I won’t tolerate. Don’t do it again.
6 Likes
So as an actual M1 tanker…all the documents that involve hull limits on DU obviously means that DU is in the hulls, just like Gaijin has concluded that the no limits obviously meant it was in turrets, right?
5 Likes
Additionally;
PG7VR (105mm) is stated to have a warhead weight of 4.5kg. This is including the mass of the rocket portion of the propelled grenade. https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA599386.pdf
The actual warhead mass is between 1.4kg and 1.8kg according to source 1 and source 2.
If you wanted to see a report for the spalling potential of HEAT rounds reduced I’d gladly be able to assist. By comparison, the PG7VR has 1.4-1.8kg of explosive mass (TNT equivalent of ~1.87 to 2.3kg) whereas the 105mm M456A2 HEAT-T round fired from the M1 has just 0.97kg explosive mass (TNT equivalent of 1.27kg).
M456A2 actually has less performance than the PG7VR round IRL, and likewise would have less effective performance in-game if properly modeled.
Well, we were already on the same page. We still have to be honest with ourselves. The only spall mitigation in the hull is in the front lower plate armor array.
Truth hurts, was only a recommendation. I’m not gonna go around telling you what not to do, only here to advise.
It was pretty well shown that the M1A2 SEP model+ should have DU in the hull. What is more concerning is that they never upgraded the hull armor after M1A1. The M1A1’s hull armor is based on an export composite that is inferior to the domestic one to begin with. From there, the M1A1 HC and newer lack the improved hull armor.
The lower front plate should stop M829A1 from M1A1 HC and on.
3 Likes
Isn’t lower front plate weak on all top tier for balance right
Frankly the amount of paperwork that’s been flung around these forums in regards to DU in the hulls is vicious. I was never told explicitly that DU was placed in the hulls of our Abrams, but I was told that ours were the newest composite modules (this was in 2005, the Block 1 M1A1 AIMS, which would later become M1A1SAs), so they would feasibly be HAP-2 armor modules, and I was explicitly told that we also had DU reinforcement in the front of our turret.
There was a particularly vicious case in OIF where we lost an Abrams to an EFP to the front of the hull.
I can make inquiries to a fellow treadhead who has been recording the last known information and he can review whether any radiological protection was installed when they retrieved the driver’s body.
On this, I’m willing to work with you, because yes, it’s fairly clear that said rounds are producing more spalling than the volumetric armor would allow for. Also, I would be OK if you and I could agree to see about getting the flak vests instituted as a suggestion for all tanks, as well as introducing rounds shattering at extreme angles.
The one thing that would come up, however, is that in the case of such rounds as the M456A2 and other more advanced HEAT rounds, these would NOT be impacted because of their shoulder fuzes, which should also be modeled, as in Gunner HEAT PC.
I’m fairly certain the Abrams we lost was an M1A2 SEPSv1, but I’ll need to double check with my friend. We don’t like people cawing over our dead, and there were more than a few who tried on TikTok and elsewhere.
Edit: We’ll agree to disagree on the brainrot of TikTok. I have friends there who are more educated than I, and also great emotional support. Plus I try and teach the young ones how to tank properly in War Thunder.
1 Like
The way I’d go about fixing HEAT rounds is just collecting evidence like that above showing the spall pattern of various types of HEAT warheads.
1 Like
Continued exposure to Tungsten can cause pulmonary fibrosis which can and will kill you slowly just like DU, on the other hand, Tungsten Carbide ingestion can rapidly cause seizures and renal failure through heavy metal poisoning.
If thats not toxic I dont know what is.
Too much water in your lungs will also kill you, same with Nitrogen, Helium, Hydrogen…
Except that you’re not going to ingest any worthwhile amount of DU from the handling or day to day tank activities even when using DU rounds. They get handed down into the turret, loaded into the gun, fired. Barring a total catastrophic failure of the breech of some sort there is simply no way the DU leaves behind anything that will give you health problems. The area of concern for DU is what happens after it is inevitably fired off and left on the battlefield somewhere.
What it does to the enemies health isn’t necessarily a concern either as I’m sure they will be more worried of the pyrophoric effects and being eviscerated.
Love talking about DU. Glory days of physics classes learning about electron and gamma ray interactions/collisions, duality, and decay.
Where was this shown?
I thus far have not seen any concrete evidence that the M1A2 as shown in the Swedish test trails documents possessed inferior protection compared to U.S. service M1A2’s.
At most, there are relatively vague claims from spokespersons during that time period.
Are there any sources for those claims?
The fact remains that the Swedish version of the Abrams received an export armor package. One missing DU as well. There is a difference in the armor, no matter how you try to spin it. Therefore the Swedish trials can’t be considered accurate for the Abrams at the most basic level.
4 Likes
Testing of the armour occurred in the U.S. however, and there hasn’t been any evidence to suggest that the DU materials couldn’t have been substituted by tungsten inserts, or another form of effective composite protection.
Similarly, the Swedish M1A2’s were marginally heavier than the domestic production models. I am not one to claim that Weight = Armour, however, one would think that all-else being equal, the vehicle with substantially inferior armour packages and not featuring DU would be less heavy.
Furthermore, U.S. studies at the time showed that around 65% of all hits are impacted on the turret of a MBT, with around 30% impacting the turret ring area and glacis plate, and only 5% impacting the lower glacis.
That would explain the heavy emphasis on improved turret protection going from BRL-1 to BRL-2 on the IPM1, then HAP-1 on the M1A1 HA and HAP-2 on subsequent models for improved multi-hit durability.
Orr Kelly stated the DU alloy didn’t actually add that much weight. The extra weight must have been trying to get non-US armor up to US levels of protection. Which apparently didn’t happen until the Greek trials, if it did. They stated they got the export armor close to US armor levels by the Greek competition. Then keep in mind the US armor package received an upgrade in 96, after the Swedish trials as well. So either way, Gaijin’s representation doesn’t cut it.
Regardless, Swedish Abrams armor=/=US Abrams armor.
3 Likes
“M3A3 has spall liner”
I wish. Let’s see… a tiny patch in front of the driver and two small strips on either side of the TOW hull storage. That hardly qualifies…
2 Likes