If its aluminum or titanium and its thin itll probably not spall at all, or just very minorly
3 Likes
Depends a lot on the alloy and its hardness a shattering characteristics.
I do suspect modern hard backing has very negligable spall.
4 Likes
Wonderful example here
8 Likes
Especially if it’s adhered to a decent spall liner. This one really upsets them.:
4 Likes
“GLASS NOT METAL!!! HOW YOU SAY IS SPALL LINER??!!”
That’s pretty much been their entire schtick. Then when I even show them studies and reports demonstrating metal layers with spall liners in between, they get mad and say a spall liner has to be what they want it to be and can’t possibly be integrated in any other fashion.
They are truly delusional.
7 Likes
exocett is a cheater defender lol
This isn’t the Leo thread no matter how many threads they want to derail.
8 Likes
Honestly I did a fair bit of digging back when the liners were first announced and I have my concerns.
Spoiler
Spoiler
There’s this from 1977 when it had a 40mm grenade launcher
Spoiler
A 78 hearing on upgunning the XM1 from 105 to 120
Spoiler
Another '78 meeting involving the 120 and related turret modifications
Spoiler
A '79 document noted compartmentalization to increase odds of the crew surviving a hit
Spoiler
A meeting from 1980 where a general was very wary about more weight increases
Spoiler
Spoiler
Spoiler
My concerns are limited production runs started in '79, mentions about the spall liners started to dry up with the only specific mentions being spall liners for any ammo put in the turret and whatever that spall box in the image is.
They mention compartmentalization, not spall liners to enable crew to survive penetrating hits, a spot I’d expect it to be brought up, they really didn’t want to add any weight to it, the pentagon really did not have a repeat of the MBT-70 and its costs and the constant committee meetings with politicians had them constantly questioning both the time it was taking to enter service and the money being spent.
Liners at this time period really weren’t some secret either, they talked openly about them being tested and implemented in the M113 and Bradley.
So there’s a not zero chance for one reason or another it was dropped, history is littered with military projects that got downgraded on the path from the drawing board to prototypes to production.
That study in the OP is sponsored and paid for by the US goverment so I’d expect gaijin will take it as a primary source and my worry is they’ll take that, combine it with the real lack of info and offer some other pittance of a buff instead.
They seem to want very specific details not only about the liners existing but also where exactly they are situated in the tank and without that we are screwed even if the liners did exist.
So in short, the addition of liners are stupid, the original addition of liners to a single tank is stupider, not researching in advance and implementing it to all tanks at once giving certain vehicles advantages is stupid and this whole thing is a debacle that should have been avoided.
10 Likes
Good finds. Though even some of these documents references aluminum walls being used as spall liners. There’s nothing saying spall mitigation is not incorporated into the composite armor layers. But with them being classified, we can’t prove that’s how it’s done.
Just because they removed the spall box/storage boxes with spall panels from the turret does not mean there aren’t spall liners anywhere in the design.
This document hammers on the point that crew survivability was the number one priority of the XM1 program.:
'With the Soviet threat in mind, Congress authorized a new effort to develop a main battle
tank at the same time it canceled the XM803 program (see timeline of Abrams
development at the end of the chapter). The Army set up a task force at the Armor School
at Fort Knox, KY. With help from the Advanced Concepts Branch at Tank-Automotive
Command (TACOM), the task force identified 19 characteristics that a new tank should
possess. It listed them in order of importance, the first five being:16
• crew survivability;
• surveillance and target acquisition performance;
• high probability of hit with first round
• time to acquire and hit a target;
• cross-country mobility. ’
‘Crew Protection
The initial XM1 study team at Fort Knox named crew survivability as the number one
priority for the new main battle tank. A great many of the technological advances on the
Abrams discussed elsewhere in this report contribute to crew protection—greater speed
and agility for less exposure to enemy fire, a lower noise signature, and better armor, to
name a few.’
Considering that we also have multiple primary source documents that mention the XM1 design that was standardized as the M1 in 1981 had spall liners, I think its safe to say the document that wasn’t even produced by the Army, and had no insight or involvement in the Abrams development, is less than conclusive on the Abrams protection design.
3 Likes
https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA300522.pdf
They mention developing spall liners because of the Bradley live fire tests, but this is probably in the context spall liners specifically for the Bradley.
They mention they did an Abrams live fire test after the Bradley test, and the conclusion was that the Abrams protection was satisfactory. No mention of needing to develop spall liners for it.:
'In FY88, "An LFT program (funded by
PM-Tanks) was conducted to determine the
vulnerability of various Abrams tank
components to behind-armor spall fragments.
For the first time, a data base was created
which contains experimental data associated
with the expected damage to components from
fragments. These data will be invaluable in
developing component-damage algorithms for
use in vulnerability-assessment codes for the
Abrams and other modern tank systems.
Also from a report on FY88 technical
accomplishments, "All the program objectives
were achieved with the following generalized
conclusions: The Abrams meets current
survivability requirements regarding ballistic
protection—the armor and ammunition
compartmentation perform to design. The
Abrams capability to survive and protect its
crew makes the use of Battle Damage
Assessment and Repair (BDAR) an essential
element, and the vulnerability models currently
appear to predict the correct Abrams internal
damage and crew casualties from the primary
penetrator and spall as compared to the test
results. Lessons learned from this highly
successful test will expedite the design and
reduce costs of future tests."2
…
‘The Abrams tank met its design protection
levels. At the same time, important lessons
were learned, including details of lethal
processes that were valuable in defining 01
evacuation procedures.’
With the context of the protection requirements established in earlier official documents, I think its safe to say that spall protection was still a requirement for the Abrams, and that its armor design incorporates measures to mitigate risk from spall/fragmentation.
4 Likes
I genuinely hope your right, I just worry about gaijin’s requirements and them wanting not just evidence of the liners existence but also the exact locations they sit in the tank.
3 Likes
Well the M3A3, M1128 and even the M109A6 (from early 90s) have spall liners, I find it insane to think the US didn’t put ANY spall liners in their MBTs.
5 Likes
This is probably where we are screwed. Because Gaijin wants a visible spall liner on the inside of the crew compartment, spall lining anywhere else in the tank probably won’t be modeled or accounted for.
Edit: Unfortunately, Gaijin can’t accept that the interior can act as a spall liner. Despite the many documents describing steel backplates as spall liners. Even the spall box and ammo compartments in the prototype Abrams were aluminum panels around each round.
4 Likes
Something I stumbled across looking into Chobham armor. Source is from USAREUR : the United States Army in Europe by Michael Skinner
5 Likes
Maybe someone will have to email poor Zaloga again XD
The Canadian Army Trophy states
“ The United States also introduced an entirely new vehicle, the M1 Abrams. This platform originated from the aftermath of the failed U.S.-German MBT 70 program. When this joint endeavor failed and American efforts to sustain the program alone similarly collapsed, the Army undertook the design of a new tank. In 1972 the Main Battle Tank Task Force convened at Fort Knox to determine its basic characteristics. Development efforts adjusted to accommodate lessons learned from the
1973 Arab-Israeli War. Consequently, crew survivability and the need for increased protection strongly influenced the resultant design. Composite armor based upon British Chobham armor provided significantly improved ballistic protection, supplemented by an automatic fire detection and suppression system, and a spall liner. (68)”
This clearly states that the M1 Abrams is installed with a spall liner. It’s safe to say that the newer models of the Abrams are installed with spall liners as well.
Link to the official PDF
6 Likes
Is this guy a russian propagandist? American vehicles have had spall liners since the M60s. You do realize its integrated into the armor spall liners dont have to be visible for it to be there, its also not a kevlar “rug” like the extremely cheap and almost useless russian ones.
12 Likes
I find it hilarious that so many people appear to believe that the nation that has spent trillions more on defense spending than any other nation since the 1980’s has overlooked something as basic as spall mitigation in their regularly upgraded MBT. Logically that doesn’t make any sense.
9 Likes
Funnier are the people that can’t accept metal layers can be spall liners as well. See the spall box for crew compartment ammo storage in proposed Abrams prototypes. Aluminum panels.
There have been plenty of studies and reports that show spall liners being incorporated in composite armor packages, and even steel backplates used to absorb spall.
But these clowns insist it has to be an exposed final layer. They get mad when the adhesives mentioned in the studies prevent metal from spalling, and that intermediate steel barriers can be designed to not spall through a combination of laminate design and metallurgy.
14 Likes
Agreed. The old adage that “there is more than one way to skin a cat” applies here. In this case, there is more than one way to make an effective spall liner.
7 Likes