Earlier this day i was playing with abrams sep v2 as always looking for enemies from spawn cz they pushed us, but somehow i got killed when i watched my killcam i found out that my left turret cheek got penetrated by dm53, it’s absurd how that happens.
it’s not the first time it happens, the only thing that’s been good for years is the abrams turret cheeks cannot be penetrated, but that also can’t be a thing anymore, no spall liners, no aps, no irl armor, unnacurately modeled, and now turret cheeks can be easily penetrated (i can give details for anyone to see the replay)
The turret cheek armor is kinda a weird one still. It’s based on swedish trials (600mm@30°), but it’s debatable if it even had DU armor in it (there are docs alluding that it didn’t and the US is known to not really export DU). It was supposedly “equivalent” but the same is said for the AIM’s armor, yet that thing gets an extra debuff on the NERA (it’s like ~15mm worse) in game. So if Gaijin believes these subsitute (non DU) armor arrays are worse than the DU equivalent, then the AIM has debuffed values based on export armor, which in a way means it’s been twice debuffed. But anyway, in essence what this means is that in game we might just be running “DU” armor (only in name) on the M1A2s with armor values based on “equivalent” non DU export armor instead.
It doesn’t matter that much often, luckily, though 120mm DM53 from the L/55 is somewhat problematic. If you turn your turret a couple degrees to the left, your right cheek can become vulnerable to DM53 at closer ranges and if you do it a bit more (5°+) it can be penned from longer ranges as well. The left cheek is stronger as it’s more angled, but it can still be penned if your turret is angled more. Overal just annoying I guess, but at least it’s not like the Ariete, Leclerc, etc.
The thing with the side armor array on the SEPv2 is just a visual statcard bug only. The actual armor values are the same and provide the same protection still.
it’s crazy how your cheeks can be penned easily but the bvm cheeks aren’t, one singel piece of metal can hold a shell upto 652mm.
some people in this forum says that there’s already DU in turret cheeks, how’s that possible? if they can be penned it’s not DU, even sometimes the cheeks can be penned by 3bm60 often.
