Ehh I’ve dug, tried numerous rabbit holes, there’s enough stuff to debunk quite a few of gaijin’s statements involving this topic but its been a constant chain of findign the opposite of what I want
I can understand details being lacking for the later M1A2’s which is why I went for the A1’s and early A2’s but the thing I’ve been questioning the entire time is where are any sort of radiation measurements for the hull armor or mentions of it in any safety manual involving DU armor exposure, the military wasn’t shy in giving out measurements for the turret.
I focused my search on the M1A1’s and the original M1A2 for that reason.
I now know far more about depleted uranium mesh, the billets they are made from and suspension upgrades to abrams than I ever needed to.
But like the hulls exist and there’s vehicles in game which combine vehicles or include components only used on a smattering of vehicles so why can’t we get a A2 with the DU inserts in the hull, BRL’s estimatees for protection against KE and CE on their imrpvoed hull exist so its not some wild guess on their part.
I’d assume tankers are typically trained to aim center mass so why does the Abrams have a giant weakpoint WWII guns can pen in the center mass thats somehow even more prominent on the A2?
We know in a FF incidnet a A1 upper plate deflected and shattered a DU round so why does the upper plate frequently bounce darts into the turret with enough pen to go through the ring or hit the breech?
There’s a wide variety of things that’d greatly increase survivability gaijin could do if they were inclined
I believe the last time it got brought up Gaijin said something about Swedish trials having computer models of darts of a certain length bouncing instead of shattering outright. Been a minute since they last commented on that though.
If you have anymore information regarding DU, please can you send me links or the PDFs? I’m very interested to gather more material regarding HAP-1 armor modules.
Also, to answer, yes, we’re trained for center mass, because realistically we DO NOT play COD in urban environments.
Gunner HEAT PC shows this to extremely good effect. Now if only I had the computer to handle it at high speeds without freezing.
(Me weeping in GTX 960 card, but grateful for my friend’s gift nevertheless.)
Certainly.
You can also see the documents in their bit about DU weapons also only go up to M829A2 and don’t mention A3 which was fielded in 2003’ish.
The SEP’s, especially later variants certainly have sone extensive modifications done ( cant wait for the V3 to arrive with none of it anyways) and I don’t mean to imply this applies to those as that’s far beyond the scope of my digging.
B Co. 3-66 Armor, Abrams (Bumper # B-66): This was the Bravo company commander’s tank. It was hit by three 120mm DU rounds with one striking just below the turret, killing the gunner. None of these rounds penetrated the DU armor panels. At the time it was hit, it was moving in a different direction than the rest of the company. This may have contributed to the misidentification. Three soldiers survived this attack, at least two of them with severe burns. One of the survivors had fragment wounds as well.
B Co. 3-66 Armor, Abrams (Bumper # B-22): This tank, reacting to the fire that engaged B-66, turned in the direction of fire and was hit on the front slope by a 120mm DU round.[[165]]There was no internal damage to this tank. The driver was wounded. It is presumed that this tank had its full crew of four at the time it was struck.
A Co. 3-66 Armor, Abrams (Bumper # A-14): This tank was struck by a 120mm sabot round fired from an Abrams tank. Three soldiers were wounded. It is presumed that this tank had its full crew of four when it was struck.
A Co. 3-66 Armor, Abrams (Bumper # A-31): This tank was struck in the left rear by pieces of a 120mm DU round.[[168]]A report prepared by the Radiation Control (RADCON) Team from KKMC states that the four-crew members of this tank all received fragment wounds and were evacuated back to Germany. The Company Commander, who relayed this information to the team in late April 1991, also stated that numerous individuals were exposed to smoke during the resulting fire. One member of the RADCON Team advised the Company Commander that all individuals involved in the DU incident should receive an appropriate medical exam. The commander was given a copy of a health hazard message dated April 11, 1991 and a copy of TB522.[[169]]
A Co. 3-66 Armor, Abrams (Bumper # A-33): At approximately 4:30 AM on the morning of 27 February, A-33 was struck in the engine compartment by a TOW anti-tank guided missile probably fired from a Bradley Fighting Vehicle. The uninjured crew were evacuating their disabled tank when it was hit again, this time by two DU sabot rounds[[170]] that hit the vehicle in the left side and exited through its right side. The tank commander, driver, and gunner sustained injuries from fragments. The loader, who was already outside the tank, was apparently uninjured, but may have been at risk from inhaling DU aerosols created on impact. At least one of the individuals involved in this incident is enrolled in the VA’s DU Follow Up Program.[[171]]
Found those FF incidents form Gulf war, some interesting bits there…
Yeah I posted this way back but general descriptions of most incidents that involved DU are in this list with links to damage reports and interviews with the crew. https://gulflink.health.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabh.htm
To the best of my knowledge every incident involving DU exposure is in there so its a pretty useful starting point for gulf war era things
Because, by the logic of those who design the armour, they make probabilist assessments about where tanks are going to be hit. Notice how few tanks have really thick lower plates? Some WW2 stats showed almost all tank hits were to the upper 2/3 of the armour, so basically armour designers assume you can ignore armouring the lower 1/3 in order to save weight.
Same applies. If you assume the tank is shot center mass at long range, the shell isn’t going to be targetting any weakspots.
It’s pointless to armour against point blank shots, since during the 80’s against a peer adversary, the assumption was that any mass produced modern shell would shred any contemporary armour at short ranges, the game was to protect only against long ranges since too much weight and armour is needed for short range protection.
They want mobile tanks, so you cut the weight somewhere. Just happens to be lower plates, gun mantlets etc. Also you can’t armour mantlets as easily since you need optics and machine guns and so on. Turret rings are just accepted to be hard to hit since they occupy such a small proportion of the frontal area.
Only with the shift to asymmetrical warfare does the need arise to protect against targets outside the frontal 35 degrees from extreme distances. Hence why protection packages almost completely shift to comprehense HEAT protection on the sides, nobody is expecting Fulda gap situations.
This basically perfectly describes the SEP programs. They are commissionsed as a drip feed to retain labour and also new versions are designed to mobilise old storage stock and when there’s some way to strip out enough existing stuff (or reduce weight E.G. electronics modernisation) so you can slap something new on.
I’d say it’s absolutely no coincidence that all the abrams replacement programs like XM1202, the M10 booker and the Abrams X have literally all been ways to reduce the weight, not ways to make huge thicker DU armour on everything.
Probably contemporary protection is designed by APS instead of composites. Composites are likely seen as something to protect against whatever is left after APS has done its work.
Whenever the US adds some new modules they are completely isolated to them selves. The modules are keep in the moderation but are built into the system removing all the extras components used to operate the attached module. This usually reduces a decent amount of weight.
Best way to describe it is they go from having 5 different controllers to control 5 modules to 1 controller to control 5 modules.
Not all of them, the Component Advanced Technologies Test Bed (CATTB) reduced weight from the engine, suspension, tracks, side skirts and turret basic structure while increasing armor weight, the CATTB weighs 63.04 metric tons empty.
There’s also the obscure M1A3 “Tank 1080” projected to weigh 70 short tons only because the 140mm gun is compensated by a titanium turret, the tank maintains the same turret structure design as the M1A2 but has increased armor.
I’m differentiating CATTB which is pre-SEP, from SEP and onwards.
Seems designs like M1A2 had some inertia due to pre-soviet collapse requirements, but things changed after 1991.
Yes you’re correct, TARDEC even had to hide the further development of the 140mm gun tube from the congress, they used the name “Lightweight 120mm” as the official euphemism for the 140mm ATACS, which is why some ppl belive the CATTB had the 120mm gun while in reality it’s the 140mm.
There’s some photos of the XM291 with the real 120mm L/56 gun tube in the background at the U.S. Army Watervliet Arsenal (Benét Laboratories), you can also spot the famous Thumper photo near the breach.
