It has nothing to do with concerns for infantry safety. It has everything to do with NATO just generally having bigger tanks, thus being able to keep mounting more armor without having the vehicle lose functionality bar weight.
Composite can only grow outwards, it cannot grow inwards. There’s a reason why the composite on T-55AM and T-62M is mounted externally with the added bonus that it is a simpler modification than reworking an entire turret.
Additionally, Western ERA generally tends to be part of urban packages, where infantry would generally be expected to be closer to the tanks… Except even this isn’t the full case with former Warsaw Pact countries. They too are Western now, yet develop ERA to be able to withstand kinetic munitions (think of examples in Czechoslovakia and Poland). Most of their ERA if not all of it has been developed post-socialist times.
Your view also doesn’t align with the more widespread Western implementation of hard-kill APS. Wouldn’t this be as much of a safety hazard for friendly infantry as ERA?
Add to that that their new equipment currently in development hell such as T-14 and T-15 place crew and passenger safety as top priority. Not quite indicative of an uncaring design philosophy.
The reason why Soviet tanks are so safe nowadays has everything to do with time period as well.
Back when these tanks were made there weren’t such threats like loitering munitions, such effective anti-tank weapons and fire control systems of such accuracy. This means that making such small tanks made sense in that time period.
Funnily enough, with this mindset you could argue that Soviet design in a way emphasized safety more than the West, trying not to get hit rather than withstanding the hit (don’t take this last comment as seriously as the rest of what I wrote).
What I see here is the successful Western psy-op to frame the Russians as uncaring barbarians. No.
Their equipment simply didn’t test the time like Western ones did and their post-Soviet economy didn’t have the capability to completely overhaul their army either. It has everything to do with prior and current context as opposed to barbarism.
I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re a person who subscribes to the human wave hoax with what I am reading here.
I’ll take the lack of an actual response as validation that my point has been made.
Or perhaps not, since there is a fixation on only a single aspect of it.
That’s how the public takes it that’s not really what militaries are doing. Also western tanks don’t typically use “ERA” they use NERA (Non-explosive-reactive-armor) specifically because it lowers the risk of harming nearby infantry.
It also doesn’t change the fact that ERA is still fitted fairly regularly on Western vehicles too.
Either way, what I wrote is an explenation as to why the Soviets developed better ERA than the West and why this was a necessity when looking at their tank design and doctrine, as faulty and false logic was used by AlvisVisla.
Even besides that there is still no reason to think that without ERA it would still be safe to be in proximity of a hit vehicle, whether it has ERA or not.
I’m quite done with the conversation as is, as my points were already made several comments ago.
it depends tbf since for example not everyone uses ERA and some use something similar but not the same, and the purpose of them is to stop RPG’s and chemical warheads for the most part since that’s a pretty good advantage ERA provides very good chemical protection for low weight
also another thing in consideration ERA does cause fragmentation due to their metal components clara ERA has no metal components only ceramics at most, in fact the cover its some kind of polymer
Typically it’s NERA (if it’s things like Leo 2, Abrams, Chally, etc etc). The only “western” vehicles that regularly get equipped with ERA is upgrades to former Soviet block vehicles like the PT-91
So explosion pushing in on a tank would cause equal amount of damage to an explosion pushing out from a tank? Of course there is still risk you are near a tank that just got hit by something that exploded but you have a lot higher chances of less injury and survival if that explosion isn’t almost immediately getting thrown in the opposite direction. ERA blows outwards to an explosion trying to blow inward.
They first used first generation EMES-15 thermal sight as standard on all Leopard 2A4s but this was replaced by the third generation ATTICA in around 2014.
