I might be missing something, but isnt the M1A1, IPM1, M1A1 HC, M1A2, and the M1A2 SEP supposed to have the same turrent cheek armor? According to their x ray model they should, but their protection values are vastly different for the lower br M1A1 and IPM1, compared to the later Abrams in the tech tree.
Tested protection values against 3bm46 from a t80u.
M1A1 : around 450 mm on the tanks right side, and 500 mm on the tanks left side.
IPM1: Same as M1A1.
M1A1 HC: 660 mm on the right and 740+ mm on the left.
M1A2: Same as M1A1 HC.
M1A2 SEP: same as M1A1 HC and M1A2 abrams.
M1A1 and M1IP used the same armour layout from the M1E1 program (the 1st M1s fitted with 120mm guns but they experimented with other things including increased weight testing using ballast plates welded onto the cheeks for future protection improvements). M1s starting with the M1A1HA added Depleted Uranium inserts into the NERA elements which is why the M1A1HC and onwards have better armour.
Well as mentioned before all those variants of the Abrams use the same armor layout, however to explain it simply that is both the raw numbers rather than the actual effectiveness since the IPM1 and M1A1 were built before they started using depleted uranium armor in the Abrams, only did they have DU armor starting with the M1A2 and the Abrams M1A1 variants especially those of the Marines were upgraded with them. One thing that you should pay attention to is the layers of armor it list, notice how 800mm is labeled as external composite armor with NERA elements, that means it may not necessarily one made up of one type of material but different materials, that’s why the armor effectiveness is greater over time, this also applies to most MBT’s in-game since outside of homogenous armor the armor will be listed as external composite armor with NERA elements.
One thing to note is the only exceptions to this are Soviet MBT’s since people have been able to do research on the T-64, T-72, and T-80 extensively so outside of the T-90A (probably) the composite armor that’s in the Soviet MBT’s and the modernized ones in-game have particularly detailed armor layouts in-game since that is actually based off research and documentation of the vehicles, how this same kind of information is not public for other nations vehicles really since they might at best give limited information such as composition but otherwise you might give numbers of how strong it is however such things should be taken with a grain of salt since their is nothing stoping them from giving a higher or lower number of its effectiveness than what it actually is like, the numbers you see of the armor of most of those vehicles in-game are estimations but they will not be accurate (outside of the previously mentioned Soviet designs) no matter what you try because they are not allowed to for obvious reasons use the actual numbers based on classified documents, if the first classified document incident didn’t make it very clear that they do not tolerate that sort of information being leaked even if it is accurate.
yeah i get what you mean, i just find it odd that it doesnt list anyway in the model that it is more effective (even with the same layout). Just change it from like 800 mm to 1000mm or list it as 800 mm nera with inserts or something, just something so you can see it is different would be nice, instead of it being listed as being the same, even tho it isnt
i was about to suggest maybe make the stat card different between the models that has the insert and the ones that dont, but i just noticed that according to the stat card, the m1 abrams has more turrent and hull armor then the later variants…
Gaijin should have at least gave the abrams tanks slightly better armor with 2nd gen du armor m1a1hc and m1a2 and the 3rd gen du armor m1a2sep even if we have no stats on it, and the export m1a1 aim shouldnt have same armor as the tech tree abrams. Takes one search to see they are diffferent armors and gaijin does not care, make them all the same generic nera