The NRC doc is a major killer for DU in the hull… @Count_Trackula
BUT: As the US does produce Heavy Armor for export models as well, the lack of DU does not stipulate a lack of armor improvement in the hull, it’s just hard to find something that says “Hull Protection Improved” implicitly.
So far everything that is credible (not a blog, research paper, etc) just says Protection improved, or at best “Protection improved, turret protection improved.” Which could be read either way.
(And remember… the people we’re trying to convince… REALLY don’t want to improve it…we can see that from this Devserver lul)
Except there are numerous documents that contradict that. Including more recent ones.
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In some way they improved the hull armor either with DU or improved ceramics it’s just hard to find info on which one it its. Either way it was improved in some form.
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Won’t ever know, but it could be as simple as “it was determined that DU in the turret did not produce enough rads to be dangerous to crew, but DU in turret AND hull was dangerous to the crew.”
One could infer that to mean Frontal et al… but one could also interpret that to mean turret frontal and side. We’re putting a lot of weight on word order here. (And in Russian language… the order of words in a sentence doesn’t carry that as much weight as it does in English.) That sentence could be translated as “Turret Frontal and Side Protection” to them and it would make just as much sense.
That’s the real trouble here.
I also did find this about the maturing program Survivability Enhancement program (SEP) at the time mentioning about hull and turret armor improvements.
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But this is English, so was the source, and the frontal protection had no qualifier. Only the side protection was qualified by “turret.”
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Unfortunately, vague presentations and speculative research papers don’t count for much when they don’t want to implement the change.
If the RMOD said the SEPv2 had improved hull armor, they might do it… but outside of that; we’re going to need documents we’re not allowed to use.
(They’ve got a brilliant system for buffing their favorite modern tanks and nerfing others… and then they get all meme-y on getting handed classified documents to disprove their BS about NATO vehicles.)
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Noted. Well, thanks for being patient while letting me beat the dead horse again! XD
Who knows? Maybe they tested a few with DU armour in the hull and for whatever reason it never went anywhere and those tanks were just repurposed.
We are clearly missing context on the purpose of this document or how it ties into it, considering plenty of other official documents state that there are DU hull armor variants.
No, that NRC licence would be incredibly strict, I don’t think there is any missing context, well bar the fact it is from 2006 i.e. it could be the M1A2 SEPv3 has DU in the hull, but I have no info on that.
The M1A1 SA modernization includes steel encased depleted uranium for increased
frontal and turret side armor protection
Yes there is DU on the front and side of the turret which was being added later on and may have been an upgrade for this
There was also improved frontal amour that was being implemented in 2002, however if it was in regards to the hull receiving DU the NRC licence application would need to state that.
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That whole source gets annihilated by the qualifier words “will make” “will provide” “were to included” “were being designed.”
They’re not definitive…
Well yes but that’s because m1a2 sep wasn’t in production at the time of that document. Thats why it says, “maturing program”.
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There was no qualifier for frontal protection improvement. The turret was specifically mentioned with regards to side protection.
But why do we only see one NRC license? This is the only one that’s been brought up every time someone talks about it. Why don’t we see the licenses for the older M1A1s and their DU upgrades previously? We are definitely missing something here. Unless the license was issued only once and in 2006, I don’t think we can say this explains everything or even enough.
That’s been the most compelling part I’ve seen… but it doesn’t have any statistics to go with it.
The US has a habit of not saying “this is how much we’ve improved the armor” in open letter brochures- which is great for protecting knowledge of their capabilities from the world at large… but kinda hamstrings US mains in Warthunder.
There’s no “US Armor is immune to 3BM59” to go off of.
(Because unlike certain Governments/MoDs who like to lie through their teeth to the world… to their faces about equipment, the US doesn’t work in that. I suppose it helps that the US government finances the R&D and later sales are nice for the contractor, as opposed to having the sales fund the R&D forcing one to lie like used car salesman.)
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I encourage people to go voice their opinion of the dev blog on how dissatisfy we are about the Abrams and how it is being implanted.
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Go for it.
I’ve spent too long being slapped down on that hill by double standards and blatant bias to want expend the effort. I have other games to play.
SoD just came out… ASA is out, D4 is getting a new season, DF S3 is still goin… etc.
At least the premium I got that is presently being wasted was half price…
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Well, here are some newer licenses.:
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1619/ML16190A098.pdf
https://www.nrc.gov/docs/ML1933/ML19331A319.pdf
Apparently “as needed” now. I guess the 5 limit wasn’t as big of a deal as once thought? Maybe those 5 in 2006 were testbeds for something around the corner in 2007 (SEP v2)?
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On second thought, who can make sense of this NRC document? If I think I am reading this right isn’t this stating their are two different types of DU armour types i.e. an A. and a B.
This would actually backup what Count posted in regards to the SA:
“The M1A1 SA modernization includes steel encased depleted uranium for increased frontal and turret side armor protection”
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