I feel if we can’t get the armor buffs for ke right now then we should at least start with adding the iron vest system that’s been introduced since the merkava mk3. Give it some spall liners
From what I’ve seen, this could potentially only relate to the earlier Merkava Mk.4A, which iirc has an older type of armor compared to the Mk.4B/M, and the Mk.4 Barack further improves on top of that. (At least that’s what it appears, given the different visual appearance of the armor, which means it may very well be the same type of armor with a different geometric layout to it.) I also swear I once read somewhere the Mk.4A used NxRA and the turret used SLERA, or I might be mixing a vehicle or fact up, can’t cite my source as I don’t remember it but I thought it might be worth mentioning incase anyone here more knowledgeable has the ability to verify that
Dont forget the Israeli APS hasnt worked in… I dont even know, coming up on a year… yet they just added a new russian tank with functional APS this patch
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Though the safest assumption to make would be that if Merkava 4 resisted Kornets, its more likely that its referring to the frontal arc rather than the sides or back. All available Israeli soures state that Merkava 4 resisted Kornet impacts. I have a few good others but I can´t post them now as I´m away from my archive. This said, its also good to keep in mind that from pictures and the like we know that the turret side modules feature up to 9 layers of SLERA, each of which has a comparable effectiveness to ERA. So, CE protection up to Kornet level even on the turret side can´t be ruled out.
I remember an article from years ago going into detail about the 401st losses in Wadi Salouki, the big famous ambush on Merk 4 units. It states that the tanks that suffered penetrations were hit on the back. Sadly, I did not save that article.
I have searched online, only 5 merkava crewmen died, 4 from an IDE, 1 died from a hit to the back of the tank…
And that’s actually incredible, even I believed the propaganda that they performed poorly (which might be true from bad use), but the armor worked like a charm, there are a lot of video of Merkava 4 in 2006 getting hits…
The rest of the dead were mark 2 and 3
Yea, a lot of people say a lot of stuff… But we don’t actually know. The NxRA could be some kind of armor that was never used, or if so it will probably be used for rafael armor export… It is extremely unlikely that Israel has patented it’s own armor for commercial use. Israel is also very reluctant to sell any armor technology related to Merkava.
I have heard that there was a deal to sell mark 2 and 3 to some country in the balkan I believe, but they had to promise israel not to sell these to Ukraine, so it won’t end up in russian hands…
What we do know about the armor, is that it has 270 coverage, it is half way reactive between NERA and ERA, it is modular, and fragile. That last characteristic, fragility means the it is also highly efficient…
Can you imagine making a tank that sacrifices the engine, the armor the whole thing to save the crew, just to have armor equivalent to rubber (as some one write in forum perviously) and the crew dies anyway… Absurd
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My thoughts, I’ve been watching this thread and I think the armor doesn’t really need a buff and spall liners would do it great, If they more of worked on the trophy and it’s ability to intercept Munitions the Merkava would excel. A spall liner could do wonders and I feel as though it would have them IRL considering the design of it to fight a war against Missiles and Mines. ( I lack a source for the Spall liners just a hope)
Armor does need buff, especially turret armor.
It cant even stop 3BM42 reliably.
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The armor buff does need to happen, but I do feel like as I said, spall liners could potentially be the first steps into making the merkava more mbt offensive. I do think that the philosophy behind the merks have to incorporate some kind of spall liner. It just makes sense. Or spall armor for crew potentially. But the fact does still stand that the merks do indeed need an armor buff, it is considerably well long over due now. Plus the APS fix WHERE IS IT GAIJIN!?!?
Though this came straight and explicitly from IDF´s Armored Corps and latter repeated by various crews in various instances.
That Rafael patent explains only part of Merk 4 armor modules working. Theres another one that deals on how those modules defeat KE threats.
I don´t know if you read my article on this issue but whenever I get to write follow ups we´ll have plenty of primary sources to bug report everything.
Long story short, the armor is designed to be reactive to HEAT jeats (hence the SLERA/NxRA detonate) but against APFSDS the amor module is fully passive and works as a set of spaced composite plates that destabilize the projectile that is passing through. Should be modelled as no less than 700mm KE as the patent even goes as far as stating the specific APFSDS it was designed to counter while additional features described in the patent enhance the effectiveness against AFPSDS with L-D ratio of 30:1. I managed to identify those additional elements in Merk 4 armor modules and even tracked down the manufacturer of the most important ones.
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I’m really starting to feel your our only hope for a shot at getting the change. How close are you to feeling comfortable making a full report with your documents for info?
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I’m working on an addendum to part 1, with further supporting material. That should be enough for 1 bug report dealing with frontal protection. Parts 2 and 3 will deal with side and turret armor, each should provide enough for different reports as well.
But really I have no ETA for any since I’m dealing with a lot of stuff currently.
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Sounds great brother, keep at it, I have beliefs that you could pull this off for the player base of Israel. So far your the only one with some credibility on the push for the buff so I stand behind you to help push for this👍
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Yea I remember we had interactions in the past, years ago. Nice hearing from you, I also know your blog, very nice work.
I actually saw the second patent but, maybe stupidly I thought that it’s a duplicate as I read some of it and it seemed like the same text… so I ignored it, didn’t know it had so much interesting information about kinetic penetrators…
I think that you have something there, maybe a base for trying to understand how it all works… but I really don’t think that Israel will publish acceptingly how its armor works…
I think what you have there is technology probably used in the 90s, probably ehat was discussed in the us military report about Israeli technology.
for me at least, it’s safe to assume that Merkava 4 armor is a lot more sophisticated (at least a generational leap above the armor described in the patent).
But it is nice to know that my suspicions were correct, that, other tanks try to stop penetrators by using highest density in the shortest time possibile. While the merkava uses geometry and space to guide the penetrator into fresh parts of the armor where it will destroy it self.
*Not sure what you say about fully passive armor, there are no modern composite armor that do nothing, they all move and oscillate. The different that some use energy source from the projectile, others from explosive, or gases ecc…
The name of the game in armor design is weight, having two different parts of armor each for different kinds of penetrator is not a good design as you use only half of what you have. Also it makes no sense that you already have explosives, why not use they for rods ?
Well they did publish it in a way that went under everyones radars for around 20 years. Because there is no one else that noticed the patent until I did by sheer luck. Their trick was to split the whole invention into separate patents. So, between 2004 and 2008 Rafael published a plethora of patents, each talking about a specific individual armor element. Individually, those patents don´t mean much but when you take them collectively and see the pictures of damaged Merk 4 armor modules you realize each patent is describing each individual element present there. So theres one for the SLERA/NxRA part, another for the passive composite plates (I call them “Orlite plates” because they are or were manufcatured by Orlite Ltd.), another for the Kevlar backings (this one I´ll describe in the upcoming addendum to part 1), etc.
Its both sophisticated and relatively cheap to produce. The Orlite plates are manufactured just with compression, for example. And the best part of it is that the SLERA/NxRA flying plates do enhance the effectiveness of the Orlite plate while dealing with KE and viceversa when it comes to HEAT. And that is also described in the patent. So the armor is fully hybrid.
I don’t know about cheap… my guess there is hightech nonsense involved, pribably next generation will involve electricity and sensors. Already probably does…
One thing I think you should reconsider, the hull armor. I believe it’s a whole different thing, much more dense…
It because the hull armor doesn’t need to protect the engine, it uses the engine and the space as armor, so the hull armor just needs to give a good whack to the penetrator sending it away from the crew to be dispersed inside the engine cavity and be absorbed by inner armor…
I love this thing people say, engine is made of alluminum it does nothing… The SPACE it self is the armor ! When you have 3 meters of space to work with after penetration you can do what even you like. Explode the rod, move it up down left right…people don’t like to think
Gaijin don’t understand Merkavas are like modern TOG II, which eat shells with its engine.
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Bias
They sniffing bias like its oxygen
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All I want now is for him to fix the problem that trophy APS is not working properly as soon as possible. The error was submitted eight months ago and has remained unchanged so far
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