merk was designed starting 1970 and in service 9 years later in 79.
At the time, the neighbouring nations barely had anything more the early model T-72As and T-72M1s etc.
The merk designers were expecting current ammunition and future ammunition but no one can afford to go overboard with armour (on a 65ton obesity). So they expected 3BM15 (400mm at 0*), 3BM17 (similar to 15), 3BM22 (420mm at 0*) and eventually as they came around to it, 3BM26, 3BM32 and 3BM42 ‘mango’ (kek) (457mm at 0*).
So I imagine they would be caught off guard when they found their brain child facing modern 3BM60 in a video game with 580mm of pen at 0*. No wonder it struggles with protection. It was never meant to face such ammunition.
Spoiler
Not from egypt (neutered), not from syria (too busy), not from jordan or lebanon (busy too), and iran is not gonna do a tank invasion because its pretty much unfeasible.
Cannot be taken as fact as that is a claim. And also, given the correct angle, even a BT-5 can ricochet or stop a modern APFSDS shell.
Ive heard the opposite.
Infact, I’ve heard the T-72 has never faced the merkavas and the merkavas have never faced the T-72.
And even against syrian T-62s it suffered losses.
Historical reports from 2010 state that even kornet ATGMs could penetrate the UFP of the merk.
Heck, even the RPG-29 can defeat the SLERA of the merk.
this is a relative method of calculation you are taking. br spread doesnt matter. Stats do. And the penetration statistics show that the supposed 9.7 russian missile has 1,200mm of penetration. So yeah. please recheck your claims with respect to penetration vs armour values instead of br.
This is accurate to real life. And since personal experience is valid evidence here… I have seen it. so its true.
thats just purely wrong. SLERA is basically ERA with less explosive filler so it can be stacked. but we know that the main thickness of the UFP of the merk is no where more than 400mm and not all of that is SLERA ‘active’. hence tandem warheads and modern ammunition that the merk faces in game go thru like butter.
Kotakt-5 is way better purely because it has more filler and has been designed to face modern ammunition ever sine Kontakt-1 dropped.
again, this is not part of the discussion which was abt the UFP. no side armour on any tank i know can stop an APFSDS shell.
but yes i agree to this.
in your opinion it isnt. we can disagree.
thats… a biased statement if i ever heard one. Ive seen knocked out T-80BVMs and T-90s and they have a BRUTAL amount of pure muscle in their UFP. The merk cannot match that while maintaining 65 tons.
not always true and i dont know which tanks you are talking about, the merk is a 1979 starting service tank while the t-72 is a 1969 starting service tank. im not saying the base model T-72 has better UFP than the merk but were comparing in game so its not a T-72 itll be a T-80 (1976)(base model) or T-90 (1992).
This is not a Merk special feature, every tank has gone thru this. Even ammunition does.
nearly 100mm more isnt a small margin…
it has.
without SLERA, merk armour in real life would be vastly weaker.
IMO it will still get penetrated easily by the ammunition variety that it faces in game.
the engagement scenarios in game can prove unrealistic, but thats what makes WT a game. its not always realistic. we have to bear that in mind.
in my experience it can and the armour is considerably tough to beat with older APFSDS.
