Is Nizh really as good as we believe though? Saw something a day or two ago, I’m sure some of you saw or read it.
Still a really cool era concept.
In the upcoming Tusk Force update, War Thunder (Gaijin) developers announced the addition of the BM “Oplot-T” tank. We won’t be discussing whether the Ukrainian BM “Oplot” (specifically “Oplot”, not “Oplot-T”) should also be added to the USSR tech tree. Today’s topic is something else — the falsification of the characteristics of the Ukrainian explosive reactive armor (ERA) systems “Nozh” and “Duplet”.
Although experts have already pointed out this issue, the developers only slightly adjusted the protection of the BM “Oplot-T”, and even after those changes, it is still represented completely incorrectly in the game.
What We See in War Thunder
According to War Thunder data:
- ERA “Relikt” — 250 mm vs kinetic, 600 mm vs HEAT
- ERA “Kontakt-5” — 120 mm vs kinetic, 450 mm vs HEAT
- ERA “Nozh” / “Duplet” (2דNozh”) — 140 mm vs kinetic, 310 mm vs HEAT
(“Duplet” in the game simply doubles “Nozh”: 280 mm and 620 mm)
On paper, this makes it seem like “Nozh” is barely better than “Kontakt-5”, and “Duplet” only just matches “Relikt”. But real-life data shows something very different.
What Real Tests Show
Official Ukrainian sources give the following figures for resistance to HEAT (as a percentage reduction of the shaped charge’s penetration):
- Relikt — up to 80%
- Kontakt-5 — 50–80%
- Nozh — 80%
- Duplet — 90% and more
If we convert these percentages into millimeters by proportion relative to “Relikt” (600 mm at 80%):
- Relikt: 600 mm — 80%
- Kontakt-5: 488 mm — 65%
- Nozh: 600 mm — 80%
- Duplet: 675 mm — 90%
Now compare with War Thunder:
- Relikt: 600 mm — 600 mm
- Kontakt-5: 488 mm — 450 mm
- Nozh: 600 mm — 310 mm
- Duplet: 675 mm — 620 mm
Kontakt-5 in the game is shown almost correctly (a 38 mm difference). If we assume 60% instead of 65%, we get exactly 450 mm (600 × 60 / 80), which confirms this method works and matches Ukrainian data. Duplet also roughly matches (675 vs 620 mm, a 57 mm difference).
But Nozh is underrated by almost a factor of two — this is the first clear case of falsification by War Thunder.
What About Kinetic Ammunition
For resistance against kinetic projectiles (relative to “Relikt” — 250 mm at 50%):
- Relikt: 250 mm — 50%
- Kontakt-5: 100 mm — 20%
- Nozh: 400 mm — 80%
- Duplet: 450 mm — 90%
War Thunder gives:
- Relikt: 250 mm — 250 mm
- Kontakt-5: 100 mm — 120 mm
- Nozh: 400 mm — 140 mm
- Duplet: 450 mm — 280 mm
Again, Kontakt-5 is shown fairly accurately (error of ~20 mm), but Nozh and Duplet are undervalued several times over.
Why This Matters
According to Ukrainian live-fire tests, Duplet withstood hits from the BM-42 “Mango” APFSDS (penetration ~450 mm at 2 km) fired from only 100 m, where real penetration exceeds 550 mm. After impact, the residual penetration was:
- On mockups with Nozh: 76 mm
- On mockups with Duplet: 58 mm
This means Duplet reduced penetration far more effectively than Nozh, and certainly far better than Kontakt-5.
It’s also important to note: the BM-42 is a two-part core projectile, which interacts with ERA differently from Western monoblock APFSDS. The second core, when breaking up, further damages the rear plate (leaving a dent up to 65–70 mm deep). Similar ERA modules were also tested against more modern rounds (OFL 120 F / DM-43), which outperform the Russian 3BM-60.
In other words, Nozh — and especially Duplet — demonstrated protection at least comparable to Relikt, not half as effective as shown in the game.
Why It’s Important
In fact, according to official test data, Nozh should be at least as good as Relikt — and in some cases even better, while Duplet should be even stronger.
Yet in War Thunder, these Ukrainian ERA systems are shown as outdated and nearly useless, which completely contradicts reality. This creates a false impression that Ukrainian designs are worse than Soviet-era 1980s technology — while in fact the opposite is true.
And this does not look like an accident: if the calculations for Kontakt-5 and Relikt match almost perfectly, but Nozh is undervalued by half, this is not a “mistake” — it is deliberate misrepresentation.
Conclusion
If War Thunder truly claims to be a realistic military simulator, as the developers say, then such falsifications must be corrected immediately.
This post is intended to draw the attention of players, bloggers, military experts, and — most importantly — the developers themselves, so that they stop ignoring real data and finally fix the characteristics of the “Nozh” and “Duplet” ERA.
Right now, War Thunder is not promoting realism — it is promoting a politicized image by distorting the real characteristics of modern equipment.
Sources:
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how true
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90% against oldest Soviet APFSDS, according to the developer of both ERA.
old Nozh went 50% against BM42/M829/DM33, and rather new Duplet went 60% against those rounds.
And as against long-rod penetrator like M829A2/DM33/3BM60 those effectiveness were drop even more, realistic performance of Nozh and Duplet against those rounds will be just little better than Kontakt-5 and worse than Relikt.
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I fully support it, but unfortunately without a big resonance in society the developer will ignore it. It would be nice to enlist the support of moderators who can adequately respond to facts that some “patriots” on the ru-forum do not like and they immediately discard it as false.
And I also recommend creating threads about “Relikt” and “K-5”, there is information that they are not effective (do not work) against shells with a special tip like the DM53, for “K-5” as far as I know this was confirmed by the manufacturer of “K-5”. “Relikt” is its modernization and as far as I know there is no reliable information because the manufacturer claims that it protects against such shells, but the shell manufacturers say the opposite. (In the topics, collect different sources that could be used to confirm this in order to prepare a report)
It is also possible to additionally put forward a proposal with various simulations of modern shells because now in the game “Mango” is practically no different having 2 cores, if the game has the ability to simulate different types of shells, including different types of sub-caliber shells, then it is possible to simulate individual shells with unique design features.
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T-80UE-1 better than this scrap metal xD
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If we consider that the data is given for old shells, then we can say with the same confidence that the “Relikt” protects worse from old shells, that is, its characteristics are overstated relative to all shells.
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Thank you, my friend, perfectly captured and written.
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no matter how hard they’re trying this game will never be balance might as well make everyone get their realistic specification for the better i think.
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Actually, against what rounds was Relikt tested? I know Relikt would have better all-aspect (e.g. angling doesn’t deform protection as much) KE/Chem protection, but what rounds were exactly used against that ERA?
Also would be an interesting thing to see some M829/DM33 results against Nizh, because for the most of the time the ones we always see are by 3BM42, out of curiosity.
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yeah agreed the duplet perfomance in game seems questionable considering the test footage and documents we have available
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Nice job at compiling info, however…
I’ve read similar thread covering Oplot on RU forum, and the tables, as well as photos, were also provided by those who wanted changes for Nizh/Duplet. Yet moderators did not accept any of them (namely the one you use) because:
- photos/videos are of 3rd party source (e.g. unreliable due to nature of source, being not the manufacturer’s ones)
- tables are of dubious origin (e.g. unreliable due to being taken not from manufacturer’s test, or, as mentioned above, are created by 3rd parties)
- lack of manufacturer’s specifications (the problem is not only ERA itself, but on how, where and what affects it’s mounting; returning to “50 mm plate” controversy, Duplet is counted not only by ERA tiles but also “something in-between” layer (devs count it as some damper, either structural steel or rubber) thus the whole thing on Oplot sounds rather underpowered, and because stats from manufacturer’s brochure and photos align, dev’s interpretation is correct… yet again, manufacturer does not state anything used besides Nizh tiles in Duplet ERA system, thus leaving space for speculations)
As much as I support an idea of “buffing” Nizh/Duplet, sadly devs seem to rely on rather more reliable sources than you provide
it was tested against OFL F1 in 2003 by the UAE
Sources in question:
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Soviet tech tree tanks on average are worse than ZTZ99A overall.
T-90M having a bit better areas of protection doesn’t mean much when it’s less mobile in a game whose playerbase prioritizes mobility.
OPLOT armor is yet to be determined, though on last dev it was performing better than BVM’s and MBT-2000’s armor… for one shot.
Yuh, but it was different Nizh, to be more exact, different model of ХСЧКВ component of Nizh ERA system.
The component of Nizh that was tested against OFL 120 F1 (DM43) in UAE is ХСЧКВ-25, a prototype component, that used different materials for “knives” in the ERA, providing much greater performance against monobloc APFSDS (amongst which OFL 120 F1 is), thus stopping those almost completely.
However, the models Ukraine sticked with were 19 and 34. ХСЧКВ-34 is the one that used in Nizh ERA located on hull sides and front, as well as Duplet system specifically, and it uses different, “weaker” (in comparisson to 25) components, that are more practical against hollow-charge (namely ATGMs) and multi-part penetrators (namely, 3BM42) that were more frequent in arsenals of ex-Soviet countries.
It was to be expected.
Almost 1:1 as I stated earlier.
Spoiler
Can’t forget the
and how do you know about this?
Idk, have you tried reading RU forum (rhetorical question given your nickname) on subject of UAE 2003 tests?
Ralin explained it, unless you missed that part.
You can also read the thing if you open them closed bug reports stating sources that come from UAE.