Or it could be modular composite armour.
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i dont think so? waiting for more details
Segmented longitudinally? I´ve only seen that on reactive armor. From eyeballing, each box may be like this:
Id wager they’re composite/NERA modules aswell. Makes little to no sense to have ERA modules sunk in like this, if any of them were to go of they’d be pretty much be unchangeable due to structural damage to the front end
Well, ERA is still the most efficient type of armor weight/volume wise. Using a non-reactive type of armor would come at the expense of lesser potential protection value. Still, that ERA detonating would only destroy the front hull sensors (which can be replaced quickly, we are talking about China here), not the structure of the tank itself.
For replacing any detonated ERA module I think there can be 2 ways: dismount the front cover together with the sensor platform or do it from the top.
I would think it is impossible for this to be ERA, as there have been no precedent in putting ERA behind existing armour, as well as the issue aforementioned, that the explosion of the round will lead to structural damage, which is contained by NERA or other composites, rather than expanded as with ERA. Another potential issue with this is with the shape, as u have highlighted ur self, it will be extremely irregular and no existing ERA can provide that sort of shape.
On one hand yes, there is precedent of ERA in between not ERA layers which is found on Merkava 3. And that specific aspect of the Merkava 3 was shared precisely with the Chinese back in the 90s when General Tal (chief designer of Merkava program) visited China in official capacity as part of technology sharing agreements. The Chinese later went on to write an article about it, citing speciffically the Israeli way of integrating ERA and NERA.
However this is not what we are seeing here. Type 100 actual hullfront end is a vertical wall that is parallel to the iddler wheel, very similar to T-14.
So what you have first is the sensor mount, then a layer of steel or composite that is just a cover.
The upper section of the hull front -above the tow hooks and behind of the sensors- has extra armor modules, the frontmost of which appear to be ERA, which is what I pointed out. Whats directly behind those blocks I have no idea for the moment but it could well be another type of addon and then the base armor proper. I have no way yet to estimate thickness of the “add-on” directly behind the “ERA” nor the base armor. But I´ll figure something out sooner or later.
The issue is T-14 doesn’t have ERA at that specific part, The T-14 has still, evidently flat ERA, which are fine to implement, however ERA of this shape, I would suggest is next to impossible, since ERA will need a base plate to operate on, and there would be no reason to ‘leave extra space’ for the ERA. Another issue of using ERA here is again the damage to sensors, since APFSDS round may not necessarily damage the sensors, ERA certainly will, it doesn’t make much sense to use ERA here especially if it has potential of extending damage to a vehicle so dependent of sensors.
Also the tank has no volume concerns certainly since almost everything before the crew casing can be used as armour.
Thats not true, there are many box-shaped ERA modules out there. Its the flyer plates inside what need to be sloped, which doesn´t coincide with external geometry. Example:
If the tank gets hit on the front, the sensors are already gone ERA or not. And besides, again, we are talking about China here. They can produce and replace whatever element at any rate they need.