Challenger II & Leclerc Armor for SB

[Paul Lakowski]

OK I've been asked to generate some updated estimates for the Challenger II and Leclerc tanks, since I gather they are going to be included in some expansion kit? So if any one has any info on the various combinations of armor and any snipits or photos . I would greatly appreciate seeing them so I can get the best armor estimate generated. If people don't wish to put these on the net , they can email me at < psl@interchange.ubc.ca>. All credit will be given and confidentiality protected...[ IE "alright to use as basis for estimate, but please don't put the info on the net" etc etc].

[dejawolf]

here's a video with some very good footage of the challenger glacis array:

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1...challenger+tank

 

there's a computer image at 02:11 and a short video of the glacis array itself is shown at 02:19

at 04:03 there's a small clip of the gunner and TC.

 

this one has a fair amount of footage of the loaders position:

 

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/505802/challenger_2/

 

at 1:53 and 5:14

 

this website also has some pictures of the challenger 2 interior, and various components:

 

http://www.aeronautics.ru/archive/armored_...ery/index_3.htm

 

btw was any of the pictures i sent by email useful?

Edited September 28, 2008 by dejawolf

[Paul Lakowski]

Hi Stu Nils and dejawolf..thanks for the info. I will get back to you guys next week since I have a week off work.

 

Raino, do you have any idea of how accurate that model of C-2 is ?

[dejawolf]

Hi Stu Nils and dejawolf..thanks for the info. I will get back to you guys next week since I have a week off work.

 

Raino, do you have any idea of how accurate that model of C-2 is ?

 

its reasonably accurate. i based it off a trumpeter kit, and did adjustments by eye where the kit didn't seem to fit reference photos.

i'd say its accurate to within 15cm at worst.

Edited October 2, 2008 by dejawolf

[dejawolf]

found this account:

 

The M1 steel is "High Yield Steel" (HYS):320-380 BHN.

All western Chobham armored Tanks feature Semi Hardened Steel as a part of the layered structure.

Chobham is assume to use ceramics 4 times harder than RHA and much lighter.

High Hardened Steel (HHS) 500-600 BHN, offer 30-35% more resistance than RHA,

but its twice the price, difficult to weld.

The Leclerc and Leo feature this armor as a part or the layers.

On the other hand, the M1 has "added" DU layer to "cope" better against hits due to the

average steel quality of its armor.

Without it (DU), the latest ammo would probably go straight through with a laugh.

Leo and Leclerc do NOT need it YET.

Now, keep in mind the Leclerc armor, while being TRIPLE High Hardened Steel,

include ceramics and a classified Plastic.

The believed Armor values are the following:

M1A1HC/M1A1HA+/M1A2

Turret: 880-900 KE, 1310-1620 HEAT

Glacis:560-590 KE Glacis:510-1050 HEAT

Lower front hull:580-650 KE 800-970 HEAT

 

M1A2 SEP

Turret: 940-960 KE, 1320-1620 HEAT

Glacis:560-590 KE, 510-1050 HEAT

Lower front hull:580-650 KE, 800-970 HEAT

 

Leclerc Glacis 580-600 KE, 1040-1060 HEAT,

Hull side: 90 KE, 420 HEAT,

Turret Front 890-910 KE , 1220-1420 HEAT,

Lower front hull : 780 KE , 850 HEAT

We can see that the latest Abrams have a small advantage,

but look at the weight of the Tanks!!

Leclerc can achieve almost the same protection level while weighting 15 tons less.

[Ssnake]

The way it is worded makes me doubt that it's an imbalanced view on things. Anyway, what's the source?

[dejawolf]

The way it is worded makes me doubt that it's an imbalanced view on things. Anyway, what's the source?

 

can't remember. think it was strategy page.

yeah i think the armour estimation is mostly bogus, but there's some info on the steel and composites used, so that should count for something.

its not as if we have anything more accurate to go by.

Edited October 15, 2008 by dejawolf

[Special-K]

dejawolf,

 

Do you have any info about the Abrams side and rear armor values? Thanks!

 

 

 

 

-K

[dejawolf]

after some measuring and meddling around,

 

i've measured the challenger front turret armour on the loaders side to be:

 

560mm @ 52.3*68.3 or 94cm actual LOS thickness(measured in 3ds max)

 

the array could be 5+5cm cover plates + 370mm dorchester array (measure taken normal of the front cover plates of the 4cm roof plate) + 18cm cast backplate.

-----------

side turret:

front 1/2:

~4cm coverplate + 29cm dorchester array + 4cm backplate all at 0 degrees

 

rear 1/2

 

0.5cm sheet steel+ 34cm airgap + 4cm steel at around 5 degrees

--------------------

front roof 1/2 above gun:

 

11cm @ 83 degrees

 

other front roof 1/2 above gun:

 

11cm cast +10cm@83 degrees the extra 10cm seems to be some sort of box with a plate bolted onto the top of it. maybe dorchester.

 

roof: 6cm cast +10cm dorchester?

--------------------------

rear turret:

50cm stowage bin+ ~1cm plate + 84cm turret "devices, + ~4cm rear turret wall.

 

these measures should be within +- 2cm accuracy

Edited December 24, 2008 by dejawolf

[Vasiliy Fofanov]

What does "dorchester" mean anyway? Is there *any* hint what defeat principle are we looking at? Except being pretty certain it's not (just) ceramics that the school of thought of late 1990s - early 2000s expected. And what thickness effectiveness against what threats are we expecting. Otherwise these measurements aren't of much help...

[Przezdzieblo]

Heard/read only about something similar to US heavy (DU) armour - but with tungsten instead of DU. Also there was a rumour that 12" of Dorchester stopped M829 (with circa 20" penetration capability).

Edited December 25, 2008 by Przezdzieblo

[dejawolf]

Heard/read only about something similar to US heavy (DU) armour - but with tungsten instead of DU. Also there was a rumour that 12" of Dorchester stopped M829 (with circa 20" penetration capability).

 

that seems a little incredible, it would have to be a lot of tungsten in there.

 

afaik, the front armour on the abrams uses only a DU backing plate?

Edited December 26, 2008 by dejawolf

[Vasiliy Fofanov]

Can we at least assume that dorchester is the evolution of earlier British armor designs that have recently been released to public? I.e. the defeat principle is based on reflecting plates design and not material resistance to penetration/erosion of penetrator body as is the case with ceramic armor?

[Przezdzieblo]

Vasiliy, what do you mean by earlier British armor designs? Are you refering to informations published in "Burlington files" thread?:

http://208.84.116.223/forums/index.php?showtopic=26137

 

If yes, could you point where you have found informations about "reflecting plates"? In all that great stuff AFAIR there is no mention about it. It is said that there are "numerous mechanisms" that "attack" all parts of jet. There is no real answer how does it work.

The only clue might be one diagram (appendix A, sheet 2), which shows parallely placed layers - but with no other details.

 

So, where to find information about that in case of designs earlier than Dorchester - Burlington then, more popular named as Chobham - the main principle of jet defeating were the movement of reflecting plates?

[Vasiliy Fofanov]

The only clue might be one diagram (appendix A, sheet 2), which shows parallely placed layers - but with no other details.

 

That's the one I am referring to indeed. There was also an interesting moment somewhere in the international cooperation section where Americans were initially cold to the new design saying "oh not another one of that ceramics shit" and then having a change of heart after being told this is something entirely different...

[Paul Lakowski]

That's the one I am referring to indeed. There was also an interesting moment somewhere in the international cooperation section where Americans were initially cold to the new design saying "oh not another one of that ceramics shit" and then having a change of heart after being told this is something entirely different...

 

Perhaps you need to read up what they were researching in the area of ceramics for their T-95 tank programme....then you would understand what they meant.

[Przezdzieblo]

Vasiliy, then I am not sure if it is enough to say that Burlington used reflecting plates as jet defeating mechanism.

 

There is also one more fragment of stuff published by Jake C., in scan file called orginally (as I copied it from Jake`s flickr account) 2863027865_a800918b49_b.jpg, which might be interesting:

a. The basic principles of orthodox armour development in the WEST are well known and have been studied by all countries which produce armoured fighting vehicles. These developments have included the study of materials sich as improved steels, other metals, plastics, ceramics, glass and other fibre reinforcement to produce homogenous, composite and sandwich armours. None ot these armours provide defence against HEAT attack on principles similar to BURLINGTON.

There is not mention about uncomparable level of protection - but principles itself. Burlington is said to use different mechanisms than "improved steels, other metals, plastics, ceramics, glass and other fibre reinforcement".

It looks like British were able to make something really new...

...or British thought that new armour is something really new...

...because even then British did not really know how the new armour does work (which is mentioned in other scan).

Maybe the real invention was just combination of many materials that used different principles - and this is what is that quoted fragment saying? So, not really new principles, but mix of jet defeating mechanisms, which proved good, and - as could be seen in Jake`s scans - was later improved to work cooperatively?

 

 

Paul, do you know if during T95 program there were tested any other ceramics than fuzed silica (in form ot siliceous core armor)?

 

 

dejawolf, thanks for those some measuring and meddling around

Edited December 28, 2008 by Przezdzieblo

[Vasiliy Fofanov]

Perhaps you need to read up what they were researching in the area of ceramics for their T-95 tank programme....then you would understand what they meant.

 

I *did* read that up actually. And came to my conclusions as to what they meant. The entire "ceramic armor" business looks increasingly like a scam to me, I am not sure anymore there is *any* modern tank out there that uses a sandwiched ceramics array as a principal defeat mechanism

[dejawolf]

well, here's some measurements of the leclerc, based off the scale drawings supplied by tamiya.

i had some problems at first, until i discovered the length supplied of the leclerc was actually of the pre-production prototype, without the extended mudguard on the front hull, and vertical portion of front armour.

one of the later variants had a more sloping front armour, which made it slightly longer, and when i used those measures, it all fell together almost perfectly.

 

anyways, here are the values i extracted:

all in non-RHAe values

 

front turret:

 

TC front close to gun:

 

91cm@25

 

35cm composite slab + 22cm + 35cm these are what seems to be the general "array spacing" as some lines can be seen on the roof here. i'm not sure what they mean though.

could be the array is 35cm composite slab, 4cm cover plate, 18cm composites, 4cm wall, 31cm composites, back wall.

 

TC outer front:

 

84cm@57

 

32cm composite slab + 19cm +33cm

 

front turret around gun:

 

4cm gunshield + 12cm airgap + 4cm plate + 34cm trunnion room + 5cm backplate.

 

gunners front close to gun:

 

27cm composite slab + 4cm plate + 105cm of.. stuff. its in the GPS area, so maybe it could be a few CM of gps,

depending on the shape of the GPS, which i've tried to find.

there's plenty of room on the front for the sight equipment that is not part of the space between

front armour plate and the gunner. but i think the GPS does extend down into the armour, since the leclerc T10 has an extra slab of armour in the front there.

 

gunners outer front:

85cm@55 degrees.

29+56cm

 

side turret:

 

14cm stowage + 30cm french composites.

 

upper side gun tunnel area: ~4cm

 

--------------------------------------------------------

FRONT HULL:

 

glacis:

18cm@76

 

i have no idea what its made of.

 

lower front hull:

 

35cm @ 35

 

again, no idea what the composition might be.

--

hull side:

 

front skirts area 1/2:

 

~13cm sideskirt+74cm air + inner plate

 

the skirt itself might be just 2 spaced plates, roughly 4cm thick each. inner side hull thickness is unknown.

 

thats it for now. i'll do some more measuring later.

Edited January 5, 2009 by dejawolf

[dejawolf]

here's also some pictures of the leclerc i found:

 

this one shows a few areas of interest in the drivers spot

http://www.dejawolf.com/steelbeasts/leclercfronthull.jpg

 

and here's a pano picture i threw together fairly roughly, showing the view above the drivers left shoulder. you get a small glimpse of the thickness of the armour, and also a rough idea of its build.

http://www.dejawolf.com/steelbeasts/leclercdriverpano.jpg

 

this picture shows a weldline on the bottom part of the front hull, which i suspect is the thickness of the front hull armour array.

http://www.dejawolf.com/steelbeasts/p1030189.jpg

[dejawolf]

some more digging:

 

found this webpage with some tiny tidbits on leclerc armour.

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?u=...en&ie=UTF-8

 

Blindage versatile modular and scalable, composite and multi-layer steel hardness for the glaze and composite armor for the side

 

i also came across some pages stating that the leclerc had titanium in its armour arrays.

 

here's a webpage which seems to sell the leclerc:

 

http://www.nexter-group.fr/index.php?optio...1&Itemid=79

 

there's some information on the VBCI, stating it uses titanium and very high hardness steel.

 

which at least strengthens the argument that the leclerc contains triple-hardness steel and titanium in its armour.

 

http://blogs.nofrag.com/DoC_FouALieR/2006/...es-de-blindage/

 

this webpage also shortly mentions titanium as part of the leclercs armour array, and says something about granite was tested as armour in one of the prototypes.

and it states the leclerc armour has similar qualities to the leopard 2A5 front armour, breaking up the penetrator before hitting the main armour.

so my guess on the leclerc front turret armour would be multiple spaced high hardness steel plates, with a composite ceramic / titanium backing.

 

the turret weights around 19 metric tonnes.

Edited January 23, 2009 by dejawolf

[dejawolf]

found this thing http://wapedia.mobi/en/Chobham_armour

 

based on this, it seems likely the challenger uses chobham-style armour, with silicon carbide inserts instead of alumina, and tungsten backing.

[Vasiliy Fofanov]

based on this, it seems likely the challenger uses chobham-style armour, with silicon carbide inserts instead of alumina, and tungsten backing.

 

What is the source's authority?

[dejawolf]

What is the source's authority?

its quoting zaloga and hull it seems.

but there's no way to be 100% certain any way.

[Vasiliy Fofanov]

its quoting zaloga and hull it seems.

 

Hmph. So we are running in circles it seems