The "deplorable" state of British armored vehicles

[Mighty_Zuk]

The impact was to the side of a turret, so any variant of Leopard and Challenger would be toast.

[MikeKiloPapa]

11 hours ago, Ssnake said:

The ammo hull stowage is a problem with every Leopard 2.

A "problem" it shares with pretty much every single MBT ever built, save for the M1 and now Armata. Even newer(compared to Leo2) designs such as Leclerc, Type 10, K2 , Merkava mk 4 and Altay have retained hull ammo storage in one form or another.  There is probably a reason for that.

[Stuart Galbraith]

26 minutes ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

The impact was to the side of a turret, so any variant of Leopard and Challenger would be toast.

All hail the mighty Megatron!

[MikeKiloPapa]

5 hours ago, seahawk said:

So, one can say they are death traps.

Only if you consider every tank except the M1 to be death traps. Because no other MBT contemporary with the Leopard 2A4 would have fared any better, and certainly not the Challenger 1 which also has ammo in the hull and considerably less hull armor to protect it with.  Besides, based on the hit location and the large caliber ATGM used in the attack, even an M1A1 Abrams would likely have been disabled. While it may not have suffered a catastrofic ammo detonation, the crew would almost certainly have been killed. 

Its also worth noting that not a single missile at Afrin/Al-bab etc have been aimed at the Leo 2s frontal armor, they were all flank or rear shots, and the one in the video above is quite clearly targeting the weaker hull side armor covering the ammo bunker. 

While there is no doubt that Turkeys ill-fated venture into Syria have caused lasting damage to the Leopard 2s reputation, the losses incurred were caused more by the Turkish army's ineptitude than poor tank design.

[lucklucky]

It is just me that think the explosion appears too big for a tank hit?

Edited March 22, 2021 by lucklucky

[bojan]

35 minutes ago, MikeKiloPapa said:

...they were all flank or rear shots, and the one in the video above is quite clearly targeting the weaker hull side armor covering the ammo bunker...

I am not certain if they were actually targeting hull side vs put a crosshair at a middle (joint of the hull and turret) and quasi-spiral flight of AT-4/5 did the rest.

[Dawes]

Looks like "Challenger 3" is officially a thing:

https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/uk-defence-command-paper-british-army-to-be-cut-to-72500-by-2025

[Simon Tan]

No. It is not. When they deliver the first squadron, it may be. 

[Mighty_Zuk]

10 hours ago, MikeKiloPapa said:

A "problem" it shares with pretty much every single MBT ever built, save for the M1 and now Armata. Even newer(compared to Leo2) designs such as Leclerc, Type 10, K2 , Merkava mk 4 and Altay have retained hull ammo storage in one form or another.  There is probably a reason for that.

The Armata and Abrams also have hull ammo.

10 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

All hail the mighty Megatron!

That's not enough to protect against a tandem warhead ATGM. 

Edited March 23, 2021 by Mighty_Zuk

[Stuart Galbraith]

13 minutes ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

The Armata and Abrams also have hull ammo.

That's not enough to protect against a tandem warhead ATGM. 

I cant give you the maths, but I can tell you there is an airgap between that armour slab and the turret side. I know, ive looked at that vehicle in the tin. Id be deeply surprised if that didnt work.

3 hours ago, Simon Tan said:

No. It is not. When they deliver the first squadron, it may be. 

In the early 90's, MOD took delivery of dozens of refurbished Chieftains, which they took out on Salisbury Plain and blew up. it was cheaper to do that rather than cancel the contract. And I personally doubt MOD have improved their ability to write contracts since.

 

[Mighty_Zuk]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

I can't give you the maths, but I can tell you there is an airgap between that armour slab and the turret side. I know, ive looked at that vehicle in the tin. Id be deeply surprised if that didnt work.

Air gaps exist in between armor modules and plates in almost every type of armor.

What's the point here, that an air gap is supposed to stop the 2nd warhead on its own? 

[Stuart Galbraith]

No, that the airgap between Chobham armour and Chobham armour would stop the tandem warhead.

Do I know that for certain? No. But it seems a reasonable supposition considering the large variety of warheads that were appearing in Iraq at the time.

[Ssnake]

12 hours ago, MikeKiloPapa said:

A "problem" it shares with pretty much every single MBT ever built, save for the M1 and now Armata. Even newer(compared to Leo2) designs such as Leclerc, Type 10, K2 , Merkava mk 4 and Altay have retained hull ammo storage in one form or another.  There is probably a reason for that.

I'm not disputing this ... but the M1 demonstrates that ammo and crew can be separated, and, all other factors being equal, is the better design principle for crew protection. That it is expedient to mix ammo and crew is also hard to dispute. It makes ammo handling much easier - as long as the armor holds. But for one, it has never been a good strategy to substitute sound tactics with reliance on armor protection. And these days it's downright moronic if you don't at least field active protection systems. And even with APSs on, you simply shouldn't sit on a hilltop as a missile sponge.

[WRW]

12 hours ago, lucklucky said:

It is just me that think the explosion appears too big for a tank hit?

indeed it looks so - could it be ammo going up?

[Ssnake]

It certainly was more than just the missile. If all the 42 main gun cartridges went up in a single blow, I suppose that's how it could look like; say, a HEAT jet setting off the turret bustle AND on a lucky trajectory to also nick the hull stowage.

It if wasn't on-board ammo, all bets are off what else it might have been. I suppose we can discount the theory of the tank having been parked next to a Chinese firecracker factory, but only because this was Syria.

There's a 9.5 seconds delay between the explosion and the sound arriving at the camera, suggesting a 3.1...3.3km range to target, and while the video ends rather shortly after that it's pretty clear that it wasn't a row of smaller explosions but a single, massive blast.

[Mistral]

9 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

It certainly was more than just the missile. If all the 42 main gun cartridges went up in a single blow, I suppose that's how it could look like; say, a HEAT jet setting off the turret bustle AND on a lucky trajectory to also nick the hull stowage.

It if wasn't on-board ammo, all bets are off what else it might have been. I suppose we can discount the theory of the tank having been parked next to a Chinese firecracker factory, but only because this was Syria.

There's a 9.5 seconds delay between the explosion and the sound arriving at the camera, suggesting a 3.1...3.3km range to target, and while the video ends rather shortly after that it's pretty clear that it wasn't a row of smaller explosions but a single, massive blast.

I saw images of the aftermath of that attack, the Leo was in pieces.  I think theTurks confirmed 5 dead on that day.

[Mistral]

15 minutes ago, Mistral said:

I saw images of the aftermath of that attack, the Leo was in pieces.  I think theTurks confirmed 5 dead on that day.

Found it

https://lostarmour.info/syria/item.php?id=17120

[Adam Peter]

Interesting website, it says the next wreck is 1.151.447 meters away Like a WW2 home is that way road sign.

[bojan]

1 hour ago, Ssnake said:

It certainly was more than just the missile. If all the 42 main gun cartridges went up in a single blow, I suppose that's how it could look like; say, a HEAT jet setting off the turret bustle AND on a lucky trajectory to also nick the hull stowage.

Such explosions happen if HE in HEAT/HE/HESH rounds get set off, usually by HEAT jet passing through one and hitting detonator. If it happens in M1 it is questionable if blast doors would hold, since they are protection vs powder deflagration, not high-order explosion.

[Stuart Galbraith]

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/what-germanys-leopard-2-tank-doing-syria-dying-180646

The Turkish military not only wants additional belly armor to protect against IEDs, but the addition of an Active Protection System (APS) that can detect incoming missiles and their point of origin, and jam or even shoot them down. The U.S. Army recently authorized the installation of Israeli Trophy APS on a brigade of M1 Abrams tanks, a type that has proven effective in combat. Meanwhile, Leopard 2 manufacturer Rheinmetall has unveiled its own ADATS APS, which supposedly poses a lesser risk of harming friendly troops with its defensive countermeasure missiles.

However, German-Turkish relations deteriorated sharply, especially after Erdogan initiated a prolonged crackdown on thousands of supposed conspirators after a failed military coup attempt in August 2016. In February 2017, German-Turkish dual-citizen Deniz Yücel, a correspondent for periodical Die Welt, was arrested by Turkish authorities, ostensibly for being a pro-Kurdish spy. His detention caused outrage in Germany.

Ankara pointedly let it be known that if a Leopard 2 upgrade were allowed to proceed, Yücel would be released back to Germany. Though Berlin publicly insisted it would never agree to such a quid pro quo, Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel quietly began moving towards authorizing the upgrade in a bid to improve relations in the face of what looks suspiciously like tank-based blackmail. Gabriel presented the deal as a measure to protect Turkish soldiers’ lives from ISIS.

Hmm, wonder what kind of upgrade package they might choose.

[TrustMe]

Going off topic slightly but didn't an Israeli Nammer APC shug off a Kornet ATGM hit in Lebanon without causing a kill?

[lucklucky]

It has been reported, note that Namer should be one of most protected AFV/Tanks but in the end also matters  where and how it hits. No tank/AFV can resist a Kornet from all 360º.

[Mighty_Zuk]

47 minutes ago, TrustMe said:

Going off topic slightly but didn't an Israeli Nammer APC shug off a Kornet ATGM hit in Lebanon without causing a kill?

Namers were not even operational by 2006.

The first claimed combat use was in Gaza, in operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), but the real widespread use was in 2014's Operation Protective Edge, also in Gaza.

In Gaza they have indeed shrugged off pretty much any type of AT weapon fired at them (Hamas uses the Kornet as well), plus the IDF's own 155mm artillery in very close range, plus the collapsing structures in the aftermath.

These 60-65 ton behemoths are resilient like no other combat vehicle in the world, but the IDF now prioritizes things differently, preferring to give up some of that protection for added mobility.

The IDF currently pursues AFVs in the 30 ton range and above, believed to flex up to 50 something tons but not the same 65 tons of the Namer.

3 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

No, that the airgap between Chobham armour and Chobham armour would stop the tandem warhead.

Do I know that for certain? No. But it seems a reasonable supposition considering the large variety of warheads that were appearing in Iraq at the time.

The airgap is one part of a large mechanism to gradually dissipate the jet's energy. That alone will do nothing. To be effective against tandem warheads, an armored area needs to have at least multiple reactive armor layers, each with a sturdy enough backplate to absorb residual penetration.

The Challenger 2's baseline side turret armor's ability to withstand the main warhead of an ATGM is questionable to say the least.

Edited March 23, 2021 by Mighty_Zuk

[Stuart Galbraith]

19 hours ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

Namers were not even operational by 2006.

The first claimed combat use was in Gaza, in operation Cast Lead (2008-2009), but the real widespread use was in 2014's Operation Protective Edge, also in Gaza.

In Gaza they have indeed shrugged off pretty much any type of AT weapon fired at them (Hamas uses the Kornet as well), plus the IDF's own 155mm artillery in very close range, plus the collapsing structures in the aftermath.

These 60-65 ton behemoths are resilient like no other combat vehicle in the world, but the IDF now prioritizes things differently, preferring to give up some of that protection for added mobility.

The IDF currently pursues AFVs in the 30 ton range and above, believed to flex up to 50 something tons but not the same 65 tons of the Namer.

The airgap is one part of a large mechanism to gradually dissipate the jet's energy. That alone will do nothing. To be effective against tandem warheads, an armored area needs to have at least multiple reactive armor layers, each with a sturdy enough backplate to absorb residual penetration.

The Challenger 2's baseline side turret armor's ability to withstand the main warhead of an ATGM is questionable to say the least.

Well feel free, but what you cant question is that the only time the vehicle penetrated was through the weakest part, the bow armour. And even then the crew were able to evacuate the vehicle.

I think the more significant difference is less in the armour, than in how the ammunition/propellant was stored. Not that I like Hesh rounds stored in the fighting compartment, that was silly, but the real problem seems to me to be propellant.

[Mighty_Zuk]

24 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Well feel free, but what you cant question is that the only time the vehicle penetrated was through the weakest part, the bow armour. And even then the crew were able to evacuate the vehicle.

That is hardly relevant when the Challenger 2 had to endure far less serious opposition than contemporary designs, because it saw very limited combat service in comparison.

Tanks such as the Abrams and Merkava have been in persistent combat for several decades, against opposition whose bread and butter is heavy IEDs, heavy ATGMs. Tanks of the T-series have been in almost every meaningful warzone.

Those tanks have indeed provided us with sufficient relevant data to understand their level of protection.

The Challenger 2 has been in a very limited combat, against enemies that are not particularly well armed. One of the most mythical stories surrounding it is how it withstood a barrage of RPGs, but those were 40mm HE-F variants, not HEAT.

So as long as the Challenger 2 is used exclusively by the UK and Oman, neither having faced a serious opponent in a shooting war that warrants the use of MBTs, we cannot judge in the absence of data with such absolute claims.

 

What we can do, is make logical estimates based on other data we have at hand. 

1)The CR2's armor is not modular.

2)It was not updated in well over 20 years.

3)Any addition in armor would come as an applique, with a minimum weight of 65 tons.

4)The turret sides have no meaningful amount of armor without an applique, particularly where the ammo is stored.