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Is it time to update the armor model on the leo2A4?


ole1291
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It has recently been brought to my attention on tanknet that the steelbeast armor model for the Leo2A4 (and therefor later models as well I assume) is very dated and probably off by 300-400mm RHAe (depending on the batch simulated) for the front armor.

This seems to be mainly based on Polish analysis of their tanks as well as various intelligence reports. Also on the fact that the leo2A4 was designed to deal with BM15 or BM22 top and that BM42 (rated at 510mm in SB) should easily penetrate it.

Which is why the 2A5 upgrade happened.

 

1602279_original.jpg 

 

These remarks also seem to apply to M1A1.

 

Now I understand those are just estimates and one doesn't want to tinker with a model all the time, but these are big numbers that would radically alter the course of engagements (possibly making some scenarios unwinnable), and also alter usable tactics with those tanks. 

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1 hour ago, ole1291 said:

 

 

 

Now I understand those are just estimates and one doesn't want to tinker with a model all the time, but these are big numbers that would radically alter the course of engagements (possibly making some scenarios unwinnable), and also alter usable tactics with those tanks. 

 

 

while i have no information to either corroborate support or refute any figures, the challenge of the scenario does not have to be tied exclusively to the armor rating of the vehicles, that is, a designer can simulate morale checks or self preservation behaviors through randomized variables and force attackers to dither, retreat, stall, change course, or a defending force to surrender, retreat and so on, instead of presuming to fight the death, to the last man and so on- which could radically change a player's experience in a scenario as much as the interaction between ammunition and armor performance

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2 hours ago, Captain_Colossus said:

 

 

while i have no information to either corroborate support or refute any figures, the challenge of the scenario does not have to be tied exclusively to the armor rating of the vehicles, that is, a designer can simulate morale checks or self preservation behaviors through randomized variables and force attackers to dither, retreat, stall, change course, or a defending force to surrender, retreat and so on, instead of presuming to fight the death, to the last man and so on- which could radically change a player's experience in a scenario as much as the interaction between ammunition and armor performance

 

Sure, but in practice many scenarios don't really do that, it's a lot of work to script it all. A lot of them end up playing out as a deathmatch of sorts, that's not really the point of this thread though.

The problem in this case is it'll effect your tactics and might result in negative learning.

 

Take the hasty defense classic scenario for instances:

With the current leo2A4, I can win it every time, it's just a question of finding suitable hull down firing positions, and rotating between them to avoid arty. Eventually retreat to other ones and resupply as well but once you get the gist of it you get reliable wins. Part of the reason is the leo2A4 turret front is so strong enemy counter fire rarely damages your tank when hull down.

Now, if the enemy is capable of reliably penetrating your turret this no longer works.  You're forced to  concentrate your entire company on one of of OPFOR axis of advance and use a lot more of ambush/flanking fire. As result, some enemy companies moving on another axis can usually reach the end of the map before you can get to them and winning the scenario has more to do with location of enemy axis of advance (random).

Using the old defense model will just result in your leopard company being destroyed piecemeal by the far more numerous soviet forces.  

Armor models can never be perfect, but 300-400mm RHAe bonus to western tanks makes a huge difference, and they already enjoy so many other advantages.

 

At first I was skeptical esim could be wrong by that much, about 400mm RHAe frontal turret protection for leo2A4 appears to be a consensus everywhere else and we have to admit; why did the Germans upgrade their tanks armor to the 2A5 if 2A4 turret armor already offered 733mm RHAe? 

It only makes sense if it was estimated BM42 could penetrate it (SB has it 510mm)... 

Similar logic could be applied to M1 HA upgrade.

 

Tanknet thread here:

https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/38893-kiev-is-burning/page/2663/

 

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that's the rub- it takes work to script it into a scenario which is both 'natural looking' and stands up to tests and re-tests of the behavior. but that is the way it works in 'real life' though it is rarely encountered in scenarios- so for example, i often find it difficult to slog through a lot of infantry defenses with tanks, because there is usually no script where the enemy  breaks or fails morale checks or would seem to intelligently react and preserve their own forces;

 

i'll be the first to say that i think in some cases there are some strange experiences i have with some vehicles- in particular the bradley and piranah based vehicles which seem seem quite resilient (the latter especially) to the most modern t-72 bk HEAT rounds; without filing a formal protest with figures or data or i do not actually have, or assumptions which would not be more than argument at best, i go into the scenario and adjust behaviors- for example, the df-30 vehicle, which i have seen consistently defeat several 125 mm rounds to the front, or least survive with damages, i will add provisions that the vehicle either 1) effectively retreats, since that is probably what would have happened anyway, or 2) create an automatic destroyed condition in order to simulate routed crews or something even if the vehicle is surviving.

 

in sum: my point is that taking the time however painful it may be to script extra behaviors into the scenario can really change the outcome- not the least of which it is actually more fun to play because you watch an enemy route before energetic efforts and not just programmed to die in place like robots- predictably and often very frustrating- which is not necessarily what commanders want if preserving the force is still intended in future operations

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9 minutes ago, Captain_Colossus said:

that's the rub- it takes work to script it into a scenario which is both 'natural looking' and stands up to tests and re-tests of the behavior. but that is the way it works in 'real life' though it is rarely encountered in scenarios- so for example, i often find it difficult to slog through a lot of infantry defenses with tanks, because there is usually no script where the enemy  breaks or fails morale checks or would seem to intelligently react and preserve their own forces;

 

I agree, but in this case there's not much esim can do about it, at least not without introducing bigger problems, things are actually a bit better now with the surrender option.

Also you can look at it both ways, infantry is unrealistically suicidal, but in a way that still doesn't really compensate for the speed at which infantry combat plays out. I know it always seems so slow from a tank commander point of view but the truth is it's fairly common to sweep a small settlement of enemy infantry within half an hour or so. Compare that to wat's currently happening in Ukraine where fighting for small towns can sometimes take months.

 

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6 minutes ago, Ssnake said:

Generally, we don't cling to wrong parameters that have been shown to be wrong. So, yes, the current model will have to undergo a critical review. What will change, how soon, and by how much, we'll see.

Good to hear.

I was hoping the discussion at tanknet would yield a bit more specific data, especially with regards to the Polish trials, but that wasn't really the case unfortunately.

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3 hours ago, ole1291 said:

Good to hear.

I was hoping the discussion at tanknet would yield a bit more specific data, especially with regards to the Polish trials, but that wasn't really the case unfortunately.

What makes you think that ammunition parameters are correct?

What makes you think that the armour estimates are correct and from a reliable soucre?

What makes you think Leo2A4 got designed to a ammo standart that was already obsolete?

 

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49 minutes ago, Grenny said:

What makes you think that ammunition parameters are correct?

 

Which round do you have in mind in this case?

BM-42? 510mm RHAe in SB. The contention is that it was specially designed to penetrate newer composite armor and would exceed the 510mm against such arrays.

 

49 minutes ago, Grenny said:

What makes you think that the armour estimates are correct and from a reliable soucre?

 

Apparently, the Poles themselves who operate the leo2A4 came to that conclusion, as well as various intelligence reports from the period.

To me, the smoking gun is the 2A5 upgrade, if armor was already sufficient for the current threat, why add the weight?

 

49 minutes ago, Grenny said:

What makes you think Leo2A4 got designed to a ammo standart that was already obsolete?

 

Never said that. It seems Leo2A4 was designed to offer protection against BM15 and maybe BM22.

BM42 was introduced in 1986, by which time the Leo2 was well into production.

 

To get a better idea where I'm coming from you wade through this thread:

https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/38893-kiev-is-burning/page/2668/#comments

 

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Of course, the original Leopard 2 was based on ca. 1977 knowledge of Soviet munitions performance; the 2A4 already may have received an upgrade of the inserts into its armor cavities (it's not mentioned in the literature, but there are hints). Date of introduction was December 1985, so it can be assumed that it would reflect 1982/83 knowledge.

But we may have been too optimistic in our original estimate as far as the use of ceramics is concerned.

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4 hours ago, ole1291 said:

 

Which round do you have in mind in this case?

BM-42? 510mm RHAe in SB. The contention is that it was specially designed to penetrate newer composite armor and would exceed the 510mm against such arrays.

 

 

Apparently, the Poles themselves who operate the leo2A4 came to that conclusion, as well as various intelligence reports from the period.

To me, the smoking gun is the 2A5 upgrade, if armor was already sufficient for the current threat, why add the weight?

 

Never said that. It seems Leo2A4 was designed to offer protection against BM15 and maybe BM22.

BM42 was introduced in 1986, by which time the Leo2 was well into production.

 

To get a better idea where I'm coming from you wade through this thread:

https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/38893-kiev-is-burning/page/2668/#comments

 

Do you think tanks, with a projected lifetime get designed to currently fielded OPFOR ammo? Would be a bit silly...

 

2A4, with its updates in armour setup, was designed around the T-80 a projected threat tank. With verification tests vs paralell developed DM33 rounds...

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13 hours ago, ole1291 said:

Take the hasty defense classic scenario for instances:

With the current leo2A4, I can win it every time, it's just a question of finding suitable hull down firing positions, and rotating between them to avoid arty. Eventually retreat to other ones and resupply as well but once you get the gist of it you get reliable wins. Part of the reason is the leo2A4 turret front is so strong enemy counter fire rarely damages your tank when hull down.

Now, if the enemy is capable of reliably penetrating your turret this no longer works.  You're forced to  concentrate your entire company on one of of OPFOR axis of advance and use a lot more of ambush/flanking fire. As result, some enemy companies moving on another axis can usually reach the end of the map before you can get to them and winning the scenario has more to do with location of enemy axis of advance (random).

Using the old defense model will just result in your leopard company being destroyed piecemeal by the far more numerous soviet forces.  

Armor models can never be perfect, but 300-400mm RHAe bonus to western tanks makes a huge difference, and they already enjoy so many other advantages.

 

To me that sounds like you are reliably winning through appropriate economy of force and fighting an effective mobile defense. 

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17 hours ago, Mirzayev said:

 

To me that sounds like you are reliably winning through appropriate economy of force and fighting an effective mobile defense. 

I just used that as an example that parameters like level of armor has an effect on the tactics themselves.

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21 hours ago, Grenny said:

Do you think tanks, with a projected lifetime get designed to currently fielded OPFOR ammo? Would be a bit silly...

 

2A4, with its updates in armour setup, was designed around the T-80 a projected threat tank. With verification tests vs paralell developed DM33 rounds...

I'm going to have to re-read my book about leo@A4...

But what I gathered from the discussion at TN is yes, original batches were designed with BM 15 and BM 22 threat in mind, later production batches got a little more RHAe protection but not dramatically, say from 400 to 500mm, still not enough to resist BM42.

In any case, vanilla T-80 is not really better armored than T-72 and doesn't fire different ammo (save for the missiles), the big difference is the propulsion and FCS.

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i do not believe a generation of soviet APFSDs primarily evolved the leopard 2 design, if we are going to fix causation to a primary reason, i would argue that tbe advancement of ATGMs and the performance of chemical energy warheads had more influence on 1970s designs- the evidence of that is the emphasis of compound armors developed on both sides; in reality the british, american and german designs were holistic solutions to the problem of both numerically and arguably qualitatively superior soviet afv designs ( minus electronic and thermal sensors ) in the t-64 and t-72 vs 1960s western vehicles; the western designs are not a reflection of any one factor but a solution in the broadest possible sense, that is, they skip a generation ahead of the competition at least according to their projected mission profile

Edited by Captain_Colossus
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Eh, it all depends on what type of armor specific western tank uses.


Up untill late 80's all Leopard 2, Leopard 2A1/A2/A3/A4 used B tech armor. Around 1986-1988 it was replaced by C tech armor and last batch of Leopard 2A4's is said to use D tech armor, altough this is not certain if it means main armor upgrade + new side skirts or only new side skirts.

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On 1/12/2023 at 8:15 AM, ole1291 said:

Similar logic could be applied to M1 HA upgrade.


And again to what made up values?

Ballisticians in War and Peace volume 3 gives some information.

Primary informations is, both M1IP and M1A1 got improved armor over basic M1. Both M1IP and M1A1 received something called KE Backpacks. Another provided information is that M1A2 have 35% better protection vs KE and 25% better protection vs CE for it's front hull armor over basic M1A1.

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The only semi reliable source on Leopard 2 B tech and C tech armor protection, are some documents found in British archives, from British tests of Leopard 2. However I have only fragments of these documents that were posted in the internet.

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JEMs6C2.jpg

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yeah. the values in SB are based off information from Paul L. 

apparently there was an upgrade to the armour done to the 2A4 at some point in the late 80s or early 90s, since there was a claim it had 700mm vs KE, and 1000mm vs HEAT. 

we went with the more conservative estimate of 600mm over the front 60 degree arc, which makes the chins 700mm from front LOS vs KE. this was over 15 years ago. 

 

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15 hours ago, Grenny said:

The T72Ms....who's turrets fronts where penned by Leo1 guns?...so what?

Look at the tables posted by Damian, that's what.

Early Leo2 could also possibly be penetrated by  leo1 105mm  DM33.

Edited by ole1291
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17 hours ago, Damian90 said:


And again to what made up values?

 

 

That's the question...

The debate was initially about whether the Leo2A4 and M1A1 that are likely to be sent to the war in Ukraine could resist BM42 rounds on the front. What do you think?

 

 

17 hours ago, Damian90 said:

Ballisticians in War and Peace volume 3 gives some information.

Primary informations is, both M1IP and M1A1 got improved armor over basic M1. Both M1IP and M1A1 received something called KE Backpacks. Another provided information is that M1A2 have 35% better protection vs KE and 25% better protection vs CE for it's front hull armor over basic M1A1.

 

M1IP upgrade dates to early 80s so still presumably aimed at improving initial M1 poor (relative to CE) KE protection, threat round at the time likely still BM22. 

M1A1 HA upgrade (with DU inserts) from late 80s logically defeats BM42, were all M1A1 HA upgraded to HA standard?

 

 

15 hours ago, Damian90 said:

The only semi reliable source on Leopard 2 B tech and C tech armor protection, are some documents found in British archives, from British tests of Leopard 2. However I have only fragments of these documents that were posted in the internet.
 

Very interesting, thanks for bringing them up.

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7 hours ago, dejawolf said:

yeah. the values in SB are based off information from Paul L. 

apparently there was an upgrade to the armour done to the 2A4 at some point in the late 80s or early 90s, since there was a claim it had 700mm vs KE, and 1000mm vs HEAT. 

we went with the more conservative estimate of 600mm over the front 60 degree arc, which makes the chins 700mm from front LOS vs KE. this was over 15 years ago. 

 

Any link to his work? what's his family name?

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