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T-90 still too soft a target


Companion

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Good day sirs,

I made this thread some months ago

http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbforums/showthread.php?t=19821

and suggested a discrepancy between T-90's armor protection as represented in SB Wiki http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/index.php/T-90S

and actual in-game model.

The topic abruptly ended with dejawolf commenting "that's strange."

With the new patch, I tried missions with T-90 again and felt nothing was changed regarding this (to be fair, there was nothing about T-90 armor in release notes after all)

I ran the old testing mission about 10 times and saw no changes indeed.

(as in: T-90, when hit on any location of the front hull, is easily defeatable with both M829A1 and A2 at ranges exceeding 2km)

So I lowered the bar and used M829 and KE-W, which produced similar results at ranges 1000-1500. I disregarded obvious guaranteed penetration on driver's visor and lower hull of course.

But the older rounds repeatedly failed to penetrate at very close sub-500m ranges.

Now I am confused :confused:

At any rate, if what I am observing is as it should be, (which would suggest that wiki data is obsolete) then I have no problem with it. I can make do with T-72M4 and older ammo to adjust mission difficulty to my liking.

However, if there indeed is something amiss, please look into the issue.

PS: can't upload screenshot image :confused:

"The Dimension limits for this filetype are 700 x 0. We were unable to resize your file so you will need to do so manually and upload it again. Your file is currently 1075 x 690. "

03-10-14_zip.b4fb1a55fb21e6bedb8bde3c0df

03-10-14.zip

Edited by Companion
typo
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Your findings are interesting. I have done quite a few ballistic testings as well.

In one of the test i tried to see how tough the front turret of the Leopard 2a5, 2E, Strv 122, M1A2 SEP, Challenger 2 is against the rounds such as the M829A3 and DM53 (fired from the L55).

Point blank (under 100 m) I was able to penetrate the front turret cheeks of the M1A2 SEP and Challenger 2 with both rounds. The Leopard 2A5-like wedge turret was considerably tougher but i was able to penetrate it occasionally as well.

I will try to do some more testing on T80Us and T90S soon.

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Your findings are interesting. I have done quite a few ballistic testings as well.

In one of the test i tried to see how tough the front turret of the Leopard 2a5, 2E, Strv 122, M1A2 SEP, Challenger 2 is against the rounds such as the M829A3 and DM53 (fired from the L55).

Point blank (under 100 m) I was able to penetrate the front turret cheeks of the M1A2 SEP and Challenger 2 with both rounds. The Leopard 2A5-like wedge turret was considerably tougher but i was able to penetrate it occasionally as well.

I will try to do some more testing on T80Us and T90S soon.

For T-80U, areas protected by ERA are quite resilient to M829A1 at various ranges.

Against M829 and DM33, nigh impenetrable.

Anything above M829A1 level cuts through easily, but that was to be expected.

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I don't know if the T-90S is a soft target vs what we can expect. The values that appear on the Armor LOS seem to be the best case for ERA working against a APFSDS. Many reasons why the ERA might not degrade the rod enough to stop the penetration of the rear armor.

The M-829A2 is a very good round, and it should not surprise anyone that if your ERA isn't doing all it can you run a real risk of having it defeat the main armor.

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M829A2, M829A3 and DM53 were designed to defeat vehicles with composite armor and universal ERA like "Kontakt-5".

However you should remember that "Kontakt-5" is old ERA design, Russians consider it as obsolete even. They have newer type of ERA "Relikt" that is more capable than "Kontakt-5". And even then "Relikt" is considered as old and less effective design compared to much newer "Knife" and it's multilayer variant "Duplet" from Ukraine. I doubt that there is any kind of APFSDS round capable to defeat two or three layers of "Duplet" and then also a thick composite armor array behind it.

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M829A2, M829A3 and DM53 were designed to defeat vehicles with composite armor and universal ERA like "Kontakt-5".

However you should remember that "Kontakt-5" is old ERA design, Russians consider it as obsolete even. They have newer type of ERA "Relikt" that is more capable than "Kontakt-5". And even then "Relikt" is considered as old and less effective design compared to much newer "Knife" and it's multilayer variant "Duplet" from Ukraine. I doubt that there is any kind of APFSDS round capable to defeat two or three layers of "Duplet" and then also a thick composite armor array behind it.

Sounds like the Russians are adopting the Kerbal* approach.

"MOAR PLATES!!"

*Kerbals are small green skinned Astronauts who tend to adopt a simplistic approach to entering space.

Moar info:

https://kerbalspaceprogram.com/about.php

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Indeed it is reported that "Relikt" have more internal flyer plates than "Kontakt-5".

However newer "Knife" and "Duplet" works on completely different and more interesting principle.

Instead of explosive filler between steel plates, there are linear shaped charges inside.

i5.gif

489px-Sxema.jpg

"Knife"/"Duplet" principle of working mechanism.

316oz1v.jpg

"Duplet" installed on BM "Oplot" tank, it is clearly visible that glacis plate is protected by double layer of "Duplet" (what is interesting, glacis plate of BM "Oplot" is not inclined at typical 68 degrees like on other "T" tanks, but at 70+ degrees increasing protection and allowing of easy installation of two layers of "Duplet" ERA), we can also see opened side hull protection modules where "Duplet" reactive elements are installed, I think that there is also two layers of this ERA.

mcucu0.jpg

Turret of BM "Oplot" is protected by three or four layers of "Duplet" ERA, between ERA modules there are passive armor elements.

Video presenting efficency of "Duplet" against various threats.

At 1:25 you can for comparrision see ballistic tests of T-80U tank with "Kontakt-5" and it's results.

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Are the Thailand's purchase of Oplot tanks equipped with this newer Knife and Duplet ?:confused:

Thailand purchased standard BM "Oplot" (Object 478DU10) tanks with "Duplet" ERA.

USA purchased 4 tanks of older prototype variant, probably Object 478DU5 with pre production variant of "Knife" ERA for test purpose.

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I don't know if the T-90S is a soft target vs what we can expect. The values that appear on the Armor LOS seem to be the best case for ERA working against a APFSDS. Many reasons why the ERA might not degrade the rod enough to stop the penetration of the rear armor.

The M-829A2 is a very good round, and it should not surprise anyone that if your ERA isn't doing all it can you run a real risk of having it defeat the main armor.

I think SB armor model operates on rather simple RHAe figures. Hence my original post.

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I think SB armor model operates on rather simple RHAe figures. Hence my original post.

steel beasts works with a combination of RHAe values and angle of impact.

with individual RHAe values for KE, HEAT and HE.

however, there seems to be something wrong with the way angle is calculated, which is what is causing the errors with the T-90 (and possibly other vehicles as well)

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If there indeed is an error - it is being investigated as of the time of this writing - it would probably affect all vehicles, particularly impact angles close to 85...90° (from surface normal vector). Some vehicles that rely on these shallow angles as a part of their protection concept will in effect suffer more from this error, of course, for others it may be less of a practical issue.

But it is too early for a final verdict. We must wait until the code analysis is complete.

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The error has been identified, and corrected. It affects all impacts with APFSDS rounds to the effect that they retain more energy when passing through an armor surface (irrespective of the impact angle). It was introduced with version 2.640, and I'm surprised that it took so long to be discovered. Ultimately that is my responsibility.

:(

Anyway, we'll fix this with the next version.

Speaking of which, we are preparing an Open Beta test with a version where DirectPlay will be replaced with a new network stack. This should be particularly good for Windows 8.1 users that currently have trouble logging on to network sessions. After the test has been successfully completed we will probably consolidate it into another (free) update, probably in about three to four months.

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Speaking of which, we are preparing an Open Beta test with a version where DirectPlay will be replaced with a new network stack. This should be particularly good for Windows 8.1 users that currently have trouble logging on to network sessions. After the test has been successfully completed we will probably consolidate it into another (free) update, probably in about three to four months.

Is the new network code going to eliminate the port-forwarding requirement?

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Speaking of which, we are preparing an Open Beta test with a version where DirectPlay will be replaced with a new network stack. This should be particularly good for Windows 8.1 users that currently have trouble logging on to network sessions. After the test has been successfully completed we will probably consolidate it into another (free) update, probably in about three to four months.

Any ideas as to when this will be out and if people can still multi play with a mix of 3.011 and the "open beta"?

PLEASE, please, please tell me it will be out either well before (so we can try it and make user it works) or after the 5th of April?

I'd hate for it to come out just hours before the ROLLING THUNDER activity with the resulting impact similar to what was seen in the last mission of the OP VARIABLE activity.

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While on the subject...

T-80U is able to withstand multiple TOW-2B hits, in some cases up to 3x hits.

It is because the TOW-2B is relatively weak EFP, and the ERA on the roof of the T-80 has both good coverage, and sufficient protection to defeat it. AFAICR, it is why (or one of the main reasons why) the Russians put ERA on the roof in the first place. ;)

Of course we don't model ERA tiles being expended, so maybe that is what you mean (i.e. second or third hit should likely occur in places that are now empty of ERA blocks that detonated earlier). In that case it is known, and we just haven't yet implemented a system to track the status of ERA tiles yet (or rather, more likely -- sections/groups of tiles). It is rather complicated.

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Ssnake, Thanks for fixing the issue.

However I'm not sure if I understand the following:

It affects all impacts with APFSDS rounds to the effect that they retain more energy when passing through an armor surface (irrespective of the impact angle).

Does that mean in-game T-90 actually has two armor layers? (one ERA one main?)

If so, is it same with other vehicles with ERA too? Because right now, T-80U, which uses same Kontakt-5 as T-90S, is much harder to kill.

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Ssnake, Thanks for fixing the issue.

However I'm not sure if I understand the following:

Does that mean in-game T-90 actually has two armor layers? (one ERA one main?)

If so, is it same with other vehicles with ERA too? Because right now, T-80U, which uses same Kontakt-5 as T-90S, is much harder to kill.

I can probably help answer that...

Yes there can be many layers of armor on these tanks, they are quite complicated actually. I don't think we can go into a lot of technical detail, but in the old days it used to be one armor level on the outside shell of the model, but now there are layers of armor for ERA, outer inert armor, and inner crew compartment walls, as well as metal plates and inner components. It is pretty detailed.

Whatever difference in protection in the T-80 and T-90 at the moment is likely due to the total of all these angles the round passes through to get into the inner compartment, and that hundreds of mm of protection are lost on the T-90 due to more extreme angles present in both the ERA and the inner armor (the steeper the angle, the larger the error).

Other than that, instead of further speculation lets all just wait and try out the fix in the near future. ;)

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