#1273
Mensagem
por Hader » Sáb Abr 09, 2011 4:49 pm
O texto abaixo é de 1999. Não tem nada a ver com o Guarani (argh...nome infeliz) mas fala sobre blindagens, logo resolvi postar aqui. A intenção é fornecer mais informações sobre blindagens ao pessoal.
PROJECTILE OR ARMOR: WHICH IS STRONGER?
Dmitry Rototayev, Director General of the Steel Research Institute
Valery Grigoryan, Deputy Director General
The installation of ERA on T-64A, T-72A and T-80B tanks, that already had sufficiently powerful armor plating, virtually depreciated at once the existing arsenals of antitank guided weapons of potential adversaries and brought to the foreground the armor-piercing finstabilized discarding sabot projectiles.
This question has arisen after the advent of armored vehicles which consequently involved the problem of their protection. Since that time, the competition has progressed with variable success.
T-72S tank with apron ERA
While the main destruction weapons were kinetic energy armor-piercing projectiles, the competition proceeded by increasing the dimensions of the gun caliber, the armor thickness, or the armor inclination angles. This development can be traced to battles between German and Soviet tank armaments and armor during World War II. The advent of hard-core armor-piercing projectiles for tank and antitank guns brought little change to the protection concept. Shaped-charge projectiles made a revolution in terms of their penetrating power compared to the protective abilities of homogeneous steel armor. The problem of armor enhancement could not be resolved conventionally owing to the unacceptable increase in tank weight. This gave an impetus to the development of a new generation of Soviet tanks (T-64, T-72, T-80) which were provided with combined frontal armor that included such fillers as glass textolite and ceramics. They ensured abnormally high protective anticumulative properties which correspond with those predicted by the hydrodynamic theory of Academician M. Lavrentyev, who had substantiated the advantage of relatively light fillers over steel armor when affected by a cumulative jet. The nature of this anomaly rests mainly in the active destructive effect of the cavity-surrounding filler on the cumulative jet. The effect is due to the release of energy accumulated by the filler during the passage of the cumulative jet, as well as to the released internal energy of the filler itself when glass and ceramics are used as fillers. The advent of such combined armor became possible due to the purpose-oriented and well-coordinated work of a host of fundamental and applied science institutes working under the supervision of talented scientists and specialists. At the same time, the problem was solved for protection against fin-stabilized armor-piercing discarding sabot (APDS) projectiles, whose penetrators contained tungsten carbide or tungsten cores, as well as against the high-explosive squash head (HESH) projectiles which contained plastic explosive. Since then, armor protection had to be designed while keeping in mind two rival destruction weapons: the APDS projectiles and the HEAT (shaped charge) ammunition. It should be noted that the combined frontal armor of the Soviet tanks in the 1970s ensured their protection not from the entire range of shaped-charge ammunition but against the most massive ammunition of the time, such as the HEAT projectiles for the 105mm tank and the antitank gun, and shaped-charge grenades. The competition of the tank armor with antitank ammunition continued until the early 1980s. Further upgrading of fillers ensured the protection against HEAT projectiles from 120mm rifled guns.
1. Condition of cumulative jet after penetration of ceramics
At the same time, the arsenals of all countries continued to accumulate antitank guided missiles with HEAT warheads whose penetrating ability was 1.2 to 1.5 times higher than that of HEAT projectiles and, hence, exceeded the protective properties of tank armor.
In the late 1970s, the Soviet Union practically obtained HEAT-proof armor, whose original development dated back to the 1950s, and was based on the principle of counterexplosion. Its installation onto tanks was hampered by the psychological unpreparedness of some brass hatters in both the army and industry. But the emergence of explosive reactive armor (which was developed by Doctor M. Held for the M48 and M60 tanks in service with the Israeli army) during the 1982 Arab-Israeli war finally removed any objections from the project=s opponents. Only the availability of completely prepared technical, structural and technological approaches made it possible to equip the main tank fleet of the Soviet Union with this explosive reactive armor (ERA) within shortest time, i.e. within one year. The installation of ERA on T-64A, T-72A and T-80B tanks, that already had sufficiently powerful armor plating, virtually depreciated at once the existing arsenals of antitank guided weapons of potential adversaries and brought to the foreground the armor-piercing finstabilized discarding sabot projectiles. However, they were on a par with the frontal armor of the Soviet tanks, while the protection against more powerful APDS projectiles, such as the M829 (USA), was ensured by installing the Kontakt-V universal ERA complex which virtually neutralized even this threat.
2. Condition of cumulative jet during ERA penetration
The use of ERA triggered the intensified development of new antitank weapons throughout the world, that is, it marked a qualitatively new step in the projectile-versus-armor competition. A real possibility arose to influence an emerging destruction weapon as actively as it had previously acted upon passive armor. In was a great leap forward in terms of the concentrated blast resistance that subsequently modernized ATGMs (TOW, ITOW and even TOW-2 of a larger caliber) failed to overcome. The M829 APDS projectile failed as well.
However, it would be naive to think that the development of ammunition will stop. Not at all, and the analytical assessment of destruction weapon development testifies to unprecedented efforts in creating new threats to tanks. The expert estimation of APDS Projectiles, developed by the Olin Company for the guns of the M1 and Leopard-2 tanks, is indicative of virtually linear growth of their armor penetrating ability with a proportionality coefficient of about 36 mm per year.
3. Condition of APDS projectile core after penetration of new-generation ERA
New problems for the developers of protective armor were set up by the technological breakthrough in the creation of tandem shaped-charge ammunition for TOW-2A, HOT-2T, Trigat (PARS-3) antitank missiles and others, capable of penetrating 1,000 to 1,250 mm of steel armor behind an apron ERA. Along with the intensified development of ammunition for penetrating a tank=s frontal armor, new concepts are being developed to incapacitate tanks by unconventional methods. The power is increased and the range is extended for a relatively new class of ammunition based on the round impact-shot principle and intended to defeat the tank from the light armor surfaces such as the roof, sides and bottom.
The complexity of resolving this problem is that an increase in the equivalent light armor thickness per conventional unit leads to an increase in tank weight several times more than the identical increase in frontal armor. However, the =defenders= are ready to meet new challenges. Thus, at the Abu Dhabi =99 show we are going to exhibit to our potential clients the complex of third-generation explosive reactive armor which ensures the survivability of the T-90 tank from the M829A2 and DM43A1 APDS projectiles for the guns of the American M1 and German Leopard-2 tanks. The offered ERA package, in addition to increased resistance to single shaped-charge warheads, features antitandem properties, which allows tank protection from ATGMs of the TOW-2 and HOT-2 type. The technical problems pertaining to the protection against particular weapons attacking the tank from the top are also resolved.
As for antimine protection, we are ready to offer a package of electromagnetic protection causing premature explosion of mines with magnetometric fuzes.
In a package of measures to upgrade Russian tanks, the offered reinforcement of their protection imparts principally new combat qualities and considerably increases their combat efficiency. The projectile-versus-armor competition continues.
