T-90 in Comparison to Western Armour

[Feanor]

They claim a different main gun.

EDIT: The blow out panel issue you're referencing is minor in the large scale of things. It's a design feature that's charatertistic of western thought in terms of damage control, and can be very useful in some situation. However typically if there is a penetration of the armor of a tank, and the ammunition cooks off most western tanks would end up destroyed by the blast. The blow out panels do not make as big of a difference as people typically imagine. Not to mention that it happens quite rarely where the tank is penetrated, the ammunition cooks off, but otherwise the penetration causes no significant damage. Not to mention even if the blow out panels work as intended, there can be a fire inside the tank from the ammunition.

 

[nevidimka]

They claim a different main gun.

EDIT: The blow out panel issue you're referencing is minor in the large scale of things. It's a design feature that's characteristic of western thought in terms of damage control, and can be very useful in some situation. However typically if there is a penetration of the armor of a tank, and the ammunition cooks off most western tanks would end up destroyed by the blast. The blow out panels do not make as big of a difference as people typically imagine. Not to mention that it happens quite rarely where the tank is penetrated, the ammunition cooks off, but otherwise the penetration causes no significant damage. Not to mention even if the blow out panels work as intended, there can be a fire inside the tank from the ammunition.

Are you downplaying the importance of separating the ammunition from the crew compartment? Russian latest designer thinking does not mirror this. The Black Eagle and the T 95 will have separated compartment for the Ammunition and crew to enhance the Crew survivability.

 

[DavidDCM]

I also agree that a seperated ammo storage compartment is an important and possibly livesaving thing to have in your tank. The T-72/90 also have a kinda separated ammo compartment, as the autoloader carousel is completely shut of from the crew cabin except for the small opening where the next round comes out. But a bustle rack can possibly store more ammo and thus makes it unnecessary to store additional ammo open in the crew cabin, as is the case in the current T-72/90 designs.

It was something I always found strange in the Leopard 2, because in the Leo 2, only a small part of the ammo is in a separated turret bustle rack (15 rds.), while the remaining 27 rds. are stored openly in a rack next to the driver. I am not completely sure, but as far as I know the M1 Abrams is better in this regard as it has it's complete ammo seperated in the turret bustle, is that correct (eckherl? )? If yes, than I would say that's a major advantage of the M1 compared to the Leo 2 in regards to survivability.

 

[Waylander]

Jup, only the early Abrams versions had some rounds stored in the crew compartment.

I expect the designers of the Leo thought that giving it a seperated ammo compartment in the hull would add too much weight and might decrease storage space too much.
They also expected it to get less rounds into the frontal hull thus making and in effect armored the frontal hull less than the turret. This policy is even more evident when one looks at the Mannheimer armor upgrade which only adds more armor to the turret.
Only the more recent versions of other nations try to add more protection to the frontal hull (Strv 122, Leopard 2A5DK, 2A6MC, 2E and 2HEL).

I agree that the Abrams has a big advantage in this regard.

I also have the fealing that Feanor is downplaying the importance of fully protected ammo storage with blast doors.
Even if the crew is killed or severly injured the tank itself is most often ready to fight again after some fast repairs, even after a fire.
This is not the case with the Ts were a fire is going to pop the turret sooner or later and many more penetrations result in a totally lost tank.
A big disadvantage even if one doesn't include the crew safety bonus.

 

[DavidDCM]

After a serious fire I don't think that a tank would be in service again any time soon. Too much sensible stuff packed in there. All the high-tech stuff (computers etc.) would melt to slack I guess. Not to mention the plastic parts found in most current tanks.

---

The incident that made me think about the Leopard 2's ammo storage in contrast to the Abrams' one was when somewhere around 2003/4 a M1 in Iraq was penetrated sideways by a shaped charge weapon (back then there was lots of speculation as to what kind of weapon it was).
The shaped charge jet pierced the M1's left sidearmor, continued it's way through the crew cabin, smacked the driver's backrest (with no actual contact to the driver) and then slammed into the right sidearmour. No one got really hurt in this incident IIRC, because nothing essential was in the way of the projectile jet. If the tank had been a Leopard 2, though, the jet's path would have gone right through it's hull ammo rack. That thought was kinda disturbing to me...

 

[Waylander]

Sure if the fire is big enough it is also going to cause significant damage.
But a smaller fire is much more often going to ignite the ammo of a T than that of an Abrams.

And yes such an incident would have probably ended in a Leo II having a fatal ammo cookoff.

 

[Feanor]

What I'm trying to say is that in my opinion the issue is blown out of proportion. I doubt that if an M1 is penetrated, and the ammo cooks off, the damage will be minor due to blow out panels.

 

[nevidimka]

Sure if the fire is big enough it is also going to cause significant damage.
But a smaller fire is much more often going to ignite the ammo of a T than that of an Abrams.

And yes such an incident would have probably ended in a Leo II having a fatal ammo cookoff.

Doesn't that make Leo have a weak spot, and if the insurgents gets their hands on this info, they could train their marksmen to disable Leo's this way? If they haven't already.

 

[Waylander]

Doesn't that make Leo have a weak spot, and if the insurgents gets their hands on this info, they could train their marksmen to disable Leo's this way? If they haven't already.

Ahem...that the Leo has 22 of it's rounds stored in an unprotected rack next to the driver is hardly a secret.

And anybody who wants to target this ammo first has to get through the frontal/side frontal armor of the Leopard II.

Quite a difficult task for the usual "marksman".
It's not like there are many weapons used in Iraq or A-stan which are able tpo do this.
No Leopard IIA5DK or Leopard IIA6MC has been lost due to this so far.

 

[Waylander]

What I'm trying to say is that in my opinion the issue is blown out of proportion. I doubt that if an M1 is penetrated, and the ammo cooks off, the damage will be minor due to blow out panels.

Mmmh, so far the turret rack did what it was designed to do.
The turret bustle is fully protecting the crew compartment if the door is shut.

Maybe Eckherl has some accurate numbers but so far I know of no incident where the turret rack hasn't hold what it promised to do.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

A few points. Turrets are usually far more exposed to enemy fires than hulls. Especially when a tank is using cover - both natural and manmade - to reduce its exposure to the enemy Hull down, reverse slope, etc. So providing more protection to the turret is a good idea. However in non-linear battles where the main threat is flank fires from infantry anti-tank weapons because you have driven around the enemy tank formations the unprotected ammunition in the hull is not a good idea. For the record the only M1 tank with hull ammunition were the brass cased 105mm M1 and IPM1 where the issue of sympathetic explosion is not as severe as the fully combustible 120mm ammunition.

The compartmentalisation of ammunition is a great idea because it reduces the damage caused by hits that penetrate. This is the second last layer of the defensive "onion". Not all penetrations result in enough damage to eventually destroy the tank and compartmentalisation reduces the risk of the tank's ammunition igniting and adding to the mess. If the ammunition is ignited compartmentalisation provides a delay to this effect and a reduction of the effect on the crew (last onion layer) allowing them to escape the vehicle more or less intact. Finally compartmentalisation isolates the destructive damage of the ammunition reducing the overall damage to a knocked out tank allowing for it to be repaired quicker and returned to the battle.

 

[Feanor]

I'm not talking about the concept of a separate armored compartment for the ammunition, that separates it from the crew. I'm talking specifically about the blow out panels.

 

[nevidimka]

The tank was supposed to be superior in every way. However finance problems were what put it out of the running in the early 90s.

Coming back to the story, I think the Russians did a smart choice with the T 90 and not this 1. As the Black Eagle has demonstrated it is radically different to warrant money for its R&D, this type is not that much of a jump to waste money on. The T 90 is a cheaper and sensible upgrade path until the T 95 comes out.

 

[eckherl]

Mmmh, so far the turret rack did what it was designed to do.
The turret bustle is fully protecting the crew compartment if the door is shut.

Maybe Eckherl has some accurate numbers but so far I know of no incident where the turret rack hasn't hold what it promised to do.

Yes, the blow off panels do work as they are intended to do and we have not lost any tanks due to projectiles being able to penetrate the initial rear, or side rear armor entering the ammo storage area, the panels are held with special bolts designed to let the panels blow off at a precise time to vent the explosion through the top, depending on the amount of damage it should be just a matter of getting a new ammo holding sleeves shoe horned in place with new ammunition access doors for the crew and then add your blow off panels. I really do not understand why you cannot place blow off panels on a LEO 2 series hull, maybe this is something that will be looked at in the future.

 

[eckherl]

What I'm trying to say is that in my opinion the issue is blown out of proportion. I doubt that if an M1 is penetrated, and the ammo cooks off, the damage will be minor due to blow out panels.

Why, it has proven to work so far in most cases.

 

[eckherl]

Coming back to the story, I think the Russians did a smart choice with the T 90 and not this 1. As the Black Eagle has demonstrated it is radically different to warrant money for its R&D, this type is not that much of a jump to waste money on. The T 90 is a cheaper and sensible upgrade path until the T 95 comes out.

The reason why Russia hasn`t built the Black Eagle was due to no one else wanting it and they couldn`t afford to produce it, I would take it anyday over a T-90 series.

 

[Waylander]

Yes, the blow off panels do work as they are intended to do and we have not lost any tanks due to projectiles being able to penetrate the initial rear, or side rear armor entering the ammo storage area, the panels are held with special bolts designed to let the panels blow off at a precise time to vent the explosion through the top, depending on the amount of damage it should be just a matter of getting a new ammo holding sleeves shoe horned in place with new ammunition access doors for the crew and then add your blow off panels. I really do not understand why you cannot place blow off panels on a LEO 2 series hull, maybe this is something that will be looked at in the future.

I am sure one could do this. But then one would actually loose alot of rounds.
The protected ammo storage rack would need much more space than the open rack we have now.
I would expect that we would loose up to 1/3 of our reserve ammo.
But I could imagine that it might be worth it.

Despite the fact that a MBT turret is more often hit than the hull (especially during defensive actions) I still don't understand why upgrading the hull armor was not done by the Bundeswehr or Netherlands when they went from A4 to A5/A6.
For me this would have been a no brainer...

 

[Feanor]

The reason why Russia hasn`t built the Black Eagle was due to no one else wanting it and they couldn`t afford to produce it, I would take it anyday over a T-90 series.

We wouldn't have been able to afford a T-90 production line either, if it wasn't for the huge India order. Had the Indians decided they wanted the T-80UM2, that would have been it.

 

[DavidDCM]

I don't think that blow-off panels can be integrated into the hull. At first you'd have to shoehorn an armoured box around the ammo before you could think of blow-off panels, than there's the big problem that you need a "hole" somewhere in the tank hull where you replace the real armor with blow-off panels. This would either be the upper front, the bottom or the left side of the hull. So, where ever you make the blow-off panels, they'd be a potential weakpoint (as I don't think they would offer anywhere the same protection level as the normal armor).

No, in my eyes the better solution would be to go the American way and make the turret bustle ammo rack bigger. The equipment that in hitherto existing Leo 2 versions is packed behind the gun and behind the commander (radios and lots of fire control electronics) could maybe go where the hull ammo is right now.

 

[Waylander]

Because of the necessary armoured box I mentioned that there would be a serious reduction of reserve ammo storage space.

I would think that it is possible to put blow of panels under the hull.
But there the problem of the M package comes to mind...

Thinking about it you idea sounds better.
But I don't know if it is practicable to put the FCS into the hull. IMO the radios need to remain somewhere in the turret.