Mayh3M

Exactly! That's why I wanna see photos from the inside of the tank, after it been shoted and also some report of damaged inside elements, like engine, or crew compartment :roll: In my document you can see such of report...

Dice Huh... you have proven again my case and 1979 test by this video! :D 8) So let's discribe, what we are see on this video --- the first episode A-10 attacks T-62 with amazingly low persentage of hits(I've count only two hits of the rouf of the turret and one hit to the up of the hull around engine's area of 20-30 shoted 30mm shells), which looks from the first sight very spectacular, with lifting up of much of dust, but what damages it brings to the shooted target -- didn't shown. The second episode is also T-62 --- the same thing here, but you can spot the light pyro effect from the left side of the tank(I suppose it burn some of additional outside fuel tanks without any harm to the whole tank!) -- but the result is again the same -- tank had not burned up(after the dust is flown away it's cleanly to see), maybe only lightly damaged! The third episode -- surprise -- A-10 attacks the M-60 american medium tank with mostly the same result again a spectaculat, 4th one is very short of T-62 and the last one is burning T-62, but actually this one is hardly to discribe from what weapon it have been hit! So, I shall wait this "Mcdermott report" as an another official document, that should contradict with my document --- interesting to see the result of shooting. Actually nobody have proven with facts and current photos the otherside to my opinion(by the way -- I haven't seen any photos of destroyed any tanks by GAU-8 )... :roll:

Если принесёшь подробный материал и тех.описание по работе РЛС "Копьё-25", то может и сделают :D

I think the reason was to find out, how M1 tanks could resists such hits and how should the blow up panels work with such conditions... :roll: Yes... different, but the blast doors and blow up panels haven't change I really don't know the history of each :lol: But those tests were somewhere around Texas (there the man I've asked serving) Let's do not go farther :wink: By the way, Russians are also lowering casualties, but it's changing nothing with our T-62 and A-10 :D :wink:

4 million costs the M1A2 In this test take part quite old M1 IP, which is already not costs 4-million $ Currently you are talking about the DShK heavy 12.7 mm machine gun hit the APU of M1A2 from rear of the turret. This APU is outside the main armor and it is absolutely undefended, that's why it was so vulnerable. Well, it is hardly to say anything, because US reports always get me in confuse. They are at lest lowering casualties about 1.5. But let this thread to be in another topic :wink: Do you see some trouble for AT-3 in penetrating the side or rear of M1's armour? :wink:

The point is that explodes only one shell -- than yes. As I said, this measure works as proper, but do you really think, that 30mm steel plate safe the crew's lifes from such a huge detonation of !40! shells? I've talked some time ago to one US millitary, that working on testing the ground vehgicles in battlefild... they have some captured iraqi weapons and tanks. One day they decide to test M1 and shoot right to the rear part of the turret from AT-3 "Sagger" to the ammo placement -- the detonation was catastrophic and turns the tank to the mass of wreckage! Nothing can survive being close to such amazing explosion. You have to understand it -- blow up pannels and blast doors ARE TO PRETEND such huge explosion, but they ARE DO NOT SAFE FROM IT! And there of course lots of events in Iraq, when this measure works good enough -- it pretend the detonation of whole ammo storage by vectoring of explosion of only one shell to the up through the blow up panels... AFK Hellfire have a less warhead charge equivalent, than 50 kg's, but it's more efficient ;) So don't compare the HEAT charges by the weight of the explosion set up -- there are lots of parameters you have to calculate :wink: Unfortunately yes... but I don't think, that it should help to A-10. The maximum effcet it could reach is make tank unmovable, by hiting the engine's area... And it's still cannot destroy the tank... That's what is my suggestion -- A-10 and Su-25 could make MBT's (do not include here M-48 and M-60) only unmovable, while engaging them only with canon :!:

Skywall23 T-90 armoured not too much bette, than T-80U. Many specialists give their votes to T-80U, instead of T-90... T-90 is deap modernized T-72BM... :roll:

Kula66 How it can inflict anything, if it can't even hit the target? Don't forget about amazing low percantage of hited shells. A-10 had used the whole armament of one thousand 30mm shells only at one tank! You think that in real somebody allows A-10 to fly such a time to fire all canon-shells? How you are going to aiming at weaked zone of a tank, if you have such problems to hiting the whole tank? :?: The physical thickness is not more than 30mm, but you have to calculate the LOS -- this means angle of coming hiting shell, which gives this armour an additional resistance. So from 30mm we have something around 40-45 mm... According to the test tanks haven't burn up, so I suppose T-80 will have as minimum the same resistance... These additional fuel tanks release out before tank come to the battle (or right from the beginning the battle) -- commander have the special button, to release those fuel tanks. Actually I don't know, did those testing T-62s have these fuel tanks or did mot... :roll: Well... I think we are going to turn finally to the Sov tank thread :lol: Nope -- actually this "reputation" was given by mass media without some analisys. The reason of such denotaion is mostly the fire inside the tank. There are propellent cassets (all Russian MBT's using separate propellant charges), which are quite vulnerable to the fire. As I said before, Iraqi T-72s were mostly hited by guided missles with HEAT charge to the weaked zones, that's mean that no one tank in the world could stand against such kind of damages. That's right, but I could say, that west tanks haven't become more safety after all measures. Just hit them with guided missle to any weaked zone and it will garantee the crew unsurvivable! The measures of separate zones for crew and ammo storage with blast doors and blew up panels only pretend the detonation of whole armament, by vectoring the energy of blow of one hited shell in a storage to the up, while 30mm blast door help crew to survive. If it's haven't help and detonation happened no all of these measures help the crew -- the blow of 40 120mm shells left from the tank only mass of wreckage and of course 30mm blast door shouldn't help here :roll: Starlight Nobody gonna say, that A-10 is not good tank killer ;) We are talking only about the abilities of its gun, which is not for tank-killing at all, as it showed in tests. Anyway, this is still an excellent weapon and there are srill more other targets to engage :wink: I don't know another meaning of phrase "combat-loaded". I think it's mean, that tank loaded for combat, and what tank's need for combat? ;) Yes -- the shells and fuel! Of course nobody should sit to this tank... This is very hard to hit the optics and other -- I could bring the example, from chechen war, when chechen bandits use the RPG-18 and direct hit to break the optics of unmovable T-72B... AFK The M1 history is: M1, M1 IP(1984) -- oxygen aluminium armour called "chobham", M1A1(1985) -- M1 IP with 120mm main gun, M1A1HA(1989) -- first with DU in armour, M1A1HC -- armoured like M1A2, M1A2 -- CITV -- commander independed thermal viewer, M1A2 SEP -- last tank. The T-72 history is: T-72(1972) early(T-72 export less modification), T-72A(1976)(T-72M export), T-72A-modernized(1982) -- additional 16mm steel plate on the front-glasic (T-72M1 export), T-72AV(1982) with early ERA K-1, T-72B(1985) with K-5 ERA, T-72BM(1989) with fitted multiphased ERA, T-90 -- T-72BM with T-80U's Fire control and new ERA(1991), T-90S -- T-90 with welded turret... T-80 history is T-80 (1976), T-80B(1978) -- used oxygen-aluminium ceramics in armour, which is classifiedd in the west sources as "Chobham armour", T-80B (1982) With additional 16mm steel plate on the front-glasic, T-80BV (1985) -- T-80B with K-5 ERA, T-80U(1985) -- new armour and fitted multiphased ERA, T-80UD(1987) -- diesel version of T-80U, T-80UK(1989) -- commander variant with thermals and IR-jammers, T-80UM -- modernized T-80U with better ERA and new thermals, T-80UM-1 -- T-80UM with active defence systems -- hits the incoming guided missles and HEAT rockets, before they reach the armour; Obj.640 "Black Eagle" -- newest generation tank with fully rebuilded armour and turret -- without "T" index yet... 2 SK Indeed it sounds strange at first sight, but this T-62's test showed even more strange result, at first sight. This I can understand --- hard to imagine, that such huge big gun, like GAU-8 could not something penetrate, but real things contradict with this popular opinion :roll:

Ouch :shock: I think they are mistaken abit, because such penetration could hardly reach the tank 120mm sabot shell... I think they are mistaken in posting -- cm instead of mm. 1 cm = 10 mm, 10cm = 100mm :wink: the penetration level of 38-69 mm is most to b true ;) Here's the quote You just misted up with cm and mm ;) :D So we have 450-540 mm against 39-68 mm of GAU-8. But don't estimate this -- shooting to the front of any tanks is a wasting of time ;) We are currently talking about weaked zones, where LOS is not higher than 70-80 mm ;) PS Huh... lol :lol: http://www.simhq.com/_air/air_053c.html

Kula66 The top of hull in engine area is a most weaked zone -- if we supposing the high angle attack we also have to notice, that the maximum angle of 45 degrees makes from 20-40 mm to about 35-60 mm, 30 degrees makes about 40-70mm equivalent. I've contact with Vasiliy Fofanov exactly with question about penetration ability of GAU-8 shells and he gives me the number of 65-70 mm, so we have 70 against 60, that again proves my opinion, that armour should be penetrated(if it hited), but the inside damage will be very low to break out anything in interrior or injure the crew. Also don't forget, that high angle attack is quite dangerous, because of SAM operating in the attack area. And back to the test again -- A-10 attacks T-62 from low-angle about 10 degrees -- the all hits we taken by side of the hull of T-62 around engines and ammo storage areas -- we have there only about 30-40 mm and the angle is close to 90 degrees, which does mean the straight hit and angle doesn't advance the armour resistance. So if we complare the equivalents again we have there 70 mm of GAU-8 against 30-40 of T-62 and as the result we have only light damages, what's mean 2 hours of field-repair operations :!: 2 A-10's fired the whole armament to each T-62 of about 1000 shells, using special mix load of 2 AP round to 1 HE, when the ussual combat mix is 4 HE to 1 AP. only 10% of all fired shells hited the target and only 10% of hited had penetrated the armour -- therefore the most big problem is to hit the tank, even far away not to penetrate it :!:

That could be only two modificxations of T-72 -- export variants of T-72A -- T-72M and T-72M1 -- those are quite old already -- the armour is close to the M1IP, Challenger-1 and Leopard-2A2 tanks... As you look in this test, the canons of A-10 and Su-25 vice versa should have to give less damage to MBT's :roll: :)

2 SK Well, there is no any hole there of course, but it is classified as weaked zone around main gun, but not against GAU-8 -- this is weaked against 120mm APFSDS shells, but not against 30mm ;) The whole armour estimation you can look here :arrow: http://armor.kiev.ua/fofanov/Tanks/MBT/t-80u_armor.html I want to point people again, that in this test there were some number of penetrations, but as I said before there is also the inside damage level, which was so low to break any staff inside the T-62, including the huge number of shells, fuel tanks, engine and any other staff. Most high damage were taken by suspension elements and wheels. And also don't forget again the fact, that T-80U is greater-greater-greater and much greater armoured, than T-62 --- these are my fundamental arguements of this thread :!: By the way, here is the link, where I've found this material :arrow: http://www.gulflink.osd.mil/du_ii/du_ii_tabl1.htm

Well... I'm not going to dismiss anyone... this my own point and I'd come to it, while searching for more information about armour. The prob is not that somebody's making propoganda of it --- the problem is mostly on deficit of data, because of keeping secrecy of armour-building technologies and materials used in armour. :roll: Ok... let's close it! :) As for T-72 and abramses -- I'll send you the PM to describe my opinion... 2 SwingKid I'm interested in your position about this topic, so what your opinion about "GAU-8 vs Tanks" ??

Well... in LOMAC used the M1A1 modification(which is quite old) tank and T-80UD -- the armour of those is a quite different to the T-80s advance. The balance comes only with M1A2 and M1A2SEP. !!! But this fact have absolutely nothing in common with the thread I'm talking about !!! All tanks in lomac, instead of patton M48 and M60 should have great resistance to any air-born canon, including the Leo-2 and M1A1 and T-80UD! This is my position! The thread of tanks I think better to discuus in another topic, when we should talk about balance of forces used... :roll:

Maybe I dissapoint you, but Tom Clancy is known fairy-tale writer! :D :lol: His books are some kind of propoganda, but not analisys and facts... I've read some about T-80 there -- lol, almost nothing common with true! :lol: Believing Tom Clancy is like believing into UFO and aliens... :roll: I think I'm going to dissapoint you again -- the all information mostly goes from a several of specialists and well-known all over the world enthusiasts(where's no Tom Clancy of course :lol ), like Paul Lakowski, Vasiliy Fofanov, Steven Zaloga, Vasiliy Chobitok. Mostly all data about armour comes from these people -- they are mostly competent in this question. You can discuss all threads about tanks for example in tank-net forums(there may be sometimes Paul Lakowski) :) http://www.tank-net.org/ ... or the Russian source of Vasiliy's Chobitok page... http://www.webboard.ru/wb.php?board=24935&fs=0&ord=0 ... there are specialists, which are working about tanks and armour not for a few months, but for the whole their life ;) You can also meet there the real scientists of armour, so do not underestimate this -- all info you can found their is quite true :) You are talking about depleted uranium, like it is some kind of miracle material -- you have to understand, that there is no miracle here. In the tests was used exactly depleted uranium ammo -- you see the result. Do you know any other DU rounds to GAU-8?? :?: Relative to steel and alloy of tungsten and steel. Before using DU steel was the common material, which was used for penetrators. As the most heavy material in the beginning and middle 80-th tungsten-steel alloys were quite often... Well... of course I'm not the specialist -- I'm exploring the questions about armour and penetrators only for 2 years... and I still have lots of questions and many threads to discuss, what I do at forums with other enthusiasts and some ex-tank-crew people and scientists... :roll: Well increasing the speed is not the reason of DU using in projectile -- it mostly depends on what fire-system fires out this shell. Currently, I was comparing with old-made tungsten-steel alloy, which using for example in 2A42 canon(Ka-50/BMP-2/BMP-3). I hope on you guys too :)

D-Scythe This well-known story suppose not to be true -- the facts told, that T-72 and M1s have no sweety meeting at all :D (you may ask about it in armour thread forums), so they even have no chance to shoot each other... :roll: Well... currently the "secondary-effect5s" you talking about is ability of any DU penetrator make burn, while piercing the armour -- this cause of high presure... So all the DU (and some of newest tungsten) penetrators have this "secondary effect" :roll: There is also not so many ways to increase the penetrating (and better to talk even about damaging) -- the changes should be around 5-10%, which is do not so affect on its capability of penetrating... :roll:

Back to report: In this test an A-10 aircraft attacked two combat-loaded individual Soviet T-62 tanks Pay your attention to "combat loaded" :wink: --- this means, that these tanks have the full storage of ammo(just ready to explode:D ) and fulled up with fuel :!: Difficult to say anything from this reports... It's contradict with this official document, that I've brought. Of course I'm not going to tell, that this reports not true, but as you see 90% of all Iraqi armour divisions were destroyed from the ground during the ground phase of DS operation. You can try youself to find any photos of GAU-8s destroyed T-72, or 120mm frontal-hit destroyed --- I'm sure there are no such of them(I'm still searching for them). All T-72s were hit to the weaked zones with HEAT penetrators, which were in guided missles(Mavericks and Hellfires). By the way, the results of this war should be argued many times again, and mostly not all reports were correct at all. Anyway --- the Iraqi T-72M(this is very earlier export version of Russian T-72A) modification is far away from Russian T-80U(D)... T-80U is better to compare with last of M1A2SEP(that you have told about), and T-72M is closer to earlier M1 with 105 mm gun, if we compare them in armour characteristics. But T-62 is also not so well armoured, as T-72M. This fact disprove the Avenger destroyed T-72s(how it can destroy T-72, if it cannot even damage T-62?! ), which are goes from reports... To this fact I also add, that there is no any photos of Avenger's destroyed T-72s and T-62s, that of course should has to be, if the reported kill ratio was so high. I suppose those kills were not of exact tanks, but some another kind of armoured vehicles (BMP, MTLBs, BTRs) -- pilots almost have no time to identificate the target, while engaging it with Avenger -- so maybe they were mistaken in identification of hited targets :roll: There is also were huge number of false-targets, which was made from the wood in full scale and from the distance you will not found any differences with real. Those killed "tanks" also could be in reports...

Of course it should be advanced -- the only way is increasing the length of penetrator, but this adds almost nothing(at least about 5% to pentrating level). Anyway I haven't heard about any GAU-8 shell upgrade... :roll:

Well.. I know, there are too many ways to destroy tank, but we are talking now only about GAU-8 and its shells. And as it was shown in official tests -- this is impossible to do anything to any modern tank, being in A-10 and armed only with GAU-8 DU shells... :roll: So as being in Su-25 and armed only with GSh-30-2. By the way, this is quite dangerous to attack tank, which could bring you nice 125mm (120mm) heavy explosive shell, also with huge number of 7.62mm and 12.7mm bullets :D

Well... the question is not about the tank's invulnarebility at all -- you could use Mavericks, don't you forget about them;) !

VapoR Of course it is also impossible to bring any serious damages to tanks with Su-25's canon, which AP shells is not so far different from GAU-8's(DU penetrators add's about 10-15% for penetrating ability). So destroying tanks with 30mm canon from the air is impossible thing at all. :roll: Well, if there is another any anti-tank groups around with ATGMs -- yes! But we are talking about only A-10 and tank :) By the way T-80UD could resist for a long time, while being even immovable. The auxilary power unit helps alot and even with only battaries it could fight against any ground target with all weapons it has, also as any other west MBT...

Well... as you see there are some penetrations of course (17), but there is another tank parameter -- "inside armour damage", that goes after penetration. As you see the inside armour damage was also not enough to derange anything there... The only damages were taken by the suspension elements, which only could make the tank immovable...

Ребят... там одного ядерного заряда на весь ТВД хватит :lol:

Actually not :) The armour is close to 30-40mm RHA equivalent as at the sides, as at the rouf. The most weaked zone is air-intake area around engine, which equivalent is about 20 mm. By the way -- T-80UD is armoured far much better armoured ;) As you see GAU-8's DU shell is not so powerfull to penetrate this, if looking back to the test ;)

Well... actually if you look trough the test the shooting was exactly at weaked zones, like sides. Sides in T-62 armoured the same as top-hull and top-turret... T-62 and T-72 is absolutely differrent :D T-62 is medium tank, T-72 Main Battle Tank and armoured much better...