The US did the same thing with battleship and cruiser AP shells.  There are several advantages to the heavier slower AP projectile.  The long rod is basically approaching obsolescence anyway.  The future is top attack although rocket and ramjet boosted long rods may prolong their lifetime.  The US is way ahead of the rest of the world in recognizing that the end of the gun/armor cycle is approaching.  I think FCS opponents don't realize that.  MRM type projectiles that can perform top attack are the future.  The cycle of competition will be missile and seeker vs stealth, countermeasures, and APS instead of projectile/armor.  Really almost no need for a gun barrel, just use missiles.

let put it on a upgraded humvee!!!! the heavy humvee has a 2.25 ton cargo capacity which is 4500lb!!!!

 

Sincerely,

 

Keith

The recoil force of a 120mm gun is so large that even with a muzzle brake and LRF mounting a humvee cannot handle it.  Also, putting a humvee in a direct fire fight with MBTs is not a good idea.

More advanced ERA, however, has large metal plates on the outside and it is the explosively driven motion of these that can disrupt both shaped charge and long rod penetrators. What they will not work on is EFPs, as these solid slugs are just mass at speed - they have no special structure to disrupt.

Tanks are not quite my forte' but I was under the impression that Long Rod Penetrators were unaffected, or affected very little, by reactive armor anyway.  I had thought reactive armor was only truly effective versus HEAT-style rounds.  That makes sense in my mind in the style by which they penetrate the armor, molten stream versus sheer power. 

Apparantly I am wrong, anyone care to explain this to me?

Since ERA works on shaped charge jets, which range in speed (within the jet) from 2-8km/s, I think that the liklihood of a projectile going fast enough to avoid ERA is small. 

Even at Mach 8 (about 2.6km/s at sea level), you still need mass to have an effect. There are systems on satellites that will stop 10km/s+ particles, because they're small.

Even at Mach 8 (about 2.6km/s at sea level), you still need mass to have an effect. There are systems on satellites that will stop 10km/s+ particles, because they're small.

See where you're getting at with that assumption, but...
As the speed of KE LRPs continues to increase (saw somewhere the 120L55 pushed tungsten out at 1900m/sec),

the reaction time of the ERA's detonation effect will have to increase accordingly.

All the KONTAKT in the world means nothing if its ideal detonation condition doesn't function fast enough to disrupt the LRP.

 

It's kind of like the hit-to-kill principle used in intercepting ballistic missiles: you get to a certain point where the velocities in question are just too fast for chemical explosives to counter (both the explosion initiation and the resultant blast wave aren't fast enough to match the velocity of all the KE stuff moving at such high velocities).

 

So unless AFVs start sporting 360° radar coverage systems that can locate inbound projectiles fast enough, and sufficiently fast enough electronic brains to activate the ERA or proactive armor device soon enough to be at the ideal disruptive pattern when the KE projerctile impacts, then you might as well not even waste the expense on equipping with additional armor.

Getting hit with a Mach 8+ theoretical LRP: measure that in feet per second, it's like almost 9000feet per second. Any countermeasures device that must effectively nullify that projectile will have milli microseconds to react and select the appropriate armor panel to predetonate sufficiently early enough to generate an effective disruptive pattern far enough ahead of the LRP to disrupt its flightpath to the point it isn't dumping its M8+ KE into you at a single point.

The other issue there is, still getting hit by less-than-Mach-8 bits and pieces is still going to cause considerable external damage: sights & optics, barrel, hatches, engine decking, etc, any areas that aren't designed to withstand direct hits by LRP s will be compromised.

So unless your KE countermeasures system can fully divert, by whatever means, a supervelocity penetrator completely away from your vehicle altogether, then the faster KE weapons get the less reasoning you have to even try dissipating or redirecting its inbound energy.

When we get to that point, we'd be better suited with the ability to remain undetected to begin with, or hope we can detect the other guy's AFVs before he detect ours and we start launching M10+ KE LRPs at him before he launches them at us.

Plus, of course, you don't try and stop the tip striking, you aim to shatter the rest of the rod so it doesn't carry its energy into the hole started by the tip. Same deal as with shaped charge, unless you choose to believe that it can disrupt a jet tip at 8km/s and not a slightly thicker rod at less than a quarter of the velocity.

However, as long as you have the mass you can overmatch any armour, or render the armour irrelevant by simply dumping so much energy into the target that you wreck everything sensitive in it, knock the turret off its bearings, whatever.

Very good article . Long range kills are indeed the futur but the USA are not the only Country to work on the technology ...



I 've noticed one error in the article when it says about the M829A3 that the round ""is
designed to penetrate all existing Konkat style armor with negligible
or no degration to penetration performance."" That is wrong and over
optimistic .



Cheers .

Very good article . Long range kills are indeed the futur but the USA are not the only Country to work on the technology ...



I 've noticed one error in the article when it says about the M829A3 that the round ""is
designed to penetrate all existing Konkat style armor with negligible
or no degration to penetration performance."" That is wrong and over
optimistic .



Cheers .