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Fangz posted:Allied trials found spaced armour to be generally pretty ineffective vs Panzerfausts, if I recall. I think I have read that modern slat armour operates on the principle of loving up the impact fuse on RPGs and so causing them to fail to detonate. Shape charges were poorly understood at the time though, so it's possible that during the war inconsistencies in Panzerfaust performance led people to believe the idea worked. I don't think the Soviets used the idea postwar, so I guess they also eventually realised it was a bad idea. Spaced armor's big downside is that it's gonna get blown off easily and unless the only thing the enemy throws at you is low velocity shaped charge munitions it's pretty much a one-time use thing and even then it's unlikely to survive a detonating Panzerfaust impact. So it's good when you're rolling through Berlin, not great in, say, the Fulda Gap. It's made a comeback for that reason too, if you are mainly dealing with people in buildings or rock-strewn Afghan mountain passes firing RPG-7s at you then sure having slats will buy you a hit or two to either fire back or get the hell out.
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Jan 2, 2019 10:58
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Spaced armour that's just a thin sheet to detonate the warhead before it hits the main armour layer is going to make things worse rather than better. HEAT warheads work best with a standoff distance that the shape of the projectile usually doesn't allow them to get with impact detonation (especially one as blunt as a Panzerfaust, compare that to how long an RPG round's nose cone is). Slat armour, as Fangz said, is spaced to (ideally) trap the incoming round between two bars, crushing/deforming it so it either doesn't detonate or the jet is malformed and doesn't penetrate the armour. There's no guarantee that the warhead will hit in a way that impedes it but it's better than no chance. Edit: from looking at pictures the WW2 Soviet stuff appears to be wire mesh (or very thin bars), much lighter than modern slat armour. But Panzerfausts had a much lower velocity (30-60 m/s) than modern RPGs (~300 m/s), so it might well have been sufficient to stop them GotLag fucked around with this message at 12:32 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 12:26
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GotLag posted:Spaced armour that's just a thin sheet to detonate the warhead before it hits the main armour layer is going to make things worse rather than better. HEAT warheads work best with a standoff distance that the shape of the projectile usually doesn't allow them to get with impact detonation (especially one as blunt as a Panzerfaust, compare that to how long an RPG round's nose cone is). Hell the Soviets thought welding wireframe beds to tank hulls was a good thing to protect against shaped charges. And right to the T-90s. https://defence.pk/pdf/threads/russias-army-to-receive-new-t-90m-main-battle-tank-in-2018.516981/ EvilMerlin fucked around with this message at 13:55 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 13:52
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In the sense that the Sherman is regarded (or maybe not?) as a mechanically reliable, relatively crew-comfortable, and comparatively safe tank, did the M3 Lee share these characteristics, or is it just me that thinks their designs are similar from the outside?
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Jan 2, 2019 13:55
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gradenko_2000 posted:In the sense that the Sherman is regarded (or maybe not?) as a mechanically reliable, relatively crew-comfortable, and comparatively safe tank, did the M3 Lee share these characteristics, or is it just me that thinks their designs are similar from the outside? The M4 chassis is based on the M3 chassis, so yeah, there is quite a bit in common with them... think of the M3 as a testing ground for what the M4 was or became. The M3 was a rush job to get a medium tank into service and into the hands of the British for Lend Lease asap. So it used some old fashioned ideas and combined them with new tech... and kind came up with a half-assed tank that was decent in the war for all of 18 months or so.
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Jan 2, 2019 13:58
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EvilMerlin posted:Hell the Soviets thought welding wireframe beds to tank hulls was a good thing to protect against shaped charges. Yeah that's the point, the newer slat armour is working on a rather different principle to old bedspring or spaced armour. The theory behind the old armour is that the shaped charge would detonate at a stand off distance, or the armour would somehow gently caress up the plasma jet - which probably wouldn't have worked for the designs they actually used. The newer slat armour, you'll notice, has much bigger spaces between, and is generally of a more solid design. The idea as I understand it is that the impact fuse on a warhead hits between the slats, which causes the fuse to fail to go off. Directly just hitting a wire might also damage the warhead. This means these only work a certain percentage of the time, and only for certain RPGs, but hey, better than nothing.
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Jan 2, 2019 14:11
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Fangz posted:Yeah that's the point, the newer slat armour is working on a rather different principle to old bedspring or spaced armour. The theory behind the old armour is that the shaped charge would detonate at a stand off distance, or the armour would somehow gently caress up the plasma jet - which probably wouldn't have worked for the designs they actually used. Yep, was just showing that the Soviets were trying to defeat it early on. Panzerfausts were feared for a reason.
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Jan 2, 2019 14:20
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Fangz posted:Yeah that's the point, the newer slat armour is working on a rather different principle to old bedspring or spaced armour. The theory behind the old armour is that the shaped charge would detonate at a stand off distance, or the armour would somehow gently caress up the plasma jet - which probably wouldn't have worked for the designs they actually used. It's also entirely possible that chain-link design was intended to "bounce" the warhead on the same basis - the tip of the Panzerfaust hits nothing, but the sloped sides of the warhead hit it, resulting in the projectile bouncing off harmlessly. They weren't going incredibly fast, as far as projectiles go. Certainly faster than anything is usually thrown by hand but unlikely to bust through the mesh on momentum alone.
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Jan 2, 2019 14:23
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FAUXTON posted:It's also entirely possible that chain-link design was intended to "bounce" the warhead on the same basis - the tip of the Panzerfaust hits nothing, but the sloped sides of the warhead hit it, resulting in the projectile bouncing off harmlessly. They weren't going incredibly fast, as far as projectiles go. Certainly faster than anything is usually thrown by hand but unlikely to bust through the mesh on momentum alone. Yeah but the fuckers built SIX POINT SEVEN million of them.
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Jan 2, 2019 14:43
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I had a quick look at the Panzerfaust fuse and it's a very simple rear mounted firing pin that springs forward when it hits something. I can't see any description of slat armour defeating it because they rely on crushing the front of the projectile. You might disrupt jet formation or you might just give it stand off distance.
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Jan 2, 2019 14:44
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FAUXTON posted:It's also entirely possible that chain-link design was intended to "bounce" the warhead on the same basis - the tip of the Panzerfaust hits nothing, but the sloped sides of the warhead hit it, resulting in the projectile bouncing off harmlessly. They weren't going incredibly fast, as far as projectiles go. Certainly faster than anything is usually thrown by hand but unlikely to bust through the mesh on momentum alone. Nah, the fuses on the two work differently. https://youtu.be/7KOcuzHJSAE The RPG 7 basically has a button on the end. This is a piezoelectric element that triggers the warhead when it impacts something. Nothing pushes the button, no explosion. http://www.history.jp/wehrmacht/011-25.jpg The Panzerfaust has a weight inside, so that when the warhead hits the weight goes forward and detonates the charge. So if the forward motion of the missile is arrested quickly enough, it would detonate. It might still be the case that the warhead could be brought to a halt slowly enough to not detonate but that doesn't seem super likely to me.
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Jan 2, 2019 14:49
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FrangibleCover posted:I had a quick look at the Panzerfaust fuse and it's a very simple rear mounted firing pin that springs forward when it hits something. I can't see any description of slat armour defeating it because they rely on crushing the front of the projectile. You might disrupt jet formation or you might just give it stand off distance. For those that want a pictures and information: http://www.dererstezug.com/panzerfaust.htm
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Jan 2, 2019 14:49
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Fangz posted:Nah, the fuses on the two work differently. Here I was thinking the Panzerfaust fuzing was just a donk on the nose of the thing. Yeah it's unlikely those screens would keep it from blowing, and even with the small cross-section the screens probably got blown right off on the first hit and the EFP penetrator probably still had time/space to do it's thing in most cases. Maybe way out on the margins where the propellant was already burnt and it was just coasting in on inertia but I doubt that was at all common.
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Jan 2, 2019 14:55
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Ah hah, here's what I was looking for: Canadian trials of anti-panzerfaust applique armour. https://milart.blog/2014/08/30/allied-trials-to-counteract-panzerfaust-attacks/ quote:Spaced armour had to be at least 30 inches (75 cm) from the main armour to defeat the shaped charge – increasing the overall width of the vehicle by 5 feet (1.5 metres). A 3/4 inch (20 mm) spaced armour plate with a stand-off distance of 12 inches (30 cm) or less actually enhanced the shaped charge’s effect by optimizing its stand-off distance. Spaced armoured backed with 12 inches of cork or rock wool did not work. Spaced armour filled with 12 inches of sand usually worked, but added 5 to 9 tons to the vehicle’s weight.
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Jan 2, 2019 15:01
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LatwPIAT posted:Americans thinking climbing out of the turret to operate the machine gun is good design? This persisted straight into the 21st century:  the "commander's fifty" Dudes in Iraq kept getting snyped when trying to operate it so the army came up with a really, really effective remote mount that is now getting put on everything with wheels. 
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Jan 2, 2019 15:24
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Fangz posted:Ah hah, here's what I was looking for: It was studies like these that the Soviets pulled all the data from to make their anti-tank weapons...
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Jan 2, 2019 15:27
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I remember reading that the canadians liked to pilfer the AA 50 cals from american tanks they recieved and reuse them on other vehicles or in defensive positions.
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Jan 2, 2019 15:34
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Ensign Expendable posted:It's supposed to be AA only. You'll see Shermans with the same rear-mounted M2 that can only be operated while standing on the engine deck. As you can imagine, this was an issue, and many crews moved their AA MG so it could be fired while standing in the turret. Since the M36s didn't have a roof they couldn't really do the same thing. It's also really useful for defense against an assault! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWIcVfl5g60
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Jan 2, 2019 15:38
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Edgar Allen Ho posted:I remember reading that the canadians liked to pilfer the AA 50 cals from american tanks they recieved and reuse them on other vehicles or in defensive positions. The Canadians continued this tradition for many years, in the 80s the Canadian forces in Germany reportedly practiced pulling the M2s off their M113s and using them as squad machine guns on the defensive.
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Jan 2, 2019 15:55
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This came up in a discussion about shore-to-ship fires and I didn't really have a good answer even though I should have. Could the Germans have created a coastal battery capable of shutting down the English Channel and standing-off and or beating a surface fleet? I know that the various attempts they made were pitifully unsuccessful, but they rather halfassed it, both in terms of number of guns and the integrated targeting system. There's some old naval mantra that "coastal guns were X more effective than shipboard ones" or something like that, but I'm unsure if that ever actually proved true in practice.
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Jan 2, 2019 15:56
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bewbies posted:Dudes in Iraq kept getting snyped when trying to operate it Yeah I've always wondered, how often would tank commanders end up getting shot when they're peering out of their little hole thing? It seems ridiculously vulnerable.
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Jan 2, 2019 15:56
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bewbies posted:This persisted straight into the 21st century: This was also a consideration in Vietnam:  The problem comes from the fact that these tanks weren't designed with fighting infantry as their primary mission. Their main mission - for the Sheridan, for the Abrams - was to stop a Soviet tank offensive in the Fulda Gap. Under those circumstances the enemy isn't sniping at you with small arms, they're throwing main gun rounds your way. If that's the case it doesn't really matter if your TC is behind a relatively thin sheet of metal or not; if he or your tank gets hit he's quite dead. In fact, under those conditions you want your TC to have an open, unobstructed view so that he can have a good situational awareness of the battlefield and see the enemy tanks far away. But you don't always fight the war you thought you were going to fight, so AFVs that were designed to tangle with huge Soviet tank attacks ended up fighting insurgents instead.
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Jan 2, 2019 15:56
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Koramei posted:Yeah I've always wondered, how often would tank commanders end up getting shot when they're peering out of their little hole thing? It seems ridiculously vulnerable. It's all about trade-offs. Famously the Israelis found out in '67 and '73 that keeping their heads out of their tanks made them much more effective and made tanks more likely to survive; the TC can see the situation, spot enemy tanks further away, avoid obstacles better, etc. This has been cited as one (of many, to be sure) reasons why the Israelis did better than their adversaries who insisted on fighting buttoned up. The downside is that yes, more TCs get killed. Edit to add: It was (when I was in, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth) doctrine to keep your heads out of the vehicle at all times. Driver, loader, TC. (The gunner is down in the turret and doesn't have his own hatch.)(Or, everyone in an AAV) You'd button up when you were at direct risk, like if you were taking small arms fire. But as soon as you could, you'd stick a head out to see what was going on and get back in the fight. Even though it was probably personally riskier to keep your head out of the vehicle, fighting entirely buttoned up gives me the creeps; it's like fighting blind. Cessna fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 16:01
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reading up on the North African front of WW2, were the Indian divisions of the British army composed purely? largely? of Indians? Was the British army otherwise integrated?
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Jan 2, 2019 16:02
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Yes?
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Jan 2, 2019 16:06
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bewbies posted:This came up in a discussion about shore-to-ship fires and I didn't really have a good answer even though I should have. No. The problem is, coastal batteries are generally stationary, and ships move. By WW2, ships had the range and firepower to suppress any coastal battery, something most frequently seen in the Pacific where the USN had no trouble suppressing Japanese coastal defenses. Coastal defense in WW2 was more a thing of shredding amphibious invasions, not sinking ships in a ship-to-shore battle. Coastal batteries did regularly damage ships, and sink them on occasion, but actually beating a surface fleet? No.
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Jan 2, 2019 16:07
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Cessna posted:It's all about trade-offs. It's sort of like the helmet paradox.
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Jan 2, 2019 16:07
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Koramei posted:Yeah I've always wondered, how often would tank commanders end up getting shot when they're peering out of their little hole thing? It seems ridiculously vulnerable. The answer is "yes" but that isn't really the whole story. When you're fighting in built up areas, a vehicle's best defense is almost always good offense, in the form of shooting those who would shoot you. Having better awareness of your surroundings is the only way to accomplish this, and thus made one's vehicle less vulnerable even if it made you personally more vulnerable. Getting guys to unbutton was a constant challenge, especially as the practice of shooting unbuttoned crews was a constant thing in Iraq from the very first week of the war. The interim solution was the old timey armor shields that we've all seen on every .50 and Mk19 mount, and those worked reasonably well though they weren't in any way comprehensive protection. The fancy sensors on the CROWS mount really solved this problem - they're pretty much better than a dude is at finding stuff, and they don't require a dude to stick his head out. Cythereal posted:No. It seems like the German batteries survived relatively well even if they didn't actually accomplish much...was that just because they weren't a priority target? bewbies fucked around with this message at 16:12 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 16:09
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Cythereal posted:No. I also can't help but think such a coastal battery would have attracted disproportionate attention from the RAF long before it was completed.
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Jan 2, 2019 16:10
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Cessna posted:The downside is that yes, more TCs get killed. Going to war is such a terrible idea when you think about it
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Jan 2, 2019 16:14
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bewbies posted:It seems like the German batteries survived relatively well even if they didn't actually accomplish much...was that just because they weren't a priority target? Actually destroying well sited and prepared coastal guns in WW2 was incredibly difficult. Generally, the goal was to suppress them or knock them out by collapsing the cave or bunker they were hidden in, very rarely was the expectation to actually destroy the gun. Cessna posted:I also can't help but think such a coastal battery would have attracted disproportionate attention from the RAF long before it was completed. Almost certainly, and there's no coastal battery than can outrange airplanes launched from a nearby island (or in the Pacific, carrier).
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Jan 2, 2019 16:14
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Cessna posted:I also can't help but think such a coastal battery would have attracted disproportionate attention from the RAF long before it was completed. Probably this. Fixed placements are fodder for aircraft. And before it's asked why the Allies didn't do this to fixed placements during DDay... element of surprise would have been removed had we done so. Once the invasion did start the Allies did target these placements with both offshore and aerial weapons.
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Jan 2, 2019 16:15
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aphid_licker posted:Going to war is such a terrible idea when you think about it To be sure, but the people who decide that you're going to war aren't the ones who have to worry about whether they should button up or stick their heads out of the vehicle.
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Jan 2, 2019 16:17
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gradenko_2000 posted:reading up on the North African front of WW2, were the Indian divisions of the British army composed purely? largely? of Indians? Was the British army otherwise integrated? Infantry brigades usually had 1 Anglo battalion. Artillery was Anglo. Division troops where Indian. Source wiki 2nd el alamein oob 4th Indian Infantry DivisionEdit under Major-General Francis Tuker Central India Horse (reconnaissance regiment) 5th Battalion, 6th Rajputana Rifles (machine gun battalion) 1st Field Regiment Royal Artillery 11th Field Regiment, Royal Artillery 32nd Field Regiment, Royal Artillery 149th Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery 57th Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, Royal Artillery 2nd Field Company, Bengal Sappers and Miners 4th Field Company, Bengal Sappers and Miners 12th Field Company, Madras Sappers and Miners 11th Field Park Company, Madras Sappers and Miners 4th Indian Division Signals 5th Indian Infantry BrigadeEdit under Brigadier Dudley Russell 1/4th Battalion, Essex Regiment 4th (Outram's) Battalion, 6th Rajputana Rifles 3rd (Queen Mary's Own) Battalion, 10th Baluch Regiment 7th Indian Infantry BrigadeEdit under Brigadier Arthur Holworthy 1st Battalion, Royal Sussex Regiment 4th Battalion, 16th Punjab Regiment 1st Battalion, 2nd King Edward's Own Gurkha Rifles 161st Indian Infantry BrigadeEdit under Brigadier Francis E.C. Hughes 1st Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders 1st Battalion, 1st Punjab Regiment 4th Battalion, 7th Rajput Regiment
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Jan 2, 2019 16:17
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With phalanxes and the poke/push thing it always seemed unlikely to me that in a fight where there's a good chance your enemy is trying to kill you that you'd not try and stab him first instead of pushing him around. Has anyone ever given a bunch of phalanx equipment to those reenactor folks and told them to figure it out? Even with blunted weapons and whatnot would that still likely result in some serious injuries?
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Jan 2, 2019 16:18
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Vincent Van Goatse posted:Someone light the Ensign Signal.  Fangz posted:Allied trials found spaced armour to be generally pretty ineffective vs Panzerfausts, if I recall. I think I have read that modern slat armour operates on the principle of loving up the impact fuse on RPGs and so causing them to fail to detonate. Shape charges were poorly understood at the time though, so it's possible that during the war inconsistencies in Panzerfaust performance led people to believe the idea worked. I don't think the Soviets used the idea postwar, so I guess they also eventually realised it was a bad idea. Small bazooka style warheads could be stopped by standoff armour, whether it was plates or mesh. There are reports of Soviet tank units in Berlin being rather happy with the performance of their mesh armour. The problem was with bigger warheads that the Germans introduced. The standoff was no longer enough. I have data on some British experiments, they tried all sorts of stuff including spikes, nothing really worked without blowing up the tank to ridiculous size. You see the "lol human armour" meme floating around, but covering your tank in infantry was the best way of dealing with these weapons. The poor sap with a Panzerfaust had to be within 30-60 meters to hit the tank, so hosing down anything suspicious with SMG fire from 100 meters away tended to work wonders. This is where Shermans were valued: the suspension was smooth enough for accurate small arms fire on the move, plus there was that nice .50 cal sitting on the turret roof.
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Jan 2, 2019 16:26
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Ensign Expendable posted:You see the "lol human armour" meme floating around, but covering your tank in infantry was the best way of dealing with these weapons. There's no better friend than dismounted infantry when you're operating in dense terrain.
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Jan 2, 2019 16:29
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gradenko_2000 posted:In the sense that the Sherman is regarded (or maybe not?) as a mechanically reliable, relatively crew-comfortable, and comparatively safe tank, did the M3 Lee share these characteristics, or is it just me that thinks their designs are similar from the outside? The insides of the tanks are the same, but both the Sherman and Lee had teething problems that were never solved, at least on certain variants. The R975-EC2 engine was unreliable, lasting 100 hours tops even in training conditions. The British report a lot of mechanical problems with other components as well. The C1 and later C4 variants pushed the reliability up a little, but literally any other engine you could use in a Sherman, even the ridiculous Chrysler one, performed better. The internal layout of the Lee also left much to be desired, the hull gun was hard to service and the machine gun cupola on top was basically useless. Edgar Allen Ho posted:I remember reading that the canadians liked to pilfer the AA 50 cals from american tanks they recieved and reuse them on other vehicles or in defensive positions. Yup, you see a lot of photos of Kangaroos and Universal Carriers with .50 cals on them. Ensign Expendable fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Jan 2, 2019 |
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Jan 2, 2019 16:30
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Ensign Expendable posted:the machine gun cupola on top was basically useless. A tradition that carried forward to the M60.
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Jan 2, 2019 16:32
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Fangz posted:Allied trials found spaced armour to be generally pretty ineffective vs Panzerfausts, if I recall. I think I have read that modern slat armour operates on the principle of loving up the impact fuse on RPGs and so causing them to fail to detonate. That only works with a single type (although a very common type) of RPG warhead. It has a piezoelectric element in the nose, a detonator at the base, and the two are connected by the inner and outer metal shell of the warhead. When it strikes the target, the piezo element gets crushed, generating a voltage, causing current to flow in the circuit and set off the detonator.The slat armor works by hopefully striking the angled surface of the warhead as it passes through the slats, before the nose fuse strikes the target. This will crush the inner and outer shells together, shorting the circuit and preventing the current pulse from reaching the detonator. More modern RPG warheads have detonators in the front as well, so that trick won't work. But depending on impact angle etc the conical liner of the warhead might be deformed by impacting a slat, screwing up the formation of the HEAT jet.
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Jan 2, 2019 16:34
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