Posted on 11/18/2003 2:35:56 PM PST by fourscore
You'd have to divert most of the Iraqi electrical grid's capacity to charge the capacitors in any reasonable amount of time.
Next?
or it was AT-14 Kornet!
Chunks of shattered armor roughly equivalent to the the size of golfball to that of an orange or softball, as developed by impact from a HESH or HEP round would be *a lot* and could be expected to kill everyone inside, destroy optics, hydraulic lines, batteries and radios, and probably ignite the ammunition aboard [though not usualy detonate it until the fires touch off a HEAT or HE round's detonator and booster charge] A *little* evident spalling would be about equivalent to the result of hitting a glass marble with a sledge hammer. But flying through the interior of a tank at speeds in excess of a mile per second that too can do serious damage- as seen in the impacted Abrams interior- if not to as severe a degree.
HESH/HEP is particularly effective against reinforced concrete, less so against spaced *Chobham* armor found used in the construction of British and US tanks. Typically, a HESH round impact may not even penetrate the armor, just chip off enough scabs from the interior surface to get the job done. Think of the demonstration of inertia when a cue ball strikes a line of pool balls and the last one on the end flies off with nearly the velocity of the cueball hitting the stack. Seperate the balls a bit, and that won't happen.
If you've ever seen a tempered glass window struck by a BB or air rifle pellet that results in a cone-shaped hole on the inside of the window and a tiny hole that may not even be large enough to allow the passage of the BB through it, you've got an idea of how well it can work
Not.
A Tonka toy is better on paper, but until you get your tank on the battlefield, then the M1A1 Abrams is the best tank. :)
Squash head projectiles had a soft explosive that on impact squished out into a platter shape before detonation, the shock wave travels through the armor and knocks a flake loose on the other side.
As I remember.....
You're exactly correct: known as HEP [High Explosive, Plastic] in US practice, HESH [High Explosive Squash-Head] to the Brits. The 76mm gun of the Saladin armored car was particularly effective with a HESH loading, developed in the days before spaced/Chobham armor was on the scene. Once it showed up, the Saladin was pretty much withdrawn from any frontline service.
But the energy from such an impact and explosion also transmits heat, as well as the friction of the *fleeks* of metal [love the term; gotta remember that one!] tearing themselves away from the interior surface combine to get the resulting sand-like chips hot enough to ignite fuel, hydraulic fluid. ammunition propellent or flesh. And remember that whatever pierced the Abrams was hot enough to set off the Halon fire extinguishers....
That could have been a HEAT round's Monroe effect jet, a self-forged beryllium/copper projectile from a Miznay-Schardin effect self-forged projectile...or maybe, spall from a HESH riund or a HVAPFSDS sabot penetrator.
Not.
So what is the best in your opinion and why?
Then you must mean maximum range....
If it was an RPG projectile, I doubt it was the usual PG-7VL shaped charge grenade. The Abrams has faced them for years, they're a known quantity, and the tankers involved can be reasonably expected to have been very familiar with the effects of the RPG rounds on tanks.
The improved PG-7VR dual-charge rocket used for first detonating reactive armor, then driving the second charge's blast through the armor is possible, especially if the first charge had been disabled or combined with the second, as unneeded since no reactive armor was present of the Abrams.
And there's another, real scary possibility: what if someone has taken the principle of the hypervelocity LOSAT round and applied it to an unguided HVAP kinetic energy round for the RPG7 launcher. Especially if used to drive a saboted penetrator, such a round could be really bad news for Abrams tankers.
-archy-/-
Not.
So what is the best in your opinion and why?
The M1A2 SEP certainly comes to mind. So does the Merkava Mark 4
But if you look at the location of the hit (center mass), that is indicative of a stand off shot. Operators are trained to aim for center mass. A close in shot from an RPG would probably go for a mobility kill (take out the engine, or rear sprocket) instead of going for the well protected crew compartment.
The firm that closely follows armor development recently said that the latest German Leopard was the best tank in the world at the training course- but that the Abrams was superior in battle.
Which would you rahter have?
They used to do it by hand in the old days, lost lots of hands that way, now they put one of these on a long pole and shoot a hole in.
No, minimum range. ATGMs, particularly SACLOS (semiautomatic command line-of-sight) ones, require a MINIMUM distance from firing until the missile is "captured" by the gunner's sight and actually starts guiding on the target. Too close, and any hit is just plain dumb luck.
1. Just because you WANT to hit a certain point doesn't mean you actually WILL hit that point.
2. Like I said, there wasn't 400 meters available for missile run-out.
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