When the US Marines and some National Guard Units deployed to the First Gulf War, they had M-48A5's with reactive armor.

I know Bradley's have them (M2A2/M3A2's) (Reactive Armor) and I think the Strikers have it too. I also found out that the "Chobham" armor is "ceramic plates sandwiched in between conventional steel armor.

The real composition of chobham armour is secret. It is a reasonable guess that it includes spcial steewl, ceramics, but synthetic materials as well. The americans may also use DU. The way and geometric pattern in which the different structures are meshed with each other (cell-structures) often is assumed to play a role, too, but that is secret, too. The armour is produced in flat tiles that at least in the early past cannot be bend neither in production, nor afterwards, that's why Western tanks looks so flat-shaped, with sharp edges. Especially older Russian tanks depend a lot on rolled steel, that's why the turrets are looking so round and more soft in their silhouettes.

I haven't checked the book again, it has 600 pages I think, but I think the original story is true in so far that a stuck tank was discovered by three Iraqi T72 which immediately opened fire, and hit the Abrams repeatedly. Nevertheless the M1 was still fully functional and shot twice, killing two vehicles immediately. The third tank tried to escape and hid behind a dune. the M1 gunner located it via TIS (the hot engine exhaust gas was tell-taling!), made a reasonable guessing, and fired blindly through the dune where he assumed the mass of the tank was sitting, and killed the T72. that is the vesion of the sory that I did now. the M1 later was recovered, the turret replaced, and it then joined operations again (which is remarkable since the battle just took four days).

Anopther incident from that war is this story: during the tank battle at Basra (sometimes referred to as the greatest tank battle in history - I can't judge if that is true), in a flat terrain area, two T-72 happened to be positioned in a straight line, seen from an M1 who was firing at the first T72. The projectile had so much energy that it passed right through the first T72 and killed it, the remains of the not completely desintegrating penetrator rod exited the hull on the other side, hit the second tank and killed that one also. I am not sure, but the firing distance was clearly below 1200m - at least that number flashes up in my memory. Maybe it even was shorter.

The use of uranium in ammunition really makes a difference, and at ranges beyond 1500 meters really adds some 20-25% of range (at same destructive power), compared to the tungsten projectiles used by the Germans (both tanks use the same german 120mm cannon). The material is heavier, has a higher density and thus delivers a tougher kinetic punch, it also desintgertaes a bit later, so the rod has a nastier penetration power. The american ammunition during 91 was called "silver bullet", for that reason, it was able to penetrate almost everaything the Iraqis showed up with. However, there is so much small details and information collected over the years and indicating that using such ammunition is not as harmless as the army tries to make it appear that I think it will be banned by the Amricans sooner or later (probably later: talking about many, many years).

The Germans use tungsten for the penetrator rod, and every couple of years show of with another leading design that sets another benchmark for conventional SABOT ammunition. The projectiles (SABOT)travel with around 1550-1650 meters per second. HEAT is significantly slower, and is fired in steeper arches, that's why using SABOT is more forgiving concenring small aiming errors of the gunner when estimating ranges). The Russians, due to the large tank force they must support, use more cheap steel projectiles, which are differently shaped and lighter in weight. they compensate by higher muzzle velocity and inititial travel speed. However, due the the lower weight, the fast decline of travel speed, and not quite as sophisticated aiming devices and optics, over longer rnages their ammo is not quite as lethal as that of wetsern tanks. Below a certain range, however, they are as lethal as an M1 or Leo2. I would set that value somewhere around or slightly below 2000m. But hey, that's just my own guess.

being protected against sabot's seems to be little help at the moment. the challenger 2 that was hit by the roadside bomb* was protected by chobham 2 armour, a bit better then the generation used by the m1 but considerably more expensive.

the 'electric' charged armour being developed by the same folk who brought you chobham 1/2 is simply to stop shaped warheads slugs it wont help at all against such high energy kinetics of current road-side bombs.

incidently the place that makes/researches the stuff is all of 10 miles away from me at the moment.




*if you can call a artillery barrage gaffa-taped together a 'bomb'

The bottom line is you make better armor, they make better penetrators and everything is more expensive. Thats why there will never be another world war, because it's just not affordable anymore.

Polish Sf-writer Stanislav Lem once wrote a short ironic trilogy, one part of it was entitled "Weapon Systems of the 21. century." In it he said that in the middle of the 21. century the US Air Force would consist of three planes only. :lol:

And also, Russian Tank Design and American/Western Tank Design couldn't be more different. You would have thought we fought two different enemies in WWII, rather than both of us fighting the Germans.