Military Ground Vehicles of Your Nation [NO MECHS] Mk.IV

[Immoren]

Technology of Tanks, a $700 tome by Jane's.

I want it on my bookself, but it is so expensive. ;_;

[The Kievan People]

Found it at library near my uni~~~~~

[The Republic of Lanos]

Found it at library near my uni~~~~~

When will we see you again?

[Lubyak]

Technology of Tanks, a $700 tome by Jane's.

I want it on my bookself, but it is so expensive. ;_;

I've got a pdf of it sitting around somewhere....I can toss it at you Immo.

[Immoren]

I want it on my bookself, but it is so expensive. ;_;

I've got a pdf of it sitting around somewhere....I can toss it at you Immo.

I found one but it ain't same thing.

[Galla-]

Technology of Tanks, a $700 tome by Jane's.

I want it on my bookself, but it is so expensive. ;_;

Torrent it.

[Immoren]

I want it on my bookself, but it is so expensive. ;_;

Torrent it.

But it is not same thing as I am a minor bibliophile.

[Orussia]

Torrent it.

But it is not same thing as I am a minor bibliophile.

Print it.
Bind it.

Problem solved.

[The Republic of Lanos]

But it is not same thing as I am a minor bibliophile.

Print it.
Bind it.

Problem solved.

Why do you need a copy? The US Army will give you what it has while you're in advanced armor training.

[Immoren]

But it is not same thing as I am a minor bibliophile.

Print it.
Bind it.

Problem solved.

But I don't know where I could get leather(?) covers to match original.

[Galla-]

Print it.
Bind it.

Problem solved.

Why do you need a copy? The US Army will give you what it has while you're in advanced armor training.

1) Technology of Tanks is more indepth than any military training. It is sort of a general overview on how tanks work, not how to operate them. That is why it is $700, not $7.
2) Immoren is Finnish.

Print it.
Bind it.

Problem solved.

But I don't know where I could get leather(?) covers to match original.

I'm sure you could find a printing shop that would help out with that mayhap?

[Samozaryadnyastan]

I could always go to my uni's bookstore and use their binding service for you, if I somehow bluff it's my PhD thesis

[Hladgos]

What exactly do penetrators do, and how do they work? Could you make a penetrator that would still go through armor and have room in the round for explosives?

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Not really.
KEPs (the pointy part of an APFSDS round) is just a big, finned spear that's about 30-40mm in diameter (excluding fins) and works because it's stupidly dense (and thus heavy) and fired at stupidly high velocities (because it's tiny and wedged inside a case far larger than itself - ie, it's a 30mm rod inside a cartridge case with a neck 120mm+ wide, with a sabot ring that seals the barrel behind it. The small diameter allows for better penetration and less drag in the air, allowing it to maintain its high velocity all the way to the target, then it just burrows through. Despite being far smaller (though longer), the M829A3 only weighs about a kilo less than M830A1 HEAT-MP-T (10kg versus 11.4kg). Just to give you an idea of just how dense it really is.

Whilst a HEAT round is typically full-bore (or slightly sub-bore, for the same reason as a KEP - to increase velocity), it also only generates a penetration channel a few centimetres wide. It acts similarly to a KEP, but by a completely different mechanism known as the Munroe Effect.

M829A3 w/ cutaway
M830A1 w/ cutaway

Your best bet is probably just to make your penetrator (whether HEAT or a KEP) out of depleted uranium, so that when it penetrates the armour, it spontaneously ignites within the tank and incinerates the crew with radioactive fire for lolz.

[Hladgos]

Not really.
KEPs (the pointy part of an APFSDS round) is just a big, finned spear that's about 30-40mm in diameter (excluding fins) and works because it's stupidly dense (and thus heavy) and fired at stupidly high velocities (because it's tiny and wedged inside a case far larger than itself - ie, it's a 30mm rod inside a cartridge case with a neck 120mm+ wide, with a sabot ring that seals the barrel behind it. The small diameter allows for better penetration and less drag in the air, allowing it to maintain its high velocity all the way to the target, then it just burrows through.

Whilst a HEAT round is typically full-bore (or slightly sub-bore, for the same reason as a KEP - to increase velocity), it also only generates a penetration channel a few centimetres wide. It acts similarly to a KEP, but by a completely different mechanism known as the Munroe Effect.

Your best bet is probably just to make your penetrator (whether HEAT or a KEP) out of depleted uranium, so that when it penetrates the armour, it spontaneously ignites within the tank and incinerates the crew with radioactive fire for lolz.

Could you make a double round with an explosive shell right behind the penetrator?

[Lubyak]

What exactly do penetrators do, and how do they work? Could you make a penetrator that would still go through armor and have room in the round for explosives?

Penetrators--I'm assuming you mean a KEP (kinetic energy penetrator)--do exactly what they say on the tin. They're meant to go through tank armor, through sheer kinetic energy. The most common modern KEP is the Armor Piercing Fin Stabilized Discarding Sabot (APFSDS) which is fired from a smoothbore cannon.

If you look at the link above, the penetrator is the long rod arrow like thing, while the sabot is the structure around that. When you fire the round, the sabot falls away, letting the penetrator fly forward at such a high speed, and the round itself being made out of very heavy material, that when it hits, it's carrying lots of energy...hopefully enough to penetrate a tank's armor.

It's unlikely, since you want your penetrator to be as heavy as possible, and carrying explosives would likely make that more difficult. Furthermore, IIRC, if you use a depleted uranium penetrator, after it penetrates the armor, it causes the interior of the tank to catch on fire.....making explosives pretty redundant.

[Lubyak]

Could you make a double round with an explosive shell right behind the penetrator?

You could just use a tandem HEAT round, which kinda does that, except in reverse.

The issue is that using an HE shell tandem with a penetrator is redundant, and adds useless complexity. The penetrator will penetrate the armor, and set the crew onside on fire...

Why do you need to blow them up too?

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Again, not really.
Don't forget that tandem HEAT warheads (with more than one HEAT cone) aren't intended to cumulatively penetrate armour, or even send additional warheads through the hole made by the previous one - they're there solely to set off (N)ERA plates, and some APS, allowing the main charge to strike bare armour, maximising its effectiveness.

What, was sending a few kilograms of extremely high velocity shards, fragments and dust clouds of radioactive, self-combusting depleted uranium inside an enemy tank not destructive enough for you already?

[The Republic of Lanos]

Could you make a double round with an explosive shell right behind the penetrator?

You could just use a tandem HEAT round, which kinda does that, except in reverse.

The issue is that using an HE shell tandem with a penetrator is redundant, and adds useless complexity. The penetrator will penetrate the armor, and set the crew onside on fire...

Why do you need to blow them up too?

WARLULZ FOR THE WARLULZ GOD.

[Hladgos]

I'm thinking I'm going to make up an anti-kinetic armor, which absorbs massive amounts of energy. Probably be built on the quantom scale in PMT or so, and will be used for spaceships at first, in order to protect from micro-meteorites. Say, what do they use for ships now to protect against that? A micro-meteorite is like a penetrator going a hundred times the speed of what it could go in earth.

[Our Most Resplendent Goddess Sen]

They use whipple shields.



Anti-tank ammunition is both too slow and too heavy for spacecraft-armoring schemes to be applicable.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Just use really thick armour.
Whilst possibly not suitable for space, ERA bricks on the outside of a ship would certainly help to deflect incoming projectiles, but potentially knock it off course, maybe.

Trialled/theorised systems for space I've heard of have included aerogel coatings and also strong magnetic fields around the ship to deflect particles up to certain velocities.

[Galla-]

Just use really thick armour.
Whilst possibly not suitable for space, ERA bricks on the outside of a ship would certainly help to deflect incoming projectiles, but potentially knock it off course, maybe.

Trialled/theorised systems for space I've heard of have included aerogel coatings and also strong magnetic fields around the ship to deflect particles up to certain velocities.

No, use whipple shields.

aka lots of rly thin plates separated by vacuum pockets.

Or just be very fast and unpredictable.

[Hladgos]

I can always use subjective magnetic sheilding that activates as soon as a round is close enough. Or if I really wanted to troll, I could build a tank out of space bridge material. Synthetic diamond internal support, with graphene armor which would just be a total godmod. I could always drop my tanks from orbit, eh?

[Orussia]

I can always use subjective magnetic sheilding that activates as soon as a round is close enough. Or if I really wanted to troll, I could build a tank out of space bridge material. Synthetic diamond internal support, with graphene armor which would just be a total godmod. I could always drop my tanks from orbit, eh?

...this is sounding more and more like something that belongs in the FT Discussion thread.
Just sayin'.