Post by oldhippy on Feb 26, 2020 9:30:47 GMT
Is the sloped armor still useful today?
By Keith Allum,
With the advent of shaped charges and reduced diameter penetrators/sabots (to say nothing of long rod penetrators) it all became incredibly complicated… but in a low-intensity combat environment angled/sloped armour still have a place, even if that place is when applied to lightly armoured vehicles like the LAV-25:
The base model is protected by high hardness MIL-A-46100 steel, varying from 4.71mm to 9.71mm (perpendicular). This is enough to offer protection against small arms such as the 7.62x39mm used in the AKM but without adding additional protection, inside and out, that’s about all it can do.)
By contrast the tracked CV9040's basic armour provides all-round protection against 14.5 mm armour-piercing rounds. While details are classified all models from CV9040B and later are said to be protected against 30 mm APFSDS, with some variants, including the CV9030N, capable of being retrofitted with a ceramic appliqué protection package that provides equivalent protection.
This up-armour kit-based upgrade approach is now commonplace, and not just for comparative lightweights.
The threat envelope has expanded greatly, and one reason is the need to provide increased protection against Improvised explosive devices, explosively formed penetrators as well as 30mm armour piercing rounds.
(And one more thing, all CV90s are fitted with a Spall liner, which covers the interior spaces and provides protection for the troops and more delicate internal equipment against spall-fragments, HE shell splinters, and the modern equivalent of shrapnel from.anti-personnel artillery munitions.)
In both cases it was considered wise to include a respectable slope on the frontal aspect of both hull and turret (in the case of tracked vehicles the track itself provides a layered passive protection, as does stowage in what used to be called ‘panniers’ and are now generally called sponsons).
Unless the vehicle is a very serious piece of kit indeed, sloped armour is deemed wise.
So much so even a heavily armoured vehicle like the Challenger II, which features Chobham armour, extensive uparmouring is evident:
PS
I believe the extensive added protection above may have more to do with the high-threat nature of the locality which I think is Basra. If so the threat included sophisticated munitions including IEDs that featured self-forging penetrators that could be emplaced as buried or off-route mines
