Originally posted by fdiron
8Ball, please quit making stuff up. I know for a fact that the Russians possess a shoulder fired anti-tank missle which is capable of burning through 750mm of steel. This ought to be more than enough to kill an M1A1. And yes, I know the M1 has composite armor and reactive armor. However, armor almost always lags behind weapondry.
Uh..?
Are you sure about the M1A1s having reactive armor? I thought they didnt. In fact, I thought that neither the LeoII, Challenger or M1A1-2 had reactive armor. That there was no need for reactive armor because of the composite armor those tanks have are just as effective (or even more effective) against HEAT projectiles.
Basically, reactive armor is nothing but a bunch of explosives on the outside of the tank's armor. Designed to disrupt or divert the explosive force from a shape-charged detonation (please excuse any mistakes due to my crappy english here). Most modern AT missiles have ways to defeat reactive armor though. Most of these missiles use a combination of overhead attack and double-punch.
Basically the AT missile is set to fly approx 1 meter above the target and detonate when it is directly above it. (Overhead attack). The missile then has two shape-charged warheads. One in the front of the missile and one in the rear. These are timed so that the front warhead detonates a millisecond (or something like that) before the aft warhead. Both are angled so that they will hit the same area. What happens is that the reactive armor "reacts" to the first detonation, and neutralize that warhead. But the second warhead then arrives at the now-empty patch of armor, and only has to defeat the top armor of the tank.
The composite armor of the modern western tanks use armor with several layers of different material. Some of these layers are excellent heat absorbers, others are hardened steel, etc etc. With that kind of armor, there is no need for reactive armor, since the missile detonation will be absorbed by some of the layers (ceramics, amongst others).
