Forum… Or Against ’em

By Count Friedrich von Olsen
As if we do not have enough to worry about with the seeming destruction (is it self-destruction?) of the Republican candidate for president, there is something else to make our hair go grayer or fall out completely. Yet, in the spirit that all of this might take our minds off the presidential election debacle, let’s consider one of the inroads the Russians are making against our military might…
The Russian-language news outlet Izvestia recently made the claim that Russian scientists have refined an active protection system for Armata tanks which can successfully intercept uranium core cannon shells. On top of the countermeasures the Russians have already designed against shaped-charge anti-tank rounds, this could make the Russians’ top-of-the-line Armata invulnerable to our tanks and any other ground-based forces we will be using in any conflict we happen to get into with them…
Let me familiarize you with some of the terminology and the concepts…
Several decades ago the United States and other Western powers went to the use of depleted uranium shells. Uranium is an extremely heavy, extremely dense material. Because it is so heavy, a shell or slug made from it has the effect of busting through virtually any other metal. The only metal that would be likely to withstand it is uranium. But building a tank out of uranium is impractical, because it is so heavy it would make the tank slow and less fuel efficient. And because uranium, even if it is depleted, has residual radiation in it, using it to construct a tank would not be good for the crew…
Another extremely effective anti-tank projectile is what is called a shaped-charge missile. A shaped charge is an explosive warhead shaped to focus the effect of its explosive energy to a very precise point in a very precise way. In anti-tank shaped charge weapons the head of the projectile has a lining with a V-shaped profile and varying length. The lining is surrounded with explosive, the explosive is then encased within a suitable material that serves to protect the explosive and to concentrate or tamp it on detonation. At detonation, the focusing of the explosive high pressure wave as it becomes incident to the side wall causes the metal liner of the shaped charge to collapse–creating the cutting force. The detonation projects into the lining, to form a continuous, knife-like jet, to put it mildly. More plainly, the force of this explosion is super-powerful, creating heat and blast that literally liquidizes the metal in front of it and creates an enveloping pocket of plasma – something that is neither liquid nor gas – as it plunges forward. If this makes it though into the inner chamber of the tank, it will take the starch out of the crew…
There are, of course, measures that physically counterattack an incoming threat…
A countermeasure against shaped charges is to construct the housing of the tank in layers and include in those layers metals and substances of different densities. Some of those layers, you might be surprised to learn, include ceramics, something like the dinner plate you eat off of. There may be five or six or seven or eight layers or more in a tank’s armor. The shaped charge is aimed directly at the tank. It will encounter a very hard, very tough outer shell. After it blasts through that outer layer, it will then encounter a slightly less dense but still heavy layer. After it encounters that layer, it will encounter a layer of ceramics. Because the ceramic layer is less dense than the next layer, the force of the explosion will begin to move laterally – that is sidewise in both directions as well as up and down. This will diffuse the blast force, at least somewhat. After obliterating that layer of ceramics, the blast force will continue forward, piercing the next layer and then the next layer, but will be losing steam as it makes its way forward. It will then encounter another layer of ceramics. Again, the force will begin to move laterally, lessening the force of its forward direction. Perhaps that will end the force’s forward projection. If not, it will encounter another heavy metallic layer and then yet another of different density. And then it will hit a third ceramic layer. Again the force will head off in a lateral direction, diffusing yet more. At that point, it is possible that the explosive force will have lessened to the degree it will be unable to penetrate any further metallic layers, leaving the crew inside the tank intact…
Another countermeasure tanks use is what is called explosive reactive armor. It may seem counterintuitive to drape explosives around a tank as a protective measure, but that is exactly what is done. Explosive reactive armor consists of a sheet or slab of high explosive sandwiched between two plates, sometimes metal, sometimes some other type of material. On attack by a penetrating weapon such as a shaped charge, the explosive detonates even before the anti-tank projectile has hit the actual outside of the tank itself, forcibly driving the metal plates apart to either damage the penetrator or push it to an angle that is not aimed directly at the tank, or both. Against a shaped charge, the projected plates disrupt the metallic jet penetrator, effectively providing a greater path-length of material to be penetrated. Against a kinetic energy penetrator, such as a depleted uranium slug, the projected plates serve to deflect and break up the rod…
Destroying or altering an anti-tank weapon’s payload or warhead by impeding its progress to the target is called a hard-kill measure…
Interfering with the targeting or detonating mechanism on an anti-tank weapon so that the angle of a kinetic penetrator is thrown askew or the timing of the explosion of a shaped charge is either delayed or made to occur prematurely is referred to as a soft-kill measure…
The most modern of anti-tank weaponry is now sensor-based, that is, involving projectiles that are electronically controlled after they are launched, such that they can be, if they are a kinetic energy penetrator, corrected midflight to drive into a tank at a very precise angle with a very precise vector of force, or if they are a shaped charge, hit the tank at the correct angle and then explode at a very precise point where the explosive force will launch directly forward with the most devastating destructive effect…
Soft-kill measures are applied when it is expected that a sensor-based weapon system can be successfully interfered with. Soft-kill measures generally interfere with the signature of the target to be protected. By signature, I mean the electromagnetic or acoustic profile of an object in either the ultraviolet (wavelength: 0.3–0.4 µm), visual (0.4–0.8 µm), or infrared (0.8 – 14 µm) spectral range as well as cm-radar range (frequency: 2–18 GHz), or mmw-radar (35, 94, 144 GHz).
According to Izvestia, the Russian Army has mounted on a handful of its T-14 Armata main battle tanks an early version of what is called the Afghanit active protection system, and the system has been proven effective at intercepting depleted uranium-core armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot cannon shells…
If Moscow orders up and produces enough of these Afghanit active protection systems to outfit all of the Russian Army’s tanks with them, mechanized warfare vis-à-vis the United States against the Russia will undergo a sea change…
Fortunately, we are no longer in the position we were back in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s and 1980s and even in the early 1990s, when there were so many Soviet tanks lined up in what was then East Germany ready to pour through the Fulda Gap – that expanse between the Hesse-Thuringian border and Frankfurt am Main – that we could not get an accurate count of them. At that time, our supposed technical superiority prevented any such test of our mutual capabilities from occurring. But there are still places where there might be a U.S.-Russian military showdown – like Syria – and U.S. inability to stop an onslaught of Russian tanks could have dire consequences…
It was previously thought that active protection systems would prove effective mostly against incoming anti-tank missiles and rocket propelled grenades but would not fare well against the U.S. Army’s top of the line kinetic energy penetrating rounds. It now appears – unless Izvestia is having us all on – that the Russians could indeed counteract our kinetic energy rounds and U.S. and NATO ground forces could face a very serious problem when the Armata armed with Afghanit active protection system (APS) fully replaces the current fleet of Russian tanks…
Izvestia said a Russian Ministry of Defense source claims the Afghanit APS has been successfully tested against incoming depleted uranium-core rounds flying at speeds of between 1.5 kilometers to 2 kilometers per second. I hope that guy was bragging and he can’t actually back up that assertion…
The only good thing about this is that it helps take one’s mind off the consideration that in a few months, Hillary Clinton is going to be living at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue…

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