0:56 although the correct word *is* 'jet' calling it a 'spike' actually might help correct the extremely common misconception about shaped charge projectiles: they do not 'melt' through the armor, the fact they are molten jets of metal is basically irrelevant, it's the *velocity* the material is traveling at that does all the penetration, just like a 'spike' implies
I like to imagine it ablating a hole through material like a water jet cutter. Except instead of water and garnet abrasives, it's plasticized metal moving at mach-Jesus
@@BrokenLifeCycleIn the spirit of pedantry. Water jet is not a good example of what is going on with HEAT. Water Jet relies on friction erosion (abrasion) to cut. HEAT actually works in a very similar manner to APFSDS rounds. The velocity of the spike formed by the shaped cone is so fast, from thus the pressure at the impact point is so high that even a soft spike made out of copper can penetrate the hardest of armors. Like APFSDS at these kinds of speed the penetrator spike will roughly penetrate its length in similarly dense armor (and half against armor 2x the penetrator density and etc). This is why HEAT needs to detonate at a certain distance away from the target (the standoff distance), it is there to give time for the shaped charged to form a longer spike for more penetrating power (but not too long or the spike stretches too long and disintergrates).
@@janitorizampedcan be several different materials, tantalum, copper, steel, and many many more. Military projectiles/charges tend to be copper or tantalum nowadays.
Interestingly after the Battle of 73 Easting a Bradley was likely knocked out by a BMP that had been hit by an APFSDS round. The round went through the BMP like it wasn't there which meant the crew could still get off a shot which killed the Bradley gunner. If the BMP had been hit by a more appropriate round this wouldn't have happened.
Interesting, was the APFSDS fired by a 120mm or was it a Bradley's M919 APFSDS round? I would've assumed a Bradley would've just kept hitting the BMP repeatedly until it burned as opposed to a single 25mm shot from it's bushmaster, but I could believe an Abrams might've taken a shot at a BMP, then moved on, assuming the crew was sufficiently neutralised or scared by the hit.
@@JK-oq9cleither BMP-1 or -2 (weighted more towards -1) - either has tin foil as armour and if that was -3, it would have a bit more impact plus ammo would be hit by just sheer probability
@@neurofiedyamato8763dumb move on the part of that BMP crew, after the battle they examined that BMP, it got hit so many times by HEAT rounds that there was a puddle of solidified molten metal from the HEAT rounds.
Talking of this new HE round with delayed fuse. An old British Veteran I knew. He was in Normandy on 17pdr AT guns and was wounded by long range fire from 8.8cm Flak. They were using timed fuse the same as when shooting at Aircraft and my old friend was wounded by an air burst. Easy calculation if you know the exact range of the target with a coincidence rangefinder and set the fuze for that exact range. Then in late 44. The US Artillery were using proximity fuses which also had air burst effect. New HE round for Leopard is really an old idea for a certain job.
yes the concept of delayed or airburst ist old, but the Leo2A7 with the DM11 HE round does it really well. Digitally programmable primer and fuze, that are connected to the FCS. Just select the fuze type on your gunner station, lase the target for range, fire, loader loads, repeat. and its highly precise too. its a similar system to the AHEAD system used by Puma for its 30mm selectable fuze HE rounds
@@neutronalchemist3241 Shrapnel does not explode as such. It pops open and releases its shrapnels. Sharpnels work by the kinetic energy they got from being fired out of the gun. The burstig charge adds nothing to that. They are basically like shot gun shells with a very flexibel choke. They are highly effective against soft targets in the open but allmost complety ineffective against targets in cover. Which is why they where abandoned early in WW1 by any major participant and replaced by HE shells. Modern rounds like KETP, AHEAD etc are sharpnel. They also share the advantages and disadvantages of traditional shrapnel. The 120 mm HE-MP is a classic HE with multi purpose fuse. Delay, impact, time. The only new thing about it is the fact that the fuse can be programmed after the round has been loaded into the gun by datatransfer from the FCS.
Airburst is indeed nothing new at all. New is the way the fuses are set and the space this requires. 8,8 Flaks could use airburst against ground targets as well because time airburst was their main mode of opperation and they had the ranging equipment, FCS and fuse setters on each gut. Field artillery could and can do this as well if they have the proper fuses available the basic procedure is the same. It could in the past not be used by tanks because the equipment especially for fuse setting is to bulky. It also required setting previous to loading. For automatic and high ROF weapons this was impossible. The technology to use programmable fuses for autocannons and tank guns is available since the early '00. Its just now that it sees widespread adoption.
@@neutronalchemist3241 wrong. Any "airburst" in ww1 was achived either by fitting the impact fuses with brass rod extensions to detonate ~4"-12" above the ground when the rod hit a solid enough object to set off the fuse, or, by estimating/mathematically calculating the distance to the target, aim a bit beyond, and set a time fuse to go off when the shell was supposed to be passing above the target. The latter method is still used for direct fire support weapons like the HEDP rounds of the 84mm Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle.
Spike might actually be the better description over jet. Since it's actually acting like a very high speed spike, rather than an overheated jet... I'll have to think about this
@@0MoTheG It absolutely matters for the penetration. It is just modeled as a fluid when deforming. It is a lot more like stamping, where high forces plastically deform a material than it is melting it.
Its like the 'focal point' of a lens ( which is also why proper standoff-distance is so critical ), this tip of the 'spike' or the "jet" where the shaped charge converges on. You could also think of it like a sort of 'standing wave' or constructive interference made by the charge.
@@arnekoets3085 Explosively Formed Penetrators (EFP) are a slightly different thing. They have longer range in return for lower penetration. HEAT - like this round - applies so much force that the metal liner of the round deforms like a liquid, but only for a relatively short distance. It should also be pointed out that the explosive forming that jet will absolutely wreck anything in close proximity.
Tank, when not engaging other tank, is usually tasked to provide local direct fire support. Faster and more precise than calling in Fire support. Using HEAT-MP is an expensive method, to target soft targets. The amount of explosive that HEAT-MP has, will always be less than a dedicated HE round.
@@tedarcher9120 Thats baloney dedicated HE is far more explosive than HEAT and better against buildings a 125mm HE to a building can kill people on multiple floors from over pressure a HEAT shell directs most of its energy linearly and will go out the back wall of a building if sent through a window.
@@off6848 Heat is not magic. It's just a regular HE with a bit of metal on the front. It explodes like all explody things do. Problem is that most heat rounds are made as light as possible to fly faster so they produce less shrapnel
On the distinction between fragments and shrapnel: Lt. Gen. Henry Shrapnel wrote a number of letters to newspapers, during his years of retirement, complaining about their habit of calling every explosively-propelled fragment 'shrapnel' when it was only shrapnel if it came from Shrapnel's Patent Spherical Case-Shot, of which he was the inventor. This is an _old_ point of pedantry: Shrapnel himself died in 1842.
🚨But thats _ONLY_ because there were _NO_ other non-copyrighted terms similar to "shrapnel" for them to choose from! After all, they couldn't use "fragment", because it had already been copyrighted by its inventor "Sir Francis Von Fragment" in 1769. It's true that Doctor Daniel Debris allowed his last name to be used, but it doesn't convey the accuracy needed to describe shrapnel. 😉
I have comments on here telling you this would be the case early in the conflict everyone said "they have HEAT-FS its just as good" no its not. Russia has dedicated HE with 4x the explosive filler which over pressures trenches and buildings
Correct. Russian HE shells for the 125mm are loaded with a lot of explosive filler. Russian tanks, even dating back to the Soviet days, carried over half their load of shells as HE shells. They place a very large emphasis on it and less emphasis on anti tank shells
It's even worse when you consider NATO HE rounds use insensitive filer. Russia use explosive filer which are more potent (but are more hazardous). Meaning their shells are not only bigger, but filed with more powerfull explosive.
@@karakiri283US INEX fillers have gone a long way to match the power of TNT or RDX. Of course they’re ridiculously expensive, but so are ammunition dump explosions.
No, "over pressure" is mostly not a thing. There is a reason why delay fuse is preferred for anything that provide any reasonable amount of resistance for the projectile. Shrapnel is what poke holes. Also, 125 tank gun he has about twice the filler compare to heat, by mass. The proportion is about same for 120 tank gun.
@@jintsuubest9331 That simply isn’t true. Over pressure is a thing. It’s especially a thing when discussing neutralizing defensive structures like bunkers. What do you think the point of thermobaric weapons is? As far as the typical Soviet HE from a 125mm cannon to one from a 120. You’re just wrong. It isn’t the same proportionally. You are a fan of making stuff up I guess
I did my conscription in tve Swedish army on Cv90 but our next door Tank company was the first one with Strv 122 in Sweden. The talk was that Sweden was the first Leopard 2 user with an HE round as standard and a Swedish HE shell was developed for the Leopard 2 based on the 12cm m/86(z) mortar round. This was to have a mix of KE and HE ammunition just like the Centurion and S tanks had used as standard
Hej! I have a question for you, do you know if the Swedish army ever used the HESH round? The older Strv 101 and 103 have 105mm guns so I was wondering if they ever used HESH.
@@dcsvalkyrie8438 I don't know for certain but at least in War Thunder (that is supposed to have the correct ammo for tanks) Sweden has HESH for the 105s.
@@dcsvalkyrie8438 Centurion did. The S tank is limited by its autoloader as it used two main types KE and HE and had a semi automatic loading for smoke in a small magazine
Excellent presentation! I've read that US tankers in WW II weren't always fans of the 76mm gun. Many of them thought the original 75mm had a better HE round for fire support.
@@IvanTre gun firing with stronger force needs a thicker walled shells to stand the forces, therefore leaving less room for explosive filler. Possibly these hypothetical repurposed 75mm shells would simply not work because of that So that's why low-velocity guns can usually lob shells with more explosive filler per pound, while the higher the guns' velocity the less it's shell can hold
6:00 the americans actually train on using their M1 tanks for indirect fire the commander tank of each platoon has a so called "master gunner" that has all needed training to perform indirect fire missions.
The Americans 'can' train to use their M1 for Indirect Fire, but it is rarely trained nor supported in practice. The only other military that has actually put effort into turning their Tanks in SPArty is the Soviets, they even have firing tables available.
@@Sufferingzify they *do* train it actively That's exactly why each platoon has a master gunner who is specifically trained in this role and has the required firing tables and tools to set tanks up for indirect fire. It's still part of the US doctrine.
No we don't, and no we don't. Any round the tank uses, until very recently with the M1147, is impact detonation (or delay detonation in the case of the HE-OR-T). They would expend the majority of their energy into the ground if there is no direct hit. Armor battalions have a 120mm mortar platoon mounted on modified M113's which are much more effective fir indirect/high angle fire. Platoons do not have master gunners. There is one for the company. That company master gunner *may* be in the platoon, but by MTOE he's in the HQ platoon. As an example, I've had a platoon sergeant by the company's MG, the first sergeant be the company's MG, and there be an actual MG whose sole job was company MG things (who also doubled as the HQ platoon sergeant). They may know how to do it, but they're not trained like a mortar/artillery Fire Direction Center is in receiving, interpreting, and enacting fire missions.
Although I don't know of any times this was actually used, I seem to recall having been trained in the use of firing tables for indirect fire with our M60 series tanks using HEP (High Explosive Plastic) and WP (White Phosphorous) rounds!
I would imagine in 5 years, the old loader for Bradley's will be the drone operator and drone defense operator. and indirect fire will be standard operations
can confirm, used old US army publication before (our military copied it directly), fire mission was conducted as a platoon with the platoon leader acting as fire direction officer, and the observers are designated from either one of platoon's NCOs or company HQ personnel (in my exp, usually platoon's second most senior NCO after PSG, but I've seen one CPL from company mess winded up as an observer somehow) If I remember correctly, company HQ was also issued gun laying equipment (aiming circle and stuff) just like the one issued to an artillery battery
@nikujaga_oishii if I recall you have to drop the door to the Bradley to load it? idk I trained for lime 3 days on it. I thought we were talking about mbts
@@GhostScout42 we were talking about MBTs, that's why I'm confused by your "the old loader for Bradley's will be the drone operator" statement plus I didn't know Bradley even got a loader? and what door and loading procedures are you talking about?
0:50 no, it is absolutly a spike, the liner during the detonation becomes superplastic and goes at very high speed, its not liquid, not a gas, and definetly not a jet
120 mm HE DM 11 Tank Ammunition Rheinmetall's latest ammunition product is the DM 11, a 120 mm HE tank round. Owing to its time-delay fuse, it is especially suitable for supporting infantry units tasked with taking lightly fortified positions as well as for engaging light and medium-weight armoured vehicles. After loading, an electronic module programs the time-delay fuse to detonate at a specific point in the projectile's flight path: the round can be timed to explode for maximum effect either above, in front or inside of a target (e.g. after penetrating a wall). The DM 11 is thus a perfect match for the altered operational requirements of modern main battle tanks.
The three shells a tank needs is APFSDS, HEAT, HE. And as we know, sabot for armour, HEAT for moderately soft targets, and HE for mystifying infantry. And it's the necessity for those three shells for dynamic combat ability is why i praise russia for still keeping a HE shell in the back rack... 'et. There's other things i praise and scathe soviet/russian stuff for. The MZ i scathe the AZ i praise. Because it is safer by a significant degree, keeping the ammo low. The biggest issue for the T-72 seeing it's house from there is the loose ammo. But it's not the AZ carousel that is doing it. Plus if hull ammo is so bad why does pretty much everyone but america have hull ammo and not have the issues they deleted 6-8 shells for? Another aspect of the turret pop is the bag charge russia has is absolutely fantastic. The problem is, it's absolutely fantastic at its job, so it burns faster and more aggressive due to the stub plate not having the internal fire tube to even the combustion out. As for soviet shell warhead lengths. All autoloaders have a limited service span till they need a complete redo of the tank, because as shells get bigger and longer, only so much even the leclerc can take in length before the bustle is half the turret length and half the turret height added for the bigger and girthier shells. Even hand loaded doesn't get away as only so much the racks can be modified before the crew get not shite holes from being poked from sitting down. Factors people DON'T ever look into. But i will aggree that russian kinetic warheads aren't as good as they can be. Their HEAT is sufficient for tasks, and HE very versatile.
You don't need HEAT at all. HE fulfills everything that HEAT would, if you direct impact a soft-skin target, like a truck, APC or IFV with an explosive charge of 4.6 TNT equivalence, that is no longer a vehicle, that is what you call smoldering rubble, infact, most of the time you can even knock out full on MBT's frontally using nothing but HE as you will blow anything sensitive away, like tracks, sights, periscopes, radio antenna, etc. You can easily see this in the ammunition loads that both Ukrainians and Russians take to the front, around 2-5 APFSDS rounds, and everything else is just HE, no HEAT, not ATGM's, just HE.
@@vonvonvonvonvonvonvonvonvo7009 vast majority of thin-skin vehicles have applique armour packages which nullify HE effectiveness. So no HEAT is not obsolete. Also 4.6 what? Grams? Tonnes? Megatons? Pounds?
@@vonvonvonvonvonvonvonvonvo7009 HEAT is a solution for doing something an an APFSDS and a HE shell can do with the compromise of having lower capability on both sides. a tradeoff for versatility over specialization. HEAT will still punch through sides and rear of tanks with little or no ERA and front hull and turret of first and second generation MBTs with good reliability, while at the same time having good firepower against soft targets like APCs and fortifications. saying you don't need HEAT at all is like saying you don't need heavy machine guns because a squad LMG and an autocannon will perform its role in their own niches.
@@osmacar5331 Apologies for the confusing, meant 4.6kg. Now the topic. You would need a rather extreme amount of applique armor to "nullify" HE of that size, people always seem to struggle to realise just how large of an explosion 4 kilograms of TNT actually produces, you may end up not getting the catastrophic kill on the APC due to it's applique, but you will with certainty get a kill on it due to the sheer volume of that explosion along with all of the shrapnel, all of which will disable wheels, tracks, view ports, any exposed personnel, windows, antenna, and really anything else that would be 'exterior', and all that assumes that the shell even hits applique, which in of itself is by no means guaranteed, there is also the factor that, if you hit applique that is enough to entirely stop 4kg of TNT from doing anything, the shaped charge itself is highly unlikely to actually do anything just on its own from a ranged impact a good portion of the explosion itself will not be following the main jet inside of the vehicle as it will bleed off into the air instead, and the explosive filler is even smaller so it is even less likely to secure an actual kill on the vehicle, though slightly more likely to injure crew.
@@vonvonvonvonvonvonvonvonvo7009 well you don't fully understand HEAT it seems. while yes i see your arguments, and it comes from a sound logic. and yes HE CAN send bigger chunks in it's not as effective as HEAT. and this is down to pressure differential. yes 4.6kg of TNT== does note mean that will be directed fully into the vehicle, as only a portion is actually utilising all the applied force. the part that contacts and fuses, the rest of the explosive force is either a fart in the wind, or has to travel to the target before applying the force, and is mitigated a bit by the rest of the shockwaves. while not cancelling itself out, it does disrupt itself as it jiggles the armour. while HEAT it pushes that sweet sweet HE goodness through the armour and has a huge amount of spalling, from the armour AND the jet. one reason air is so effective against a properly formed HEAT jet is because the instantaneous extreme is not there. however the jet also sucks in some of that boom juice pressure adding to the internal effect. and quite a bit of the time HEAT has like a 120° arc of spall. while HEAT can be half of that to like... 80% iirc, of a HEAT spall of what does spall. there's also the factor of HE is an infantry shell not an anti armour shell* *not saying it can't take out armour, but it gets rather exponential at times. besides 37mm hitting 37cm is gonna just annoy the crew and maybe make the paint flake off if you are really lucky.
It's crazy to think Nato didn't developped HE shells for their 120mm guns. The first to do so where the swedish during the 90s (so not Nato) when they received their Leopard 2 and after that the french in like 2005 (so the less Nato country in Nato). That's why most Nato armies have ridiculous stocks of 120mm shell stocks.
Widespread airburst absolutely is the future, being able to shoot into defilade is such a huge advantage and the technology is available and already cost effective. Even with the drone dropped munitions you saw huge gains moving to different fragmentation sleeves or adding like 10cm of standoff so that they explode above the ground instead of directly at or in the ground.
And people wonder why the British retained HESH and rifled barrels for so long after they became ineffective against tanks. HESH is effective against other targets, like bunkers for which it was originally designed.
thats only partially true. the Brits retained HESH and rifled barrels, because Thatcher and her Bunch were cheap and cut funding for MBT-80 (killing MBT-80) and also overruled the MOD and MBT comission on procurement details. They pushed for a 100% domestic solution that had to incorporate as much of Chieftains tech as possible and be as cheap as possible. (Challenger 1, wich was a modification of a failed Chieftain Upgrade bid for Iran, the Shir 2) MBT-80 was intended to use either a domestic smoothbore (wich was not ready at the time) or a license build RH120 L/44 smoothbore (like M1 or Leo2) to achieve NATO ammunition commonality. The same happened again with Challenger 2. So its not due to amazing foresight of the brits, but due to blockheaded pennypinching and going for the cheapest solution possible, that the UK retained rifled guns and HESH. Btw alot of the problems of the UK military of the last 3 1/2 to 4 decades are results from Thatchers pennypinching and going for the cheapest option.
@zhufortheimpaler4041 Thatcher was removed from being Prime Minister on 28th November 1990. 8 Prime Ministers later,in 2021, the smooth-bore gun was adopted for a programme started in 2005 under Tony Blair. So they pushed for a wholly domestic tank, whilst simultaneously insisting that all combat aircraft had to be collaborative efforts. Strange.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 i never said british procurement was done with brain or consistency. But it is true that the Thatcher government explicitly pushed for the continuous use of the L11 of Challenger 1 and L11 derivate L30 on Challenger 2, even though the relevant comissions of the MOD procurement and planning advised and wished for a 120mm smoothbore over and over again to reach capability parity and ammunition commonality with M1 and Leo2. By the time Thatcher came to power, Tornado was already basicly done and nothing coud be changed about that. EF2000 also was in developement at this point and the UK was not a majority shareholder, so they stuck to it. (european fighter jet cooperation started in 71, the definite EF2000 programm started in 83, an in 86 already had several functional prototypes etc to show) thatchers nationalism and economic policy never was rational
@zhufortheimpaler4041 but you did say it was done with brains and consistency, otherwise why retain a weapon system past its best? Thatcher's economic policies came from her deep moral and political convictions.
@@neiloflongbeck5705 i wouldnt call supporting fascists in Chile and courting them like you want to fuck them moral. Neither blocking the vietnamese UN Security Council request to intervene in Cambodia to stop the Khmer Rouge (btw vietnam did it anyways and reinstated rule of law) Thatchers moral and political convictions are about as deep as my kitchen sink. I didnt say it was done with brains. I said it was done to cut cost, minimise expenses and out of nationalist delusions. That can be done consistently but without brains. Challenger 1 and 2 are the worst performing western MBT´s of the 80´s till now. There are reasons for that.
The way I see it, push for MPAT round instead of adding HE to tank load is a relic from Cold War era, when sheer number of Soviet armored vehicles expected to pour from the East called for every round to be able to take out tanks . Especially since going from 90mm, to 105mm, then to 120mm drastically cut number of rounds carried by a single tank.
Wieso sind Eure Richter immer so klein? Ich bin 1.87 und war Gfr Richter/Lader auf dem Leo2 in der Schweiz. Meine Grösse war NIE ein Problem! Im Gegenteil, als Lader hat man bessere Chancen auf Nahaufklärung! Das ist kein Front! Wirklich nicht! Wir Pz Sdt sind alle eine Familie und fachlich ist der Mann TOP! ❤
warum "immer"? Ist doch nur einer im Video. Wir hatten Leute mit über 2m auf dem Bock, ich mit meinen 174 kam mir immer fast zu klein vor für den Leopard 2
The bigger question should be why are they even using non tandem heat when they have apfsds that works way better against era covered tanks and not just take the airburst he instead.
Tandem charges are very long and take up a lot of space, so much so that they pretty much don't exist in tank munitions. As for using heat instead of HE? The thought is that heat is sufficiently effective against infantry and fortifications while also being able to penetrate armoured vehicles, and so you would always have heat loaded so that you wouldn't need to unload (or shoot an ineffective shell) before loading an appropriate one
When I was in the army, HEAT stood for High Explosive Armor-piercing Tracer. I was not involved with any big guns or it ammunition, so I do not know if that was true.
The West used tanks in indirect fire mode in the Korean War and possibly the Vietnam War, though I'm less certain of that. What they did was to build ramps that the tank would drive up on to increase elevation. Then it would fire as many rounds as needed. You can find pictures and film footage of this out there.
We called the 'dumb" version of the MPAT ( M 83OA1 multi purpose Anti tank ) an OR ( M908 Obstacle Reducing ). It used the exact same M774 impact fuse just lacks the m76 prox fuse. It's also a PIBD Anti Armor design with a copper liner and whatknot. The MPAT and OR rounds, in personal experience, actually less effective shrapnel wise but more accurate with them being a sub caliber and saboted 80 mm warhead than the M830s full bore 120 mm payload.
7:42 remind me of my ROTC.days when we were taught how to interpolate from those ballistic tables a firing solution. It sort of lime using a "steam table" for either water or refrigerant to find values like entropy, enthalhlpy, temp, etc.
Finally! I've been making this point for years now. A dedicated HE-frag round is needed for any tank. Those HE-Frag-HEAT mix matches were terrible at pretty much everything they promised to achive. Lethality and penetration were sacrificed for an expensive pr stunt. They should have stuck to their conventional HE designes and slapped a multifunction fuze on it....
...like the soviets did. Ever since the t-72 ural all soviet mbts could fire HE-frag in a point detonation or delayed mode. They tested the delayed mode against the sides of pretty much any nato mbt they could face...making mockups for the ones they couldn't test on. The 125mm HE-frag was able to punch through the side of every mbt with sides thinner than some 60+mm. Which was pretty much every nato mbt including their metal side skrits. 125mm HE-frag is still proving its worth to this day. A simple fuze design able to be programmed by the commander from his switch panel vefore the round is loaded out of the carousel. The t-90 simply added a timed mode to it.
Carrying three types of ammunition is never more "efficient" than carrying two types. I am sure most Western armies neglected to test HEAT for multi-purposes before adopting it. Hopefully your gunner friend will be able to correct them.
Can you please, anybody and Bernhard tell me any shop names in Germany, preferably in KÖLN locations, where i can buy tank, warplane, warship SCALE MODELS? I will appreciate it
Opens General Dynamics website, nope, 120mm HE shell for NATO 120x570 is still there, like always. Maybe it's not manufacturing problem, but Pentagon problem?
We know why there's a tanker on yotube that explains that when they captured a Polish t72m1(with ceramic sphere armor) in the late 80s they did testing and found out their apfsds couldn't pen it so they crapped their pants and said make a longer apfsds and don't bother carrying HE. USA carried some HE in gwot 1 but after that it was almost completely phased out.
It's the intersection of doctrine and logistics. 120mm armed NATO MBTs had to counter Soviet tanks, their main doctrinal role, lightly armored vehicles, field fortifications and, of course, dismounted infantry too, of course, but they only have a combat load of 40 odd rounds to do it all with, which means something had to give. With infantry facing the most threats from other sources on the battlefield its easy enough to say that your own accompanying infantry, or IFVs, or artillery, or just the coax MG will keep their heads down most of the time and the few times that doesn't do the job HEAT-MP is "good enough."
@@StacheMan26 Yes, you'll always have to make compromises. It's about which advantages you really need and which disadvantages you can tolerate. And according to cold war doctrine, western tanks are meant to counter Soviet tanks since nobody would be expected to cross impact sites from tactical nukes without riding inside ABC rated vehicles. The amount of infantry they were expected to face should be minimal that multi purpose shells could deal with them.
To add onto what others said, the Army also solved the problem with the M1147 which as impact detonation, delay detonation, and airburst capabilities. It also has a small canister as a nose cone to detonate short and spray into exposed infantry.
@@off6848I recall that NATO’s 120mm guns could pierce East German T-72Bs, but the 105mm guns with the exception of the U.S. DU rounds (specifically M833 and M900) couldn’t. That was a massive shock to NATO planners given that most NATO 105mm tanks didn’t use M833 or M900. Heck, the M900 was basically limited to M1 and IPM1 Abrams because it had a stronger recoil system.
Soviets had artillery (hello, Soviet Union), but they made nice bonus by enabling their tanks "just in case". Fun fact: Soviet tanks had smaller angles than NATO tanks and yet NATO tanks don't shine in indirect fire mode. I almost forgot superior ballistic computers NATO tank always had (and needed).
NATO just does not use tanks in indirect fire mode. So the measure of "how good it is at doing it" is not really applicable, it just does not do it at all. If it was such a wonderful idea, Ukraine and Russia would use it regularly, but they don't. Because people forget you have limited ammunition, wasting it in a platform that sucks at it's job just wastes ammunition and barrel life. Artillery pieces exist for a reason, they already fire every shell you can muster if you want to push them to their limit.
@BojanPeric-kq9et Rather a difference in doctrine. NATO forces rely on air power and proper artillery for indirect fire, with tanks engaging in direct fire. And I have to admit that having a more advanced ballistics computer being a bad thing is an interesting insinuation, an incorrect one, but an interesting one regardless
It is simply untrue that NATO tanks aren't used for indirect fire. US crews at least train for indirect fire. It is rarely used because only recently have M1 tanks gotten appropriate ammunition to use for this type of mission but they do train for it.
0:56 You were correct calling the penetrator a spike, as "jet" is the wording of the old "molten copper" explanation. See the Wikipedia article for the FOA-source where high--speed X-ray cameras were used to record the actual process.
@@BojanPeric-kq9et Wolfram can''t be used as liner in a HEATshell, as the liner needs to be very ductile to be shaped into a spike or needle by the detonation.
@@BojanPeric-kq9et Entirely correct, as we now know that the temperature in the liner doesn't exceed 800°C. The old (and debunked) explanation of how HEAT works talked about "a molten jet of copper burning through the armour", and thus the correction made in the video ironically is incorrect.
@@johanmetreus1268 I found few times that HEAT is actually plasma. That would imply around 6000K minimum. Which is itself fascinating on multiple parts: from speed of rising temperature to very low specific thermal capacity of metals which would result in almost instant cooling of that plasma in contact with solid armor. The very fact somebody can believe in "burning armor" which is among other things solid steel... Lack of knowledge about basic physics and chemistry is deeply disturbing.
This is the real reason why the Ukrainians like the Leopard 1 and Challenger 2s is because they have cheap anti structural/anti personnel round that can used for take out enemy fortified position and enemy troops afar while on the move.
The longest tank kill in the Gulf war was by a Brit against an Iraqie tank. In that case, it was a heat round that was designed to cause spalling on the inside and not a penetrating jet.
i was gunner on an leopard 1V in the dutch army, were were told that that would practice indirekt fire with the leopard 1 but wenn the shifted to leopard 1V the stopped with that
I do wanna mention that I find it a bit weird to talk about fragmentation and explosions "causing damage" when you clearly mean injuring or killing enemy combattants (and/or destroying their equipment). I feel like that is limiting the perspective on weaponry too much to the technical level while ignoring the fact its still human beings that are being "damaged".
Military jargon in general tends to dehumanize war to distract soldiers from the reality that what they're doing is at its core about killing and getting killed.
man i enjoy watching these videos and i dont think it needs to be said but there really needs to be more research done before this video went live, especially given that HEAT-MP-T was surprisingly effective for a round so labeled as "obsolete" "ineffective" it was also only cancelled after nearly 40 years of service edit: you also need to be EXTREMELY wary of using the war in ukraine as a basis for things, especially on the topic of indirect HE fire (its extremely inaccurate at range when fired from a tank, T-Series or Western tank alike)
Appearently USA missed the memo. Pushing for MPAT simply for logistics convenience when MPAT is basically useless against entrenchments and buildings is dumb. Bring back HE
AFAIK the US Army is currently replacing all 120mm rounds except APFSDS with the XM1147 AMP round, which basically is the equivalent to the DM11 multi purpose HE round discussed in this video:)
It was idiotic to employ HEAT instead of HE. Turkey also began producing HE shells after combat experience in Syria. Against personnel at long ranges like ATGM teams, HE is required.
TL;DR: The West built glorified tank destroyers for 40+ years and forgot that targets other than tanks exist. Meanwhile, Russian/Soviet tanks always fielded an HE-Frag round and devoted a significant portion of the ammo loadout for it.
NATO tanks were designed under the assumption a limited nuclear exchange would occur and that infantry would not be much a concern due to said radiation along with the fact that they considered Russian armored vehicles to be the greatest threat in that event.
They didn't "forget about other targets", they were arming according to their doctrine. The biggest fear during the Cold War (aside from nukes obviously) was a mass Soviet armor charge through the Fulda Gap. Nothing at the time could've stopped this armor banzai because the Soviets had insane armor quantities, as you can tell by Russian casualty tolerance in this war. Therefore NATO designed their tanks accordingly - to be superior in tank duels and to keep the crew alive (no infinite Ivans to stuff inside those cans like the Soviets either). Somewhat of an exception to this was the Leopard 1 which is just kind of a failed design when you consider the above, made under the false impression that projectiles, especially HEAT, are just too powerful, therefore no point in armoring the tank entirely. Desert Storm was proof that NATO tank doctrine and design did work. The Abrams (and the Brad too) absolutely dominated armor duels, the T-72 barely stood a chance. War is always changing however. The reality is that armor duels in Ukraine are extremely rare. Advancements in drones and ATGMs just made it pointless to send armor against armor. Sure the Ukrainians could send a Leo 2 when scouts report an armor charge to snipe them at 3-4km - but it's more likely to get blown up by a Russian FPV or Krasnopol than a T-72 or even 90. Ultimately I do agree that Russian HE-heavy doctrine is proving superior in the present, but above all I emphasize the strange state of tanks in the wider picture. I do not subscribe to the "age of tanks is over" dooming, but a counter to drones is a must before they become fully viable again (not that they're useless even in the current state!).
@@yarnickgoovaerts The tank designed by a Russian, most major sub-assemblies were made in Russia (the engine was made in Ukraine), and was assembled in Russia? That tank?
So, how is the Leo at doing its primary job, fire support to dismounted infantry? Tank destroyers kill tanks. We used to travel HESH Up, giving us the capability against both, but we failed to maintain the fill and HESH therfore fell out of favour. As a result we lost our ability to bombard prepared positions. We used to train Cent and Chieftain crews to attack the Hitlerhof at 12km using the Clinometer. No capability now. Can we replicate the effect with a Leopard nature?
I feel like theres a big lack of 'derp guns' equipped tank/close support vehicles these days. It is a fact that these super high speed 120mm laser canons rarely get to shoot at other tanks and meanwhile are pretty bad at putting quantity of explosives on target. And most are limited to a 7mm mg coax as side weapon which is pretty useless all things considered on a 50+ tons vehicle. An automatic mortar or grenade launcher or old fashioned 150+mm equipped turret or heck even 40mm chain gun with HEI rounds would be of more use in many scenarios while retaining the armor profile of a leo2 chassis or equivalent for contact line use. And side note but the multipurpose MPAT heat based round for leo2 was in my mind more of an anti truck / bmp round, but not to be used like a pure HE round against infantry/houses. I was not aware they had no actual HE round for leo2 for a long time...I guess it's a result of being stuck in the mentality of 'soviets are gonna send 10k tanks against us and thats what we need to destroy first'... while forgetting to worry about how you are gonna counterattack and reclaim infantry held positions later on...
For all intent and purposes, mpat is not great but also not terrible. The lack of dedicated HE round is more "We are going to standardized stuff and keep things as simple as possible, so 1 KE round 1 not KE round". The massive decrease on ready munition (compare to 105) also contribute to the decision. Leo 2 has 15/16 ready round. M1A2 has 16~18. Leclerc has 22. Most 120 armed tank hover in the 14 to 18 range. In most cases, you want half of the ready round to be ap. The rest be the multi purpose round. If you have dedicated HE round and shrapnel round, thats 7 to 9 round being split amongst 3 different round. And of course, you have to deal with the budget people, because you are spending tax money on those stuff. Also, in the 70s, heat while not an optimal at round, is still a rather potent at round against many potential real world target. But we fast foward to the 1990s. ERA and composite armor has developed to the point that they can reliably stop atgm of 130mm on a light vehicle. So what good will a 120mm gun fired heat round do? Thus, combine with the advancement of fusing technology and different requirement, the newer generation of not KE round cut down or remove the heat component, and stuff the round with more filler/fragments.
Thing is when people bring up NATO tactics. Thats been tried in Ukraine. It simply doesn’t work for the fight they are fighting. They are adapting to what fight they are actually fighting, not hypothetical wars that just aren’t occurring rn.
He is answering the question he is asked. If he's asked about NATO doctrine, he's going to answer about NATO doctrine. Obviously the Ukrainians have not been able to, and don't have the resources, to fight like NATO, but the questions are about NATO...
Thing is, Ukraine is using half Soviet, half NATO tactics with half Soviet, half NATO equipment, refuse to follow the Pentagon's battle plan, then it says : NATO tactics don't work! NATO tactics are based around their arsenal, it's no surprised that when you take out an entire military wing : the air force, it changes everything.
@@BojanPeric-kq9et Not so much just that but when you don’t have the stockpile that NATO nations or Russia h have, and you’re the underdog nation. You can’t use NATO tactics derived from a numerical advantage/parity… You’re in a numerical disadvantage. You can have all the super weapons in the world but if you over exert/extend its O V E R. They have been doing more with their NATO equipment being more thoughtful, and careful than they were running in to use NATO or Soviet tactics. Neither work in this kind of War. People not well versed on this topic just understand this.. Lmao.
@@BojanPeric-kq9et NATO countries have indulged in wars where the country isn’t 20-50 times smaller but had comparable numbers. But usually the difference is equipment, training, communications, tactics, and funds… Moral can be added. But both the US and Russia haven’t won wars after the interwar period in which they were truly disadvantaged or in parity with their national “opponents”. Neither nation has been an “underdog” or “peer to peer” within the century. I don’t refer to battles, but wars entirely. So either nation isn’t great to take tips from when being invaded, by a nation trying to r8p and pillage. Do what works.
@@BigMakBattleBlog The answer is its called a wave shaper. Its an inert block that manipulates the Explosive detonation wave to improve the Heat perfromance. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-KMLye177nqo.htmlsi=1f5S8JOMBuVgaRZr
This is why the British retained the 120mm rifled gun for so long, because studies and experience showed that tanks spent most of their time delivering fire support to the infantry and not actually engaging enemy tanks. The 120mmR gun is optimised to smash things at long range with big accurate HESH rounds.
Straight out of the horses mouth, a guy that has been trained by German army in leopard tanks and has faught in the same tanks in the battle firlds of Ukraine, he knows what works NOW not what the bean counters in European nations think works.
I am not sold on the 120mm airburst HE round. On one hand you have IFVs with 40,mm and some folks are talking about 50mm auto cannons to fire airburst rounds which should be sufficent, given their ability to lay down weight of fire. Secondly, indirect fire is exstensively used by tanks in Ukraine because of the LETHALITY of the modern battlefield. Old tanks like T55s would/were and are used in both direct and indirect fire by the break away states(not the Russians but their allies). But every time you send a tank up for direct fire there is a good chance it is not returning. And we are seeing this with modern Russian tanks and modern NATO tanks, it is not just the old cold war machines that are being wrecked en mass. It just seems like arrogance to look at it and think: Well this does not apply to me!
You also have the matter of exspense and simplicy. You can churn out millions of unsophisticated 120mm HE rounds, and you might need millions of them. If you cannot make enough sophisticated airburst rounds. Well its as good as not having any HE rounds.
"If you fire multiple times, the enemy will figure out where you are." This isn't 1990, the enemy already knows where you are, and has known where you were before you ever were in range to fire. Although you will still need to move anyway, because you are going to eat a drone if you stay put. The whole "the enemy won't see our tanks coming" is dead, you can't hide anymore. The enemy sees you in 4 different angles, at all times. If NATO refuses to learn this lesson, it will suffer for it. But again, this is the same channel that said Leopard 1 would be better than Leopard 2, then Leopard 1 was evaporated in seconds, by shells that didn't even directly hit it and only Leopard 2 remains because it's survivable.
In an EW-dense environment neither you nor the enemy will know where each and every one of their units are until the guys on the ground find them. Even with satellites you'll only be able to detect big concentrations of tanks, not small infantry teams. Thousands upon thousands of drones are lost every month, most of them to signal jamming. And this is only the very beginning of anti-drone measures, in a few years any drone that isn't wired or flying at the stratosphere will have near-zero survival.
this is idealistic like the other guy said EW plus just general chaos theres been many times in the UR conflict that vehicles on both sides where able to essentially sneak in and wreck stuff.
@@johnhighway7399 Ah yes, the famous, "New technology will be invented to defend, but thankfully, no one will ever think to improve technology to attack." Two words : "AI drones". AI drones don't give a crap about your jamming.
@@johnhighway7399 EW is only partially effective. It is not a magic bullet. Even Ukraine which is the most EW rich environment of all time can't do much against drones.
Loading big ass full caliber HE rounds in your tank is a good way to get turret tossed. It also makes things like Blowout panels useless as the much increased explosive force would case the entire reinforced wall to fracture and the explosive force would enter the turret and kill everyone anyway. Best option is the Subcaliber Smart HE rounds like AMP. Less explosive power but enough to get the job done as well as anti-fortification bonus of delayed fuzing. Soviet HE rounds are one of the main driving factors in the turret toss olympics.
That is true I've tried telling people this its not really the T series "weak turret ring" causing tosses its the sheer load of dedicated HE they carry. A tank carrying mostly APFSDS with heat resistant charge is not gonna blow like a tank carrying HE. I will bet money that if Ukraine starts carrying HE in their western tanks we will see a toss just like the Challenger 2 that tossed because it was carrying HESH
The explosive compounds used in the construction of shells, be they HE or HEAT, are generally extremely insensitive except to the detonator mechanism they're paired with, because it would be rather inconvenient if they had a tendency to explode randomly in storage, or explode because something next to them exploded randomly, or explode because something next to them exploded intentionally. When a tank cooks off, it's generally the necessarily more sensitive propellant charges doing almost all of the work of tossing blowout panels and turrets, and autoloaded Soviet tanks do the latter so dramatically because all of the charges and shells are right there, directly underneath the turret.
@@off6848 A challenger 2 turret toss? I've only ever heard of a single Challenger 2 loss and it was hit by ATGM and burned but it didnt explode much less turret toss.
@@nucleus691 It depends on what the ammunition loadout is. A lot of Hesh all stored in areas close to underneath the turret? Yeah the explosive force of it goes up is going to not only rip the hull apart from the inside (making it look like an exploded can of White Claw) but the turret is going to fly off… it probably won’t fly as far as a soviet tank in the same scenario but it will still fly.
@@StacheMan26 “Generally insensitive” doesn’t really make a lot of sense as they still clearly detonate. They may not just explode if they get hit by shrapnel but a sun caliber APFSDS projectile slamming into it, cracking the outer layer and sending sparks into it will cause some major issues… but if a HEAT round hits it… that thing is going sky high. Also, Soviet and Russian HE shells don’t use insensitive explosives, they use straight RDX… which goes boom much easier.
@@whya2ndaccount You're not going to but you don't really need to. You don't need indirect fire to be that precise, tanks are not dedicated artillery pieces after all, they will never have the same level of effectiveness. It's just if you have a tank there and not an artillery unit, you can use the tank for a bit less effectiveness.
@@reonthornton685 Well you need some accuracy. How can you tell if the round is landing 500m short or 1,500m long if you are just guessing and firing? You can't expend 40 rounds bracketing.
@@reonthornton685 A tank round won't do shit if it's not a direct hit, as they lack the ability to explode at a set elevation or time (only the brand new M1147 introduces the ability to explode at a set *range*). The energy of the explosive will primarily travel into the dirt and only be a threat to nearby infantry (as in, single digit meters away)
Now that armorers have figured out how to deflect focused chemical energy AT ammo from penetrating tanks, looks like its time to go back to the drawing board to figure how to deflect focused kinetic energy AT ammo from penetrating tanks.
They already have. The latest version of reactive armor is suppose to project the plate of steel at fast enough speed at an angle to potentially shatter tungsten rounds which are hard but brittle. DU rounds are more flexible and not subject to shattering. The reactive armor can cause it to flex affecting its trajectory to some extent. That is a very simple condensation of multiple long articles I read on it a couple years ago.
@@craigplatel813 It's always an arms race. APFSDS projectiles like M829A3 use a steel tip to detonate the ERA early. If you want to read more about it en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M829#M829A3
Some active protection systems can intercept APFSDS projectiles, but they generally only reduce the penetration (often referred to as degrading the projectile) so the projectile could still penetrate thinner parts of armor. And active protection systems don't always intercept projectiles.
As a sidenote Western tanks (with the exception of the Challenger 2) can't be really used in the indirect fire role because of the smoothbore gun.The same aplies to the Rusians. This is one of the reasons they use older tanks. For effective indirect fire you need rifled barrels.
Considering that modern long-range 155mm rounds already utilize guidance systems like GPS and control surfaces to achieve the desired accuracy and precision, I have doubts whether rifled barrels are still required . My guess for the future of artillery is the adoption of smoothbore barrels, possibly with sub-caliber ammunition, to achieve higher muzzle velocities for maximizing range with the added benefit of reduced wear. If you want to reliably damage targets at the range of indirect fire with regular tanks, you‘d probably need guidance anyway as the payload of 120 and 125mm shells is substantially smaller than 152 and 155mm.
Ahh, no? 125 mm smoothbore from T series is frequently used for indirect fire in Ukraine. As long as you have a drone adjusting the fire and dedicated ballistic calculator app running, you will hit what you are aiming for eventually.
@@katamarankatamaranovich9986 Bingo. There's video of it in the assault on Krasnohorivka foothold about the time the turtle tank appeared they dropped off infantry rtb and used HE like an assault gun
You've seen its optics get damaged by a 25mm autocannon and then be taken out by an FPV drone. Once you show me any other tank shrugging direct hits to its optics I might just believe it's a design flaw. Also stop swallowing poorly made propaganda, think for yourself for once.
Yes… It’s like if a person designed an American thing. He still did that regardless of if that part of America is no longer America anymore, but Texas. It would be a Texan design. He lived in Texas, he was the mind behind it. It’s a very easy concept to understand. If a state secedes from a union by choice, it is that area in which that union created things under its fight for independence. Now if it was before America was even a state, then it isn’t “Texan”. But native. But that’s time period, and legal speak.
Yup Ukrainian USSR had quite strong rivalry and competition between armor factories which resulted in limited cooperation. So T-64 has been designed and produced by USSR (Ukrainian SSR) unlike T-62 produced in RSFSR Different designs, approaches, factories
@@MichaelDavis-mk4me That’s my point. Ukraine existed. Those same people exist till this day. Those people didn’t identify under the overarching ruler. But this doesn’t stop at Ukraine just so we are clear lol.
I find these two jokers hilarious - not only western tank are much larger, and easy to spot, but also lasing anything (and you need to stand still to do that) raises alarm on all enemy sensor and you eat AT missile or drone in response, yet they act like smaller Russian tank firing much more effective ammunition (costing 1/100 the price, at that) then immediately withdrawing is somehow easier to notice and engage when it's long gone before enemy can react. Also, standard silly cope about reverse speed, when last 2 years in Ukraine shown it to be meaningless BS that doesn't matter in 95% of cases - really? At least you skipped autoloader cope, but next time you will say western tanks look prettier without anti drone cages and Russians are dumb installing them, eh?
