Chapter 185 Explosive Reactive Armor

"The overall performance of our tanks is still good, but the Western L7 105mm tank gun will also pose a threat to us." Accompanying these people to the destroyed tanks, Tikhonov felt extremely heavy-hearted.

Kartsev looked at the destroyed tank carefully. The tank's turret had been separated. He could imagine what kind of explosion had occurred.

"It was our ammunition that exploded," Kartsev said. "Our tank turret was penetrated by the enemy, causing our ammunition to explode violently and blow off the turret. We must improve it."

Among all tanks, the T-72 is the most likely to explode and have its turret blown off. The main reason is the T-72's automatic loader.

In order to improve stability, simplify procedures, and facilitate mass production, the automatic loader used by the T-72 is different from that of the T-64. The main ammunition storage is set in the turntable under the turret, which can load 22 shells. The separated shells in the ammunition storage are placed horizontally up and down, with propellant on the top and warhead on the bottom. When loading, the shell rack will rise to the height of the breech ring, load the warhead first and then descend to load the propellant.

In other words, this part of the turret ring is just surrounded by artillery shells, and the enemy's armor-piercing shells can just hit it. Once ignited, it will cause catastrophic consequences.

Western artillery shells are mainly stored in the rear compartment of the turret, and a pressure relief plate is installed. Although the actual effect is unknown, it is at the rear after all. Unlike this, it is just a circle of the turret seat. Once it is exploded, the force will be exerted from this part of the seat ring.

"Then we will have to make major changes, improving the structure of the automatic loader, which is almost like redesigning a tank." After hearing what Kartsev said, a technician nearby said.

After all, the automatic loader is an important equipment in the tank. If it is modified, everything else must be modified accordingly.

Kartsev frowned, "We have to make big changes, this concerns the lives of our soldiers!"

What Kartsev values ​​most is the safety of his personnel! Tanks are meant to protect themselves and attack the enemy. If they cannot effectively protect themselves, how can they attack the enemy?

"Actually, it is not necessary to modify the automatic loader." At this moment, Andre on the side spoke.

The T-72 uses this automatic loader and simplifies the structure, which is convenient for mass production, which is consistent with the Soviet Union's equipment guiding ideology. Moreover, China's main battle tanks later used almost the same structure.

"What should be changed?" Kartsev asked Andrei.

"If we change the outside, as long as our armor is thick enough to prevent the enemy's armor-piercing bullets from penetrating it, there won't be the current problem." Andre said.

Modify the armor. As long as the armor is thick enough so that the enemy cannot penetrate it, that's all!

Modify the armor? Hearing Andrei's words, Kartsev's brows were still furrowed: "That will greatly increase the cost of our tanks."

The armor of the T-64 tank is hard enough to withstand the impact of this 105mm armor-piercing projectile. However, the manufacturing of the T-64's composite armor is quite complicated, with many processes and high cost, and is not suitable for T-72 production.

The main protection of the T-72 is also composite armor, which places a layer of heterogeneous materials between cast steel or rolled steel plates. The initial production T-72 only had a turret made of homogeneous cast steel, and the front of the body was a layer of fiberglass-like material sandwiched between homogeneous rolled steel plates. Later, the thickness of the T-72A's turret was slightly increased, and a layer of quartz particles was placed in it; and the thickness of the T-72B's turret was greatly increased, and a layer of aluminum plates and rubber overlapped in the cavities on both sides of the main gun was placed, and a higher-hardness steel plate was added to the front of the body.

Now, the army landing in Hokkaido is equipped with T-72A tanks. Although they can block the shooting of the island country's L105mm tank gun at a long distance, they cannot do so at close range. Moreover, if they are equipped with more advanced Western ammunition, the T-72 will not be able to stop at a long distance.

"Yes, we need to modify the outside." Andre said, "We can install an additional layer of explosive armor on the outside of the T-72 to increase the tank's protection capabilities."

Additional armor! In various photos of later generations, you can see that the T-72 tank is covered with rectangular pieces of bread. This thing is explosive reactive armor!

"Explosive reactive armor?" Kartsev couldn't help but frown: "This project has been terminated a long time ago."

When the enemy's anti-tank weapons fly over, the explosives placed outside will explode to destroy the enemy's weapons. The concept of explosive reactive armor was first proposed by Professor Lavredev of the Moscow Promitian Institute in 1949. The Soviet Iron and Steel Research Institute approved the project at that time. Further research and experiments were carried out in the following ten years, and it was installed on a T-64 test vehicle for live-fire tests in the mid-1960s.

Unfortunately, the result was not ideal. At that time, they just added explosive packs on the outside. When the test vehicle was hit, it did blow up the flying shell, but the explosion of one piece of armor triggered a chain explosion of adjacent reactive armor blocks, destroying all external observation and aiming equipment.

Although there were continuous improvements afterwards, they found in several subsequent tests that in addition to the warheads of flying anti-tank missiles and armor-piercing shells, machine gun bullets and artillery shell fragments could also detonate reactive armor. The final conclusion was disappointing. There were too many problems and it could not be put into actual combat at all. Therefore, the Soviet Union had to transfer it to technical reserves and terminate the research on this project.

Now, Andrei has proposed the explosive armor, which makes Kartsev feel difficult. Ideals are full, but reality is very skinny. This thing cannot be used!

"I wonder if you have heard of a Dr. Held in the West who proposed a new structure of reactive armor?" Andre said.

Although he was a pilot in his previous life, Andre has been a military fan since he was a child and is very clear about these things. The Soviet Union's explosive reactive armor was not re-initiated until 1982. At that time, the Israeli tanks captured in the Lebanon War in 1982 were equipped with jacket reactive armor developed by Israel itself, which successfully resisted the attacks of AT-3 anti-tank missiles and RPG-7 anti-tank rocket launchers.

And those reactive armors are based on the new theory proposed by Dr. Held.