Path: spln!rex!dex!extra.newsguy.com!lotsanews.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!news-out.visi.com!hermes.visi.com!gemini.tycho.net.POSTED!not-for-mail Approved: sci-military-moderated@retro.com Return-Path: news@mesaana.xtra.co.nz Delivery-Date: Tue Nov 27 20:56:18 2001 Delivery-Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2001 20:56:18 -0800 for <sci-military-moderated@retro.com>; Tue, 27 Nov 2001 20:56:17 -0800 (PST) id 168wVY-0003ER-00 for sci-military-moderated@moderators.isc.org; Wed, 28 Nov 2001 05:39:40 +0100 id <20011128043935.ISVO3964.mta1-rme.xtra.co.nz@mesaana.xtra.co.nz> for <sci-military-moderated@moderators.isc.org>; Wed, 28 Nov 2001 17:39:35 +1300 To: sci-military-moderated@moderators.isc.org From: "Jeremy Thomson" <thomsonj@f1l2i3w4a5y.com> Newsgroups: sci.military.moderated References: <035301c17628$94ba6ee0$0d01fe0a@fliway.com> <B8284EFF.E055%rkeeter@earthlink.net> <9tv882$s0q$1@gw.retro.com> <B829A014.E326%rkeeter@earthlink.net> Subject: Re: Advanced tank main guns X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.50.4807.1700 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4807.1700 Message-ID: <2UZM7.4128$XE.215524@news.xtra.co.nz> Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 17:39:32 +1300 X-NNTP-Posting-Host: 210.55.211.10 X-Complaints-To: newsadmin@xtra.co.nz X-NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2001 17:39:26 NZDT Organization: Xtra Content-Length: 3263 Lines: 72 NNTP-Posting-Host: 0e55b0ca.newsreader.tycho.net X-Trace: 1006922509 gemini.tycho.net 79563 205.179.181.194 X-Complaints-To: abuse@tycho.net Xref: spln sci.military.moderated:40543 "Bob Keeter" <rkeeter@earthlink.net> wrote in message news:B829A014.E326%rkeeter@earthlink.net... [...] | > One reason is to overcome heavy reactive armor. It works by | > shearing and deflecting the penetrator rod. If the penetrator | > is segmented, the first segment gets deflected but the second | > continues on through after the ERA blast dissipates. I've contradicted myself later in this post, but I meant this at the time of writing so I'll leave it in. You could be right, this certainly rings a bell with me. Wasnt just two segments though, probably between 10-20. | I would be VERY interested in any articles that you could refer me to that | talk seriously about "Reactive Armor" that does ANYTHING to a tungsten | penetrator. ALl of the reactive armor that Im familiar with is designed to | fire back in the face of a HEAT round, disrupting the hypervelocity jet of | molten copper from the warhead. Matter of fact, the only reactive armor | that I know about REQUIRES that hot jet of molten copper just to trigger the | armor's "backblast". Im really interested, can you provide a link? I may be misreading you but thats not quite my understanding of reactive armour. My knowledge of reactive armour is through reading not actual experience, so this is what I believe to be true. Reactive armour is a sandwich of metal armour, explosive & more metal amour. The explosive causes the front plate to slide (upwards?) introducing fresh metal to the focus of the HEAT warhead. Pictures that I've seen of the after effects of HEAT warhead in a test situation showed the front plate with a clear burn though hole and then a trail beneath where the HEAT jet failed to penetrate. This upwards movement of the front plate of reactive armour could possibly interfere with a long rod penetrator, deflecting it or perhaps breaking the rod. I think the segmented long rod penetrators were extremely long prototype devices. Perhaps double the length of a current rounds. It makes sense that the longer the penetrator the more chance for deflection by reactive armour. Like you I undertand that the molten jet from the HEAT is required to detonate reactive armour, how a penetrator may detonate it I dont know. Perhaps anticipating different explosives coming into use? Completely baffled as to why segmenting the penetrator would counter the deflection effect. Ahah! Brainstorm. My leaky memory remembers now that the segments may have been to counter the rod being shattered. Once the length of the penetrator gets too long the stresses get to be too much? | >> I think that what you MIGHT be mistaking is the "ringed" surface, sort of | >> like a lathe-turned chair leg put on the dart so that it will "grip" the | >> sabot better! | > | > That is likely. Most penetrators have a segment that looks like that, | > for exactly that reason... The pix I saw had the 'rings' all the length of the penetrator except for where the fins joined at the back and the pointy bit at the front. | You betcha! If you have any pointers to segmented penetrators would also be | interested. Janes.com dont know nuttin (at least nothing that I could | find!). | | Regards | bk Must see if I threw out my old Military Technology Mags or not. Jeremy Thomson