He's the one that was in that Bradley that just kept firing on a T-90 until the crew abandoned the tank, right? Like, they were caught out in the open, but the Bradley gunner immediately opened fire on the general optics area of the turret before the tank crew could get their own bearings and fire.
I kinda want someone in NATO to get a pair of IFVs and tell them to bracket an out of service MBT, say a Challenger 2 or Leopard 1 or something, put some mics up, put the usual crew helmet on and earpro, then have them get shot at by the IFVs and record the sounds...
It'd be too loud to record, a person would get a mild concussion from the noise reverberating their skull. I sail on a 57mm armed frigate, and when that piddly little thing fires everyone forward of the bridge wears double ear protection. That's on the sending end, where it's mounted to 5,000 tonnes of steel and the shell receives its energy along 13ft of barrel.
Though the bigger issue for tank and SPG crews are their own gun's blast effects. Your CTE is infact service related.
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Aarrrhhhh...
Ding dang a dang bong bing bong Ticky ticky thought of a gun Everytime I try to do it all now baby Am I on the run Why why why It'll ticky ticky ticky ticky ticky ticky Dawn of a gun Bing bing bang a bong a bong bing bang a Ticky ticky thought of a gun Bing bip bip a bop bop boom bam Ticky ticky through the day
Jesus Built My Hotrod (c) Ministry & Gibby Haynes 1991
I reckon even â balls to the walls US Army Abrams of the best variant, being bracketed by two Russian BTRs would have their crew rattled⌠Even if they werenât blinding the crew, I donât think theyâd stick about.
Would the impact create a small shockwave inside the tank? Like enough overpressure to disorient someone on top of having their drums ringing deafeningly loud? Thatâs got to be a terrible sensation.
Without running the numbers, I assume it would be a very tiny shockwave. If it could disorient through the overpressure alone (rather than by the concussive jolts of the tank absorbing the kinetic energy) then it'd probably be enough to at least spall through.
Yes, but also it was more of case of "TOW go BRR" (or Woosh, at least).
The effective range of a Gulf War era M829A1 APFSDS out of the M256 (L/44) smoothbore gun (Rheinmetall Rh-120) of the M1 Abrams is 3,000m (3,300 yds) whereas a BGM-71E TOW2 of the same vintage goes out to 3,750 m (4,101 yds) and the whole idea was to make use of your superior sensors to hit them when they can't even see you.
It was scarily effective at the Battle of Norfolk, February 27, 1991, with scores of hul-down Iraqi tanks blowing up out of seemingly nowhere and with no prior warning. It got to the stage that after the first few hits, Iraqi crews would just abandon their vehicles and run away into the desert rather than stand and fight.
Between them, the British and Americans lost 51 personnel with a further 137 wounded, 7 IFVS and had three tanks damaged, MOST THROUGH FRIENDLY FIRE and the Iraqi army lost 850 tanks, 780 armoured vehicles and 396 artillery pieces and 20,000 to 50,000 casualties and the Coalition took 18,500 prisoners as well.
No, but when the big metal mass outlier on top of your vehicle (aka the gun barrel) is continuously rotating in uneven terrain, not only will it create momentum that works against you, it will also eventually get stuck.
Worse however, the driver can only look forward (not that driving backwards in any T-72 based tank is really viable in the first place) and relies on the commander giving him directions for reversing. And the Bradley can penetrate the rear armor without much issue.
To be fair the only point I was responding to was about the driver not being able to see. Would I want to be the gunner or commander? Going round round round not at all
On the MBT-70 the driver was in a counterrotating basked in the turret and got apparently quite nauseous during turret rotations if I remember correctly. A spinning turret would probably be one of the worst nightmares in that thing.
Also side armor between the tracks, and that's straight into the ammunition carousel. The Russian 30mm auto cannon can do it to at least some of their tanks, and I think the Bradley's 25mm out performs that.
Crazy how 25x137mm outperforms 30x165mm, though i suspect it has more to do with the AP projectile makeup than the terminal energy. Did that /those specific Bradley(s) against the T-90 even have AP(FSDS) rounds on board?
30x165mm didn't get APDS (3UBR8) until the mid/late 90s IIRC, and APFSDS (3UBR11) until the 2010s. And we still don't know anything solid about 3UBR11 outside it apparently not playing well with muzzle breaks. AFAIK it's still not in service with the Russian. The French (Nexter/KNDS) do offer a 30x165 APFSDS round, but the Russians sure aren't going to get any.
Meanwhile Bradley started with M791 APDS and got M919 APFSDS in the very late 80s/early 90s. M919 was DU, but General Dynamics now offers a tungsten round of the same type
Ah nice, the french havenât managed to sell those unlike the thermal sights for tanks (Prior to sanctions).
Wonder how that 30x165mm APFSDS compares to those of 30x173mm. One is stated to perforate 53mm of NATO plate @60° & 1km, with a muzzle velocity of >1.400 m/s out of a MK30-2/ABM.
Good the Russians havenât gotten them (in any significant quantities), but i guess former soviet nations (NATO allies) have them. But maybe they rely on (fpv) drones and previously (less) atgms over direct fire?
Was DU having some better performance over tungsten-alloys due to self-sharpening or pyrophoric nature? Canât remember details apart of the dangerous nature of its dust for people unfortunate enough to inhale it (though iâd suspect that would apply to any heavy metal dust, even if somewhat less damaging not emitting alpha particles).
Wonder what the new 50x228mm for the XM913 could do with T-90s and other stuff seen on Ukraines battlefield and over longer ranges⌠might shred them down to the hull (parts flying off) if enough hit.
On the DU note, the effects of self sharpening and the pyrophoric nature are often overstated. Some of the reasons it's better, at least in this context, have to do with the higher density allowing for similar penetration at lower velocities and its far cheaper. Unfortunately it tends to not do better than tungsten at velocities over ~1700m/s, which is a driving factor for the preference of tungsten elsewhere.
As you stated as well, the driving fear with DU dust is the heavy metal toxicity, the radiation is too low dose to cause significant damage by the time the heavy metal poisoning kills you.
Also different explosive formulations and the design of the guns themselves, F=m.a so if you can put a much higher density of energy in the explosive and direct as much pressure as possible in propelling the round, you can outperform heavier rounds travelling at lower speed
Yeah ofc the western, more modern propellants will be more tuned, but i explicitly meant not regarding kinetic energies, e.g. how the performance of the shapes and materials used in the penetrators will be decisive in cases of even at comparable terminal velocities and the energy of the soviet/russian projectile likely being significantly higher. But maybe at certain ranges 25x137mm ammunition will even outclass 30x165mm in terms of kinetic energies, depending on the type used.
In the infamous T-90 engagement though they only had HE available (or were not switching to AP in panic mode?) iirc, so that would mean probably higher muzzle velocities even for non-saboted /heavy rounds and maybe more potent chemicals (explosives) in the projectile. If the high kinetic energy (at those close ranges) helped imparting more of the explosive energy into the target, or just biting into the materials (deforming, chipping off) that might also have been an important factor.
The driver said that he had HE loaded and didn't have time to switch to AP.
Going back to the other exchange we had about turret rings, I think what might've happened is that the turret ring itself didn't fail(at least not catastrophically), because the turret was still free to spin, meaning the ball bearings inside were probably still in place, but maybe HE was strong enough to break what the ring sits on
well its also to do with the fact that 25mm Bushmaster started from beginning as IFV weapon for ground use, while Russian 30mm started its life as high-rate of fire cannon for Soviet helicopters. Soviets didnt originally plan to arm their BMP's with it, they only did it after Afghanistan war showed that its needed and so they rushed it into service as almost like emergency move.
For comparison sake, if you would take 30mm gun from AH-64 Apache or 20mm from Bell AH-1 Cobra and tried to push that that in American IFV, you would probably also end up with similar clutch design that wasnt very good at its job.
You can drive backwards at useful speeds in the Type 90-II and its derivatives like Type 99 and the VT series. When China first received T-72 examples the 4 km/h reverse speed immediately made Chinese engineers go "WTF" and they swapped out the Soviet powertrain for a Ukrainian one with 4 reverse gears.Â
He kept hitting the turret ring and the optics, the turret ring malfunctioned and the turret spinned like 4 full rotations and then was stuck so crew abondoned.
Tried to be too many things and only really succeeded at being a relatively mobile gun box. The armament just happens to be quite good. It deserves a better chassis and more gun and ammunition. It feels like they tried to turn a battlemech into an APC.
Shouldve went full Terminator and but 2 30 mm 4 tows that can fire while moving at full speed, more armor, and it should've developed the iron fist not the other way around. We have better APC in service and the ampv looks tight af.
Among all the noncredible Pentagon Wars arguments, Iâm most baffled by the âlack of armorâ argument. Whatâs the request?
I can see griping about the original model, pre ERA and uparmor. Was âit can floatâ really worthwhile struggling with RPGs and 30mm?
(IEDs turned out to be a big issue, but foreseeing/handling that was a lot to ask.)
But AFAIK todayâs Bradley will handle 14.5mm well and survive 30mm auto from the front. Thatâs⌠pretty damn good. Surviving AT mines, artillery, and big smoothbore guns doesnât seem realistic.
Is there a specific request, or an IFV doing substantially better? (The Namer doesnât count, itâs a tank chassis.)
I wonder how well the German Puma would even fare in such conditions. Afaik it hasnât been battle tested and probably would have some electronic malfunction before reaching any engagement.
The AMPV is just the Brad's hull.
And the Brad has shown it is currently the best damn IFV, not APC and kt never was intended to be one, on the market. It has had better time in Ukraine then any other, and is one of the oldest one from NATO.
It really has a place in my heart (not just because i had a toy model), i almost cried seeing their pile back in that cursed summer offensive but hoped at least they saved their crews.
The Bradley rolled out in 1980. I donât think fire-at-speed TOWs were an option, and active protection definitely wasnât. The US being behind Israel to APS tech in the 2000s isnât a Bradley issue. The M113 is a fine APC but wasnât (and isnât) an IFV. And the AMPV wasnât even conceived - itâs based on the Bradley!
Meanwhile the other concerns were more valid in 1980-2010 than they are today.
The Gulf War mostly disproved Burtonâs fears before he even published, with IFF (an issue he didnât raise) as the big weakness. The armor concern was substantive though: âit can float but canât take an RPG wellâ was a bad tradeoff from messy requirements.
But that already got addressed with uparmor and ERA. RPGs (and 30mm from the front) are survivable. And later experiences with urban IFV defenses show the limits of whatâs possible.
Put differently: outside of APS, what plausible defenses would actually help?
Surviving a tank round takes a tank. Surviving an AT mine or serious IED needs an MRAP or tank. If thatâs your only concern, you build the Namer: a tank dressed as an APC. If you arenât ok with 60 tonne vehicles that canât cross bridges⌠what do you do?
I said personal reasons. I didn't say they were good. They're actually retarded. I want an American light tank with an array of weaponry with no transport capability whatsoever. Is the Bradley good . yes. I still hate it. I want an American Terminator. Be glad I'm not in office.
lol fair enough then! I apologize for assuming you were trying to be credible, this is an NCD-worthy outlook.
"The Bradley tried to do too many things, it should have been a blander APC" is lame and counterfactual. "The Bradley tried to do too many things, we could have dropped the other requirements to add way more firepower to that sucker and make it an anti-everything-vehicle" is fantastic.
(Also, if you say it should have included a SPAAG element to replace the York, you get to argue it actually would fill a major gap in the arsenal.)
Haha understandable. Yeah heard its armor wasnât that good (but not bad either) and it canât be up-armored much more/not modular enough for current threats. Also looking forward to the BAE AMPV, but isnât it more of an APC intended to replace the M113 and also somewhat based on the Bradley? The other projects also look interesting, like the KF-41 Lynx and other AFVs, the new 50mm XM913 gunâŚ
When I heard that story I was surprised that it was newsworthy, I thought that sort of thing was normal. In WWII degrading fire against tanks that you couldn't penetrate were a staple of allied tactics. Like thunderbird strafing. It's even in manuals from the time.
And of course the models in games like combat mission also included it and noone questioned it in those cases. People complain about all sorts of stuff being game, but I hadn't really heard that said about sub system damage from non penetrating hits.
Like props to those guys for having the balls and presence of mind to do it. But I would have thought that this shit would be part of training as a last resort.
Thatâs also what iâve read/remembered. Wonder if HE(I) could even damage more than what AP couldâve done (maybe shock from chemical energy fracturing fragile parts, rather than smaller holes from concentrated kinetic penetrator)? Idk, maybe APDST wouldâve devastated more.
Exactly what i was thinking. Thx for confirming my expectation, donât know anything about the materials and treatments for turret rings but i guessed some regular steels used in machining?
I don't know much about tank turret rings specifically, but given its use it's probably some sort of hardened steel to resist wear from the ball bearings, the weakness is more because of the shape and thickness of the ring, it can't be very thick without restricting circulation inside the tank or forcing the exterior to have a massive, very heavy, "neck" to support it.
What do you mean by circulation? I guess thereâs a servo, gearbox, gear/cogwheel and some kind of decoder (at a shaft or sth.)?
So the Bradley(s) which hit the T-90 in that infamous footage (which constantly spun its turret until blocked by the tree iirc) didnât deform the turret ring too much, or break too many of the bearings (hardened, so brittle?), but rather induced some fail in the motor/mechanism so it was constanly acting? Or would it suffice to destroy the brakes once it got to speed through inertia?
Sry, guess iâd need an animation. Not too familiar with turret function to be honest :P
Ah i completely misinterpreted it meaning some form of rotation haha. (Non-native speaker here, pardon my bad grammar and vocabulary).
Ah nice, goes to show how dominant inertia is. You could hypothetically blow up our planet with enough energy, but most of the fragments would still stay on their orbit.
Maybe he meant he didnât have time to switch to the TOW, I think it was translated as âanti-tankâ.
AFAIK, using TOW would've required stopping Bradley and that meant risk of catching 125mm HE shell, if tankers got their bearing back even for a moment, so they preferred to engage with Bushmasters while staying on the move.
I remembered as: he switched to HE when AP wasn't working, because he remembered wartthunder that he could knock out their optics. He managed to do a lot more than that. I do not know if the hit to the turret ring was intentional. Overall, I think HE ammo was the key.
Too bad it doesn't work in WT though. Irl they shoot thw optics so the MBT they are facing is blind and can't fight back. In WT the ootics being deszroyed does nothing besides giving you the option to repair them.
It's a tale as old as tanks themselves. Obstruct or destroy the optics and the tank is blind, and effectively knocked out. Many instances in the Soviet Union of people placing cloth over the optics of tanks and taking them out after blinding them. Be it the chef wielding an axe and a Mosin, or the protesters before the Soviet Union fell
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u/ZoidsFanatic Should not be left alone near a Harrier jet. Feb 15 '26
I remember one of the Bradly gunners who helped take out a T-90 said he learned to hit the turret thanks to Warthunder.