OF-32 HE-FRAG projectile firing table

 

Dispersion of HE-FRAG projectile in maximum range 

3UOF17 round (consist of 3OF32 projectile, 4A47 charge and 3V35 fuse).

US Army will choose between Rafael Trophy and Rheinmetall ADS

Miniaturized missile defenses work well on heavy tanks, but efforts to fit such Active Protection Systems on light vehicles like Stryker have failed – so far. Now the Army will test two lightweight options: Rafael’s Trophy VPS and Rheinmetall’s ADS.

Rheinmetall Active Defense System destroys an incoming threat at the last instant, by design

This year, the Army will fire live anti-tank warheads at two rival Active Protection Systems to assess how best to protect lightweight armored vehicles like its 8×8 Stryker. The contenders in this “live fire characterization activity” – it isn’t officially a test – will be the German Rheinmetall Active Defense System (ADS) and the Israeli Rafael Trophy Vehicle Protection System (VPS). Not participating, our sources tell us, is the American Artis Iron Curtain, which was the Army’s original pick to protect the Stryker but was subsequently rejected after Army testers found it wanting.

Now, the Rheinmetall ADS and the Rafael Trophy VPS won’t be installed on actual Stryker vehicles. Instead, they’ll be set up on specially designed armored targets. That will allow the Army to measure precisely what damage, if any, gets through the active protection systems from different kinds of attacks.

“The Army intends to conduct live fire characterization activities with the two hard-kill active protection systems on platform agnostic test rigs,” said Ashley John, spokesperson for the Program Executive Officer – Ground Combat Systems (PEO-GCS).

A “hard kill” system, like ADS and VPS, is one that physically shoots down incoming anti-tank missiles and rockets. “Soft kill” decoys and jamming, by contrast, just  make the enemy miss. Hard-kill has worked well on heavy tanks. Israel, Russia and the US all use it. But, as the Army has painfully discovered, it’s much harder to get it to work on lighter vehicles – which need protection the most. For the Stryker in particular, while the reliable, affordable vehicle has become an Army workhorse around the world — with variants carrying everything from infantry to anti-aircraft missiles, 30mm cannon, jammers, and even lasers — the service has struggled for years to make it more survivable in high-intensity combat.

What’s the hold-up? Historically, hard-kill Active Protection Systems are heavy and bulky; they need a lot of electrical power to run radars and targeting computers; and when they intercept incoming warheads, they may cause them to prematurely detonate or burst into shrapnel – “residual penetration” that a heavily armored tank can shrug off, but which a Stryker or other lightly armored vehicle cannot.

The Germans and Israelis have taken different approaches to solving this problem. Rheinmetall’s ADS uses a large number of small explosive charges distributed around the vehicle, computer-controlled to detonate at the precise millisecond to cut apart incoming warheads just before they detonate. Rafael’s Trophy uses a compact missile launcher, which lobs mini-missiles at incoming anti-tank missiles and rockets to intercept them further out. There’s a big debate over which of the two approaches is safer, both for the vehicle being protected and for foot troops or nearby civilians.

For continue the reading follow the link - Army Tries (Again) To Protect Stryker: Rafael or Rheinmetall?

Merkava Mark 4 Model 400

The latest iteration of Merkava is called Mark 4 Model 400, which has a newer C2 (Command and Control) system and enhanced TROPHY (note the  the added optical sensor over the radar).

T-90A MBT with additional weight

T-90A MBT with additional weight fitted to the turret to simulate the weight of the heavier armor.

 

About a Challenger-1 MBT weight breakdown (1983)

A Challenger-1 weight breakdown. Serial vehicle it may not have ended up exactly these weights in every respect but it was about 62 tonnes. Serial MBT weight can be very small difference with these numbers.

Via Jeremy Retford

Night-Vision Revolution: Less Weight, Improved Performance

Leveraging new tech, DARPA aims for night-vision goggles the size and weight of regular eyeglasses

For decades U.S. warfighters have benefitted from advanced night-vision technology, allowing pilots to fly low-level missions on pitch-black nights and ground forces to conduct operations against adversaries in the dark. But current night-vision goggle (NVG) technology requires cumbersome binocular-like optics mounted on a helmet, offering limited field of view (FOV) and putting unhealthy strain on the wearer’s neck. Building on recent scientific advances in photonics and optical materials pioneered in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), a new effort seeks to develop next-generation NVGs that are as lightweight and compact as a pair of regular eyeglasses or sunglasses.

DARPA today announced its Enhanced Night Vision in eyeglass form (ENVision) program. ENVision aims to create lightweight NVGs that offer a wide FOV across multiple infrared (IR) spectrum bands without needing separate optics for each IR band. The goal is to enable night vision through fog, dust, and other obscurants as well as provide thermal vision – all via a single flat lens. A Proposers Day for interested participants is being held via webinar on January 21, 2021.

“Our warfighters experience significant neck strain from current NVGs caused by the weight of the optics extending 4-5 inches in front of their helmets,” said Rohith Chandrasekar, program manager in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office. “If you’ve never worn NVGs for hours at a time imagine wearing a baseball cap all day with a two-pound weight attached to the front of the bill – that gives you a small sense of the stress experienced. Extended use of such systems leads to a condition where the neck no longer has energy to keep the head upright requiring warfighters to use their hands to lift and point their heads. NVG wearers also have to swivel their heads frequently for peripheral vision since current optics only provide a 40-degree field of view compared to the 120-degree wide view we have with our eyes, which only makes use of NVG systems more painful.”

Besides the weight and field-of-view constraint, current NVGs provide only a narrow segment of the IR portion of the spectrum (typically near-IR) that limits what types of threats the viewer can see at night. Efforts to expand FOV and IR bandwidth to date have involved increasing the number of optics, which increases weight.

The ENVision program is designed to break the paradigm that increased performance can only be achieved by an increase in weight.

“DARPA investments over the past decade have led to breakthroughs in the areas of planar optics, detection materials, and novel light-matter interactions,” Chandrasekar said. “ENVision will leverage these advancements, amongst others, to develop enhanced night-vision devices in lightweight eyeglass form factors.”

ENVision will also investigate the possibility of night vision using direct photon up-conversion from infrared to visible photons using thin materials.

“This will further simplify NVG systems by advancing from the multi-step conversion currently used to a single step up-conversion process,” Chandrasekar said. “Some of these processes even conserve the momentum of photons, which, in theory, could enable night vision without the need for any optics.”

The ENVision program focuses on developing prototypes of multi-band, wide-FOV night vision systems and investigating methods to amplify photon up-conversion processes from any IR band to visible light.

BMP-2 with K-1 ERA

The ERA there is clearly can't protect nothing. This is clearly a VBIED with task to blowing up and destroy the BMP with crew and infantery team.

I see no other reason for mounting a standard tank ERA on a thin armored personnel carrier. For back in 1988, on the NII Stali tests of a Kontact-3, (Kontakt-1 ERA adapted for BMP-2)  remote sensing device with 4C20 ERA protection elements on the BMP-2, an unambiguous result was obtained:

"Field tests of these complexes, however, showed their complete unsuitability for use in the protection of the IFV/APC. Thin armor during a joint explosion of a DZ block and a grenade, when the total mass of the blown up explosive reached 1,1-1,2 kg, simply broke, incapacitating the machine itself."

 

BMP-2 fitted with Kontakt-3 ERA

Broken side armor of the BMP-2 after ballistic test.

PLAAF recruitment video

 

PLAAF recruiting video shows official hint about H-20 Chinese stealth bomber. According to the rumors, in 2021 PLAAF will show the H-20.

Parade preparations for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Iraqi army

In a short videos, the Iraqi Ministry of Defense published clips of the preparations for the celebration of the anniversary of the founding of the Iraqi army.

 

French vision for the MGCS - Future european Combat Vehicles destroying the Russian T-14 Armata tanks

Very interesting video, about French vision for the future battlefield. On video we can see some artist models on the French vision for the MGCS, and its action against Russian T-14 Armata MBT, which one showed twise.

 

Three different versions of MGCS:

• Canon which shows a large caliber coax which seem to can provide indirect fire.

• C² : Command and Control which seem to have a 40mm

• Missile: Same autocanon as a C², 6 missiles ready and no RCWS

The Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) project, to be implemented under German leadership, is to replace the German Leopard 2 main battle tanks and the French Leclerc main battle tanks from the mid-2030s.

T-14 Armata MBTs of opposite force.