Tanks and other Armoured Vehicles Image thread.

[PsihoKekec]

with the front-engined Merkava being notable as an exception.

Which in turn has downsides of it's own, it turns out there are limits on how much armor you can put on engine area, thus limiting your frontal arc protection. Front mounted engine was a good idea when Mk. I was being designed, but since then advances in armor technology surpassed it.

APCs and IFVs on the other hand have smaller engines and don't mount that much protection, not to mention that rear exit for dismounts is a must, as amply demonstrated by BTR-60/70/80.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

TAM has joined the chat ...
But yes, front engine in tanks is extremely rare. Popular in APCs/IFVs though.

The TAM has a front engine because it's a glorified Marder IFV pretending to be a tank.

Edit: Just to be clear, this is literally the case. The TAM is a modified Marder 1 infantry fighting vehicle hull with a modified Leopard 1A4 turret on top.

 

[Doomsought]

Which in turn has downsides of it's own, it turns out there are limits on how much armor you can put on engine area, thus limiting your frontal arc protection.

The main reason for front engine designs is to use the engine itself as armor. It is highly effective against HEAT rounds due to engine bay functioning as spaced armor. This is why front engine designs are used where sacrificing the vehicle to protect the crew would be considered acceptable.

 

[paulobrito]

With the use of composite armors, ERA, and APS that solution is already not necessary.

 

[Husky_Khan]

Twitter thread of a Tank Enthusiast Interviewing an 89 Year old IDF Veteran who served from the fifties through the eighties, most famously on the M50/51 Super Shermans mostly as a Tank Commander in the Suez Crisis and Six Day War. He also served in logistics during the Yom Kippur War and later military operations.

The questions were canvassed from Twitter users. Also some nice pictures of IDF Super Sherman tanks.

 

[ATP]

Twitter thread of a Tank Enthusiast Interviewing an 89 Year old IDF Veteran who served from the fifties through the eighties, most famously on the M50/51 Super Shermans mostly as a Tank Commander in the Suez Crisis and Six Day War. He also served in logistics during the Yom Kippur War and later military operations.

The questions were canvassed from Twitter users. Also some nice pictures of IDF Super Sherman tanks.

Impressive,that he could fought T.54 in old WW2 tank and win.But considered that enemy crews were arabs.....

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

The main reason for front engine designs is to use the engine itself as armor. It is highly effective against HEAT rounds due to engine bay functioning as spaced armor. This is why front engine designs are used where sacrificing the vehicle to protect the crew would be considered acceptable.

That worked 'back in the day' when weapons had way less penetration than they do now. All the frontal engine does is make the tank less balanced, more top heavy and have LESS frontal armor than it's supposed to for it's tonnage.

The Merkava has a lot less armor than people think, nowhere near the safety levels provided by say, the M1 series of tanks.

Doesn't even have blowout panels, hit to the ammo and everyone inside is matzah balls.

 

[Marduk]

That worked 'back in the day' when weapons had way less penetration than they do now. All the frontal engine does is make the tank less balanced, more top heavy and have LESS frontal armor than it's supposed to for it's tonnage.

The Merkava has a lot less armor than people think, nowhere near the safety levels provided by say, the M1 series of tanks.

Doesn't even have blowout panels, hit to the ammo and everyone inside is matzah balls.

Merkava has a specialized armor setup that's not comparable 1:1 to other modern MBTs and it is worse against high end KE threats that it's unlikely to face.
It does have very good protection against IEDs and shaped charge weapons though.

 

[ThatZenoGuy]

Merkava has a specialized armor setup that's not comparable 1:1 to other modern MBTs and it is worse against high end KE threats that it's unlikely to face.
It does have very good protection against IEDs and shaped charge weapons though.

The issue is that the frontal engine doesn't help with HEAT and EFP either, it just makes more surface area that needs armor. That's bad.
Using the same tonnage, you could get even more protection against such threats. The reason of course why the Merkava uses a front engine is because when it was created, Israel had no access to composite layouts, so they had to resort to spaced armor/using the engine.
Which in today's warfare is a terrible idea because all it does is get the tank disabled really easily, while other tanks would shrug off hits that utterly cripple the Merkava.
The fortunate thing is that Israel fights some of the most comically incompetent buffoons on the planet who got their training from Kung Pow or something.

 

[Marduk]

The issue is that the frontal engine doesn't help with HEAT and EFP either, it just makes more surface area that needs armor. That's bad.
Using the same tonnage, you could get even more protection against such threats. The reason of course why the Merkava uses a front engine is because when it was created, Israel had no access to composite layouts, so they had to resort to spaced armor/using the engine.
Which in today's warfare is a terrible idea because all it does is get the tank disabled really easily, while other tanks would shrug off hits that utterly cripple the Merkava.
The fortunate thing is that Israel fights some of the most comically incompetent buffoons on the planet who got their training from Kung Pow or something.

If something penetrates the tank's frontal section with enough oomph to disable the engine, then the tank probably would have been screwed either way. The whole crew compartment probably.
If a tank is getting hit with anything serious at all immobilization is a hard to avoid threat, because even if the weapons can't penetrate frontal armor, or even side armor they still can break tracks.

 

[Aldarion]

The main reason for front engine designs is to use the engine itself as armor. It is highly effective against HEAT rounds due to engine bay functioning as spaced armor. This is why front engine designs are used where sacrificing the vehicle to protect the crew would be considered acceptable.

If something penetrates the tank's frontal section with enough oomph to disable the engine, then the tank probably would have been screwed either way. The whole crew compartment probably.
If a tank is getting hit with anything serious at all immobilization is a hard to avoid threat, because even if the weapons can't penetrate frontal armor, or even side armor they still can break tracks.

But as already pointed out, putting engine up front means that you can have less armor there.

In rear-engined tanks, weight of the engine counterbalances the weight of the armor and the gun.

In fact, placing engine at the front causes a slew of design compromises:

1. Frontal engine means that forward portion of the tank has to be taller than it usually will have been. This means that you have more surface to armor up front, and it pushes turret upwards, increasing the armored volume and thus either increasing overall weight or decreasing armored protection. This is bad, since front of the tank is most likely to get hit.
2. Frontal engine also reduces armored protection simply because composite armor and the engine both take up a lot of space. See here. So engine up front means less space left for the armor.
3. This fact - that front is most likely to get hit - also means that the front-mounted engine is more susceptible to shocks and vibration. Rear-mounted engine is protected from these by the dissipation, but front-mounted engine will require special protection mechanisms to achieve same degree of immunity.
4. Engine up front means that ALL of the heavy components (gun, engine, thickest armor) are in the front. This means that you have to reduce weight of the frontal armor to rebalance the tank, move turret further rear, or both. And having the engine in front of the crew mostly only means even more shrapnel to shred them to pieces.
5. Engine is the hottest part of the tank. Placing it in the front means that you are a) exposing the hottest part of the vehicle to the enemy and b) making exhaust more difficult to hide. This is just making life easy for enemy IR scopes to detect the tank, especially since it is apparently more difficult to mix IR exhaust from a front-mounted engine in order to reduce tank's IR signature.
6. Continuing onto the above, frontal engine obscures or reduces quality of view of all your frontal-mounted optics. Unless your tanks are designed to act as meme-France or IRL-Iraq, that is a bad thing.
7. Engine in the front complicates the access for maintenance and engine replacement.

Advantages are:

1. Superior ability to dig in: with the engine up front, any ammunition will be to the rear, and rear of the tank remains free for rear access hatch / door. This means that when tanks are hull-down, rear access hatch allows them to be resupplied and rearmed in relative safety, whereas normal tanks would require the crew to be exposed atop the tank while doing so.
2. Superior versatility in COIN operations: rear hatch enabled by the frontal engine allows for the tank to be more easily and safely restocked, to more easily evacuate casualties, and even to double as a (shitty) IFV.

Since Israel does not have to worry about latest APFSDS rounds and has to worry about masses of insurgents, front-mounted engine with secure access hatch at the rear is a major advantage.

But except for these very specific circumstances, Merkava is in fact significantly inferior to literally any other Western MBT (Abrams, Challenger 2, Leclerc, Leopard 2).

 

[Marduk]

But as already pointed out, putting engine up front means that you can have less armor there.

In rear-engined tanks, weight of the engine counterbalances the weight of the armor and the gun.

In fact, placing engine at the front causes a slew of design compromises:

1. Frontal engine means that forward portion of the tank has to be taller than it usually will have been. This means that you have more surface to armor up front, and it pushes turret upwards, increasing the armored volume and thus either increasing overall weight or decreasing armored protection. This is bad, since front of the tank is most likely to get hit.
2. Frontal engine also reduces armored protection simply because composite armor and the engine both take up a lot of space. See here. So engine up front means less space left for the armor.

"less armor" by weight can in fact be better against CE if it comes with more armor by volume. The engine compartment itself (probably also with own frag/fire wall) is also armor against CE threats.
Less dense protection scheme is the optimal solution for a CE focused armor scheme, which is what Merkava is supposed to have.

1. This fact - that front is most likely to get hit - also means that the front-mounted engine is more susceptible to shocks and vibration. Rear-mounted engine is protected from these by the dissipation, but front-mounted engine will require special protection mechanisms to achieve same degree of immunity.
2. Engine up front means that ALL of the heavy components (gun, engine, thickest armor) are in the front. This means that you have to reduce weight of the frontal armor to rebalance the tank, move turret further rear, or both. And having the engine in front of the crew mostly only means even more shrapnel to shred them to pieces.
3. Engine is the hottest part of the tank. Placing it in the front means that you are a) exposing the hottest part of the vehicle to the enemy and b) making exhaust more difficult to hide. This is just making life easy for enemy IR scopes to detect the tank, especially since it is apparently more difficult to mix IR exhaust from a front-mounted engine in order to reduce tank's IR signature.

Yes, if Merkava was meant to fight modern tanks slinging advanced KE rounds at it while looking for it with decent IR sensors, it would have been a terrible design choice. But Merkava is build for a totally different mission profile, and in most cases it's gonna be seen and heard much sooner before the likely enemies will spot it with their likely nonexistent IR scopes, who will then try to blast it with IEDs, RPGs and ATGMs. ATGM protection is the most shared challenge of its protection needs with more classic MBTs.

1. Continuing onto the above, frontal engine obscures or reduces quality of view of all your frontal-mounted optics. Unless your tanks are designed to act as meme-France or IRL-Iraq, that is a bad thing.

Not much fast maneuver warfare with long sight lines for Israel in urban COIN.

1. Engine in the front complicates the access for maintenance and engine replacement.

Advantages are:

1. Superior ability to dig in: with the engine up front, any ammunition will be to the rear, and rear of the tank remains free for rear access hatch / door. This means that when tanks are hull-down, rear access hatch allows them to be resupplied and rearmed in relative safety, whereas normal tanks would require the crew to be exposed atop the tank while doing so.
2. Superior versatility in COIN operations: rear hatch enabled by the frontal engine allows for the tank to be more easily and safely restocked, to more easily evacuate casualties, and even to double as a (shitty) IFV.

Since Israel does not have to worry about latest APFSDS rounds and has to worry about masses of insurgents, front-mounted engine with secure access hatch at the rear is a major advantage.

But except for these very specific circumstances, Merkava is in fact significantly inferior to literally any other Western MBT (Abrams, Challenger 2, Leclerc, Leopard 2).

Well, yeah, it's a specialized tank for Israel's unusual needs profile, but it's better for that.

 

[Doomsought]

But as already pointed out, putting engine up front means that you can have less armor there.

You didn't even read my post. The engine itself functions as armor. When you are choosing front engine, you are accepting a mission kill on the vehicle to save the crew. The Merkava is front engine because the primary war goal of Israel's enemies is genocide.

 

[PsihoKekec]

And neither did you read his. Merkava front engine was good idea in 70's when the tank was designed, but it became bad idea once the composite armor technology matured. To put it simply, modern frontal armor protects crew better than Merkava IV armor + engine. The reason why Israel sticks to Merkava design is the same reason why Soviets stuck to T-64/72/80 design school - institutional inertia.

But Merkava is build for a totally different mission profile,

Merkava was designed to fight enemy tanks, based on experience of '67 and '73 and still is considered the tanks prime mission as even with Syria crushed, IDF does not trust the eternal friendship with Jordan and Egypt to last eternally. And while there is no doubt they could get Abramses for free, they do have their own military industrial complex they need to care for.

 

[Aldarion]

You didn't even read my post. The engine itself functions as armor. When you are choosing front engine, you are accepting a mission kill on the vehicle to save the crew. The Merkava is front engine because the primary war goal of Israel's enemies is genocide.

You are the one who hasn't read my post. No, engine does not function as armor.

At best, it can provide some protection against some threats, such as HEAT projectiles. But any and all protection engine may provide is more than negated by the fact that placing the engine up front requires reducing the actual frontal armor. And no engine provides as good protection as those few inches of armor that had been lost to engine would have provided.

Not unless you are using RHA and absolutely zero composites in your tank. Which is how Merkava design began, but RHA-only-armor days are way beyond us, therefore, Merkava design is simply outdated, armor-wise. Rear access doors still provide some advantages in some scenarios, but these are not what you had written about at all.

"less armor" by weight can in fact be better against CE if it comes with more armor by volume. The engine compartment itself (probably also with own frag/fire wall) is also armor against CE threats.
Less dense protection scheme is the optimal solution for a CE focused armor scheme, which is what Merkava is supposed to have.

Not what I wrote at all.

I was talking about the armor thickness vs protected volume and armor weight vs protected volume. Since tanks are not, in fact, battleships, and thus do not have massive amounts of sacrificial volume, this means that increasing protected volume in tanks is a bad idea since it always results in reduced protection, unless you accept significant weight increase.

Yes, if Merkava was meant to fight modern tanks slinging advanced KE rounds at it while looking for it with decent IR sensors, it would have been a terrible design choice. But Merkava is build for a totally different mission profile, and in most cases it's gonna be seen and heard much sooner before the likely enemies will spot it with their likely nonexistent IR scopes, who will then try to blast it with IEDs, RPGs and ATGMs. ATGM protection is the most shared challenge of its protection needs with more classic MBTs.

True. Merkava is really designed to function as a dug-in artillery / ATG piece, being settled in a dugout, hull-down and with rear access doors providing a steady resupply safe from enemy sharpshooters.

Not much fast maneuver warfare with long sight lines for Israel in urban COIN.

Uh, read it again. I was talking about the ability to acquire targets there. Nothing to do with speed of movement.

Well, yeah, it's a specialized tank for Israel's unusual needs profile, but it's better for that.

Agreed.

 

[Marduk]

You are the one who hasn't read my post. No, engine does not function as armor.

At best, it can provide some protection against some threats, such as HEAT projectiles. But any and all protection engine may provide is more than negated by the fact that placing the engine up front requires reducing the actual frontal armor. And no engine provides as good protection as those few inches of armor that had been lost to engine would have provided.

It is protection because it is extra distance for the HEAT charge's plasma jet to travel. Distance, even empty spaced armor, always helps against that, and an engine doesn't weight nearly enough to account for few inches of steel on frontal armor plate.

Not unless you are using RHA and absolutely zero composites in your tank. Which is how Merkava design began, but RHA-only-armor days are way beyond us, therefore, Merkava design is simply outdated, armor-wise. Rear access doors still provide some advantages in some scenarios, but these are not what you had written about at all.

For many of Israel's use cases, "some threats" such as HEAT *are* the main threat. Competing only with mine/IED protection, but thick frontal armor is even more meaningless for that.

Not what I wrote at all.

I was talking about the armor thickness vs protected volume and armor weight vs protected volume. Since tanks are not, in fact, battleships, and thus do not have massive amounts of sacrificial volume, this means that increasing protected volume in tanks is a bad idea since it always results in reduced protection, unless you accept significant weight increase.

True. Merkava is really designed to function as a dug-in artillery / ATG piece, being settled in a dugout, hull-down and with rear access doors providing a steady resupply safe from enemy sharpshooters.

Also as a COIN tank as seen in Gaza.
Also beyond some point you want to increase protected volume anyway, especially height, which the engine affects, if you don't want to suffer the problem of ergonomics of Soviet tanks.

Uh, read it again. I was talking about the ability to acquire targets there. Nothing to do with speed of movement.

Agreed.

If it's not fast then there is little to no interference from engine in front on observation.

Merkava was designed to fight enemy tanks, based on experience of '67 and '73 and still is considered the tanks prime mission as even with Syria crushed, IDF does not trust the eternal friendship with Jordan and Egypt to last eternally. And while there is no doubt they could get Abramses for free, they do have their own military industrial complex they need to care for.

Specifically to fight crappy enemy tanks, on defense. The good ability to fight dug in is a pro for that, and it still has enough KE resistance to handle old soviet tanks.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Specifically to fight crappy enemy tanks, on defense. The good ability to fight dug in is a pro for that, and it still has enough KE resistance to handle old soviet tanks.

That is completely inaccurate. The Merkava was designed in response to two major geopolitical events:

1) the 1973 Yom Kippur War where the IDF, while victorious, took serious casualties against Egyptian forces armed with T-55 and T-62 tanks equipped with large numbers of then-state-of-the-art ATGMs, plus modern Soviet T-55 and T-62 tanks.

2) the late 1960s British betrayal where they had gotten Israel to help develop and test the FV4201 Chieftain main battle tank, then blocked Israel from purchasing any and selling them to hostile Arab nations.


So no, the Merkava was not designed to fight "crappy enemy tanks"; it was designed as an MBT highly optimized for Israel's specific needs in defensive warfare, with the opponents being numerically superior forces of up-to-date Soviet *or* Western bloc tanks, particularly the Chieftain which was the most heavily armed and armored tank of the era.

 

[Marduk]

That is completely inaccurate. The Merkava was designed in response to two major geopolitical events:

1) the 1973 Yom Kippur War where the IDF, while victorious, took serious casualties against Egyptian forces armed with T-55 and T-62 tanks equipped with large numbers of then-state-of-the-art ATGMs, plus modern Soviet T-55 and T-62 tanks.

>ATGMs
I rest my case, that's also a CE threat. "Sagger shock" more so, and relevant to '73 war. Gun launched ATGMs were not available then, especially to Arabs.
T-55 and T-62, especially the variants Arabs had, were not exactly state of art tanks in the late 70's already, and yeah, ATGMs were the most dangerous thing those armies could fire at Israeli tanks.

2) the late 1960s British betrayal where they had gotten Israel to help develop and test the FV4201 Chieftain main battle tank, then blocked Israel from purchasing any and selling them to hostile Arab nations.

Jordan got Chieftains only 2 years after Merkava entered service, obviously it was designed or tested even earlier.

So no, the Merkava was not designed to fight "crappy enemy tanks"; it was designed as an MBT highly optimized for Israel's specific needs in defensive warfare, with the opponents being numerically superior forces of up-to-date Soviet *or* Western bloc tanks, particularly the Chieftain which was the most heavily armed and armored tank of the era.

Eh... T-64 and T-72 already existed when Merkava was being designed. and Jordan didn't get Chieftains yet.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

>ATGMs
I rest my case, that's also a CE threat. "Sagger shock" more so, and relevant to '73 war. Gun launched ATGMs were not available then, especially to Arabs.
T-55 and T-62, especially the variants Arabs had, were not exactly state of art tanks in the late 70's already, and yeah, ATGMs were the most dangerous thing those armies(and also other platforms these countries had) could fire at Israeli tanks.

Jordan got Chieftains only 2 years after Merkava entered service, obviously it was designed or tested even earlier.

Eh... T-64 and T-72 already existed when Merkava was being designed. and Jordan didn't get Chieftains yet.

The British hadn't delivered Chieftains to Jordan, but they'd already backstabbed Israel and made it clear they were friendlier to Arab nations hostile to Israel -- the writing was very much on the wall that the new tanks they'd tricked the Israelis into helping develop were now being turned on Israel.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

T-55 and T-62, especially the variants Arabs had, were not exactly state of art tanks in the late 70's already, and yeah, ATGMs were the most dangerous thing those armies could fire at Israeli tanks.

In 1973, the T-62 was still the primary Soviet frontline tank and was in fact still in full-scale production by the Soviets until 1975. The T-72 was the deadly new thing and the IDF was very concerned with maintaining qualitative superiority against the next generation because it was self-evident they would always have quantitative inferiority.