leopard 2 Leopard 2 "Improved" (2A5 and prototypes)

[Necrons31467 14,236]

Trying to get a decent understanding of the armour profile of the Leopard 2A5.

 

• Was B tech still used for the creation of Leopard 2A5's or were these all C Tech composites underneath as standard?
• Any indication of CE protection for the glacis without applique?

 

Anyways, this is what I gathered from the info:

 

[scavenjer 1,892]

1 hour ago, Necrons31467 said:

Was B tech still used for the creation of Leopard 2A5's or were these all C Tech composites underneath as standard?

We don't know for sure, the KVT had B + D-2 (probably) and it was based off a 5th batch vehicle (B tech base), but the TVM which was sent to sweden also had B + D-2 despite being based off an 8th batch vehicle (C tech base with D tech skirts).

Considering that the add-on as present on the TVM and KVT looks identical and different to the actual accepted add-on for both the Strv 122 and 2A5, I would assume that it's the add-on which got changed and thus improved the armour.

 

This is also in-line with what the Swedes did to the M1A2 where they kept the same base armour but put a wedge on it similar to the Strv 122.

 

There's multiple authors that say the turrets got reworked and the sight moved, insinuating that the base armour was also changed (not necessarily a different armour generation) and there's also multiple other authors that simply say the add-ons were in D tech and thus improved the armour.

^that's for the turret.

 

For the hull it's a little bit clearer, leopard 2A5s all received hulls from the 6th to 8th batch, so C tech base, the Strv 122 could also use C tech as base hull armour, I can't find any difference in the hull add-on (though the actual protection difference is quite small).

 

There is a weight difference of about 4.55t, according to the Dutch a single wedge weighs about 500kg:

Spoiler

Nothing's known for sure, but there does appear to be some difference that can't be explained by the add-on armour alone, never mind that we don't even know if C tech added weight.

 

1 hour ago, Necrons31467 said:

Any indication of CE protection for the glacis without applique?

None, considering that B tech leo 2 was required to stop the Milan ATGM (first one), it's possible this was deemed insufficient and upgraded along with C tech.

C tech is rumoured to make use of newer steels, titanium and tungsten as well as maybe ceramics (no sources on that, take it with a grain of salt).

None of these would inherently improve CE protection, but would allow a different array to be used which could make use of actual NERA elements improving CE protection that way.

 

1 hour ago, Necrons31467 said:

Anyways, this is what I gathered from the info:

Front right (left from our PoV) should be 820mm, only going down to 810mm at a 30° angle, I think this refers to the top and bottom edges of the wedge with the 862mm number referring to the middle part (makes the most sense IMO and sort of confirmed with the green-red render showing the top and bottom to be protected against DM53 as well).

Mantlet top should be a minimum of 720mm, bottom probably less than 700mm.

The little cut out for the driver's head probably isn't a weakspot as the plate seems thicker, coming all the way back to the main armour, but I haven't seen a good enough picture to say for sure.

CE protection is probably 1670mm-1920mm for both cheeks, just depends on the impact angle.

As far as I can tell, both cheeks are the same on the Swedish model (thus 2A5 as well), only the KVT and TVM seemed to have a weaker side, armour around optic isn't a weakspot:

Spoiler

On the base 2A4 that armour block behind the EMES 15 is around 660mm thick, on the Strv 122 and 2A5 they moved the sight back a little bit while also keeping the armour behind it, so it should have around 860mm of composite not including the add-on, which is the same as the rest of the cheeks (just under the EMES 15 the armour total LOS thickness is actually above 1000mm but that includes a fairly large air gap, not sure if that affects protection much).

So they essentially removed that "weakspot" (the optic will still get damaged though).

Hull roof wasn't changed except for the lip infront of the driver's hatch and the hatch itself, so 35-40mm for an effectiveness of around 280-300mm (but in-game ricochet angles make this part mostly immune).

UFP is probably around 400-425mm, but I can't say for sure as I had some issues properly placing values on the C tech 2A4 myself, I gave it ~425mm as it seems to match the best.

 

I doubt the LFP was upgraded, so same as current 2A4.

 

Supposedly the Greeks found a manufacturing error in a 2A6 turret and they test fired DM53 out of the L55 at it, it managed to stop 27 out of 30 rounds, after finding the error, they fixed it on all tanks.

I haven't seen the original source of that story, might be bogus and I've seen it change a couple of times.

Still looking for the original source.

 

As a sidenote: those values the Swedes list in their test firings are probably "estimated" protection levels, none of the rounds fired at the front of the turret penetrated as indicated by the "ub" (meaning non-penetration).

I don't remember what "bus" stands for but "gor" means penetration, the number after it being how much "penetration" was left IIRC.

[WulfPack 1,693]

3 hours ago, scavenjer said:

I can PM you some more research papers to read if you'd like to.

Sure, I don't mind

1 hour ago, Necrons31467 said:

Anyways, this is what I gathered from the info:

 

If this is close to correct, I'm defiantly against DM53 

[scavenjer 1,892]

6 minutes ago, WulfPack said:

If this is close to correct, I'm defiantly against DM53 

Should I add a poll about what the top round should be?

[PantherAl 4,883]

Hrm...

 

DM33 for the German Tree version, and DM53 for the Swedish?

 

[WulfPack 1,693]

2 minutes ago, scavenjer said:

Should I add a poll about what the top round should be?

I'd say so

 

[scavenjer 1,892]

4 minutes ago, PantherAl said:

Hrm...

 

DM33 for the German Tree version, and DM53 for the Swedish?

*Internal screeching*

 

4 minutes ago, WulfPack said:

I'd say so

Will do.

[dotEXCEL 5,969]

6 minutes ago, PantherAl said:

Hrm...

 

DM33 for the German Tree version, and DM53 for the Swedish?

 

*loads luger*

Edited January 25, 2019 by dotEXCEL

[NoodleCup31 8,824]

More Leopards. Of course yes. And maybe a fixed Leo 2A4 in game for now?

[Necrons31467 14,236]

1 hour ago, scavenjer said:

-Snip-

 

Something like this then?

 

 

Edited January 25, 2019 by Necrons31467

[scavenjer 1,892]

43 minutes ago, Necrons31467 said:

Something like this then?

Personally I'd make both cheeks the same with the upper and lower portions the 820mm KE value, that spot around the EMES 15 looks about right, maybe a little bit smaller.

Hull I really can't say much about as it's still quite vague, driver's hatch should be higher though, it's got a steel rib right infront and the hatch itself is quite a bit thicker than on a normal leo 2, probably same thickness as UFP, minor nitpicks really.

[dotEXCEL 5,969]

1 hour ago, NoodleCup31 said:

More Leopards. Of course yes. And maybe a fixed Leo 2A4 in game for now?

thats not up to us... sadly... to my knowledge, all known issues were reported and passed on to the Devs...

Edited January 25, 2019 by dotEXCEL

[NoodleCup31 8,824]

@dotEXCEL Ja leider, aber diese reports sind teilweise noch aus dem Juni 2018

[dotEXCEL 5,969]

16 minutes ago, NoodleCup31 said:

@dotEXCEL Ja leider, aber diese reports sind teilweise noch aus dem Juni 2018

you dont have to tell me... fact is: nothing that we can do, other than wait

[Laviduce 1,779]

On 25/01/2019 at 18:47, Necrons31467 said:

 

Something like this then?

 

 

Looks about right! I did this a while back:

[scavenjer 1,892]

2 minutes ago, Laviduce said:

Looks about right! I did this a while back:

Yup, but that should be for the prototypes such as the TVM and KVT, normal leopard 2A5 is different from what I can tell.
Maybe we should have a diagram for every version?

[Necrons31467 14,236]

1 hour ago, scavenjer said:

Yup, but that should be for the prototypes such as the TVM and KVT, normal leopard 2A5 is different from what I can tell.
Maybe we should have a diagram for every version?

 

I'm already working on quite a few versions of different tanks:

 

 

Can't really find a good blueprint in the style of the ones shown above regarding the Leopard 2 with hull applique though.

 

 

Edited January 26, 2019 by Necrons31467

[scavenjer 1,892]

3 minutes ago, Necrons31467 said:

Can't really find a good blueprint in the style of the ones shown above regarding the Leopard 2 with hull applique though.

Yeah, that will be difficult to find.

Oh and... some of those need some tweaks

[Necrons31467 14,236]

48 minutes ago, scavenjer said:

Oh and... some of those need some tweaks

 

Yeah yeah... I know :P

Already on it (already updated my previous posts' picture).

 

 

I'm fairly comfortable with where I got the T-90, the M1A2 is decent though lacking some detail, along with ofcourse lacking the turret ring/mantlet values.

 

Challenger 1 Mk. 1 is ofcourse completely lacking CE values... oh well.

 

Leopard 2A5 also got updated.

I'm not totally convinced the upper and lower portions of the cheeks provide the same level of protection given the reduced LoS values the add-on's provide, regardless, I refrained from putting any values there.

Optics spot also got adjusted in size, driver's hacth area got increased by about 45mm (seems to be the correct thickness going from measurements) so ends up at 368mm effective.

I'm also sticking to an upper estimate for the glacis armour, the turret cheeks went from ≈430mm -> ≈530mm, so I find it odd if the glacis increased only marginally to ≈410mm.

Edited January 26, 2019 by Necrons31467

[scavenjer 1,892]

30 minutes ago, Necrons31467 said:

I'm fairly comfortable with where I got the T-90, the M1A2 is decent though lacking some detail, along with ofcourse lacking the turret ring/mantlet values.

Seem about right, you'll never get those turret ring values right anyway.

 

32 minutes ago, Necrons31467 said:

Challenger 1 Mk. 1 is ofcourse completely lacking CE values... oh well.

I'd put the UFP at 300, turret at 400 and CE for hull at 750mm with turret at 800-900mm.

 

32 minutes ago, Necrons31467 said:

I'm not totally convinced the upper and lower portions of the cheeks provide the same level of protection given the reduced LoS values the add-on's provide, regardless, I refrained from putting any values there.

At the very least the outer portions are 700+, IMO it makes sense that the middle is the higher number and the upper/lower part the lower number (862-820 resp).

LOS thickness for both cheeks is pretty much the same, angles are too, wedges are mostly the same as well (except driver's cut out).

 

36 minutes ago, Necrons31467 said:

Optics spot also got adjusted in size, driver's hacth area got increased by about 45mm (seems to be the correct thickness going from measurements) so ends up at 368mm effective.

I'm also sticking to an upper estimate for the glacis armour, the turret cheeks went from ≈430mm -> ≈530mm, so I find it odd if the glacis increased only marginally to ≈410mm.

Well, according to my attempts, turret cheeks went from ~430mm to ~550mm and hull went from ~300mm to ~425mm, 0.64 and 0.66 efficiency respectively.

But.... wasn't too sure about all the values, the more you look at them, the more questions arise.

In any case, I think those other tweaks are pretty much right.

[Ghost_Xiphidion 894]

+1

 

Sadly I voted *no* before I read the disclaimer. I would love to see this in the game at some point in the future as long as the other nations are balanced against it. I just hope Gaijin models the wedge correctly. It was specifically designed to *not* be a shot trap.

 

I voted no because, in the short term, the Leopard 2a4 needs be fixed and buffed first & foremost by Gaijin. Right now *maybe* the US would be balanced against the Leopad 2a5's inclusion, but definitely not anybody else. The win rate for Germany at top tier is such that maybe you could fix it with a proper 2a4 (DM33, Electric Transmission, etc) and that way you can avoid overcorrecting & unbalancing the game in Germany's favor by giving it another unrealistically nerfed Leopard 2.

[onemax9000 1,243]

+1 the Swedish ones should go to the Swedish tech tree and for the Leo 2A5 a big yes also how accurate is the April fools model (not the armour just the scale and performance).

[Stuhlfleisch 3,762]

On ‎26‎/‎01‎/‎2019 at 22:39, Necrons31467 said:

 

I'm already working on quite a few versions of different tanks:

 

 

Can't really find a good blueprint in the style of the ones shown above regarding the Leopard 2 with hull applique though.

 

 

One small off-topic question regarding the T-90, is that the original T-90 aka T-72BU, or the T-90A?

[Necrons31467 14,236]

5 hours ago, Stuhlfleisch said:

One small off-topic question regarding the T-90, is that the original T-90 aka T-72BU, or the T-90A?

 

T-72B Obr. 1989 armour values, which are virtually identical to the T-90.

Edited January 28, 2019 by Necrons31467

[Stuhlfleisch 3,762]

11 hours ago, Necrons31467 said:

 

T-72B Obr. 1989 armour values, which are virtually identical to the T-90.

Thank you. ^^