Re: [SG2] Cover Penetration Question for all you Armour Experts

At 12:54 PM -0700 8/28/02, John Atkinson wrote:
>
>Depends on the type of soil, angle of attack, and
>depth of berm.

Boy does it. Its just like armor.

>It was pretty conclusively demonstrated in Desert
>Storm that bulldozed berms of sand are pretty useless.
>  But a proper tank fighting position is something else
>entirely.

You have to have a pretty thick amount of soil to stop what ever is 
coming in. With KE weapons its really a ballistic penetration issue. 
If you have a relatively thin wall or berm, the long rod penetrator 
coming in might just shrug at the layer just like a .308 round will 
shrug at a police man's level IIa vest. But if you put a good thick 
(several meters) berm in front of the layer of armor on the tank, the 
projectile may loose enough energy to go all the way through the berm 
but not carry enough E to penetrate the armor of the vehicle hiding 
there. Its really not a yes or no question, but rather a how much.

A solid bit of ground with rocky bits to it will likely work far 
better than light sandy spoil if pushed up into a protective bank. 
But it had better be thick enough to stop what's coming in. John, are 
there specific guidelines on what thickness of a given material/spoil 
will stop an incoming 125mm APDS round?

ie like

X meters of concrete
X meters of rocky soil
X meters of sandy soil
x meters of wooden crib with rocks and dirt filling it.

I would expect that in order to make a good proper Tank position you 
have to have a scrape in the ground that gives you a really long 
distance of ground. A berm pushed up around a tank isn't going to do 
much good. It has to be dug in.

I have to wonder with the advent of top attack weapons, whether we'll 
start seeing more over head cover made for tank fighting positions or 
not. Dig a scrape for a tank with the two levels and then lay some 
beams and logs over the top. Then drop spoil over the top of the 
beams to protect the top of the tank. IT'd have to roll out to get 
the turret down position. Its additional supplies and work, but if it 
protects your mobile forces, it'll be worth it.

<----enemy			       __---dirt_--__
--------  -  -	-  -  -  -  -  -  -  - XXXXXXXXXXXXXX
	 \_hulldown__				     /
		     \_turret down____	  covered   /
				      \_____area___/
-- 
--
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