Re: Asymmetry was: Well, too interesting

----- Original Message -----
From: "John K Lerchey" <lerchey@andrew.cmu.edu>

> Again, I'm not against it, but I do have to wonder if the net effect
will
> end up with heavy frontal armor, balanced sides (weaker than the
front),
> and top/bottom/rear all being even weaker and about the same...

This is the most likely outcome, indeed. And certainly there seems to be
little incentive to build a vehicle where the armour left and right is
different.

However, I think top and bottom armour will depend seriously on what
type of
weapons will be faced. You could postulate top-attack munitions and
highly
dangerous mines that force a designer to make top and bottom armour
similar
to frontal armour. Or intelligent, maneuvrable missiles that always go
for
the weakest side of an enemy tank, aganst which every face (except,
presumably, the bottom) would have to be equally protected.

Greetings
Karl Heinz