Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military From: malloy@nprdc.navy.mil (Sean Malloy) Newsgroups: sci.military Subject: Re: HEAT shell question and proposal. Message-ID: <12820@cbnews.ATT.COM> Date: 5 Jan 90 04:08:42 GMT References: <12756@cbnews.ATT.COM> Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM Organization: Navy Personnel R&D Center, San Diego Lines: 57 Approved: military@att.att.com From: malloy@nprdc.navy.mil (Sean Malloy) In article <12756@cbnews.ATT.COM> gahooten@ames.arc.nasa.gov (Greg A. Hooten) writes: > The problem then is to again >allow the warhead's shaped charge to seal against the actual armor . . . As I read what you wrote, I think what you _mean_ is that you want to know if there is some way to blow through the reactive layer, so that the HEAT jet is directed against the main armor, rather than the reactive armor. 'Sealing' the shaped charge against the armor reduces the penetration; a shaped charge needs a standoff to develop the jet properly for maximum penetration. This is why the probes were added to TOW missiles. >Has anyone tried to marry a hard cap onto the top of a heat >round? < description of the action of the cap to penetrate the > < reactive armor, allowing the shaped charge to impact > < the main armor deleted > I don't think this will work well in practice, because any penetrating cap solid enough to penetrate the reactive layer will just add to the armor thickness the shaped charge has to penetrate. The increased weight of the penetrating cap will reduce the velocity of the round, limiting the range, or force a reduction in the size of the shaped charge, reducing the penetration of the round further. It is claimed that the penetrating ability of existing shaped-charge warheads against the front armor of front-line Soviet tanks is marginal at best; adding more armor as part of the shell seems counterproductive. >This seems too easy to me, but I could not think of any >technical reasons why it would not work, only some unknowns. It may be worth looking into; I'm not an expert by any means. >Can the penetrator get a wide enough hole in the box . . . > . . . that the HEAT would not set of an explosion that >would ruin the jet? All it needs to do is punch a hole larger than the diameter of the jet. The armor qualities of explosive materials shouldn't be that impressive. Another problem I see comes from a picture of a Soviet tank I saw in the December issue of Jane's Soviet Intelligence, which had three layers of reactive armor boxes bolted onto the turret. Multiple layers of reactive armor would be resistant to penetration by this method. |Applications programming is a Sean Malloy |race between software engineers, Navy Personnel Research & Development Center |who strive to produce idiot-proof San Diego, CA 92152-6800 |programs, and the Universe, which malloy@nprdc.navy.mil |strives to produce bigger idiots. |So far, the Universe is winning.