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Leopard-2A0-A4 armor protection
estimation
by Jaroslaw (Militarysta)
Gun mantled
mask area
Turret
armor left side (the loader)
Turret
armor right side (the tank commander and gunner)
Turret
sides on crew compartment area
Turret
bustle
Turret roof
armor
The hull
frontal armor
The
psychical thickens of the armor summary
The protection of whole tank can be describe in 3 aspects:
It's important
to notice that Leopard-2 was developed as child of the many compromises - and
some solutions judge now as bad - where developed in 1970's to achieve
better fire power (placement EMES-15 main sight in gap in frontal armor to
simplicity optics and thermal camera in main sight) or to achieve better
susceptibility to service and repairs - for example huge gun mantled mask
was developed to achieve possibility to replace whole tank gun on battlefield
without removal turret from chassis.
In the
breakthrough of the 1980s and 1990s when some solutions in Leopard-2A4 stars to
be bad in term of armor protection (against suspected new Soviet anti-tank
weapons) program KWS was started and deep modernization to 2A5 level was
introduced when most questionable problems whit armor integrity where solved
(improvement).
1) Psychical thickness of the tank armor:
Gun mantled mask area Gun mantled
mask in Leopard-2A4 is 420mm (42cm) thick and it has multilayered build. It's
weight is equal 620kg. After the gun mantled mask is placed gun mounted frame
(the wedge in German) made from thick light alloy metal. Those frame is
belted by thick metal plates which are making roof armor and bottom of the
turret. Sides are cover by thick RHA plates which are making pins to fixed gun
and gun mantled mask in one point in turret.
Whole area looks like this:
In fact whole armor layout in gun mantled mask area consist:
420mm armor
block + 240mm light alloys mounted frame for gun + around mounted points
between 80 and (mostly) ~230mm RHA metal plates. Thanks for this solution whole
gun mantled mask area where protected well against early 1980s APFSDS and HEAT
munitions penetration this area by 3BM15 or early BK-15 round was rather
questionable, and low possible to achieve. Leopard-2A4 gun mantled mask was
immune against BMP-1 main armament 2A28 Grom low pressure gun whit HEAT rounds,
and Maliutka ATGM.
Turret armor left side (the loader)
Physical
thickness of the loaders turret part frontal armor is incredible (in the end of
the 1970s) 860mm LOS. Armor back plate (metal plate ending whole special armor
cavity) is made from 60mm RHA plate made from high hardness steel, frontal
plate is probably the same thick. Between them is cavity (circa 740mm) for
special armor module. This special armor module can by quickly replaced by
cutting upper (roof) plate and change whole module. Similar process takes in
Such big
thickness was necessary due to
Turret armor right side (the tank commander and
gunner)
The tank commander is protected by 660mm thick special armor block in front
of his face. Now this area (behind EMES-15 main sight optics block) is consist
as weak area but in almost whole 1980s is hard to agree with such statement
660mm LOS is space bigger then in most tank's in those era (except
M1 Abrams) and should allow (by using more heavy armor components) to achieve
similar to the left side (loaders) protection.
Thickness of the armor in front of the gunner position is the same as on
the left turret side so 860mm but whit different layout: the first armor cavity
gap for EMES-15 and WBG-X components the second armor cavity. So whole thickens
is close to
Turret sides on crew compartment area
Crew
compartment turret sides are protected by
Turret bustle Whole turret
bustle after crew compartment is protected only by simple RHA armor. This
solution was forced by weight reasons. It's the biggest weak area for whole
Leopard-2 tank -and almost impossible to fixed even now. Partially it's cover
by tactics of tank using front toward enemy, but in exist now non conventional
warfare whole Leopard-2 turret bustle seems to be significant weakness, unable
to cover without Active Protection Systems (like KAZ Drozd, or Trophy or AMAP-ADS).
Ammo rack in
Leopard-2A4 bustle (whit blow out plate of course) is cover by circa 80mm thick
armor so for 30 degree it's 160mm thick. Turret bustle rear is cover by only
25mm thick RHA plate:
Turret roof armor:
Leopard-2A4
turret roof armor is separated on PERI- loaders periscope line. The frontal
part of roof is made by probably (author is not sure)
The hull frontal armor
Upper glacis
plate is 40mm thick and slopped at 7 degree (so
The driver hatch is 30mm thick:
and it's construction was imperfect whole hatch was vulnerable on
30mm gun fire and small AT warhead so in Leopard-2A5 whole construction was
totally change. The driver hatch is second biggest Leopard-2 weakness.
Leopard-2A4 hull sides consist 3 thickness(!).
Driver right arm is protected (near hatch area) by 80mm thick RHA plate
-but only there.
It's important
to notice that above track Leopard-2A4 sides are protected by multi spaced
armor consist by: external 25mm RHA plate circa 580mm thick fuel tank 50mm hull
armor.
According to
Israeli the Merkava tank developers 70mm of the fuel is equal to 10mm armor
plates. So 580mm fuel act (vs HEAT warhead) as 80mm armor plate. Such layout
was better in 30 degree conditions and gives probably enough layers and space
to stop older RPG-7 grenades.
Under the fuel
tank Leopard-2A4 sides are protected by 50mm hull armor and 12mm light
side skirts:
Each module
weight more then 110kg, and consist two 50mm RHA plates separated by air gap.
So protection
of sides under track line is 100mm RHA plates + space + 50mm hull armor.
For 30 degree
it's give 200mm plates + space + 100mm hull armor. What including high hardness
plates was enough in late 1970 to stop most light AT weapons and older gun
rounds.
Now such
protection is not enough ands almost all asymmetric warfare leopard-2
modernization consist new much thicker heavy ballistic skirts for almost whole
hull sides.
The
psychical thickens of the armor summary:
Integrity of the amour protection and weak zones placement for tank
for 0-30 degree from longitude axis
In Leopard-2A4 armour integrity is secondary factor the absolutely priority
for developers had firepower, mobility and susceptibility to
service and repairs. Many of the Leopard-2 solutions are given as the example
of the weak spots or bad armor integrity. For the most often noticed flaws we
can included:
enormous gun mantled mask
armor block after EMES-15 sight vision block
lack special armor for turret bustle
In fact ONLY the last one example can be describe as seriously weak spot
but only for sides or 15-30 degree from longitude axis. Leopard-2 developers
decide for such solution for weight reason.
Armor block after main sight EMES-15 optics block can't be described
as weak spot for whole 1980s. Why? Because 660mm LOS thickness is exactly the
same value as frontal turret armor most of 1980s tanks:
In T-64A and T-64B frontal turret armor is maximum 485-
(source: http://btvt.narod.ru/raznoe/bulat-leo2.files/image011.jpg)
it's still smaller value then 660mm armor.
In T-80B case for frontal LOS it's between 560 and 640mm (for 30 degree
I case T-80U turret armor is mostly ~ 600mm LOS
(source: http://btvt.narod.ru/raznoe/bulat-leo2.files/image011.jpg http://btvt.narod.ru/4/bars_leopard/80-1.jpg)
What again is smaller value.
Frontal T-72B armor is between 600 and 750mm and for 30 degree it's
600-680mm what still is the same value as 660mm LOS in Leopard-2.
For such reason 660mm thick armor block in Leopard-2A4 can't be describe as
weak spot in compare whit soviet tanks 500-600-
In breakthrough of the 1980s and 1990s when new ATGMs and APFSDS rounds
become available and new, improved soviet tanks turrets become available
(Ob.187, Ob.478BE, etc) it's starts to be clear that indeed in 1990s those area
will be serious flaw. For that reason frontal armor was completely changed in
KWS program, and now left and right armor is the same in armor thickness
(~860mm).
Gun mantled mask in Leopard-2 is 93cm width what is comparable whit soviet
tanks mostly cast gun mounted points and coaxial MG areas this area in
soviet tank is circa 83-86cm width.
So both values are comparable.
For such reasons in whole 1980s and early 1990s (before much better
Ob.478BE and OB.188A1) weak spots for Leopard-2A4 and most Soviet Tanks where
comparable:
and both weak areas can be compare on one
picture:
Of course in
compare whit T-80UD Leopard-2A4 seems to have much worse conditions.
In fact
Leopard-2A4 turret can be compare in both aspects: armor integrity, weak areas,
and hazardous factor (ammunition, oil pumps, etc) on one picture:
Know special armor features and possibility to
protect against KE monitions and CE munitions
In special armor case we don't known details. Thanks to Pawel Przezdziecki
reseerches in
British armour was build as some kind of
"bulkhead armor" whit space flitted by layers made (those layers) as
sandwich - two thin steel layers and between them non metallic layer
In configuration from at the turn of 1960/1970,
against SC warhead "Burlinghton" was 2-3times better then monolithic
steel armour whit the same mass, and had (Burlinghton armour-milit.) similar
resistance (as those monolithic steel armour ) against kinetic energy rounds.
The mass efficiency of the new armour variants
(Burlinghton -milit) increased to 1.3-1.5 against KE and do more then 3 against SC warhead (HEAT) This part is about Burlinghton from circa 1978r.
Translate part 1:
This above is last hard data known about burlington-style armour. In case
Leopard-2A4 we can assume or estimate armour protection.
They are sevral metods to estimate armour protection, and most of them give
simmilar result in two groups of the option (the best and the worst), avarage between both options give us sucht values:
For turret for:
860-760-620mm LOS
(turret front, turret front for 30 degree, turret sides for 30 degree)
vs APFSDS (in mm RHA)
570-510-410mm
vs HEAT (in mm RHA)
910-810-640
hull for 640mm LOS thickness:
circa 500mm vs APFSDS and circa 700vs HEAT
Such values should be compare whit ammunition level in 1980s:
ammo mark penetration achievable (A) on 2000m, -
penetration guaranteed (G) on 2000m
3BM-26: A: 440mm G: ~400mm
and whit typical SC (HEAT) warhead abilities:
9Ì111Ì (1983) penetration
As we can see during whole 1980s. Leopard-2A4 armor in theory was good
enough protection - at least for turret and hull front even on circa 1000m
distance. For the other hand: Soviet tanks protected by heavy Kontakt-5 ERA
armor was very difficult enemy for western tanks.
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