The latter. It gets thinner as you go up, other tank designs have consistent thickness all the way(Abrams with their parallelogram turret face shape, leopard etc)
New Type98/99 MBT thread
- Thread starter Dongfeng
- Start date
My guess is the composite is layed out in a manner similar to this.
But then other photos like this, kinda show another story.
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Type 99A MBT without Armour.jpg
Yeah, I mean if a tank shoots a sabot at the upper face of the turret, it will likely hit the thinner part then if it shot at the lower face.
The ERA is quite thick, my original through that it made up the lip on the right of the gunner but that seems to be an extention of the composite or most likely just a simple steel frame.
I suppose the ERA will compensate for this, but by how much?
Guns sadly aren't that accurate, so having large weakspots like a weak mantlet is perfectly fine. I get what you mean but they might have just made the sacrifice for the improved accuracy of where the sight is positioned and the lowered weight compared to having it futher back or in a different spot.
I suppose you are right, engagement ranges between tanks are like kilometers away, might not hit the upper face. With regards to the gunsight, I mean they could make the turret face flush as in straight instead of curved downwards with the top of the sight and it still wouldn't block the sight.
It is heavy ERA so it should be quite effective against reducing the penetration of a kinetic munition. Due to APFSDS being a rod it's more likely to be effected by an ERA block if tuned correctly, Image bellow shows how a rod shatters when it enters a armour block;
So when a rod contacts ERA it snaps away the tip of the rod reducing its kinetic potential energy and removing its main penetrating tip, this has been affected by the introduction of long rod where you have an external and internal penetrator. But heavy ERA does still effect it. Fig bellow show the effect;
There are a load of odd design choices with the 99 as a platform but some you can understand, having the lower half of the turret angled down allows for a larger composite block while not affecting the drivers hatch so you can have a shorter tank. With the velocity of APFSDS i doubt it could reflect down and into either the turret ring or the drivers compartment, but their is always a chance