ZTQ-15 and PRC Light Tanks

Gloire_bb said:

Yes, like this.

Question on safety isn't as simple.
For example, because only one of them truly has fully safe storage(M1 Abrams has both turret and hull storages fitted with blow away pannels). Most of others have large and relatively vulnerable storages in hull.

More like reputation of soviet tank families suffered very heavily in early 1990s, while western ones got their "fame" only recently. Nevertheless -


If ammo storage is hit.
There were more than enough cases of such tanks being able to withstand multiple hits and even penetrations w/o ignition.

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Most modern tanks have blow up panel we are not talking about Russian T72. But Leclerc, Mitsubishi T90, Leopard III definitely have blow up panel

Depending on the ammunition . If AFSDS ever breached the tank , the tank might survive but the crew change of survival is slim. Because the sabot will ricochet inside the turret, If it hit the hydraulic fluid or propellant if will blow up for sure because those sabot is hot as hell

Hendrik_2000 said:

Most modern tanks have blow up panel we are not talking about Russian T72. But Leclerc, Mitsubishi T90, Leopard III definitely have blow up panel

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Leopard 2A4 on photo.
And it has panels. Problem is, blown up part of tank is left side of hull front, which also has ammo.
It isn't stored openly, rather in fire-proof bins, but it's only partial remedy.


(18) - 27 rounds stored in hull.
Same with other western and "western" tanks - there is a contradiction between how much you can place behind the turret and need to provide safety to turret sides from forward angles.

Not enough room for stored all in the turret for M1 yes ?

Gloire_bb said:

Yes, like this.

Question on safety isn't as simple.
For example, because only one of them truly has fully safe storage(M1 Abrams has both turret and hull storages fitted with blow away pannels). Most of others have large and relatively vulnerable storages in hull.

More like reputation of soviet tank families suffered very heavily in early 1990s, while western ones got their "fame" only recently. Nevertheless -

There were more than enough cases of such tanks being able to withstand multiple hits and even penetrations w/o ignition.

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Here main gun's ammunitions stored in the rear section of the turret, with blast doors that open under power by sliding sideways only to remove a round for firing, then automatically close.
To 3th mn

Hendrik_2000 said:

Most modern tanks have blow up panel we are not talking about Russian T72. But Leclerc, Mitsubishi T90, Leopard III definitely have blow up panel

Depending on the ammunition . If AFSDS ever breached the tank , the tank might survive but the crew change of survival is slim. Because the sabot will ricochet inside the turret, If it hit the hydraulic fluid or propellant if will blow up for sure because those sabot is hot as hell

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A sabot's destructive effect does not come from "ricochet", as the main section of the rod will most likely pass through and through. It will however create hot metal spray on the inside once it penetrates which in turn could kill the crew, or damage or set fire to internal components, or penetrate the ammo hold.

Iron Man said:

A sabot's destructive effect does not come from "ricochet", as the main section of the rod will most likely pass through and through. It will however create hot metal spray on the inside once it penetrates which in turn could kill the crew, or damage or set fire to internal components, or penetrate the ammo hold.

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I think you confuse APFSDS with HEAT which work on principle of melting copper cone due to explosion and generate plasma(shape charge) to punch thru a steel
Sabot it kinetic dart and they used all the kinematic energy to punch thru a steel just like knife on the butter . There is spalling and shrapnel generated by this penetration. But most modern tank has anti spalling liner on the inner side of the hull or turret
It doesn't have enough energy to go thru another 800 or 1000 mm RHA after penetrating the turret

Question: “What happens inside the tank when hit by SABOT round? Will the crew die instantly due to impalement? Saw some documentary that says one Bradley IFV was hit by a limping BMP / T72 that was previously hit by a SABOT round but the crew survived.”

Since it is not specified if what was hit was a t72 or a BMP (which bmp?) im going to give this the benefit of the doubt and say it was a BMP-1.


Meanwhile, this is your average Sabot round.


These glorified lawn darts are designed to kill tanks much bigger than an Abrams, let alone a cold war era APC. “the lightweight ballistic cap is crushed, the penetrating cap then strikes the Armour, distributing the shock across the whole surface of the core's nose, reducing the initial shock experienced by the core. The steel sheath surrounding the core peels away, and the core goes on to penetrate the Armour. The penetration of the L15 APDS is approximately 355 mm of at 1000 m.”

This is similar to the situation faced by Sherman crews in WW2, sometimes when shot by a tiger or other gun with a high penetration, it would go straight through the tank, doing a lot of damage but leaving the tank relatively intact.

Now, with a sabot round that can pen 355mm of frontal armor, and a BMP 1 with approximately 33mm of armor, It’s highly likely that the shell went straight out the back of the vehicle. Furthermore, it’s an APC first, a tank second. If the round entered the front of the tank, it only needs to miss the ammo. After that it is just traveling through an empty crew compartment, and out the back. If your tank is weak enough, you could live.

Hendrik_2000 said:

I think you confuse APFSDS with HEAT which work on principle of melting copper cone due to explosion and generate plasma(shape charge) to punch thru a steel
Sabot it kinetic dart and they used all the kinematic energy to punch thru a steel just like knife on the butter . There is spalling and shrapnel generated by this penetration. But most modern tank has anti spalling liner on the inner side of the hull or turret
It doesn't have enough energy to go thru another 800 or 1000 mm RHA after penetrating the turret

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I'm not sure if you realize this, but ONLY the frontal arc has armor that thick, so there will not be "another" 800 or 1000 mm RHA to go through. The sides and back barely have enough armor thickness to resist an IFV cannon round if even that much. A sabot penetrating the front of the turret will definitely go out the back unless there is something else in the way, like an ammo compartment. A sabot penetrating the side will definitely go out the other side. There is no "ricocheting" of the sabot inside the tank. And no, I am not talking about HEAT, I am talking about a sabot round, which will give off fragments that travel with the main body of the sabot round and some of them will enter the tank through the hole created by the sabot, meaning they will not be affected by the anti-spall lining. These fragments do not have enough energy to penetrate out the other side of the tank unlike the main sabot round, and will cause significant damage in addition to whatever the sabot round did.

You are talking about "hot metal spray" do you mean hot plasma ?or shrapnel? As I said before most modern tank has anti spall liner
I am lost because there is no hot plasma associated with sabot.

Most tank to tank engagement is from the front that is why you have the infantry man or IFV accompany a tank to prevent it from getting hit from the side. There is no lone tank fighting it all by itself. Unless it is in urban setting where tank is not suitable for that environment.
Most newer tank has applique armor or reactive armor on the side turret as well. so it is not thin

Those sabot is made of high strength material like depleted uranium. The likelihood that it will break up upon entering the tank is unlikely. If you see the hole punch by sabot it is clean hole . No fragmentation there

Hendrik_2000 said:

You are talking about "hot metal spray" do you mean hot plasma ?or shrapnel? As I said before most modern tank has anti spall liner
I am lost because there is no hot plasma associated with sabot.

Most tank to tank engagement is from the front that is why you have the infantry man or IFV accompany a tank to prevent it from getting hit from the side. There is no lone tank fighting it all by itself. Unless it is in urban setting where tank is not suitable for that environment.
Most newer tank has applique armor or reactive armor on the side turret as well. so it is not thin

Those sabot is made of high strength material like depleted uranium. The likelihood that it will break up upon entering the tank is unlikely. If you see the hole punch by sabot it is clean hole . No fragmentation there

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There is always fragmentation off the main body of the sabot as it penetrates along with the fragmentation of the armor itself, and there is always some fragmentation that is not caught by the anti-spall liner because it exits the same hole that the sabot round exits. When I say hot metal spray I'm referring to these fragments which are hot enough to set internal components on fire or burn crew to death. Reactive armor is also much less effective against APFSDS than it is against HEAT so a shot from the side by such a round will probably go right through ERA panels and into the tank. Russia's Kontakt 5 ERA which is designed to afford some protection against APFSDS has also been superseded by newer sabot rounds, and would not have stopped any rounds shot at the sides of the turret in any case since they were designed to be used in conjunction with the thicker frontal armor. Regardless, there is no opportunity for any kind of round to have to go through TWO layers of 800-1,000mm thick RHA, so there would never have been any way for a sabot to cause damage by "ricocheting" inside a tank.

As I said before there is ZERO chance that the sabot will fragment if it breached the turret. It will not be able to penetrate the turret were it fragmented. And there is no "hot metal spray"
When I say the sabot is ricochet it meant that the sabot is deflected by the ceramic layer inside the spaced armor as they have different angle than the armor glacis. There is image of the chinese MBT spaced armor recently that show the ceramic layer at different angle than the glacis .Read here

Whereas the material of normal armour is always a compromise between hardness and ductility, spaced armour can also comprise plates with different material properties to increase its effectiveness against kinetic energy penetrators. An example for this construction is the armour of the

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tank, which provides a slanted first armour stage (disturber), a specially hardened second stage (disrupter) and a softer third stage with high ductility (absorber). The disturber is to ideally deflect or at least manipulate the direction of incoming kinetic energy penetrators, which are then shattered and fragmented when hitting the disrupter. The absorber stage finally erodes and contains spalls and fragments.

Another thing most Western Turret has in fact side protection . Specially Abram with its all around protection of the turret
Here is the reference
Leopard 2
The turret of the Leopard 2 and some other tanks, follows a different design. While the frontal armor and the side armor covering the crew compartment are in terms of thickness similar to the M1 Abrams, the bustle armor is considerably reduced. Judging by different pictures, it seems to have only one third of the normal side armor thickness.


Marked grey in this sketch (not very correctly) is the turret armor layout


Drawing of a Leopard 2 turret

Hendrik_2000 said:

As I said before there is ZERO chance that the sabot will fragment if it breached the turret. It will not be able to penetrate the turret were it fragmented. And there is no "hot metal spray"

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Here you go:
Notice how fragmentation blows out in many directions, including directly along the axis of penetration. Anti-spall liners will catch most of the off-axis fragments but the ones that are aligned with the axis of the sabot itself WILL penetrate into the interior and cause damage. This IS the hot metal spray that will burn and ignite internals in addition to kinetic damage. BTW, the sabot's interaction with the armor is most definitely ablative, just like a standard bullet penetrating through any barrier will lose mass as it travels through. Some of these fragments align with the main axis of penetration and are blown out with the sabot as it exits into the interior of the tank.

Hendrik_2000 said:

When I say the sabot is ricochet it meant that the sabot is deflected by the ceramic layer inside the spaced armor as they have different angle than the armor glacis. There is image of the chinese MBT spaced armor recently that show the ceramic layer at different angle than the glacis .Read here

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No, that's definitely NOT what you said before. Here is what you said before:

Hendrik_2000 said:

Sabot it kinetic dart and they used all the kinematic energy to punch thru a steel just like knife on the butter . There is spalling and shrapnel generated by this penetration. But most modern tank has anti spalling liner on the inner side of the hull or turret
It doesn't have enough energy to go thru another 800 or 1000 mm RHA after penetrating the turret

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Clearly you meant that the sabot would penetrate an initial "800 or 1000 mm RHA" and then encounter ANOTHER wall of "800 or 1000 RHA" in the back and would therefore be unable to leave the tank due to loss of KE, resulting in "ricochet" of the sabot, which of course is entirely erroneous. You clearly forgot that a tank has that kind of armor thickness only in the frontal arc. Man up about it.

Hendrik_2000 said:

Another thing most Western Turret has in fact side protection . Specially Abram with its all around protection of the turret
Here is the reference
Leopard 2
The turret of the Leopard 2 and some other tanks, follows a different design. While the frontal armor and the side armor covering the crew compartment are in terms of thickness similar to the M1 Abrams, the bustle armor is considerably reduced. Judging by different pictures, it seems to have only one third of the normal side armor thickness.

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I never said Western turrets (or any MBT turrets) DON'T have side protection. Where did I claim that? I told you that side (organic) turret armor MAY have enough protection to defend against IFV cannon rounds but certainly not MBT rounds, though externally-applied (non-organic) ERA tiles may mitigate this certainty against certain types of rounds. Your Leopard 2 CGs only serve to back up my statement even more with its clear illustration of thinner side armor compared to frontal armor.