"Thoughts on Modeling ERA Armor?" Topic

So, need to look at incorporating ERA into the rules I'm using (they don't cover ERA), and from some of the battle accounts I've read of Russian/Ukrainian tanks that have it and are hit multiple times, seems as if this stuff is really good.

In some cases, it appears to make the vehicles almost impervious to damage, even from multiple RPG hits, tank rounds, and even some ATGMs.

Granted, maybe the accounts are of the rare incidences where it performed exceedingly well, but seems as if the newer, Kontakt5 really lives up to the marketing peoples' billing.

Kontakt1, while good, is apparently less capable than the more updated armor (interested in suggestions for ratings for it as well).

Using D6 rules, so was thinking perhaps the following:

Must roll a D8 for the first round hit vs. ERA, to penetrate on a D6 (must roll exactly 4 first, and then 4 or more on a second die roll). That makes it about an 8.3% chance to succeed. Note – the above is for each tank facing, e.g. front, left side, right side (no ERA to the rear).

Second shot against the same armor facing – must roll a 6 on a D6.

Third shot – must roll a 5 or 6, etc., etc., getting easier to hit with each successive attack.

Perhaps with the ERA protection not dropping below a 3+ to hit, so there's always at least a 33% chance of it working.

From the little bit I've read on the subject (not sure how accurate it is), it appears that bricks not directly impacted seem to be relatively unharmed, so still provide protection.

Some believe you might be able to scrub off the protection with HE rounds to an armored facing, but I don't know if that is true, or not. Seems unlikely to work over more than just the directly impacted area, and perhaps some adjacent bricks.

Obviously, using this rule would really slow down a game I suspect, with all the record keeping that might be required, so probably best for smaller, platoon on platoon, up to company level, skirmish games.

Thoughts?

There are lots of additional armour for chemical energy like bar armour. At MG we decided to give all vehicles a chemical and kinetic armour value. Then just gain what date we could for the various warheads. With regard to it being damaged by HE it becomes very problematic. Even if it did hit a block, which one did it hit and was that the block hit later by another weapon. You would not expect all the blocks to be hot under the normal type of artillery barrage hence we ignore it.

One key issue is that ERA make leathal to be unbuttoned or to have infantry close to the vehicle.
us

Yes, I can see that would be an issue.

Seems like the really good ERA makes the vehicle impervious to most attacks, so you need to work for a rear flank shot to take out the engine, or a total rear shot.

Thought about not permitting any attacks vs. the really good ERA kit to be permitted at all, but where's the fun in that, right?

I'm a bit surprised they don't run ERA completely along the flanks of the armored vehicles, protecting even the engines, given the cost of vehicles and crews, but perhaps ERA is very expensive, in short supply, or both.

Granted, most attacks by the enemy will probably be from the front, or front/side arcs, but still, it does seem to be a bit penny-wise, and pound foolish.

I would be more cautious about the effectiveness of ERA compared to better protection schemes.

ERA was and is what you equip tanks with if-

a- you aren't technically able to produce, or
b- can't afford, or
c- no-one will let you let you buy….

tanks built with the Chobham type armour, or its various evolutionary developments.

ERA is a Western concept really- the first folks to make it work at all were the Americans, with the post 1973 'Saggered' Israelis really bringing it to the first stage of maturity. Interestingly though, as soon as both were given access to or were able to replicate Chobham type armour, they had absolutely no hesitation in choosing that over ERA. Likewise in due course the West Germans, French etc etc.

ERA on Abrams-era Western tanks has only ever been a secondary feature to the main protection scheme, and then often been deleted in favour of more Chobham type armour or bar armour when upgraded.

The Russians seem to have become institutionally wedded to ERA because their whole series of basically T64 derived MBTs- T64, T72/T90 and T80 could not, because of their shape and size, really be built with a Chobham type protection scheme (even if that technology was available to them) and ERA is the best alternative. So ERA is obviously a very good addition to moderately protected tanks, but I'd say it would be not be close in overall protection to a Chobham type armour scheme.

Few if any of the accounts of combat from the Ukrainian conflict/war are remotely verifiable- certainly not comparable to that available for say Iraq and Afghanistan. Given their somewhat 'heroic' nature, we need to view them with some care.

Ran across a brief article posted on-line, from Jane's, where they tested multiple T-72s with Kontakt-5 ERA just after the Cold War ended, with ammo from the period.

Seems that the armor was proof from the front, vs. all manner of weaponry, e.g. 120mm HEAT, APFSDS-D.U. rounds even, as well as ATGMs. Nothing penetrated, which was rather a large surprise.

I've also read that the normal T-64s, T-72s, and T-80s were impervious from the front, to most if not all 105mm rounds from the period as well.

So, time to revisit/rewrite those Cold War rules and weaponry charts.

Seems their latest tanks were as impervious to our weapons as ours were believed/hoped to be to theirs.

That should make the tabletop battles a lot more interesting, as the armored behemoths close the range like jousters of old, and then attempt to swing wide for flank and rear shots on their opponents.

Seneffe

As far as I am aware Russian tanks have included multi layer differing materials armour from the T64 onwards [some good pictures of the T64 bow armour are now available from the Ukraine conflict.

This is Chobham like in its operation and the type/design varies between models.

One of the main problems facing the Russian Tank implementation is to keep the vehicle weight down to about 45 Tons rather than the 60 to 70+ Tons of the best protected Western tanks.

ERA adds to this multi layer protection, initially as an add on layer and later with Kontakt5 as an incorporated armour element.

The ERA is lighter than conventional armour.

Hence combining small size, carefully distributed multi layer conventional armour and ERA provides very good protection at 45Tons.

Of course there are disadvantages associated with this compromise as there are will all tank designs.

ERA and it's partners seem to be optimum to protect armour from the lighter weapons to more likely to be on the flank.
Weight is a key issue. Even in the UK a 70 tonne tank is restricted by the lack of bridges that would that the weight. The much lighter Russian tanks do not show that advantage on most wargames tables, but in the real wold it is a major issue.

Does Kontakt-5 cause a threat to nearby troops? I thought the outer plate moves but is not flung from the vehicle, but I could be wrong.

Nothing penetrated, which was rather a large surprise

Did they mention if the vehicle, and more importantly the crew, would have remained combat effective?

I believe that we gamers focus too much on whether a hunk of metal can pass through a sheet of metal when modeling this stuff. On the battlefield an AFV can appear to be in fine shape but the crew is scrambled inside.

The best modern example is MRAP designs. They certainly save lives and improve the chances that a vehcile can be recovered and repaired. But the crew is still wounded with concussions, broken bones, and interenal bleeding and completely combat ineffective.

Non-penetrating hits can still stun the crew, damage critical systems, immobilize the vehicle, destroy weapons, start fires, or even wound or kill the crew with spalling.

That should make the tabletop battles a lot more interesting, as the armored behemoths close the range like jousters of old, and then attempt to swing wide for flank and rear shots on their opponents.

It certainly does add another dimension to modern combat.

The convention approach in most games is "it dies if it's seen". That has a drama and tension all its own. OTOH, it's nice to have some variety with slug-fests between more durable opponents.

From some of the Ukrainian accounts I've read, it appears that the crews inside the vehicles were fine, when shrugging off the multiple RPG and ATGM hits.

Makes sense, since they aren't kinetic rounds.

Yes, the ERA stuff makes it very dangerous to be an infantryman anywhere near the tanks.

What sort of ATGM hits were they?

I've also read accounts of western AFVs in Iraq taking multiple RPG hits. Nothing about multiple ATGM hits. In fact, during the last war in southern Lebanon I read that Israeli AFVs were getting wrecked by ATGMs with distressing regularity, even those with ERA. The tandem warheads and multiple hits made the ERA pretty much moot.

ERA and it's partners seem to be optimum to protect armour from the lighter weapons to more likely to be on the flank.
Weight is a key issue. Even in the UK a 70 tonne tank is restricted by the lack of bridges that would that the weight. The much lighter Russian tanks do not show that advantage on most wargames tables, but in the real world it is a major issue.

Not sure if they mentioned that, but obviously Russian on Russian kit, I suspect.

Read that Kontakt-5 even works well against tandem warheads, reducing their penetration by about 50%. Same goes for standard HEAT rounds, and supposedly the surrounding bricks are unaffected.

As for the RPG protection to the flanks, one tank took like 7 – 14 hits supposedly, and survived.

Not sure if the tanks were protected by K-5 or Relikt. Supposedly, the latter is even better, offering twice the protection of K-5.

Was surprised to read that K-5 also protects well against APFSDS and D.U. rounds too.

Was surprised to read that K-5 also protects well against APFSDS and D.U. rounds too.

That might be helpful from a modeling/simulation perspective. Depending on one's desired level of abstraction, at some point the details aggregate up to a broad level of protection against weapons in general (the classic light, medium, heavy or similar classification scheme). At the other end of the detail spectrum you're dealing with KE vs CE protection down to specific areas.

If you're going the KE/CE distinction route, that's probably even more important for CE since ERA tends to be concentrated in many ways, at least compared to conventional KE armor. You're dealing not only with the presence of enhanced CE protection but the probability of hitting an area actually protected by it.

Yea, the trick seems to be avoiding hitting it, since 50% – 60% coverage seems to be the norm, though my guess is those areas not covered by it don't matter as much, or are harder to hit from many angles.

Should make mid-late 1980s tank battles interesting, when neither side can really be sure of killing tanks from the front arc, since they're pretty much immune due to the ERA.

Similarly, with the T-64s – T-80s being immune from the front to 105mm rounds, that changes the tabletop dynamics as well, which many/most rules seem to ignore. On the plus side though, it does encourage maneuver warfare, so should be more fun than head-to-head, long-range shooting galleries with little to no maneuvering.

Looks like real Cold War era tank battles will be more like the Kursk, close-range knife fights than how modern battles are typically portrayed.

Deleted..started new thread to avoid jacking this one.

:-)

The T64 did absolutely use compound armour, but of a completely different concept from Chobham. The flat bow armour is a basic lamination of plates of different material. The rounded turret armour was different again being made up of energy dissipating borate spheres held within a wide internal cavity by a steel framework. It was absolutely revolutionary as a concept and pre-dated Chobham in service by several years.

Demonstration models performed very well, but in mass production it was a great disappointment (a familiar story with many items of Soviet advanced weaponry) as the framework could not hold the spheres in place reliably and they collected together at the bottom of the cavity. After much effort it was I believe replaced with another sandwich of plates slotted into the cavity which whilst lacking much of the theoretical protective value of the first scheme- at least gave a moderate degree of actual protection.

Chobham quality it most certainly isn't though.

Whatever the possible qualities of the Kontakt 5 ERA, we need to be careful how much we deploy it in a wargame. My undestanding is that it was only signed off for production in mid-1985 and fitted thereafter to the new model T80U, This tank went into low level series production in 1987 and was not I understand deployed in GSFG or elsewhere in Europe. In fact there were only 400 T80U in Service anywhere in the Soviet Union by 1990. T64s and T72s were retrofitted with the armour only well after the end of the cold war. So there really shouldn't be much Kontakt 5 in our cold war era games. Kontakt 1 with its rather different performance characteristics should be what we're thinking of.

Kontakt 5 equipped tanks are really more likely to encounter the M1A2, Challenger 2 or Leopard 2A5 with their latest ammo than anything sporting a 105.

Makes sense.

When did K-1 get rolled out?

Of course, there were still lots of older tanks too, that could be killed by various weapons.

Seneffe

As far as I was aware the aim of the T64 bow armour sandwich was to cause the same type of effect as Chobham due to differing material densities etc.

Granted Chobham is a more sophisticated implementation and should provide superior protection compared to the "simpler" T64 implementation.

The T64 layering may be closer to Stillbrew in its implementation.

Russian production quality always appears to be a problem as is the their tendency to have different configurations between production batches thus making comparisons difficult

T64 performance has appeared to be better in Ukraine than expected [once main ammo was limited to the carosel only].

The best modern example is MRAP designs. They certainly save lives and improve the chances that a vehcile can be recovered and repaired. But the crew is still wounded with concussions, broken bones, and interenal bleeding and completely combat ineffective.

But the crew is still alive, and able to go back into combat in a few hours/days/weeks.

The point is NOT to have the MRAP survive the kaboom, but for the troops inside to survive.

=====
Personally, I'd go with KE and CE armor ratings.

One issue with ERA is that *if* you can hit the same spot twice, the ERA is gone. To reduce the likeliness of that, ERA blocks are small. But it's still a possibility.

But the crew is still alive, and able to go back into combat in a few hours/days/weeks.
The point is NOT to have the MRAP survive the kaboom, but for the troops inside to survive.

Totally agree as far as the real-world purpose.

But all of that is well outside the scope of the typical platoon or company-level small unit action miniature wargame. Even at battalion level gaming the troops are probably rendered combat ineffective and "out of the game".

One issue with ERA is that *if* you can hit the same spot twice, the ERA is gone. To reduce the likeliness of that, ERA blocks are small. But it's still a possibility.

That raises another interesting topic. AFVs are notorious for losing bits and pieces of armor as they navigate urban or wooded terrain, especially on the sides. Does this happen with ERA blocks on the sides?

I think the ERA blocks on the sides are firmly attached and sufficiently insensitive that barging through a cinder-block wall won't damage them or cause them to go boom. At least the modern ERA.

I understand that sympathetic detonation was a big problem on the earliest ERA.