Chapter 667 Armor-Piercing Projectiles
The Merkava tank is a masterpiece that takes a different approach. For Israel, the loss of some equipment does not matter; human life is the most important thing. Therefore, sparing no effort to increase the protection of the tank is their unremitting goal.
Unfortunately, Israel does not have any advanced composite armor technology, and their tanks even have to use ordinary homogeneous steel as armor. The Merkava MK1 model is such a product, so Israeli engineers have to think of every possible way, for example, the turret uses a super large slope to increase the thickness of the protection by tilting the steel plate. However, the turret can be tilted, but the front of the body cannot be tilted, so they had to change the routine and move the huge engine to the front to make up for it. In this way, the entire power compartment can be regarded as "frontal armor." (In China, this method was once highly praised, and the heroes of East China were once extremely envious of the Merkava tank. Now it seems...)
Since the Merkava only has homogeneous steel armor, in order to achieve the designed protection value, it has to keep increasing its weight. As a result, in the 1970s, the Merkava was a monster weighing 58 tons. You know, the Soviet tanks of this era were only 40 tons. At the same time, the Merkava MK1 is a typical spaced armor, with as many as five layers of gaps, and the front of the car body is also composed of three decks. In order to make full use of the space, these spaced armors are actually installed with fuel tanks in the gaps. Yes, it is a fuel tank. In the minds of the Israelis, diesel is blunt and not easy to burn. In the end, the result of the Merkava tank being manufactured achieved its purpose. No tank around Israel can penetrate the front of the MK1 body. This is not because of how excellent the armor is, but because it is too thick! The armor layer is close to 300 mm, plus a power compartment that is more than 1.2 meters thick, that is, the engine. Ordinary 105 armor-piercing shells cannot penetrate such a thickness.
However, things are different now. The Syrians on the other side are driving T-72 tanks! In order to enable his own country to defeat the Western forces, under Andre's suggestion, these export equipment were not reduced. Andre persuaded the military leaders at home that the T-80 tank is the most advanced tank of the Soviet Union, so the cheap T-72 does not need to be kept too secret. Moreover, if you want to defeat Western tanks, you must export enough weapons to the country!
Just keep the T-80 as a secret, and there is no need to make a castrated version of the T-72.
Moreover, the gun-launched missiles were also exported simultaneously. Originally, the performance of the 125mm tank gun exceeded that of Israel's 105mm tank gun. Even if they developed newer armor-piercing shells, the caliber advantage still existed. Moreover, the gun-launched missiles successfully launched the first round of attacks!
Not all gun-launched missiles penetrated the front engine, some did not, but when the engine was destroyed, the Merkava was disabled. Some gun-launched missiles hit the Merkava's turret, and relied on the two-stage hollow armor-piercing charge cap to successfully tear open the Merkava's turret!
In the violent explosion, one Merkava tank after another was hit and caught fire, but many tank soldiers successfully escaped from the tanks. The biggest advantage of Merkava is that even if it is destroyed, there is a greater possibility of rescuing its soldiers!
Looking at the mess around him, Nako was very depressed. The enemy's artillery missiles destroyed more than 20 of his tanks in the first round! However, after the first round of attacks, the distance between the two sides was shortened to 1,500 meters!
"Shoot, shoot!" Nako shouted loudly on the radio.
The distance of 1,500 meters is enough to ensure the penetration depth of the M111 armor-piercing projectile! Following Nako's order, his tank trembled violently, the body of the tank shook, and a smell of gunpowder instantly spread throughout the tank.
A fireball appeared at the muzzle, and at the front end of the fireball, a tungsten alloy armor-piercing bullet threw away the sabot and flew forward!
Historically, in the 1982 Lebanon War, Israel's Merkava tanks and the Syrian army's T-72M officially fought each other. The result of the fight was that Israel's M111 armor-piercing shells could destroy the T-72M tanks! Even the M111 armor-piercing shells fired from the old Magazi tanks could penetrate the opponent!
Afterwards, Soviet technicians analyzed the problem, and because they had captured the Magazi-3 with reactive armor from the Syrian army, the Soviet Union finally used the technology to transform its own reactive armor and added it to the T-72.
Now, the Soviet armored forces have made great progress in technology. For example, now these T-72 tanks are equipped with reactive armor!
In more than two seconds, the warhead of the M111 armor-piercing projectile had already flown to the T-72 tank on the opposite side! The warhead hit the turret of the T-72. As a cast turret, the T-72 was not very durable, but at this time, outside the cast turret, there were brick-like reactive armors!
"Boom!" The reactive armor exploded, offsetting part of the force of the M111 armor-piercing projectile, and at the same time, causing the M111 warhead to tilt at a large angle! Then, the warhead passed through the reactive armor, continued to move forward, and finally hit the main armor!
It was drilling hard, a battle between a spear and a shield! As it continued to drill, it hit a layer of quartz sand balls inside, which melted quickly and blocked the armor-piercing bullet from entering!
The armor-piercing shell pierced the turret, as if a nurse did not pull out the needle when giving an injection to a patient. At the same time, the turret suddenly shook, and with a huge roar, a fireball was released from the muzzle of the 125mm tank gun, and the same fin-stabilized discarding sabot armor-piercing shell flew over!
Nako looked at his own firing in frustration, but it had no effect. The enemy tanks actually withstood the attack of his M111 armor-piercing shells! This armor-piercing shell is his secret weapon! He had originally planned to use this armor-piercing shell to severely hit the Syrian tank troops, but now, there was no result!
We can’t hold on any longer, it’s time to retreat! Just as Nako was about to order his troops to retreat, he felt the vehicle body vibrate violently, and was hit by the enemy!
A 125mm armor-piercing shell flew from a distance and hit the turret of the Merkava tank. The large-angle, multi-layered turret kept making collision sounds. It was the opponent's armor-piercing shell that penetrated the turret's interstitial armor layer by layer!