In 1980 we were going through the transition from Chieftain to Challenger ( All British MBTs began with the letter C ) the thoughts of all the upgraded protection was inspiring, although Challenger was a magnificent beast, my heart is with the Chieftain.
Not just the MBTs! It goes back to WW2 cruiser tanks. Crusader, Cromwell, Comet. Not sure why the Churchill got a C name though, seeing as it was an infantry tank.
Challanger 3 has new 3rd Gen Chobam called Farnham, as well as new add on armour called EPSOM. Can’t imagine how tough that is when even first Gen Chobham is so good.
Note that they used APDS in the video and not APFSDS, although the latter round can penetrate like 400-1000mm, the new Chobham generations can certainly stop those rounds imo.
@@evilleader1991 Rubbish ! That one single tank (manned by a rookie crew) was knocked out by a DRONE ! No tank could, or will ever defeat a Challenger 2, except another Challenger 2.
@@evilleader1991 it was one tank in the 4 months it's been there, and it was disabled from a mine crew all survived. Can't say that about anything Russian as the crew are now a red mist.
Wish it showed how an APFSDS interact with the Chobham (even a sheated or torpedo-shape like the early Russian models), still the APDS damage was already interesting. A true piece of armored vehicles history added to the collection🤓
the issue is that at the time, the british (and nato at large) didn't field an APFSDS round, the first fielded by the British army was the L23, which was developped in the late 70's and fielded in the 80's likewise the first 105mm (L7/M68) APFSDS round that was fielded was the US M735, in 1977 seeing as this was demonstrating Chobham armour, it was probably filmed quite early (1960's), so there was no such rounds available in western arsenals, only HEAT and APDS
@@quentintin1 in russian terminology, this shell is known as BOPS or OBPS. The letters stand for «bronêbÓjnyj operÔnnyj podkalibÊrnyj snarÂd» - armour-piercing feathered subcaliber shell. This terminology is adding even more semblance between a long rod and an arrow of archer.
Was the Challenger wasn't a glint in someone's eye at this time or had they planned to use Chobham on the Chieftain? If I recall correctly, the FSAPDS velocity was 1275 m/s, The practice round even faster. HESH 620 m/s?@ntin1
more modern sabot would likely break through this is quite a thick plate, but even still sabot is somewhere around a megajoule or so of impact and that's hard to defeat with bulging plate.
Interesting, thanks for posting. The value of this video as an historical artefact would be improved if the title sequence and end credits were not removed. Obviously filmed at Bovington Ranges in Dorset, UK still the home of the Royal Armoured Corps, and presumably intended to reassure crews of the then new Challenger tank (but mostly any potential foreign buyers) as to the quality of the armour. I assume there are copyright concerns.
The original video is on the Imperial War Museum's website archive. This guy has taken the video from there because he's cropped the footage vertically to "hide" the IWM watermark in the top left.
Interesting that the people doing the demonstration packed the holes in the front armor plates with some gray material to keep the interior of the Chobham armor a secret. This is the first time I have seen the video of this demonstration of Chobham armor. Originally, I only saw a picture of this Chobham armor demonstration, I thought the gray packing protruding from the holes in the front armor was part of the Chobham armor material. Also, the fact that the shaped charge dispersal is so complete that there is no internal indication that they had been hit is really remarkable. I wonder how effective it is against the double shaped charge round in the same impact hole. Overall, enormously impressed. Brilliant! To think, it's even better now with the materials upgrades. It seems these days, Western tanks can only be immobilized, not destroyed. @JayWye52 commented below that the gray material in the outer armor penetration holes are from the Chobham armor itself. f you look at the video at 2:14, you can see the armor with first two penetration holes but before the second two. These first two Chobham armor penetration holes are empty and do NOT contain the gray foam. The whole "rubber spacer" comment below seems wrong.
Double charges (Or tandem warheads) are really more designed to defeat ERA, or explosive reactive armor. In a tandem round, the first charge is much smaller and lighter than the main charge, and designed to blow era panels to smithereens before exploding. That said, many advancements have come along since then. It'd be interesting to re-run the test with more modern rounds. Despite this, if it's not a kinetic penetrator, I'd be willing to put my bet on the armor. Layered ceramic composite armor is retardedly strong...
they didn't pack the holes with anything,that's part of the inner flexible layer bulging out. composite armor has a "rubber" spacer layer inside to absorb energy. ceramics stop shaped charge "jets",but are brittle,so the spacing/flexible layer takes up some of the impact force.
Thanks for the comment. But it does seem curious that the penetration holes are "empty" after each explosion and then the post explosion pictures show the gray material. Does the "inner flexible layer" act like expanding foam? The gray "foam" shows no scorching or burning from the penetration. @@JayWye52
Might be because they had a catastrophic explosion in turret up at luce bay back in the early 70s when they were supposedly testing new ammo for the 105s .. or more likely was it ammo for the Chieftain ..
@@doonhamer252 The early Chieftains didn't have a breechblock interlock on the obturator ring. It was possible to close the breech with the ring missing, leaving a gap albeit small. The fire would then come into the turret. All later models and others in service were quickly modified after a fatal turret flash.
These are trials firings. There are loads of bits of monitoring tech that needs to be running before the shot is taken, hence the firing is remoted to the control bunker whenever possible.
Watching these old MOD shorts, I fully expect John Cleese or Graham Chapman to walk into frame sporting an officers uniform, riding crop, and a magnificent moustache. 🤣
Very impressive, and soon as he said "fired from a chieftain " i was a boy then and know i have retired. That means that they have been improving this armour for at least fifty years. It must be impervious to almost everything by know.
Nothing is. It is hard to imagine that armor could ever again get the lead in the arms race of projectile/gun vs. armor. But it is of course useful to have armor defeating stuff other than a current MBT's main gun, ATGMs, direct artillery hits or airborn threats.
Fun fact, it was originally called* Knob'em armour, but the queen was alarmed and thought it sounded a bit unladylike, so was renamed Chobham. *this may or may not be a true story.
Very interesting reading the comments and interactions between gamers and people with real world military experience in the Armour fields, and that of the Gamers.. Then add age differences and even experiences with East verses West tech..
The holes on the Chobham armour plate, seemed to have been 'doctored' before the filming. Is that for protecting the secret at the time composition of the armour? Or is it how Chobham armour looks like after the hits?
Yeah, the holes were filled with foam. The 120mm L11 is a beast. When armoured support showed up we took cover. Especially tanks, they attract hellfire. The threat I feared most was Soviet artillery.
Hmm. Looks like bulged polymer, so it is probably how it looked after hit. Ps. This film was probably classed as Top secret/ For your eyes only. I will be not surprised if was a part of promotional package sanded to US and West Germany in order to spark interest and sell them licence. US has bought it, Germany unfortunately has stole idea and even have some information leaked to Soviets due to espionage.
this was a typical Trials and Development film. I remeber them showing us when i Worked at RADRE / APRE back in late 80s when I was working on this stuff. these were often put out as sales / advertising films to the US etc.. but remeber.. back then, didnt have Internet. UA-cam or TV on demand..these would be Videos. normaly played to targeted audiences or at Arms fairs like Farnborough or AAEE etc.. not the sort of thing that would be going out on TV.. bit of Blue Petter or John Cravens News Round etc
Is was definitely better than the clip of the sloppy loading of the armor piercing round. With the magic of editing you'd think they have filmed a smoother load. Oh well. It's the armor that the star of the show. Cheers from America!
At 3:06 the image of the Chobham armor is very interesting. Something gray appears to be swollen within the armor cavity. Could this be rubber plates used for NERA that are swollen after being struck, or just foam inserts the range personnel place in the cavities after shooting to hide the composition of the armor from being recorded?
Chobham armour defeats HEAT warheads by disrupting the high speed jet generated by the warhead. The outer steel "burster" plate detonates the shell and protects the composite array from the blast, increasing the armour's multi hit abilities. After making it through the burster plate, the jet penetrates into the first NERA plate, and begins to compress the elastomer. The elastomer quickly reaches maximum compression and rapidly expands, pushing the two steel plates in opposite directions. It is the movement of the steel plates that disrupts the jet, both by feeding more material into the jet's path, and introducing lateral forces to break the jet apart.
looks like some kind of expanding material from inside the chobham. I figured it was merely ceramic but that stuff is unusual and apparently it was semi-flammable as there was some flame and smoke coming from the holes. That could have been the tracer compound burning up though.
You can't say all the noise in the tank drowned him out. Same reason military has hand signs, standard signals, and a phonetic alphabet. Battle and training are very noisy, and a lot of vets have hearing loss, self included.
The real key is the grey toothpaste they inject into the center of the armour stack. "SEVEN-OH-ONE-" "Stop bloody shouting at me, Paddy! I'm right here!"
It’s hard to tell from the video but the plain steel plate looks to be 4 or 5 inches thick 1:10 , where the chobham looks about 18 inches thick 1:56 . Is this so, or is it just the box casing used? Is it lighter or heavier than steel per area protected? Thank you.
yes the original armour is very bulky. even the newer armour is still very bulky.. but its the weight.. ie both the targets have the same weight.. so the Chobham uses much less Steal armour plate, so its cheaper and lighter. in short you can build a tank at 55tones with more than twice the armour protection as your old tank that was 58tones but with only half the protection
I am today years old when I learned there was a kind of discarding sabot round that was short and stumpy because it spin stabilized without using fins.
uhm. this is early 80s. By then the sovjet union was using APFSDS rounds for close to 15 years and all other NATO Partners for 5-6 years. The UK was again extremely late to the party and then still underwhelming.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 a friend of mine was shelled while in a vehicle equipped with Chobham armour during an attempted bridge crossing in Iraq. He closed the shutters, ordered Driver Reverse and survived.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 Jealous are we.? During the GulfWar the Challenger destroyed 300 tanks not one was lost in return Source David Miller Tanks of the World
I've seen a few photos of Chobham armour having saved the tank it was protecting. Every single one shows this tell tale ooze within the struck area. I just wondered what that putty looking ooze was? And also, could that exact same area still protect the tank? Its was a common doctrine for RGP teams to double shot the same area of a tank if it had explosive reactive armour fitted. 1 round to blow out the ERA blocks and the second to punch through the hull itself.
Chobham armour defeats HEAT warheads by disrupting the high speed jet generated by the warhead. The outer steel "burster" plate detonates the shell and protects the composite array from the blast, increasing the armour's multi hit abilities. After making it through the burster plate, the jet penetrates into the first NERA plate, and begins to compress the elastomer. The elastomer quickly reaches maximum compression and rapidly expands, pushing the two steel plates in opposite directions. It is the movement of the steel plates that disrupts the jet, both by feeding more material into the jet's path, and introducing lateral forces to break the jet apart.
I believe there is a new version of it labeled, "Dorsetshire" which has been around for over a decade I think (maybe more). Who knows, there may even be a 3rd or 4th generation by now.
@@markdavidson1049there is, it’s on the upcoming Challanger 3 it’s code name is “Farnham” then it has upgraded add on armour (like the TES standard) called EPSOM can’t imagine how much of a beating Farnham can take given how good Dorchester is.
Not very well as evident in Ukraine where leopard 2, Abrams and the challenger have all been blown to pieces, shattering the drama of virgin netizens who worship these tanks as Gods chariot.
@@SMGJohn_Secondary The Leopard 2 does not have this type of armour and no Abrams have been lost in Ukraine, in fact they have only just got the Abrams. The destroyed Challenger rolled onto a mine then the crew abandoned it and the Russians hit it with a modern anti tank missile, however they still didn't go through the armour. They instead used the missile in top attack mode and fired the missile above the tank so the explosive shot down through the roof.
Great video! I believe the Challenger 2 uses a newer variant called Dorchester2. There is that storey that of a Challenger2 tank crew getting hit my over 70 RPGs and several ATGMs and no one penetrated the hull. The tank was back in service 6 hours later. Just incredible 🇬🇧💂🏴
Bet the crew was happy to be alive however many hits.... they made it, which was not the case for so many others that got hit while in a big tin can .... just look at the Russians in theirs ... seems they get hit by so much as a muffin and off they go 😉
@@ajayji-ce2mk *challenger, only one was taken out. Said challenger did not have any of the armour packages and was immobilised so this isn't the boast you think it is.
@@spaceageGecko bla bla many challenger tanks are destroyed by Russians. Say what ever you want.. It's not a wonder weapon what it was made out to be.. It got simply demolished by Russians
First versions were desigen to defend against HEAT or Chemical Energy shells. it also gave increased protection against KE shells. However in early versions of the armour, KE shells would damage the plates. and mean 2nd or 3rd shell hits had high probability of penning.. Later versions of the armour addressed that
I know that layers were used, I remember it being a multi-layered sandwich of steel and ceramics. 3:11 what is that? It looks something like you might find in a self-sealing fuel tank in an airplane. Must be resistant to heat/flame, not even charred or blackened. You can see the solidified metal where the shaped charge was detonated, but not even a scratch on the puffy grey stuff. Vary interesting.
I was wondering about this scene too. Maybe they injected some kind of foam in there to conceal the exact composition at the point where the armor was ripped open?
That would explain the seemingly untouched condition it seems to have... and they did show the back side to prove nothing made it through. But damn it, that's so boring, I was hoping for, well what you got there is a combination of super x mixed with peanut butter and butterfly tears. So, I'm going to go along with you and accept it was added for super secret stuff.
It's NERA inside the module. An elastomer, when hit by kinetic force, expands violently, feeding plate and plastic into the penetrator. So it's bulging rubber/plastic, essentially.
True story; Dr Gilbert Harvey, the scientist who "discovered" Chobham was actually doing research into protecting fuel tanks by making them from different matrices of materials when he had his light bulb moment and realised that it may be possible to compose a new type of armour using the same basic combinations of materials and configuring them slightly differently.................
@@ryanj610 so it IS part of armor sandwich! Hey, thanx for the information. One more Q, was the layers repeated or just one set of layers, i.e. ABC,ABC or ABCA?
Having been at the development, I can tell you its about saving the vehicle not the crew. The shockwave of the impact would scramble the crew physically and they would be replaced with another crew. Smaller impacts like the rain of RPG's in Iraq allowed the crew to carry on because they are thermal penetrators whereas APFSDS is a kinetic round. Even a glancing hit would disable the crew.
There is no "shockwave to scramble the crew". The energy of the impact is largely absorbed by the mass of the turret, as well the hull via the mechanical connection of the turret race ring. A non-penetrating impact on the turret by even a modern (DU) dart will feel like little more than a loud clanging thud to those within the crew compartment. "Having been at the development".... No offense, but I doubt this.
@@charlieyes4946 No, not entirely. Certain niche scenarios could generate serious fragmentation. But that'd be like, one in a kajillion. More likely you get tapped in the hull side by RPG29 or ATGM or smth I reckon
No, and that's likely also due to the classified/secret. We're told it has the same mass/weight as the chobham, because that's the main way to compare them, weight is the number one limiting factor in armour. How much armour do you want? Well it depends how fast you want it go and how large an engine you want to put in it.
If only Chobham armour could be applied to the tracks. As the Challengers have shown in Ukraine, the weakest link of any tank (pun intended) is the tracks.
@@evilleader1991I think his point is that the easiest way to "kill" a tank is to blow off a track because then it becomes a sitting duck no matter how heavily armored. Western tanks getting taken out in Ukraine are usually immobilized first
It does seem to be one of the "dirty secrets" of tanks that you can have a staggeringly expensive bundle of tech that can stop the best kinetic and chemical rounds likely to be thrown your way, yet a 60 year old artillery shell rigged to blow as an IED through a 2005 Nokia can give a mobility kill on that same tank, which can rather easily lead to a true kill. It doesn't help that I think people have done far too much mythologizing of modern tech that's still classified. You can have the best protected tank in the world, but if it's not supported it can be very vulnerable, and even surprisingly weak guns/rounds seem to be able to take out modern mbts from the sides, and less surprisingly, rear. It's not that surprising though when you think about it.
I developed a new armor material (I named this new composite a GMet; done for my thesis at UMCP) that was superior to Chobham (by a weight to protection factor of 7:1)! This was twenty years ago. This material was well over an order of magnitude cheaper to produce than Chobham, as well. The US Navy paid for the testing and the Army (@ Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD) tested it against a Viper shaped charged weapon. I could not get the Pentagon to follow up on this armor - go figure. My Thesis (defended) was published (Over 300 were bought!) so it is in the public realm (under Laminated Cermets.) Aside: tested against armor piercing rounds and was, again, superior. Tolerated multiple hits as well.
@@ulforcemegamon3094 If it were true he would have mentioned it, surely? I wonder if he might have not accounted for the level of secrecy surrounding chobham armour, including it's actual physical characteristics. Maybe he designed an armour that was actually inferior in real life, but was never able to be told so due to state military secrecy?
Chobham, or other ceramic laminate armour, and reactive armour. But still, modern anti-tank weapons seem to have the upper hand at the moment - they detonate *above* the tank so that all the force is downward, where there is much less armour. Over the the tank designers.
@@tomk3732 It's hard to say who got there first, not least because Chobham armour was a top secret product for decades. Tank battalions didn't know what their tanks were armoured with, it was so secret.
@@BenjWarrant We do know for a fact who made the first tank - it was Soviet T-64A. It took British 16 more years to get their first tank. As I stated to others - the concept of better armor is very old - heck people - including Soviets - noticed properties of ceramics long time before the T-64A was put into service - decades even. But these were not practical - experimental etc. What counts is first use & first demonstrated use of actual working thing. This is why Soviets are inventors of modern armor and modern tanks - as they were first to demonstrate working stuff.
Heh look at that 1960's Chieftain tank firing downwards, maximum barrel depression. That kind of high tech advanced tank design still eludes Russian armed forces to this day
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 The tank BEFORE the Chieftain, the Centurion, demolished equivalent Soviet armor including much much newer T-62 models. Israel well demonstrated this in the Yom Kippur war, where late model upgraded Centurions absolutely wrecked Over FIVE HUNDRED T-55 ands T-62 models at a rate of at least 3 to 1. Demonstrating western armor supremacy in 1973.
@@pgr3290 Those were 105mm armed Centurions. And if you read up those engagements properly, you will see, that the 105mm APDS rounds used, struggled quite a bit with the T-62´s frontal armor on range. Chieftain is from the same generation as T-62A and T-72A (export model) and was utterly trashed by them in the iran-irak war and invasion of kuwait.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 The Centurion had the L7 gun by 1958. Many were upgunned, they still faced far newer tanks like the T-55 and T-62 and demolished them. No doubt. When Iran fielded the Chieftain in their early attacks they did it with inexperienced commanders and crews because the government had purged all the properly trained personnel. Later when Iran fought on the defense with now more experienced crews, the Chieftain fared much better. Meaning really you should learn more history. Now to the present day, Western MBTs are without any question whatsoever massively superior to everything Russia has, including the T-90 variants. This is despite most of these Western models being of older design. In the end though Russia can't build enough of anything if it actually faced NATO in a war, $30k worth of NLAW or $100k worth of Javelin nails multi million dollar Russian tanks like they're nothing. Ukraine have DEMOLISHED Russian armor strength in just two years. Imagine what NATO would do with their massively superior air power.
Great armor. But all armor becomes obsolete eventually since the first cave man strapped some animal skin on for protection all the way up to ceramics and reactive armor.
top armor is the thinnest and most vulnerable,and today's drone munitions exploit that weakness. Chobham or other composite armor is used for frontal and glacis only.
@@JayWye52 yea that wasn’t my point, my point being there is always something that will defeat a known quality, chobam armor will eventually be made obsolete as well. It’s always a race between weapons and a way to defeat these weapons. It’s probably unfortunately what man is best at.
I wonder what happened to that Challenger 2 that got whacked in Ukraine? It would be good if it was recovered and shipped back to Britain for ballistic and impact analysis. Unless the Russians have captured it and analysed it themselves.😳😬
Most tanks in Ukraine are 'killed' by heavy artillery. No tank survives a 152 mm or 155 mm HE shell falling on top of it... At least the crew doesn't...
@@Franky46Boythe challenger that made the main news was reportedly hit by an Atgm crew that ambushed them. Their interview is online. Some more videos of the incident have been uploaded and in some a mix of atgms and other guided weapons are seen striking the convoy.
@@Masterafro999 That may have been true in that case but at least most tanks are not knocked out by other tanks. They are knocked out by heavy artillery, mines and in some cases by ATGMs. You can put all the protective armor on a tank you want, but if a heavy artillery shell hits it, it's game over.
Even though the rounds did not penetrate or spall the Chobham armor, the crew's ears would be ringing as if they were inside a bell hit with a sledge hammer.
Probably not as the crew has ear defenders as part of the tanker helmet comms system because of the noise a tank generates. Can't say anything about having spare underwear on hand, though.
@@SammywiseG I was joking. You're right they would have some ear protection. In WWII even if a shell didn't penetrate the armor and spalling didn't kill the crew, the shock wave could. Shock waves from explosions are just as lethal as shrapnel. They basically liquify the internal organs. Now days, the hollow spheres in the armor diffuse shockwaves... though they can still ring your bell.
@@patrickarmstrong8908 I know all about the effects of shockwaves. I was in the army (artillery and infantry) and remember the engineers giving a demonstration of how they crater a road. Even from the safe distance the shockwave hit like a hammer. Good times! 🙂
I want to say they got a lot longer when they added fins, but that feels like a gross over-simplification. Maybe they had to keep them shorter due to the space inside the turret?
@@JimmyCrawfordthe fins are a huge part of it actually. A longer projectile has higher sectional density, which is helpful for exterior ballistics and terminal ballistics; same for keeping the projectile narrow. But beyond a certain length it becomes infeasible to spin stabilize the projectile. So they had to put fins on them to keep making them longer. Probably still an oversimplification though.
I think the overall shell got shorter as the slug got longer, as when they encased the charge, it looks like they recessed the sabot a good chunk into it, so there probably wasnt much negative impact on loading speed in the turret.@@MrMrsirr
I think it's worth considering that APDS isn't quite as effective over distance as APFSDS. Longer rods also went some way into piercing armor, and I think later model 125mm would start going through at battle ranges reasonably reliably. That said, having a coinflip is much better than being made of glass... It's also very nervracking for the other crew. No kill notification like in game, so maybe that took out the crew. Or maybe they're shaken and the second you look away, they'll train on you and put a shot downrange.
It always made me laugh that we developed the best armour in the world, failed to keep it secret and then had to develop a projectile to beat it - which we also failed to keep secret. Got to love private contracts for military hardware.
This scene shows a good example of why separate-loading ammuntion isn't a good idea for a tank's main armament. Seconds count in a fire fight. Separate-loading ammunition just slows you down.
well, it certainly looked awkward in the film, but I think the reason is to do with the weight. Up to about 4 inches, you can manhandle a single shell-cartridge combo with two hands, although in the cramped space of a tank, the length might be a bit combersome. 4.5" (115mm) guns and above in the navy the shell and cartridge were split. This also speeds up loading (not slows it down) because the cartridge can work equally well with HE and AP. The APSDS round (nowadays called APDS) or the HESH round are much smaller than a traditional 120mm (4.7") HE shell (probably lighter, although I cannot be sure as I have never fondled one). So, perhaps it could be stuck together and still be manhandled, although it would be a handful. Navy gunners were burly men, but inside a tank that might not be so useful. Any comments from tankers ? As for the film, they are loading from the outside, in a battle the tankers would be loading from their own ready-use store, and can probably load and fire in 3 seconds.
Moving one peice shells around in a tank would be a pain in the ass. You also want to keep the flammable proppelant bags behind a blast door, and theres no need to keep the sabots likewise, so really, makes more sense to have them in two parts. Having said that, newer cartridge designs have allowed for shorter overall lenghts, which can then be stored behind blast panels in-line with breeches. Back in the day though, one piece ammo would have been a nightmare to handle in a turret. @@helloxyz
Not necessarily. The two parts are easier to manoeuvre inside the turret rather than one long round. Plus with APFSDS you can lap load as it's inert which is pretty quick.
Wrong. It is just as fast, if not faster. Two part ammunition means they are smaller and lighter to handle. It also means more of it can be stowed, and is more readily accessible. It can also be safely lap-loaded. It is why Challenger 2 can fire 8-9 accurate rounds per minute, and keep on firing at a similar speed due to less strain on the operator. Two part ammunition does have its problems but loading time isn’t one of them, not for the British tanks anyway.
From a retired M1A1 Tanker, a huge thanks and three cheers for the British engineers and scientists who designed the Chobham armor.
👏👏👏 🇺🇸🤜🤛🇬🇧
The abrums uses chobam? I thought it used a form of American developed DU amour?
@@famalam943
I believe earlier M1's used Chobham or a variation of it, only the later Abrams has the DU armour.
@@Fhelita ah cool
@@Fhelita Correct.
Junk tanks and shit armour, era is superior in every way also DU is inferior composite honestly.
In 1980 we were going through the transition from Chieftain to Challenger ( All British MBTs began with the letter C ) the thoughts of all the upgraded protection was inspiring, although Challenger was a magnificent beast, my heart is with the Chieftain.
Not just the MBTs! It goes back to WW2 cruiser tanks. Crusader, Cromwell, Comet. Not sure why the Churchill got a C name though, seeing as it was an infantry tank.
As a kid I used to live near Chobham, we would occationally see massive tank transporters moving tanks around from the school bus.
Challanger 3 has new 3rd Gen Chobam called Farnham, as well as new add on armour called EPSOM. Can’t imagine how tough that is when even first Gen Chobham is so good.
Note that they used APDS in the video and not APFSDS, although the latter round can penetrate like 400-1000mm, the new Chobham generations can certainly stop those rounds imo.
Challenger 2 got obliterated in Ukraine, even more so than Leo 2 loo
@@evilleader1991 Rubbish ! That one single tank (manned by a rookie crew) was knocked out by a DRONE ! No tank could, or will ever defeat a Challenger 2, except another Challenger 2.
@@johnny5805 looooool
@@evilleader1991 it was one tank in the 4 months it's been there, and it was disabled from a mine crew all survived. Can't say that about anything Russian as the crew are now a red mist.
Wish it showed how an APFSDS interact with the Chobham (even a sheated or torpedo-shape like the early Russian models), still the APDS damage was already interesting. A true piece of armored vehicles history added to the collection🤓
the issue is that at the time, the british (and nato at large) didn't field an APFSDS round, the first fielded by the British army was the L23, which was developped in the late 70's and fielded in the 80's
likewise the first 105mm (L7/M68) APFSDS round that was fielded was the US M735, in 1977
seeing as this was demonstrating Chobham armour, it was probably filmed quite early (1960's), so there was no such rounds available in western arsenals, only HEAT and APDS
@@quentintin1 in russian terminology, this shell is known as BOPS or OBPS.
The letters stand for «bronêbÓjnyj operÔnnyj podkalibÊrnyj snarÂd» - armour-piercing feathered subcaliber shell.
This terminology is adding even more semblance between a long rod and an arrow of archer.
Was the Challenger wasn't a glint in someone's eye at this time or had they planned to use Chobham on the Chieftain? If I recall correctly, the FSAPDS velocity was 1275 m/s, The practice round even faster. HESH 620 m/s?@ntin1
more modern sabot would likely break through
this is quite a thick plate, but even still sabot is somewhere around a megajoule or so of impact and that's hard to defeat with bulging plate.
Gigajoules? Even battleship gun only reach 80 MJ. What are you smoking
Good vid! Always wanted to see where it started.
There must ALWAYS be a scot giving the order to fire, its sounds more deadly!
Thank you for uploading this film.
my left ear enjoyed it
Unfortunately the right microphone was not protected with Chobham armor
@@hw97karbineimao
@@hw97karbineright mic was the control….😢
Fascinating! It was a world first. Roll on the war thunder experts.
World's first what?
Lancet goes brrrrrttt
@@Klovaneerdude said that it was world first. Do you understand?
worlds first composite armor.@@Klovaneer
Object 432 says hello.
Interesting, thanks for posting. The value of this video as an historical artefact would be improved if the title sequence and end credits were not removed. Obviously filmed at Bovington Ranges in Dorset, UK still the home of the Royal Armoured Corps, and presumably intended to reassure crews of the then new Challenger tank (but mostly any potential foreign buyers) as to the quality of the armour. I assume there are copyright concerns.
The original video is on the Imperial War Museum's website archive. This guy has taken the video from there because he's cropped the footage vertically to "hide" the IWM watermark in the top left.
*A historical. We tend to pronounce the 'H' these days.
Who is "we"?
@@craigpage2638 LOL! not at all, it's always "an historical" Holy cow, go back to school.
Chobham/Dorchester or whatever it's called now is NEVER sold on any export model.
Interesting that the people doing the demonstration packed the holes in the front armor plates with some gray material to keep the interior of the Chobham armor a secret. This is the first time I have seen the video of this demonstration of Chobham armor. Originally, I only saw a picture of this Chobham armor demonstration, I thought the gray packing protruding from the holes in the front armor was part of the Chobham armor material. Also, the fact that the shaped charge dispersal is so complete that there is no internal indication that they had been hit is really remarkable. I wonder how effective it is against the double shaped charge round in the same impact hole. Overall, enormously impressed. Brilliant! To think, it's even better now with the materials upgrades. It seems these days, Western tanks can only be immobilized, not destroyed.
@JayWye52 commented below that the gray material in the outer armor penetration holes are from the Chobham armor itself. f you look at the video at 2:14, you can see the armor with first two penetration holes but before the second two. These first two Chobham armor penetration holes are empty and do NOT contain the gray foam. The whole "rubber spacer" comment below seems wrong.
I strongly doubt that early gen could stop something like a Vampyre RPG round. The later gen stuff would I'm sure though
Double charges (Or tandem warheads) are really more designed to defeat ERA, or explosive reactive armor. In a tandem round, the first charge is much smaller and lighter than the main charge, and designed to blow era panels to smithereens before exploding. That said, many advancements have come along since then. It'd be interesting to re-run the test with more modern rounds. Despite this, if it's not a kinetic penetrator, I'd be willing to put my bet on the armor. Layered ceramic composite armor is retardedly strong...
they didn't pack the holes with anything,that's part of the inner flexible layer bulging out. composite armor has a "rubber" spacer layer inside to absorb energy. ceramics stop shaped charge "jets",but are brittle,so the spacing/flexible layer takes up some of the impact force.
Thanks for the comment. But it does seem curious that the penetration holes are "empty" after each explosion and then the post explosion pictures show the gray material. Does the "inner flexible layer" act like expanding foam? The gray "foam" shows no scorching or burning from the penetration. @@JayWye52
@JayWye52 they did something because the target changed, it was green with a yellow stripe, then changed to a completely yellow one at the end
That’s awesome, thanks for posting this
I love how they have a tank and radio comms, yet the boffins feel the need to wire up the firing mechanism and control it from a blind bunker.
Might be because they had a catastrophic explosion in turret up at luce bay back in the early 70s when they were supposedly testing new ammo for the 105s .. or more likely was it ammo for the Chieftain ..
No-no no not me, I didn't touch nothing, honest.
@@doonhamer252 The early Chieftains didn't have a breechblock interlock on the obturator ring. It was possible to close the breech with the ring missing, leaving a gap albeit small. The fire would then come into the turret. All later models and others in service were quickly modified after a fatal turret flash.
I think that bit was dubbed in just for content.
These are trials firings. There are loads of bits of monitoring tech that needs to be running before the shot is taken, hence the firing is remoted to the control bunker whenever possible.
Watching these old MOD shorts, I fully expect John Cleese or Graham Chapman to walk into frame sporting an officers uniform, riding crop, and a magnificent moustache. 🤣
"Stop it. That's silly!"
A game changer in modern armour for its time .
Very impressive, and soon as he said "fired from a chieftain " i was a boy then and know i have retired. That means that they have been improving this armour for at least fifty years. It must be impervious to almost everything by know.
They have a new variant called : Dorchester.
Nothing is. It is hard to imagine that armor could ever again get the lead in the arms race of projectile/gun vs. armor. But it is of course useful to have armor defeating stuff other than a current MBT's main gun, ATGMs, direct artillery hits or airborn threats.
In the meantime there has also been fifty years of weapons development though . . .
@@stuartthurstanexcept it's only the ammo thats changed much, the guns are still almost the same
And they only had one speaker in the 60's.
Hugh danvers waters?
yar if the copied the mono audio right click create 2nd audio paste to make fake stereo before uploading it takes 2min more to make a better upload
I can't believe it took me this long in life to realize "Chobham" is like "Nottingham" or "Birmingham".
Fun fact, it was originally called* Knob'em armour, but the queen was alarmed and thought it sounded a bit unladylike, so was renamed Chobham.
*this may or may not be a true story.
The next generation of the armor using the same scheme and is called Dorchester.
How else would it be pronounced?
@@fartamplifer Like Americans do: Chob-ham.
I can't believe they published this vid back in the day. I'd have thought it still classified!
Just down the road from the common, great place!!
Its a bit suspect the chobham armour target changed colour from green with a yellow stripe to totally yellow
What a cool job.
Very interesting. Thank You
Very interesting reading the comments and interactions between gamers and people with real world military experience in the Armour fields, and that of the Gamers..
Then add age differences and even experiences with East verses West tech..
The holes on the Chobham armour plate, seemed to have been 'doctored' before the filming. Is that for protecting the secret at the time composition of the armour? Or is it how Chobham armour looks like after the hits?
The holes were filled so internal composition was not reviled
@@nigelsmith7366 I thought so. Thanks
@@nigelsmith7366to be revealed is one thing, to be reviled is rather worse
Yeah, the holes were filled with foam. The 120mm L11 is a beast. When armoured support showed up we took cover. Especially tanks, they attract hellfire. The threat I feared most was Soviet artillery.
Hmm. Looks like bulged polymer, so it is probably how it looked after hit. Ps. This film was probably classed as Top secret/ For your eyes only. I will be not surprised if was a part of promotional package sanded to US and West Germany in order to spark interest and sell them licence. US has bought it, Germany unfortunately has stole idea and even have some information leaked to Soviets due to espionage.
Brilliant design
This video would have been classified for many years before it was released.
And even then, a blocker was put in the holes to hide the internal layout even in the classified film.
this was a typical Trials and Development film. I remeber them showing us when i Worked at RADRE / APRE back in late 80s when I was working on this stuff.
these were often put out as sales / advertising films to the US etc.. but remeber.. back then, didnt have Internet. UA-cam or TV on demand..these would be Videos. normaly played to targeted audiences or at Arms fairs like Farnborough or AAEE etc.. not the sort of thing that would be going out on TV.. bit of Blue Petter or John Cravens News Round etc
Jolly good sir!
the right audio channel was completely obliterated in this test. Devastating.
let's all appreciate the precision of shooting 😊
Power of Film.. the edit out all the misses lol
🤣
Is was definitely better than the clip of the sloppy loading of the armor piercing round. With the magic of editing you'd think they have filmed a smoother load. Oh well. It's the armor that the star of the show. Cheers from America!
At 3:06 the image of the Chobham armor is very interesting. Something gray appears to be swollen within the armor cavity. Could this be rubber plates used for NERA that are swollen after being struck, or just foam inserts the range personnel place in the cavities after shooting to hide the composition of the armor from being recorded?
Chobham armour defeats HEAT warheads by disrupting the high speed jet generated by the warhead. The outer steel "burster" plate detonates the shell and protects the composite array from the blast, increasing the armour's multi hit abilities. After making it through the burster plate, the jet penetrates into the first NERA plate, and begins to compress the elastomer. The elastomer quickly reaches maximum compression and rapidly expands, pushing the two steel plates in opposite directions. It is the movement of the steel plates that disrupts the jet, both by feeding more material into the jet's path, and introducing lateral forces to break the jet apart.
What is that white foam inside? Like what materials is this armour made of?
The foam was to hide the composition of the armour from study.
British engineering at its best.
looks like some kind of expanding material from inside the chobham. I figured it was merely ceramic but that stuff is unusual and apparently it was semi-flammable as there was some flame and smoke coming from the holes. That could have been the tracer compound burning up though.
I believe others have said that it’s material they shoved in there so as to not show the composition of the armor.
Brits shouting absolute gibberish in old training videos is what I live for.
You can't say all the noise in the tank drowned him out. Same reason military has hand signs, standard signals, and a phonetic alphabet. Battle and training are very noisy, and a lot of vets have hearing loss, self included.
The gun loading scene in “ Hunt the Bismarck “ is epic 👍
I also noticed how very Military it sounded. Rivals even Germans.
With Tashes
@@MeshFrequencyperhaps it’s down to them being military 🙄🤷♂️
I served in an M-1 tank and this is the first time I'm seeing this....
The real key is the grey toothpaste they inject into the center of the armour stack.
"SEVEN-OH-ONE-"
"Stop bloody shouting at me, Paddy! I'm right here!"
It’s hard to tell from the video but the plain steel plate looks to be 4 or 5 inches thick 1:10 , where the chobham looks about 18 inches thick 1:56 . Is this so, or is it just the box casing used? Is it lighter or heavier than steel per area protected? Thank you.
yes the original armour is very bulky. even the newer armour is still very bulky.. but its the weight.. ie both the targets have the same weight.. so the Chobham uses much less Steal armour plate, so its cheaper and lighter. in short you can build a tank at 55tones with more than twice the armour protection as your old tank that was 58tones but with only half the protection
@@agile-heliuk1801 interesting, ty
- LOAD NOW!!!
- LOADING!!!!
- 4...3...2..1 ... firing now;
what was all the rush about 😂😂
That was then, imagine how powerful it is now.
Back when APDS were top ammunition
I am today years old when I learned there was a kind of discarding sabot round that was short and stumpy because it spin stabilized without using fins.
uhm. this is early 80s.
By then the sovjet union was using APFSDS rounds for close to 15 years and all other NATO Partners for 5-6 years. The UK was again extremely late to the party and then still underwhelming.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 a friend of mine was shelled while in a vehicle equipped with Chobham armour during an attempted bridge crossing in Iraq. He closed the shutters, ordered Driver Reverse and survived.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 Jealous are we.? During the GulfWar the Challenger destroyed 300 tanks not one was lost in return Source David Miller Tanks of the World
@@jacktattis Yeah, T-55´s etc.
Stuff that was close to 30 years out of date at the point in time.
I've seen a few photos of Chobham armour having saved the tank it was protecting. Every single one shows this tell tale ooze within the struck area. I just wondered what that putty looking ooze was? And also, could that exact same area still protect the tank? Its was a common doctrine for RGP teams to double shot the same area of a tank if it had explosive reactive armour fitted. 1 round to blow out the ERA blocks and the second to punch through the hull itself.
Elastomer of some sort. In the same spot, the protection is compromised.
Chobham armour defeats HEAT warheads by disrupting the high speed jet generated by the warhead. The outer steel "burster" plate detonates the shell and protects the composite array from the blast, increasing the armour's multi hit abilities. After making it through the burster plate, the jet penetrates into the first NERA plate, and begins to compress the elastomer. The elastomer quickly reaches maximum compression and rapidly expands, pushing the two steel plates in opposite directions. It is the movement of the steel plates that disrupts the jet, both by feeding more material into the jet's path, and introducing lateral forces to break the jet apart.
What are the gray masses inside of the damage to the Chobham target?
To stop the internal layers being shown
But could it survive a Tesco car park?
Nothing can survive a Tesco car park...nothing.
Not even a Nokia 3310
Not even a Nokia 3310
Not even the T-1000
Challenger 2, undisputed and undefeated. Will retire with an unblemished record in tank combat.
Is it filled with non-newtonian fluid?
Yes but…what about pointed sticks?
_Pointed sticks ?!!_
Fresh fruit and APFDS rounds not good enough for you , eh ?
wow.. to think Chobham is quite old now.. I wonder how modern armour would fare!
I believe there is a new version of it labeled, "Dorsetshire" which has been around for over a decade I think (maybe more). Who knows, there may even be a 3rd or 4th generation by now.
@@markdavidson1049there is, it’s on the upcoming Challanger 3 it’s code name is “Farnham” then it has upgraded add on armour (like the TES standard) called EPSOM can’t imagine how much of a beating Farnham can take given how good Dorchester is.
Not very well as evident in Ukraine where leopard 2, Abrams and the challenger have all been blown to pieces, shattering the drama of virgin netizens who worship these tanks as Gods chariot.
@@SMGJohn_Secondary The Leopard 2 does not have this type of armour and no Abrams have been lost in Ukraine, in fact they have only just got the Abrams.
The destroyed Challenger rolled onto a mine then the crew abandoned it and the Russians hit it with a modern anti tank missile, however they still didn't go through the armour. They instead used the missile in top attack mode and fired the missile above the tank so the explosive shot down through the roof.
@@commanderdon4300
You were there personally inspecting the tank or something? Cause it sure sounds like you are full of it
Great video! I believe the Challenger 2 uses a newer variant called Dorchester2.
There is that storey that of a Challenger2 tank crew getting hit my over 70 RPGs and several ATGMs and no one penetrated the hull. The tank was back in service 6 hours later. Just incredible 🇬🇧💂🏴
Meanwhile, in Ukraine,
агагага Корнет идёь БРРРР!
Thought it was 7 RPG? Is this the Beharry VC tank?
Edit: I believe the quote is "... 70 hits including RPGs".
Beharry drove a Warrior, appologies.
no, no, it was hit by one million rpgs and atgms
Bet the crew was happy to be alive however many hits.... they made it, which was not the case for so many others that got hit while in a big tin can .... just look at the Russians in theirs ... seems they get hit by so much as a muffin and off they go 😉
@@steveo4141 didn't a Challenger got destroyed by a Lancet thought? all tanks burn the same
can anyone figure out what did the TC and loader say
Please make the audio mono, the stereo is broken.
Looks like it's being tested at Lulworth.
Interesting to see it after, did they cover up the holes with expanding foam or that just what Chobham armours looks like?
I believe they covered the holes so no one would be able to work out what Chobham armour was made of.
2:04 They forgot to add in the foley sound effects for the round hitting...
Now try that with a depleted uranium fin stabilised discarding sabot round and see what happens then.
ALL simulations on here show all tanks APFSDS darts penetrating the armor of ALL other tanks at 1000 yards and easily.
The Lulworth ranges?
lol when he says "Chobham armour" it sounds like he's saying "Chumbawamba"
That cheiftain is hitting a target the size of a front door from a mile away. If I was a t72 I'd run and hide...
Same way challengers hide in Ukraine😂😂😂
@@ajayji-ce2mk *challenger, only one was taken out. Said challenger did not have any of the armour packages and was immobilised so this isn't the boast you think it is.
@@spaceageGecko bla bla many challenger tanks are destroyed by Russians. Say what ever you want.. It's not a wonder weapon what it was made out to be.. It got simply demolished by Russians
@@spaceageGecko Well, its 1 for 1, 1 was used and one was killed ;)
@@tomk3732 We don’t know how many were used.
I remember when Chobham first appeared, and the reports were it only degraded CE, not KE. Guess they were wrong.
First versions were desigen to defend against HEAT or Chemical Energy shells. it also gave increased protection against KE shells. However in early versions of the armour, KE shells would damage the plates. and mean 2nd or 3rd shell hits had high probability of penning.. Later versions of the armour addressed that
Range Master: Load.
Tank commander: Shabarlab tan kah ahhhhh!!
Warburton's Super Toastie (crust ends) with peanut butter and marmalade is the secret ingredient.
I know that layers were used, I remember it being a multi-layered sandwich of steel and ceramics. 3:11 what is that? It looks something like you might find in a self-sealing fuel tank in an airplane. Must be resistant to heat/flame, not even charred or blackened. You can see the solidified metal where the shaped charge was detonated, but not even a scratch on the puffy grey stuff. Vary interesting.
I was wondering about this scene too. Maybe they injected some kind of foam in there to conceal the exact composition at the point where the armor was ripped open?
That would explain the seemingly untouched condition it seems to have... and they did show the back side to prove nothing made it through. But damn it, that's so boring, I was hoping for, well what you got there is a combination of super x mixed with peanut butter and butterfly tears. So, I'm going to go along with you and accept it was added for super secret stuff.
It's NERA inside the module. An elastomer, when hit by kinetic force, expands violently, feeding plate and plastic into the penetrator. So it's bulging rubber/plastic, essentially.
True story; Dr Gilbert Harvey, the scientist who "discovered" Chobham was actually doing research into protecting fuel tanks by making them from different matrices of materials when he had his light bulb moment and realised that it may be possible to compose a new type of armour using the same basic combinations of materials and configuring them slightly differently.................
@@ryanj610 so it IS part of armor sandwich! Hey, thanx for the information. One more Q, was the layers repeated or just one set of layers, i.e. ABC,ABC or ABCA?
Having been at the development, I can tell you its about saving the vehicle not the crew. The shockwave of the impact would scramble the crew physically and they would be replaced with another crew. Smaller impacts like the rain of RPG's in Iraq allowed the crew to carry on because they are thermal penetrators whereas APFSDS is a kinetic round. Even a glancing hit would disable the crew.
Interesting.....So the secret is that putty substance?
@@nickjohnson710 Cant say.
Do they die when they fire an APFSDS? No. dissipater
The one worry is spalling, and they have spall liners for that. .
There is no "shockwave to scramble the crew". The energy of the impact is largely absorbed by the mass of the turret, as well the hull via the mechanical connection of the turret race ring. A non-penetrating impact on the turret by even a modern (DU) dart will feel like little more than a loud clanging thud to those within the crew compartment.
"Having been at the development".... No offense, but I doubt this.
So good is it that the US have bought it. I hope the UK have not sold the composition of the Chobham armour to the USA.
What about spalling on the backside of the Chobham armor?
Spall liners completely negate this.
@@charlieyes4946 Kevlar is a wonderful material
@@charlieyes4946 No, not entirely. Certain niche scenarios could generate serious fragmentation. But that'd be like, one in a kajillion. More likely you get tapped in the hull side by RPG29 or ATGM or smth I reckon
They showed the backside and there was no spalling.
yes,most of the energy was exhausted by the time it got to the rear steel plate.just a slight bulge,not enough to cause spall.@@politenessman3901
I know this is serious, but I just can't get Monty Python's, "How Not to Be Seen" out of my head.
XD the shots hitting with just a little “click”
Does it say how thick the steel armour was?
No, and that's likely also due to the classified/secret. We're told it has the same mass/weight as the chobham, because that's the main way to compare them, weight is the number one limiting factor in armour. How much armour do you want? Well it depends how fast you want it go and how large an engine you want to put in it.
Thxs I did watch it but thought I missed it. 👍
four inches,IIRC.
This is old tech cant imagine what they use now days probably dalektaimon that stuff is tuff thats why its hard to kill daleks
If only Chobham armour could be applied to the tracks. As the Challengers have shown in Ukraine, the weakest link of any tank (pun intended) is the tracks.
It wouldn't made a difference, the track pins still wouldn't take the hit
Mate that tank got obliterated, dont think some extra armour on the tracks would make a difference
@@evilleader1991I think his point is that the easiest way to "kill" a tank is to blow off a track because then it becomes a sitting duck no matter how heavily armored. Western tanks getting taken out in Ukraine are usually immobilized first
It does seem to be one of the "dirty secrets" of tanks that you can have a staggeringly expensive bundle of tech that can stop the best kinetic and chemical rounds likely to be thrown your way, yet a 60 year old artillery shell rigged to blow as an IED through a 2005 Nokia can give a mobility kill on that same tank, which can rather easily lead to a true kill. It doesn't help that I think people have done far too much mythologizing of modern tech that's still classified. You can have the best protected tank in the world, but if it's not supported it can be very vulnerable, and even surprisingly weak guns/rounds seem to be able to take out modern mbts from the sides, and less surprisingly, rear. It's not that surprising though when you think about it.
I developed a new armor material (I named this new composite a GMet; done for my thesis at UMCP) that was superior to Chobham (by a weight to protection factor of 7:1)! This was twenty years ago. This material was well over an order of magnitude cheaper to produce than Chobham, as well. The US Navy paid for the testing and the Army (@ Aberdeen Proving Grounds, MD) tested it against a Viper shaped charged weapon. I could not get the Pentagon to follow up on this armor - go figure. My Thesis (defended) was published (Over 300 were bought!) so it is in the public realm (under Laminated Cermets.) Aside: tested against armor piercing rounds and was, again, superior. Tolerated multiple hits as well.
I tried searching for the thesis but couldn't find it. This sounds very interesting.
Can you send me a link where I can read it? Sounds like an interesting read
I would like to know the name of the thesis if possible (assuming it exist)
I'll have to check because it is published (Library of Congress.)@@heckpupper9532
@@ulforcemegamon3094 If it were true he would have mentioned it, surely? I wonder if he might have not accounted for the level of secrecy surrounding chobham armour, including it's actual physical characteristics. Maybe he designed an armour that was actually inferior in real life, but was never able to be told so due to state military secrecy?
Yeah, but without ear protection, they would have one hell of a headache.
Chobham...
CC Subtitles: choa mama
😂🤣 I'm gonna find some other way to use that term...
"Who invented Chobham armour?"
Choa mama 🤣😂😅
@@ThePsiclone LoL! Choa mama so fat, she gotta put tank tracks on her roller skates!
Nacho Mama!
And yet you look at the angle this test piece was placed at, an angle never used in actual use.
Thank you UK for inventing Chobham, and leasing it out to the US Army.
Do the German Leopard tanks also use Chobham armor?
Chobham, or other ceramic laminate armour, and reactive armour. But still, modern anti-tank weapons seem to have the upper hand at the moment - they detonate *above* the tank so that all the force is downward, where there is much less armour.
Over the the tank designers.
Yeah, otherwise US would have to copy Soviets whom invented laminates ;)
@@tomk3732 It's hard to say who got there first, not least because Chobham armour was a top secret product for decades. Tank battalions didn't know what their tanks were armoured with, it was so secret.
@@tomk3732 It's whomst.
@@BenjWarrant We do know for a fact who made the first tank - it was Soviet T-64A.
It took British 16 more years to get their first tank.
As I stated to others - the concept of better armor is very old - heck people - including Soviets - noticed properties of ceramics long time before the T-64A was put into service - decades even. But these were not practical - experimental etc. What counts is first use & first demonstrated use of actual working thing.
This is why Soviets are inventors of modern armor and modern tanks - as they were first to demonstrate working stuff.
$200 FPV drone goes brrrrrrr
Heh look at that 1960's Chieftain tank firing downwards, maximum barrel depression. That kind of high tech advanced tank design still eludes Russian armed forces to this day
chieftain in proper combat conditions suffered massively against comparable sovjet T-72A and T-62´s
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 The tank BEFORE the Chieftain, the Centurion, demolished equivalent Soviet armor including much much newer T-62 models. Israel well demonstrated this in the Yom Kippur war, where late model upgraded Centurions absolutely wrecked Over FIVE HUNDRED T-55 ands T-62 models at a rate of at least 3 to 1. Demonstrating western armor supremacy in 1973.
@@pgr3290 Those were 105mm armed Centurions.
And if you read up those engagements properly, you will see, that the 105mm APDS rounds used, struggled quite a bit with the T-62´s frontal armor on range.
Chieftain is from the same generation as T-62A and T-72A (export model) and was utterly trashed by them in the iran-irak war and invasion of kuwait.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 The Centurion had the L7 gun by 1958. Many were upgunned, they still faced far newer tanks like the T-55 and T-62 and demolished them. No doubt. When Iran fielded the Chieftain in their early attacks they did it with inexperienced commanders and crews because the government had purged all the properly trained personnel. Later when Iran fought on the defense with now more experienced crews, the Chieftain fared much better. Meaning really you should learn more history. Now to the present day, Western MBTs are without any question whatsoever massively superior to everything Russia has, including the T-90 variants. This is despite most of these Western models being of older design. In the end though Russia can't build enough of anything if it actually faced NATO in a war, $30k worth of NLAW or $100k worth of Javelin nails multi million dollar Russian tanks like they're nothing. Ukraine have DEMOLISHED Russian armor strength in just two years. Imagine what NATO would do with their massively superior air power.
@@zhufortheimpaler4041 Tell us where and when ??????
Filmed at kirkudbright I believe.
Impressive and worked in iraq
Why not miniaturize a chobham and make it into a bulletproof vest
Because rifles don't fire HEAT rounds. Chobham is designed to defeat mechanisms found in anti-tank rounds and not in normal rifle rounds.
Great armor. But all armor becomes obsolete eventually since the first cave man strapped some animal skin on for protection all the way up to ceramics and reactive armor.
top armor is the thinnest and most vulnerable,and today's drone munitions exploit that weakness. Chobham or other composite armor is used for frontal and glacis only.
@@JayWye52 yea that wasn’t my point, my point being there is always something that will defeat a known quality, chobam armor will eventually be made obsolete as well. It’s always a race between weapons and a way to defeat these weapons. It’s probably unfortunately what man is best at.
I wonder what happened to that Challenger 2 that got whacked in Ukraine? It would be good if it was recovered and shipped back to Britain for ballistic and impact analysis. Unless the Russians have captured it and analysed it themselves.😳😬
Most tanks in Ukraine are 'killed' by heavy artillery.
No tank survives a 152 mm or 155 mm HE shell falling on top of it...
At least the crew doesn't...
@@Franky46Boythe challenger that made the main news was reportedly hit by an Atgm crew that ambushed them. Their interview is online. Some more videos of the incident have been uploaded and in some a mix of atgms and other guided weapons are seen striking the convoy.
99% sure The tank hit an anti tank mine, the crew all survived and abandoned the tank, the russians then later hit it and it burnt out.
@@Masterafro999 That may have been true in that case but at least most tanks are not knocked out by other tanks. They are knocked out by heavy artillery, mines and in some cases by ATGMs.
You can put all the protective armor on a tank you want, but if a heavy artillery shell hits it, it's game over.
It should be noted that the Ukrainian crew were able to abandon the tank successfully.
Is there a reason they didn't shoot at the chobam with the shape charges like they did with the steel plate?
They did, it was at 2:15
Even though the rounds did not penetrate or spall the Chobham armor, the crew's ears would be ringing as if they were inside a bell hit with a sledge hammer.
Probably not as the crew has ear defenders as part of the tanker helmet comms system because of the noise a tank generates. Can't say anything about having spare underwear on hand, though.
@@SammywiseG I was joking. You're right they would have some ear protection. In WWII even if a shell didn't penetrate the armor and spalling didn't kill the crew, the shock wave could. Shock waves from explosions are just as lethal as shrapnel. They basically liquify the internal organs. Now days, the hollow spheres in the armor diffuse shockwaves... though they can still ring your bell.
@@patrickarmstrong8908 I know all about the effects of shockwaves. I was in the army (artillery and infantry) and remember the engineers giving a demonstration of how they crater a road. Even from the safe distance the shockwave hit like a hammer. Good times! 🙂
People in the armed forces seem to always need mustashes. For example USAF pilots vietnam to 1980 the dang mustash is there. What is with that?
those apds are short!
I want to say they got a lot longer when they added fins, but that feels like a gross over-simplification. Maybe they had to keep them shorter due to the space inside the turret?
@@JimmyCrawfordthe fins are a huge part of it actually. A longer projectile has higher sectional density, which is helpful for exterior ballistics and terminal ballistics; same for keeping the projectile narrow. But beyond a certain length it becomes infeasible to spin stabilize the projectile. So they had to put fins on them to keep making them longer.
Probably still an oversimplification though.
I think the overall shell got shorter as the slug got longer, as when they encased the charge, it looks like they recessed the sabot a good chunk into it, so there probably wasnt much negative impact on loading speed in the turret.@@MrMrsirr
So , Chobham was filled with rolled up cotton socks .
Seeing this, the Soviet union stood no chance from 1984 on in Europe
I think it's worth considering that APDS isn't quite as effective over distance as APFSDS. Longer rods also went some way into piercing armor, and I think later model 125mm would start going through at battle ranges reasonably reliably.
That said, having a coinflip is much better than being made of glass...
It's also very nervracking for the other crew.
No kill notification like in game, so maybe that took out the crew. Or maybe they're shaken and the second you look away, they'll train on you and put a shot downrange.
Why are there so many spelling errors in this comment section?
Is that Worcop?
And tandem warhead RPG?
why would you fire a tandem warhead against armor that has no ERA on it?
Porque solo me han provisto de ojivas tándem. ¿O todos los combatientes tienen un supermercado detrás?
english. why is your first comment in english but the next one isnt? ENGLISH.@@BELISARIO2011
@@OliverFlinn parce que je sais beaucoup de langues
Tandem wouldn't have any significant changes happening, since the main reason to use it is to defeat ERA and beyond that is just a waste.
Should think about this for plating on the wife’s car.
It always made me laugh that we developed the best armour in the world, failed to keep it secret and then had to develop a projectile to beat it - which we also failed to keep secret. Got to love private contracts for military hardware.
The Chobham block is like 2-4 times larger than the steel one lol.
its weight for weight i believe
@sacks7544 true but you still have to adjust the volume, unless you want a massive tank,also what would be a "conventional armour steel"?
post full vid
This scene shows a good example of why separate-loading ammuntion isn't a good idea for a tank's main armament. Seconds count in a fire fight. Separate-loading ammunition just slows you down.
well, it certainly looked awkward in the film, but I think the reason is to do with the weight. Up to about 4 inches, you can manhandle a single shell-cartridge combo with two hands, although in the cramped space of a tank, the length might be a bit combersome. 4.5" (115mm) guns and above in the navy the shell and cartridge were split. This also speeds up loading (not slows it down) because the cartridge can work equally well with HE and AP. The APSDS round (nowadays called APDS) or the HESH round are much smaller than a traditional 120mm (4.7") HE shell (probably lighter, although I cannot be sure as I have never fondled one). So, perhaps it could be stuck together and still be manhandled, although it would be a handful. Navy gunners were burly men, but inside a tank that might not be so useful. Any comments from tankers ?
As for the film, they are loading from the outside, in a battle the tankers would be loading from their own ready-use store, and can probably load and fire in 3 seconds.
Moving one peice shells around in a tank would be a pain in the ass. You also want to keep the flammable proppelant bags behind a blast door, and theres no need to keep the sabots likewise, so really, makes more sense to have them in two parts. Having said that, newer cartridge designs have allowed for shorter overall lenghts, which can then be stored behind blast panels in-line with breeches. Back in the day though, one piece ammo would have been a nightmare to handle in a turret.
@@helloxyz
Not necessarily. The two parts are easier to manoeuvre inside the turret rather than one long round.
Plus with APFSDS you can lap load as it's inert which is pretty quick.
Wrong. It is just as fast, if not faster. Two part ammunition means they are smaller and lighter to handle. It also means more of it can be stowed, and is more readily accessible. It can also be safely lap-loaded. It is why Challenger 2 can fire 8-9 accurate rounds per minute, and keep on firing at a similar speed due to less strain on the operator.
Two part ammunition does have its problems but loading time isn’t one of them, not for the British tanks anyway.
The inside of a tank is incredibly cramped, a one piece round and charge would be awkward and slow to manoeuvre in that space
This is NOT Chobham "armor"
Why would you compare against steel and not a Soviet composite or ceramic?