Defunct Humanity: Russian NxRA for LAVs

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Defunct
Humanity
The dark side of Humanity is weapon
and wars, but who says the war is
worse than humiliation?

Tuesday, June 22, 2010 Labels

Russian NxRA for LAVs Air Forces (31) Armor

(6) Army (6) India (31)
An interesting article about last
development in Russian ERA. From
NII Stali: Missiles (11) Navy (22)
Strategic Forces (9) Strategy
"The change in geopolitical (14) Technology (12)
situation in the world, less
probability of global military con-
Lijit Stats Wijit - Recent
flicts and, quite on the contrary,
Readers Map
increased number of local and
asymmetrical conflicts require Recent Readers
 complete revision of the armed
forces structure,  including the
structure of the Armor, practically
in  all world powers. These
changes do not imply the  use of
large numbers of main battle
tanks, but rely  on a wide range of Via
Direct
types and a great number of Search
 light-armored vehicles (LAV).
Recent military conflicts
Lijit Search
(Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia,
Middle East)  have clearly shown
that light-armored vehicles  are the most efficient solution for such
situations,  provided the vehicles feature sufficient all-round protection, Popular Searches
high mobility and firepower. The world and European markets of
weapons and military equipment have immediately responded to these apg-80
changes. Thus, for the last decade the sales of tanks has dropped by My Content
more than 30%, and the forecast for the near future is unfavorable. At
Defunct Humanity
the
same time, the sales of light-armored vehicles, and in the first turn of YouTube - abraqadabra
infantry fighting vehicles (IFV), self-propelled guns and other LAV has LiveJournal
been growing steadily, and the highest growth (up to 40%) in the Twitter / igor_dzhadan
nearest future is expected in the sales of IFVs. One of the most critical
requirements to LAV is the desired level of protection. It is actually the
criterion which determines the final profile of the vehicle, and it is the
focus of main efforts of LAV designers. It should be mentioned that  
high level of protection is required not only from IFV,
but also from other LAV including APC, armored cars etc.

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Defunct Humanity: Russian NxRA for LAVs

Recent Comments

GarryB wrote...
Nowadays requirements to protection of LAV abroad are defined by Hahahahahaha.... Israelis had no trouble
appropriate standards. One of them is STANAG 4569 «Protection Level with the Syrian air defences because
for Occupants of Logistic and Light Armoured Vehicles» which defines 5 Syria has no S-300s or even
levels of protection for LAV. The highest one –Level 5 –implies Pantsyrs.The Israelis didn't even
protection against 25mm APDS rounds and HE-round fragments. This face Syrian air defences because they
standard was adopted in May 2004, but has already become obsolete, hacked into the...
and many of Continue >>
LAV designers are pursuing much more challenging goals. The
requirement of all-round protection of LAV against 30mm cannon Anonymous wrote...
projectiles, RPG and ATGM penetrating up to 400-450mm of RHA is ^^raviIndia is developing barak-8 with
becoming typical. israel which will also have a land based
variant.S-300 is passee Israelis had no
Among the up-to-date protection systems able to counter these trouble clobering syria's nuke
threats, explosive reactive armor (ERA) is the most cost-effective batteries supposedly protected with...
solution. ERA effect is based on the use of explosion energy which Continue >>
destroys the shaped-charge jet when throwing of a metal plate
GarryB wrote...
obliquely either after or towards the jet at the optimum obliquity. In
What I meant by the joint development
many countries this type of protection as applied to LAV is developing
of SAMs with Russia is that they already
rapidly, and we can see several generations of ERA, that have already
have plans but as shown with their work
been implemented or are in the process of implementation on different
on the Pantsir with UAE and the Vityaz
LAV. Russia is no exception here. It was among the first to show the
with South Korea they are happy to
possibility of using ERA on LAV. And today Russia offers a variety of
work...
solutions that can provide LAV with protection not only against single-
Continue >>
warhead RPG and ATGM penetrating up to 500…600mm of RHA, but
also against tandem rounds. GarryB wrote...
Regarding what aircraft the Russians
As long ago as in 1988 Russia made first attempts to fit LAV with ERA might take to this exercise, they will want
kits (that had been by that time widely used for tank protection).Fig. 1 to take their best, but they will also need
show the first ERA kits “Contact” with 4S20 ERA elements on Cobra-S to be in service aircraft.In my opinion
(upgraded BMP-1) IFV. However, live tests of those kits revealed their that means they will take...
complete non-applicability to LAV. When an ERA box and a grenade Continue >>
detonated together, with the total amount of explosives about 1.1-
1.2kg, the Austin wrote...
thin main armor of the vehicle was simply broken through that disabled Yes the PW1000G have already started
the vehicle (Fig. 2). However, in 1999 the engineers of “NII Stali” their test flights , you can check the
company in Russia succeeded in designing a functional ERA kit for BMP- details here
3 IFV on the basis of 4S20 tank ERA element. The weight of that ERA http://www.purepowerengine.com/The
kit was 4 tons (Fig. 3). The kit offered protection of the main vehicle PW1000G compared to PD-14 is almost
surfaces against PG-9VS grenades piercing up to 500mm of RHA, at couple of generations ahead and the...
course angles of ±180. At the same time protection of BMP-3 IFV Continue >>
against small-arms and artillery ammunition
also improved. The experience gained during the design of that ERA kit spmcontrols wrote...
SPM CONTROLS is the leading
showed that a new ERA element
manufacturers of Presses, Extrusion
specially adapted for LAV is required.
Press, Hydraulic Presses and Extrusion
Presses in India.for more details visit
In 2006 a new ERA element (4S24) for LAV was accepted for service of
http://www.spmcontrols.com
the Russian Army. 4S24 ERA element contained twice less explosive
than 4S20 element, which resulted positively both for ERA survivability, Igor Djadan wrote...
and for the survivability of the main armor. The use of 4S24 ERA to Austin:True, MS-21 will initially fly on
elements together with unconventional solutions that enhanced fire PW1000G and the engines for the first
safety of ERA elements when perforated by 7.62...14.5mm bullets,
resulted in creation of ERA packages, adapted to such LAV as BMP-2 Blog Archive
IFV, BTR-90 APC etc., which by their multi-
hit ability, fire resistance and other parameters exceeded the first ERA ▼  2010 (34)
kits for BMP-3 IFV by several times. (Figs. 4, 5) ►  September (5)

In the process of designing such protection systems a number of ►  August (7)

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Defunct Humanity: Russian NxRA for LAVs

technical challenges was solved, such as non-transfer of detonation

inside the ERA box, blast damping, increase of ERA survivability and ▼  June (2)
fire safety. The plastic explosives used in the first generations of ERA
New weaponary for Su-34
featured high sluggishness. Detonation of the explosive compound took
place only 3…5μs after the impact of the shaped-charge jet. As a result Russian NxRA for LAVs
the jet lead-
er managed to get through the ERA (Fig.6). With the velocity of 9…
►  May (9)
10km/s and weight of 5…10
gram, the slipped leader could pierce 50…80mм of steel armor that is ►  March (6)
sufficient to disable LAV. A flow of fragments formed during the
penetration process, overpressure inside the vehicle (100…150atm) and ►  February (2)
the noise level of about 150…200dB could disable both the occupants
and the internal equipment. ►  January (3)

It is possible to reduce or completely prevent the breakthrough of the ►  2009 (64)

jet leader by using high-sensitive explosives, but in this case the
problems of ERA element inflammation when perforated by small arms
bullets and ERA element detonation under the impact of 30mm and About Me
heavier ammunition become more urgent. These problems have been
solved in ERA with 4S24 elements (Fig.7). IGOR DJADAN

View my
The engineers of “NII Stali” have shown, that in ERA elements complete profile
(regarded as conventional) only 10…15% of the detonation energy is
spent on destroying the shaped charge jet. The rest of the energy is
spent uselessly and has a parasitic effect on the protected object and
close environment. Besides, this type of ERA elements has little
efficiency against 30mm ammunition and is completely ineffective
against APDS rounds of 35…50mm cannons. The experts of “NII Stali”
think that further efforts in development of LAV protection should be
focused on reducing the amount of energy released in the protection
system that has a parasitic effect on the main armor. According to the
latest research of “NII Stali”, one of the ways of further development is
the shift from conventional ERA to so called energetic materials.
Reactive armor, both abroad and in Russia, is
seen as the protection system based on materials able to absorb a part
of the shaped-charge jet energy and give it back in the form of moving
bulge that interacts with the shaped charge jet.This type of protection
is qualified abroad as reactive armor of NERA type (non-energetic
reactive armor). In Russia this type of protection was used in tank
armoring as long ago as in late 1960s and is known in literature as
“bulging or reflecting plates”. However, it’s very difficult to use this type
of reactive armor for LAV per se, because its sluggishness is 10…20μs
and more, which in its turn causes the breakthrough of a considerable
part
of the jet leader which is able to penetrate 100-150mm of RHA (Fig.8).

An attempt to raise the efficiency of the reactive armor led “NII Stali”
to creation of so called
energetic materials. Energetic materials are a new class of protective
materials, which stands
between conventional ERA and reactive armor. R&D conducted in “NII
Stali” has shown that
when the shaped charge jet impacts the energetic material enclosed
between metal plates, in the interaction zone which is as small as 60-
120mm, a chemical reaction takes place with release of a considerable
amount of energy. The energy release rate is comparable to that of the
best plastic explosives. It’s about 5000m/s in the
interaction zone, and decreases to sonic speeds with the distance from
the epicenter. It prevents the shift of the process to the stage of the
steady-rate detonation. The efficiency of such systems is much higher

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Defunct Humanity: Russian NxRA for LAVs

than that of other reactive armor systems discussed above, because all
the energy released in the local zone is direct-
ed to destruction of the shaped charge jet. On X-ray photos it is clearly
seen (Fig.9) that the area in which the process is going on and bulging
of reactive armor elements is taking place is very limited.

This type of reactive armor is called NxRA abroad, which means it

doesn’t use any explosives; it’s used in a variety of different armor
systems (SLERA, LRA, IRA etc.). The use of this approach in reactive
armor
designs with multi-row cluster order of energetic elements with
different levels of energy release allows control of the interaction
process and adaptation to particular parameters of the shaped charge
jet, which results in increased protection. Energetic materials can be
based on different formulations. Due to selective sensibility to the
shaped charge jet energy, the energetic materials are effective against
tandem-warhead rounds and
long-rod penetrators of APFSDS.

The ideas of such hybrid reactive armor abroad are implemented only
for protection against single-warhead chemical energy projectiles and
kinetic-energy projectiles of small-caliber guns. Russian designers are
pursuing more ambitious goals for hybrid reactive armor, and they are
very close to creation of really multipurpose systems that provide
protection against the complete range of threats, including tandem
projectiles.

Table shows the evolution of the main characteristics of reactive armor

for LAV, that has been developed or is under development in “NII
Stali”.For the last decade the Russian company has managed to reduce
the amount of detonating explosive by four times, and in the near
future may give it up completely, which allows significant
increase of multi-hit ability of reactive armor systems. Moreover, in
such systems the level of protection does not go down, but tends to
increase. The long experience of “NII Stali” in LAV protection enables
the company to work out new technical solutions and to adapt those
which already exist to all types of light-armored vehicles with maximum
efficiency.

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Defunct Humanity: Russian NxRA for LAVs

Posted by Igor Djadan at 6:25 PM

Reactions:  funny (0) interesting (5) cool (1)

6 comments:

Sujith said...
Hi Igorr, nice article.

So MBTs are slowly becoming obsolete? And why doesn't Russia

have any kind of composite armor? Is it because the T-series
tanks are too light to handle them or is the armor being
developed? I'm sure India would transfer tech for Kanchan if
Russia wanted:)..(I heard Americans and Israelis were interested
in it)

Do you know anything about the Indian non-energetic reactive

armor(NERA)?

On a different note, it appears Israel refused to sell Russia

UAVs.. Is it true? If so what would Russia do in turn? Selling
some new weaponry to Iran or even Turkey might be nice idea:)
June 23, 2010 2:51 PM

Igor Djadan said...

to Sujith:

1) T-90 and T-80 have a combined armor: metal- ceramics

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Defunct Humanity: Russian NxRA for LAVs

additional to ERA. What you call 'composite armor' I cannot

understand? Kanchan - is a combined armor too according to my
best knowing. Is 'composite' just a synonym for 'combined'? The
term 'composites' - is usually used for plastic-carbon materials.

2) Russia has never seriously refered to possibility for obtaining

advanced technology from Israel due to defendant essence of
Israeli state. 5 or 6 UAVs were purchased from Israel for
'research purposes'. They will never planned to be on service. I
don't think Russia is going to be too nervous about the refuse,
because they openly says way ago that there are few chances
US allow for Israel broad cooperation with Russia in UAV design.
June 23, 2010 4:56 PM

Sujith said...
Sorry, I meant the 'sandwich' type of armor, which western
countries use, like the Kanchan. From what I read on the inter
net, they are different from ERA..

This is what I meant to ask, is Russia interested in this

type(sandwich) of armor or is it comfortable to use the ERA for
the time being?
Are there any advantages of one over the other?

And this is a question for which I could not find a satisfactory

answer to- Why did not Russia make South Ossetia a part of the
Russian Federation? I mean ethnically they the same as Russians
right? In the beginning I believe most of the S.Ossetians wanted
S.Ossetia to become a part of Russia. This would also add
slightly to the Russian population.
The reasons I could think of for not doing that are-
1) merging S.Ossetia with Russia may affect the international
image of Russia. It may be called 'hagemony' of Russia.
2)It could be useful as a 'buffer' state against a possible future
NATO Georgia.
June 23, 2010 6:24 PM

Igor Djadan said...

1) I think we apeak about same thing: combined armor is in
reality uses the 'samdwich' principle. Anyway whatever it means
Russians use laminated combined armor starting from T-80B.
May be that is somehow different in details, but the same
principle like Chobham armor on Chally tank.

2) For South Ossetia merging with Russia the unanimously voice

of all federative territorial authorities is needed. They want first
of all the independence of South Ossetia will be recognized all
around the world. Cuz they dont want to make the precedent for
eventual Kosovo-Albania or Moldova-Romania unification.
June 23, 2010 8:49 PM

GarryB said...
Even the first models of the T-64 have sandwich or composite
armour elements, this technology is not new to Russia.
July 1, 2010 3:55 AM

GarryB said...

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Defunct Humanity: Russian NxRA for LAVs

Actually during WWII some in the Soviet tank industry had some
outrageous expectations of expected German advances in tank
design and were expecting to have to put 107mm guns in their
tanks to defeat the heavy German armour very early in the war.
At the time composite armour was supposedly tried to protect
the Soviet tanks without making tanks as big as the Tiger and
King Tiger but they didn't enter service.
So few Tigers and King Tigers were made it just wasn't worth it.
The IS series was more than a match for the Tiger and it was in
the lighter weight class of the Panther.
July 22, 2010 5:55 AM

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Defunct Humanity: Russian NxRA for LAVs

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