One thing I am curious about is if tanks aim for a specific point on a vehicle to hit, or if they simply try to find the ‘center’ of the target and squeeze off a shot. I know that tanks can have ‘weak points’ (supposedly the T-72 was susceptible to a hit between the turret and chassis because of the way its ammo was stored)
Then again, different tanks may have different ‘sweet spots’, so maybe they are aiming for a specific spot.
Not aiming for the center of mass since that would require analysis of the weight distribution along the 3 axes. Generally, one doesn’t have the luxury of aiming for sweet spots on a tank if you’re in another tank or some anti-tank vehicle. Set the sights or lock in with laser on a big section and let’er rip. You want to blast them before they even spot you, so the distance is often long enough that you can’t discern which section of the tank to aim for.
FYI, in gunnery, the term “center of mass” refers to the center of the visual cross-section from your point of view, not the physics-literal 3D center of gravity/weight of the target object.
Yeah, that’s what I meant- I figured that in a pinch, you’d probably just want to put the crosshairs in the ‘middle’ of the sillohuette, that way if the shot drifts in any direction it might still hit the enemy tank.
The ideal place to hit a ‘generic’ tank is the turret ring. (That is where the turret joins the hull.) Of course known weak spots, such as the top, or better yet the top of the engine beck should not be passed up.
Still, in combat you take the shots you got. Center (of the visual, apparent) mass is an excellent compromise. It is more-or-less the turret ring line, and it increases the chance of a hit. (A small deviation will still hit something if you aim at the CoM.
Modern tanks have very effective armor, but any halfway modern tank packs a heck of a wallop. CoM is good enough for a tank gun. Save the fancy shooting for older weapons (like RPGs) which do not stand a chance against the main armor.
How likely is a hit to the turret ring? Wouldn’t it be smaller than the warhead and therefore the warhead would explode prematurely? If so, would the force of the explosion carry to the turret ring?
I don’t know. They told us to aim at CoM. Supposedly the turret ring is a point of weakness. I suppose that the shells are optimized for that sort of shot.
Chairman Pow, I think part of the logic in that is that at the turret ring, when you have a shape like this:
>================<
the sloping bit of the underside of the turret will be thinner-armored than the side-facing plates. And even if you had a flush-mounted turret like so:
|===========|
that’s still a major discontinuity in hull integrity, and a close hit is likelier to disable. Heck, say you just badly dent the metal abutting the ring – if you deform it enough to freeze the turret, now there’s a much less effective tank.
But I think that indeed it’s more of a question of aiming for the center, which the turret ring pretty much defines.
I’m just curious as it seems that in my recollection, the turret ring is very, very small compared to a 150mm warhead. I know there are different types of warheads, each with their different uses, but I’m curious as to how they work with this particular application.
I do recall reading about the “silver bullet” that managed to knock out a couple M-1s in Iraq. I recall there was quite a panic as that was the first time one of them had been destroyed/incapacitated by enemy fire and I believe they were hit in the turret ring area. I think the official word was that given the number of attacks against US tanks, it was just statistics.
I thought it was friendly fire, and the “silver bullet” was our depleted uranium round.
Deliberately placing a shot into a tank’s turret ring/hull juncture is next to impossible in battlefield conditions (note I said next to impossible), and the problem is exacerbated against Soviet/Russian designs due to their smaller turrets and lower hull forms.
Most kinetic armor penetration rounds are sub-caliber; IIRC, the DU penetrator of the 120mm M829-series round is about 30mm, so getting one to actually fit into the turret/hull juncture is not a problem.
The M-1 series tank reticle crosshairs is a dot surrounded by a 1-mil diameter circle, and various range and lead lines (vertical and horizontal). 1 mil is ~1 meter at 1,000 meters, ~2m at 2,000 meters, and so on. The M-1 series fire control system (if properly calibrated by the crew and with the correct variable inputs) can put a round through that 1-mil dia. circle at any range, up to the 4,000 meter limit of the electronic fire control system.
In real life, actual performance of the sights and rounds have been better than the electronic system has allowed for, but it takes a superior tank gunner to take advantage of that.
The “shot spread” from an M-1 tends to be a vertically flattened oval (meaning lateral drift is more prevalent than vertical), so a “center of mass” shot has a tendency to have a better chance at a hit on the weak turret/hull juncture.
People should also look at the design differences between Soviet/Russian tanks (and ChiCom, too) and American/Western designs. Look how large the turret is on an M-1; see how it overhangs the hull? Same as with the Challenger, Leopard II, and Leclerc.
Compare that with the T-55, T-64, and the T-72.
While the Soviet/Russian design does reduce the tank’s overall visual profile (reduced surface area), it does leave that all-important weak spot wide open and uncovered; virtually any turret hit is almost guaranteed to be “catastrophic.”
Do you have a cite? I don’t doubt you, but am interested in reading more on this. I remember it was quite scary for the troops (“oh no, suddenly, we’re not invincible anymore!”) and suddenly, I stopped seeing stories about it. If it were friendly fire, I can see why the G would want to keep it quiet.