Merkava Mk 4 -VS- Leopard 2A6

What exactly determines the muzzle velocity, other than the mass of the projectile and the amount/type of the filler in the round?
 
Lunatik said:
What exactly determines the muzzle velocity, other than the mass of the projectile and the amount/type of the filler in the round?
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Propellant, barrel length, size of the projectile and friction between the projectile and the barrel.
 
Merkava would be much trickier and much will be guesstimates but i'm sure i could find quite a few hard figures regardless, you'd be amazed what Israeli soldiers can say on their own forums what they're not supposed to say, my jewish friend will help me seach and Sherman here can confirm his jidysh translation and links.
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firstly, its hebrew not yedish.

other than that, no IDF soldiers know the RHA values of any of the merkava tanks. I have seen the simulated preformance versus AT-14 and other ATGMs, but naturally, i can not and will not say more on that. what i can tell you is that not all tank commanders or even tank officers have seen that. Unless those people are on the protection design team at the merkava project, they cant and dont know. people on the deisgn team dont blab online about top secret stuff. you would be amazed about things my soldiers "knew" about the tanks protection, it would blow your mind.
 
Rorke said:
The only thing i personally have in common with tanks is training how to destroy and/or disable them i'm a seargant in the paras but thats beside the point.

http://www.militarium.net/viewart.php?aid=185

This is one of the sources with specifics on Leo ( not all ) i can obtain more if you wish, some of them would be scans and i assure you that none of them are a secret ( though they're not commonly accessible either ).

Merkava would be much trickier and much will be guesstimates but i'm sure i could find quite a few hard figures regardless, you'd be amazed what Israeli soldiers can say on their own forums what they're not supposed to say, my jewish friend will help me seach and Sherman here can confirm his jidysh translation and links.
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No need to, this is pure speculation coming off of this site, correct information would not be posted due to OPSEC violations. Another little tid bit of information for you, most Israeli tankers along with any other countries armor crewmen do not have a clue on what the exact armor and projectile specs on their tanks are, they are not trained to know all this information. All they care about is that they can shoot, move, communicate and survive. @Sherman can most likely relate to what happens to a crew member that has witnessed battle or training damage to a vehicle that exposed its armor integrity, you will be debriefed to a point that you will get the message on leaking secrets.
 
Sherman can most likely relate to what happens to a crew member that has witnessed battle or training damage to a vehicle that exposed its armor integrity, you will be debriefed to a point that you will get the message on leaking secrets
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The crew members are not capable of making any conclusions simply by looking at penetration marks. the tank is taken away to be examined and fixed, and that is the end of it. looking at penetration marks is useless with out knowing exactly which projectile, at what angle hit you.
 
Besides, I think a lot of outright false information is also out there due to Counter-Intel/Disinformation sort of activities. Or even be propaganda. Some of that may even look very real and seem to be coming from a legitimate source, but in reality be false or way off from the actual numeric value, etc. So, I would think twice before jumping to colclusions every time I happen to find 'stuff' online or talk to someone who appears to be "knowledgeable".
 
Rorke said:
Propellant, barrel length, size of the projectile and friction between the projectile and the barrel.
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Thanks Rorke.

How about the diameter of the barrel? Does that have anything to do with the muzzle velocity at exit?
 
SHERMAN said:
firstly, its hebrew not yedish.

other than that, no IDF soldiers know the RHA values of any of the merkava tanks. I have seen the simulated preformance versus AT-14 and other ATGMs, but naturally, i can not and will not say more on that. what i can tell you is that not all tank commanders or even tank officers have seen that. Unless those people are on the protection design team at the merkava project, they cant and dont know. people on the deisgn team dont blab online about top secret stuff. you would be amazed about things my soldiers "knew" about the tanks protection, it would blow your mind.
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Right, so when i produce the forums with posts of IDF troops that will shed some light on our discussion would you be so kind as to confirm the translations provided by my friend ?

I doubt we can get it down to exact thickness in mm but obtaining opinions about what happened when a specific AT piece hit the Merkava ( and there's quite a few ) can be confronted with 2A4s and the disclosed data about Leos and from that we get a pretty good general idea as to Merkavas armor capabilities.
 
Pale Rider said:
No need to, this is pure speculation coming off of this site, correct information would not be posted due to OPSEC violations. Another little tid bit of information for you, most Israeli tankers along with any other countries armor crewmen do not have a clue on what the exact armor and projectile specs on their tanks are, they are not trained to know all this information. All they care about is that they can shoot, move, communicate and survive. @Sherman can most likely relate to what happens to a crew member that has witnessed battle or training damage to a vehicle that exposed its armor integrity, you will be debriefed to a point that you will get the message on leaking secrets.
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Its posted by tankers not to mention i can provide similar german sites with german tankers doing the same, also you do realise that expos provide general data which is often enough ?
 
Rorke said:
Its posted by tankers not to mention i can provide similar german sites with german tankers doing the same, also you do realise that expos provide general data which is often enough ?
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I attend alot of those expos, never ever have I seen a defense contractor give out actual numbers on tank projectiles or armor numbers, and no tankers in either the IDF or from Germany is going to start spouting off actual numbers, the majority of them would not know anyways. before you continue to proceed down this road with me you better have admin verify my credentials, because I can tell you with over 25 years worth of experience with armor and that is real life experience you do not know what you are talking about. It is people like you why I quite posting on this site and why other people in the industry more than likely do not come to this site.
 
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SHERMAN said:
The crew members are not capable of making any conclusions simply by looking at penetration marks. the tank is taken away to be examined and fixed, and that is the end of it. looking at penetration marks is useless with out knowing exactly which projectile, at what angle hit you.
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Really,

IDF tank crews are not debriefed when they can see the construction and armor properties of Merkava armor protection.
 
But can someone please tell us something about the size of the two tanks?

The Leo looks much smaller than the Merkava...

The canons have somehow the same size, yet, the canon looks much larger on the Leo. The canon looks small on the Merkava.

So it means that there is more "room" on the Merkava as a platform... Maybe more ammo? more armor? more room for the crew? bigger engine? Etc...

Cause I think that it's the real big difference between the two tanks... Put a Merkava next to a Leo, and the Leo will look like a baby...
Smaller and lower profile...
 
SHERMAN said:
perhaps when very special things happen, like a whole plate being split open or somthing.
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That should be the norm,

A question that you may answer for me, the Merkava 4 is now sporting a loaders hatch, does the IDF have plans to convert all of their Merkava 4 with this modification.
 
A question that you may answer for me, the Merkava 4 is now sporting a loaders hatch, does the IDF have plans to convert all of their Merkava 4 with this modification
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Ive actually just seen that onlin my self. I assume that they will change all of them. Deleting the hacth IMH was foolish to start with, because it also caused deletion of the loaders MG. loaders MG is not always mounted, but its nice to have the option.
 
SHERMAN said:
Ive actually just seen that onlin my self. I assume that they will change all of them. Deleting the hacth IMH was foolish to start with, because it also caused deletion of the loaders MG. loaders MG is not always mounted, but its nice to have the option.
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It has rather thick armor, I darn neared choked on my coffee when reviewing some photos of it. I know that they went with a camera device because of not having a loaders hatch for vehicle security, did that set up actually work out pretty good. Have to agree with you that a extra set of eyes or crew served weapon is always a good thing to have.
 
yeah thats a fat hatch. but it cant possibly be the same material asthe rest of the armor or it would be impossible to handle.
 
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