CHALLENGER vs T-64BV | 120mm L23A1 APFSDS vs Kontakt-1 ERA & Composite Armour Piercing Simulation

The video presents a simulation of a Challenger 1’s L23A1 APFSDS projectile impacting the hull of a T-64BV, which includes Kontakt-1 Explosive Reactive Armour as well as a 5-layer steel and textolite armour array. Both vehicles, as well as the projectile, entered service in the 1980’s, with L23A1 being a monolithic tungsten alloy Armour-Piercing Fin-Stabilised Discarding-Sabot round, capable of penetrating ~460mm of RHA at 1000m. Kontakt-1 ERA was one of the first explosive reactive armour packages to be fielded, entering service shortly after Israeli Blazer ERA in the early 1980’s. The purpose of it is to disrupt a shaped charge jet, through explosive acceleration of its flyer plates. This proved to be very effective, but was not intended to protect against kinetic rounds like APFSDS. The main kinetic protection stems from the 5 layer armour array, comprised of high hardness steel and textolite. The outer plates are BTK-1 RHA, modelled with a hardness of 400BHN, with the centre being HHA, modelled at ~500BHN hardness. The layered arrangement increases the kinetic protection to ~505mm, higher than a single 300BHN plate of equal mass [see below]. This additional protection is due to the alternating lateral stresses imparted on the nose of the projectile, which deflects upwards when impacting a plate, and downwards as it exits a plate. These deflected parts are essentially ejected from the main penetration channel, wasting their penetrating power. While the textolite provides little resistance in itself, it supports the back face of each steel layer, as well as springing the steel back up with a ’lip effect’, impacting the body of the penetrator. The latter seems to have little effect but still deflects and damages the rod slightly. [Derivation of mass effectiveness]: Tankograd gives the LoS mass equivalency of the array as equal to 404mm RHA. A public British firing table and the Lanz-Odermatt equation give the 1000m penetration against 300BHN armour as ~460mm (model calibrated to this previously). Based on the remaining LoS thickness at the end of the simulation, the array provides about 45mm more armour than L23A1 can penetrate (460 45=505). So mass effectiveness = 505/404 = (approximately). A fall angle of 0.2° was also included so impact is at 67.8° Additional images provided on the community tab: All specifics of the T-64BV and Kontakt-1 were taken from Tankograd Amazing thumbnail artwork from: Kostur