Current Finnish OOB - some notes for discussion

[PvtJoker]

Originally Posted by FASTBOAT TOUGH

Another factor involved is how the TOW-2 family is divided. Simply put the TOW-2A are your tandem warhead mounted missiles. It is considered a direct attack weapon. you'll notice a multicharge here as well for the tandem penetrator.
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The TOW-2B are multiple explosive warhead missiles that are designed as "top attack" missiles and will react differently when hitting a target vs. tandem missile. Both will defeat ERA but generally specking a tandem warhead is considered more efficient at it. But remember you can't cover the top of a tank fully with ERA ethier.
Attachment 13082

Thanks about the NERA info. I knew about its existence but hadn't looked at it more closely .

About the TOW-2B: I was under the impression that it uses an EFP (Explosively Formed Projectile) warhead, which has relatively low RHA penetration and basically relies on the fact that most of the time the EFPs will hit the lightly armored turret top or the engine deck.

Related anomaly in the Finnish OOB: the Finnish "Kylkimiina" (Side Mine in English) (weapon 154) in the OOB is not really what the Finnish Army nomenclature means by a "Kylkimiina". "Kylkimiina" was initially developed in the early 1970s and it uses the EFP principle, which allows it to be placed up to 50 meters from the target. The mine is placed at the side of the road or other assumed path of an enemy vehicle and detonated by an observer electrically or by a wire pull. It is not a close assault but an ambush weapon intended primarily against unarmored vehicles and light armor, although the heavier version (KM 81) can penetrate the side hull armor of many MBTs. They were not available before the 1970s and the penetration of 20 is quite excessive for the weapons: http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index...68#entry667789 (the links don't work any more)

I don't think the WinSP engine lends itself very well for modeling this type of weapon, but in any case they should not be available before the 1970s (the first model was KM 73).

[PvtJoker]

More AT related stuff:

I am going to add a 122 H 63 (D-30) AT unit from mid-1990s. This howitzer has a secondary AT role in the Finnish Army and although it is "emergency only", the gun crews are trained for it and the weapons themselves come with a direct fire telescopic sight. LRF's are used for ranging.

The biggest problem I have with this addition is that there seems to be no reliable penetration data for the BK-13 HEAT grenade. Russian Wikipedia lists 460mm, but no hit angle. I also couldn't find the number in the listed sources, so who knows where it comes from. Russian Wikipedia also claim that max. range is only 1 km, but you can find scanned copies of the original firing tables going up to 2 km (somebody mixed up max. range with "direct fire" range to 2 or 3 meters tall target often mentioned in Russian manuals).

In Western sources the older BK-6(M) is also listed at 460mm at 0 degrees. Russian Wikipedia gives 400mm for it (incidentally, or perhaps not, 400 at 30 degrees is roughly the same as 460 at 0). According to the sectional drawings floating around in the net that come for a fairly reputable Western source, the BK-13 has a wave shaper booster and 105mm cone diameter, which would make 460mm at 0 degrees a much lower than expected RHA penetration compared to others of the same era (late 1970s). So, I assume it is actually at 30 degrees, which gives 530mm at 0 degrees. No more than a guesstimate, but then again the SPMBT OOB's are full of them.

I am also going to add a version of the 95 S 58-61 "Musti" recoilless rifles with a LRF since 1995. The Mobhack Guide says that recoilless rifles should always have RF value 2, but I suppose Don and Andy were not aware at the time of writing that many of them are these days provided with a LRFs, which did not exist during the heyday of recoilless rifles.