Apocal

Just to answer your question; M1A2SEPs with TUSK applied mainly haven't had the RWS added, so they still have a pintle mounted 50. And those without the RWS do not have a thermal for the caliber fifty. As for the gunner's primary sight, the M1A2SEP did recieve 2nd generation thermal imager, as well as the M1A1SA. On the other hand, M1A1 TUSKs (any/all variants) with the old CWS do have a thermal sight added to the 50, which is nice because you fire the fifty from under armor, at night, accurately and effectively. In either case, most of either version A1 or A2 now have a semi-remotely operable loader's MG, with remote thermal sight added, an AN/PAS-13 Medium or Heavy. Effective detection range is something around 1.5km for a man-sized target for the heavy variant. The loader gets an eyepiece which displays the thermal image and he operates the weapon from behind his gunshield, so mostly under armor with that method. Additionally, all of the M1A2SEP-specific networking systems, most notably the IVIS, have been supplementated by newer systems like FBCB2/BFT and added to M1A1 under the M1A1AIM (Abrams Integrated Management) and M1A1SA (Situational Awareness) upgrade programs. AFAIK, this is also coming under the Marine Corps' M1A1FEP (Firepower Enhancement Program) which includes a laser rangefinder with 10km range, the 2nd generation thermal imager, various networking and situational awareness enhancements. On top of all this, all Abrams have been undergoing armor upgrades as they rotate back to the factory for depot-level maintenance, bringing them up to M1A2SEP standards. Cliff notes version: -M1A2SEP got new thermals. -M1A2/M1A2SEP with TUSK has thermal for RWS, but most do not have RWS installed. -M1A1AIM/M1A1SA/M1A1HC with TUSK most likely do have thermals for commander's 50, as it's already a fired from under armor. -Any variant with TUSK can have new loader setup with thermal and gunshield. -By 2010 all Abrams in the fleet will be one of three types; M1A1SA or M1A2SEP for the Army, M1A1FEP for the USMC. -All three types have equal armored protection.

14.2 seconds out to 5km, it's maximum range. Anyway, the Russians themselves only claim a fifty meter sensor footprint. Possibly they are lowballing and it has more, but certainly nowhere near the 2.5km range of a Javelin, or the 800-2000m range of the percentage threat ATGMs. The basic characteristics of the radar, carrier frequency and antenna size, argue very strongly against it. I only ask because the manufacturer of ARENA didn't mention anything but a MMW radar for threat detection. Jane's does not either. I can however see that you may be confusing Shtora and ARENA. Of course that still leaves the mind-boggling question of how you came to think Shtora detects a passive sensor... Then why are you claiming, with certainty, that they could detect the launch of a passive IR missile? Are you sure you are not confusing ARENA and Shtora in this? I confronted your confusion and/or ignorance regarding the limitations regarding detection of a missile launch. No need for links on my end. Reading through Jane's, Vasiliy Fofonav's Russian armor site, manufacturer's site, seeing a mockup, etc. all gave me a fairly reasonable idea of what the system is capable of. There is admittedly, some reading between the lines on my part, a lot of mentioning TOWs and Hellfires, a focus on helicopter-launched ATGMs in general by the company itself, along with the percentage threat of RPGs with late-model warheads, etc. Javelin comes down at high 70s to mid 80s in the terminal stage of a top attack profile, so it's functionally the same thing. The TOW-2B is the one you're thinking and KBP is speaking of; horizontal overflight with a downward firing EFP. Depends, there are some ways you can get around that, with phased arrays and such. But the company never claimed anything in that regard and no serious source has claimed they have full or even meaningful (with regards to Javelin) look-up capability. This raises the interesting question of how you suppose crewmen are going to egress the vehicle...? Hypothetical future tanks aside, most have access to the turret through hatches, with ability of a man to lift and close being the limit. On top of this, the big 80s thing was to actually weaken this top armor with the addition of various improvements in fire control systems, most of which required perforation of the top armor. Javelin has an effective range over five times longer than a rifle and twice that of a tripod-mounted machine gun. Certainly the classic combined arms counter to ATGMs is still applicable, but I'm gonna bet you can't name what it is. :confused: A curious world you must live in where a $100K (at bare minimum) system failing to protect a $2 million (at bare minimum) dollar tank over 95% of the time against a $75K missile is "paying for itself ten times over."

Nothing that hasn't been written in Jane's or other open-sources, which only explicitly talk about detection of overflying ATGMs. Obviously just from the way the radar antenna is laid out it can't see straight up. Yeah, no idea idea what's going on there. Some of the newest ATGMs are actually supersonic.

Going with demonstrated battlefield effectiveness as a metric, the in-game artillery and mortars are quite a bit overpowered. Unfortunately, this is because they pretty much took the lethality radius out of books and FMs and punched them into game, so even if you are a prone, an 81mm hitting within 25 meters will kill you nearly every time. 105s are overpowered overall, IME the (observed, not endured) effects weren't terribly better than 81s. In-game 105s are more on par with 155s and that is a whole different beast entirely.

Omnidirectional, in terms of bearing, not elevation. They claim the radar looks out to 50m, which I have no trouble believing.

What optical sensors? Russians have never claimed optical sensors for ARENA and every other nation trying to use optical sensors for passive missile launch detection never got over problems with the constant false alarm rate. Bear in mind "every other nation" developing such systems was doing so to detect hard-launch SAMs with a bloom measured in hundred foot radius, not two feet at the launch site like a soft launch ATGM. So what's your source? Which is the question mark to me. I've seen a mockup of the hard-kill portion of the system and, assuming it's accurate, there really isn't a way for it to cover anything near diving; the projectiles are loaded at an angle and actually face downward. My bad, was thinking of Drozd. Regardless, Javelin, or any other top-attack munition, spends the overwhelming majority of it's time outside of ARENA's sensor footprint. It remains to be seen whether TA-ATGMs enter it's engagement envelope even during the terminal phase of flight. Top attack has many useful functions. The biggest is the weakest armor on the tank is the top, but that will probably change in the next decades as other nation's get better situational awareness systems in place and start building crew access through the rear. The next big one is that Javelin specifically has a mode called "dead reckoning" which allows it to attack tanks in full defilade. No line-of-sight required. Addition of the ERA bricks around turret. Notice some of the angles they've been placed; they'd be glancing, non-penetrating hits fired from a direct fire weapon. However there is a hard limit on just how thick the top armor can be and how much ERA can go there; various armor-penetrating (as in wires and tubes go from outside to inside the tank) subsystems are in place, as well as the crew's hatches. Probably not in the near future. As a capability threat to Javelin, it's a question mark, as a percentage threat, it's not even close, there are something like twenty-five times as many Javelins in the world as there are ARENA-equipped tanks.

I know, I just wanted to see if the poster I was responding to knew what the fuck he was talking about. This of course is part of the reason for the top attack of Javelin and high-pass, top-attack of the late model TOW.

So how does it detect missile launch?

http://www.steelbeasts.com/GAME_INFO

Let me rephrase: how does the tank know it is being acquired by a passive IR system? Remember, passive means the system does not emit a signal, it only receives.

I'm curious as to what means is used to detect and prevent passive detection using IR.

Any possibility of adding engineer units into it?

I miss yurch.

Now that is freaking awesome.

Bummer. Thank you.