Comments by "" (@RedXlV) on "Panther 2.0; The Rheinmetall KF 51 Next Gen MBT" video.

  1. Shot traps aren't really a thing for modern long-rod APFSDS projectiles. If it fails to penetrate the armor, it's going to shatter, not ricochet. And that wedge style of frontal turret armor (which originated on the Leopard 2A5) isn't actually the front of the turret. It's a hollow assembly that's attached to the front of the turret. An APFSDS rod that penetrates it will tend to tumble while inside the hollow portion, meaning that it'll be the side of the rod rather than its penetrator that hits the main armor.
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  2. That was the premise behind some 1960s tanks like the Leopard 1 and AMX-30. They were armored only against light weaponry because it was presumed that the latest tank guns and ATGMs would defeat any conceivable armor. These days, though, armor has advanced to the point that you can provide good frontal protection against tank guns without impeding the tank's mobility, and hard-kill active protection systems can counter top-attack ATGMs.
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  3. This is a private venture by Rheinmetall. The German government isn't throwing anything at it.
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  4. I don't see any reason to put those UAVs in the tank itself. The UAVs don't need their launcher to be under armor. Even if they're being directly controlled by a 4th guy in the tank, either have an unmanned ground vehicle carrying the drones or just launch them from 100+ miles back.
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  5. Was that 20 rounds total, or just 20 rounds of ready ammo for the autoloader?
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  6. Shot traps aren't really a thing for long-rod APFSDS projectiles. They either penetrate or shatter, they don't ricochet. And there's no doubt that the wedge on the front of this tank's turret uses the same principle as the one on the Leopard 2A5 through 2A7. It's hollow and causes projectiles to tumble after penetrating it so that the side of the rod instead of the pointy end will be what hits the main armor.
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  7. Given the US track record, more likely that we'll only adopt the Rheinmetall 130mm gun but put it on an American tank. Whether that will be just a re-turreted Abrams or an all new chassis, who knows.
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  8. The thing you have to bear in mind about Ukraine is that the Russian Army sucks. Apparently those ex-Soviet officers who had any concept of combined-armed tactics retired a long time ago, and so did the people trained by them. It doesn't take long for a military to lose its institutional memory, and now Russia is having to re-learn the basics of warfare while using a poorly-trained army.
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  9.  @troutwarrior6735  Why not? Would be a great way to field-test the new technology.
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  10. Being a German company, surely that would be "Löwe"?
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  11. The Panther II actually dates to 1943, and was cancelled that same year in favor of simply developing a new turret for the Panther. (The famous Schmalturm, which was meant to enter service in 1945 on the Panther Ausf F.)
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