Soviet Explosive Reactive Armour of the Cold War
This is an overview. As there's now four standard Twilight 2000 systems and a myriad of conversions I'm putting this up so GMs can think about how Soviet ERA is represented in their games rather than giving rules values.
Explosive Reactive Armour (ERA) is now well known but when the last of the GDW Twilight 2000 games were written it was just assumed to be exactly like the Israeli "Blazer" ERA. However the Soviet ERA was fundamentally more effective than NATO believed at the time.
During The Cold War the Western view was that Soviet ERA was a desperate attempt to provide some sort of protection for their comparatively lighter and less armoured MBTs. This was later found to be totally wrong and the ERA packages where the foundation of MBT armour survival systems. In game terms you will not see any vehicle with over 30mm of base amour in the Warsaw pact without ERA and this goes for legacy vehicles dragged out of depots. Yes, you might see a T-34/85 festooned in Kontakt-1.
Once the true nature of WTO ERA packages is understood you can bet your favourite boots that NATO will reverse engineer them. ERA kits for all sorts of WTO ERA will be developed for NATO MBTs. Whether indigenous NATO ERA packages gets to the troops or NATO relies on captured munitions is up to the GM. Other-than-Europe campaigns might have surprises for players when an MBT trundles into view clad in WTO-style ERA.
During the pre-2000 period the following Soviet ERA was available:
4C20 Kontakt-1
4C22 Kontakt-5
4C23 Kaktus (prototype)
Kontakt-1
4C20 Kontakt-1 was implemented in 1985 and was an interim solution to get ERA onto vehicles before the more mature Kontakt-5 could be implemented. Oddly enough this ERA has soldiered on for really no good reason even after it was superseded in 1989. Vast amounts of this ERA have been manufactured and this may have been because of the late Cold War tensions an urgent need for ERA was felt. As such buckets of this stuff is still around even after being liberally sold off at bargain basement rates.
Each unit of munition is 5.3kg and an entire MBT can have its ERA package installed in two hours by its three man crew. On average the ERA package for an MBT would weigh 1,200kg. Any MBT equipped with Kontakt-1 is a "B Variant". This stuff is enormously resilient, burnt-out MBTs with their entire hull armour destroyed by fire have been seen with their Kontakt-1 packages unharmed.
Due to the dynamics of the Kontakt-1 package the blocks must be installed at a 68º angle. This means that nearly all vehicles require a special underframe to support it and not a bunch of lugs as listed in the rules (a hold over from the early Blazer mounts).
Because Kontakt-1 is so stable it has nearly no effect on kinetic energy rounds, the reason for it being rapidly superseded. The Soviets intended their ERA to work against KE rounds from the very inception of the program and this is why Kontakt-1 can only be considered an interim solution.
Against HEAT Kontakt-1 is very effective.
- 9M113 Konkurs = 86% reduction (MILAN 2 equivalent)
- M72 LAW = 92% reduction
- 9K112 Kobra (125mm) = 58% reduction
For armour reduction Kontakt-5 has an
average penetration reduction of 60% for a single-warhead HEAT round
Kontakt-5
4C22 Kontakt-5 is the main level of defence you will see on Cold War MBTs of the Warsaw Pact. The Soviet Union was very aware that the Nazi German's stinginess in helping their Axis allies equip with modern equipment was one of the factors in their defeat and had plans to equip every MBT in the WTO with this armour package. Kontakt-5 really is the standard for Cold War ERA and was designed to be fielded with a slat armour package covering the rear third of the MBT as had been developed during their Afghanistan experience. The proliferation of NATO 120mm guns hastened the introduction of this munition.
Kontakt-5 was an adjustment to the sensitivity of the installation. It was designed to be immune to strikes of 30mm autocannon yet activate against anything heavier.
Kontakt-5 is heavier than Kontakt-1 and the mass of an MBT's armour package is around 2,000kg. Individual "Dynamic Elements" (blocks) weigh 10.35 kg.
For armour reduction Kontakt-5 has an
average penetration reduction of 60% for a single-warhead HEAT round and 20% for a KE round. This values vary as seen with the Kontakt-1 values above. Here is an excerpt of a NATO study from 2007:
Quote:
Jane's International Defense Review 7/2007, pg. 15:
"IMPENETRABLE RUSSIAN TANK ARMOR STANDS UP TO EXAMINATION"
By Richard M. Ogorkiewicz
Claims by NATO testers in the 1990s that the armor of Soviet Cold War tanks was “effectively impenetrable” have been supported by comments made following similar tests in the US.
Speaking at a conference on “The Future of Armored Warfare” in London on the 30th May, IDR's Pentagon correspondent Leland Ness explained that US Army tests involving firing trials on 25 T-72A1 and 12 T-72B1 tanks (each fitted with Kontakt-5 explosive reactive armor [ERA]) had confirmed NATO tests done on other former Soviet tanks left behind in Germany after the end of the Cold War. The tests showed that the ERA and composite Armor of the T-72s was incredibly resilient to 1980s NATO anti-tank weapons.
In contrast to the original, or 'light', type of ERA which is effective only against shaped charge jets, the 'heavy' Kontakt-5 ERA is also effective against the long-rod penetrators of APFSDS tank gun projectiles, anti-tank missiles , and anti-armor rotary cannons. Explosive reactive armor was valued by the Soviet Union and its now-independent component states since the 1970s, and almost every tank in the eastern-European military inventory today has either been manufactured to use ERA or had ERA tiles added to it, including even the T-55 and T-62 tanks built forty to fifty years ago, but still used today by reserve units.
The combined protection of the standard armor and the ERA gives the Tanks a level of protection equal to our own. The myth of Soviet inferiority in this sector of arms production that has been perpetuated by the failure of downgraded T-72 export tanks in the Gulf Wars has, finally, been laid to rest. The results of these tests show that if a NATO / Warsaw Pact confrontation had erupted in Europe, the Soviets would have had parity (or perhaps even superiority) in armor ”- US Army Spokesperson at the show."
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Kaktus
4C23 Kaktus is the Dissolution Period prototype that led to Relikt ERA, the most modern Russian ERA apart from the little-seen Malakit on the T-14 series. It is not impossible that Relikt was finished if you use a non-standard no-dissolution campaign as it was brought into service in 2006. As such Kaktus was certainly available but issued on a very small scale as it was preferred to wait for Relikt, a Twilight 2000 war would probably change that.
Kaktus has a unique characteristic. Prior to Kaktus all high-efficiency ERA required heavy MBT armour behind it to not only survive the remaining penetrative HEAT jet but also to absorb the shockwave of the ERA itself. Kaktus however can be mounted on light vehicles and the up-armoured versions of the BMP were the primary beneficiary of this ERA. The BMP-3B comes standard with this package. Generally you need at least 20mm of RHA equivalent (don't forget Soviet 550BNA HHA is equivalent to 1.3 times standard RHA) to support this ERA package ruling out the flimsier vehicles such as the poor old PT-76.
Kaktus can be attached at any angle to the vehicle.
The size of the blocks varies so I would simply use Kontakt-5 as a base (10.35kg). As this stuff can go on any vehicle a rough estimate is 2,000kg for an MBT and 1,100kg for a smaller APC/IFV. As usual this includes the slat armour package for the rear third of the vehicle.
It is an extremely effective ERA and is claimed by NII Stali to be 1.9 to 2.0 times the effectiveness of Konatkt-5. For armour reduction Kontakt-5 has an
average penetration reduction of 90% for a single-warhead HEAT round and 40% for a KE round.