Combat Vehicle Vulnerability to Anti-Armor Weapons: A Review of the Army's Assessment Methodology
Abstract
It is vital to the success of any armored combat mission that the capabilities and limitations of the arms and equipment be well understood. A knowledge of the vulnerability of an armored vehicle and its crew to an expected enemy weaponry threat is an essential element in the commander's battle plan. For the vehicle to be effective, a reasonable invulnerability to a variety of expected enemy threats must be designed into the vehicle. An important element is some form of protective armor. Assessing the effectiveness of armor and armor configurations (vulnerability analysis) is a complicated process that begins in the conceptual design phase and ends with a final series of tests using live ammunition against a fully loaded, combat-ready vehicle. The results of these tests and their interpretation are crucial to the decision to deploy the vehicle. Recommended procedures for designing the combat-loaded, live-fire test series are contained in the report, along with suggestions for their execution. The committee believes that a minimum of three shots should be fired for each selected weapon-warhead combination and that the estimated cost per firing based on recent experience can be reduced in the future, particularly if an adequate program of engineering test firings has already been completed during the development process. Keywords: Armored vehicles; Survivability.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1989
- Accession Number
- ADA212306
Entities
Organizations
- National Research Council