CHIEFTAIN vs T-64A & T-72 Ural | Composite Armour Piercing Simulation | 120mm L15A5 APDS

The Chieftain and the T-64A represent the most powerful NATO and Soviet tanks from the 1960's, with the T-64 being the first mass produced tank in the World to use composite armour. This was comprised of textolite (similar to fibreglass) sandwiched between two RHA plates in an 80-105-20mm configuration. This same layout was used on the first T-72 tanks. This textolite layer was mainly to improve protection against HEAT munitions, but at 700m, L15A5 can penetrate around 120mm of RHA at 68°, meaning the textolite, and the spacing it creates, provides a decent amount of additional protection against kinetic threats too. This armour arrangement could effectively resist all kinetic NATO rounds beyond 500m until the adoption of APFSDS in the late 70's. A simplified fibreglass model was used for the textolite, with the results against L15 matching Soviet reports of the time: #8010520 Amazing thumbnail art from: @Tank Encyclopedia L15A5 velocity/ra