Yes, but not enough against the latest M829A3 and Charm3 APFSDS. These rounds have substantial penetration capability & can penetrate through portions of glacis and hull at 2Km & below.

And what evidence do you have to back up this claim? Before the kill mechanism of 2nd gen ERA was understood the West claimed their DU penetrators were able to defeat any Russian tank. They even created some of their own ERA based on how they thought it worked and proved it wouldn’t stop their DU rounds. Once the ERA was properly understood however they tested it again and found their DU rounds failed to penetrate.
Have they actually tested these new rounds on ERA equipped T-90s, or have they simply used equivelent targets. The Russians made the same mistake with the Kornet. They credited it with 1.2m penetration figures but in practise they found penetration was averaging less than 900mm. They have since corrected the problem.

To use them at 5 KM, you need optics that are far more than the current 10X systems available on most western and Russian tanks, that would allow optimum targetting.

Why? The Russians have been using auto target trackers in the FCS for some time. Have spoken to someone who was familiar with T-72s and he claimed that during exercises helicopters did not do very well as their gas turbines generated such alrge IR plumes that even if they were behind a tree they stood out clearly and could be engaged easily at great ranges. Having guided projectiles makes it much easier of course as there is no need to anticipate the future position of the target.

Plus we were speaking of frontal attack ability, this is like having stuff which you can only use in some advantageous conditions.

Tanks in combat are not always driving directly toward the tant that is firing at them. Flank attacks are still and will always been standard practise in all armies.

Its pretty hard to detect, acquire, and fire onto targets at max advertised ranges, which remain mostly for discussion- most engagements take place at the 2KM-3 Km distance.

Why do you think desert storm was so one sided? With modern FCS and Thermal sights (which the T-90M has) this will be normal rather than the exception.

Shtora – by the time it reacts, a firing solution would have been obtained and you’ll have an unjammable KE round on the way.

Firing solutions don’t fall from the sky… you have to lase the target to get a range and that is when Shtora will activate and also when the IR smoke will be fired. The tank commander will no doubt move immediately.

Plus western tanks wont use HEAT or HESH against T series tanks would they?

Against T-55s and T-72s in Desert Storm they chose to… or was that case of the Challenger hitting another Challenger with HESH a case of bad manners. (One would assume a target that size was not a troop carrier).

the system has been deployed yes, but it still has some kinks that needed to worked out for operation in all possible scenarios.

So until the F-15 has been used to shoot down an airliner being used for a terrorist attack it is not a mature system… how do we know how it will perform in such a specialist role… some subsystems might fail due to the target being obviously civilian. Is the F-15 considered a mature system?

From everything I’ve heard & read, the newer European and Israeli Act Defense systems have some critical advantages over the above types.

Like what. Please list these advantages.

The Russian ones are good, but the Russian cash crunch has meant that they havent kept evolving

So Drozd-2 as seen on the Black Eagle prototypes suggest the program is stagnant. Fitting ARENA to BMP-3s shows they are not working on it either…

eg, EADS is currently planning on fielding an anti KE APS based on its currently developed APS but Russia is still trying to find an export customer to take its APS program forward.

What operational system does EADS have in the field gather experience and data to help them with development? Having a system planned to be anti KE is really nice but planned systems don’t stop anything.
Not mature, not operational, not in service… but better than anything the Russians have. Boy they need a sarcasm tag in html… :diablo: