Interesting article

http://www.panzerworld.com/add-on-armor

I agree with you that this is a very interesting article. Do you recall a similar sentiment from Gen. Patton concerning American tankers doing similar things to increase the sense of protection?

In a somewhat similar thought process, we used all kinds of things to add protection to our vehicles in Iraq and it did result in better protection along with a better feeling about real or imagined protection. However, the knock on effect on those poor old HMMV's did strain the heck out of them, the mechanics and logistics.

Fortunately, we were blessed later with factory designed vehicles intended to handle all the extra weight without degrading performance.

Respectfully,
Allen

Thanks for posting that Frederick! The struggle between mobility, firepower, and protection is an epic cat and mouse game. It's interesting in looking at a Nation's armored vehicle fleet and you can see what priorities are evident.

Tim

Interesting article.

In "operation think tank" (available on youtube) these sorts of ideas were discussed. It was suggested that the German approach of hanging track links for added protection actually hurt the protection specifically against shaped charge warheads.

The idea was that in WWII, the shaped charges were poorly made relative to modern standards, and the fuses were slow to go off. The added track links provided the additional offset the slow firing fuses needed to get the timing right so that the 'blowtorch" effect would be initiated at the right time relative to the tank's armor.

Had the tank crews simply gone without the added links, the round would have hit the armor sooner, disrupting the timing of the slow fuse such that it was "late" and not nearly as effective as it was supposed to be.