China claims its new kinetic weapon makes tanks shake, rattle and roll

Interesting Engineering has published an article noting that simulations by Chinese scientists have found a high-speed kinetic energy weapon weighing just 20kg could stop a US tank in its tracks. Caliber.Az reprints the article.

Chinese scientists have allegedly developed a new high-speed kinetic energy weapon that could "shake apart" a main battle tank (MBT) like the US M1 Abrams, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reports.

What's more, weighing no more than 44 pounds (20 kg), the new weapon only needs a glancing blow to do so. The claim comes after the research team conducted an in-depth assessment of kinetic weapons through experiments and numerical simulations.

Tank-destroying spheres

According to the new study published on December 8 in the peer-reviewed journal Equipment Environmental Engineering, the new solid spherical projectile can travel at Mach 4 and carries around 25 megajoules of energy (roughly 7 kilowatt-hours of electricity).

It may seem improbable that a tank weighing 40-60 tons and protected by thick layers of armor could be disabled by such a small amount of energy, yet the researchers are convinced their findings are correct.

During simulations, the research team discovered that while the tank appeared undamaged on the outside on impact, its internal parts were irreparably harmed. In particular, it was discovered that bolts that connected important equipment to the inner cabin wall could fracture. Even if the crew survived the impact, they could not return the tank to its normal combat state.

"Under high-speed kinetic projectile impact, certain typical locations in the armored target exhibit impact response spectrum lines with amplitudes at certain frequencies exceeding the safety limits recommended by the US military standard MIL-STD-810," Huang Jie and team at the China Aerodynamics Research and Development Centre's Hypervelocity Aerodynamic Institute explained. "Components at these locations have a high probability of failure due to overload damage," his team added.

Unlike traditional anti-tank weapons that use high speed, penetrative capability, and a large number of explosives to defeat a tank's armor, high-speed kinetic projectiles have the potential to achieve lethal damage even upon grazing contact, and their launching methods can be diverse, perhaps even using railguns.

In their research, Huang's team found that assessing the damage caused by kinetic projectiles was much more complicated than evaluating conventional armor-piercing rounds. With the former, a piece of alloy armor can be used for testing, but testing for kinetic projectiles requires the consideration of the entire tank structure. This is because the shock wave generated by the impact travels through the entire vehicle in a very complex manner, causing stress to concentrate in areas like bolts and leading to distortion or even fracture.

Such an anti-tank weapon might also be non-lethal to the tank crew. Tank crews often point the front of the vehicle towards the energy, as this section is designed to be the most rugged and able to withstand the most firepower. But a kinetic projectile hitting this section would send destructive stress into the tank's interior, potentially causing catastrophic damage to its firepower capabilities.

"The grip of the tank gun stabilizer console can be shaken off, the wiring base of the console pulled out completely, all connections between the fire control computer and the turret severed, resulting in a substantial loss of firepower," the researchers said.

Non-lethal anti-tank rounds

In their paper, Huang's team did not discuss the impact on tank crews. However, the Dalian University of Technology in China conducted a numerical simulation study using a 10-megajoule (2.8 kWh) Mach 7 round earlier this year. According to this study, if an American M1 tank is hit head-on, it may cause minor wounds to the loader, moderate wounds to the gunner, and severe wounds to the commander. The driver, however, would like to be severely injured or killed.