Bulletins and News Discussion from November 6th to November 12th, 2023 - Apartheid Antony's Asinine Adventure

I doubt every hit is a kill, but the moral/e and propaganda victories are worth it on their own tbh

The yassin 105 has 60 cm penetration in metal according to them

Hard to say. Merkavas are very well protected. Those warheads we're seeing in almost every video are tandem warheads - The first bulge is a small explosive intended to detonate Explosive Reactive Armor bricks. Once the ERA is gone the second explosive is conventional shaped charge HEAT round. Modern tandem RPG rockets are about the best armor-penetrating weapon you can have before you start having to use very heavy and hard to move anti-tank guided missiles, but they're still limited against first-line modern MBTs like Merkava IV and V, Abrams, and various other modern tanks (I don't know what the current gen tanks in India, China, etc are). Allegedly Abrams in Iraq shrugged off dozens of RPG rounds, but I don't know if that was standard RPG HEAT rounds or the heavier, more powerful tandem rounds we're seeing.

At any rate, what they've got is the best weapon available for this kind of hit and run urban combat. It's not like you can miss at those ranges.

As @ItsPequod@hexbear.net says, Mobility kills are almost as good as a hard-kill. A mobility kill is when an armored vehicle is damaged such that it can no longer move. This might be damage to the tracks or engine, or some other component that renders the tank unable to move. At that point the tank is extremely vulnerable. The crew either has to abandon the tank and run for it or wait and hope they get rescued. There's an old, old, very cold-blooded theory to sniper warfare - It's desirable to wound and enemy solider in a manner that is extremely painful and incapacitating, rather than killing them outright. The wounded soldiers comrades will almost certainly try to rescue them. You can then wound another soldier. This creates incredible stress on the targets as they're forced to choose between risking their lives to save their comrades or leaving their comrades to die. It's one of the key reasons that the proper way to deal with snipers is to call in artillery to flatten the entire area where you suspect the sniper is. The same principle can apply to armoed vehicles - Disabling the vehicle forces the enemy to stage some kind of rescue. Alternately, you may be able to capture the crew.

Buy contrast, a hard-kill is when the vehicle is irreparably destroyed. This is often due to ammunition being hit and cooking off, that is all the ammunition in the tank igniting and then detonating. If you see a tank with it's turret blown hundreds of feet in to the air, or jets of fire twenty feet tall coming out of every hatch, that's a cook off. Probably the most desirable tank kill. There's no coming back from that. Merkavas specifically store their ammunition in the hull of the tank to make this less likely to happen. Many tanks store ammunition in the turret so it's easier to load. Merkavas are heavily built around survivability. The engine is in the front of the tank. If an ATGM manages to pen the front armor it still has to go through the engine before it can kill the crew. The ammo is stored inside the hull so it has the most possible protection. The whole turrent is characteristically slanted so that any round impacting it is likely to splash due to the angle. If it does penetrated it has to go through a very thick cross-section of armor compared to a 90* impact. The Merkava has an as far as I know unique rear-hatch so that the crew can evacuate the tank through the rear instead of having to climb up out of their hatches. The whole thing is built around survivability. As tanks go it's a very good one. It still has most of the disadvantages of a tank though - A large target with poor visibility and very limited urban mobility.

Merkavas also seem to lack a weapon system I consider essential for urban combat. Remote weapon systems are remote-controlled turrets placed on top of armored vehiicles like APCs, MRAPs, and tanks. They're usually equipped with a machine gun or a grenade launcher, thermal and visible optics, and sometimes other sensors and equipment. For clarity, this is a small turret placed on top of the main turret. The key advantage is that the whole thing is controlled by the commander from within the safety of the tanks armor. The remote turret can be used to cover the tank's rear and sides, engaging infantry at angles that the main gun can't necessarily reach. It's an enormous advantage in urban combat and I'm kind of shocked it isn't standard on Merkavas.

Interestingly, Narmer APCs do have remote control weapon systems.