This is interesting:
The PJ26 can fire single rounds at surface targets as quickly or slowly as desired. Smaller caliber versions (30-40mm) used as anti-aircraft or IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle) weapons could disable a tank with AHEAD ammo by shredding all external sensors and fire control system components. The tank crew would survive but they would be unable to use their main gun because the fire control system was destroyed.
I keep reading that active protection systems (APS) might allow us to build armored vehicles without heavy passive armor, thus making our tanks strategically mobile without sacrificing protection (or lethality).
I am skeptical that APS can be anything but a layer of defense. Long ago I wrote of a vehicle that relies on APS:
The problem is, what if an enemy fires something too heavy to be stopped by the passive armor yet too numerous to be stopped by limited APS capacity?
What if the enemy uses 30mm chain guns firing high velocity rounds to spray the FCS with penetrating ammo? With no heavy Abrams-like armor to defeat, why would an enemy bother with 125mm cannons?
Heck, why couldn't you use a carrier round for the big cannons that detects the target as the round approaches and releases dozens of submunitions outside the range of the APS that blanket the FCS and overwhelm the APS while still packing a punch to penetrate the thin legacy armor?
Or maybe enemy infantry just fires RPGs in volleys.
Or perhaps the enemy just goes for mission kills by using weapons that only aim to shred the tracks or wheels, or knock out the vehicle's sensors, defanging the target for the duration of the battle.[emphasis added]
That's what the AHEAD round does. Which means that we need passive--and thus heavy--armor to protect our fighting vehicles.
Unless we are going to mass produce semi-disposable light fighting vehicles as an alternative to survivable vehicles.
