A thermal sleeve, or blanket, is a device around the length of a gun barrel of a large caliber gun, typically found on modern tanks. Its primary purpose is to provide a more consistent temperature to the gun barrel preventing distortions due to thermal expansion caused by the temperature differences around the barrel when firing.[1]
Thermal sleeves were originally simply insulators. They would prevent ambient conditions such as bright sunlight or winds from heating or cooling one side of a barrel more than the other which would cause a thermal distortion (bending or drooping), reducing accuracy. More modern variants contain concentric inner and outer insulating sleeves with a gap in between. Versions have been created which are detachable from a given barrel so that they can be re-used with a replacement barrel. Proposals exist for types that have advanced external thermal and radar profiles, reducing their thermal and radar signatures making the barrel and thereby the tank harder to detect.[2]
One of the earliest guns to use a thermal sleeve was the Royal Ordnance L11 used on the Chieftain tank.
^Tucker p. 360-361
^US Patent 5400691 Archived 2011-06-12 at the Wayback Machine, Rigid thermal sleeve for a gun barrel, Retrieved on 29 December 2008
A thermalsleeve, or blanket, is a device around the length of a gun barrel of a large caliber gun, typically found on modern tanks. Its primary purpose...
maintenance without disturbing the actual sleeve, its improved version MG251-LR and the MG253, with a thermalsleeve developed by VIDCO Industries and a new...
105×617mmR L7A1 Standard UK production variant. L7A2 L7A1 fitted with a thermalsleeve. L7A3 Variant for the (West) German Leopard 1 MBT. The upper rear corner...
surface. The main components, including the breech ring, breech block and thermalsleeve, are simplified and designed lightly, the gun barrel weighs 1,324 kilograms...
Ordnance L11A5 120 mm rifled gun, it was fitted with an experimental rigid thermalsleeve optimized for hot weather operations, it was made of a new material...
was completed by October 1985, featuring an improved ZPL-81A with a thermalsleeve, new domestic light spot fire control system with a 2-axis stabiliser...
the ballistic computer to correct for changes as the gun is fired. Thermalsleeve Dursun, Tolga; Buyukcivelek, Firat; Utlu, Çağrıhan (May 2017). "A review...
Mk. 1 fitted with a General Motors Detroit Diesel 12V-71T engine, a thermalsleeve for the gun (L7A1 gun redesignated L7A2) and improved optics. Vijayanta:...
Bangladesh Army. The main armament 105 mm rifled gun is improved with thermalsleeve and fume extractor system. The tanks are equipped with GL-5 APS, but...
of the M60A3. The main gun is the rifled 105 mm/L52 M68A1E2 with a thermalsleeve. The 7.62 mm M73 coaxial machine gun used on the M60A1 was replaced...
caliber gyro-stabilized high-pressure, low-recoil gun equipped with a thermalsleeve and an integrated fume extractor, with 40 rounds: 14 ready rounds in...
alloy lining. Like earlier British 120 mm guns, it is insulated by a thermalsleeve. It is fitted with a muzzle reference system and fume extractor, and...
bore evacuator approximately two-thirds of the way to the muzzle and a thermalsleeve. When first introduced, a 12.7 mm (.50 in) calibre ranging gun was fitted...
105-millimeter (4.1 in) cannon protected from bending with a magnesium alloy thermalsleeve. The F1 is fitted with a semi-automatic vertical sliding wedge breechblock...
with 120x570mm NATO ammunition. This gun features a magnesium alloy thermalsleeve and an automatic loading mechanism. Elevation (+20°), depression (-8°)...
generation I, II and III rounds. The gun, fitted with a 51-caliber thermalsleeve encased barrel, fires six rounds a minute. There are two 7.62mm machine...
models, including new belly armor, Merkava tracks, new fire controls, a thermalsleeve for the gun and smoke grenades, eventually resulting in the Magach 6b...
after detecting what was believed to be an enemy flanking manoeuvre on thermal equipment. Two High Explosive Squash Head (HESH) rounds were fired, with...
KOO-zee) (US) or stubby holder (Australian) is a fabric or foam sleeve that is designed to thermally insulate a beverage container, like a can or bottle. The...