>>64487341
>bricks and zincs of 5.45 PPBS out in the field

Does 7N39 actually go through level 4 plates?
I'm not convinced, at 850 m/s and 63gr it's just pretty damn close to a physical impossibility regardless of what the penetrator is made of.
Plus IIRC there's 7N39M in the works that is supposed to be better at penetrating ceramic so it would seem they're not all they're cracked up to be (outside of Tarkov anyway).

Anyway "more than enough" is a massive overstatement, a negligible fraction of the ammo produced and issued contains a carbide penetrator, it's just a financially and industrially nonviable, and that applies for much bigger players than Russia.