The Armored Vehicle Thread

That was the original idea but once you put the extensive ERA and armor packages on it clocks in closer to 60 tons.

@Taira: IIRC T30 was meant to be more of a turreted assault gun. It was the 120mm-armed T34 that was meant to be the armor killer.

Also the unmaned turret saves weight.

@Balmung: The problem is that both the T30 and T34 were too large to move or be moved back in WWII.

Again, now matter the armor and armament of these tanks, they have to travel routes and the same way as the older models.

Too big to move or be moved was a first generation tank problem, the French Char 2C couldn't be made any bigger lest it be incapable of being transported by standard French railways. (It was as wide as a rail car back then.)

And it certainly didn't move worth a dang on its own either. (Which proved to be problematic in the face of blitzkrieg in 1940...)

In any case, any future tank (French, American, German or otherwise) if it wants a bigger gun is going to have to find room (or develop new ammo) that allows it to carry a reasonable amount of ammo. Forty rounds of 120mm frankly doesn't cut it at anything other than slicing through tank divisions with a hundred other friendly tanks beside you. Anything less which the 130-152mm range might just do would be unacceptable.

Of course it would also need to shave a lot of weight. Abrams right now is unnecessarily heavy and fat in every way. A replacement would need to be lighter (60 tons loaded hard maximum, ideally closer to 50 or less), smaller in dimensions, autoloaded and perhaps remote turret and generally keeping up with the times instead of ancient WW 2 or Cold War era tank/crew doctrine. French Le Clercs and German Leopard 2s have many of the same issues.

Edited by MajorTom on Jan 27th 2019 at 5:09:49 AM

They could lean on low profile turrets with partially externally mounted recoilless rifle gun. They work just fine with manual or auto-loaders so you could go that route.

I'm not seeing a future in manned turrets for AFV's of any stripe. Too much weight, too big in size and profile even amongst low-profile models and too many casualties if it takes a penetrating hit.

Warships ditched manned turrets for their big guns decades ago, why not tanks?

There was a project (sadly canceled at the model stage) for a SABOT round with 4 rocket motors attached. Popular Mechanics called it "the King of Kenetics" (guess that makes the Navy's railgun the Queen?).

Presumably it would have been fired by the M 1 A 1's 120mm gun.

The US Army would go with a manual loading 130mm gun only because there's only just so much room on the M1 chassis.

And there lies the root of the problem, trying to wage 21st century war with a tank designed in the 1970s.

It's like trying to fight off Saddam's Republican Guard in 1991 using WW 2-era Shermans. Woefully out of date.

There have been a few rocket boosted tank fired projectile projects.

As for the bigger gun. The US did tinker with several autoloader designs that used the Abrams chassis and/or hull as a base including one with a larger bore gun. Honestly if the US wants a larger bore tank gun an autoloader is practically a must.

The problem with a new tank design? When Big Army tired to replace the Bradly (after the fail that was the FCS), the Ground Combat Vehicle came in at 80 tons. A platoon would weight more than Hitler's Maus and be just as hard to move.

Someone has to reign in TACOM before they make a "combat system" that can only fight on re-enforced concrete runways.....

We really do need to replace the M1 sooner than later though.

Its still an adequate design but we've reached the limits of what can be done with it as a platform

I'm sure you could do a lot more with the platform. It might be nearly as expensive as starting from square one, but sometimes it helps sneak the new toys past congress, like how the Super Hornet was basically an all-new plane that looked kind of like the classic Hornet so they could trick congress into thinking it was a "fiscally responsible upgrade" of an existing plane, or how we arbitrarily call new surface combatants frigates, destroyers, or cruisers based pretty much entirely on what the DOD thinks is most likely to get congress to buy it.

Reminds me of the story about how the Boeing B-50A was designed. They took the design for the B-29D and changed the number at the end to make it look new because Congress wanted sexy new stuff and not beat up old WWII designs. It was quite the improvement over WWII-era B-29s, mind you. For one thing, the B-50 didn't set its engines on fire in flight.

I disagree. While yes you could do turret replacements for other roles such as SPAAG, the problem becomes the chassis. It's a 1970s design built around maximum armor, to hell with anything else.

A problem the Char 2C encountered decades before Abrams ever left the drawing board.

You have less potential by sticking to outdated designs like that than if you were to build entirely new from scratch.

And the cost difference between sticking to old chassis and building entirely new wouldn't be that much. At least entirely new chassis and designs can be built to handle new ideas or additional roles. For example, the new tank design could be the basis for an SPAAG, a fire support vehicle, a self-propelled howitzer, a bridgelayer, an armored recovery vehicle, theoretically it could even go like Merkava and be built or modified easily to carry troops as an ambulance, APC or IFV. All for the same chassis design which would greatly simplify logistics and maintenance costs in the long run. (Armata was built with this line of thought.)

Tom: Not the chassis, but the complete body is the issue. You could strip the tank down to the frame and build something completely different off of it. The frame was built to haul at least 60 tons so you have part of the hard work of the design done. The rest would be what you layer on after.

As it is, the M1 Abrams family has pretty much run its course in what we can realistically do with it. We use other platforms for IFV's, mobile arty, MLRS, etc. The US is pretty close to getting a fairly well-protected battle taxi. What we need is a new design and to shave some weight off of the big lady that is the Abrams tank.

That is one of the driving factors in US military-related Material research and why materials like composite metal foam are kind of exciting.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Jan 29th 2019 at 5:38:59 AM

That, and I'm pretty sure a newer turbine could post better fuel economy, and by extension, range.

Balmung: The current trend is hybrid vehicles which can run almost silently and of course the fuel efficiency benefit. The US has been doing on and off experimentation with hybrid armor vehicle engine designs as well as improved fuel efficient engines for a few decades now.

It's not just weight that Abrams is too big at. Too wide, too long, too tall, and this the hull and turret speaking. There are many places and spaces an Abrams cannot go because it's too fat, too wide, too long or too heavy. This includes bridges, creeks, alleys, narrow streets, and more.

Tom: Not really no. The primary issue is weight. Weight is a far more restrictive factor than any other issue. The Abrams size works just fine in the vast majority of situations. You will never be able to design a vehicle that can fit all the roads and cities neatly especially of urbanized poor areas with an increasing lack of building oversight.

And remember, the US has very good roads and bridges, our host nations? Um...yeah.

The MRAP was kicked out of South Korea because the 2nd ID found it too big to move around. They almost had soldiers take courses on how to drive it (I almost got voluntold to take MRAP lessons).

So if a bitch like that is too much, what would some 80 ton monster be?

Basically yeah. Trying to make the tank more compact has design limitations unless you want to go to extremes and aim for the white paper ideas like a two-man crew vehicle.

A two man crew might be an interesting idea to entertain, but the problem becomes who takes over what of the tank commanders jobs.... and what can be done to mitigate the situational awareness loss.

But really, I think even just an auto-loader and a three man crew would let you shrink the abrams a bit, they are pretty big on the inside.

Renault FT was a two-man tank. As were several interwar era designs.

It wasn't that bad with the FT mainly because it was so light but even that had limitations in awareness and rate of fire.

It's size in general not just. When you're significantly taller than a T-90, significantly longer and wider too and have not really much difference in ammo capacity, range and combat capabilities, you're simply too big.

All of Abrams peer competitors and potential foes be it T-90, Armata, Type 99, etc. are smaller dimensionally and aren't lacking in fighting capabilities. They're also lighter.

A more compact design allows for the same armor thickness for less weight and a more efficient internal layout with autoloader would mean the same amount of ammo can be carried too. It also makes you harder to hit and harder to kill as there's less tank to aim at.

Hell when many of our allies have smaller tanks that are no less capable (for example Israeli Merkava and the Japanese Type 10), you know we simply have a too big of a tank in every way.

I’m not sure about these “significant” size differences. The Abrams is 26ft long, 12ft wide, and 8ft tall. The T-90 is 22ft long, 12ft wide and 7ft tall. The T-14 is 29ft long, 11ft wide, and 11ft tall.

Those are all pretty similar sizes, and if anything an Abrams-ish size seems to be where the trend is heading. It’s well known that the T-90 is a bit too small. The issue with the Abrams is its massive weight.

I’m also not sure I buy a T-90 or T-14 being on par with an Abrams, though that comes down more to other factors.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 8:15:51 AM