The Armored Vehicle Thread

That 4km figure is with the most modern DU rounds and Refleks is from the 80s. The new Sprinter ATGMs made for the T-14 have a much further range of 12km.

Which even if you want to write that exact figure off as propaganda there's still no doubt they'd be able to offer a serious range boost over Refleks and would still likely be comparable to standalone ATGM systems. The Kornet-EM has a range of 10km.

Whether they can backport those to the T-90M is still up in the air, I remember there being some back and forth as to whether they can bring the T-14's gun to the T-90M because of autoloader compatibility.

Edited by LeGarcon on Jan 30th 2019 at 1:44:41 PM

That figure for Sprinter is laughable. Even if it is beginning to approach the range of a stand-alone ATGM it’s still going to have the same problem which is that the dimensions of the cannon (length and diameter) simply don’t allow for those missiles to have the range and the full size warhead.

And besides, it’s looking like the Armata might never even get it. Sprinter has been stuck in development hell for a while and current Armatas are shipping with Refleks instead.

All of this gets back to my original point though which is that gun launched designs are compromise designs and you could easily carry full size ATG Ms or other missiles in an exterior launcher.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 10:49:53 AM

10 to 12 kilometers doesn't sound too unreasonable.

It's about the same ratio that Refleks had when it first came out in the 80s back when breaking 2km with an APFSDS was considered a huge breakthrough.

Of course whether the Russians can actually build it or not however...

Edited by LeGarcon on Jan 30th 2019 at 2:03:53 PM

I have to agree on the exterior mounts being a superior choice. Missile diameter and length are big factors in determining their efficacy. By choosing an external system you could make it as large as you need. Diameter is important for penetration. Being a 125mm or 120mm limited diameter is going to hamper warhead efficacy. You also can't stack more and more warheads Tandem or other configurations without negatively impacting shot performance. The gun fired missiles are far more hard limited. They have limits on weight, length, and diameter.

An external tube or rail allows you to create a larger and longer weapon. You want ranges out of weapons that will put you out of reach of most common modern threats including an array of portable missiles you need a larger and heavier munition. You want something roughly in the same size range as the Israeli Spike NLOS which has 25km reach. It isn't a small missile though with something about 90lbs for the missile alone, 170mm diameter, and about 5 feet long. That is easily bigger than any tank round.

Another thing to consider is that the gun fired missiles eat into the standard round count of a tank which they are going to be used in far greater numbers.

The gun fired missile also have to be kicked out with less force compared to the dumb shell counterparts if they can supposedly kick the Sprinter out to the ranges they claim their regular shells could easily be shot out to those ranges with greater ease.

The Russians have mounted ATGM's on armor externally and they worked pretty well especially in defensive and ambush roles so it isn't outside the reach of their technology or tactics to do it again.

90 pounds is a big missile. It's a little much to try and strap 8 or more of those to the outside of your tank.

Not that big of a deal and you are unlikely to need 8, to begin with. Again the tank is better served stocking other far more commonly used munitions for the gun ammo. 90 pounds is a big missile but not the biggest or heaviest in that role. Weapons like NLOS (Non Line of Sight) let the crew lob the missile from behind cover but a gun fired missile has to have line of sight to be fired first and the lasing system has to be pointing at the same target on the same side. Weapons like NLOS don't even have to be fired directly at the target. A tank with 2-4 similar missiles would ample in the vast majority of situations. In others, it would be better served to covered by dedicated ATGM platforms. 4 Tanks with 8-16 missiles overall is a good bit of firepower.

The gun fired missiles make more sense for larger bore artillery or gun systems that lack the full suite of systems modern tanks have. Like Copperhead, Excalibur, and Krasnopol.

The problems with external mounts are vulnerability and capacity.

You may be able to carry bigger missiles, but your only getting 4 at best, and much more reasonably 2.

In addition there protection is normaly pretty thin, and able to be damaged by a HMG.

They are not always the superior choice, it is a trade off and one needs to consider just how many extended range shots they want to be able to take.

Capacity is a non-issue. You simply don’t need that many missiles. If you want to carry lots of missiles you’re better off being a dedicated missile platform, and the gun-launched missiles aren’t fundamentally different enough from a shell to warrant eating into your regular ammo capacity to carry a bunch of them. This is where the Russian claims on the subject kind of fall apart, sincs these missiles don’t provide an NLOS capability different from what a shell already can.

Vulnerability is also a non-issue. A box launcher will shield the missile from small arms fire, and if anything bigger than that is hitting you you’re in a bunch of trouble either way.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 3:52:56 AM

I think you vastly underestimate the importance of capacity, 2 shots is just not worth it when you could carry 6 for the cost of only an extra pair of normal ammo rounds.

Same for vulnerability, your not going to sheild from small arms without adding a fairly significant chunk of extra weight on vehicles that already need to be put on a diet any way.

Sure the warhead won't be as big as a dedicated platform, but quite bluntly as long as it goes through the armor, the tank at the other end is pretty fucked either way.

Edited by Imca on Jan 30th 2019 at 4:04:27 AM

You can easily get higher capacity in external mounts. It is significantly harder to get more stowage inside. Missile mounts can be nothing more than light fixed rails or tubes. You don't even have to use fancy turret systems you just a tube with backblast deflector angled up a bit and you aim it by pointing the turret. It is also easier to enclose external mounts than to try and adjust internal protections and handling systems.

Overall external mountings beat out gun fired systems on pretty much every front except for convenience. They are easier to include that anything that has to pass through the gun, offer far greater flexibility in design, are easier to protect if you want to do that, and you frankly have a lot more options for munitions than anything gun fired short of larger caliber field guns.

The only notable issue is exposure to threats vs the host of issues and limitations imposed by something that has to be fired through a gun system.

To drive my point home. Kornet a Russian made TOW missile for the longest range variant has an 8km effective range. It is already outranging or matching any in-service gun fired guided missile. It literally only need a data link to a targeting system and be mounted on a light-weight and compact rail. The Russian Kornet D vehicle launcher is an SUV vehicle that fits them on internal pop-up launchers that is nothing more than a limited rotation spindle with 4 tubes and an EO sight. It is pretty damn compact. You could quite easily find room on a tanks exterior for a simpler launch system which the Russians already have. The Russian BMPT mounts four larger and heavier missiles that meet the same requirements and the improved range variant can reportedly reach 10km. I am sure they could find a way to fit Kornet EM systems. The Russians are already using external mounts that beat out anything gun fired in their inventory short of large bore field artillery.

Really external mounts offer more flexibility and possibilities than anything that has to pass through any Modern MBT's gun. That platform is just too limited by scope and scale and technical constraints to make it truly worth it in a tank.

Pretty sure 6 gun-launched ATGMs will cost you six rounds of normal ammo, not "a pair", while two tubes on top of the tank leaves all of your internal stores intact.

Also, I'm really not seeing the point of gun-launched ATGMs. They just sound like a bad compromise between real, full size ATGMs and regular tank rounds that combines the weaknesses of both with few of the strengths of either.

You vastly overestimate the importance of capacity. Gun-launched missiles don’t add enough additional capability to justify carrying many of them, while having 2-4 fully capable missiles adds an incredibly potent capability. You’re far better off carrying a full load of conventional shells and a handful of full size missiles than you are carrying any sizable amount of gun launched missiles.

We also already know for a fact that you’re wrong about the vulnerability issue. There are many armored vehicles that use box launchers and have used them in combat with no issue. An armored box is more than sufficient to protect from machine gun fire.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 4:18:53 AM

The ammo stowage thing isn't too big of a deal for the Russians because they built the carousel to accommodate them.

Which is where the number 8 comes from, that's the amount that's usually loaded into the magazine.

That’s still stowage space better filled with conventional shells.

Gun-launched missiles have never felt like a particularly relevant capability, though for the Russians they might be worth it given the threat posed by NATO helicopters.

Edited by archonspeaks on Jan 30th 2019 at 4:57:46 AM

Garcon: The made the missile after the launcher, not the other way around. The existing family of gun fired missiles had to be adapted to the constraints of the whole system. That and it still takes up slots in the internal storage. Again they already have better missiles they are already mounting to armor exteriors that outperform the gun fired weapons.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Jan 30th 2019 at 7:13:05 AM

Gun launched missiles offer vastly superior accuracy over extended distances. Even the best modern FCS is going to have trouble hitting something beyond 4000 meters without guided weapons.

That accuracy level can mean the difference between your shot whiffing into the dirt and hitting the target be it a tank, IFV, bunker or what have you.

Also, gun-launched missiles were developed in the US around the same time the Russians did theirs. Except unlike the Russians, our taste for em soured because of this POS known as Shillelagh which was fired from the piece of shite known as M551 Sheridan. Shillelagh was unreliable, expensive, huge compared to more conventional ammo, and was fielded during this little dustup in a place called Vietnam where tanks were few and tank engagements were even fewer. The 60s and 70s came and went and a whole slew of newer more reliable and frankly better in all regards missiles came out be it TOW, Refleks, Hellfire, Maverick, even the much-maligned M47 Dragon by the 1980s. We fired off a couple of Shillelaghs during Desert Storm at some Iraqi bunkers for funsies and then promptly retired Sheridan and Shillelagh forever.

That bad experience is kind of a big reason why between 1967 and now we never put much stock in the concept.

The South Korean KSTAM has indirect fire/top-attack capabilities. If the US is going to adopt gun-launched ATGMs, it might be useful to use that as a model, especially since not every terrain is going to give 4,000+ metres of unobstructed line of sight.

Tom: You do realize the missiles have to get a lot closer to the tank than 4km to actually be capable of doing anything? You know like hitting the tank. Nearly all of them are impact triggers. Which means APS hard kill works on them just as effectively as it does any other missile or rocket.

Main tank rounds have a very high degree of accuracy, to begin with, and can accurately hit targets at multiple km of range. If you're trying for the range and accuracy your better off with external options.

The US problems highlight a lot of the issues. You have to fight design limitations to make the weapon work as well as larger ATGM's which is why Sheridan's gun is such a large caliber, to begin with. That and the M-60 Starship which followed nearly the same outline had hiccups and issue and was almost prohibitively expensive. Again trying to shoehorn the capability into modern tank guns is a waste as they can easily do better with other options that are cheaper and easier to operate.

Eagle: KSTAM isn't a gun fired missile though. The descriptions from reliable sources it is a smaller caliber copy of other EFP artillery projectiles like SM Art 155 and SADARM and a few others. All projectiles of that design ride in a carrier shell, deploy a shoot, search, track and target then fire an EFP shot into the top of the tank. Even then that is better left to artillery which can either loft munitions carrying more individual shots or fire them a lot further than a tank. Compared to gun fired missiles though it is a step up as they can fire from behind cover if they have to and the munition guides itself once it deploys from the carrier. It still has the constraints of the gun caliber and ammo stowage and still takes up room that would normally go to other rounds. Other than that though it is a much better option than trying to force the missiles to work with guns.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Jan 31st 2019 at 3:24:20 AM

If you're not using guided missiles, what's the point of fussing with missiles on any vehicle big enough to carry an anti-tank gun anyways? If larger externally-mounted missiles have a longer range than smaller internally-launched ones, I don't see downside. It's not like the tank gets tired.

And anyways, didn't a lot of the Iraqi tanks in Desert Storm buy real estate at the hands of American APCs lobbing guided missiles at them in the dark? When you're limited by the effective range of an anti-tank gun, you might as well augment with the most capable missiles you can mount on the tank to engage at range, or else you're leaving yourself at the mercy of the enemy who will.

If you can afford to tank those casualties, more power to you though.

Edited by AFP on Jan 31st 2019 at 2:40:47 AM

Picture Of Newest M1 Abrams Tank Variant With Previously Unseen Turret Armor Emerges.

Color me completely unimpressed. Downright disappointed actually. It looks like 100% just slapping on MORE WEIGHT onto an already too fat system that's increasingly outdated and archaic.

Yes US tanks need APS such as Trophy, no we do not need to continue this Sunk Cost Fallacy of keeping to a 1970s tank design.

It's just too heavy.

With the TUSK package it's already pushing 70 tons

Why is the Type 87's◊ turret so big and boxy, when its radar is mounted to the back of it?

Tank Encyclopedia says that the front part houses the computers.

Okay so what is going on here?

Also I am being told thats a type 10 without its armor, but its turret looks more like the type 90.... does the bolt ons really change the shape that much?

That is a Type 90, you can see a front view here [1]◊ that gives it away. I believe they’re used for giving tours.