Nuclear powered tanks

I read on whatifmodelers forum (I think from an uk75 post) that there were some studies for nuclear powered tanks in the US in the 50's.

I would like to learn more about this designs and see drawings if it is possible :

Ask, and you'll be given... ;D

Model of a conceptual atomic powered tank, Army Ordnance model, 1955.
US Army started its own Army Nuclear Power Program in 1952. First they developed self-contained movable nuclear power packs for remote locations, called Army Package Power Reactor. As for vehicles, more info can be found in an article in 1963 Army Information Digest by Major General James B. Lampert, chief of program, "The Nuclear Powered Field Army of the 1970's". By 1963 the concept had evolved in two directions: large special purpose vehicles (land cruisers?) with a nuclear reaxctor on-board, and nuclear powered mobile generators for, guess? Extract hydrogen from water by electorolysis or pyrolysis to fuel LH tannks and trucks... If one of our US members is able to purt hands on that Army Information Digest issue, scan it ant poost it here, it would be very appreciated....

Ask and you will be given - part 2.

Soviets built mobile nuclear powerplant called TES-Z (or object 27) on T-10 tank gear. However gear was longer compared to T-10 and had wider chains. It was manufactured in Kirovsk factory with help of "Laboratory V" or better to said Russian nuclear scientific center in Obninsk. Overal weignt was about 90 tons and output power 1,5 MW. One prototype was manufactured and from 1960 rarely used.

Thanx to one my friend, now we have also picture.

Offtopic - Mato, my hometown is Obninsk, BTW)))) Town full of submarine crew black-suiters studuing nuclear reactors.

Subsequent to the ASTRON meeting on 17-18 May,
Chrysler Corporation presented a separate proposal for an
unusual tank designated as the TV-8. This design located
the entire crew, armament, and power plant in a pod shaped
turret mounted above a lightweight chassis. The total weight
was estimated to be 25 tons with about 15 tons in the turret
and 10 tons in the chassis. The two were separable for
shipment by air.
The TV-8 was armed with the 90mm gun T208 rigidly
mounted in the turret and fitted with an hydraulic ramming
device. The 90mm ammunition stowage was in the rear
of the turret separated from the crew by a steel bulkhead.
Secondary armament consisted of two coaxial .30 caliber
machine guns and one remote controlled .50 caliber
machine gun on the turret top operated by the tank commander.
Closed circuit television was provided to protect
the crew from the flash of tactical nuclear weapons and
to increase the field of vision.
On the phase I TV-8, a Chrysler V-8 engine developing
300 gross horsepower was coupled to an electric generator
in the rear of the turret. This generator supplied power
to the two electric motors in the front hull. One motor drove
each of the two 28 inch wide tracks. Other power plants
were considered for later development including a gas turbine
electric drive, a vapor cycle power plant with hydrocarbon
fuels, and finally a vapor cycle power plant with nuclear
fuel. The fuel tanks for the phase I vehicle were located
in the hull separating them from the crew in the turret.
Space was provided in the heavily armored inner turret
for a crew of four, although only two were required
to operate the tank, the gunner and the driver. These two
were located in the front at the right and left of the cannon
respectively. The driver could operate fully protected
inside the turret or with his head and shoulders exposed
above the roof. The tank commander was at the right rear
with the loader on his left. The heavily armored inner turret
was surrounded by a light outer shell that gave the turret
its podlike appearance. This shell was watertight creating
sufficient displacement to allow the vehicle to float. Propulsion
in the water was by means of a water jet pump installed
in the bottom rear of the turret. The outer turret shell was
of sufficient thickness to detonate shaped charge rounds
and it acted as spaced armor to help protect the inner turret.
The turret was supported by an assembly which rotated
in a ring in the hull roof and it was moved in elevation
by two large hydraulic cylinders. The TV-8 was 352 inches
long with the gun forward, 134 inches wide, and 115 inches
high over the remote controlled machine gun.
The three ASTRON proposals, as well as the TV-8
design, were reviewed and it was concluded that they did
not offer sufficient advantages over the conventional
medium gun tank to justify further development. This was
confirmed by OTCM 36225, dated 23 April 1956, which
terminated the ASTRON program. However, the OTCM
indicated that consideration would be given to the novel
features of the ASTRON proposals and the TV-8 in the
design of future tanks.

The ASTRON Wasp proposal also appeared in Questionmark
IV under the designation R-31. Concept R-32
presented a design for a nuclear powered tank. This vehicle
was lighter in weight than previous OTAC nuclear
powered studies and it was proposed as a possible replacement
for the M48 tank series. Armed with the modified
90mm T208 gun, its estimated weight was 50 tons. Powered
by a turbine using a nuclear reactor as a heat source, the
estimated range of the R-32 was 4000+ miles. Armor on
the front equaled 4.8 inches at 60 degrees from the vertical
and the overall length of the tank with the gun forward
was 220 inches. Obviously, such a tank would have been
extremely expensive and the radiation hazard would have
required crew changes at periodic intervals

My god, that Chrysler design is UGLY!

My god, that Chrysler design is UGLY!

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Uh, it was only an exterme of a well defined tank design trend going from immediately after the war untile at least the earlly to mid seventies: the "all-in-the-turret" tank. Now the trend i the reverse: all in the main body, leave only the gun in the turret (Russians followed this much earlier). Think of the MBT-70/80, even the Leopard 2, or in the US the M-103.

Skybolt said:

Now the trend i the reverse: all in the main body, leave only the gun in the turret (Russians followed this much earlier).

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To confirm that:

http://www.hitechweb2.szm.sk/forum2/Future_Tank_1-3.jpg
http://www.hitechweb2.szm.sk/forum2/Future_Tank_2-1.jpg

Ask, and you'll be given...

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...Dear Friends, this is more than I expected. Thank you all!

I vote for "ask and you'll be given" to be this foum motto. There is real collection of nice people here sharing knowledge and good feeling here


The TV-8 has been a surprise for me. I have already seen it but on the cover of Science Fiction books. I never guessed it could be a real design, not even a nuclear powered one!!!

Internal arrangement of TV-1

Sorta off topic but if you like big tanks and SciFi you should check out the Bolo books.

Originally created by Keith Laumer

It sounds interesting:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671698796?v=glance

Skybolt said:

Originally created by Keith Laumer

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And continued by several excellent writers, David Weber and Bill Keith among them.

Can someone explain, what is "ASTRON"?

I think it was a think-tank comittee. They liked this kind of acronymsin the fifties . Another comittee was called the "question-mark conference" and it evaluated many highly exotic tank options including articulated vehicles, flying tanks , tanks which were only turrets on minimal chassis etc....

JCC

In Hunnicutt's book "Abrams" on p28 it says:
... it was directed that contracts be awarded to firms with recognised research and engineering staffs for the development of an X-weapon to perform the role of the medium tank. .. to be available for production 1958 (later 1961)
Ordnance Technical Committee minutes item 34753 24th April 1953 assigned the name ASTRON to identify the project.
Contractors were to be responsible for studying the X-weapon as a complete unit without restrictions being placed on any of the components. Seventeen proposals and bids were received from industry in response.
The following 10 pages in "Abrams" describe some of them. Some look fairly conventional. Others far from it.
It doesn't say what ASTRON stood for, if anything.
Official report pubd by OTAC, Center Line, Michegan, 1955

Thanks guys.

With all its weight.... floating?!?

Matej said:

With all its weight.... floating?!?

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Yep, that big whale-shaped thing at the top is a flotation device. Just watch what happens if we fill it with helium ("It's a bird! It's a plane! It's.....") ;D

Regards & all,

Thomas L. Nielsen
Denmark

Mobile nuclear reactors
http://sovietologist.blogspot.com/2008/08/pamir-nuclear-power-goes-on-road.html
Many greetings

Chrysler TV-8. It took half a year to complete :

Matej said:

Chrysler TV-8. It took half a year to complete :

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cool art

by the way,
how solved Chrysler the Radiation Shield problem ?!

...Man, if only Aurora had come out with one of these as part of their late 60's tank series :-(

Man these things look retarded. If they're going to make a nuclear tank at least they should make it look cool.

Knowing the amount of water consumed by most nuclear powerplants, its hard to believe they could fit in enough water to operate the tanks powerplant (assuming it uses a turbine to generate electricity to power teh tank)

If they had somehow managed to get this working for less than half a billion dollars a tank, it would solve most of the logisitcal problems that currently limit armored warfare.

assuming it uses a turbine to generate electricity to power teh tank

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I suspect they used closed or open cycle nuclear turboshafts - where either external air is heated either by passage through heat exchangers (closed) or the core itself (open) and then drives a relatively conventional power turbine stage. This would be similar to the developments in the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) Program. Offhand, I think the closed-cycle system used something strange like hydrocarbons or liquid metal rather than water / steam.

RP1

[Ninja edit: The TV-8 was to use a "vapo(u)r cycle", which narrows the possible coolants to... well, a lot of things - it could be something that changes state, or a completely gas-cooled system]

I didn't think of that. It would make sense to pursue something like the indirect air cycle system system from the ANP. I also seem to recall that liquid metal was to be used to transfer heat. Maybe on a tank some of the limitations that existed in mounting the system on an aircraft would not exist

RP1 said:

assuming it uses a turbine to generate electricity to power teh tank

Click to expand...

I suspect they used closed or open cycle nuclear turboshafts - where either external air is heated either by passage through heat exchangers (closed) or the core itself (open) and then drives a relatively conventional power turbine stage. This would be similar to the developments in the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion (ANP) Program. Offhand, I think the closed-cycle system used something strange like hydrocarbons or liquid metal rather than water / steam.

RP1

[Ninja edit: The TV-8 was to use a "vapo(u)r cycle", which narrows the possible coolants to... well, a lot of things - it could be something that changes state, or a completely gas-cooled system]

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the first Army Ordnance model of 1955. had So far i know had water / steam cycle.

for other proposal i can only guess its a Indirect Cycle

first loop the reactor with molten fluoride salt
transfer heat to Engine loop (preventing radioactivity to escape)
second loop is a liquid mercury or liquid sodium for turboshafts.
like the Heat Transfer Reactor Experiment, aka Aircraft Reactor Experiment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_Reactor_Experiment


here the Prototypes, so why not also for Tanks ?
a reason against is engine heat, you need very big red hot radiator
Shoot the radiator and reactor goes critical

Radioactivity is here of second rang, I was wondering if this tank planned as a doomsday weapon
driving true enemy country with a OPEN air cooling cycle...

Hi everybody

Some Tank projects
http://armor.kiev.ua/Tanks/Modern/Heavy/PartII/heavy2.html
http://tancist.livejournal.com/28040.html

Many greetings

Very neat. I especially like Рхим мэньюфктурин Ко's Хантер" / "Охотник" (hope I got that right). What a tank!

ever the expert of straying off topic ı was fumbling around and ı found a "not found" message in the armourkiev site . ı guess it is a roadside mine that took out the M-1 , at least for a while . ı have also seen a mysterious small caliber penetration with no injuries in Iraq something attributed to a explosively formed penetrator .

returning to topic ı would say the doomsday weapon concept wouldn't ever (sorry ; even ) cross the forward line of own troops .

*

Hi everybody
There was a project to mount a nuclear reactor on a turretless M-103 chassis.
It should be a propulsion test bed. Someone knows more about this project ? Maybe a drawing ?
http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Атомный_танк
M-103
http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,693.0.html
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/M103_(Kampfpanzer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M103_heavy_tank
BTW
http://www.popmech.ru/blogs/post/391-kak-vyimirali-dinozavryi-poslednie-tyazhelyie-tanki-chast-5-2/
Many greetings

lol it's ironic that it's an american idea but only russian wikipedia has it.

LeoXiao said:

lol it's ironic that it's an american idea but only russian wikipedia has it.

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Probably because the English wiki actually tries to enforce its policies against hosting copyrighted images and the article is no good without pictures.

Hi

ENGINE-TRANSMISSION POWER PLANTS FOR TACTICAL VEHICLES
http://www.dtic.mil/docs/citations/AD0821500

Popular Science May 1955 Page 128
"Model Previews Atom Tank"
https://books.google.com/

Russian Ministry of Defence is interested in developing mobile nuclear stations. Draft’ll be shown by end of 2015 and first station built in 2020, reported military-informant.com...

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Read more at: http://defence-blog.com/news/russian-army-to-build-mobile-nuclear-stations.html (English)
http://military-informant.com/army/rossiya-primet-na-vooruzhenie-mobilnyie-atomnyie-stantsii.html (Russian)

Chrysler TV.8 model, Tank Museum, Bovington, 2018