Technically one could argue its been done before:

18275256_1485499974842076_5092781168932388305_n.jpg
 
good times, remember the T-14 was given shit for this instead of going manual as others have argued with me for, now the tables have turned making this further amusing
 
Trophy should still considered a transition threshold system not the obj sys.
 
If the turret is unmanned why man it at all. If it is unmanned why do you need 60ts?
...have to mention again, better to hide manned controllers in what would appear to be unmanned. Optionally manned every vehicle, and discuss why infantry really enters mechanized battles.
Because datalinks and comms in general are NOT as good you think and we are extremely far off from having anytime of combat useful AI.

Drones tanks will last five seconds in... Well any terrain short of desert and I have question even then.

Man vehicles give you so many more options and flexibility.
 
Just what are the automated systems for dealing with a dud round or an electrical failure in the turret? Who is going to get out and fix the thing while under fire? A human crew can do a lot from those items ^ to replacing a broken track pin or link. Reducing crew numbers has all sorts of ramification to operational use. I know, I am a technophobe and I am loathe to accept new ideas, I get it.
 
Just what are the automated systems for dealing with a dud round or an electrical failure in the turret? Who is going to get out and fix the thing while under fire? A human crew can do a lot from those items ^ to replacing a broken track pin or link. Reducing crew numbers has all sorts of ramification to operational use. I know, I am a technophobe and I am loathe to accept new ideas, I get it.
I'm assuming you'll have REME in a full tank, ready to jump out and crank that round through, or whatever......not for the faint hearted...
 
You do not have enough REME anyway and expecting them to charge out a save the day is a hit and miss hope rather than a real state of play. No REME on a tank crew, we had to do most of the jobs like this ourselves and anyway REME are not cleared for handling munitions, live or otherwise, specialist armourers job.
 
XM-1147 Advanced Multi-Purpose (AMP) round.jpg
 
Given M1A2 SEPv3 is just entering service and SEPv4 is in development I wouldn't expect anything significant on this front until the mid 2030s.
 
Given M1A2 SEPv3 is just entering service and SEPv4 is in development I wouldn't expect anything significant on this front until the mid 2030s.
My money on a Hornet to Super Hornet deal.

Likely going be the Abrams frame with all new stuff bolted on.
 
Possibly a new turret layout to enable autoloader and transferred loader duties to SA and management of drone vehicles.
 
Given M1A2 SEPv3 is just entering service and SEPv4 is in development I wouldn't expect anything significant on this front until the mid 2030s.
My money on a Hornet to Super Hornet deal.

Likely going be the Abrams frame with all new stuff bolted on.
The time for that would have been in the late '90s/early 2000s. It wouldn't be enough to meet needs now I would think.
 
Abrams is a sunk cost and a place holder which is too heavy and getting heavier w a last ditch APS and is largely a direct fire dependant creature, becoming more obsolete by the year. Winning just so many one to one slug fests, even SEPv4 would eventually succomb, especially given contemporary ATGM and gun advancements.
A new DLP could focus on a hypermobility, and be a armed UAS mothership w/ a next gen APS. At first this DLP would supplement the Abrams, but eventually largely replace it.
 
Abrams is a sunk cost and a place holder which is too heavy and getting heavier w a last ditch APS and is largely a direct fire dependant creature, becoming more obsolete by the year. Winning just so many one to one slug fests, even SEPv4 would eventually succomb, especially given contemporary ATGM and gun advancements.
A new DLP could focus on a hypermobility, and be a armed UAS mothership w/ a next gen APS. At first this DLP would supplement the Abrams, but eventually largely replace it.

tank still remain the most survivability piece of metal on fields, which by howitzer fire, AT-mine, crappy AT-rounds don't bite, for hypermobility cars this impacts is deadly

 
Last edited:
Abrams is a sunk cost and a place holder which is too heavy and getting heavier w a last ditch APS and is largely a direct fire dependant creature, becoming more obsolete by the year. Winning just so many one to one slug fests, even SEPv4 would eventually succomb, especially given contemporary ATGM and gun advancements.
A new DLP could focus on a hypermobility, and be a armed UAS mothership w/ a next gen APS. At first this DLP would supplement the Abrams, but eventually largely replace it.

tank still remain the most survivability piece of metal on fields, which by howitzer fire, AT-mine, crappy AT-rounds don't bite, for hypermobility cars this impacts is deadly
If one is on road nowdays one is already wrong and PLA and Russian AT aren't crappy anymore and guided artillery is a tank killer..gotta be much faster and agile.. notice the statement "largely replace"
 
Given M1A2 SEPv3 is just entering service and SEPv4 is in development I wouldn't expect anything significant on this front until the mid 2030s.
All of this seems woefully slow considering all of the improvements China and Russia have been making on their AFVs in the past two decades. The Abrams still has teeth to be sure but none of these upgrades have been all that ambitious compared to the sort of ideas there were for a new tank towards the end of the Cold War.
 
Given M1A2 SEPv3 is just entering service and SEPv4 is in development I wouldn't expect anything significant on this front until the mid 2030s.
All of this seems woefully slow considering all of the improvements China and Russia have been making on their AFVs in the past two decades. The Abrams still has teeth to be sure but none of these upgrades have been all that ambitious compared to the sort of ideas there were for a new tank towards the end of the Cold War.

AFV advancements have tailed off to a truly glacial pace since the early 1980s.

The PLA's most advanced tanks and missiles are comparable to what the US Army was fielding in the 1990's. T-14 is a wet noodle whose production line upgrade budget was embezzled and can't be produced in large quantity even if Russia wanted. The PLA doesn't even field body armor comparable to PASGT, which is something even the Soviets were doing relatively commonly. It's very unlikely that either will surpass the US Army's equipment by the 2050's, much less the 2030's, and the PLA might marginally match it I guess.

It's very unlikely that extensive AFV upgrades are going to be necessary or warranted in the future. They're not particularly vulnerable to anything and the things they are vulnerable to generally point towards more lateral solutions like superior short range air defenses in battalions or something.
 
Their crews still seem very happy. Moreover, don't get fooled into falling for the "grass is always greener" sort of mistake.
 
Given M1A2 SEPv3 is just entering service and SEPv4 is in development I wouldn't expect anything significant on this front until the mid 2030s.
All of this seems woefully slow considering all of the improvements China and Russia have been making on their AFVs in the past two decades. The Abrams still has teeth to be sure but none of these upgrades have been all that ambitious compared to the sort of ideas there were for a new tank towards the end of the Cold War.

They're not particularly vulnerable to anything and the things they are vulnerable to generally point towards more lateral solutions like superior short range air defenses in battalions or something.
The above is simply an uninformed statement...not going to do someone else's homework. The Russians payed attention to M1 lossses or lack thereof in the Gulf war and have adjusted.
 
Something being addressed is vulnerability to top down attack which is the major threat to the tank (Like for a long time now (Is that the correct format)?).......

Having seen the devastation wreaked by this type of attack it makes cleaning out a turret quite a job.

What does have a chance or making a difference is the layering of the units deployed on the ground and the different missions envisaged for the different units/equipment. THAT we can change and improve right now.
 
I'll throw my two cents worth in and our next tanks will have an autoloader and new
turret to make the tank shorter and more sloped. The increase in size of the guns make
hand loading difficult. The autoloader saves crew members, less crew more tanks.The shorter
turret saves weight and reduces profile.
 
The autoloader saves crew members, less crew more tanks.The shorter
turret saves weight and reduces profile.
Sorry but it doesn't work like that boss.

Less crew generally means you need two more guys in the maintaince detail to cover down for the work the Fourth person will do. So you actaully end up needing more people to keep a similar readyness rate. This was shown by the Army Main Gun Stryker that was notoriously known for have worse readiness rates then the abrams cause they had 3 man crews.

And as for profile?

To give the crew a proper amount of room to work you will still end up with a similar sinze tank as what the Abrams is.

The 3 man crewed Armata for example is basically the same size as the Abrams.

Then you get into the Psychological fun.

Leaving out that 4 man means each guy can get at least eight hours of sleep with one man on watch 24/7. Which is a major thing.

Enough tests have shown that 4 people is the bare minimum for keeping everyone SANE and not trying to murder each other after a week or two in the tank. 3 people can squeeze by but crew performance suffers.

Then when you add in all the toys that are coming out like drones.

The 4 fourth guy will stay just become the EWAR/Drone operator.
 
T-72s and AMX Leclerc don't seem to have much issue with readiness rates once you account for lack of spare parts. Leclerc's main issues come from the compact diesel and T-72 doesn't having any glaring maintenance weaknesses as far as anyone can tell.

It's probably because Stryker MGS is a broken dumpster fire that it has issues. Teledyne spent something like 15 years trying to get the bizarre three stage loader-replenisher Frankenstein's monster to work and it never really did anything of note reliably. The Soviet Molot experimental tank had a similar replenisher-loader but it seemed to work just fine. Nota had issues with voltage regulation in its main gun loading mechanism, but this was solved and the tank successfully fired a full magazine of 22(?) rounds in 2002 during trials.

So it's probably due to Teledyne's design of the Expeditionary Tank turret than anything. More crewmen just means more swearing.

A tank crew doesn't need to be "on watch 24/7" either, which always struck me as bizarre, as they work in companies and platoons, not singletons, and no one is decamping with a single track somewhere in the woods. You will have literally dozens or hundreds of people available to sleep in shifts and check the FOB gabions for loose satchel charges.

There's literally zero performance loss with three over four people in actual combat. Leclercs are fine when their engines work. T-72s have oddball quirks like bad gun depression and an extremely compact design that makes them both statistically less likely to die in large numbers and statistically more likely to be killed when penetrated, though. The Soviets were sort of obsessed with that kind of Big Picture type thinking that resulted in almost eccentric specialized vehicles for a European-type offensive mechanized combat.

Anyway the job division means that you might need to push up the minimum requirements from IQ 90 to like IQ 105, but that's about it, and recruiting below-average intelligence tankers isn't very smart to begin with. The US Army tried that in Korea and a tank battalion got routed by some PLA horse cavalry as a result.

Two people requires some sort of automatic control system, either in driving or in gunnery and local SA, that can identify targets. The job division of SA/target search, sector search/gunnery, and driving can't be split between two people very easily. This is why Rafael is making Carmel have machine learning-driven automatic target identification and engagement with its robotic machine guns, so the TC can maintain SA/target search and assign sectors to the vehicle, and the gunner/driver can split between driving and shooting with the partly autonomous vehicle.

That's a bit wacky and an open question whether it will work but it's essentially what FCS was trying to do. And the US Army was convinced everyone was going to have FCS grade combat vehicles by the 2030s, which is probably coming true now.

A three man Abrams will function fine in combat provided the engine is reliable and the gun depression isn't changed. Outside of combat is somewhat irrelevant because it'll be at least a dozen guys, if not 20 or 40 or 150 decamped in a little wagon corral with camouflage netting and protected from aerial/artillery attack by nearby Iron Dome or Stryker MSHORADS vehicle. These aren't hard problems since the 130mm gun will likely have a -10 degrees gun depression (or near to it) and the engine (AGT-1500) is already extremely reliable.

Armata is big because it has twice as much armor as M1 and needs similar mobility. It's effectively a cut down Nota or Molot.
 
Last edited:
When talking about autoloaders and manual loaders, everyone ignores the sheer amount of injuries that human loaders get in their job, in particular back injuries.
In a modern democratic society and volunteer army that should be reason enough to switch to autoloaders ASAP.

 
In a modern democratic society and volunteer army that should be reason enough to switch to autoloaders ASAP.
On the other hand, with the way things are going, it may well be that just about everyone will be switching back to conscription or a hybrid recruitment model first!
 
Armata is big because it has twice as much armor as M1 and needs similar mobility. It's effectively a cut down Nota or Molot.
Where do you get this? I have no doubt the crew compartement area is very well protected but I've heard a lot of speculation that there isn't that much armor on the turret itself. Enough to stop autocannon fire for sure but probably not large caliber APFSDS.

I'm still undecided on the 4 man vs 3 man crew issue myself but an autoloader is a necessity for any caliber larger than the 120mm smoothbore, presuming you want to maintain a good rate of fire.

Without active protection systems it's going to be impossible to protect the top of the tank from top attack ATGMs but it's worth it increasing the armor there just for the sake of stopping some of the smaller submunitions like the type DPICM artillery may shower a unit with. I believe some Leopard 2 upgrades have done this and the Soviets/Russians even threw some ERA bricks on part of the roof for that reason. Most (all?) of NATO has been foolish in throwing out their cluster munitions because of humanitarian concerns but rest assured the Russians are going to have plenty of it and won't hesitate to use it.

I can't simply envision a way to add all of the stuff they ought to add to Abrams without a major redesign of the turret. The hull might be fine with some of the upgrades they've been looking to implement. I have respect for the good service the AGT-1500 turbine has given but replacement of it is worth considering due to the logistics big picture.
 
Armata is big because it has twice as much armor as M1 and needs similar mobility. It's effectively a cut down Nota or Molot.
Where do you get this?

By looking at it.

The crew is seated slightly further back than the driver on the M1, not unlike the TTB in arrangement and seat styles, and the armor protection is likely heavier. It's sort of logical to assume that the protection on the hull is bigger than the M1, perhaps as much as double since that is about what the M1 turret is vice the hull, which would explain why it's such a big hull...

Naturally, this requires you to assume that T-14 has armor protection adequate to protect against M829A3 or something similar, but it's not much of a stretch to assume that a modern tank is protected against modern munitions.

I've heard a lot of speculation that there isn't that much armor on the turret itself. Enough to stop autocannon fire for sure but probably not large caliber APFSDS.

The point of a robotic turret is that it doesn't need armoring lol.

A robotic M1 turret would shave like 20 tons off the mass of the tank, which is good for a tank that is pushing 90 tons full stacked with TUSK ERA, mine rollers, and Trophy.
 
Last edited:
Armata is big because it has twice as much armor as M1 and needs similar mobility. It's effectively a cut down Nota or Molot.
Where do you get this?

By looking at it.

The crew is seated slightly further back than the driver on the M1, not unlike the TTB in arrangement and seat styles, and the armor protection is likely heavier. It's sort of logical to assume that the protection on the hull is bigger than the M1, perhaps as much as double since that is about what the M1 turret is vice the hull, which would explain why it's such a big hull...

Naturally, this requires you to assume that T-14 has armor protection adequate to protect against M829A3 or something similar, but it's not much of a stretch to assume that a modern tank is protected against modern munitions.

I've heard a lot of speculation that there isn't that much armor on the turret itself. Enough to stop autocannon fire for sure but probably not large caliber APFSDS.

The point of a robotic turret is that it doesn't need armoring lol.

A robotic M1 turret would shave like 20 tons off the mass of the tank, which is good for a tank that is pushing 90 tons full stacked with TUSK ERA, mine rollers, and Trophy.
Is there ever going to be a clean sheet replacement for the Abrams or is it Abrams forever?
If Abrams forever, yeesh.
 
Armata is big because it has twice as much armor as M1 and needs similar mobility. It's effectively a cut down Nota or Molot.
Where do you get this?

By looking at it.

The crew is seated slightly further back than the driver on the M1, not unlike the TTB in arrangement and seat styles, and the armor protection is likely heavier. It's sort of logical to assume that the protection on the hull is bigger than the M1, perhaps as much as double since that is about what the M1 turret is vice the hull, which would explain why it's such a big hull...

Naturally, this requires you to assume that T-14 has armor protection adequate to protect against M829A3 or something similar, but it's not much of a stretch to assume that a modern tank is protected against modern munitions.

I've heard a lot of speculation that there isn't that much armor on the turret itself. Enough to stop autocannon fire for sure but probably not large caliber APFSDS.

The point of a robotic turret is that it doesn't need armoring lol.

A robotic M1 turret would shave like 20 tons off the mass of the tank, which is good for a tank that is pushing 90 tons full stacked with TUSK ERA, mine rollers, and Trophy.
Is there ever going to be a clean sheet replacement for the Abrams or is it Abrams forever?
If Abrams forever, yeesh.
If the Future Combat System was any indicator I shudder the think what they might come up with to replace the Abrams. Probably some 40 ton "optionally manned" POS that could be taken out by virtually anything on the battlefield. But at least it will have 40,000 chips in it.
 
Armata is big because it has twice as much armor as M1 and needs similar mobility. It's effectively a cut down Nota or Molot.
Where do you get this?

By looking at it.

The crew is seated slightly further back than the driver on the M1, not unlike the TTB in arrangement and seat styles, and the armor protection is likely heavier. It's sort of logical to assume that the protection on the hull is bigger than the M1, perhaps as much as double since that is about what the M1 turret is vice the hull, which would explain why it's such a big hull...

Naturally, this requires you to assume that T-14 has armor protection adequate to protect against M829A3 or something similar, but it's not much of a stretch to assume that a modern tank is protected against modern munitions.

I've heard a lot of speculation that there isn't that much armor on the turret itself. Enough to stop autocannon fire for sure but probably not large caliber APFSDS.

The point of a robotic turret is that it doesn't need armoring lol.

A robotic M1 turret would shave like 20 tons off the mass of the tank, which is good for a tank that is pushing 90 tons full stacked with TUSK ERA, mine rollers, and Trophy.
Is there ever going to be a clean sheet replacement for the Abrams or is it Abrams forever?
If Abrams forever, yeesh.
If the Future Combat System was any indicator I shudder the think what they might come up with to replace the Abrams. Probably some 40 ton "optionally manned" POS that could be taken out by virtually anything on the battlefield. But at least it will have 40,000 chips in it.
Pathetic. Armored vehicle design I guess topped out in the early 70s? Terrible.
 
Armata is big because it has twice as much armor as M1 and needs similar mobility. It's effectively a cut down Nota or Molot.
Where do you get this?

By looking at it.

The crew is seated slightly further back than the driver on the M1, not unlike the TTB in arrangement and seat styles, and the armor protection is likely heavier. It's sort of logical to assume that the protection on the hull is bigger than the M1, perhaps as much as double since that is about what the M1 turret is vice the hull, which would explain why it's such a big hull...

Naturally, this requires you to assume that T-14 has armor protection adequate to protect against M829A3 or something similar, but it's not much of a stretch to assume that a modern tank is protected against modern munitions.

I've heard a lot of speculation that there isn't that much armor on the turret itself. Enough to stop autocannon fire for sure but probably not large caliber APFSDS.

The point of a robotic turret is that it doesn't need armoring lol.

A robotic M1 turret would shave like 20 tons off the mass of the tank, which is good for a tank that is pushing 90 tons full stacked with TUSK ERA, mine rollers, and Trophy.
Is there ever going to be a clean sheet replacement for the Abrams or is it Abrams forever?
If Abrams forever, yeesh.
If the Future Combat System was any indicator I shudder the think what they might come up with to replace the Abrams. Probably some 40 ton "optionally manned" POS that could be taken out by virtually anything on the battlefield. But at least it will have 40,000 chips in it.
Pathetic. Armored vehicle design I guess topped out in the early 70s? Terrible.
I'm sure they could come up with something better. Nobody wants to pay for it.
 
Armata is big because it has twice as much armor as M1 and needs similar mobility. It's effectively a cut down Nota or Molot.
Where do you get this?

By looking at it.

The crew is seated slightly further back than the driver on the M1, not unlike the TTB in arrangement and seat styles, and the armor protection is likely heavier. It's sort of logical to assume that the protection on the hull is bigger than the M1, perhaps as much as double since that is about what the M1 turret is vice the hull, which would explain why it's such a big hull...

Naturally, this requires you to assume that T-14 has armor protection adequate to protect against M829A3 or something similar, but it's not much of a stretch to assume that a modern tank is protected against modern munitions.

I've heard a lot of speculation that there isn't that much armor on the turret itself. Enough to stop autocannon fire for sure but probably not large caliber APFSDS.

The point of a robotic turret is that it doesn't need armoring lol.

A robotic M1 turret would shave like 20 tons off the mass of the tank, which is good for a tank that is pushing 90 tons full stacked with TUSK ERA, mine rollers, and Trophy.
Is there ever going to be a clean sheet replacement for the Abrams or is it Abrams forever?
If Abrams forever, yeesh.
If the Future Combat System was any indicator I shudder the think what they might come up with to replace the Abrams. Probably some 40 ton "optionally manned" POS that could be taken out by virtually anything on the battlefield. But at least it will have 40,000 chips in it.
Pathetic. Armored vehicle design I guess topped out in the early 70s? Terrible.
I'm sure they could come up with something better. Nobody wants to pay for it.
Also you have to answer this question to make something better.

What is better?

For a 40 year old design the Abrams still has solid odds against any modern tank, especially with the newer toys its getting like APS.

Like the only thing you honestly may need is a bigger gun,and they have design like 5 different turret that can just be drop in place.

The next is the engine, and you have two choices.

Either replace with a desiel or mod one of the current helicopter turbines to be it. Both have many pros and cons you have to carefully look at, especially since efficiently is largely similar between the newer models of both.
 
Tanks for tanks sake is not a plan. Tanks have role, but it is getting smaller. Advantage of tanks is penetration quarterback sacks.

one uses tanks in battlespace where the adversary does not...tank on tank is stupid, usually an a un/forced error...countering tank formation penetration takes anti-tank weapons (helios, manportable, aircraft).

Where tanks are likely to be are where mines are likely to be because their maneuver is too detectable/trackable over time, especially if one has to deploy over any length of time.

Tanks are getting heavier ie gun ammo, engine, take too long to reload/fuel, have limited airmobility and have less mileage and are unable to traverse medium bridges, sand, mud, soft soil. while world has more and longer roads.
 
"The point of a robotic turret is that it doesn't need armoring lol".

So, you end up with a protected crew driving around in a pos vehicle and no means of defence or offence.

Armour, mobility, firepower. Or you end up with the BOTB tank with no turret, not even the mg they had in the film.

Worked on a tank have you? Try something similar in a peace time deployment and then try to work out what a conflict scenario might be like. That is without the additional tasks drones etc will bring.

The same old, it can be done because spare crew this and spare crew that will be there for rest and replenishment areas but it is a horse apple. Interdiction will interfere with replacement anything, even POL is a tough ask in the next conflict. No point in debate is there, you are set in your views as an armchair minister. I hope you do not make any meaningful impact on the decisions that have to be made. Peace out.
 
"The point of a robotic turret is that it doesn't need armoring lol".

So, you end up with a protected crew driving around in a pos vehicle and no means of defence or offence.

Armour, mobility, firepower. Or you end up with the BOTB tank with no turret, not even the mg they had in the film.

Worked on a tank have you? Try something similar in a peace time deployment and then try to work out what a conflict scenario might be like. That is without the additional tasks drones etc will bring.

The same old, it can be done because spare crew this and spare crew that will be there for rest and replenishment areas but it is a horse apple. Interdiction will interfere with replacement anything, even POL is a tough ask in the next conflict. No point in debate is there, you are set in your views as an armchair minister. I hope you do not make any meaningful impact on the decisions that have to be made. Peace out.
who are you addressing the above message to pray tell please.??
 
OK, I'll start again. Do you really think the gun and sensors etc need not have armour protection? Or, is just out of left field comment?

Armour is an important part of the equation, I know you get this so this is not a snide comment to suggest stupidity. I know for a fact you are not. The number of people who suggest tanks are irrelevent or three man crews are great etc are missing something, experience of the requirements of the job for the most part.

As for the rest, my not reacting well and ill advised verbiage, I'm sorry.

As an ex tank crewman etc, people talking like that hits a nerve, I've seen people die and be badly injured and that is on exercise, a conflict situation would be many times worse.

I was driving for an exercise before I got to do my driving qualification., we had spent several days replacing an engine which was a commonthing for us. I had not done an RV before and my only instruction was to follw the tank in front. I did that, nobody had mentioned allowing the tank transporters would basicly merge like a xip so, I ended up giving the transporter driver a proper scare. Fatigue and expectation nealy saw an accident that would have cost more than a packet of crisps and a half chewed toffee.
 
Last edited:
"The point of a robotic turret is that it doesn't need armoring lol".

So, you end up with a protected crew driving around in a pos vehicle and no means of defence or offence.

You can have a fully armored robotic turret if you don't want things like side protection or APS I guess. The M1 is more than half the mass of a Maus already. It will probably tip over into the triple digits once it gets the new armor package and 130mm gun, once you factor in the TUSK ERA, Trophy, and fluids/ammo load. With the mine rollers, TUSK ERA, and full ammo, M1A2 SEPv3 is sitting north of 90 tons. That's without the M1A2D's new armor package, which makes the turret even heavier.

That's a lot to ask on a 1,500 HP turbine that will likely not be replaced anytime soon.

Removing the armoring on the turret and accepting the slightly more cautious use of the tank, in favor of actual mobility and power to weight ratio is the better trade off, rather than increasing the weight even more.

Tank crews can simply deal with it, as they've proven in a video game.

The more expensive and far less likely outcome is that there is an entirely clean sheet design that makes the tank smaller, akin to a Western T-80 or something, and armors the robotic turret but achieves mass savings by reducing armored volume. This is plausible but unlikely, as I don't think OMFV/OMT will go anywhere, and M1 will likely sooner receive a new turret before the US Army makes a new tank.

Whether that turret will have armor protection or not is an open question, but it's pretty obvious that the US Army is genuinely concerned about the problem of mobility of armor and its titanic mass. Crossing a bridge with a fully loaded M1 would probably be impossible in some places, such as Bosnia where local infrastructure struggled with a 63 ton tank, much less a 95 ton one.

Naturally actual OMT crews offered both sides of the coin, with some tankers preferring a more mobile, lighter tank, and other tankers preferring a more heavily armored, protected one. There's obviously merits to both and if you think op tempo and being a bit slow on the draw are more important than careful planning and long road movements then you might prefer a heavily armored tank. Both are probably fine, but I'd say for the wars that America historically fights, i.e. stability operations in places with rubbish infrastructure, a more heavily armored tank isn't going to work well simply because the infrastructure can't support it.

Protecting the turret against light automatic cannons in the 30mm range, such as the BMP-2, would probably go a long way towards ensuring that crews don't feel so naked. You can't stop a T-90 from punching a hole in your robot turret, which is fine as crews can deal with this, but you shouldn't be running around being worried that a BTR or a BMP with a little pop gun is going to trash your gun either.

That should be achievable with substantial reductions in weight and volume to open up more space for important things like APS. Perhaps the APS could intercept or degrade incoming LRPs so that the nominally weak turret armor can absorb the excess spall or something, but it's not a huge issue either way. The issue of maneuvering and road marches is more important since not everywhere has railroads that are good enough or common enough, such as Southwest Asia and Bosnia, and the US Army historically has relied on road movement for tank troops anyway.

Sorry if it offends you, but I just think that causing a bridge to collapse because your 100-ton tank broke some 70 year old bridge's MLC 40 supports and fell into a river is a more realistic and more dangerous threat to US Army brigades than a T-90 putting a hole in a big gun's breech. Even if it does put a hole in the breech...it's a robot gun. It's not like it's a person. Armor is there to protect people first, ensure mobility second, and everything else third. Machines fall under third.

M1s causing bridges to collapse or crews falling into rivers is way more common than M1s being destroyed by anti-tank guns though. There are also ways to deal with the latter, such as applique or ERA or APS, which are things that the US Army has proven it can put on tanks and other vehicles, but you can't actually remove weight from a tank if it's built in. It's very easy to add it though, which is why I think that having a fairly low level of base protection and a higher level of applique possibly stockpiled where it can be used, might be useful.

But given that the US Army is likely going to be fighting in countries with rubbish infrastructure, where infrastructure cannot handle the M1A2D as is, it's unlikely that they will want a heavier or similar size tank. Slimming down the M1 by consolidating the crew in the hull or something and slapping all armor around them, then compartmentalizing everything to the point where it can be rapidly repaired by battle damage teams or whatever, is probably the smarter move in the long run.

One of the issues faced by 1st Armored Division and part of why they took so long to deploy to Bosnia was the local infrastructure was absolute garbage. They had to transload from shipping to a railhead, transload in Czechia to another railhead, move to Croatia, and then continue the march with tank transporters on the road. When they got to Bosnia they encountered bridges with low MLCs or shoddy construction (either or, occasionally both) on the routes and had to dismount their M1A1s from the transporters. The transporters then went over the bridge and the tanks followed, slowly, one at a time.

I think with a modern M1A2D with TUSK ERA that sort of road deployment would be impossible simply because the bridge wouldn't be able to handle sustained movement of heavy M1s across it, because it might genuinely collapse.

That sort of infrastructure isn't uncommon in Vietnam, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran, North Korea...

i.e. All the places the US Army intends to fight in the future.

If America still had to fight in France or Germany then it wouldn't be an issue, but weight is a problem when handling these poor infrastructures. It's something that the late R.E. Simpkin noted in his book Antitank in 1982 and it remains true 40 years later.
 

Attachments

  • NGCV_CFT_VE_OMT_SEP20_EXECUTIONREPORT.pdf
    2 MB · Views: 79
Last edited:

Similar threads

Please donate to support the forum.

Back
Top Bottom