M1 Abrams MBT Replacement

[A Tentative Fleet Plan]

"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.

Time for America to use the Mutual Defense Assistance Act to upgrade every bridge and road in Europe to handle MLC-150 vehicles.

It looks like for the simulation they're using a heavily-modded version of Arms 3.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Thanks for those links, always up for stuff like that, much appreciated.

Problem one is simple and based around the fact that a theoretical exercise does not take into account running the actual vehicles or the fatigue associated with that. The fans cooling batteries and radio's have a sound which will within a couple of hours give anyone in the turret a good solid headache. I know, a headache right, nothing to worry about. Add to that loss of sleep and rest because the damn vehicle requires maintenance/repairs. Add to that the very fact that they are not in combat, under fire and the threat of mines etc which has an impact on fatigue levels too.

Treating the use and management of a combat vehicle is an exercise in futility, we tried many TEWT exercises which were supposed to replicate actual deployment and frankly all it did was made top brass think the system was faultless. Real life does not work that way. To quote an old general, "No plan survives first contact with the enemy".

Sorry but that stuff of legend, the theory, is all well and good until people start dying but then then you believe that "They can deal with it". Overly simplistic and simply unrealistic. Nice chat, I always learn something from these.

 

[Kat Tsun]

"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.

Time for America to use the Mutual Defense Assistance Act to upgrade every bridge and road in Europe to handle MLC-150 vehicles.

It looks like for the simulation they're using a heavily-modded version of Arms 3.

They're using VBS2, which is similar, and used by most Army units for cybernetic training.

I want to say you can use the mods from VBS2 in ArmA 3 but I don't think that's the case, as it might only apply to ArmA 1. VBS2 and ArmA 1 are basically the same game at their respective launches, but the subsequent ArmA games and VBS2's current version have forked a lot code-wise. VBS2 had VR support >10 years ago to help train helicopter signalmen or something I think for instance, and it has a much bigger draw distance and map sizes.

Thanks for those links, always up for stuff like that, much appreciated.

Problem one is simple and based around the fact that a theoretical exercise does not take into account running the actual vehicles or the fatigue associated with that. The fans cooling batteries and radio's have a sound which will within a couple of hours give anyone in the turret a good solid headache. I know, a headache right, nothing to worry about. Add to that loss of sleep and rest because the damn vehicle requires maintenance/repairs. Add to that the very fact that they are not in combat, under fire and the threat of mines etc which has an impact on fatigue levels too.

Treating the use and management of a combat vehicle is an exercise in futility, we tried many TEWT exercises which were supposed to replicate actual deployment and frankly all it did was made top brass think the system was faultless. Real life does not work that way. To quote an old general, "No plan survives first contact with the enemy".

Sorry but that stuff of legend, the theory, is all well and good until people start dying but then then you believe that "They can deal with it". Overly simplistic and simply unrealistic. Nice chat, I always learn something from these.

They use M1A2D in the simulation as a baseline for that reason.

Since the vehicle doesn't exist in real life, and in most likelihood never will, it's something of a moot point to say that it's not super maintainable or whatever. That's something of an impossible statement to prove, or disprove, because there's no physical object to maintain. An AGT-1500 powered OMT with a 120mm main gun would probably require similar amounts of maintenance to an M1A2 though since it would use the same powerpack and same main gun. OTOH the only comparison you have is a virtual simulator of OMT 1/2/3 and M1A2D.

Tankers seem to prefer the heavily armored OMT with the manned turret, but the robotic turret 3-man OMT seems workable, although the tank crews seem to want a fourth guy as a sort of operator anyway. The 2-man vehicle seems extremely finicky within the context of the simulation, but the simulator also can't replicate more futuristic things like Carmel's automatic driving or automatic, machine-learning/AI gunnery so it's impossible to say how that would change things.

 

[Foo Fighter]

As an ex tanker, I would like the fourth crewman/person to be around for general duties and covering the increased data load incoming from all directions. Add to that drone management and the simple things that keep a crew going like maintaining the BV and getting hot drinks and food to the team that is a four person crew. The simple things make a huge difference, I cannot stress this enough but it is often overlooked.

I am sorry my debating skill is pretty low, I am learning from you and the others so thanks for being patient and not going postal on me. I am not going into the stuff that causes this, we all have crap to deal with and I will try to get this right so I'm not insulting folk or just not doing the job I should be. Whatever, have a great weekend mate.

 

[jsport]

If one is going to spend the effort to place meterorlogical sensors on the vehicle and fire rds out to 8k, then the next vehicle OMT would seem to need to be primarily a indirect fire vehicle able to utilize JADC2 SA from sats, for instance. Even this vehicle would be vulnerable to counter battery thus the need for an armed UAV mother ship as the primary BOS guarded by M1 derivatives.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

I'm a bit doubtful that the M1A2D is north of 90 tons even after throwing everything you possibly can on it. Regardless of that weight reduction still must be a goal for any future MBT or major Abrams upgrade. Going for FCS weight targets is just a step too far however. We shouldn't structure our entire armored force around what some under-built bridge somewhere in Eastern Europe can sustain. Hell, throw some NATO $ at them to build better bridges and for our own uses more bridging vehicles and engineering assets.

Is there a place for a lighter armored force that can deploy more rapidly? Yes and the Stryker brigades have demonstrated that well I think. We should continue to build upon that foundation but our next MBT should be focused on what the heavy armored units need.

 

[Fluff]

I'm a bit doubtful that the M1A2D is north of 90 tons even after throwing everything you possibly can on it. Regardless of that weight reduction still must be a goal for any future MBT or major Abrams upgrade. Going for FCS weight targets is just a step too far however. We shouldn't structure our entire armored force around what some under-built bridge somewhere in Eastern Europe can sustain. Hell, throw some NATO $ at them to build better bridges and for our own uses more bridging vehicles and engineering assets.

Is there a place for a lighter armored force that can deploy more rapidly? Yes and the Stryker brigades have demonstrated that well I think. We should continue to build upon that foundation but our next MBT should be focused on what the heavy armored units need.

For the mbt, unless there is a new material coming, the only substantive weight reduction is to remove working volume, and then shrink the tank in size, keeping the same level of armour.

I assume ‘chobham’ tried various formulas, and that we are close to optimal, for a given protection.

So the items I can think of, are the loader, and some ammo.

But, the loader is then replaced by an auto loader of some sort.

Shrinking the radios, for example, isn’t going to amount to much.

Drones, flying armour etc, can help, but jamming etc is going to counter, so back to armour on the vehicle.

As always, what do you want to achieve, from the triangle.

 

[muttly]

From all the replies, it seems like there is no right answer. To get one thing you
have to sacrifice somewhere else. Is there a happy median?

 

[Bruno Anthony]

Reading last few posts I’m struck how the Army after the end of the Block III MBT program in 1992 is still trying to build that tank now. But instead drags the Abrams through endless updates. The MBT used to be the USArmy’s primary ground combat system. So build the Block III already! The USArmy in 1972 was able to get a list of requirements to contractors. What’s the problem now?

 

[bobbymike]

From all the replies, it seems like there is no right answer. To get one thing you
have to sacrifice somewhere else. Is there a happy median?

The eternal armor debate mobility protection firepower

 

[jsport]

Any future high intensity conflict will involve swarms of BLOS/sat cntrld or autonomous armed UAS which will easily overwhelm point defenses including fast firing DEW. The only way formations can survive is utilize their own offensive swarms of BLOS/sat cntrld or autonomous armed UAS. Any one in these tanks will need put adversary BLOS swarm launch sites under threat ASAP. Tanks will need to travel w/ swarm motherships or be naked targets.

 

[Kat Tsun]

I'm a bit doubtful that the M1A2D is north of 90 tons even after throwing everything you possibly can on it.

The mine rollers are pretty heavy.

You're right though, because that's for SEPv3. M1A2D is heavier due to the new armor package.



The very tippy top of that "actual Abrams MLC" line is the SEPv3 with Force Protection package, mine rollers, and full fluids and ammo. Trophy APS and the ballast for balancing adds about 2.5 tons to the Abrams. I don't know how much the M1A2D additional armor adds but it's probably more than a ton since it had rather sizeable weight simulators and appears to be about as much a jump in thickness as the M1 to IPM1.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1113867.pdf

From all the replies, it seems like there is no right answer. To get one thing you
have to sacrifice somewhere else. Is there a happy median?

The eternal armor debate mobility protection firepower

Yes. The only answer to retaining them all in proportion is to shrink the tank, which is what Challenger PIP, HD40T, and T-80 did. Tankers the world over would sooner sacrifice mobility before sacrificing firepower and protection, but that makes moving a unit of tanks harder, even if each individual tank isn't much of an issue. The Tiger problem.

As a rule I generally think that machines shouldn't be protected as much as people because mechanized civilizations can produce more of machines and fewer of people, relatively speaking, but tankers probably shouldn't be scared of a .50 cal, 14.5mm, or a 30mm chaingun knocking out their main gun.

Anything bigger than that is probably not much different than each other, since a 57mm APFSDS or 40mm APFSDS can penetrate what lower end 100mm's AP shells from a T-55 could, but you might be able to work that in with applique like ERA and a solid baseline protection of 14.5mm or 30mm APCBC to stop the BTR and BMP.

The ideal should be that the HET shouldn't exceed MLC 100 with the tank loaded but that's probably impossible.

Reading last few posts I’m struck how the Army after the end of the Block III MBT program in 1992 is still trying to build that tank now. But instead drags the Abrams through endless updates. The MBT used to be the USArmy’s primary ground combat system. So build the Block III already! The USArmy in 1972 was able to get a list of requirements to contractors. What’s the problem now?

The problem is figuring out what requirements are necessary, obviously. Block III has about as much relevance to modern warfare as an M4 Sherman does to the 1980's. Maybe less. But it's all anyone has as a baseline.

For instance, how do you build armor to protect against high penetration shaped-charge bombs (think PG-7VL) hitting the top 30 degrees of roof armor? Is it going to be using sacrificial components with heavy fire/blastproof bulkheads? Or are you going to go with an extremely novel layout that pulls a protective blanket of Special Armor over the roof, like Morozov's Object 490?

What if the distribution of hits have shifted less from the front and more to the sides, top, and rear by nature of the terrain? That certainly seems plausible given combat experience in Iraq, which was a heavily urbanized country, and urban combat is a feature of modern wars. That roughly triples the amount of armor you need to put on the tank, excluding the roof, unless you find a novel solution to a particular threat like certain anti-shaped charge appliques have.

What about transportation where bridges are MLC 70 at best? How do you move a wagon that matches that only without ammo and minimum liquid loads? Can you even shrink the mass of the tank? Do you really need 40 rounds in a wagon when most tanks that see action fire like 20 during a major campaign (Desert Storm) at most?

Block III never considered any of that because it never considered the opponent having a functional reconnaissance-strike complex, because it was using WW2 or 1973 norms of ammunition use which were outdated by the 1980's, and becuase it was expected to fight in a "conventional" old-fashioned manner, outside towns, against large mechanized formations. Nowadays everyone fights in cities, everyone knows what the 1980's ammo expenditures would have been, and everyone and their grandma (including ISIS) can buy or build a reconnaissance-strike or at least reconnaissance-fire complex in their garage.

Merkava IV and Strv 122B have more and better protection than Block III would have had. T-14 is probably equivalent I guess.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Where do toy get the ammunition load out for Desert Storm (Op Granby) from? Never seen anything other than a full load out on a vehicle.

 

[Kat Tsun]

I meant ammo expenditures for 2d ACR's tanks in ODS. I don't know what the British were shooting.

2d ACR weren't firing full ammo loads. It was closer to half between resupply periods. Which jives with the NTC ammo expenditures where M1s expend about 10-12 rounds per combat phase of training. Since ODS represents about the absolute state of tank on tank violence, being that one side so lopsided engaged and killed a multitude of targets, you probably aren't going to exceed ammo expenditures of that type, nor at the NTC, which tries to replicate portions of ODS. During NTC tanks usually expend 10 rounds in a offensive phase and 11 rounds in a defensive phase, which is half the main gun storage, before being resupplied or at the end of a day.

A future M1 could get away with a single belt/ribbon autoloader of 24 rounds with two natures of ammo: sabot and high explosive/AMP and not be too worried about ammunition use I think. This would definitely free up more space for armor or fuel or whatever.

The only question here is how much more commonly do M1s engage infantry targets in strongpoints with main gun rounds while supporting troops in infantry combat I guess. No one actually knows this answer AFAIK, but OIF didn't see an appreciably higher 120mm ammo use. It was an order of magnitude less 120mm ammo fired despite the deployed ground forces being closer to 1/4th.

Clearly the expenditures of main gun rounds proportionate to tanks in action has been diminishing, despite intensification of urban combat, so I don't think that urban fighting appreciably increases the amount of ammo used, as OIF saw a good amount of it in Baghdad, certainly more than Desert Storm.





As far as historical data goes it's probably fine to use this.

The study itself is kind of useless IMO because the author commits several bad statistical problems but it's a student's master's thesis for the military equivalent of a general education degree, not anything groundbreaking or important, so glaring errors can be forgiven I guess (he thinks you can cut the number of ammo trucks used in ODS by 80% because "they only shot 20% of the ammo they had on hand" as if it was evenly distributed across all wagons [which he notes himself lol]); the data itself, not the conclusions, is mostly sound though.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA451782.pdf

tl;dr History says that M1s have too many main gun rounds and probably too few machine gun rounds. This is similar to the Vietnam experience, where Pattons routinely ran out of ammunition for the machine guns and had to expend main gun rounds on infantry formations. It's partly why the M1 has almost double the .30 caliber ammunition load of an M48 or M60, but even that seems to be not enough.

Then again perhaps the M1's issues aren't the ammo load per se, but rather that the readily available machine gun rounds are still around 5,000 rounds, same as an M60, and requires reloading by the crew. A fully integrated might be a good idea, with the whole 11,000 rounds available for use by the crew. But that's a bit futuristic and still would require reorganization of the loader's compartment AFAIU.

 

[Foo Fighter]

Thanks for that, informative. In a peer engagement against Russian or PRC units I would expect that to double at least. Iraqi units were hardly the epitome of capable adversary. I will get good use out of the pdf, nice one.

 

[Fluff]

Merkava, and S tank mentioned, got me thinking.

Several contributors have mentioned ATGM/vertical silos, and drone swarms both offensive and defensive.

So - new family of vehicles.

Tanks
Probably combined ATGM and drone mother - possibly visually the same as a heavy APC/IFV.

Optionally manned - could we add, optionally armoured? i.e. looks like armour, but is just light armour - if its unmanned it gives options do drop it/ship it quicker, run it remotely in some phases, while you ship in your base.

Also, to try and shrink our 'tank' then the engine in the front comes into mind. If the crew are all in the hull, which is safer? Hybrid/electric drive again offers some changes in shape/layout.

If you have functioning drones/overwatch, then could some 'tanks' run with only 2 crew? If the AI/controller/mother is going to tell them where to go and what to shoot, do they need a seperate TC and gunner? Again shrinking the 'tank' or upping the armour.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

It's hard to imagine a modern scenario where an Abrams would need to expend that much machine gun ammo in a single engagement. I think the coax ready box should be plenty although I've heard reloading it is a pain and towards the bottom of it the machine gun gets a few misfeeds due to the positioning of the belt by then.

I've always found the idea of an heavier secondary armament intriguing versus having just the coax MG but there are a lot of options there including the question of where such a weapon should be. Coaxial to the main gun? Externally but still forward firing? An independent RCWS controlled the tank commander?

 

[Bruno Anthony]

I'm a bit doubtful that the M1A2D is north of 90 tons even after throwing everything you possibly can on it.

The mine rollers are pretty heavy.

You're right though, because that's for SEPv3. M1A2D is heavier due to the new armor package.

View attachment 673420

The very tippy top of that "actual Abrams MLC" line is the SEPv3 with Force Protection package, mine rollers, and full fluids and ammo. Trophy APS and the ballast for balancing adds about 2.5 tons to the Abrams. I don't know how much the M1A2D additional armor adds but it's probably more than a ton since it had rather sizeable weight simulators and appears to be about as much a jump in thickness as the M1 to IPM1.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1113867.pdf

From all the replies, it seems like there is no right answer. To get one thing you
have to sacrifice somewhere else. Is there a happy median?

The eternal armor debate mobility protection firepower

Yes. The only answer to retaining them all in proportion is to shrink the tank, which is what Challenger PIP, HD40T, and T-80 did. Tankers the world over would sooner sacrifice mobility before sacrificing firepower and protection, but that makes moving a unit of tanks harder, even if each individual tank isn't much of an issue. The Tiger problem.

As a rule I generally think that machines shouldn't be protected as much as people because mechanized civilizations can produce more of machines and fewer of people, relatively speaking, but tankers probably shouldn't be scared of a .50 cal, 14.5mm, or a 30mm chaingun knocking out their main gun.

Anything bigger than that is probably not much different than each other, since a 57mm APFSDS or 40mm APFSDS can penetrate what lower end 100mm's AP shells from a T-55 could, but you might be able to work that in with applique like ERA and a solid baseline protection of 14.5mm or 30mm APCBC to stop the BTR and BMP.

The ideal should be that the HET shouldn't exceed MLC 100 with the tank loaded but that's probably impossible.

Reading last few posts I’m struck how the Army after the end of the Block III MBT program in 1992 is still trying to build that tank now. But instead drags the Abrams through endless updates. The MBT used to be the USArmy’s primary ground combat system. So build the Block III already! The USArmy in 1972 was able to get a list of requirements to contractors. What’s the problem now?

The problem is figuring out what requirements are necessary, obviously. Block III has about as much relevance to modern warfare as an M4 Sherman does to the 1980's. Maybe less. But it's all anyone has as a baseline.

For instance, how do you build armor to protect against high penetration shaped-charge bombs (think PG-7VL) hitting the top 30 degrees of roof armor? Is it going to be using sacrificial components with heavy fire/blastproof bulkheads? Or are you going to go with an extremely novel layout that pulls a protective blanket of Special Armor over the roof, like Morozov's Object 490?

What if the distribution of hits have shifted less from the front and more to the sides, top, and rear by nature of the terrain? That certainly seems plausible given combat experience in Iraq, which was a heavily urbanized country, and urban combat is a feature of modern wars. That roughly triples the amount of armor you need to put on the tank, excluding the roof, unless you find a novel solution to a particular threat like certain anti-shaped charge appliques have.

What about transportation where bridges are MLC 70 at best? How do you move a wagon that matches that only without ammo and minimum liquid loads? Can you even shrink the mass of the tank? Do you really need 40 rounds in a wagon when most tanks that see action fire like 20 during a major campaign (Desert Storm) at most?

Block III never considered any of that because it never considered the opponent having a functional reconnaissance-strike complex, because it was using WW2 or 1973 norms of ammunition use which were outdated by the 1980's, and becuase it was expected to fight in a "conventional" old-fashioned manner, outside towns, against large mechanized formations. Nowadays everyone fights in cities, everyone knows what the 1980's ammo expenditures would have been, and everyone and their grandma (including ISIS) can buy or build a reconnaissance-strike or at least reconnaissance-fire complex in their garage.

Merkava IV and Strv 122B have more and better protection than Block III would have had. T-14 is probably equivalent I guess.

I keep hearing about Rec/Strike complexes that apparently everyone has and are battle proven & also the future.
A differing view:

The Battles of Zelenopillya: Part 1 of 2

A battle in the Russo-Ukrainian war has been profoundly influential within American and western military circles. There is evidence, however, that it did not happen the way it’s been reported…

7969.home.blog

Do we know what Block IIIs armor would have been? Based on its planned entry date of 2002 I’m sure it would’ve been upgraded. Planned to have modular armor. Auto loader & better sensors incl an RF sensor. Peter McVey the Program Mgr in the May 1991 issue of ARMY, mentioned that the criteria for main gun load out was stowed kills, maybe 30 with a 140mm. Active defense systems were still being researched so it would’ve had a passive system.

Start fresh USArmy. I’m sure a newer system would be more adaptable to a 360 battlefield. Let the Abrams rest.

 

[Bruno Anthony]

Includes relevant ARMY mag

https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/threads/us-armys-1990s-ams-program-fifv-block-iii-tank-crusader.3860/#post-233790

 

[jsport]

There is precedence for cross-over SPH and tanks. An Abrams replacement might want genuine in/direct fire emphasis.

2S1 Gvozdika

The 2S1 "Gvozdika" was a workhorse self-propelled howitzer of the Soviet Army that served in motorized rifle units at the regiment...

thesovietarmourblog.blogspot.com

2S1 "Gvozdika"
The vehicle also had to have a significant secondary anti-tank capability, and as such, it had to have a reasonably low profile and the ability to conduct direct fire using anti-tank ammunition.

 

[jsport]

2S35 Koalitsiya-SV Self-Propelled Howitzer

www.globalsecurity.org

As if new long rg ATGMs and tank launched AT missile/muntions and UAS swarms are not enough.
If the 2s35 has the ability to widely disperse yet deliver precise and overwhelming effects at such long ranges then a widely dispersed tank/SPH counter-battery capability may make the most sense. An OMT may need to look more like a Crusader remake.

A single Russian state-of-the-art Koalitsiya-SV self-propelled gun is worth an entire artillery battery, deputy commander of Russia’s Missile Troops and Artillery, Major-General Alexander Dragovalovsky told the press 22 November 2015. "It’s a new weapon, cutting edge. Its capabilities effectively allow it to replace a whole battery," Dragovalovsky said.

Due to its pneumatic loader and microwave shell priming system, the Koalitsiya-SV is capable of firing up to 16 shells per minute [Compared to the Amerian M109A6 Paladin maximum Rate of Fire of 4 rounds / minute for 3 minutes]. Its ammunition capacity is 50-70 shells, including precision-guided munitions linked to the GLONASS system, Russia's equivalent of the US-based GPS satellite network.
..
Russian artillery would learn to hit targets at a distance of over 100 km. Ultra-long-range guided missiles would soon replenish the ammunition of the Coalition and Msta installations. Until now, the maximum range of the corrected ammunition has not exceeded 20 km.

According to Izvestia sources, reported 05 March 2020, the military-industrial complex was working on several versions of ultra-long-range shells for the latest 2S35 Coalition-SV howitzer. The interlocutors of the publication refused to name the exact deadlines, but explained that the development would be submitted for testing in the near future. Unique ammunition would allow the Coalition to deliver high-precision strikes at a distance of over 100 km. New items would also replenish the ammunition of the Msta howitzers.

 

[muttly]

This and weapons like them make the U.S decision critical. Our future ability to engage armor
and other ground forces is at stake. One can only hope they make the right one.

 

[Elan Vital]

I'm a bit doubtful that the M1A2D is north of 90 tons even after throwing everything you possibly can on it. Regardless of that weight reduction still must be a goal for any future MBT or major Abrams upgrade. Going for FCS weight targets is just a step too far however. We shouldn't structure our entire armored force around what some under-built bridge somewhere in Eastern Europe can sustain. Hell, throw some NATO $ at them to build better bridges and for our own uses more bridging vehicles and engineering assets.

Is there a place for a lighter armored force that can deploy more rapidly? Yes and the Stryker brigades have demonstrated that well I think. We should continue to build upon that foundation but our next MBT should be focused on what the heavy armored units need.

For the mbt, unless there is a new material coming, the only substantive weight reduction is to remove working volume, and then shrink the tank in size, keeping the same level of armour.

I assume ‘chobham’ tried various formulas, and that we are close to optimal, for a given protection.

So the items I can think of, are the loader, and some ammo.

But, the loader is then replaced by an auto loader of some sort.

Shrinking the radios, for example, isn’t going to amount to much.

Drones, flying armour etc, can help, but jamming etc is going to counter, so back to armour on the vehicle.

As always, what do you want to achieve, from the triangle.

No significant weight gains will be achieved as long as the US refuses to fund new components and a through rebuild or new hulls. But it is possible to save a lot of weight without sacrificing crew space or other performance parameters.

The LV-100-5 already showed you could reduce powerpack space by over 50% and that doesn't even reach the current state of the art. You could mount a 1500-1800hp engine nowadays that is both a tonne lighter alone and allows shortening the tank by one roadwheel to save even more weight (3 tonnes minimum).
Modern hydropneumatic suspension will save over a tonne.
If you move to a 2-man autoloaded turret where the crew sits low enough to reduce turret height, you will save even more weight.

You can still improve protection for the same weight nowadays. The M1A2 SEPs never changed the quality of the steel structure, barely redesigned the hull armor packages and didn't increase the working volume of the turret front much. CATTB pushed that way further. You need to play with line-of-sight distances rather than sheer material weight, to play with air gaps and NERA.

All of these measures were 90's tech, we just remained stuck in the 80s or even 70s save for electronics and optics.

 

[shin_getter]

Man, given recent events, the US army budgeting concept will have to change.

What will heavy armor interest groups come up next?

 

[Foo Fighter]

Well not much if they want a decent chance of a survivable result. The protection will not change much and the addition of drones etc will kick weight up a bit but not massively. Look to more efficient engines/generation abilities and for this to be cleaner in nature than current diesel etc.

The ability to communicate effectively by way of tactical intel while reducing the work load and stress levels on the crew making for a much more effective and cohesive unit/skillset/tactical reaction ability etc.

As much as armour is important, so is information and cohesion whether it be in defence or attack.

 

[Foo Fighter]

I am going to add this separately because I believe it works better this way. Has anyone seen or have evidence of active countermeasures used by armoured units in the Ukraine invasion?

I have not and this is something that should be active everywhere in a conflict zone so, what is the problem?

 

[Firefinder]

I am going to add this separately because I believe it works better this way. Has anyone seen or have evidence of active countermeasures used by armoured units in the Ukraine invasion?

I have not and this is something that should be active everywhere in a conflict zone so, what is the problem?

There been a few pictures of tanks with the...

DROZA 2 units on them that been either capture or destroyed.

As for why we not seeing more...

Despite all the hype, the Russia military is not only poor but corrupt as fuck.

They simple just dont have the money to outfit hardly any vehicles with it.

Not that it will do much anyways dince the best one they have is the Arena system. Which is only good for the front and sides. Not top attack like the Javalin uses or being shot in the rear.

That is if they even work ever worked outside of tests.

Which if you dont maintain it... Which the Russians apparently havent basic maintenance on their vaunted SAM systems...

Doesn't matter how good it is if its broke or worse...

The crew doesnt know how to work the damn thing like what happened to the M4 Sherman's gun stabilizer.

plus add in the Logistics Situation for Russia, which has the Wehmarch laughing in pity, well you do need to reload them. And Ukraine has more Anti Tank gear then they know to do with...

Ukraine, they simply havent had a chance to buy any yet. And even if they did have any they be head in reserve til the Mud season over...

 

[Foo Fighter]

Thanks mate, pretty much what I expected the case to be.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

I am going to add this separately because I believe it works better this way. Has anyone seen or have evidence of active countermeasures used by armoured units in the Ukraine invasion?

I have not and this is something that should be active everywhere in a conflict zone so, what is the problem?

There been a few pictures of tanks with the...

DROZA 2 units on them that been either capture or destroyed.

As for why we not seeing more...

Despite all the hype, the Russia military is not only poor but corrupt as fuck.

They simple just dont have the money to outfit hardly any vehicles with it.

Not that it will do much anyways dince the best one they have is the Arena system. Which is only good for the front and sides. Not top attack like the Javalin uses or being shot in the rear.

That is if they even work ever worked outside of tests.

Which if you dont maintain it... Which the Russians apparently havent basic maintenance on their vaunted SAM systems...

Doesn't matter how good it is if its broke or worse...

The crew doesnt know how to work the damn thing like what happened to the M4 Sherman's gun stabilizer.

plus add in the Logistics Situation for Russia, which has the Wehmarch laughing in pity, well you do need to reload them. And Ukraine has more Anti Tank gear then they know to do with...

Ukraine, they simply havent had a chance to buy any yet. And even if they did have any they be head in reserve til the Mud season over...

I had thought in the past decade or so that the Russians had corrected most of the problems that had plagued their military since the fall of the Soviet Union. It seems this has not been the case.

I can't say I've seen any photos of active protection systems in the Ukrainian conflict other than Shorta on T-90s which is going to be of limited use against modern ATGMs.

 

[Ravinoff]

Floating this out here, the topic of an unmanned turret with an autoloader has been brought up in this thread years ago, might be time to reevaluate something like the M1TTB (not the CATTB with the diesel engine and 140mm gun) again? Gotta imagine that unmannd turret would improve crew survivability against newer top-attack ATGMs, and with the smaller profile you could much more easily integrate VLS-type launchers to the turret without making it overly huge.

 

[Cjc]

I'm a bit doubtful that the M1A2D is north of 90 tons even after throwing everything you possibly can on it.

The mine rollers are pretty heavy.

You're right though, because that's for SEPv3. M1A2D is heavier due to the new armor package.

View attachment 673420

The very tippy top of that "actual Abrams MLC" line is the SEPv3 with Force Protection package, mine rollers, and full fluids and ammo. Trophy APS and the ballast for balancing adds about 2.5 tons to the Abrams. I don't know how much the M1A2D additional armor adds but it's probably more than a ton since it had rather sizeable weight simulators and appears to be about as much a jump in thickness as the M1 to IPM1.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1113867.pdf

Merkava IV and Strv 122B have more and better protection than Block III would have had. T-14 is probably equivalent I guess.

So two things, I agree with the rest (a automatic turit only needs protection from a 30mm cannon not any more)
But for one the m1a2D is not 90+ tons i don't know how you got that, this vehicle was never designed to be able to handle 70+ tons, its suspension would break by 75 (and no advanced suspension dosnt fit) and the body would star breaking from the straine of movement by 80 tons. The m1a2D is at most 74 tons and probably more like 72.5.
And second were do you get the idea that the block III would have worse protection then the makerva or the leopard? The Abrams already has better armor then the leopard and the block III dosnt have to cover nearly as much tank as the makerva (sense it still has a mand turret). Hell the only reason the the T-14 might not have as good armor would be interly because its 10+ tons (more like 20 for the makerva) lighter then any of these tanks.

 

[Firefinder]

Hell the only reason the the T-14 might not have as good armor would be interly because its 10+ tons (more like 20 for the makerva) lighter then any of these tanks.

Well that or the Russian graft effected them and that armor is all notorion or just missing pieces.

Which been sadly shown to be extremely possible with recent events.

 

[Kat Tsun]

But for one the m1a2D is not 90+ tons i don't know how you got that,

Literally from the United States Army?

The Force Protection kit weighs about 6 tons. The ballast and Trophy weighs about another 6. The mine roller weighs about 15. The SEPv4 with the new armor package weighs at base about 68-72 tons or so, empty (I think). The Class III and V supplies are something like 2 or 3. It's between 95-100 tons with full fluids and ammunition, depending on how much ammo/fluids and some miscellaneous equipment fits.

This isn't really important for the mobility of the tank because the AGT-1500 is a monster and doesn't care, but it is important for bridge mobility.

this vehicle was never designed to be able to handle 70+ tons, its suspension would break by 75 (and no advanced suspension dosnt fit) and the body would star breaking from the straine of movement by 80 tons. The m1a2D is at most 74 tons and probably more like 72.5.

And that's where I ask you the same thing. Suspensions don't just "break" at hard weights. They merely get less effective. This is true for torsion bars as well as anything. The Abrams at full combat weight for assault minefield breaching like the Desert Storm company rollers are titanic because the track width mine roller is huge. The good news is that the bulk of this is actually off the tank's suspension, it's just pushing some extra bogeys. The bad news is it's fat as hell and requires a giant bridge somewhere around MLC 130 to safely traverse.

Actual combat mass for the tank excluding the mine roller never exceeds ~80 tons with any equipment fit on the actual suspension, though. Mine plow breaches 85 tons (just barely) with the full FP kit and Trophy system + turret ballast though on a SEPv3. SEPv4 is fatter because the turret armor is much thicker.

And second were do you get the idea that the block III would have worse protection then the makerva or the leopard?

Because it's an old and crummy tank from the late 1980's and Strv 122 and Merkava are new and modern tanks from the 2000s? Lol.

The Abrams already has better armor then the leopard

Nah. Sweden explicitly chose the Strv 122 because the M1A1 lacked sufficient armor to protect against its hypothesized ultra sabot threat. It isn't clear if the HA package would have improved this, but it is clear that the Heavy Armor and later M1A2s, except maybe the newest new ones with the brand new armor, have worse protection than the wedge applique on the Strv 122s, not to mention the total lack of top attack bomblet/EFP protection.

Mostly because the M1s have Special Armor of similar generation to the Leo 2A5, but without a wedge applique, which makes them worse.

Hell the only reason the the T-14 might not have as good armor would be interly because its 10+ tons (more like 20 for the makerva) lighter then any of these tanks.

Well that or the Russian graft effected them and that armor is all notorion or just missing pieces.

Which been sadly shown to be extremely possible with recent events.

The worst thing that can be said about T-14 is that Relikt might not live up to the hype I guess, considering Relikt is the primary armor, but the Special Armor on the nose seems to be decent enough.

Russian graft isn't real anyway, as that's a bit of a spook. T-14 isn't being produced because a combination of Crimea sanctions choking the tooling supplies they require from France and Germany and because domestic replacements aren't easily forthcoming. Sort of a double whammy.

T-14 was slated to use the Catherine-FC but now uses the Irbis-K which is comparable, but took about 5 years to mature, for instance. It isn't clear if the rest of the combat system or the more esoteric components of the tank have readily available domestic alternatives, but since the production is going so slowly it could very well be that the assembly line is hampered by a lack of machine tooling reducing throughput or not having enough capable ECUs to produce functional tank engines.

Contrary to popular belief a lot of the Russian MIC inherently relies on American ITAR restricted imports, and when those are sanctioned, it's hard to get anything done in general aside from assembling full knock-down kits of Czech tractors. There are real material and equipment shortages resulting from Western sanctions (mainly French and German) that have strangled the Armata production, along with K-25, and all the others.

It's not dissimilar to how the USSR could not produce submarine propellers of certain quality standards before the Kongsberg scandal in the 1980s, except there is a greater incentive among industrial countries like Germany or Korea to break ITAR nowadays than there was in the Cold War, in the long run.

But I digress.

T-14's lightweight is achieved by its use of ERA along the entire side of the tank to form a not-insignificant portion of the frontal arc and relative lack of turret armor. That's all. It's not hard to have a (relatively) light tank with tons of frontal armor if you dispense with half the armored volume and a crewman. The M1 turret probably weighs more than the hull at this point after all.

 

[Foo Fighter]

No idea what the fuss is about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T14_Heavy_Tank

 

[Cjc]

I'm a bit doubtful that the M1A2D is north of 90 tons even after throwing everything you possibly can on it. Regardless of that weight reduction still must be a goal for any future MBT or major Abrams upgrade. Going for FCS weight targets is just a step too far however. We shouldn't structure our entire armored force around what some under-built bridge somewhere in Eastern Europe can sustain. Hell, throw some NATO $ at them to build better bridges and for our own uses more bridging vehicles and engineering assets.

Is there a place for a lighter armored force that can deploy more rapidly? Yes and the Stryker brigades have demonstrated that well I think. We should continue to build upon that foundation but our next MBT should be focused on what the heavy armored units need.

For the mbt, unless there is a new material coming, the only substantive weight reduction is to remove working volume, and then shrink the tank in size, keeping the same level of armour.

I assume ‘chobham’ tried various formulas, and that we are close to optimal, for a given protection.

So the items I can think of, are the loader, and some ammo.

But, the loader is then replaced by an auto loader of some sort.

Shrinking the radios, for example, isn’t going to amount to much.

Drones, flying armour etc, can help, but jamming etc is going to counter, so back to armour on the vehicle.

As always, what do you want to achieve, from the triangle.

No significant weight gains will be achieved as long as the US refuses to fund new components and a through rebuild or new hulls. But it is possible to save a lot of weight without sacrificing crew space or other performance parameters.

The LV-100-5 already showed you could reduce powerpack space by over 50% and that doesn't even reach the current state of the art. You could mount a 1500-1800hp engine nowadays that is both a tonne lighter alone and allows shortening the tank by one roadwheel to save even more weight (3 tonnes minimum).
Modern hydropneumatic suspension will save over a tonne.
If you move to a 2-man autoloaded turret where the crew sits low enough to reduce turret height, you will save even more weight.

You can still improve protection for the same weight nowadays. The M1A2 SEPs never changed the quality of the steel structure, barely redesigned the hull armor packages and didn't increase the working volume of the turret front much. CATTB pushed that way further. You need to play with line-of-sight distances rather than sheer material weight, to play with air gaps and NERA.

All of these measures were 90's tech, we just remained stuck in the 80s or even 70s save for electronics and optics.

There's also stuff like composite foam armor that's supposedly 3 times stronger then steel at the same whight (so armore only needs to be a 1/3 thick). And also future stuff like graphine or carbon nanotubes armor assuming they are ever made in larg amounts.

 

[Cjc]

But for one the m1a2D is not 90+ tons i don't know how you got that,

Literally from the United States Army?

The Force Protection kit weighs about 6 tons. The ballast and Trophy weighs about another 6. The mine roller weighs about 15. The SEPv4 with the new armor package weighs at base about 68-72 tons or so, empty (I think). The Class III and V supplies are something like 2 or 3. It's between 95-100 tons with full fluids and ammunition, depending on how much ammo/fluids and some miscellaneous equipment fits.

This isn't really important for the mobility of the tank because the AGT-1500 is a monster and doesn't care, but it is important for bridge mobility.

this vehicle was never designed to be able to handle 70+ tons, its suspension would break by 75 (and no advanced suspension dosnt fit) and the body would star breaking from the straine of movement by 80 tons. The m1a2D is at most 74 tons and probably more like 72.5.

And that's where I ask you the same thing. Suspensions don't just "break" at hard weights. They merely get less effective. This is true for torsion bars as well as anything. The Abrams at full combat weight for assault minefield breaching like the Desert Storm company rollers are titanic because the track width mine roller is huge. The good news is that the bulk of this is actually off the tank's suspension, it's just pushing some extra bogeys. The bad news is it's fat as hell and requires a giant bridge somewhere around MLC 130 to safely traverse.

Actual combat mass for the tank excluding the mine roller never exceeds ~80 tons with any equipment fit on the actual suspension, though. Mine plow breaches 85 tons (just barely) with the full FP kit and Trophy system + turret ballast though on a SEPv3. SEPv4 is fatter because the turret armor is much thicker.

And second were do you get the idea that the block III would have worse protection then the makerva or the leopard?

Because it's an old and crummy tank from the late 1980's and Strv 122 and Merkava are new and modern tanks from the 2000s? Lol.

The Abrams already has better armor then the leopard

Nah. Sweden explicitly chose the Strv 122 because the M1A1 lacked sufficient armor to protect against its hypothesized ultra sabot threat. It isn't clear if the HA package would have improved this, but it is clear that the Heavy Armor and later M1A2s, except maybe the newest new ones with the brand new armor, have worse protection than the wedge applique on the Strv 122s, not to mention the total lack of top attack bomblet/EFP protection.

Mostly because the M1s have Special Armor of similar generation to the Leo 2A5, but without a wedge applique, which makes them worse.

Hell the only reason the the T-14 might not have as good armor would be interly because its 10+ tons (more like 20 for the makerva) lighter then any of these tanks.

Well that or the Russian graft effected them and that armor is all notorion or just missing pieces.

Which been sadly shown to be extremely possible with recent events.

The worst thing that can be said about T-14 is that Relikt might not live up to the hype I guess, considering Relikt is the primary armor, but the Special Armor on the nose seems to be decent enough.

Russian graft isn't real anyway, as that's a bit of a spook. T-14 isn't being produced because a combination of Crimea sanctions choking the tooling supplies they require from France and Germany and because domestic replacements aren't easily forthcoming. Sort of a double whammy.

T-14 was slated to use the Catherine-FC but now uses the Irbis-K which is comparable, but took about 5 years to mature, for instance. It isn't clear if the rest of the combat system or the more esoteric components of the tank have readily available domestic alternatives, but since the production is going so slowly it could very well be that the assembly line is hampered by a lack of machine tooling reducing throughput or not having enough capable ECUs to produce functional tank engines.

Contrary to popular belief a lot of the Russian MIC inherently relies on American ITAR restricted imports, and when those are sanctioned, it's hard to get anything done in general aside from assembling full knock-down kits of Czech tractors. There are real material and equipment shortages resulting from Western sanctions (mainly French and German) that have strangled the Armata production, along with K-25, and all the others.

It's not dissimilar to how the USSR could not produce submarine propellers of certain quality standards before the Kongsberg scandal in the 1980s, except there is a greater incentive among industrial countries like Germany or Korea to break ITAR nowadays than there was in the Cold War, in the long run.

But I digress.

T-14's lightweight is achieved by its use of ERA along the entire side of the tank to form a not-insignificant portion of the frontal arc and relative lack of turret armor. That's all. It's not hard to have a (relatively) light tank with tons of frontal armor if you dispense with half the armored volume and a crewman. The M1 turret probably weighs more than the hull at this point after all.

Seriously? FPK would literally be unusable if it was 6 tons, trophy is less then 2 and I have no idea what "balislist" is. But combined would not get you over 75 tons.

And yes suspension will absolutely break if you put 15 tons over its designed load, frankly its a miner merical the armys been able to get the abrams over 70 tons and that has put a ton of stress on the suspension.

Also lol I sould probably stop responding if you think the 122 and makerva are "new tanks form the 2000's" the 122 is a leopard 2 and the makerva 4 is a makerva, aka both 70's designed and updated, gust like the abrams. By the end of ams program the abrams name was only still there to convince congress they weren't buying a completely new tank even if that was exactly what they were getting. (Also how was the block III a crumy design, especially sense they never finalized it)

Also the Sweden cose the leopard because it had better ground pressure (aka lighter) and Germany was selling them at fiersell prices because the cold war ended (if it weren't for that Sweden probably biulds there own tank) but I seem to recall the report explicitly stating the abrams armor was (slightly) better. Wich makes sense, the leopards is kinda light by western mbt standards (not as much as the French but they don't count )

And we weren't in anyway talking about Russian cruption and economic woes. We would talking design and how its lutercris to think the the leopard of all tanks has better armor then the armored capsule design of the t-14 (honestly even being lighter it would only have less armor if the composet was really bad).

 

[Kat Tsun]

I don't really have time to decipher all of that but I had a look in my Big Box of Esoteric Manila Folders and the listed mass for the M1A2 SEPv3 with Class I/II/III/V is 73.5 tons while the mass with the the FP Kit is 79 tons so you're right. It's actually 5.5 tons, not 6 tons. Oh well.

I was also wrong about the Trophy kit and turret ballast, it's not "about 6 tons", it's 2.5 tons. The bulk of that is probably the ballast weights which keep the turret motors from being overworked/slip ring damage due to mass imbalances. The mine roller is 10.8 tons or something, not 15, so I was wrong there too I guess.

Oh well.

This means that a fully fueled, fully ammoed, fully battle ready M1A2SEPv3 with Trophy APS, TUSK FP Kit, and mine roller (like you might see in a Desert Storm-esque tank company roller) weighs a mere 92 and a quarter tons, requiring an MLC of 134 to safely move. Combined with the HET with the trailer and notional 85-tonner M1 (similar to a M1 with full Force Protection and a mine plow) you can easily exceed 100-tons though as the M1000 trailer, HET, and 80-ton M1 would be somewhere around 130 tons. This only lists SEPv3s because the Esoteric Manila Folder only has M1s up to the SEPv3, and doesn't have the v4/M1A2D, which I imagine weighs "at least two" more tons than v3 given its turret is much better protected.

As I said this mostly matters for bridging in places with bad bridges, like Kosovo or Poland or Ukraine, and not for the actual tactical mobility of the tank. The suspension doesn't care if the tank is 50 tons, 80 tons, or 100 tons and neither does the engine. You go from "Leopard 2" to the dizzying nadir of..."Chieftain"? Just drive slower, don't goose it, and you won't break it too much.

That said even a 100 ton M1 is probably still more mobile than a Chieftain tbh.

Also no, it's well documented why Sweden chose the Leopard 2 over the M1: It came down to GD not giving them Heavy Armor Package.
The Swedes had some insane requirements for frontal protection against sabot rounds that couldn't be met any other way. I think the Strv 122 has upgraded armor over the 121s, excluding the roof armor, which makes it easily the most protected Western MBT outside of the Merkava IV and possibly the M1A2D. I believe the 122 uses some derivative of Strv 2000's armor package, but either way it is quite substantial and approximates roughly a meter of steel.

Strv 122 was also heavier than M1A1 being offered for obvious reasons, which is why the M1 had the best mobility characteristics of the three main contenders.

But that's all getting away from the main point, which is that M1 is fat and needs to go on a diet. Shedding the turret mass and redistributing surplus across the hull is the best way to go about this.

 

[Elan Vital]

But that's all getting away from the main point, which is that M1 is fat and needs to go on a diet. Shedding the turret mass and redistributing surplus across the hull is the best way to go about this.

I would really want SEP V4 to go all in on new components and layout to save weight, especially now that Ukraine related rearmament will make the need for new production or massive rebuilds even more prevalent anyway, but I'm afraid the DoD will go far short of what is really needed.

 

[Foo Fighter]

How many of the deployed Ma carry ALL of that weight? LBH, the additional kit is distributed and while it sounds all very good when you add it all together it just does not happen. Or, can you show it all being fitted to every M1 please? As a way to develop the need to redistribute weight in the turret it is a good method, shame it just does not work in the real world.

 

[Kat Tsun]

M1s wear TUSK all the time so they're generally hovering around MLC 95.

Making a tank that has the mass of M1 or M1IP (55-60 tons) but the inherent protection of Challenger 2 with the NERA applique shouldn't be impossible for USA though. That can be done with a robotic turret with relatively light armor on a turret designed to be replaced from battle damage. You move the blowout panels from the turret to the hull and just rip out the guts of the old autoloader and replace it. It would be like swapping an engine.

That would be the best possible armor configuration given recent historical events.