Generally the larger weapon with higher mass will maintain higher kinetic energy at impact. But penetrators focus on penetrating power, not necessarily just overall mass. Whether your tank's crew compartment is penetrated by a 10mm diameter or a 50mm diameter tungsten or DU bolt, the crew is still likely dead. So designers push up the velocity on the smallest diameter possible to reach an overkill. We are reaching a bit of a point of diminishing returns by growing to 130mm and above. In the modern sabot rounds, you can use the same penetrator rod in 105mm and 120mm. Your sabot casing simply needs to grow in the latter to fit the larger barrel. The general rule of thumb is the smaller weapon with a higher rate of fire is nearly always deadlier than the larger "full power" weapons. One of the secondary reasons I ask about the smaller diameter is because you can generally reach better accuracy in the short to mid-range - and decrease time of flight - if your velocity goes up and all things else are equal. So if the next M-1 successor drops in barrel diameter and increases lethality it wouldn't surprise me in the least.
M1 Abrams MBT Replacement
Has no one considered they might stick with the L/44 M256 and make it sufficiently modular that they can fit whatever future cannon NATO seems to decide on at a later date? Perhaps a modification of the M256 with improvements? Maybe even the XM360 as interim conventional design with reduced weight until something else (an ETC modification or 130mm L/51).
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Interestingly, the M829A3 and A4 have a larger diameter penetrator to get more weight to the dart (which improves the ballistic coefficient and reduces time of flight).
DU seems to have a best penetration speed of about 1500m/s, at least out of a 120mm. Tungsten needs to go faster, some 1700m/s.
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The M256 is already somewhat modular, the old 140mm "Thumper" was supposed to be a direct drop in.
shin_getter
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It feels like that as warfare evolves further away from tanks, the decision cycle on tanks increases as opposed to decrease.
It is like people talking about Iowa upgrades for 30 years. Why not throw some radar and SAMs? Why not put harriers on it? Why not guided 16" shells?
This when the question posed is how to make a tank work in the future as opposed to what would be the optimal combat force in the future.
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Except the part where the Ukraine War proves that tanks are not only not dead, but they are more important than ever, I guess.
There is nothing M256 can offer. XM360 is a superior design.
The diameter of the frustum (conical tip) and length of the rod both create surfaces for drag. The original M829 was 25mm diameter and the newer version is a little over 26mm, so not really much difference. The advent of longer rods running the length of the entire shell are a recent innovation which allows for better fineness (length to width) ratios. It also appears to be the less obvious counter to kinetic defensive weapons, as they may shatter the front of the rod without deflecting the rest that continues on into the target. Kind of genius.
Propellants are your ultimate limitation when it comes to barrel velocities, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they figure out rocket or bleed assist to push velocities. I have a feeling hollow cores, like with crossbow bolts, will be the next logical step as you can ramp up design velocity of the rod without losing your fineness ratio because your design weight matters and the frustum is going to be your preferred strike point even against ERA. Maybe that is South Korea's plan by growing the shell.
Propellants are your ultimate limitation when it comes to barrel velocities, and it wouldn't surprise me one bit if they figure out rocket or bleed assist to push velocities. I have a feeling hollow cores, like with crossbow bolts, will be the next logical step as you can ramp up design velocity of the rod without losing your fineness ratio because your design weight matters and the frustum is going to be your preferred strike point even against ERA. Maybe that is South Korea's plan by growing the shell.
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For reference:
That's what a fixed APS with VT frag rounds would do against a monolithic APFSDS. Imagine near-hypersonic EFP strikes against longrods, or a frag round but with DIME warhead instead. Also the higher the L-D ratio is the more is the rod susceptible to tumbling. This is a basic natural phenomenon. Mango use a double shortrod design to primarily improve mass production and also make it more capable against appearing Western NERA arrays.
Hollow core APFSDS are PELE rounds. Which are, by Rheinmetall's intention, not designed to penetrate thick armour of any kind.
The new logical step is to make a soft-recoil NLOS round that can top-attack MBTs while the launcher stays in defilade with targeting and BDA from a drone. Near-zero launcher signature, versatile and it can still reliably kill any tanks, and you dont need LOS.
Making an APFSDS that can hit targets 5km away is outright stoopid because at that distance, accounting for drag and velocity loss you would have to look at exotic propulsion (ramjets) or supersize guns like the British L4. And you still needs to see the target and rangefind and calculate the fire control solution anyway, what guarantees that the target wouldn't get alerted by its LWRs and pop smoke?
One could say that the most effective tank killer is HE arty. Ukraine sorta proved this. Whatever tested that I cant remember that the US Army did also proved this. China proved this. Multiple fused HE rounds can mission kill most expensive MBTs and blast their electronics, tracks and maybe even the gun.
Actually, the larger the L/D ratio, the more easily the overall plastic bending occurs to the projectile. Higher finess ratio does not tumble due to L/D ratio. Its only when the stiffness is overcome then linear integrity is compromised. That is the magic pixie dust in these technologies.
aonestudio
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M1 Abrams Ineffective By 2040 In Fight Against China: Army Study
A report from the Army Science Board recommends moving beyond the M1 Abrams to new, smaller tanks and uncrewed vehicles.
www.thedrive.com
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A straight chamber 155mm makes the most sense. Ammo capacity of 155mm vs 130mm is going to be the same. Better to get the larger diameter warhead with more explosive filler. Sabot rounds are losing their ability to defeat advanced reactive armor despite the longer rod. Larger shaped charge warheads will most likely be more effective at penetrating future armor. Hypersonic tube launched missiles can replace traditional sabot rounds.
I'd like to see a study that suggests as much if that is the case.
Which is not ideal. You wouldn't necessarily want a bunch of large ATGM's stored internally, and limits the number of vehicles you'd be able to engage in rapid succession if you have to load another main gun round thereafter to fire on another target. Externally mounted ATGM's are probably the solution here imo.
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Granted, but I don't know if the XM360 was designed to easily swap out for a bigger gun.
Almost doubled the mass of the penetrator!
Also, the serrations on the rods that the sabot grips onto can be made into pre-formed break points against ERA/NERA.
PELE?
At 5km, the typical APFSDS round will have lost some 450-500m/s.
Russian GLATGMs suggest that's not as big a deal as you think it is.
shin_getter
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Indirect gun fire anti-tank is plenty proven with decent showing of sensor fuzed, laser guided and dumb HE. You don't need a new vehicle, just buy more ammo for the artillery branch now that modern war have shown ammo needs are plain massive.
The recommandations also reflects a complete lack of imagination where requirements are set reactively after threats have clearly established themselves.
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If you ask me what the maneuver branch is about, it is not this trite talk of mobility protection firepower. All combat vehicles regardless of type have all three characteristics and all have classical tradeoffs. Actually, what maneuver is about is closing with enemy, doing things which requires closing with the enemy.
Well, precision large caliber fires no longer requires closing with the enemy and it is anti-synergy to spend much effort for maneuver forces to focus on this. The maneuver force should focus on what it can do.
A few tasks where the future maneuver force have advantage over standoff forces
1. Counter low observable targets (mines, drones, infantry in cover)
2. Increase tempo of warfare by converting concealment based warfare to firepower-defense centered warfare
3. EW Domination
4. Responsive fires
5. Support shorter range forces (eg. electrical aircraft)
Responsive fires:
From a conventional vehicle design perspective, a networked gun mortar with fire on the move FCS, guidance + variable powder charges provides the best immediate fire support against land targets on a formation level. Such systems is available off the shelf. While high velocity tank gun shell flight time is less, the enemy will avoid line of sight with such guns, while it is far more difficult to avoid low response time indirect fire with trajectory changing munitions. High velocity-only low elevation indirect fire guns due to trajectory reasons have either dead zones or have to be too far to the front, resulting in poor availability of rapid response fires.
Against aerial targets, DEW, autocannons and missiles are all useful and have to be incorporated to maneuver formations. The demanding requirements of air defense means that such systems will necessarily have the best response time and be most expensive. Also, large high velocity high elevation guns can also be used against aerial targets and should be a design consideration.
EW Domination
All the talks about EW, everything is left as fuzzy and nothing about who and what force structure would win the EW war. Well, simple:
Heavy vehicles with high power output, large antennas close to the point of conflict relying on active/passive defenses will overpower light platforms with low power output, smaller antennas far from the point of conflict relying on concealment to survive.
If you are fielding 60ton vehicle fleets, it is logical that you'd add 60ton EW vehicles as well. Forget killing targets directly, the maneuver force brings the EW hammer and dominate the front, and the drone force run rampant and defeat the enemy. The rest of the maneuver force just protect the EW box.
Countering low observable threats
Decades of warfare experience have shown that with access to aerial observation and precision long range fires, threats from tanks to pickups can be eliminated at range. Threats like mines, IED, pop up infantry and drone attacks can not be defeated by long range fires.
The maneuver force ought not to focus on things like detecting tanks at 20km, far beyond normal line of sight, but on sensing of obscured threats. Powerful ground and cover penetrating sensors is what is what would bring value to the maneuver force.
The threat poised by well concealed warheads combined with smart delivery platform means that all parts of the vehicle is under threat, but by small warheads. Instead of frontal armor, vehicle system robustness is what will determine survivability.
Supporting short range forces
Electric vehicles can be designed to have very low costs with drawbacks of poor range. Support forces near the front enables the usage of such vehicles. UAV/UGV support vehicles with rapid rearm/resupply capability can enable high sortie rates.
Increasing the tempo of operations
The ability of protected maneuver forces to close with the enemy enables the use of low cost, low mass vehicles for the last stretch with high sortie rate, result in increase combat tempo.
Instead of a catapult aircraft force 50km from the front, a multicopter force staging 5km from the front can result in rapid defeat of a inferior opponent force. This tactical tempo advantage combined with interdiction and other shaping can cause dislocation of enemy forces resulting outsized advantage.
I read the report, and it is clear to me that they are inflating the value of tanks massively, talking up threats like T-14 sabot duels and claiming tank on tank kills, probably from padding using cherry picked data 2014 Ukraine campaign, in which Ukraine lacks modern ATGM with tandem HEAT or top attack capability. With the ongoing war not being over one can just throw up data that don't line up when most reasonable inferences would not agree with many assertions within the document.M1 Abrams Ineffective By 2040 In Fight Against China: Army Study
A report from the Army Science Board recommends moving beyond the M1 Abrams to new, smaller tanks and uncrewed vehicles.
The recommandations also reflects a complete lack of imagination where requirements are set reactively after threats have clearly established themselves.
----------------------------------
If you ask me what the maneuver branch is about, it is not this trite talk of mobility protection firepower. All combat vehicles regardless of type have all three characteristics and all have classical tradeoffs. Actually, what maneuver is about is closing with enemy, doing things which requires closing with the enemy.
Well, precision large caliber fires no longer requires closing with the enemy and it is anti-synergy to spend much effort for maneuver forces to focus on this. The maneuver force should focus on what it can do.
A few tasks where the future maneuver force have advantage over standoff forces
1. Counter low observable targets (mines, drones, infantry in cover)
2. Increase tempo of warfare by converting concealment based warfare to firepower-defense centered warfare
3. EW Domination
4. Responsive fires
5. Support shorter range forces (eg. electrical aircraft)
Responsive fires:
From a conventional vehicle design perspective, a networked gun mortar with fire on the move FCS, guidance + variable powder charges provides the best immediate fire support against land targets on a formation level. Such systems is available off the shelf. While high velocity tank gun shell flight time is less, the enemy will avoid line of sight with such guns, while it is far more difficult to avoid low response time indirect fire with trajectory changing munitions. High velocity-only low elevation indirect fire guns due to trajectory reasons have either dead zones or have to be too far to the front, resulting in poor availability of rapid response fires.
Against aerial targets, DEW, autocannons and missiles are all useful and have to be incorporated to maneuver formations. The demanding requirements of air defense means that such systems will necessarily have the best response time and be most expensive. Also, large high velocity high elevation guns can also be used against aerial targets and should be a design consideration.
EW Domination
All the talks about EW, everything is left as fuzzy and nothing about who and what force structure would win the EW war. Well, simple:
Heavy vehicles with high power output, large antennas close to the point of conflict relying on active/passive defenses will overpower light platforms with low power output, smaller antennas far from the point of conflict relying on concealment to survive.
If you are fielding 60ton vehicle fleets, it is logical that you'd add 60ton EW vehicles as well. Forget killing targets directly, the maneuver force brings the EW hammer and dominate the front, and the drone force run rampant and defeat the enemy. The rest of the maneuver force just protect the EW box.
Countering low observable threats
Decades of warfare experience have shown that with access to aerial observation and precision long range fires, threats from tanks to pickups can be eliminated at range. Threats like mines, IED, pop up infantry and drone attacks can not be defeated by long range fires.
The maneuver force ought not to focus on things like detecting tanks at 20km, far beyond normal line of sight, but on sensing of obscured threats. Powerful ground and cover penetrating sensors is what is what would bring value to the maneuver force.
The threat poised by well concealed warheads combined with smart delivery platform means that all parts of the vehicle is under threat, but by small warheads. Instead of frontal armor, vehicle system robustness is what will determine survivability.
Supporting short range forces
Electric vehicles can be designed to have very low costs with drawbacks of poor range. Support forces near the front enables the usage of such vehicles. UAV/UGV support vehicles with rapid rearm/resupply capability can enable high sortie rates.
Increasing the tempo of operations
The ability of protected maneuver forces to close with the enemy enables the use of low cost, low mass vehicles for the last stretch with high sortie rate, result in increase combat tempo.
Instead of a catapult aircraft force 50km from the front, a multicopter force staging 5km from the front can result in rapid defeat of a inferior opponent force. This tactical tempo advantage combined with interdiction and other shaping can cause dislocation of enemy forces resulting outsized advantage.
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Penetrating with Enhanced Lateral Effect. A penetrator with a stronger wall material (WHA) and a weaker inside (aluminium) so when it impacts and compresses, the inside get squeezed and just go kaboom. Essentially an explosive-less HE round.
I was wrong there though, MadRat referred to an empty-core penetrator while I mistaked it for PELE. Still I could see no advantage in an empty-core one given the rules of material erosion and whatever physical magic happens at APFSDS impact.
Which is barely adequate for killing cast-steel turreted T-72Ms let alone the complex NERA + ERA that some modern MBTs have on their side like Abrams. Re Chally 1 longest kill that barely penetrated IIRC but thats against a Type 59.
3km or shorter engagement is a rare occurence as demonstrated in Ukraine. Better elevated surveillance and fire control GPS intergration allows for plotting individual fire mission. Ukraine's longest tank kill so far is a T-64 bracketing HE onto a russian tank at over 10km. And it tooked 20 rounds in continuos firing! That's approximately 2 minutes. PGK shells would do it even shorter.
Russian ammo carousels are also said to be not as big of a deal as they are talked up to be. This simply isn't the case. If they had a carousel full of ATGM's it would significantly harm the chances of the crew surviving a penetration. Likewise even with the Abrams design we know just fuel fires have caused mass detonations that blew the entire rear portion of the turret clean off. This had a lot to do with the content of the rack being mostly HEAT. The tank burned for 3-4 days straight.
The difference between cook off on a T-series and the Abrams is that this Abrams was put back into service within a year. TC at the time that it hit the anti-tank mines is now the current TRADOC Command Sergeant Major- Hendrex, Daniel.
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Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) was an FCS assumption.
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Ah, thanks! Had never heard of those, but it makes sense. Things get weird at those impact velocities.
Granted that DU impacting at 1000m/s is going to suffer significantly in penetration. It's why I agree that mid-range munitions are currently better off as chemical energy than kinetic. HEAT or EFP, not a rocket boosted super-sabot.
I'm not talking about a ready rack full of ATGMs. I'm talking about having maybe 6-8 (max) out of a load of 40-50, that you would have probably exhausted before getting into mine and main gun range of the opponents. These would reduce the count of sabot and HEAT, of course. I'm guessing a mix of something like 6x MRM, 14x sabot, 16x MPAT, and 4x canister for the 40 rounds in an Abrams.
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XM1111 Mid-Range Munition - Wikipedia
Is any MRM in service? Appears to drop off around 2007.
shin_getter
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Just buy KSTAM and call it a day?
en.wikipedia.org
KSTAM - Wikipedia
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XM1111 Mid-Range Munition - Wikipedia
Is any MRM in service? Appears to drop off around 2007.
Cancelled with FCS in 2009.
Anybody remember the old nerf launchers where you pounded your hand down to use air to push the nerf rocket? Gas is actually a pretty poor energy transfer agent. But hydraulics are ideal. It would be interesting to see some sort of plunger that used the explosive force to push hydraulic fluids into the hollow rod. As the fluid rushed through the relief valve built into the plunger the pressure would push the rod up the barrel. Once the last of the fluid passed beyond the valve it should be far enough down the barrel for the front-mounted sabot casing to take over. What does it improve? It captures more of the initial energy, much of which would travel down the barrel until the band sealed enough to drive the rod forward. The lost energy is significant. Hydraulic transfers are the most efficient energy transfer possible. The million dollar question is how cheaply can an effective hydraulic plunger be crafted?
The fins could also double as stiffeners. The goal isn't more mass, the future is pushing past 1800 m/s. You might need to go to 60:1 L/D. I don't see a 10mm diameter projectile being a problem if you can figure out how to keep it in a straight line. You could vaporize the crew with a hole half that size.
The fins could also double as stiffeners. The goal isn't more mass, the future is pushing past 1800 m/s. You might need to go to 60:1 L/D. I don't see a 10mm diameter projectile being a problem if you can figure out how to keep it in a straight line. You could vaporize the crew with a hole half that size.
Scott Kenny
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was using "MRM" as a generic for something that may not actually be a GL-ATGM per se.XM1111 Mid-Range Munition - Wikipedia
Is any MRM in service? Appears to drop off around 2007.
There's a decent argument to have both KSTAM and a faster mid-range round in the supply system. KSTAM works great in mountains and cities, where there's lots of vertical terrain for tanks to hide behind. But for the deserts and steppes, you want a much faster round to cover the 3-8km range band.Just buy KSTAM and call it a day?
KSTAM - Wikipedia
They kept saying that with each successive generation that went from 16:1 eventually to the current approximately 40:1 today. Yet lethality has only increased and trajectory flattened. And few have demonstrated the ability to do so. Just because there is little improvement beyond 1,500 m/s impacts it doesn't mean you can maintain 1,500 m/s at long range. The whole reason finesse ratios continue to climb is the efforts to reach the target at progressively longer lethal standoff ranges.
I think you ignore that penetration is a product of area. A smaller diameter with a higher finesse ratio will have higher pressure relatively speaking at the same velocity. Even a thimble-sized amount of DU mass penetrating a tank hull is devastating to a tank crew. All those tiny particles bouncing around in the interior at hyper to supersonic speeds would be catastrophic.
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aonestudio
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This reminded me about RAS counter armor concept from 2016/17 . This was lately circled around Twitter and some websites but never mentioned the source so I will put in for your convenience.
source : https://asb.army.mil/Portals/105/Documents/2010s/2016 A 170824 Robotics RAS Report FINAL.pdf?ver=S9xJPJ_kCPOHQULaSqfNeQ==
Attachments
Kat Tsun
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Show me a 40:1 penetrator in service today, not in a laboratory or experimental setup. The highest length penetrators today are about 30-32:1. Extra length is achieved by increasing the diameter, thus the mass, of the penetrator, which requires hotter propellants or larger bores.
This is the main reason Rheinmetall is moving to 130mm instead of just increasing the length of the 120mm round.
What place that is actually worth fighting over has lines of sight in excess of 3 to 4 kilometers? The U.S. Army expects to fight in suburbs, woodlands, and cities, not featureless tracts of desert. If it needs to kill things at range, it has missiles for that, as does everyone else.
There is no point for heavy direct fire weapons beyond increasing the length of penetrators, and given how hot most tank guns are, the bore diameter is the first place to go.
Hypervelocity penetrators care about density of the penetrator versus density of the target material and the length of the penetrator.
Everything else is sort of meaningless beyond aerodynamics. There are also novel forms of penetrators, such as segmented rods, designed to defeat specific imagined threats or hypothetical forms of dynamic armor, but these are not very useful beyond their specific contexts.
Actual experience with penetrating long rods suggests that it needs to be intact by a pretty significant fraction of the original length to cause the traumatic limb amputations that induce crew casualties. Removing arms and legs and pulverizing thoracic cavities isn't done by a "thimble sized amount of DU" (whatever that means). That would probably be stopped by a ballistic vest these days. It's usually more like a forearm sized rod of metal flying through your femur or humerus.
Spall is meaningless in generating casualties given the ubiquity of ballistic goggles and spall liners for the past, I don't know, literally 20 years at this point?
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Berserker95
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Pretty sure spall liners were fitted to mark iv and v tanks in 1917-18.
Imagine that, even argument I make is countered by experience. I'm impressed by how a ballistic vest can defeat a supersonic spray of superheated plasma made up of literally billions of the most dense particles known to man. Every particle not particularly lethal on its own, but in such a quantity that you could only wish spalling was the issue. Its like being exposed to the sun too long only this exposure is toxic now, later, and hundreds of years from now. If you don't die in the hit you will wish you had. Doesn't really matter if its DU or tunsten, its all bad.
I want everyone to understand, when I say penetration is a product of area I certainly do want length over width. You want to concentrate mass in a line, not in a ball. So yes, I could care less if its the thickness of a straw or forearm, as long as it penetrates and dumps a lethal payload into the target. The lethality of DU penetrators are greatly underestimated.
I want everyone to understand, when I say penetration is a product of area I certainly do want length over width. You want to concentrate mass in a line, not in a ball. So yes, I could care less if its the thickness of a straw or forearm, as long as it penetrates and dumps a lethal payload into the target. The lethality of DU penetrators are greatly underestimated.
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Scott Kenny
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1) DU is pyrophoric. Any dust or small particles are going to be on fire post-penetration. Hope there's no loose powder or a hydraulic or fuel leak in the penetrated compartment...
2) DU is roughly as toxic as lead. "acute high velocity lead poisoning" jokes aside, DU pellets/fragments are going to be about like those fancy TSS shotgun shells. Smaller bits flying a long way till they splat into a hard object. Infantry behind a tank are not going to like it.
Yep. One veteran I spoke to said Iraqi tankers hit by them looked like they were both toasted and squeezed through a juicer. He said, "it was ugly."
scrubhead
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Dunno if this fits here, but heres what Nicholas Moran ( The Chieftain ) had to say about the model ( from Tanknet ) :
" OK, I saw that one over a year ago when I was at Warren to film the M10. At the time, it was still a 'don't talk about it' design, I guess that's no longer the case. Thing's made of fiberglass. It is literally a conceptual model.
Note the hatches in the bottom photo. It is an unmanned-turret concept, similar to TTB or Armata. There's no reason it can't become an 'optionally manned' vehicle in the future, but note how in the Ronkainen twitter photo the 'front part' between the tracks and forward of the turret is missing. Looks like they just pulled that part of the module away. Not sure why they did that, they may as well add armor or whatever. Otherwise those front side plates holding the wheels together are going to have to be very thick. "
Very interesting.
Original Thread: https://www.tanknet.org/index.php?/topic/47512-next-generation-abrams/page/8/#comments
Checked out that thread. Turned out I had a tanknet account for ages and never knew that.
Some interesting tidbits:
View: https://twitter.com/ronkainen7k15/status/1578950647885737984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1578950647885737984%7Ctwgr%5E845dff163266445b33657c17e7e9c311f8d61c0b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tanknet.org%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fronkainen7k15%2Fstatus%2F1578950647885737984
If M1E3 take a more conservative development course, so imagine instead of AbramsX or KF-51, it would be a SEPv4 with improve all-around armour, a Quick Kill type APS that mainly protects from ATGMs or similar high-velocity threats ( lofted APFSDS), turret-ted smoke launchers to protect from EO guided munitions across all arc, and more antennas for reliable comms ( new GPS, more resistant datalinks, radios etc) and EW ( SIGINT pecking on enemy intel, or jamming tank comms or drones exposed datalink in general), a soft-recoil 120mm gun with most of the tank killing from podded ATGMs. Would such a tank be feasible in, around 2040?
Some interesting tidbits:
View: https://twitter.com/ronkainen7k15/status/1578950647885737984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1578950647885737984%7Ctwgr%5E845dff163266445b33657c17e7e9c311f8d61c0b%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.tanknet.org%2Findex.php%3Fapp%3Dcoremodule%3Dsystemcontroller%3Dembedurl%3Dhttps%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fronkainen7k15%2Fstatus%2F1578950647885737984
If M1E3 take a more conservative development course, so imagine instead of AbramsX or KF-51, it would be a SEPv4 with improve all-around armour, a Quick Kill type APS that mainly protects from ATGMs or similar high-velocity threats ( lofted APFSDS), turret-ted smoke launchers to protect from EO guided munitions across all arc, and more antennas for reliable comms ( new GPS, more resistant datalinks, radios etc) and EW ( SIGINT pecking on enemy intel, or jamming tank comms or drones exposed datalink in general), a soft-recoil 120mm gun with most of the tank killing from podded ATGMs. Would such a tank be feasible in, around 2040?
As a chemist your post offends me.
The DU is either a plasma, or a dense particulate spray. Because plasma is a gaseous state of matter so hot the electrons are no longer bound to individual atoms. Because of this an unbound plasma tends to dissipate extremely quickly. Which means that a dense plasma tries really hard to become an atmospheric pressure gas.
A ballistic vest will be ace at stopping a plasma, because the plasma will just burn the upper layers of the vest without penetrating.
Considering the mechanics going on in tank on tank engagements with DU penetrations it's unlikely that there is much if any plasma generation going on. With penetrations you're going to get sprays of particulate of varying sizes (with serious overmatch you essentially get one big piece of particulate going into the enemy tanks interior), and considering DU is pyrophoric, it's going to be on fire too.
It's going to be like a dragon's breath shotgun round going off inside the tank.
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Kat Tsun
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They've been common on and off throughout history tbf. T-55A had one for reducing HESH's cone of injury.
The U.S. Army didn't really bother with heavily ballistic protective liners in its modern group of AFVs until the Soviet ERW threat disappeared is more what I meant, though. M1 and M2 used to have borated polyethylene liners which didn't have much ballistic protection, at least initially. It's probably more accurate to say that more Kevlar was added to the liners, rather than them lacking it entirely, I suppose.
TBF, real world experience of DU penetrations on heavily laden (with dismounts) IFVs suggests that it just acts as any other long rod. There's no practical incendiary effect. Any real incendiary aspects would be an ammunition or fuel aerosol ignition, depending on if it's penetrating a rack of LAWs on the wall or a fuel or hydraulic tank in the sponson, and can be just as easily caused by tungsten or maraging steel.
SEPv4/M1A2D is dead now.
No, because Armor Branch (and all other Army branches) are largely incompetent at procurement, and DA vacillates ineffectually between conservative and radical design preferences roughly every 5 years, so we will be spinning our wheels until the Chinese produce a supertank. Then we might get 99% of the way there in about 8 years and stop at the final hurdle because of some reason outside of DA's control.
This is what has happened for the past 30 years. Barring some relatively minor, but important, procurement programs like MRAP, JLTV, FMTV and HEMTT's B-kits, the T901, and Javelin's incremental upgrades, we're still using the same things we did in 1990. We will likely continue this trend into the 2040's.
The exception will be if there is a major land war on par with Korea, which we'll probably lose in the first round and win in the second, after producing all the tanks we will ever need in the meantime.
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"
Pretty sure spall liners were fitted to mark iv and v tanks in 1917-18.
They've been common on and off throughout history tbf. T-55A had one for reducing HESH's cone of injury.
The U.S. Army didn't really bother with heavily ballistic protective liners in its modern group of AFVs until the Soviet ERW threat disappeared is more what I meant, though. M1 and M2 used to have borated polyethylene liners which didn't have much ballistic protection, at least initially. It's probably more accurate to say that more Kevlar was added to the liners, rather than them lacking it entirely, I suppose".
Fair comment mate. Efficiency etc would have needed a lot more investment, a long while ago. Kevlar 'jackets' would be useful if properly resourced and consturcted for the roll (Bacon, cheese, tomato and malt vinegar by preference).
Pretty sure spall liners were fitted to mark iv and v tanks in 1917-18.
They've been common on and off throughout history tbf. T-55A had one for reducing HESH's cone of injury.
The U.S. Army didn't really bother with heavily ballistic protective liners in its modern group of AFVs until the Soviet ERW threat disappeared is more what I meant, though. M1 and M2 used to have borated polyethylene liners which didn't have much ballistic protection, at least initially. It's probably more accurate to say that more Kevlar was added to the liners, rather than them lacking it entirely, I suppose".
Fair comment mate. Efficiency etc would have needed a lot more investment, a long while ago. Kevlar 'jackets' would be useful if properly resourced and consturcted for the roll (Bacon, cheese, tomato and malt vinegar by preference).
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