M1 Abrams MBT Replacement

[Kat Tsun]

Ballistic nylon jackets were put on floors of M113s in Vietnam IIRC, but GIs started putting actual factory built spall liners on M113 floors in Iraq, along with the sourced addon armor B-kits, made from steel or ballistic aluminum. Same thing happened in Chechnya, Afghanistan, and Korea. Armies being reactive to threats is nothing new, it's probably an optimal strategy to hedge your bets, instead of trying to predict the future.

Ukraine at least tells us the mine and anti-armor threats in Iraq and there would be dissimilar enough to require greater investment in the overall quantity of armored vehicles, rather than improving the efficacy of individual armored vehicles, because when a tank only lasts five minutes instead of five months in combat, it's better to have ten mediocre tanks than five really good ones.

 

[Foo Fighter]

........................................"in combat, it's better to have ten mediocre tanks than five really good ones".

I cannot see that working tbh.

 

[Kat Tsun]

........................................"in combat, it's better to have ten mediocre tanks than five really good ones".

I cannot see that working tbh.

Because you left off the context?

If the tank can last a long time in combat, it makes sense to maximize its combat potential. Give it all the radar sights and APS you want.
If the tank doesn't last a long time in combat, maximizing its combat potential is wasted effort. A "ordinary" M1A1 or even M60A3 is fine.

The diminishing return curve matters more as loss rates increase. At a certain point, replacing the losses becomes more important than ensuring one or two vehicles might survive a few minutes longer, because one or two vehicles won't meaningfully change the outcome of a battle involving dozens of similar vehicles.

There are certain things that are good for all tanks to have, like FLIRs and stabilized guns and sights, but these are pretty cheap nowadays, since Western countries are really good at manufacturing semiconductors.

IIRC one of DA's original plans for "tiering" the Army after the Cold War was to give the National Guard cast off M1A1s and -SAs, some remanfed from M1IPs, while the Active Army got new build -A2s and eventually Block 3 tanks. That fell through after a while and then we started selling the -SAs and SIAD might still have some 105mm gun tanks kicking around that aren't the Pattons.

It's pretty clear that mass counts more than most things though, at least if Ukraine is telling us anything. Merely having a lot of stuff can make up for basically any major failures in strategy or tactics. The West has very little stuff, compared to what it used to have, and compared to what the PRC and its friends can potentially put out.

 

[Elan Vital]

Because you left off the context?

If the tank can last a long time in combat, it makes sense to maximize its combat potential.
If the tank doesn't last a long time in combat, maximizing its combat potential is wasted effort.

The diminishing return curve matters more as loss rates increase. At a certain point, replacing the losses becomes more important than ensuring one or two vehicles might survive a few minutes longer, because one or two vehicles won't meaningfully change the outcome of a battle involving dozens of similar vehicles.

This is particularly important because modern Western countries pretty much have little to no capacity to manufacture brand new heavy armor vehicles. Lima has had its hull production plant closed since 1996 and I think the Leopard 2 lines in Germany are also closed, which is why KF51 uses a Leopard 2A4 hull instead of a new one. Maybe Egypt and Greece can still make hulls for each of those tanks, respectively.

That doesn't mean that you need to make better tanks with what you have in inventory or whatever: it means you really, really need to rebuild those factories and get them running ASAP, because Western armies are simply not going to be able to sustain loss rates of a modern mechanized war for more than a year or so with what the U.S. Army has between its active M1 tank inventory (~1,700) and held in reserve at SIAD (~2,000).

That is if Ukraine is instructive of what a land war between two near-peer competitors looks like, anyway. Not like there's many data points.

Germany has already restarted production of new-built Leo 2s with the 2A7HUN, 2A7NO and 2A8.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Germany has already restarted production of new-built Leo 2s with the 2A7HUN, 2A7NO and 2A8.

Good. Now if only Lima could get 50 M1 tanks a month out the door with new build hulls...

 

[Elan Vital]

Good. Now if only Lima could get 50 M1 tanks a month out the door with new build hulls...

It would have been a good start if they had hired the necessary workers and dealt with subcontractors' bottlenecks to ramp up the rebuild programme shortly after the Ukraine war started (or at least when the question of Western tanks as aid came up). Though with the M1A1s running out and basic M1s needing a completely new-built turret structure to be upgraded, new-built tanks will soon be necessary if more tanks are needed. As it is I've not seen any evidence the US are ramping up rebuilds nor adapting FMS allocations to meet the most urgent needs.

 

[Kat Tsun]

It would have been a good start if they had hired the necessary workers and dealt with subcontractors' bottlenecks to ramp up the rebuild programme shortly after the Ukraine war started (or at least when the question of Western tanks as aid came up). Though with the M1A1s running out and basic M1s needing a completely new-built turret structure to be upgraded, new-built tanks will soon be necessary if more tanks are needed. As it is I've not seen any evidence the US are ramping up rebuilds nor adapting FMS allocations to meet the most urgent needs.

This is the case, yeah. They might have decided to kill SEPv4 for this reason come to think.

 

[Scott Kenny]

This is the case, yeah. They might have decided to kill SEPv4 for this reason come to think.

Stupid question: since the E3 is a whole new turret at a minimum, would it be possible to rebuild plain M1s to that level (since they have a different turret than later versions)?

 

[asVAL]

SEPv4/M1A2D is dead now.

I mean using the SEPv4 as a foundation. The update package is relatively matured and low-risk, so it should be a good starting block.

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.

That's sad to hear, really.

 

[Moose]

Stupid question: since the E3 is a whole new turret at a minimum, would it be possible to rebuild plain M1s to that level (since they have a different turret than later versions)?

The existing hulls could be adopted to an AbramsX-style upgrade...However, I'm not sure there's a compelling economic case to do so. A hull would need to be stripped to bare metal, then modified to suit the new configuration, then built out to a complete vehicle again. Compared to just assembling a new hull on the production line, it could end up costing more. Under certain circumstances it might make for an easier sell to Congress calling it a remanufactured tank rather than a new tank, but Thats it's own discussion.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The existing hulls could be adopted to an AbramsX-style upgrade...However, I'm not sure there's a compelling economic case to do so. A hull would need to be stripped to bare metal, then modified to suit the new configuration, then built out to a complete vehicle again. Compared to just assembling a new hull on the production line, it could end up costing more. Under certain circumstances it might make for an easier sell to Congress calling it a remanufactured tank rather than a new tank, but Thats it's own discussion.

I was at least somewhat thinking in terms of how to get lots more M1E3s up and running in case of guano hitting the fan, and that kinda depends on what the production limiting item is for the M1E3.

 

[Kat Tsun]

I mean using the SEPv4 as a foundation. The update package is relatively matured and low-risk, so it should be a good starting block.

That's sad to hear, really.

They'll figure it out when something happens, probably. American military history is similar to British military history where <thing happens> and people just figure out as they go along, usually enlisting the help of random European allies' more developed military-industrial concerns.

 

[shin_getter]

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.

That's sad to hear, really.

The armor branch can not possibly come up with good new designs because the fundamental concept of the MBT is obsolete as the assumptions that drove the design no longer apply. This is discussing 21" inch artillery for next generation battleships in 1935. The vehicles already built still have residue value but the optimal concept no longer revolves around them. People can find roles for things and keep that thing for another five decades.

The forward thinkers are thinking of other stuff ever since assault breaker, and it is only organizational interests the props up an effort at thinking about usage. Basically, once a branch has been created, they will find things to justify their own existence.

If it isn't 50x M1 a month, but equal value in artillery and drones being produced, Russia would be toast. Imagine 10,000 FPV per day, that is what the money can buy.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The armor branch can not possibly come up with good new designs because the fundamental concept of the MBT is obsolete as the assumptions that drove the design no longer apply. This is discussing 21" inch artillery for next generation battleships in 1935. The vehicles already built still have residue value but the optimal concept no longer revolves around them. People can find roles for things and keep that thing for another five decades.

The forward thinkers are thinking of other stuff ever since assault breaker, and it is only organizational interests the props up an effort at thinking about usage. Basically, once a branch has been created, they will find things to justify their own existence.

If it isn't 50x M1 a month, but equal value in artillery and drones being produced, Russia would be toast. Imagine 10,000 FPV per day, that is what the money can buy.

As long as you have a doctrinal need for a big gun that is mobile, you will have tanks.

 

[shin_getter]

As long as you have a doctrinal need for a big gun that is mobile, you will have tanks.

You can write your doctrine to require big swords to produce greater shock effect on the charge. Doesn't mean that is logically the best course of action. I am quite sure you can read all about the value of shock action in a 1925 cavalry document.

You can also write your doctrine to define vehicle as not a tank because it is mobile direct fire anti-tank support vehicle: heavy, not a tank! I mean, whoever calls M10 a tank is obviously very wrong.

Bureaucrats writing documents for self serving purposes deserve eye rolls, not respect.

Remember behind every massive military success, the other side FUBAR'd hard. Government dysfunction is normal. Military advantages happen because the other side is even more dysfunctional.

 

[Scott Kenny]

You can write your doctrine to require big swords to produce greater shock effect on the charge. Doesn't mean that is logically the best course of action. I am quite sure you can read all about the value of shock action in a 1925 cavalry document.

Clear up until about 1942, actually.

But there's still a fighting need for a big gun that is mobile and can cross very rough ground. Because mobile big guns are valuable both tactically and economically, they get armored. That results in a tank.

You can also write your doctrine to define vehicle as not a tank because it is mobile direct fire anti-tank support vehicle: heavy, not a tank! I mean, whoever calls M10 a tank is obviously very wrong.

The M10 is an assault gun, it doesn't have enough armor to fight tanks head-on. But it will have a few APFSDS rounds in the basic ammo load in case of severe "oh shit" like a Tank Battalion breaking through the local area. Since the M10 is assigned to Infantry Brigades, there's no shortage of Javelins around to deal with most of that Tank Battalion.

 

[Prophet141]

Pretty sure spall liners were fitted to mark iv and v tanks in 1917-18.

They definitely wore crude chainmail spall masks to account for the riveting. The question is whether or not the spall being talked about is the kind that scratches your cheek or the kind that leaves a buck-shot sized hole in your chest cavity.

 

[Foo Fighter]

I have tried finding evidence on the variety of lining. Nothing concrete so far.

 

[shin_getter]

But there's still a fighting need for a big gun that is mobile and can cross very rough ground. Because mobile big guns are valuable both tactically and economically, they get armored. That results in a tank.

A jeep with 120mm Recoilless does the job, cost nothing and you can add a remote control kit. When armor doesn't work you go mass.

Poorer forces relied on such force structures since the Toyota war and they function. Lack of heavy vehicles does not result in major strategic weakness that lead to their defeat, the only issue is higher casualties rate. In that sense the era of armor has ended decades ago.

There are also a lot of options of throwing a warhead other than direct fire guns all with their own advantages. A force structure with different mix of warhead throwers can fulfill tactical requirements, and not all of them need guns. Obsession with guns lead to stuff like NGFS lobby that resulted in the Zumwalt which collapsed upon the narrowness of the mission.

It is always possible to come up with some scenario where the favored weapon systems, but for god sakes one should calculate the probability of such a event happening. Wars are not won by having the perfect asset for one scenario, but winning more scenarios by good margins.

There is also adapting one's conceptualization of warfare to new realities.

Why did Carrier's considered a side show compared to battleships in the 30s even though long range recon and strike capability have been demonstrated and improves year over year? It is because Carriers had very poor throw weight, with basically one sortie per day with inability to reliability sink a heavy combatant within that time frame. A battleship can match a Carrier's daily throw weight in minutes.

But it doesn't matter, you don't need to defeat the enemy fleet in one strike to win the war. One can apply slow attrition and avoid decisive action and win.
--------------------------------
The idea that "combined arms" means you have all the right assets for the situation is a big mistake. The right way to think is that you have a random collection of assets in practice as the enemy is inflicting losses and making your combined arms system collapse. You can buy more of something to make it so that you have it more often.

So you can imagine missing a entire category of assets, and what it does to your operations.

If you have no AA, drone swarm descend on you and you are destroyed. If you have no artillery, enemy artillery pound you into underground passivity. If you have no tanks, you have that private with Carol Gustav, spend a FOGM, or wait a minute for 155mm to land or something.

The M10 is an assault gun, it doesn't have enough armor to fight tanks head-on. But it will have a few APFSDS rounds in the basic ammo load in case of severe "oh shit" like a Tank Battalion breaking through the local area. Since the M10 is assigned to Infantry Brigades, there's no shortage of Javelins around to deal with most of that Tank Battalion.

Doctrinal use of vehicles is a meme especially when the last representative war was a long time ago. On the battlefield any vehicle that remotely function for any role will get used for that role when there is a shortage of forces, which is all the time in higher intensity conflict.

In WW2, the doctrine people came up with a dozen of vehicle classifications with highly specific roles. When field commanders get the vehicles they use everything for everything.

The Tank destroyers designed as mobile reserves as counter breakthrough spend the war firing high explosives in direct and indirect support of infantry. The medium tank for exploitation actions get thrown into breakthrough armor battles. Inability to penetrate enemy armor frontally is dealt with smoke, high explosive, flanking and other tactics. The medium also spend a huge amount of time in infantry support. The assault gun for infantry support gets thrown into panzer divisions for offensive action as tank counts become insufficient. The light tank for recon finds their use in convoy protection and infantry support a great deal of time. Vehicles like troop carriers gets weapons mounted on them and do fire support. Tanks gets weapons removed and become troop carriers. Indirect fire rockets gets put on tanks to shore up lack of artillery. Stuff happens.

The MBT happened with the realization that in the field, vehicles will be used every possible way.

Also doctrine is relevant to the enemy. A T-64M facing armed civilians in post collapse yugo and facing USAF means completely different tactics and operating logics.

Personally I also roll my eyes at the idea of the "sufficient armor" tank. The vast majority of tanks in history have insufficient armor over its service history. Only the newest, heaviest tank can armor overmatch the enemy, and in an arms race situation it is just another 2 years before that armor is defeated. If tanks are to serve for decades across generations, than no tank is a "real tank" because they all have insufficient armor.

Actual tank combat between peers involved mismatched vehicles with insufficient everything.

If a tactical problem that can be solved by a MBT, yet the formation have no MBT, than something would be thrown at the problem regardless of designation. Throw a BMP to flank a T-72? Yes. Send a jeep to shoot at the trench line? Yes. Did the Army just gave up because they had no "real" tanks like Tiger 2, IS-2 and T29? No, they dealt with problems with whatever assets they have at hand.

The success of heavy tank-less formations shows that the "sufficiently armored" tank have always been a deeply overrated idea. If "sufficient armor" won wars than we'd be seeing 200ton tanks instead of this combined arms, balance of characteristics stuff.

 

[Scott Kenny]

A jeep with 120mm Recoilless does the job, cost nothing and you can add a remote control kit.

Fails to protect the gun from small arms, artillery splinters, and up to 30mm autocannon fire. (I'm assuming that APS would take care of the RPG and ATGM threats, and we can argue land mines later.)

The gun is half of the valuable part. The other valuable part is the mobility, and a jeep is less mobile in European mud than something tracked.

Poorer forces relied on such force structures since the Toyota war and they function. Lack of heavy vehicles does not result in major strategic weakness that lead to their defeat, the only issue is higher casualties rate. In that sense the era of armor has ended decades ago.

That was the idea behind the FCS. It didn't turn out so well, even though we did figure out how to mount a 155mm on an 18 ton chassis out of it.

APS tech just wasn't ready for that job then, and I don't believe it's ready for that job now. Hopefully the next generation will be.

There are also a lot of options of throwing a warhead other than direct fire guns all with their own advantages. A force structure with different mix of warhead throwers can fulfill tactical requirements, and not all of them need guns. Obsession with guns lead to stuff like NGFS lobby that resulted in the Zumwalt which collapsed upon the narrowness of the mission.

The Zumwalts collapsed because building to accomplish that mission ended up being painfully expensive, and when you go from 32 ships to 3 there's no point in making those fancy LRLAP rounds on an assembly line which drives their price from <$100k to the cost of a Tomahawk. And now your stupid decision stripped the ships of their guns entirely.

The Zumwalt's mission was to provide counterbattery fire (on 122mm guns shelling the Osprey LZs) from over the horizon of the beach. That defined the 73-100nmi range requirement.

Personally I also roll my eyes at the idea of the "sufficient armor" tank. The vast majority of tanks in history have insufficient armor over its service history. Only the newest, heaviest tank can armor overmatch the enemy, and in an arms race situation it is just another 2 years before that armor is defeated. If tanks are to serve for decades across generations, than no tank is a "real tank" because they all have insufficient armor.


Actual tank combat between peers involved mismatched vehicles with insufficient everything.

If a tactical problem that can be solved by a MBT, yet the formation have no MBT, than something would be thrown at the problem regardless of designation. Throw a BMP to flank a T-72? Yes. Send a jeep to shoot at the trench line? Yes. Did the Army just gave up because they had no "real" tanks like Tiger 2, IS-2 and T29? No, they dealt with problems with whatever assets they have at hand.

The success of heavy tank-less formations shows that the "sufficiently armored" tank have always been a deeply overrated idea. If "sufficient armor" won wars than we'd be seeing 200ton tanks instead of this combined arms, balance of characteristics stuff.

"Sufficient armor"? The Sherman had Sufficient Armor for half the war. Crud, in North Africa the Germans complained about "the Sherman heavy tank"! (Line of sight, Sherman has almost as much frontal armor as a Tiger)

It was when the Panther came out, and came as a medium tank with half the tank battalions in Normandy being Panthers, that the Sherman needed more frontal armor.

So for a modern tank, you build an A kit/B kit chassis and put modular armor on top of that.

 

[Kat Tsun]

The real problem is that bridges in Eastern Europe, Asia, and the Middle East aren't getting any better. Infrastructure decline is a global phenomenon and the M1 is becoming too heavy as bridges age out of their specification and have to be life extended.

An A- and B-kit makes sense if you can find bridges to take it. Otherwise, heavy armor that stops LRPs is probably not practical. Tankers will need to find different ways to fight, but that doesn't mean the ur-tank is obsolete. The original tanks weren't even proof against certain calibers of small arms fire or field guns. Merely ball machine gun ammo.

An IFV is closer to the ur-tank than modern tanks.

Heavy armor is vital to fight in close terrain, too, but in open terrain it's probably less important. Which is why light forces tend to be desertic, and why urban mechanized armies like heavy APCs.

 

[Foo Fighter]

A jeep with 120mm Recoilless does the job, cost nothing and you can add a remote control kit. When armor doesn't work you go mass.

Poorer forces relied on such force structures since the Toyota war and they function. Lack of heavy vehicles does not result in major strategic weakness that lead to their defeat, the only issue is higher casualties rate. In that sense the era of armor has ended decades ago.

There are also a lot of options of throwing a warhead other than direct fire guns all with their own advantages. A force structure with different mix of warhead throwers can fulfill tactical requirements, and not all of them need guns. Obsession with guns lead to stuff like NGFS lobby that resulted in the Zumwalt which collapsed upon the narrowness of the mission.

It is always possible to come up with some scenario where the favored weapon systems, but for god sakes one should calculate the probability of such a event happening. Wars are not won by having the perfect asset for one scenario, but winning more scenarios by good margins.

There is also adapting one's conceptualization of warfare to new realities.

Why did Carrier's considered a side show compared to battleships in the 30s even though long range recon and strike capability have been demonstrated and improves year over year? It is because Carriers had very poor throw weight, with basically one sortie per day with inability to reliability sink a heavy combatant within that time frame. A battleship can match a Carrier's daily throw weight in minutes.

But it doesn't matter, you don't need to defeat the enemy fleet in one strike to win the war. One can apply slow attrition and avoid decisive action and win.
--------------------------------
The idea that "combined arms" means you have all the right assets for the situation is a big mistake. The right way to think is that you have a random collection of assets in practice as the enemy is inflicting losses and making your combined arms system collapse. You can buy more of something to make it so that you have it more often.

So you can imagine missing a entire category of assets, and what it does to your operations.

If you have no AA, drone swarm descend on you and you are destroyed. If you have no artillery, enemy artillery pound you into underground passivity. If you have no tanks, you have that private with Carol Gustav, spend a FOGM, or wait a minute for 155mm to land or something.


Doctrinal use of vehicles is a meme especially when the last representative war was a long time ago. On the battlefield any vehicle that remotely function for any role will get used for that role when there is a shortage of forces, which is all the time in higher intensity conflict.

In WW2, the doctrine people came up with a dozen of vehicle classifications with highly specific roles. When field commanders get the vehicles they use everything for everything.

The Tank destroyers designed as mobile reserves as counter breakthrough spend the war firing high explosives in direct and indirect support of infantry. The medium tank for exploitation actions get thrown into breakthrough armor battles. Inability to penetrate enemy armor frontally is dealt with smoke, high explosive, flanking and other tactics. The medium also spend a huge amount of time in infantry support. The assault gun for infantry support gets thrown into panzer divisions for offensive action as tank counts become insufficient. The light tank for recon finds their use in convoy protection and infantry support a great deal of time. Vehicles like troop carriers gets weapons mounted on them and do fire support. Tanks gets weapons removed and become troop carriers. Indirect fire rockets gets put on tanks to shore up lack of artillery. Stuff happens.

The MBT happened with the realization that in the field, vehicles will be used every possible way.

Also doctrine is relevant to the enemy. A T-64M facing armed civilians in post collapse yugo and facing USAF means completely different tactics and operating logics.

Personally I also roll my eyes at the idea of the "sufficient armor" tank. The vast majority of tanks in history have insufficient armor over its service history. Only the newest, heaviest tank can armor overmatch the enemy, and in an arms race situation it is just another 2 years before that armor is defeated. If tanks are to serve for decades across generations, than no tank is a "real tank" because they all have insufficient armor.

Actual tank combat between peers involved mismatched vehicles with insufficient everything.

If a tactical problem that can be solved by a MBT, yet the formation have no MBT, than something would be thrown at the problem regardless of designation. Throw a BMP to flank a T-72? Yes. Send a jeep to shoot at the trench line? Yes. Did the Army just gave up because they had no "real" tanks like Tiger 2, IS-2 and T29? No, they dealt with problems with whatever assets they have at hand.

The success of heavy tank-less formations shows that the "sufficiently armored" tank have always been a deeply overrated idea. If "sufficient armor" won wars than we'd be seeing 200ton tanks instead of this combined arms, balance of characteristics stuff.

Armour versus speed eh?

Jeep, fast as but over rough terrain your crew will be completely shaken up, autoloader for sure, no loading anything in that particular setup so limited rounds in the ready use locker.

Tonka, reasonably fast now and that could improve if the armour can be adjusted with active systems so not the end of the world. Can more easily take a loader or auto setup.

Jeep, taken out with quite small auto weapons and how accurate is your gun in such a small, light vehicle while bouncing all over the place.

Tonka, still quite vulnerable to drones but has the ability to carry a decent stab system and is still protected from most weapons you will see. NB, active protection on a heavy vehicle with lots of space over a light buggy. More competitive as far as taking a hit.

IOMHO, the light recce vehicle has it's place no error but as an actual strike vehicl in a conventional conflict, no thanks. So, a place for several types of vehicle for different roles but keep the roles seperate and maintain a healthy respect for sods law which will bugger any plans that might be laid.

Keep the light stuff for special forces and recce perhaps, that and the armchair types who promote them so much. Good enough for the supermarket run in those places where the parking and traffic calming (?) is on the nasty side but facing the equivalent of grape shot on the FEBA not really.

 

[shin_getter]

Armor overmatch:
1. Feasibility
2. Value

1. The idea of armor overmatch is simple. You build a heavier tank with more armor, enemy weapons useless, you win!

The practice of armor overmatch is, you start a heavy tank project, your enemies figure out you've started a heavy tank project and upgrade guns and missiles to defeat the new heavy tank. Since weapon upgrades take less money and time, by the time your heavy tank is done they enemy would have counters ready.

If the project is secret. maybe you can get a season of campaigning advantage out of it.
If the enemy don't have an arms industry and can not manufacture arms to new demands, you can get a sustained advantage: But such enemies are not peers.

If the project is announced at 2023 to be finished at 2040, it is a joke since even non state actors can smuggle enough modern munitions with that much of a head start.

2. Value: So why get armor do if you can not obtain invulnerability?

2.1 Well, one can impose costs in terms of heavier, more expensive weapons on the other side.

In era where guns are the main anti-tank weapon, that may force the enemy into expensive up-gun program. While cheaper than than new tanks, still can be significant if it requires a new turret. For infantry, it forces replacement of man handleable light guns with heavy guns that can not be moved without another vehicle, and is utterly defenseless against artillery resulting in serious problems in building strong defensive positions.

In the era where long range missiles is a thing, it just means a slight increase in warhead size. The increase is utterly irrelevant to vehicle mounted weapons that can easily put hundred+ plus kilograms onto a projectile without much increase in overall cost. It is still not very relevant for weapon teams weapons as hellfire can be man packed and no tank have been developed to reach that upper limit of missile weight. The existence of CKEM tech also means even if APS can defeat HEAT, a low marginal cost way to defeat armor can still be developed.

As such, trying to defeat tank guns with armor may have some value. Trying to defeat ATGM with armor is a bust when missiles with bigger warhead can be developed so much faster than tanks. There are at most, category of infantry and drone munitions where where scaling up imposes higher cost for the enemy.

2.2 So whats up with the cry for armor? Armor is there to defeat non-anti-tank weapons like small arms and high explosive artillery. This have historically been fairly valuable for all vehicles threatened by fires. Some level of protection that does not cause a order of magnitude weight increase for the capability is reasonable if logistics is not a extreme constraint. Design features like mine survivability also increase survivability with low cost in armor weight.

That said, shooting first is ultimately the best defense, and protection is never mandatory for success.

----------
So to think about the armor problem, simply thinking in terms of overmatch is to simplistic and wrong. Think in terms of imposed cost.

And what is imposed cost in the era of low cost top attack? Nothing? Unless there is an APS that survive direct fires, any armored vehicle just gets one-two with fast projectile projectile killing the APS and the killing projectile following.

---------
Look at what happens in real warfare. Current tanks in operation don't really have much armor overmatch and get destroyed when place in the kill zone. Just think, every tank since Tamuz FOGM is practically undefended..... and such is the real state of tank protection.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Look at what happens in real warfare.

In real warfare, mechanized assaults by fairly thin-skinned vehicles (BMPs, mainly) done broadly unsupported by heavy armor are incredibly successful, despite the presence of anti-armor weapons that can theoretically defeat them, as is the case with the 876 Battalion Tactical Group in Chechnya, the 95th Air Assault Brigade's deep raid in 2015, and the 3-153rd Infantry's C Company in Phantom Fury.

This doesn't mean tanks are dead, unless you're using an idiosyncratic, and frankly useless, definition of a tank or something.

A "tank" is a track-laying, armored vehicle, that delivers a large caliber high explosive or hollow charge warhead from a field gun to strong point, such as a machine gun or sniper nest, and destroys it, in support of an infantry attack. It is usually protected against machine gun, light cannon, and anti-tank hollow charge attack, and it is usually as mobile (expressed in terms of sprocket horsepower and fully laden ground pressure) as the technology of the time allows.

Nothing in there suggests that tanks need to fight themselves. In fact, it's a bit silly, as the USSR and USA both fielded explicit tank destroying vehicles for that purpose.

This sort of track-laying armored field gun carrying vehicle will always be important because it fulfills one of the ur-roles of combat arms in the post-WW1 conceptualization of battle. In order to dismiss the tank you need some way of liquidating sniper and machine gun positions that involves being able to survive blundering into them, which is why the tank was invented: infantry kept blundering into machine guns and dying in 1915. Tanks taking the charge meant they have to survive blundering into things.

Powered armor or something might dismiss a tank but a glorified mortar shell, which is what drones ultimately are, will not. What drones do is give tanks reconnaissance capacities, against themselves mostly, comparable to infantrymen. It's an evolution of tanks, not a dismissal of them.

Really weird you're getting hung up on this about a tank that's so fat the U.S. Army decided it would rather not tip over into 100 tons full up weight for an assault vehicle, and instead went ahead and is now pursuing aggressive weight reduction in the 5GCV through things like hybridization and reduction of armored volume, and you're trying to use one of the wars where the main problem is a lack of tanks as evidence tanks are dead.

Or something like that? I'm not really sure what you're trying to argue besides some random thing can kill a tank therefore tanks are useless. It's a pretty bizarre argument because it's one of those things that belies a lack of fundamental knowledge about what tanks do.

Modern warfare will demand more tanks than the world has to offer, and the only real solution is start mass production of tanks again ( or something better than tanks), because nobody has enough babies or young people to just throw into a meat grinder. This isn't news, as the late Richard E. Simpkin literally wrote multiple books about the subject between 1979 and 1986, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that countries like Russia and Ukraine can sustain wars for long periods on stockpiles: they were sitting on enough tanks to fight multiple Great Patriotic Wars.

The alternative to not using tanks is using light infantry backed by heavy artillery instead (the "Brusilov" method), and if there's two things the Western world has that it wants for more than tanks, it's artillery shells and manpower.

 

[shin_getter]

Mechanized assault by unarmored vehicles alone can also be highly successful despite lack of protection. Isis overrunning mosul garrison with M1s with pickups. The entirety of Syrian Civil War consists of one side having any heavy armor at all. There is also many Ukraine assaults with vehicles as light as humvees succeeding.

Shock and fire superiority does wonders. Lack of protection is no problem is the other side is suppressed to hell.

--------------
Sniper and machineguns is extremely overrated by the modern era. In WW2 the infantry formations have poor means to neutralize such threats organically.

Today, communication means that any Mortar or Grenade Launcher team can walk fire onto a MG nest. Scouting drones spot snipers and machineguns. Attack drones can defeat such threats. Modern rifle scopes with integrated FCS and Thermals means that machineguns and snipers do not have range advantage against line infantry either. Rocket Launcher and ATGMs can also blow up all kinds of strong points and with FOGM the missile team can be just about anywhere near the battlespace. Precision artillery is also an option as guided shell reduces dispersion to nothing.

Sure you lose men if you blunder into ambushes, but with drones you really shouldn't. Even with armored vehicles you lose vehicles if you blunder into ambushes too.

If ATGM were niche, rare weapon that is not useful except in anti-tank, forcing the enemy to bring one can be said in imposing cost on enemy. The practical experience is that ATGM are generally useful weapon against all threats, with kill tally of helicopters, other ATGM teams, all ground vehicles, infantry strong points, machine gun nests, and so on. It is useful enough to bring one around, and all armor is force the enemy have an ATGM with big enough warhead option. Really, not much cost imposed.

 

[Kat Tsun]

"Snipers and machine guns are useless" he says, talking of a war where snipers and machine guns have seen the most action in a century.

Ukraine doesn't "assault" with Humvees.

What typically happens is that the Russians leave, the Ukrainians hesitantly poke their heads out of their trenches, notice they aren't being shot at, and then inch forward with extensive ground reconnaissance out to about a kilometer or two. By the same time next week they will have successfully taken the abandoned Russian trenches with a handful of dead and wounded. Rinse and repeat.

Against actual Russian trenches they do what the Russians do: bombard it extensively and advance with heavy armor (tanks, IFVs) and infantry plodding along behind, and hopefully take the trench. Then they get caught in a minefield and hit by artillery or ATGW or helicopters. The armored vehicles die, the crews and infantry retreat, and a day later the dead vehicles pop up on Twitter. A week later the Ukrainian Army comes around and recovers the vehicles and prepares to do it again in a month's time. Which is the same thing the Ukrainians did last year to the Russians.

No one assaults with unarmored vehicles because they would die. Some armored vehicles die, too.

Only vehicles with 14.5mm protection (minimum) can assault against 1980s artillery i.e. 122-155mm calibers with accuracy ranging from 15-30 meters bursts from target. This is mostly coincidentally. Against modern artillery it's unclear if anyone can assault, but no one has fought a modern artillery force yet, so it's an open question.

It's unlikely a modern tank would survive direct 155mm bursts on the turret roof. At the very least it would lose a lot of important optics. At the very worst its roof would collapse. Probably a firepower kill if not a total kill.

 

[shin_getter]

Well, what "assault" works depends on the nature of the defense. Attacking lightly held positions like north of Kharkiv is a different matter from defense positions prepared for month with mines, trench networks, multiple lines of defense and artillery overwatch in the south.

For well defended positions, neither tank nor infantry can protect each other against artillery and other long range precision fires like helicopters, loitering munitions and likes. Counterbattery and other branches is what would determine success. Long range strike, deep sensing, air power is ultimately what will neutralize opponent long range fires. Investing in armor only increases opponent ammo expenditure and does little against likes of sensor fuzed munitions or scatterable mines.

I don't think Ukraine have committed much armor in assault as opposed to overwatch fires. After all, Ukraine was the force that fitted their tank force with networked indirect fire capability, and did things like destroy opponent tank at 10km with indirect. Armored assault is just a lot risk for a small improvement in fires responsiveness and accuracy. Infantry is still needed in the assault as defensive structures still can not be cleared efficiently via remote means (however drones flying into dugouts shows only some improvement in radio relay tech can change this) while precise delivery of high explosives can be done many ways.

It is not like leading with tanks actually provide cover for infantry against artillery, or detect threats early on when drones can do the job, or needed to eliminate threats when networked fires can do that.

Given the tempo of combat, I don't think WWI style sitting in position firing a water cooled machinegun for hours on end is what is going on. Videos I've seen suggests close combat and maneuver is order of day and engagements are short and sharp. Automatic firearms in general is the threat vector, the sustained firepower capability of machineguns is not very relevant. Sustained fire is simply not survivable against drones directed overwatch fires, one has to relocate.

From what I've seen, above ground defense is doomed. Near future infantry (I'm talking about <1 year with maximum drone ramp up) can only survive in tunnels against superior firepower. Cheap PGM that can economically target individuals is a significant change.

If we look at nagano karabakh, the lesson to me is that precision fires can indeed inflict sufficient damage to cause decision before the assault. The war was won with azerbaijan commandos scaling mountains and taking the strategic objective without organic mechanized support. Well, it wasn't really needed with air power provides enough support to beat off armenian armored counter attack that was shown on camera in the last days of the war.

------------------

And if one really wants to build an armored vehicle to survive artillery, the survivability design concept would be very from different from classical MBT that is focused on tank dueling. Personally, I think a vehicle design to operate under artillery should have its armor scaled to the survivability of the propulsion system, not much more than that since immobilization is death.

 

[Scott Kenny]

It's unlikely a modern tank would survive direct 155mm bursts on the turret roof. At the very least it would lose a lot of important optics. At the very worst its roof would collapse. Probably a firepower kill if not a total kill.

I don't believe any tank currently out there can survive a direct hit from 122-155mm HE shells. It'd take doubling or tripling of top armor to bounce an HE shell, and far more than that to deal with EFPs.

 

[Kat Tsun]

I don't believe any tank currently out there can survive a direct hit from 122-155mm HE shells. It'd take doubling or tripling of top armor to bounce an HE shell, and far more than that to deal with EFPs.

Any tank can survive a "direct hit" from a HE round. They do it a lot in Ukraine, obviously.

EFPs are trivial to defend against. Every tank made since 1990 or so has had innate EFP protection against SADARM or BONUS-type munition. Tanks in WW2 could survive direct impact by HE on the roof very easily, as there are plenty of damage observances of T-34s and Panzer Vs having taken 152mm OF or 155mm LeFH high explosive rounds to the roof. They had fewer optics, so it wasn't as potentially catastrophic, but they also didn't have their entire roof panels cave in.

It may be that welds were simply stronger back in the 1940's, or the Leopard 2 and T-64 have some metallurgical compromises, though.

 

[Shusui]

If they produce a tank with just 3 crew in the hull and no one in the turret... it'll retire far sooner than the previous Abrams models. I'm sure of it. It's simply not as effective.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Any tank can survive a "direct hit" from a HE round. They do it a lot in Ukraine, obviously.

I'm talking the shell landing on the turret roof direct hit. 2" of steel isn't enough protection to stop a plunging 5-6" shell.

EFPs are trivial to defend against. Every tank made since 1990 or so has had innate EFP protection against SADARM or BONUS-type munition.

If that was true, top attack missiles would not be such an issue in Ukraine.

 

[asVAL]

top attack missiles would not be such an issue

I mean the most common top-attack ATGMs in Ukraine right now use a tandem charge diving warhead. That's alot different from OTA EFPs.

 

[asVAL]

I'm talking the shell landing on the turret roof direct hit. 2" of steel isn't enough protection to stop a plunging 5-6" shell

It's not a common occurrence though isn't it?
Most tank kills from dumb indirect HE that happened in Ukraine is a direct result of poor tactics and and just bad luck overall.
Tactics: RuGF routinely allows Ukrainian spotting drones ( with FTL intergration) to relay GPS coordinates of formations in near-real time to UAF arty and also do BDA for them. This would have been countered by deploying dispersed jamming stations ( apparently the UAF doesn't have enough HOJ munitions for these kinds of threats, hence UAF SOF often pack satchel charges to demolish large RuGF jamming towers) or have something like M-SHORAD with a radar capable of detecting LO drones and the necessary EO to guide missiles/rounds onto them. Pantsir-M being overhyped as always, but a threat nonetheless.
Poor luck: T-tanks being shit means even a burst from 10m away can reliably M-kill tanks let alone BMPs/BTRs. Or windage just being in favor of UAF.
HOB 155mm prefragmented are a better mean of disabling tanks since they can detonate at an altitude low enough to saturate an area with shrapnel and disable most optics/antennas/ general exteral gears. PD or delayed rounds are better at killing tanks, but they require precise spotting and most often still needs terminal guidance anyway. Both converged into PGK which is probably the best guided artillery fielded today.

Passive armouring tank roof is quite unnecessary and worthless yet is commonly discussed in the amateur tank forums-esqe-s ( looking at you average tankporn commenter). A lightweight 30cal APDS spitting chain gun slaved to APS turrets is better in every regard to using Dorchester plates as glorified cope cages.

 

[Kat Tsun]

I'm talking the shell landing on the turret roof direct hit. 2" of steel isn't enough protection to stop a plunging 5-6" shell.

So was I, and evidently, it has been stopped on some WW2 vehicles. Perhaps they were 3" or 4" or whatever but it's not very important. The point is that purely HE explosives that aren't squashing aren't useful. Superquick fusing will generally not squish. A delay fuse might and cause more damage, but that's usually direct fire.

The more concerning problem is that your optics, antennae, and direct view periscopes will be damaged or destroyed in general.

If that was true, top attack missiles would not be such an issue in Ukraine.

You can just say you don't know what an EFP is.

EFPs are the residual formed from a shallow shaped charge cone, typically maximizing air time in exchange for penetration.

They stop around 0.5-1.5 CDs (cone diameters) of penetration into homogeneous steel armor. They are easily stopped by simple applique such as the Strv 122, SPz Puma, and Merkava IV, i.e. tanks from the 1990s, have built-in these days. Russian tanks have explosive reactive armor that does this, especially on the T-90. The same measures, and different ones such as the rubber mats on the SPz Puma, can stop DPICM bomblets in the 40-60mm range, or the various tank-roofs of Soviet built wagons.

Javelin has an extremely long penetrating cone, about 7:1 CDs, and these protective measures are ineffective against it, with the possible exception of a Russian "tank roof" with the full armor kit of umbrella ERA, spaced ABT-101 steel, standoff, rooftop ERA, and turret baseline armor. Even then there may be limited residual penetration.

I mean the most common top-attack ATGMs in Ukraine right now use a tandem charge diving warhead. That's alot different from OTA EFPs.

BILL 2 and other overfly top attack missiles like TOW-2B are different from an EFP, TBF.

I believe they're called flat charges, it's mentioned in Brassey's Encyclopedia of Land Warfare, and they have penetration values of around 2-3:CDs, so something like a ERA brick might stop them if it got lucky and the main charge missed the gap blown open.

But yeah, they're pretty rough, especially since OTA rounds would probably sneak under most umbrellas.

 

[asVAL]

I believe they're called flat charges, it's mentioned in Brassey's Encyclopedia of Land Warfare, and they have penetration values of around 2-3:CDs, so something like a ERA brick might stop them if it got lucky and the main charge missed the gap blown open.

I do have a picture on my phone that has a reference to W.P Walters and J.A Zukas, Fundamentals of Shaped Charge, John Wiley & Sons New York, 1989 in which 6 different charge cone angle is depicted as well as their aftereffects. I'd try to port the pic to my laptop (4G is really crap here rn) later but essentially the 180 degree cone does form a large slug and is classified as an EFP, or at least it belongs on that side of the SCJ spectrum.
Edit: Found it

 

[Kat Tsun]

The chart with the various explosive charges from Brassey's Encyclopedia of Land Warfare is on page 765. I'll post a capture of it later. Source is from some MBB brochure I think.

 

[Scott Kenny]

You can just say you don't know what an EFP is.

The construction difference between an EFP and a shaped charge is an air gap between the explosive and the copper (or heavier metals) liner. The EFP goes flying at roughly 75% of the detonation velocity of the explosive used. TNT has a ~7000m/s detonation velocity, so an EFP launched by TNT is moving at ~5250m/s. RDX has an 8800m/s detonation velocity, and if you are brave enough to use CL20 that has a 9750m/s detonation velocity.

 

[shin_getter]

It's not a common occurrence though isn't it?
Most tank kills from dumb indirect HE that happened in Ukraine is a direct result of poor tactics and and just bad luck overall.
Tactics: RuGF routinely allows Ukrainian spotting drones ( with FTL intergration) to relay GPS coordinates of formations in near-real time to UAF arty and also do BDA for them. This would have been countered by deploying dispersed jamming stations ( apparently the UAF doesn't have enough HOJ munitions for these kinds of threats, hence UAF SOF often pack satchel charges to demolish large RuGF jamming towers) or have something like M-SHORAD with a radar capable of detecting LO drones and the necessary EO to guide missiles/rounds onto them. Pantsir-M being overhyped as always, but a threat nonetheless.

The thing is this, if you need EW and AA assets to cover the force and reach deeply into enemy territory, as observation drones can have pretty good sensors, these assets have to be pushed up to the front.

How much effective range does a Pantsir's autocannon have against a drone? Less range than tank main gun?

The insanity is that 20 million worth of electronics and fire control is given zero armor and put on a truck with marginal cross country mobility, while an high explosive thrower doing the job of a jeep with recoilless is giving 40 tons of armor and every fancy defensive system that money can buy.

If facing large drone + PGM attacks, your EW and your AA assets is what prevents you from formation wipe. It is the lynchpin to the formation and every bit of technical and operational help should be applied to keep such vehicles alive and functioning.

Against actual Russian trenches they do what the Russians do: bombard it extensively and advance with heavy armor (tanks, IFVs) and infantry plodding along behind, and hopefully take the trench.

Actually, just think about this picture. The goal of the such operations is to move infantry across no man's land into enemy hard cover and here.

1. The fire support vehicle with 2000m range gets 35 tons of armor to protect 3~4 men
2. The infantry moving vehicle carrying 6+ men gets 4 tons armor
3. The foot infantry gets no armor and advance to bayonet range

If you use the T-14 Amarta design logic, the armor distribution is even more interesting. The armor no longer even pretends to protect the sensors or the weapon (not that ever really did that). So you get 35 tons of armor to protect 3 men crew while everything else is splinter protection only.

What are you really protecting here? Tank crews are the most precious life and most valuable thing thus demands all the armor while everyone and everything else is disposable?

---------
In eras where indirect fire is not very effective it can be argued that direct fire vehicles need more armor as it is most exposed to enemy direct fire. In a era where indirect fire is dominant, everything else needs force protection as well.

 

[Kat Tsun]

The construction difference between an EFP and a shaped charge is an air gap between the explosive and the copper (or heavier metals) liner. T

No, it isn't. It's the angle of the cone, the metal used, the ratio of the thickness of the liner to the cone diameter, and the amount of explosive that makes an EFP different to other forms of hollow charge. There are a few ways to achieve all this, so an air gap might be one way to do it, but it isn't the primary difference.

What are you really protecting here? Tank crews are the most precious life and most valuable thing thus demands all the armor while everyone and everything else is disposable?

The tank seats higher up than the crawling infantry, so yes, the crew are in a more vulnerable position.

In terms of relative height they are attacking while standing on a milk crate. The infantry attack on their bellies, or lower, so they are relatively immune to gunfire from the trench. One day you may come to the realization that all tank design has been trying to figure out how to get the crew closer to the ground without compromising their ability to bring a field gun to bear on the enemy.

The T-14 is designed like every other tank before it: the protected frontal arc receives the highest amount of defense against attack, with a greater emphasis on the side and top attack, and possibly bottom as well.

It will require better understanding of future combat to determine if Afghanistan/Iraq were realistic threat environments or absolute flukes. It is genuinely unclear to what degree side, bottom, and rear protection matter. We know that top protection is now a priority given the primacy of cassette ammunition and top attack weapons like Javelin. Whether that matters if you're dealing with OF munitions or not is an open question.

 

[raptor82]

https://twitter.com/jr_liscano/status/1712132992208929237?s=46&t=5THFve96Abhx7VANdlTzrg