NATO Standard Tank for the 60s and 70s: Which would you choose?

uk 75

uk 75

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As we know the Russians managed to standardise their tanks forces in the 60s and 70s on two designs: The T55 and later the T72.
What tank should NATO have chosen if politics had been no object?
 
Leopard 1 although a Chieftain with a better engine would be good too. My ideal would actually be a Leo for most applications with an MTU engined Chieftain as a replacement for the Conqueror / M-103.
 
JFC Fuller said:
Basically Chieftain as originally conceived, with a 90 degree RR V8 engine instead of the Leyland L60 that resulted from the NATO multi-fuel policy.
Click to expand...

Interesting, I'd like to know more about that engine, I've read a bit on the Chieftain but never come across the RR engine option.
 
I think I would choose Leopard 1 with the excellent 105mm gun over the Chieftain and the M60, though both have their
good sides.
In some ways Leopard 1 came pretty close to being a NATO standard tanks (Belgium, Italy Netherlands then Denmark and Canada and eventually Greece and Turkey)

By the end of the 1970s it would be a hard choice between Leopard 2 and M1.

Of course for sheer lunacy and cool, MBT 70!
 
uk 75 said:
Of course for sheer lunacy and cool, MBT 70!
Click to expand...

One wonders how that would have faired with the KE penetrator becoming the go-to round, given it's short barrel.
 
I too would have to say Leopard 1, on the grounds of its engineering, I dare say its cheaper cost compared to the Chieftain, its excellent MTU diesel engine, its proven ability to be modified and adapted through its life cycle (including 120mm gun), and of course its excellent range of adapted support vehicles - bridge layer, recovery vehicle, engineering vehicles, SPAAG .......
I have to say anything would have been better than the M60, whose design philosophy was all but an outgrowth of the M48.
I also think it's obvious that NATO could have fielded more Leopard 1's for a given cost than other contenders!


Regards
Pioneer
 
How did the M103 compare to the M60? Seems like an oddball but apparently they made a few of them.
 
Take the best from each nation: German power pack and running gear, British armour and main gun, American fire control system, French optics, Dutch radios, Italian styling and a Nordic crew. All packaged into a 50 tonne, four man tank. Basically a bigger Leopard 1 with Chieftain style hull and turret castings.
 
I was going to start a new thread and then found we had been here before, but I thought I would widen the scope to cover the 50s and bring the story up to date.
Two tanks equipped the growing number of NATO formations by the end of the 1950s. The US M47 had become the most important, notably equipping France and Germany as well as Belgium and Italy. The UK had Centurion which Denmark and the Netherlands used as well.
In the 1960s the major nations all went their own way. The US had M48 and its modernised M60 variant. West Germany introduced M48 and then Leopard 1. France rejected Leopard in favour of AMX30 with its different French designed gun. Ironically the UK moved to 120mm with Chieftain while most NATO nations were using the British 105mm.
The failure of the US and West Germany to field a joint tank (MBT70 and later the Leopard 2) was partially mitigated by joint use of a new German 120mm gun.
Significantly neither M1 Abrams nor Challenger were adopted by other NATO nations. By the end of the Cold War Leopard 2 was the most successful in being used by other NATO nations.
Thirty years later this remains pretty much the same. France and UK have stuck with their own tanks-Leclerc and Challenger. Leopard II equips most European armies. The US M1 has found a new customer in Poland.
It is tempting to suggest that Leopard 1 and 2 might have been better buys for France, UK and US. However, NATO benefited from the different capabilities these tanks brought.
As ever Italy chose its own way. After using M47, M60 and Leopard 1 it does not use Leopard II but its own Ariete design which looks a bit more like Challenger.
 
As the Turks have discovered Leopard 2 does not have the armour protection levels of the M1 Abrams or Challenger. This reflects the more mobile fighting techniques of the West Germans.
I am not sure that this fundamental emphasis could have been changed by better communications.
Stranger is that France which did have a similar approach to Germany could not get a joint tank designed. AMX30 and Leclerc are very Leopardlike.
 
uk 75 said:
As the Turks have discovered Leopard 2 does not have the armour protection levels of the M1 Abrams or Challenger. This reflects the more mobile fighting techniques of the West Germans.
I am not sure that this fundamental emphasis could have been changed by better communications.
Stranger is that France which did have a similar approach to Germany could not get a joint tank designed. AMX30 and Leclerc are very Leopardlike.
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Did they ever outright say the bolded part? Taking Leopard 2 losses =/= Leopard 2 being less protected than something else.
 
Elan Vital said:
uk 75 said:
As the Turks have discovered Leopard 2 does not have the armour protection levels of the M1 Abrams or Challenger. This reflects the more mobile fighting techniques of the West Germans.
I am not sure that this fundamental emphasis could have been changed by better communications.
Stranger is that France which did have a similar approach to Germany could not get a joint tank designed. AMX30 and Leclerc are very Leopardlike.
Click to expand...
Did they ever outright say the bolded part? Taking Leopard 2 losses =/= Leopard 2 being less protected than something else.
Click to expand...
oops no they did not..But Leopard II is cited in various places online as not having the same high level of protection.
 
uk 75 said:
Elan Vital said:
uk 75 said:
As the Turks have discovered Leopard 2 does not have the armour protection levels of the M1 Abrams or Challenger. This reflects the more mobile fighting techniques of the West Germans.
I am not sure that this fundamental emphasis could have been changed by better communications.
Stranger is that France which did have a similar approach to Germany could not get a joint tank designed. AMX30 and Leclerc are very Leopardlike.
Click to expand...
Did they ever outright say the bolded part? Taking Leopard 2 losses =/= Leopard 2 being less protected than something else.
Click to expand...
oops no they did not..But Leopard II is cited in various places online as not having the same high level of protection.
Click to expand...
Quite frankly,and judging by open source materials. Mostly video and pictorial. I'm going to hazard a guess and say what killed most of them was lousy handling by their owners.
Bad tactics and either insufficient or no infantry screens.
See the Yom Kippur war of 73' And of course the current Russo- Ukrainian unpleasantness.
 
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Re-reading this post.....

Is there any reason that given that the Leopard 1 was originally designed for 90mm gun (which was substituted for the L7 105mm gun); it's original light/thin armour being the consequence of the philosophy 'that the next large war would involve extremely powerful bombs/NBC (enhanced radiation weapons) threats that would nullify any armour protection', and hence high firepower and agility became paramount to its design, the evolution showed the Leopard could and was able to be up armoured....

So, I'm thinking all new built Leopard 1H's ('H' naturally being for 'heavy') from say 1974! I say 1974, because this is when the definitive shape of the Leopard 1A4 was placed in production - it having the new roomer welded turret design of the 1A3; new armour consisting of two spaced steel plates with a plastic filling between them; a wedge-shaped gun mantlet; The improved TRP 2A independent sight and the PERI R12 independent night sighting system for the commander; a new computerized fire control system and the new EMES 12A1 sighting system to aim it.

Armour:
As for 1974, and new-build Leopard 1H's, is their any reason they can't be built with Chobham armour from the getgo?

Engine, Transmission and Mobility:
Was MTU technically able to deliver a derivative of it's MB 383 CaM engine and transmission up into the 930+hp range, so as to compensate for a substantial armour upgrade, while still retaining it's original renowned and revered agility?
Upgrade suspension, tracks, torsion bars systems to facilitate increased weight growth and maintain battlefield performance.

Armament:
The Israeli's would prove without a doubt that the L7 105mm gun ammunition was unquestionably updatable to both match and defeat Soviet tanks up to T-72's class into the 1980's. Or if NATO is still apprehensive, why not channel NATO scientific knowledge and research into an all-out priority development of a smooth-bore 105mm tank gun like that eventual developed by Rheinmetall 105mm smoothbore gun in the late 80's I believe. But saying this, I just stumbled across the following:
"In 1975 a Strv 102 ( up-gunned Swedish Centurion Mk.3 or 5) was fitted with a Rheinmetall 10,5 cm Smoothbore gun. The vehicle partook in live fire trials carried out between September & December 1975. During the tests a armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot round was fired against a variety of targets (pictured below) with different hardness and layout, the powder charge also varied between shots."
(https://fromtheswedisharchives.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/rheinmetall-105-cm-smoothbore-performance/)
So, as one can see, a 105mm smoothbore gun, which itself more powerful than the rifled L7 105mm gun is very possible for the given time frame!

-British 105 mm L7 rifled gun has a barrel length 5345 mm, chamber volume 8.1 l, design pressure 525 MPa, its weight 1287 kg.
vs
The Rheinmetall 105mm Smoothbore has a barrel length 5350 mm, chamber volume 8.1 l at a design pressure of 680 MPa, its mass 1245 kg.

(Sure, one could probably say why not just bring forward the development of incorporating the Rheinmetall Rh120 L/44 120mm smoothbore gun a decade earlier, but in reality the 120mm fitment came with the price of less onboard rounds carried and available, a hefty workload for the loader in the confined space of the Leopard 1....)

And finally, as I've already alluded to in my previous post, one can not of course argue or challenge the excellent range of support vehicles - bridge layer, recovery vehicle, engineering vehicles, SPAAG which are based on the Leopard 1 chassis, which in my scenario would be mated to the Leopard 1H system as their basis.

(Source: Robert Jackson, 2007
Tanks and Armoured Fighting Vehicles)

Regards
Pioneer
 
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Pioneer said:
Re-reading this post.....

Is there any reason that given that the Leopard 1 was originally designed for 90mm gun (which was substituted for the L7 105mm gun); it's original light/thin armour being the consequence of the philosophy 'that the next large war would involve extremely powerful bombs/NBC (enhanced radiation weapons) threats that would nullify any armour protection', and hence high firepower and agility became paramount to its design, the evolution showed the Leopard could and was able to be up armoured....

So, I'm thinking all new built Leopard 1H's ('H' naturally being for 'heavy') by the 1974's! I say 1974, because this is when the definitive shape of the Leopard 1A4 was placed in production - it having the new roomer welded turret design of the 1A3; new armour consisting of two spaced steel plates with a plastic filling between them; a wedge-shaped gun mantlet; The improved TRP 2A independent sight and the PERI R12 independent night sighting system for the commander; a new computerized fire control system and the new EMES 12A1 sighting system to aim it.

Armour:
As for 1974, and new-build Leopard 1H's, is their any reason they can't be build with Chobhm armour from the getgo?

Engine, Transmission and Mobility:
Was MTU technically able to deliver a derivative of it's MB 383 CaM engine and transmission up into the 930+hp range, so as to compensate for a substantial armour upgrade, while still retaining it's original renowned and revered agility?
Upgrade suspension, tracks, torsion bars systems to facilitate increased weight growth and maintain battlefield performance.

Armament:
The Israeli's would prove without a doubt that the L7 105mm gun ammunition was unquestionably updatable to both match and defeat Soviet tanks up to T-72's class into the 1980's. Or if NATO is still apprehensive, why not channel NATO scientific knowledge and research into an all-out priority development of a smooth-bore 105mm tank gun like that eventual developed by Rheinmetall 105mm smoothbore gun in the late 80's I believe. But saying this, I just stumbled across the following:
"In 1975 a Strv 102 ( up-gunned Swedish Centurion Mk.3 or 5) was fitted with a Rheinmetall 10,5 cm Smoothbore gun. The vehicle partook in live fire trials carried out between September & December 1975. During the tests a armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot round was fired against a variety of targets (pictured below) with different hardness and layout, the powder charge also varied between shots."
(https://fromtheswedisharchives.wordpress.com/2019/01/03/rheinmetall-105-cm-smoothbore-performance/)
So, as one can see, a 105mm smoothbore gun, which itself more powerful than the rifled L7 105mm gun is very possible for the given time frame!

Another comparison -
British 105 mm L7 rifled gun has a barrel length 5345 mm, chamber volume 8.1 l, design pressure 525 MPa, its weight 1287 kg.

vs

The Rheinmetall base gun 105mm SB has a barrel length 5350 mm, chamber volume 8.1 l at a design pressure of 680 MPa, its mass 1245 kg.

(Sure, one could probably say why not just bring forward the development of incorporating the Rheinmetall Rh120 L/44 120mm smoothbore gun a decade earlier, but in reality the 120mm fitment came with the price of less onboard rounds carried and available, a hefty workload for the loader in the confined space of the Leopard 1....)

And finally, as I've already alluded to in my previous post, one can not of course argue or challange the excellent range of support vehicles - bridge layer, recovery vehicle, engineering vehicles, SPAAG which are based on the Leopard 1 chassis, which in my scenario would be mated to the Leopard 1H system as their basis.

(Source: Robert Jackson, 2007
Tanks and Armoured Fighting Vehicles)

Regards
Pioneer
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Reality is often cooler than imagination, because these ideas already existed!

Before Leo 1A4 was selected in the configuration we know today, it was supposed to weigh 43 tonnes instead of 42.5, with better armor (even 500kg in just the front or front turret can do wonders).
More importantly, it competed with another concept called "Leistungsgesteigert Leopard" (literally increased-performance Leopard).

This weighed 44.5 tonnes with even thicker armor (possibly on the hull too), the 105mm smoothbore (which dated to before 1969) and the MB 872 1250hp engine (10-cylinder version of MB873) with a reinforced version of the original transmission. Basically it was an intermediate solution between 1A4 and the early gen Leopard 2 with intermediate price, armor, mobility and firepower but which evolves from Leopard 1 rather than devolving from Leopard 2. Not adopted for unknown reasons, but most likely because with the rating system the Germans used it was not sufficiently improved compared to 1A4* while 1A4 was rated as a massive upgrade over the previous versions for the additional costs.

Uprating the MB 838 was absolutely possible with only small reinforcements for the transmission. Replacing the superchargers with turbochargers (available in late 60s-early 70s) could easily do 950hp per Mercedes-Benz's own report.

Leopard 1 truly had great potential for massive upgrades/production changes. The Germans however had their eyes set on Leopard 2 only and the Leopard 1 fleet was already big enough since it was meant to replace M47 only, not M48. This is probably why Germany was so reluctant to introduce an uprated or new engine, the 105 smoothbore and better armor, or to manufacture more 1A4s for itself. Only 232 A2s, 110 A3s and 250 A4s were built even though there was the industrial capacity for more (even accounting for export sales), and even though 750 A4s were offered. The A3s weren't even upgraded to A4 standard and the A4 was retired quite early, being downgraded back to A3/A4 without PERI R12 for export to Denmark and Turkey before 1989. A4 kinda suffered from having a transitional and somewhat finicky FCS and PERI.

*Mainly because the benefits of the new gun, ammo and engine were hilariously undervalued in that rating system, with firepower only rising from 3.1 to 3.12 between A4 and the improved Leo even though the difference between current APDS and 105 smoothbore APFSDS was huge. Mobility only increased from 18.25 to 18.5 points even though the engine power increased by 50% and the power/weight ratio by well over 30%.


As for Chobham for Leopard by 1974, this would have at least required Britain sharing the technology in 1968-69 during the Chieftain Mk 5/2 program rather than FMBT in 72-74. Even then this was kinda accidental and during FMBT the UK pretty much only wanted Germany to buy Brit tanks with Chobham, rather than really allowing Germany to use it. Otherwise the complaint that "Germany stole muh Chobham for Leopard 2!" wouldn't really make sense. It was wrong regardless, as the Germans and Leopard 2 didn't actually use Chobham but technology that was developped at the same time and along somewhat different lines as the British. Namely the Germans emphasized using more layers of steel and heavier NERA which is better against KE threats, while Britain used the less-refined "front and back steel plates with light NERA between" system.
 
What about the 120mm Delta Gun intended for MBT(MR), and tested on the T95E8? Should lead to an Rh-120 equivalent entering service at least a decade earlier, and those calling for Gun-Launched ATGMs can be mollified by the LASH (LAser-homing-Semi-Active) system that was proposed as an alternative to the MGM-51.
 
Elan Vital said:
This weighed 44.5 tonnes with even thicker armor (possibly on the hull too), the 105mm smoothbore (which dated to before 1969) and the MB 872 1250hp engine (10-cylinder version of MB873) with a reinforced version of the original transmission. Basically it was an intermediate solution between 1A4 and the early gen Leopard 2 with intermediate price, armor, mobility and firepower but which evolves from Leopard 1 rather than devolving from Leopard 2. Not adopted for unknown reasons, but most likely because with the rating system the Germans used it was not sufficiently improved compared to 1A4* while 1A4 was rated as a massive upgrade over the previous versions for the additional costs.

*Mainly because the benefits of the new gun, ammo and engine were hilariously undervalued in that rating system, with firepower only rising from 3.1 to 3.12 between A4 and the improved Leo even though the difference between current APDS and 105 smoothbore APFSDS was huge. Mobility only increased from 18.25 to 18.5 points even though the engine power increased by 50% and the power/weight ratio by well over 30%.
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I didn't know that Germans used some kind of rating system to assess their equipment. Could you elaborate more about the rating system? I find it pretty interesting
 
Sgt_Miller said:
Elan Vital said:
This weighed 44.5 tonnes with even thicker armor (possibly on the hull too), the 105mm smoothbore (which dated to before 1969) and the MB 872 1250hp engine (10-cylinder version of MB873) with a reinforced version of the original transmission. Basically it was an intermediate solution between 1A4 and the early gen Leopard 2 with intermediate price, armor, mobility and firepower but which evolves from Leopard 1 rather than devolving from Leopard 2. Not adopted for unknown reasons, but most likely because with the rating system the Germans used it was not sufficiently improved compared to 1A4* while 1A4 was rated as a massive upgrade over the previous versions for the additional costs.

*Mainly because the benefits of the new gun, ammo and engine were hilariously undervalued in that rating system, with firepower only rising from 3.1 to 3.12 between A4 and the improved Leo even though the difference between current APDS and 105 smoothbore APFSDS was huge. Mobility only increased from 18.25 to 18.5 points even though the engine power increased by 50% and the power/weight ratio by well over 30%.
Click to expand...
I didn't know that Germans used some kind of rating system to assess their equipment. Could you elaborate more about the rating system? I find it pretty interesting
Click to expand...
Unfortunately I don't have any information of how the rating system was designed. I'm just as interested as you are on the criteria.
 
I wanted to update this thread a bit following my posts on the improved Leopard 1.

In this document on British foreign weapon sales from 1975: https://www.agda.ae/en/catalogue/tna/fco/8/2405/n/78
The British anticipated a potential relaxation of German export laws to make up for the problematic economy following the 1973 Oil crash, encouraged by the French who wanted German approval for certain sales of Franco-German equipment (missiles mainly). Starts from page 35.

The interesting point in relation to this thread is the significant Iranian interest in the Leopard 2, or if not possible an improved version of the Leopard 1 (here the leistungsgesteigert Leopard, but with the 120mm smoothbore gun instead of the 105). Shir 2 is not referenced at all, surprisingly, and instead only Chieftain is referenced as a backup order until the Germans approve a Leopard sale, or if they refuse in the end, or if the British install a new engine in the Chieftain within the short timeline the Shah accepted.
 
1. The problem with the early turbocharged MTU engines is that they suffered from low torque and turbo lag. Early Leopard 2 prototypes with the MB 873 Ka-500 (165mm bore/155mm stroke) had a worse acceleration than the Leo1 despite having a higher HP/ton on paper. They fixed that by increasing the bore/stroke to 170/175mm in the MB 873 Ka-501. Beats me how they still got 2600 RPM out of it despite the longer stroke, the whole reason they went from the 165/175 of the MB 838 CaM-500 to 165/155 was to go from 2200 to 2600 RPM.

2. The timeline for the Chobham armor is weird. The FV4211 test vehicle ran in '71, but then it took until the FV4300/3 prototype in '78 until the next project with it appeared. The FV4300/4 then isn't accepted until '83! Meanwhile the chobham gets completely ignored for the Chieftain, even Stillbrew is just a lot of layers of spaced armor, not NERA. Not sure what is going on here, but getting NERA/Chobham into production in the early/mid 70s seems overly ambitious.
 
R_K_M said:
1. The problem with the early turbocharged MTU engines is that they suffered from low torque and turbo lag. Early Leopard 2 prototypes with the MB 873 Ka-500 (165mm bore/155mm stroke) had a worse acceleration than the Leo1 despite having a higher HP/ton on paper. They fixed that by increasing the bore/stroke to 170/175mm in the MB 873 Ka-501. Beats me how they still got 2600 RPM out of it despite the longer stroke, the whole reason they went from the 165/175 of the MB 838 CaM-500 to 165/155 was to go from 2200 to 2600 RPM.

2. The timeline for the Chobham armor is weird. The FV4211 test vehicle ran in '71, but then it took until the FV4300/3 prototype in '78 until the next project with it appeared. The FV4300/4 then isn't accepted until '83! Meanwhile the chobham gets completely ignored for the Chieftain, even Stillbrew is just a lot of layers of spaced armor, not NERA. Not sure what is going on here, but getting NERA/Chobham into production in the early/mid 70s seems overly ambitious.
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1. I have to reconfirm it, but at the time the improved Leopard with MTU 872 was offered they were already going for the big cylinder version. The 7th, 9th, 15th and 17th Leo 2 proto hulls used it. For the rpm question, probably they just beefed up the parts to cope as usual. Probably the counterweights on the crank and the connecting rods. It's actually a very impressive piece of engineering work.

2. Yes, but there were a lot of tank studies with Chobham between FV 4211 and 4030/3. The late introduction of Chobham into service has more to do with all (British) tanks with this design being cancelled or delayed for unrelated reason than the armor itself not being ready. In fact it was perfectly applicable if desired, just in a less capable version. It was considered for Chieftain, but in the end they deemed it too hard to add it with the coverage they wanted at a reasonable weight. And subsequently they just wanted to move away from the very problematic features of Chieftain (especially automotive components), which took more development time.

Stillbrew was a cheap expedient measure so little work was done trying to make composite blocks even though this was perfectly possible even within the IRL weight budget (and unlike Burlington Chieftain, the coverage requirements were far less ambitious so it was workable).
 
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Going back to this thread I note the approbrium heaped on the US M60. Israel in its wars and the US Marines in 1991 used them in combat. Apart from Iranian ones Chieftain was never used nor Leopard One.
Could the US have evolved a better solution in the 60s than the MBT 70?
 
When Dutch soldiers were sent to Bosnia to participate in UNPROFOR, their YPRs had their gun turret replaced by a heavy MG with an armoured shield. The reasoning behind this: YPRs with gun turrets were 'too intimidating', 'too much like tanks', 'provocative'. Several Dutch soldiers were killed in their more exposed positions.

When Denmark was asked to participate in UNPROFOR, the Danish government said Leopard 1s would be sent as part of the mission. Protestations from UNPROFOR against the use of tanks followed, the Danes basically said 'fine, then we won't come at all'. UNPROFOR relented, Danish Leopard 1s saw combat.

After all these years, I'm still angry at the Dutch politicians of the day. Yes, we will put soldiers in harm's way - and we will cripple their gear.
 
uk 75 said:
Going back to this thread I note the approbrium heaped on the US M60. Israel in its wars and the US Marines in 1991 used them in combat. Apart from Iranian ones Chieftain was never used nor Leopard One.
Could the US have evolved a better solution in the 60s than the MBT 70?
Click to expand...
Wartime use doesn't always say enough about the merits of technical solutions given the influence of the general context of the conflict, the users and the enemy. At least this mitigates the impact that flaws can have on overall results, but in the end we remain stuck to assessing the tank on purely technical grounds compared to what was possible at the time.
M60 was about viable for its day, but its components were bound to be mediocre for the state of the art considering the US chose to retain assemblies from the M48 with fairly modest changes (suspension, transmission) or underoptimized conversions (AVDS), and even then they still technically all date from programs started in 1943.

Could they have evolved a better solution than the MBT-70? Yes, and I would be rather interested to know if the Army and GM had looked into more conventional or viable solutions even after they decided not to go forward with MBT(MR).

If we ignore the driver-in-turret layout which was most likely too problematic to work, the US still had a large amount of technically viable or even conservative options to use, real or ahistorical:

Armament:
- Shillelagh upgraded with TOW electronics/Shillelagh 2 to improve missile reliability
- radiocommand Shillelagh (American Kobra equivalent)
- 110mm version of M68 with improved APDS and APFSDS, HEAT-MP, HE-FRAG
- Using the same improvements the Germans made to stub cases to make this type of case reliable (as opposed to American 152mm combustible case)
- Rifled 110-120mm gun with large stub case and built up much like EXP-19M13A or Rh 120 to maintain high performance with a barrel of similar length to the 105mm M68, with same ammo choices.
- Delta 120mm gun with stub case and normal breech, or another smoothbore gun (Rh 120-style or like the Soviets)

Powerplant (can be mounted transversely):
- Caterpillar LVMS-1050 derivative
- Derivative of a Detroit Diesel 2-stroke engine with similar design features as the Japanese ZG series used in the Type 90 (liquid cooling with high turbocharging)
- Liquid-cooled, conventional piston derivatives of the AVDS-1790 and AVCR-1360 as analogues to the German MTU-873, or MTU-883 if the Americans can obtain a more compact layout and high rpm at the time (the 873 was somewhat conservative, so there was maybe room to improve on these parameters).
- the early unrecuperated version of the AGT-1500, possibly with the same ideas the Soviets used on T-80 to minimize the size of the air cleaner. You would just swap the priority for this engine with the AVCR-1360's to obtain it in time.
- liquid-cooled CAPC engine like Hispano-Suiza tested (similar advantages as VCR, but more viable)

Transmission:
- Renk equivalent
- X-1100 equivalent (like the AGT-1500, was a contemporary competitor to the component that was historically chosen)

Suspension:
- Hydropneumatic did work
- Advanced torsion bar like the Germans
- Tube-over-bar

Armor:
- no reason the Americans couldn't stumble on NERA at the same time as the British
- spaced armor with more than 2 layers (partially used in German composites and in T-72B)
- equivalent to Soviet steel-glass textolite composites
- steel-polyurethane composites
 
A Tentative Fleet Plan said:
What about the 120mm Delta Gun intended for MBT(MR), and tested on the T95E8? Should lead to an Rh-120 equivalent entering service at least a decade earlier, and those calling for Gun-Launched ATGMs can be mollified by the LASH (LAser-homing-Semi-Active) system that was proposed as an alternative to the MGM-51.
Click to expand...
Or alternatively, the T-96 heavy tank in it's Study F configuration, armed with the RARDE X23E2 120mm gun (what would become the Royal Ordnance L11):
1721495807209.png
T96 Study F turret with British 120mm bagged charge gun fitted on T95 hull. Note the use of a mantlet. Source: Abrams by Hunnicutt
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tanks-encyclopedia.com

FV4201 Chieftain/90mm Gun Tank T95 Hybrid - Tank Encyclopedia

In the late 1950's the UK, US, and Canada collaborated closely on tank development and wanted the turrets and guns for tanks to be interchangeable.
tanks-encyclopedia.com tanks-encyclopedia.com

And it would have been interesting to see if a (Anglo-American perhaps?) gas turbine engine could have been successfully integrated into the design.
 
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Grey Havoc said:
Or alternatively, the T-96 heavy tank in it's Study F configuration, armed with the RARDE X23E2 120mm gun (what would become the Royal Ordnance L11):
Click to expand...
Delta Gun has better room for modernised ammunition, being fixed ammunition, and also coming with the option for GLATGMs. The L11 and it's bagged charges limits the length potential APFSDS penetrators.
 
But the L11 would have the edge at longer ranges when you leave out the (highly problematic and expensive to develop as it turned out) gun launched missiles.

EDIT: Also, it might have been possible to fit one-shot Swingfire missile pods to the T-96.
 
sferrin said:
How did the M103 compare to the M60? Seems like an oddball but apparently they made a few of them.
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Well, the M103 was a heavy tank to the M48, not the M60. Yes, the old WW2 model of light, medium, and heavy tanks, not the post-war main battle tank model.

It had a 120mm rifled gun and much heavier armor than an M48 but on the same engine and broadly same suspension (I think it got new torsion bars). It had terrible range/fuel economy and was slower because the final drives were geared down to let the M48 engine push around the much heavier tank.

Once the L7 105mm gun showed up it had similar armor penetration to the rifled 120mm and left space for more ammunition inside.

The US Army bought ~90 of them, the rest went to the USMC. Almost all of the US Army tanks were based in Germany, in a single Heavy Tank Battalion. The Marines gave each of their tank battalions one company of M103s.

The major flaw was mechanical unreliability. Too much weight for the engine to push around, so the engine and transmission needed to be replaced every 500 miles. Also, any retreat or defense in depth operations would likely see the M103s break down and be destroyed by their crews, just like the Tiger tanks in WW2.



uk 75 said:
Going back to this thread I note the approbrium heaped on the US M60. Israel in its wars and the US Marines in 1991 used them in combat. Apart from Iranian ones Chieftain was never used nor Leopard One.
Could the US have evolved a better solution in the 60s than the MBT 70?
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The M60 was very tall, and the "intended" version had issues due to the Shillelagh missile system; the M60A2s were very difficult to keep the turret working. The M60A1 and A3 were effective with their 105mm but still had design concepts dating back to the 1940s via the M48/47/46/26.
 
Grey Havoc said:
Ah, the Starship.
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Yep. Know a guy online that was an M60 company or battalion CO, his A2s were always getting worked on for something or other. And that was apparently common across the type.

Also, most of the M60A2 chassis were rebuilt into A3s with the A1 style turret but better internal systems.
 
It is rather notable that contrary to the M48 which had become a semi-standard NATO tank due to the unique circumstances of the immediate Korean/post Korean-war era and MDAP deliveries, the M60 wasn't particularly pushed on NATO members and indeed any potential customer. It didn't even participate in that many competitions of the day.

Even on pure industrial grounds, the M60 never became that potential NATO counterpart to the T-62 that the Soviets feared. The Soviets very much feared that the M60 would be fielded by the couple tens of thousands accross the entire NATO, which meant a proliferation of tanks with 105mm L7, retiring the countless 90mm guns which weren't seen as such huge threats. Production was only "fast" for the basic M60 and the earliest M60A1s, but quickly dropped to 30 or even nearly 10 a month by the late 1960s. The low priority for maintaining a decent production base even contributed to the post-Kippur-war production crisis when the US suddenly had to ramp up tank production again.

In many ways, the US (and NATO by proxy) failed to capitalize on the significant upgrades brought by the M60A1 regardless of its drawbacks. Well into the 1970s and even 80s for certain NATO members, pre-A3/A5 M48s, M47s and Centurions remained a significant portion of the fleet with some major drawbacks:
- use of 90mm guns with extremely mediocre KE antitank capability, forcing the complete reliance on HEAT with a lower hit probability
- use of gasoline engines with resulting poor range and more complicated NATO-level logistics (need for two different fuels)
- stereoscopic rangefinders or no rangefinders at all, complicating training and limiting hit probability
- insufficient protection against 100 and 115mm guns, which the M60A1's armor was useful against

On top of these tanks being often old, non-standard or simply less reliable than more recent designs.

The US missed the opportunity of truly proliferating the maximum amount of 105mm guns, AVDS diesels and possibly M60A1s (or at least "M48A5" conversions) throughout the 60s and early 70s, at a time when the value of these items against the Soviets was by far the greatest. By the time we saw a true drive for M60A1/A3s and M48A5s, the Soviets were introducing or had already introduced severe counters in large numbers (the T-triad with armor tough against existing 105mm ammo, and 125mm guns and improved 100 and 115mm ammunition which made the M60A1's protection far less relevant).

More importantly, doing this at the earliest time would have allowed the US to leverage the most favourable time in terms of costs and industry, before the economic crises of the 70s and slight reduction in US industrial capacity notably reduced the bang-to-buck ratio of these items.

The M60A1 was probably far more conservative than it should have been (or rather the US shouldn't have failed to introduce a more clean-sheet designs in the early 60s), but what really limited its potential was the fact it was completely underused to supplement the Leopard, AMX-30 and Chieftain to replace most of the outdated gear. Something the US managed to do rather well in other areas (replacing all the oudated APCs with M113s, ATGMs with TOW at opportune times).

I would talk later about the technical matters, but the M48/M60A1 were also rather low-hanging fruits to look at to boost NATO, given the more obscure upgrades that the US had looked at in the 60s and also the relatively low attention both got in their development phases in certain areas (the automotives were an extremely low-hanging fruit).
 
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Elan Vital said:
Well into the 1970s and even 80s for certain NATO members, pre-A3/A5 M48s, M47s and Centurions remained a significant portion of the fleet with some major drawbacks
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Later versions of the Centurions did remedy or otherwise off-set those disadvantages though, and remained competitive on the battlefield for quite some time, especially from the Mk 9 onwards.
 

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