Abraham Gubler said:
You don’t need a crew in hull tank design to achieve this. Compartmentalise the ammunition or use less sensitive propellant and you get rid of the “Bunsen Burner” effect.
True, but only the Abrams completely segregates ammo and crew. And only the the Merkava's store every round in an armored canister.
Moving the crew out of the center of the vehicle also moves them away from the place most likely to be hit by top-attack munitions. Which is something most contemporary designs are woefully unprotected from. Which is not surprising considering their designs pre-date top attack weapons.
Abraham Gubler said:
I wouldn’t be so sure of this. Contemporary armour arrays can’t be benchmarked by thickness like they could when everyone was using high hardness steels (even though there will quite considerable differences between different types of steel armour). Thickness is important but what’s inside the box is far more. Having the crew in the hull does take them out of the line of fire which is mostly directed towards the turret and places them behind the thickest armour in this tank. But the T-14’s lack of protection to the powerpack makes it comparatively vulnerable to mobility kills compared to a Merkava. Which often quickly leads to crew casualties.
No contest, but weight does provide a fairly good benchmark. And the T-14 has a clear weight advantage when there is no turret to protect.
Having a lot of space certainly doesn't hurt either.
Again this question can only be answered by the performance figures than by x and y number of mm in bow armour and gun calibre.
It is claimed the gun has 17% more muzzle energy than the L55. All things being equal, this will mean more penetration. All things may not be equal, but it is still better to start with more energy.
Void said:
It depends on the nature of the upgrade. Bolting on new stuff obviously leads to weight gains as in the Leopard 2, M1, Challenger 2 etc. But replacing of components with new addresses this problem. Like the Merkava Mk 3 to Mk 4 or various M1 and Leopard 2 proposals that include new turrets or major changes.
The T-14 will face this problem in the same way.
Yes it will gain weight. But the Leopard 2 and M1 have been gaining weight since the 1970s. While the T-14 today is in the same place as the Leopard 2A1 or the M1 in developmental terms, but in capability terms is likely competitive with the Leopard 2A7 or M1A2vWhatever.
Void said:
The T-14 achieves a 10-15 tonne (claimed) weight saving by using a remote turret. But one thing the T-14 lacks in its move to crew in hull is a reduction in the size of the turret. Even without crew inside it the turret is the key fighting element of the tank. It has the weapons and the sensors. Without a significant reduction in its signature it is going to be collecting hits like a conventional turret. But it doesn’t have the armour of a conventional tank turret. It is possible (again depending on the actual figures) that the T-14 turret can be taken out by medium calibre guns firing APFSDS ammunition. The 35mm and 40mm guns that are being fitted to western IFVs these days have very good armour penetration at range. If a gun like this can disable the T-14’s turret (which by looking at it I would say is likely) then it is vulnerable to mission kills by weapons other tanks can laugh off. Sure the crew will be alive and the gun can motor back to the workshop, swap out the busted stuff for new and then return to the fight. But it will not have remained in the fight at the crucial time.
But they can't really laugh it off.
All modern tanks are relatively vulnerable to firepower kills from damages to the optics, which are not better protected on an M1 than on a T-14. For example, on one occasion a CF Leopard 2 in Afghanistan had the commanders and gunners sights destroyed by a single non-penetrating RPG fired at the front. It only remained in the fight because the back-up sight managed to escape damage.
It is a fact of life that some of the tanks most important systems, its sensors and sometimes even it's ammunition if a bustle magazine is being used, are not effectively protected by armor.
Their market position is based on being able to sell cheap tanks to people the west won’t. Between that and the western nations the market is very small. And I don’t think the poor dictatorships around the world are going to be able to payout for a tank loaded with high cost subsystems. Especially when all they need is something with armour to keep their people in line. Unless Russia is aiming for a big sale to China or India both of which require full tech transfer and the virtual end of any further large scale local work for the seller.
Yes but they are competing with China now and can no longer take it for granted that just because the west will not arm a state, it will turn to Russia. Having a clear technological edge is even more useful when stacked against China's superior economic clout.
Not likely. The west/NATO has had the tech developed for decades to upgrade armoured forces. A handful of pre-production prototypes is not going to turn into an invincible Russian armoured division overnight. Russian recapitalisation provides motivation to the west to do the same and thanks to the technology gap the “Leopard 3” or “M10 Schwarzkopf” is going to put the Russia back into the T-72 boat again.
The US army considers it a triumph to produce a new hull for a 50 year old howitzer. No one doubts they have the technology somewhere to build all sorts of incredible world-beating things, but only after many years have passed and many billions have been spent will any of those things emerge from the acquisition swamp.
France and Germany also both have the ability but they both have limited budgets and cannot get along. France seems more interested in arming Russia than deterring it anyways, so the development of a new "European" tank rests almost entirely on the generosity of German taxpayers and whatever minor European countries they can rope into the project. Which doesn't mean it won't happen, since Germany also has a commercial incentive to develop a new tank. But it probably won't be happening anytime soon.
Britain of course drunk the outsourcing kool-aid long ago and has checked out of AFV development entirely.
And Italy might have made a sophisticated tank once but they are unlikely to be funding much of anything at the government level even if Italian industry get involved in a European project.
Land warfare is not just about land forces. The F-35 trumps the T-14 any day of the week.
Disband the army!
Seriously thought the F-35 is nice but airpower is not a magic bullet.
Those expeditionary forces still would have had lots of trouble up against T-90 armoured divisions. And they are still good for expedition which is kind of the point of raising them. Further their protected mobility provide high resilience to statistical artillery fires and their integrated battle management systems enable unprecedented force movement, force concentration and application of joint fires. All they need is more anti-tank weapons to be a very lethal force in open terrain manoeuvre warfare. So they are far from superfluous.
Interesting, because when the Canadian Forces brought it's then-new Grizzlies to NATO war games in the late 80's they concluded 8x8 APCs made the infantry more vulnerable to artillery. DPICMS easily destroyed them and they made the infantry more visible and far more likely to be hit by artillery in the first place. Large wheeled APCs might have excellent operational mobility but in combat they combine huge profiles with flimsy armor, not a desirable mix when tanks shells and ATGMs are flying.
The Stryker, the Boxer, the VBCI and similar vehicles were not built for a Baltic contingency. They were built because it was felt too much emphasis was placed on "conventional" scenarios. I know you know this.
It’s far from a coup. Just a slight attempt at catch up in a race they are well behind on.
And yet, in a few years heavy force modernization will be back on the agenda in the US and Europe. And many of the capabilities that were killed over the past decade or so will be revived at significant expense. Developing new capabilities which goaded the opponent into spending lots of money to counter them was always counted as a victory by the US during the cold war, that doesn't change just because the shoes is on the other foot.
European NATO members made a bet that conventional warfare in Europe was no longer a contingency worth planning for. The US made a bet that the only serious conventional threat in the near future would be from China in the pacific. Both these bets were wrong. Which doesn't mean NATO is doomed or Russia is unstoppable, your hyperbole aside, but it does mean they have been wrong footed.
. The Armata engineers recognise this hence the upward firing passive kill canisters, you do not. You still think hiding in terrain is an operational advantage. It wasnt for Iraqi tanks at the Battle of 73 Easting. Perhaps it is you Abraham who is ignorant of current operational tank tactics. I suggest you do some reading.
