The Late 21st century AFV? Successors to the MBT?

[yeetmahboi]

That requires cranes etc to do, plus a suspension equally capable at 40 tons and 100 tons.

Plenty of current AFVs have modular applique armour and they seems to drive fine.

And when does you take an Army tank right off the ramp into a fight? The Marines fight for the beachhead not them.

If it were an either/or with some fiscal responsibility thrown it, I'd take upgrading bridges everywhere to MLC150 all day, sure. And the Army is content with carrying TUSK loaded Abrams around on tak transporters. But how much wear and tear can you save by switching to lighter gears? Okay, maybe grafting stuff on at the staging ground is too much, I don't think applique armour is QD yet, but off ramp seems more reasonable. Fitting in at the main base and load them on train to the FLOT.

 

[Prophet141]

They're not bad, but they take a lot of careful engineering to be really effective and not stupid fiddly.

But as I mentioned, the downsides are extra support equipment to install, like Cranes or forklifts, plus a suspension that works as well at the unarmored weight as it does at the fully armored weight. If you've ever ridden in an old pickup truck without a load in the bed, you know exactly what I'm talking about with the suspension thing.

Given how many tanks have hydropneumatic suspension, an actively adjustable suspension for different armour layouts seems fairly close to reality already.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Plenty of current AFVs have modular applique armour and they seems to drive fine.

There's a major difference between uparmoring ~10% of the vehicle gross weight and uparmoring to "Abrams Frontal Arc protection on sides and rear" levels, which I'm assuming are more like 100-150% of vehicle gross weight.

 

[yeetmahboi]

Abrams Frontal Arc protection on sides and rear" levels, which I'm assuming are more like 100-150% of vehicle gross weight.

You are thinking in terms of weight. Think about LOS distance instead. NERA benefits most from composition. A good NERA array can weight much less than that same volume full of steel.

 

[Scott Kenny]

You are thinking in terms of weight. Think about LOS distance instead. NERA benefits most from composition. A good NERA array can weight much less than that same volume full of steel.

A NERA array with the same equivalent protection as Abrams front arc? Covering about 5x the area?

 

[yeetmahboi]

A NERA array with the same equivalent protection as Abrams front arc? Covering about 5x the area?

I imagine it as

• A smallish (XM1200/Lynx size) chassi. 30 tons bare skin with internal systems fully equipped. Mixed composite hull ala Bradley GRP (a 27% reduction in weight!).
• Armata-style remote turret. Fully kitted out with armour from factory. Probably 20 tons without ERA if it needs to meet Abrams frontal turret protection. Maybe 25 if I go with a compact bustle ammo stowage and loading arrangement (ammo count probably 15-20, LP propellant, plus APS ammo and coaxial)

The only places that needs super armouring would be the front and side hulls, so weight climb should be manageable. The Abrams NERA package weights like 12 tonnes and that had real thick DU panels, a material known for its high density and weight! Strv 122 probably use tungsten instead.

Which, I think explains it well that the Cold War tanks had to met stringent demands in dimensions and weight. Upgrading the infrastructure would be a non-trivial task and demand even the force of political handballing but I think at least you future-proof by not having to ask for it in the far future!

Material science is now so advanced that you can replace those super dense metals with stuff like metal foam armour et al. Careful orientation of plates needs space to spare also. I think we can keep this tank of mine below 90 tonnes when equipped with full max level all quadrant armour.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I imagine it as

• A smallish (XM1200/Lynx size) chassi. 30 tons bare skin with internal systems fully equipped. Mixed composite hull ala Bradley GRP (a 27% reduction in weight!).
• Armata-style remote turret. Fully kitted out with armour from factory. Probably 20 tons without ERA if it needs to meet Abrams frontal turret protection. Maybe 25 if I go with a compact bustle ammo stowage and loading arrangement (ammo count probably 15-20, LP propellant, plus APS ammo and coaxial)

The only places that needs super armouring would be the front and side hulls, so weight climb should be manageable. The Abrams NERA package weights like 12 tonnes and that had real thick DU panels, a material known for its high density and weight! Strv 122 probably use tungsten instead.

Which, I think explains it well that the Cold War tanks had to met stringent demands in dimensions and weight. Upgrading the infrastructure would be a non-trivial task and demand even the force of political handballing but I think at least you future-proof by not having to ask for it in the far future!

Material science is now so advanced that you can replace those super dense metals with stuff like metal foam armour et al. Careful orientation of plates needs space to spare also. I think we can keep this tank of mine below 90 tonnes when equipped with full max level all quadrant armour.

That's tripling the vehicle weight between bare and max armor.

Which is going to require a lot of careful engineering, not least in a suspension system that can still ride tolerably well bare while not bottoming out while at max.

 

[yeetmahboi]

That's tripling the vehicle weight between bare and max armor.

It would be a 65% growth instead, because the turret adds another 25 tons.

Which is going to require a lot of careful engineering, not least in a suspension system that can still ride tolerably well bare while not bottoming out while at max.

Absolutely. Even then current suspensions developed on short notice for the SEPv3 can alternate between 72 tons and 93 tons (short tons). That's a 30% growth. The M1070 tank transporter can load an Abrams for a total of methinks 100 tons when the tractor-trailor combo weights 30 tons at base. And we are seeing much, much greater use of hydro based suspension on the horizon, couple this to an active system and I think we have a winner.