Something to think about

Can’t help feeling the tank will be replaced by drones and AI-driven vehicles. Not quite remote-control, as that depends on uninterrupted radio comms, but a combo of onboard AI and radioed instructions. Without the humans to protect, the vehicle can be much smaller and lighter, and maybe cheaper as all those NBC systems etc can be dispensed with. Breakdowns would be stuck until a retriever could reach them, and daily maintenance would require withdrawal to a laager with humans. (Then Skynet is born, and Arnie comes back through time…)

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While I lack your knowledge and experience, I may note that it is common for aircraft to have a single crewman, in charge of “driving”, communications, weapons, radar, sensors, etc with the (big) help of technology. And I do not think an aircraft is simpler to operate, as a war machine, than a tank.
So it may be just a matter of what we are used to see.

Of course, probably the future is completely unmanned vehicles/ships/aircraft…

The big difference is that when an aircraft lands, the crew hand it over to a ground crew to sort out and then head off to a canteen where someone else feeds them (no criticism intended of that process).

As several people with far more experience of such matters than me have said earlier in this thread, at the end of the working day, a tank crew has to refuel and re-arm the wagon themselves, before doing all the maintenance checks and finally feeding themselves (‘the horse, the saddle, the man’). A tank only gets handed over to a maintenance team if something can’t be fixed by the crew. A smaller crew means less people to do all those routine tasks.

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What is a HESH round ?

Oh ok thanks !

The mention of HESH reminded me that it was used as the warhead of choice for the early British Malkara anti-tank missile (as referenced in the Wikipedia extract) which was quite possibly the largest anti tank missile ever in service. It was fitted to a Humber 1T armoured truck, consequently known as Hornet (as in sting in the tail ie missile at the rear of the vehicle). The warhead consisted of nearly 60 pounds of high explosive which was enough to see off any known battle tanks.

An old Ammunition Technician acquaintance of mine told me once that the joke with dealing with the possibility of Malkara not detonating, was that the missile was big enough to push the enemy tank over!

I think we mustn’t overlook the raison d’etre of a MBT here - which is categorised in British Military Doctrine as Shock Action; whilst light and highly technical vehicles may well possess a certain lethality and ubiquity on the battlefield, they are unlikely to be able to take ground and hold it, or to provide the punch to get Infantry on to the objective. 50-odd tons is not something to be sneezed at when it comes to such occupancy.

That said, I accept that the nature of warfare is in almost permanent revolution, but heavy armour possesses something that other weapons systems do not quite have (so far); an Attack Helicopter for instance, lethal though it can be, simply cannot hold ground to the same extent.

Even in COIN operations and the urban environment an MBT has an effect all of its own. My son, on operations in Afghanistan, when cooperating with I think Canadian MBTs in a town remarked, somewhat wistfully perhaps as we did not deploy such beasts, “You know what Dad, it was funny how X town went all quiet with an MBT at the end of the street, ticking over with the turret traversing now and then”.

That reminded me that the then Soviets knew this well vide Czechoslovakia '68.

I appreciate that this is a modelling site, not a doctrinal one, but it’s always interesting in discussions like this, and even seems to have a beneficial effect on whatever AFV I’m building!

I tend to agree. The IDF will most likely adopt a similar approach, although the planned vehicle will be significantly smaller than the Armata. The Carmel Armored Fighting Vehicle concept describes a rather small but very well protected (both by passive and active means), highly autonomous tank manned by a crew of two.

As a former tanker I second that. Nonetheless, technological advance doesn’t skip routine maintenance procedures. Obviously not all, but many of these tasks also become less complicated and/or labor intensive and easier to perform, such as gun barrel cleaning:

http://www.okcrich.com/contents.php?contents=m_auto

The Merkava Mk.2 for example has 72 greasing nipples, most of them in the running gear. The Mk.3 has about half of that number proportionally halving the time spent with this rather filthy and unpleasant task (the Magach had over 120 as far as I remember).

The Mk.2 has a manually operated, external hydraulic pump to adjust track tension; the Mk.3 has an internal system that does that with a press of a button.

The 130mm Rheinmetall gun isn’t dead to the Western World, just that the UK didn’t adopt it.

When a APFSDS round fires, it loses it’s penetration power the father it goes due to temperature, wind resistance, gravity, etc. Soviet, Chinese, and Russian MBTs can fire ATGMs through their tank barrels, hence they will always outdistance Western MBTs from afar.

The Rheinmetall 130mm round makes sense to regain the distance against these Russian T-MBT ATGMs and increase the penetration power against the latest peer nation composite armor.

As for the crew sitting inside the tank’s hull…some of the latest NATO AFVs have 360-cameras that feed a helmet similar to the F-35’s, allowing for all-around vision. Yes, as “Reluctant” said, the IDF Camel is a good example of fighting in the future where the turret sports two rotating CITVs for the crew inside the armored hull capsule.

From past experience with military equipment, can it function when electronics become glitchy?

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“The French are no fools.” Bear in mind they stuck with a one man turret crew from 1917 - 1940. Just saying…

That’s the trick anyway. If the electronics become glitchy, hopefully the crew in the hull can drive away safely while the unmanned turret is rendered useless instead of a useless malfunctioning turret with crew inside of it. Low profile height does matter for survivability.

There is a LOT of electronics in the current tanks as well …
and in modern cars and trucks …

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That was a good thing about Chieftain, if the IFCS went wrong the gunner had the fall back emergency sight to fall back on. And in its defence, it was pretty reliable and accurate (depending on the gunner ).

The humanity put men on the Moon over 50 years ago. Making those electrical components work reasonably reliable nowadays doesn’t seem like an engineering uphill battle to me.

In case those glitches do happen, there are electrical and/or mechanical back up systems available. Those, in conjunction with appropriate procedures, will allow the vehicle and its crew to maintain, even if somewhat limited, fighting capacity or safely withdraw from the combat zone. Worse case scenario, you can always revert back to good ole’ Mk.1 eyeball.

Having a system like Elbit’s ‘Iron Vision’ doesn’t mean that vehicle won’t be equipped back up system(s) and/or with periscopes/episcopes, or the commander won’t be able to stick out his head when needed.

Nevertheless, the future default seems to be all buttoned up in combat zones, especially when using hard-kill Active Protection Systems as these can’t be operated with open hatches anyway.

I get what your sayin but if have seen PVT Schmuckatelli break an anvil when left alone and not know how it happened. This is on top of the US Military using the cheapest bid, things never live up to the advisement.

Sounds similar to the M1’s GAS (gunners auxiliary sight), if you calibrate it daily as you should it is pretty good. Would have had Company high score if I remembered that during table viii quals. Didn’t matter in the end as we couldn’t complete later as a crew but still, that error bugs me. If your not first, your last. :rofl:

I would dare to say that that’s the case in most armies in the world.