Military Ground Vehicles of Your Nation Mk X

[The Manticoran Empire]

The problem is that, if we take into account that both tactical and strategic WMDs are used (for example my tanks employ tactical nuclear rounds very often, and should an invader land on our shores the tanks will fire ‘em like crazy.

That is probably the worst idea I have heard since Davy Crockett was tested. A tactical nuke is still a nuke, meaning that is not a precision weapon but an area of effect weapon. Furthermore, it is unlikely that even a light nuclear round will allow your tank to survive engaging with it. Then, if you use tactical nuclear weapons, your enemy uses strategic weapons, and the war ends in total destruction of both sides.

Yes, I know about the advantages of a hull-down position, which is one of the main reasons why I made this tank this heavy- it’s supposed to sit down and fire at pre-made positions, being able to change between them should the necessity come. Taking into account that nuclear weapons will be used, in all forms and shapes, its surely obvious why I prioritize armor and armament above all. A heavier tank can survive a stronger shockwave or firewall, it can be also better protected from radiation and ensure longer self-reliability when biological and chemical weapons will be used. Notice how I mentioned self-destruction system- some tanks are, essentially shooting and moving nuclear mines, their crew shall detonate them when they’ll be overrun, run out of ammo, etc.

None of this makes any sense. All tanks, no matter how heavy, are supposed to fight from hull down positions when on the defense and to move and shoot while on the attack. Armor is no protection against a nuke, not if it can still move. Finally, why are you relying so heavily on atomic arms? Not only is that guaranteed to make it almost impossible to occupy terrain for several months to years, but it will also ensure that every war devolves into a full scale nuclear exchange that destroys all nations involved and leaves upwards of 50% of the population dead in a year.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

That is probably the worst idea I have heard since Davy Crockett was tested. A tactical nuke is still a nuke, meaning that is not a precision weapon but an area of effect weapon. Furthermore, it is unlikely that even a light nuclear round will allow your tank to survive engaging with it. Then, if you use tactical nuclear weapons, your enemy uses strategic weapons, and the war ends in total destruction of both sides.

With the current technology light tactical nukes could be, probably, scaled down to the size of a heavy ATGM. Yes, it will allow my tank to survive after engaging it. Both Soviet and Western nuclear tests, using tanks concluded that to some extent tanks could survive a nuclear blast. A first example that comes to mind is a world-famous “Nuclear Centurion”, that, if I’m correct, basically survived being placed like 500 yards away from explosion epicenter. Taking into account that this tank (T-100HTj, and especially its shape were partially influenced by the need to survive a shockwave or firewall, it is logical to assume that it could potentially survive explosions at somewhat closer range. Of course, a point-blank explosion will vaporize it but meh.

None of this makes any sense. All tanks, no matter how heavy, are supposed to fight from hull down positions when on the defense and to move and shoot while on the attack. Armor is no protection against a nuke, not if it can still move. Finally, why are you relying so heavily on atomic arms? Not only is that guaranteed to make it almost impossible to occupy terrain for several months to years, but it will also ensure that every war devolves into a full scale nuclear exchange that destroys all nations involved and leaves upwards of 50% of the population dead in a year.

Firstly I’ve already stated above why I do believe that making tanks heavier will allow us to employ tactical nuclear rounds with a far greater effectiveness, and as were making ‘em heavy as hell already, why not go ahead and get some armor while we’re at it?
Second of all, according to our military doctrine, if the enemy lands on our shores than it’s already a Hail Mary. Our army, is you might’ve guessed from my earlier post is not supposed to used in overseas operations, it’s main and only task is to guard the homeland. If our navy and our Air Force had failed to stop the invaders away from our shores, and as such the only way for us to go is to stand till the last man and go out with a blast. Better to die as a nation fighting for the cause then to live under the feet of the oppressors. From a geopolitical standpoint the purpose of such suicidal tactics is, if the enemy destroys our navy and will be able to land a force, to deter him from doing so and ensure us at least some position during peace talks- after all at this point both sides are in “ at a deadlock”- the enemy can’t make further advances because of extremely heavy expectable casualties, both in finances and materials and men, and our nation can’t throw him back.
Thirdly, I do believe that our nation will survive (by that I mean that the necessary amount of people and production to ensure a continuation of war will survive) an all-our nuclear exchange. Our cities are well stocked with both public and military shelters, filled with materials and food, our quite rich population is well trained and equipped for dealing with consequences of an all-out nuclear exchange. We can drink the water that was stocked in reservoirs, located deep underground in discrete locations, grow and eat generically modified food that has a better mutation and radiation resistance, hell, we could even potentially modify the younger children to be better resistant to radiation. Most of our population doesn’t even live in the cities (they live in a very technological hybrid of suburbia and personal farming residences and produce most of the food for themselves) so who cares.
(If you’d like to further discuss my suicidal military doctrine we should go to the military advice thread. I don’t want no thread jacking ban again.

[Austrasien]

A heavier tank can survive a stronger shockwave or firewall, it can be also better protected from radiation and ensure longer self-reliability when biological and chemical weapons will be used.

Blast and thermal shock are essentially non-issues for tanks. They are survivable to around the 100 PSI level, which for all but the largest weapons is well inside the range where radiation and electromagnetic effects will be unsurvivable anyway.

A radiation-protected conventional tank can reduce prompt radiation dose by 10. For a 1-kt groundburst, the 100 PSI radius is 110 meters. The 10000 rad dose radius is 334 meters. A 1000 rad dose is death. Using a very simple power-law approximation at 110 meters acute dosage is 4.1 million rads and the increase in dose per meter closer to the bomb is +151* thousand rads.

Additional blast hardness serves no real purpose. For a conventional MBTs crew to survive the radiation dose at the range the blast would destroy the tank would require a radiation protection factor of around 10000, 1000 times more than the actual protection factor achieved on radiation-protected MBTs. Unless you expect a 1000 fold improvement in radiation protection from a three-fold increase in the mass of the vehicle, you are more or less wasting your time.

*Edited for math error.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

A heavier tank can survive a stronger shockwave or firewall, it can be also better protected from radiation and ensure longer self-reliability when biological and chemical weapons will be used.

Blast and thermal shock are essentially non-issues for tanks. They are survivable to around the 100 PSI level, which for all but the largest weapons is well inside the range where radiation and electromagnetic effects will be unsurvivable anyway.

A radiation-protected conventional tank can reduce prompt radiation dose by 10. For a 1-kt groundburst, the 100 PSI radius is 110 meters. The 10000 rad dose radius is 334 meters. A 1000 rad dose is death. Using a very simple power-law approximation at 110 meters acute dosage is 4.1 million rads and the increase in dose per meter closer to the bomb is +151* thousand rads.

Additional blast hardness serves no real purpose. For a conventional MBTs crew to survive the radiation dose at the range the blast would destroy the tank would require a radiation protection factor of around 10000, 1000 times more than the actual protection factor achieved on radiation-protected MBTs. Unless you expect a 1000 fold improvement in radiation protection from a three-fold increase in the mass of the vehicle, you are more or less wasting your time.

*Edited for math error.

1- Sorry for not making this clear earlier, but we’re not talking 1Kt here, we’re talking Davy Crockett-type small nuclear weapons, which are at very best 10-20 t. This is far less dangerous for our MBT due to far less radiation, as you might’ve guessed. Taking info from nukemap, you can clearly see that a 20 t explosion can be easily employed in tactical missions.
2- The sole purpose of rad protection is not to allow for the crew to survive the engagement and to keep walking around after, say, the war ends, but rather to allow them to continue performing their duties in case all electronics failed. We don’t care if they’ll get radiation sickness or cancer- after all, in this scenario the nation as a whole is viewed as expendable.

[Gallia-]

The crew will die long before the electronics do.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

The crew will die long before the electronics do.

Meh if they’ll be able to survive like 10 days that would be already neat. They just need to survive long enough for their replacement to arrive. They may be one of the best trained soldiers in the world, but they’re expendable.

[Gallia-]

The crew will die long before the electronics do.

Meh if they’ll be able to survive like 10 days that would be already neat. They just need to survive long enough for their replacement to arrive. They may be one of the best trained soldiers in the world, but they’re expendable.

A modern CPU can be exposed to 10 million rads and not fail.

A dose ten thousand times less will incapacitate a human, with all sorts of nasty side effects (vomiting, diarrhea as the intestinal wall sloughs off, fainting, etc.), a few minutes after exposure.

Even old CPUs, like the Intel 386, won't fail at typical lethal radiation doses caused by battlefield ERWs.

[Austrasien]

1. Smaller bombs are more radiation-dominant, you seem to be reversing the relationship. A 20-ton bomb will produce 100 PSI at only 30 meters but will deliver 10000 Rads at 172 meters. The dose at 30 meters will be massive and cause instant death even behind heavy shielding.
2. 1000 Rads, which I was using, will cause incapacitation in minutes and certain death within about two days. And this is a very optimistic assumption because it ignores that neutron radiation produces a larger effective dose than gamma rays in most tissue. Rad-for-rad (or Gray-for-Gray in modern units) neutrons are a lot more damaging to tissue and even fission bombs produce a substantial amount of neutron radiation when they detonate.

Generally, you seem to have invested too much importance in the blast and heat, which are barely important even to completely conventional tanks for reasons you have observed. Being massive hard metal structures neither crushing nor heating are particularly effective ways to damage a tank. The range at which a small nuclear weapon will knock out a tank is pretty much the range at which the crew is irradiated (there are also electromagnetic effects that can potentially knock out a tank but these are much harder to generalize).

[Laka Strolistandiler]

1. Smaller bombs are more radiation-dominant, you seem to be reversing the relationship. A 20-ton bomb will produce 100 PSI at only 30 meters but will deliver 10000 Rads at 172 meters. The dose at 30 meters will be massive and cause instant death even behind heavy shielding.
2. 1000 Rads, which I was using, will cause incapacitation in minutes and certain death within about two days. And this is a very optimistic assumption because it ignores that neutron radiation produces a larger effective dose than gamma rays in most tissue. Rad-for-rad (or Gray-for-Gray in modern units) neutrons are a lot more damaging to tissue and even fission bombs produce a substantial amount of neutron radiation when they detonate.

Generally, you seem to have invested too much importance in the blast and heat, which are barely important even to completely conventional tanks for reasons you have observed. Being massive hard metal structures neither crushing nor heating are particularly effective ways to damage a tank. The range at which a small nuclear weapon will knock out a tank is pretty much the range at which the crew is irradiated (there are also electromagnetic effects that can potentially knock out a tank but these are much harder to generalize).

As far as I’m concerned, if we detonate a 20 t nuclear weapon, the range at which radiation will be around 600 rem is nearly 500 meters. And, I suppose, that these weapons are supposed to be fired from >600 meters from pre-prepared positions. Thought despite all the possible shielding it will still result in my crew receiving A LOT of radiation, and as a result will get a radiation sickness, or cancer, they will still live at least a ~5 days and will be able to continue performing their duties. As my nation is quite medically advanced, it’s safe to assume that as long as their brain is capable of performing barely any cognitive functions they still be able to function to some extent.
Yes, I do, because of “mission kills”. The main purpose of such “heavy defense” tactics is to keep “mission killing” the enemy troops, so that further advances will be hampered.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

Pardon me if I misunderstood some of your words or if it’s hard for you to understand me- English is not my mother tongue and I’m relatively inexperienced in dealing with English technical terminology especially regarding nuclear themes

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

You can't drive a tank while you are literally barfing up your *indescribable because this is a PG13 site* all over the computer screens... or worse is half-brain dead from all the radiation frying your brain.

[Gallia-]

You won't vomit your pelvis or whatever you'll just be having the worst (and last) case of the flu or food poisoning you've ever had.

With really high doses (>5,000 rads) you might faint in the fighting compartment and choke on your own vomit like a drunk I suppose.

Pardon me if I misunderstood some of your words or if it’s hard for you to understand me- English is not my mother tongue and I’m relatively inexperienced in dealing with English technical terminology especially regarding nuclear themes

100 rads is 1 gray. Rads are American and gray is rest-of-world.

10 grays will always kill you, as Austrasien says. It will also cause incapacitation, in the form of vomiting, nausea, fainting, headaches, and diarrhea within a few minutes to an hour or so. The crew will literally be running out of the tank to go to the bathroom, or puking in their gas masks, or fainting in their chairs, or whatever.

The point is that the range at which a tank will be damaged by blast and heat from the explosion is far closer than where the crew will pretty much immediately be hit by symptoms of lethal radiation poisoning. Even with good radiation protection.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

You won't vomit your pelvis or whatever you'll just be having the worst (and last) case of the flu or food poisoning you've ever had.

With really high doses (>5,000 rads) you might faint in the fighting compartment and choke on your own vomit like a drunk I suppose.

Pardon me if I misunderstood some of your words or if it’s hard for you to understand me- English is not my mother tongue and I’m relatively inexperienced in dealing with English technical terminology especially regarding nuclear themes

100 rads is 1 gray. Rads are American and gray is rest-of-world.

10 grays will always kill you, as Austrasien says. It will also cause incapacitation, in the form of vomiting, nausea, fainting, headaches, and diarrhea within a few minutes to an hour or so. The crew will literally be running out of the tank to go to the bathroom, or puking in their gas masks, or fainting in their chairs, or whatever.

The point is that the range at which a tank will be damaged by blast and heat from the explosion is far closer than where the crew will pretty much immediately be hit by symptoms of lethal radiation poisoning. Even with good radiation protection.

Well in that case we could, first of all, make the crew to go into the fight with their stomaches empty. Furthermore, we could surgically (install some cyber ware or something idk) and genetically modify them to further resist the effects of radiation poisoning. Our nation’s military has a long love story with chemical stimulants and suppressors so that could be used as well to further extent the amount of time the crew can continue the fight.

As said above, we don’t care if the crew will get radiation poisoning, since the only combat situation where the T-100HT will be used is basically a suicidal last stand. The crew is not expected to survive. If, after firing nuclear weapons they’ll be able to keep the fight on for several days, they’ve already did their duty. Most likely a reserve crew will arrive by this time and replace the irradiated dying men, possibly mercy killing them in the process. My narion’s military culture is all about self sacrifice in a meaningful manner.

[Gallia-]

You're vomiting because your body is dead but your brain hasn't got the memo yet.

There is no real way to avoid this besides making the tank fully robotic I guess, then your main issue would be talking to the controllers.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

You're vomiting because your body is dead but your brain hasn't got the memo yet.

There is no real way to avoid this besides making the tank fully robotic I guess, then your main issue would be talking to the controllers.

We could keep the brain working by pumping it with oxygen nutrients and vitamins (idk how you should call it in English basically all the stuff the brain needs to work, and also extracting, say, venous blood etc). Even if the body is dead as long as he brain is functioning the crew will fight.

[Gallia-]

The brain is part of the body so it is also dead.

At really high radiation doses (>50 grays) you can even see brain damage manifest within a couple hours or days, as white matter dies and neurons demylenate, which can cause memory loss and cognitive deficits. It's more common in chemo patients with chronic doses of radiation, but I guess in the last few days of life a tank driver could have similar things happen.

DNA also doesn't like high radiation doses of any variety (either gamma rays or neutron), but that's more obvious in rapidly replaced tissues like intestinal walls, mucus membranes, and skin. The brain just sorta rots away.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

The brain is part of the body so it is also dead.

DNA doesn't like high radiation doses of any variety (either gamma rays or neutron).

I know how gamma radiation kills, I’ve finished 3rd in Moscow School Biological Olympics.
As said above, the crew could be genetically modified so that their genetic reparation mechanisms (again idk how you call this stuff in English) would be more effective and as such could function for a prolonged amount of time while suffering from a radiation poisoning.
Furthermore, as the organs will start to fail, some of its functions could be overtaken by machines, connected to the soldier’s life support system. Hell, we could even replace most of his organs with cybernetics. I’ve read a story of a Japanese guy who received a terrible amount of radiation and continued to stay in conscience, suffering for like two months or something since he was kept on life support.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

At really high radiation doses (>50 grays) you can even see brain damage manifest within a couple hours or days, as white matter dies and neurons demylenate, which can cause memory loss and cognitive deficits. It's more common in chemo patients with chronic doses of radiation, but I guess in the last few days of life a tank driver could have similar things happen.

As said above, if they’ll live for several days that means that their missions is accomplished. A reserve crew will arrive, mercy kill them and then replace them.

[Gallia-]

Genetically engineering cyber super tankers immune to radiation sounds like a lot more effort than making a remote controlled tank and putting normal dudes in a bunker a thousand kilometers away I guess but sure.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

Genetically engineering cyber super tankers immune to radiation sounds like a lot more effort than making a remote controlled tank and putting normal dudes in a bunker a thousand kilometers away I guess but sure.

The comms can be easily jammed or cut off, also electronic tanks have very high possibility of not being able to perform field repairs. Also EMP because while it can be countered, it’s obvious that it will do at very least some damage to the tanks’s components.
Also we don’t have a thousand kilometer away because it’s an island. Think of something the size of Kyushu or Hokkaido.
And these tankers are not immune to radiation their just equipped and modified to be more resistant to its effects

[Gallia-]

Hokkaido and Kyushu both have bunkers on them. They're pretty big and have plenty of dirt.

You can't easily jam SHF satellite commo. I guess if you drive the tank into a commo shadow like under a mountain or a tunnel, but this can be solved by having more SHF satellites and allowing for periods of autonomous driving. Those are the only serious obstacles, which while significant (especially in urban contexts) are not insurmountable or anything. You'd just have a map that shows potential routes the tanks can go and stay within line of sight of their satellites, and maybe have it colored showing best routes to minimize shadow times. Such maps could be easily made based on a combination of route reconnaissance, practical experience, and computer modeling, probably in a few minutes with a Google Earth plugin or something.

Genetically engineering soldiers to be radiation resistant or hooking them up into under-armor dialysis machines is probably more difficult than making a robot tank that knows where its commo sats are and can keep them in mind while tele-driving (or drive back to a commo link) or simply have it planned for during mission routing. Because we already have robot tanks that do autonomous driving, and so far as no one has genetically engineered anyone deliberately to be taller or anything, except by having tall people breed I guess.

Since no one as far as anyone knows is resistant to 1,000 rads (or half a dozen grays) there really isn't a way to go forward with having radiation resistant people breed a new generation of really rad resistant supermen.

Even if they last a day or two before onset of symptoms it's not much being achieved. Tank crews aren't valuable because they know how to operate a machine, they're valuable because they're experienced, and that experience, often times, is literally irreplaceable. If you want to see what happens when you treat tank crews (and infantrymen) as expendable parts to be replaced you can look at the US Army's performance in the Korean or Vietnam Wars.

Possibly the only time a tank equipped armored brigade was routed by horse cavalry.

[Laka Strolistandiler]

Hokkaido and Kyushu both have bunkers on them. They're pretty big and have plenty of dirt.

You can't easily jam SHF satellite commo. I guess if you drive the tank into a commo shadow like under a mountain or a tunnel, but this can be solved by having more SHF satellites and allowing for periods of autonomous driving. Those are the only serious obstacles, which while significant (especially in urban contexts) are not insurmountable or anything. You'd just have a map that shows potential routes the tanks can go and stay within line of sight of their satellites, and maybe have it colored showing best routes to minimize shadow times. Such maps could be easily made based on a combination of route reconnaissance, practical experience, and computer modeling, probably in a few minutes with a Google Earth plugin or something.

Genetically engineering soldiers to be radiation resistant or hooking them up into under-armor dialysis machines is probably more difficult than making a robot tank that knows where its commo sats are and can keep them in mind while tele-driving (or drive back to a commo link) or simply have it planned for during mission routing. Because we already have robot tanks that do autonomous driving, and so far as no one has genetically engineered anyone deliberately to be taller or anything, except by having tall people breed I guess.

Since no one as far as anyone knows is resistant to 1,000 rads (or half a dozen grays) there really isn't a way to go forward with having radiation resistant people breed a new generation of really rad resistant supermen.

Even if they last a day or two before onset of symptoms it's not much being achieved. Tank crews aren't valuable because they know how to operate a machine, they're valuable because they're experienced, and that experience, often times, is literally irreplaceable. If you want to see what happens when you treat tank crews (and infantrymen) as expendable parts to be replaced you can look at the US Army's performance in the Korean or Vietnam Wars.

Possibly the only time a tank equipped armored brigade was routed by horse cavalry.

When I said “Hokkaido and Kyushu” I didn’t mean “these islands didn’t have/had bunkers on them, I said that were pretty limited in terms of available space. I am aware of the amount of bunkers the Japanese built in preparation for the allied landing as well as the fact that they are quite prepared for natural disasters, etc.

Satellite comms are vulnerable because the satellites themselves are extremely vulnerable. In my nation’s universe, space combat is ubiquitous (things like Dyno Soar spaceplane or Spiral) are commonplace, as well as air-to-space weapons (ASM-135 ASAT being the closest IRL example). As such, taking into account that our navy had failed, it’s pretty obvious that the Space Force had failed as well

I treat tank crews as expendable not because they are easy to replace but because in an all-out nuclear war everything should be treated as expendable. I will say again that the only war my army trains and is supposed to be used in is an all-or-nothing defense against the invading hordes, things like peacekeeping ops or anti-terrorist deployments are treated by our masters-allies.

[Gallia-]

If you have 150 ton tanks you can presumably have an SHF antennae farm slightly larger than a Cessna 172's hangar.

Anyway giant super tanks probably aren't stupendous weapons in nuclear combat. A defensive nuclear army just needs radios, lots of them, and nuclear weapons. If everything is supposed to be nuked the second it sneezes across the border you can cut out a lot of junk, like mortars and attack helicopters, and replace them with nuclear missiles guided by guys wielding joysticks hooked up to a radio.

A nuclear defensive army might have like a wheeled thing. Like BTR Zhalo. Or a tiny tank, like 2S25 or M8 AGS.

Giant super tanks are probably non-nuclear offensive weapons. The giant super tank I posted is just supposed to drive around in a steppe and bomb people with a long range gun-howitzer, shoot dozens of fiber optic missiles or loitering anti-tank drones, and have a dozen guys in power armor hang off the side riding it into combat. But it doesn't shoot nukes or anything. I guess if it were a robot it would shoot nukes though.

[Austrasien]

As far as I’m concerned, if we detonate a 20 t nuclear weapon, the range at which radiation will be around 600 rem is nearly 500 meters. And, I suppose, that these weapons are supposed to be fired from >600 meters from pre-prepared positions.

A radiation-protected M60 tank or equivalent can already survive around ~300 meters from a 20-ton fission bomb. With ten times as much radiation protection it might survive at... 172 meters. This is not a particularly significant difference. And you have already made it clear fratricide from nuclear effects is not an overriding concern.

[Dtn]

why not just say "I like big nuclear-shooting tanks" instead of inventing increasingly contrived justifications