NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[Celitannia]

So you're saying that NLOS-C is a better tank than Abrams?

Precision marksmanship from battalion sniper company suppresses the enemy in infantry-on-infantry champion combat, proceeding to direct robotic fires from airborne NLOS tank Block II Gavin "aluminium Wunderwaff". Meanwhile, depth fires are provided by railgun battleship USS Pitchfork Ben after destroying the enemy navy with contemptuous ease. Victory is attained within 48 hours and the 7th Precision Marksmanship Brigade Combat Team (PMBCT) is withdrawn, as another democracy emerges like a phoenix from the broken remains of evil kleptocracy.
What a wonderful world you live in.

An automated systems on an M1 Abrams would be a better tank choice, as the M1 abrams is 30 years old and doesn't have the same electronics upgrades as modern tanks.

M1A2 SEPV3 is about as modern as it gets as far as electronics are concerned.

So you're saying that NLOS-C is a better tank than Abrams?

Precision marksmanship from battalion sniper company suppresses the enemy in infantry-on-infantry champion combat, proceeding to direct robotic fires from airborne NLOS tank Block II Gavin "aluminium Wunderwaff". Meanwhile, depth fires are provided by railgun battleship USS Pitchfork Ben after destroying the enemy navy with contemptuous ease. Victory is attained within 48 hours and the 7th Precision Marksmanship Brigade Combat Team (PMBCT) is withdrawn, as another democracy emerges like a phoenix from the broken remains of evil kleptocracy.
What a wonderful world you live in.

Further, better engines, such as found on the German Leopard 1, which is about 3 times more efficient, would also be an upgrade for the Abrams.

Money grows on trees, of course.

So you're saying that NLOS-C is a better tank than Abrams?

Precision marksmanship from battalion sniper company suppresses the enemy in infantry-on-infantry champion combat, proceeding to direct robotic fires from airborne NLOS tank Block II Gavin "aluminium Wunderwaff". Meanwhile, depth fires are provided by railgun battleship USS Pitchfork Ben after destroying the enemy navy with contemptuous ease. Victory is attained within 48 hours and the 7th Precision Marksmanship Brigade Combat Team (PMBCT) is withdrawn, as another democracy emerges like a phoenix from the broken remains of evil kleptocracy.
What a wonderful world you live in.

It's not about one system being better all together, so much as it is taking the best elements from all the systems and putting them together.

You're aware that an indirect fire, light tank is called a self propelled howitzer, right?

So you're saying that NLOS-C is a better tank than Abrams?

Precision marksmanship from battalion sniper company suppresses the enemy in infantry-on-infantry champion combat, proceeding to direct robotic fires from airborne NLOS tank Block II Gavin "aluminium Wunderwaff". Meanwhile, depth fires are provided by railgun battleship USS Pitchfork Ben after destroying the enemy navy with contemptuous ease. Victory is attained within 48 hours and the 7th Precision Marksmanship Brigade Combat Team (PMBCT) is withdrawn, as another democracy emerges like a phoenix from the broken remains of evil kleptocracy.
What a wonderful world you live in.

Also there's the idea of using M1 Abrams armor but on a smaller more miniaturized tank, using automated systems to shrink the overall size.

The only significant protected volume-reducing automation going into the latest main battle tank (T-14) is an autoloader, and as Sumer has said, an autoloader, or rather more simply, getting rid of the dedicated human loader, has been a concept implemented in tank design since the 1930s and 40s.

Interestingly, they haven't gotten rid of the driver yet or any other such nonsense you advocate. Neither does reducing the crew by two, three or even four allow for significant weight savings whilst maintaining the same level of protection to the tune of a half.

[Manokan Republic]

Crew members have to be able to walk to different sections of a tank, such as from the turret to the driver's location, so in actuality yes there are various walking and moving paths.

Yes, crew members can sometimes move between different stations under armour, but there are no walking paths. They go through open spaces which are left open for the equipment in the tank to move, like the area the gun elevates/depresses and recoils in. This is not a walking path, and it is not comfortable. The closest thing to a designated moving path in a tank is the open part of the turret basket which allows the driver to slide out over his seat into the turret to go out the turret hatches. There is literally no room to be cut here.

The last tank designed with "walkways" that I can think of was designed in the 1920s. And having been inside a B1 I can say with utmost certainty that "walkway" is a far stretch of a concept.

We're talking semantics here, I'm talking about large areas needed to house the crew being removed, and allow the crew to move, which would reduce he volume of the vehicle. There is lots of room to be cut, as you suggest below as well, so saying there is no room to be cut is quite ridiculous. You don't need these areas designed to allow the crew to move, nor areas typically where crew have to be (I.E. at the front of the vehicle to see the target), when much of this is automated, and you use a system of cameras to see instead. You can reduce the amount of crew you need by one automatically be removing the need for a loader by using an autoloader (and thus the amount of space needed for this soldier, as well as things like food and water requirements), as well as remove the crawlspace needed for a turret hatch by automating the machine gun, as well. This reduces the size of the turret, and thus it's weight.

Then you remove the driver's compartment, which is only present so the crew member can physically see out of the window of the tank. With a 360 degree camera system, you not only have better situational awareness ,but you also remove the need for the driver's compartment. Theoretically, 3 soldiers should be able to be housed in something as small as an area as this. The only reason why crew are spread out as much as they are is to be able to operate the different systems, such as cannons, or to be able to physically see out of the tank's turret or aim down it's barrel and so on. With a system of cameras instead, this is no longer necessary, and the tank can shrink down in size. Then there's the areas for the crew to move inside the tank, which also make up extra volume. Volume is an exponential thing, so if you make something just a little bit bigger around, you typically lose a lot of the weight. Something with half the dimensions of something else, such as a 4 x 4 x 4 cube vs. a 2 x 2 x 2 cube, is not half the size, but 8 times smaller. So, if you shave the dimensions of the tank down only by a few feet all over the tank, let's say shrinking it's overall dimensions by 25%, you'd actually drop the weight of the tank by half it's weight. So for example, a 3.2 foot cube is half the size of a 4 foot cube. You don't need to shave off that much space to drop the volume of something dramatically, and thus the protected volume.

as would removing the driving section of the vehicle,

Who will drive the vehicle?

They will drive the vehicle via a system of cameras and automated steering mechanisms. The Crew can be placed internally deeper inside the vehicle, and can be sitting a chair, rather than needing to have a view through a window themselves of what's in front of them.

If you cut out the crew, congrats you're discussing UGVs. Take a gander into realistic military discussion about tank-like UGVs. I'll give you a hint, it doesn't really exist. Man-in-the loop is important, so important in fact that militaries across the world who are seeing severe manpower shortages are not desperately trying to switch to the least manpower intensive fighting machines around.

It is being used, it just isn't widely developed at the moment, because it's emerging technology. This idea that it isn't currently being used, that it must be bad, is a terrible argument. Machine guns were also not widely used once, and that's not because it's bad ,but because it's new technology being developed.

Congratulations, you've just discovered the pinnacle of 1940s tank design technology. Removing a human loader reduces protected volume (there's that term again!), and is a concept so well understood and so ingrained in tank design that it was being used in the 1930s and 1940s in tank design processes.

Well then seemingly I do know what I'm talking about, right?

"There is literally no room to be cut here."- You contradict yourself immediately here, which is what I'm pointing out. There is obviously room to be cut down, and reason to do it.

But not that substantial. Unless you remove all crew, but that won't happen.

You can reduce the size of the crew threshold to much smaller that of a normal tank, by placing the crew entirely within the middle and using cameras and automated systems to operate everything. That way you don't have to make extra room for a driving area and so on, you just have a guy sitting in a chair looking at a camera.

That is my point. This isn't designed to be some novel revelation, only explain how a UGV would reduce the overall size. It should be obvious why a UGV would be better, as it would be much smaller, and not require as much armor for the same protection. I shouldn't have to explain why it's better, is my point, but apparently I did.

"There is literally no room to be cut here."- You're now admitting there is room to be cut down, by removing the space for the crew members and their ability to move through the open space? Doesn't that prove my earlier point?

This actually does not hold true. Mobility is a function of mean ground pressure, power application to the tracks, and the ability of the suspension design to cope with it. Lowering the weight does nothing, it is adjusting those features which makes the difference. This is why the Conqueror heavy tank was praised for its superior mobility, and the Israelis intentionally kept Centurions in the Golan heights (and implemented Centurion-based suspension on the Merkava).

You can apply more power to the tracks with a lighter vehicle, comparative to it's engine. Also there are other functions to maneuverability, such as track design. The reason why tanks don't use wheels like regular cars for example is that they are not as good at supporting the weight of the tank, and tracks that provide better maneuverability also don't support the weight as well. By reducing the weight of the vehicle you can have tracks which wouldn't be usable by a larger tank, which can increase maneuverability.

Strangely enough, not on its own. Hybrid power tanks have existed for over a century now and even the new ones do not typically reduce volume or weight, often they increase it. The advantages here come in other ways such as range increases, mobility increases (power application to the tracks), signature reduction, and a whole host of other things. Reduction of size and weight are not on that list.

I'm going to reiterate all the way back to my original point: You apparently know nothing of how tanks work or are designed. There is nothing wrong with that, most people don't.

I never said Hybrids would reduce the weights, I said that and weight reduction would be the biggest advancements in tanks. You're making vast assumptions based literally on nothing.

When the tanks become smaller, we can afford to switch over to hybrid systems, which would be larger.

[Kassaran]

Manokan, I need to know, are you trolling us? Are you literally someone exercising Poe's Law? Every time you write something, beyond the most generic of statements you actively have been pursuing a method of reasoning made sensible in only the strangest of wonderlands.

Fundamentally your perception of military technology is Fordosian at conceptual levels, and yet you lack a flair for including any sort of literal blades for added edginess which you have incredibly substituted for an argument that the most currently complex yet still simple of systems somehow can be relegated to complex and important of tasks in combat situations.

Additionally, let's point at your willful neglect to address anything beyond the firmly established, paring at generalizations to make strawman out of literally thin air while simultaneously batting away all credible and definitive authorities present. Respected and well-founded posters in this thread for over 24 hours have been posting constant explanations for why what you present is simply impossible or irrelevant, and yet you press on insisting otherwise while turning a blind eye to credible arguments that systematically and completely dismantle your entire argument. This alone leads me to conclude you are either a troll or incapable of understanding the information being presented to you.

[Spirit of Hope]

Yes, crew members can sometimes move between different stations under armour, but there are no walking paths. They go through open spaces which are left open for the equipment in the tank to move, like the area the gun elevates/depresses and recoils in. This is not a walking path, and it is not comfortable. The closest thing to a designated moving path in a tank is the open part of the turret basket which allows the driver to slide out over his seat into the turret to go out the turret hatches. There is literally no room to be cut here.

The last tank designed with "walkways" that I can think of was designed in the 1920s. And having been inside a B1 I can say with utmost certainty that "walkway" is a far stretch of a concept.

We're talking semantics here, I'm talking about large areas needed to house the crew being removed, and allow the crew to move, which would reduce he volume of the vehicle. There is lots of room to be cut, as you suggest below as well, so saying there is no room to be cut is quite ridiculous. You don't need these areas designed to allow the crew to move, nor areas typically where crew have to be (I.E. at the front of the vehicle to see the target), when much of this is automated, and you use a system of cameras to see instead. You can reduce the amount of crew you need by one automatically be removing the need for a loader by using an autoloader (and thus the amount of space needed for this soldier, as well as things like food and water requirements), as well as remove the crawlspace needed for a turret hatch by automating the machine gun, as well. This reduces the size of the turret, and thus it's weight.

Then you remove the driver's compartment, which is only present so the crew member can physically see out of the window of the tank. With a 360 degree camera system, you not only have better situational awareness ,but you also remove the need for the driver's compartment. Theoretically, 3 soldiers should be able to be housed in something as small as an area as this. The only reason why crew are spread out as much as they are is to be able to operate the different systems, such as cannons, or to be able to physically see out of the tank's turret or aim down it's barrel and so on. With a system of cameras instead, this is no longer necessary, and the tank can shrink down in size. Then there's the areas for the crew to move inside the tank, which also make up extra volume. Volume is an exponential thing, so if you make something just a little bit bigger around, you typically lose a lot of the weight. Something with half the dimensions of something else, such as a 4 x 4 x 4 cube vs. a 2 x 2 x 2 cube, is not half the size, but 8 times smaller. So, if you shave the dimensions of the tank down only by a few feet all over the tank, let's say shrinking it's overall dimensions by 25%, you'd actually drop the weight of the tank by half it's weight. So for example, a 3.2 foot cube is half the size of a 4 foot cube. You don't need to shave off that much space to drop the volume of something dramatically, and thus the protected volume.

No you can't theoretically fit three crew into a space that size, because they need their controls. Which are not insubstantial in size, even if they are using cameras or something similar and not directly next to the system they are controlling.

This also ignores the fact that while crews in modern armored vehicles are spread out, the space around them is not wasted, moving the crew to the same location could very well actually waste space inside the vehicle because of other systems requirements. As an example the Abrams turret is shaped the way it is, not just because of the crew but also because the gun needs a given distance to recoil and to elevate and depress.

[Manokan Republic]

You aren't going to be able to shrink a vehicle with Abrams level protection down to 35 tons, you probably can't even do this if you completely remove the crew because of all the other systems that would still need to be inside the protected volume. Weapon, ammo, engine, electronics, controls, etc. all take up space the crew is just one more thing and designers try to cram them in their as best they can.

Then their is the problem of how automated to make the system, you can make an autoloader, and that might save you some room, though not all that much all things considered. But what else are you going to automate? You basically can't reduce the crew bellow three (driver, gunner, commander) given current computer capabilities. Automated driving systems are getting good at moving along roads or set routes, but they require input on where to go and aren't up to the same level as humans in the area of responding to verbal and implicit commands. Most of the same issues apply to the gunner as well, you can make a system that aims a gun, but would you be able to trust it in the field against a covered and concealed opponent, and working off of verbal and implicit commands from the tank commander? Finally their is the commander, which I feel is rather obvious why it has so far remained human.

You don't have to have as many crew compartments if the crew are all close to one another. Furthermore volume is exponential. For example, a 4 foot cube with a volume of 64 cubic feet, has 8 times the volume of a 2 foot cube with 8 cubic feet. With that in mind, you'd only need to shrink the tank's dimensions by 25% in order to get it to drop it's volume by half, and thus it's protected. It's not as difficult as you think.

The reason for crew dispersion is based on physical necessity, that is a soldier needs to see out the tank in order to be able to drive, a turret-gunner needs to be able to physically operate a machine gun to use it, a cannon crew member needs to be able to see down the tank's barrel to be able to reliably aim it. With all of them using a system of cameras to see and instead, you don't need 3-4 crew members spread out all over different areas of the tank, also necessitating areas to move, but just a small crew compartment, cutting down the size and overall volume of the tank. Even small gains could mean massive weight drops, and thus the tank becomes smaller.

The Abrams has had it's electronics update a number of times, and has a version under development with even more updates. Engine efficiency (size or fuel wise) isn't the only consideration, tank designers have to consider more variables, iirc the turbine engine currently in use was chosen because it gets up to full power (and thus accelerates better) than diesel engines.

By electronics, I mean things like automated self-loading guns, or automated machine guns. That way a crew member doesn't have to poke their heads out in order to visually spot and shoot at the enemy, and instead can operate a machine gun from within the safety of a tank, also having the benefit of reducing the size. Right now, a well placed sniper or machine gunner could kill a tank crew member, or a well placed bomb could injure crew members etc.

Engine efficiency is not the only factor, however the german tank is just as reliable and powerful as the Abrams tank, while also being more fuel efficient, generally making it better. It gets 1500 horsepower and generally doesn't stall a lot, and yet gets a further range with less fuel than the abrams. With the same amount of fuel, or 60% more, a german tank should theoretically get an operational range of 500 miles, or twice that of an M1 Abrams. Because maximum range and operational range are not the same thing, a german tank should in theory have 2 to 2.5 times the fuel efficiency of an M1 abrams, although the Abrams is slightly heavier at 68 tons vs. 62 tons, so it will be a little lower than this.

[Manokan Republic]

Manokan, I need to know, are you trolling us? Are you literally someone exercising Poe's Law? Every time you write something, beyond the most generic of statements you actively have been pursuing a method of reasoning made sensible in only the strangest of wonderlands.

Fundamentally your perception of military technology is Fordosian at conceptual levels, and yet you lack a flair for including any sort of literal blades for added edginess which you have incredibly substituted for an argument that the most currently complex yet still simple of systems somehow can be relegated to complex and important of tasks in combat situations.

Additionally, let's point at your willful neglect to address anything beyond the firmly established, paring at generalizations to make strawman out of literally thin air while simultaneously batting away all credible and definitive authorities present. Respected and well-founded posters in this thread for over 24 hours have been posting constant explanations for why what you present is simply impossible or irrelevant, and yet you press on insisting otherwise while turning a blind eye to credible arguments that systematically and completely dismantle your entire argument. This alone leads me to conclude you are either a troll or incapable of understanding the information being presented to you.

Your argument here is essentially an appeal to authority fallacy, that because someone posts on a forum a lot, they must be more right, which isn't really technically sound.

[Manokan Republic]

So by using a lot of information, I must know a little about tanks?

That sounds like the opposite of logic. "This guy gives a lot of information, and facts and details, must not know what he's talking about..." Also I was explaining to someone how reducing the size of the interior would dramatically decrease the overall size of the tank, who questioned whether or not that would happen.

No, he's literally calling you out about writing on a topic of which you are incredibly inexperienced. He called out your information as false at best and straight deception and misleading in context at worst. You don't understand tank design or its complexities beyond WWI era designs as other posters have shown and likewise have no grasp of the concept of realism.

He contradicts himself multiple times, which I point out.

No, an auto loading system would not be better, it would make the tank heavier and impact it's performance. The M1 Abrams would indeed be 30 years old in design and systems if we didn't include constant upgrades to said hardware and software... much like the Apache Attack Helicopter which I personally work on. Additionally, you literally just called a Leopard 1's engine more advanced than a current generation Abrams... when it's a last generation MBT while the Abrams is current gen. You obviously have no clue about any of the content upon which you are founding your baseless theories and ideas upon. Think before you write please, this is only making you look worse.

The M1 is not known for its armor, it's known for its speed and avaliability on the battlefield... of which these are both supplemented by top-of-the-line targeting and communications systems. Challenger tanks are legendary for their armor and German tanks for their gun stability. Korean (southern type) K2s are rumored to be capable of going all skynet terminator mode when their crew's shouldn't be functioning and the US is just a meme lord. God only knows what the Armada is going to become and all of the Slavic countries that are rehashing T90s and 72s and everything like them.

Your limited fetching of information from the broad spectrum is most disturbing to say the leas and that's not the worst part.

An M1 Abrams is among the heaviest tanks in the world, at 68-72 tons, vs. 62 tons for a German leopard and roughly the same for a British Challenger. The American tank utilizes depleted uranium armor, which makes it really heavy, and better at stopping KE rounds as well as shaped charges. This makes the tank very protective, but not particularly fuel efficient in regards to other tanks, also considering the low efficiency but high reliability of the engine. This is well known by most people who know a little bit about tanks, that the Abrams has some of the best armor in the world. The Abrams armor is based on the challenger, but the Abrams has some of the worst fuel efficiency and range, as well as the lowest speeds of the main battle tanks. You are in effect, completely backwards in your reasoning. The Abrams has around the same speed as other tanks, but being heavier and with a less efficient engine consumes more fuel.

Because you've not even learned the lesson we tried to tell you first. Tanks are as small as they can get with the technology we have. You're not adding anything new to the discussion at hand and your ideas on what or how a tank is or functions are dated by your seeming perception that there is room inside a tank. This is false. There is space, not room. A tank that weighs 30 tons, and has two crew members is what we call a bomber and it makes up for its lack of armor with speed, altitude, and not having to worry about being directly countered by tanks because it has to face other, lighter but more lethal threats.

Because modern tanks have not yet been designed to have automation replace or augment the crew, we don't see the advancements, yet. That does not mean future designs will not. The T-14 does what I'm talking about for example, and has better protection than the previous tank it replaced, and is only 48 tonnes. Keeping the armor the same maybe the tank could be 35 tons or so, but I'm just guessing at that I'll admit.

"There is space, not room."- Now we're just splitting hairs on semantics. You know what I mean, regardless of there being a technical term or not, which there is not some kind of obvious technical manual explaining the difference between space and room.

[Austrasien]

uh wot

[Kassaran]

Your argument here is essentially an appeal to authority fallacy, that because someone posts on a forum a lot, they must be more right, which isn't really technically sound.

No, I'm trying to understand why just can't understand.

You don't understand modern tanks.

You don't understand modern combat.

You don't understand context.

You literally have been understanding only numbers presented in abstract fashions that you've used to literally create a fantasy which substitutes reality for your personal idealistic fiction where everything fits together into nice neat little places.

You literally have simply shaken your head at every argument and said the equivalent of 'but numbers' which completely removes the idea of how engineering, or anything at all ever has worked. Your only saving grace right now from a veritable wall of text being here instead of this measly paragraph is that I'm on CQ shift right now and my CoC believes in cucking soldiers for the 24 hours they're stuck babysitting the front door to the barracks.

I promise you I will pull from every corner of the Internet so help me the gods the very numbers you have refuted and studies that have refuted your arguments. I will show you the flaw in every single imaginary piece of your fictional tank you have suggested can exist and show you precisely why it cannot and why inherently you have been doing the same thing as repeatedly bashing your head into a brick wall for the entirety of your time in this thread. Your presence in this thread has not only been an exercise in stretching the limits of geometry, but also patience as you repeatedly have tried to defend indefensible positions from a mathematical and physical point of view so profoundly wrong, my thumbs would sooner fall off than be finished hammering the raw data by hand onto the pitiful screen Samsung has given me to express reality to you upon.

This is the NS Military Realism Thread. The people here on the large majority are either ex-military, current military, aspiring military, or knowledgable on the vast sum of many books read on the topic (being volumes of substantial size and not of a sensational origin) if not a mixture of the many. I speak as one such mix and so do many of these other members of the thread. We do not refute you because you are new, we refute you because you are flawed as we have refuted the dozens before you that were and will refute the dozens after that will be wrong.

[Manokan Republic]

To go ahead and clear up some misconceptions you might have, yes, there are tanks designed like this, the Russian T-14 for example. It is only 48 tonnes, compared to say 68 tons of an M1 Abrams, and this is achieved in part by an umanned turret, and three man armor capsule in the front. "The most significant novelty is an unmanned turret, with the crew of three seated in an armored capsule in the front of the hull."

American tank armor is traditionally better than the Russians, using high end ceramic chobham armor and depleted uranium, and American depleted uranium anti-tank armor piercing rounds are more effective than the Russians (meaning we don't need as good of armor), so potentially it could be a bit smaller, but that's just guesswork on my part. But yes, these methods are already being used to reduce the size and weight of tanks and likely will continue in the future. I didn't think I'd actually have to go on so long explaining the merits, but there you go. The only problem is it was expensive for the Russians to use but, again this is not really as much of a problem for the Americans with massively bloated budgets for defense. If you look at the internals of a T-14 crew space and compare that to an M1 abrams, it's much smaller, with there basically being a small 3-man armor capsule at front and, that's it. It's obviously a little bigger for controls and comfort than it needs to be, but it can potentially be really tiny if you wanted to. This reduces the weight and size of the vehicle, which means it can be transported more easily, can potentially be faster, and consumes less fuel. It also allows you to use better armor if you make the tank larger than it needs to be, or use other methods like hybrid engines which are also typically larger. It also protects the crew better as they don't need to be exposed to enemy fire in order to be able to see the enemy.

[Celitannia]

If you literally cannot use the English language properly there isn't much hope for you here.

T-14 production was stopped if I recall correctly because of the arms embargo imposed by France, from which many of the components were sourced.

Moreover, the US defence budget does not have money sitting around doing nothing, as 'bloated' implies.

If it did, the US Army would have spent it already on Block III tank, XM2001 Crusader and all of the other vehicles Galla masturbates to.

[Manokan Republic]

If you literally cannot use the English language properly there isn't much hope for you here.

T-14 production was stopped if I recall correctly because of the arms embargo imposed by France, from which many of the components were sourced.

Moreover, the US defence budget does not have money sitting around doing nothing, as 'bloated' implies.

If it did, the US Army would have spent it already on Block III tank, XM2001 Crusader and all of the other vehicles Galla masturbates to.

Let's pretend budgeting is the biggest issue. Then in theory, this is a superior tank, despite being more expensive. There's also the fact we'd have to replace our older M1 abrams and train new crews, which are obviously costly and difficult to due. But that does not mean that because it's not being used in wide numbers, right now, these sorts of systems aren't better and won't influence future tank designs. The point is these designs can shrink down a tanks size, even drastically if you really wanted to.

As well, dialects are a thing, and there is no concerted english language, but an amalgamation of different sub-languages in to one, with but different words used in different areas. Compare Australian, British, and even Southern english and you will find many different words being used, with many different implied meanings. Semantics, that is demanding someone uses one word to mean the same thing, ignores the fact words are used differently in different places, and that words have many different meanings, and many different meanings can be described by different words (I.E. black, ebony, and so on can mean the same thing). Also my grasp on english has no bearings on my grasp on science or basic tank design, given that most Russians don't know english and were able to make a good tank. Being a grammar nazi doesn't help you to understand ideas and concepts as well, it just arbitrarily restricts communication. Language is pragmatic, and designed to communicate ideas well, so muddying things down by arguing the meaning of words instead of ideas, is not a good thing to do. It's also just pedantic and annoying.

[Spirit of Hope]

You aren't going to be able to shrink a vehicle with Abrams level protection down to 35 tons, you probably can't even do this if you completely remove the crew because of all the other systems that would still need to be inside the protected volume. Weapon, ammo, engine, electronics, controls, etc. all take up space the crew is just one more thing and designers try to cram them in their as best they can.

Then their is the problem of how automated to make the system, you can make an autoloader, and that might save you some room, though not all that much all things considered. But what else are you going to automate? You basically can't reduce the crew bellow three (driver, gunner, commander) given current computer capabilities. Automated driving systems are getting good at moving along roads or set routes, but they require input on where to go and aren't up to the same level as humans in the area of responding to verbal and implicit commands. Most of the same issues apply to the gunner as well, you can make a system that aims a gun, but would you be able to trust it in the field against a covered and concealed opponent, and working off of verbal and implicit commands from the tank commander? Finally their is the commander, which I feel is rather obvious why it has so far remained human.

You don't have to have as many crew compartments if the crew are all close to one another. Furthermore volume is exponential. For example, a 4 foot cube with a volume of 64 cubic feet, has 8 times the volume of a 2 foot cube with 8 cubic feet. With that in mind, you'd only need to shrink the tank's dimensions by 25% in order to get it to drop it's volume by half, and thus it's protected. It's not as difficult as you think.

The reason for crew dispersion is based on physical necessity, that is a soldier needs to see out the tank in order to be able to drive, a turret-gunner needs to be able to physically operate a machine gun to use it, a cannon crew member needs to be able to see down the tank's barrel to be able to reliably aim it. With all of them using a system of cameras to see and instead, you don't need 3-4 crew members spread out all over different areas of the tank, also necessitating areas to move, but just a small crew compartment, cutting down the size and overall volume of the tank. Even small gains could mean massive weight drops, and thus the tank becomes smaller.

The crew of a tank are not in separate compartments, AFV's don't really have compartments that are separate from one another. They are sort of "open" without being truly open because their is no empty space. Crew are stuffed into wherever fits around the equipment lay out of the vehicle. By placing the crew all in one place you may actually make the situation worse because you may mess with the equipment lay out of the tanks other systems.

You don't seam to realize that people who have spent decades getting experience and training in the design of the vehicle do this, they aren't wasting space if they can help it. Additionally if you really think you can get a tank that small do it, a very basic 3d (or even 2d) drawing to scale using just cubes to represent engines, gun, etc could make your argument. But people on this very web sight have been trying to do that, and failed.

The Abrams has had it's electronics update a number of times, and has a version under development with even more updates. Engine efficiency (size or fuel wise) isn't the only consideration, tank designers have to consider more variables, iirc the turbine engine currently in use was chosen because it gets up to full power (and thus accelerates better) than diesel engines.

By electronics, I mean things like automated self-loading guns, or automated machine guns. That way a crew member doesn't have to poke their heads out in order to visually spot and shoot at the enemy, and instead can operate a machine gun from within the safety of a tank, also having the benefit of reducing the size. Right now, a well placed sniper or machine gunner could kill a tank crew member, or a well placed bomb could injure crew members etc.

1) There are a number of good reasons to keep a 4th crew member. First an autoloader doesn't necessarily save that much protected volume or act more efficiently (iirc a human gunner can reload one shot faster than an autoloader and then are about equal after that). The additional crew member can also help with maintenance and security of the vehicle, which can be critically important in a combat zone where you may need to do maintenance while under fire. Finally it offers a spot to be switched out to carry a specialist, like a forward air observer or an artillery spotter in place of the loader.
2) Do you realize that the Abrams has remote weapons systems currently in use? And that those can be done as an easy add on for those that don't yet have it?

Engine efficiency is not the only factor, however the german tank is just as reliable and powerful as the Abrams tank, while also being more fuel efficient, generally making it better. It gets 1500 horsepower and generally doesn't stall a lot, and yet gets a further range with less fuel than the abrams. With the same amount of fuel, or 60% more, a german tank should theoretically get an operational range of 500 miles, or twice that of an M1 Abrams. Because maximum range and operational range are not the same thing, a german tank should in theory have 2 to 2.5 times the fuel efficiency of an M1 abrams, although the Abrams is slightly heavier at 68 tons vs. 62 tons, so it will be a little lower than this.

Fuel efficiency isn't a huge factor in a vehicles operational capability. You are much more likely going to be limited to crew capabilities, i.e. how long they can operate, before you have to worry about vehicle limitations. Further turbine engines, as I have already mentioned, can get their full power into use faster than diesel engines. These things have trade offs.

To go ahead and clear up some misconceptions you might have, yes, there are tanks designed like this, the Russian T-14 for example. It is only 48 tonnes, compared to say 68 tons of an M1 Abrams, and this is achieved in part by an umanned turret, and three man armor capsule in the front. "The most significant novelty is an unmanned turret, with the crew of three seated in an armored capsule in the front of the hull."

American tank armor is traditionally better than the Russians, using high end ceramic chobham armor and depleted uranium, and American depleted uranium anti-tank armor piercing rounds are more effective than the Russians (meaning we don't need as good of armor), so potentially it could be a bit smaller, but that's just guesswork on my part. But yes, these methods are already being used to reduce the size and weight of tanks and likely will continue in the future. I didn't think I'd actually have to go on so long explaining the merits, but there you go. The only problem is it was expensive for the Russians to use but, again this is not really as much of a problem for the Americans with massively bloated budgets for defense. If you look at the internals of a T-14 crew space and compare that to an M1 abrams, it's much smaller, with there basically being a small 3-man armor capsule at front and, that's it. It's obviously a little bigger for controls and comfort than it needs to be, but it can potentially be really tiny if you wanted to. This reduces the weight and size of the vehicle, which means it can be transported more easily, can potentially be faster, and consumes less fuel. It also allows you to use better armor if you make the tank larger than it needs to be, or use other methods like hybrid engines which are also typically larger. It also protects the crew better as they don't need to be exposed to enemy fire in order to be able to see the enemy.

The crew of the T-14 were placed together so they could be removed from the turret of the tank, which is not done to reduce internal volume, but because the turret is where a tank takes the most hits, and removing the crew means that casualties can be reduced.

[NeuPolska]

I just want to know why my trousers button up while my coat has a zipper

[Gallia-]

So you don't get your willy's head/tip stuck in the zipper.

[Celitannia]

If you literally cannot use the English language properly there isn't much hope for you here.

T-14 production was stopped if I recall correctly because of the arms embargo imposed by France, from which many of the components were sourced.

Moreover, the US defence budget does not have money sitting around doing nothing, as 'bloated' implies.

If it did, the US Army would have spent it already on Block III tank, XM2001 Crusader and all of the other vehicles Galla masturbates to.

As well, dialects are a thing, and there is no concerted english language, but an amalgamation of different sub-languages in to one, with but different words used in different areas. Compare Australian, British, and even Southern english and you will find many different words being used, with many different implied meanings. Semantics, that is demanding someone uses one word to mean the same thing, ignores the fact words are used differently in different places, and that words have many different meanings, and many different meanings can be described by different words (I.E. black, ebony, and so on can mean the same thing). Also my grasp on english has no bearings on my grasp on science or basic tank design, given that most Russians don't know english and were able to make a good tank. Being a grammar nazi doesn't help you to understand ideas and concepts as well, it just arbitrarily restricts communication. Language is pragmatic, and designed to communicate ideas well, so muddying things down by arguing the meaning of words instead of ideas, is not a good thing to do. It's also just pedantic and annoying.

You must be a troll.

If you literally cannot use the English language properly there isn't much hope for you here.

T-14 production was stopped if I recall correctly because of the arms embargo imposed by France, from which many of the components were sourced.

Moreover, the US defence budget does not have money sitting around doing nothing, as 'bloated' implies.

If it did, the US Army would have spent it already on Block III tank, XM2001 Crusader and all of the other vehicles Galla masturbates to.

Let's pretend budgeting is the biggest issue. Then in theory, this is a superior tank, despite being more expensive. There's also the fact we'd have to replace our older M1 abrams and train new crews, which are obviously costly and difficult to due. But that does not mean that because it's not being used in wide numbers, right now, these sorts of systems aren't better and won't influence future tank designs. The point is these designs can shrink down a tanks size, even drastically if you really wanted to.

I'm sure you could theorise anything when your evidence consists primarily of wild speculation.

[Allanea]

T-14 production was stopped if I recall correctly because of the arms embargo imposed by France, from which many of the components were sourced.

T-14 production orders have been extended.

http://www.interfax.ru/russia/592870

[Republic of Penguinian Astronautia]

Well, what roles should ugvs play in a near future battlefield? What are they good for?

[Manokan Republic]

The crew of a tank are not in separate compartments, AFV's don't really have compartments that are separate from one another. They are sort of "open" without being truly open because their is no empty space. Crew are stuffed into wherever fits around the equipment lay out of the vehicle. By placing the crew all in one place you may actually make the situation worse because you may mess with the equipment lay out of the tanks other systems.

You don't seam to realize that people who have spent decades getting experience and training in the design of the vehicle do this, they aren't wasting space if they can help it. Additionally if you really think you can get a tank that small do it, a very basic 3d (or even 2d) drawing to scale using just cubes to represent engines, gun, etc could make your argument. But people on this very web sight have been trying to do that, and failed.

I actually follow military technology, and with the T-14 for example we're starting to see tank designs like this. In the future, tanks may get even smaller or simply get better armored. With these newer tank designs, tanks can be smaller and the crew better protected which means, in the future this will likely be the direction of tanks. In other words, it's not widespread yet, but it likely will be. I think America is already in the works of designing a new battle tank like this. [1][2]

The concept of shrinking the whole size by rearranging the crew in to a more ideal position however is already taking place and grounded in functioning designs. As our enemies weapons aren't changing much, such as the T-72 and low-intensity engagements are the norm, a tank with the same armor but smaller is likely the future, unless some newer tank-penetrating round comes along that forces the tanks to become bigger again. Higher strength materials, combined with better designs, will shrink the necessary armor needed for a tank to stop another tank round, and thus tanks will likely get lighter weight. This is also good for logistics and transportation like flying 2-3 tanks at a time in a C-130, or reducing fuel consumption and price.

"A lighter weight, more high-tech tank will allow for greater mobility in the future, including an ability to deploy more quickly, handle extremely rigorous terrain, integrate new weapons, cross bridges inaccessible to current Abrams tanks and maximize on-board networking along with new size-weight-and-power configurations. Although initial requirements for the future tank have yet to emerge, Bassett explained that the next-generation platform will use advanced sensors and light-weight composite armor materials able to achieve equal or greater protection at much lighter weights. Bassett said certain immediate changes and manufacturing techniques could easily save at least 20-percent of the weight of a current 72-ton Abrams. The idea is to engineer a tank that is not only much more advanced than the Abrams in terms of sensors, networking technology, force tracking systems, an ability to control nearby drones and vastly increased fire-power – but to build a vehicle with open-architecture such that it can quickly accommodate new technologies as they emerge." So, a tank could shave off 20% of the weight just with newer composite materials and then with the smaller overall design, could end up being a lot smaller. I'm just guessing, but 30-40 tons is not unreasonable.

1) There are a number of good reasons to keep a 4th crew member. First an autoloader doesn't necessarily save that much protected volume or act more efficiently (iirc a human gunner can reload one shot faster than an autoloader and then are about equal after that). The additional crew member can also help with maintenance and security of the vehicle, which can be critically important in a combat zone where you may need to do maintenance while under fire. Finally it offers a spot to be switched out to carry a specialist, like a forward air observer or an artillery spotter in place of the loader.
2) Do you realize that the Abrams has remote weapons systems currently in use? And that those can be done as an easy add on for those that don't yet have it?

Yes I do, however because the tank is still the same size as before, this does not reduce the size of the tank. My point is that, if designed correctly like the T-14, you can afford to shave off the size of the tank by removing the room where the older crew members used to sit. The M1 Abrams was designed before automated machine guns became the norm, and thus the tank itself is not smaller when you put on an automated machine gun because the hull of the tank doesn't change. You basically need to build a whole new tank to reduce the hull size of the tank with these methods, but it is doable.

While there are merits to a 4th crew member debatably, there's also merits to shrinking down a tank. So there'd be a trade-off, here, in size vs. more crew members. You also could widen the crew compartment slightly and jam in a 4th guy if you really wanted to.

The crew of the T-14 were placed together so they could be removed from the turret of the tank, which is not done to reduce internal volume, but because the turret is where a tank takes the most hits, and removing the crew means that casualties can be reduced.

It does both, which reduces the size of the tank and protects the crew better. These tanks are much smaller but actually have slightly better armor protection, forcing the U.S. to up it's M829 rounds to M829A3 and A4's once again. For a tank to have better armor and be lighter weight, you'd obviously have to shave off a lot of volume to be able to do that. This is part of the tank's design and it shows in the outcome.

Fuel efficiency isn't a huge factor in a vehicles operational capability. You are much more likely going to be limited to crew capabilities, i.e. how long they can operate, before you have to worry about vehicle limitations. Further turbine engines, as I have already mentioned, can get their full power into use faster than diesel engines. These things have trade offs.

That's basically true, the reduction in fuel consumption is more of a logistics things, rather than to improve tank performance necessarily. Because a good chunk of our losses in Iraq and Afghanistan were fuel trucks and other soft skinned vehicles, to save lives and reduce casualties, reducing the amount of times you need to be refueled, as well as increasing your operation distances you use, means that your refueling vehicles can stay further back from the battlefield, and don't need to expose themselves to refuel the tanks as often. Higher fuel efficiency of course means less refueling, and less exposure to those who are doing the refueling as they can hang back further from your main tank. Furthermore, if you used a drone, or UGV, to do refueling, instead of a person, targeting of these light-skinned vehicles by IED's and ambushes would result in a loss of fuels, but not lives. I'm not sure of the exacts statistic, which varies on the year, but something like 70% of our casualties in these environments was from various soft-skinned transport vehicles. A reduction in fuel consumption doesn't help tanks, but it does help the logistic crews that are needed to maintain tanks and the rest of our armored vehicles.

A large hybrid engine also allows for electricity to be sapped off for use with railguns/coilguns, so a sort of hybrid electromagnetic and chemical propellant 120mm cannon would start to become available if it was designed from the ground to have something like this added on. As well as power electronics, and potentially even things like, drones to help visually identify targets. So a tank could launch an areal drone, spot the enemy, and then shoot at them. These drones could be used for a lot of things obviously, and could recharge by the electricity of the hybrid engine. There's a lot of things possible with that much electricity being produced. The Fed Bravo for example is already being planned as a sort of mobile generator to recharge batteries for troops and power local infrastructure so, a giant tank engine would be even better for that.

[The Corparation]

Well, what roles should ugvs play in a near future battlefield? What are they good for?

Patrolling the perimeter of bases in combat areas is the only big one I can think of. Maybe helping with convoy escort but I feel like that's pushing it. Nothing super intensive or more complex than traveling a fixed path and alerting meat bags if it spots something wrong. Maybe firing off a few warning shots if you really want to go max killbot.

[Manokan Republic]

As well, dialects are a thing, and there is no concerted english language, but an amalgamation of different sub-languages in to one, with but different words used in different areas. Compare Australian, British, and even Southern english and you will find many different words being used, with many different implied meanings. Semantics, that is demanding someone uses one word to mean the same thing, ignores the fact words are used differently in different places, and that words have many different meanings, and many different meanings can be described by different words (I.E. black, ebony, and so on can mean the same thing). Also my grasp on english has no bearings on my grasp on science or basic tank design, given that most Russians don't know english and were able to make a good tank. Being a grammar nazi doesn't help you to understand ideas and concepts as well, it just arbitrarily restricts communication. Language is pragmatic, and designed to communicate ideas well, so muddying things down by arguing the meaning of words instead of ideas, is not a good thing to do. It's also just pedantic and annoying.

You must be a troll.

I happen to have a strong grasp on linguistics, and my mom is an english teacher.

I'm sure you could theorise anything when your evidence consists primarily of wild speculation.

It's not as wild as you'd think, given it's based in grounded technology like the T-14 and new manufacturing techniques for the M1 abrams to replace them in the future.

[Allanea]

They've also been used for artillery spotting and attracting militant fire with success.

[The Corparation]

They've also been used for artillery spotting and attracting militant fire with success.

Source on this? I'm curious to read more.

[Manokan Republic]

Well, what roles should ugvs play in a near future battlefield? What are they good for?

My opinion personally is logistics. You not only reduce how many men you need in the field for things like refueling, or resupplying ammunition, but you save lives as well. Since soft skinned vehicles have been the primary targets from terrorists, by things like IED's and small arms fire, they are currently our biggest vulnerability and where most of our casualties have come from. If you used UGV's instead, you're saving a soldiers life by only losing equipment instead, and you can use the UGV's around the clock, and even have them be partially automated to save on the total number of crew members you need per logistics unit in the field. They're also typically smaller as well, which means a little more fuel and ammunition, or a little smaller size.

Bigger more heavily armored tanks are virtually immune to IED's and rocket fire, with us only losing one crew member despite nearly 30 years of use in the M1 abrams, but terrorists don't target heavy tanks and target weaker troops instead, like fuel trucks. So, using drones for that would save a lot of lives potentially.

[Manokan Republic]

They've also been used for artillery spotting and attracting militant fire with success.

Source on this? I'm curious to read more.

Source for a predator drone:

"Predators had been armed with AIM-92 Stinger air-to-air missiles, and were being used to "bait" Iraqi fighters, then run. In this incident, the Predator did not run, but instead fired one of its Stingers. The Stinger's heat-seeker became "distracted" by the MiG's missile and missed the MiG. The Predator was hit by the MiG's missile and destroyed."


Obviously this was not a UGV and instead a UAV, but the same basic principle applies. UGV's would be cheaper, have better armor, and be able to operate longer in the field (potentially able to stand still for days if needed and consume little power), making them better for this role of course.