NS Military Realism Consultation Thread Vol. 11.0

[The Corparation]

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.

I'm well aware of UAV's being used for target spotting. I'm curious as to more specific examples of UGVs being used for the task.

The air to air engagement is completely irrelevant. Unless I've missed some major news article, militants do not generally operate Mig-25s.

[Allanea]

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

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

http://svpressa.ru/war21/article/172295/

1.5 years ago in Latakia, 6 Platform-M and 4 Argo UGVs were used, supported by Akatsias and Syrian troops. First the robots attacked. When they closed to 100 meters with the terrorist positions, they opened fire. The terrorists responded, which revealed their positions. The SPGs opened fire, coordinated from an Andromeda-D vehicle, carrying an automated C3 system. After 20 minutes, the terrorists fled, leaving their wounded and dead behind them. Then the Syrian infantry cleared the hill. The opponent lost 70 KIAs, the Syrians - 4 WIAs.

[Spirit of Hope]

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.

The United States military is almost constantly searching for new vehicles, and looking at upgrades for it's existing vehicles. Nor is the idea of placing the crew all together new, the MBT-70 was basically looking at doing it. However it doesn't necessarily offer all of the advantages you seam to think it does. There is still to much other stuff that needs to be protected.

As to the 20% reduction, I will believe it when I see it. People always overstate the capabilities of future techniques and technology, ETC has been the next big thing for tank guns for decades and still hasn't gotten anywhere close to being put into service is a great example of this.

Even if you could fit more tanks on planes it isn't going to help you much given all of the other supplies that have to be flown with armored vehicles, you would still be much better off shipping them over the water, or much better yet having them pre positioned in the area of most concern so you just have to fly crews in.

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.

First I would like to point out that Russian/USSR tanks have almost always been smaller and lighter than their American counterparts, this is not because they are better tank designers (which is an arguable point, and very complex) but because they have different design philosophies for their tanks. Direct comparison of weight and size between the two gets very complex.

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.

IIRC the change in ammo type has more to do with ERA than it has to do with improvements in a specific potential enemies tanks armor.

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.

Comparisons between Afghanistan and Iraq against a potential high intensity combat is rather silly. They are very different from one another, nor can it be said that high intensity combat is going away.

Railguns and coilguns are very far away given current technological capabilities. You will not be putting them in a tank anytime soon, about the only military force seriously looking at them is the Navy for use on ships. As it stands current

[Manokan Republic]

The United States military is almost constantly searching for new vehicles, and looking at upgrades for it's existing vehicles. Nor is the idea of placing the crew all together new, the MBT-70 was basically looking at doing it. However it doesn't necessarily offer all of the advantages you seam to think it does. There is still to much other stuff that needs to be protected.

As to the 20% reduction, I will believe it when I see it. People always overstate the capabilities of future techniques and technology, ETC has been the next big thing for tank guns for decades and still hasn't gotten anywhere close to being put into service is a great example of this.

Even if you could fit more tanks on planes it isn't going to help you much given all of the other supplies that have to be flown with armored vehicles, you would still be much better off shipping them over the water, or much better yet having them pre positioned in the area of most concern so you just have to fly crews in.

Well when the new technology rolls around we'll see how it does. All of my stuff is based on these predictions, for future tech, rather than what's currently being used by most militaries. It's a potential option, and will be interesting to see how it plays out.

First I would like to point out that Russian/USSR tanks have almost always been smaller and lighter than their American counterparts, this is not because they are better tank designers (which is an arguable point, and very complex) but because they have different design philosophies for their tanks. Direct comparison of weight and size between the two gets very complex.

It's pretty small in comparison to it's overall armor capabilities and those types of designs are what I would incorporate in to a new-and-improved Mk. II M1 Abrams to make it smaller. Exact figures are debatable obviously. 30-50 tons depending on exact designs.

IIRC the change in ammo type has more to do with ERA than it has to do with improvements in a specific potential enemies tanks armor.

Russians have been using explosive reactive armor for a long time so it's, the better ERA that is the problem.

Comparisons between Afghanistan and Iraq against a potential high intensity combat is rather silly. They are very different from one another, nor can it be said that high intensity combat is going away.

Railguns and coilguns are very far away given current technological capabilities. You will not be putting them in a tank anytime soon, about the only military force seriously looking at them is the Navy for use on ships. As it stands current

It's not about comparing it to high intensity tank improvement capabilities which is why I said it's more of a logistics thing. It also would help against attacks on fuel trucks and the sort by say, idk aircraft or what have you in high intensity engagements as well. The most vulnerable element are things like fuel trucks, and Russian Spetsnaz have always been trained to go deep behind enemy lines and sabotage things so, in particular against the Russians or a russian-like force (in eastern Europe, North Korea or the middle east), this would also be really useful. The Russians are all about that sabotage. "Following the entrance of the Soviet Union into World War II, basic forces dedicated to acts of reconnaissance and sabotage were formed under the supervision of the Second Department of the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces, and were subordinate to the commanders of Fronts."

As for railguns, the main idea is to have a magnetically assisted round, providing a 30-100% boost to existing tank guns. A sort of hybrid railgun/coilgun design. This way you can use regular ammunition for most shots, and then reserve railguns for things like specific anti-tank capabilities. Railguns consume massive amounts of energy and require huge capacitor banks to work correctly, which limits how often they can shoot in a given amount of time and how powerful they can be. A hybrid system allows you to fire lots of weaker shots in more rapid succession, and saves you a lot of the energy from the initial acceleration being by chemical energy. Because there is a limitation to the power of chemical propellants and the velocities they can achieve realistically, a hybrid system plays off of both weaknesses and strengths, providing most of the energy from another source other than electricity and batteries, and boosting the velocity of the round to much higher levels than is realistically achievable by chemical propellants. A Darpa system for example improved the energy of a mortar by 30%, or up to 1.6 megajoules, which is about 1/10th that of a standard M829 round. If it was scaled up to be 10 times bigger, which wouldn't be very hard, you could have a reserve "super-charge" shot for the M829, increasing it's energy somewhat. You could also potentially be even more powerful, such as a 100% boost to the M829, albeit, that would require a much larger more powerful system. A 30% boost in power would more than easily allow the KE M829, which can already beat most modern tanks, to easily beat them, and increase it's range. This system is likely something to be installed after the fact as technology improves, both as the EM acceleration technology improves and enemy armor. By increasing the range of the projectile, you can also use it as a sort of hybrid-artillery system, albeit it you'd need specialized rounds.

[Veikaia]

I know it's unlikely but I just thought it'd be a really fun and interesting idea:

Would it be possible for a rebel force to obtain military aircraft and maintain them to an extent? Maybe modify civilian ones for military use? I know for example there have been reports of ISIL using and, I believe, to an extent maintaining (I might be wrong) at least 3 MiG-21s some years ago before the Syrian Army shot them all down, and Yugoslav Partisans captured several German fighters during WW2. I understand this hypothetical rebel force would need to have a significant amount of money to maintain any modern aircraft, and trained pilots to operate them, but at least the later could be obtained through recruitment of military personnel. The main concern would obviously be maintenance, not only the cost of it but acquiring the required parts and equipment required for repairing any aircraft. Also ammunition, missiles, etc to replenish. Could spare parts and assorted ammunition be acquired by capturing, for example, a military airfield? Is any advanced special training required for the reloading of aircraft weaponry or could it be taught relatively easily by one person to others? Is it worth it in the long run to maintain and use aircraft for a rebel, not entirely professional, force or is it better to just abandon the aircraft if captured and redirect the manpower and money to ground combat?

I understand a modern professional army could easily take down these aircraft, but what if we're talking about a less advanced, poorer nation without access to advanced anti-air weaponry? Could it be possible for this hypothetical rebel force to use the aircraft against the enemy with lesser chances of complete catastrophe? And finally, could this be more or less viable in the interwar and WW2 period?

By the way, I know the idea is foolish and dumb, but I just thought it might be a fun thing to play around with in the future and see to what extent it could be played realistically and how much handwaving would be necessary. Sorry beforehand if my questions are hard to read, understand or anything.

[Manokan Republic]

I know it's unlikely but I just thought it'd be a really fun and interesting idea:

Would it be possible for a rebel force to obtain military aircraft and maintain them to an extent? Maybe modify civilian ones for military use? I know for example there have been reports of ISIL using and, I believe, to an extent maintaining (I might be wrong) at least 3 MiG-21s some years ago before the Syrian Army shot them all down, and Yugoslav Partisans captured several German fighters during WW2. I understand this hypothetical rebel force would need to have a significant amount of money to maintain any modern aircraft, and trained pilots to operate them, but at least the later could be obtained through recruitment of military personnel. The main concern would obviously be maintenance, not only the cost of it but acquiring the required parts and equipment required for repairing any aircraft. Also ammunition, missiles, etc to replenish. Could spare parts and assorted ammunition be acquired by capturing, for example, a military airfield? Is any advanced special training required for the reloading of aircraft weaponry or could it be taught relatively easily by one person to others? Is it worth it in the long run to maintain and use aircraft for a rebel, not entirely professional, force or is it better to just abandon the aircraft if captured and redirect the manpower and money to ground combat?

I understand a modern professional army could easily take down these aircraft, but what if we're talking about a less advanced, poorer nation without access to advanced anti-air weaponry? Could it be possible for this hypothetical rebel force to use the aircraft against the enemy with lesser chances of complete catastrophe? And finally, could this be more or less viable in the interwar and WW2 period?

By the way, I know the idea is foolish and dumb, but I just thought it might be a fun thing to play around with in the future and see to what extent it could be played realistically and how much handwaving would be necessary. Sorry beforehand if my questions are hard to read, understand or anything.

If a previous military fell apart and had hidden aircraft in places designed to be used in the event of a government take-over by a guerrilla force, or some other military rebel force came along and found said hidden aircraft bases, than maybe. The germans and Russian have a lot of hidden bunkers in their country designed just for this reason, and even America hid nuclear warheads under cities and things during the cold war, so that way all of our missile defense systems couldn't be sabotaged and only a portion. So if it's a left over insurgency that happens to know where the camouflaged stuff is, and that's people came from and developed military and received training to fly the aircraft, than maybe. Basically if America fail and say, the Russians took over or vice versa, there'd be ex-military resistance fighters operating a handful of hidden aircraft that are placed around the country in secret underground hangars.

They could also recruit say, ex-pilots from bigger countries fly the planes, like Russian mercenaries or something. With modern day VTOL and STVOL aircraft, like the F-35, the don't need long run ways and also take less maintenance, so it's a possibility. But it would be rare of course. There's also the obvious course of action which is to use drones, which doesn't require the same training or skill, but also is not very good against larger aircraft, but it would be good for surveillance or attacking ground targets.

Just like how aircraft carriers have catapults, you could have an uber short runway hidden underground or something with a small, concealed opening to launch plans to attack people with. The only problem is landing but, the same sort of hook system could be used. These sorts of underground systems would be expensive and difficult to set up, but if designed by a bigger military could potentially continue operating for many years after the bigger government fell apart.

[Veikaia]

If a previous military fell apart and had hidden aircraft in places designed to be used in the event of a government take-over by a guerrilla force, or some other military rebel force came along and found said hidden aircraft bases, than maybe. The germans and Russian have a lot of hidden bunkers in their country designed just for this reason, and even America hid nuclear warheads under cities and things during the cold war, so that way all of our missile defense systems couldn't be sabotaged and only a portion. So if it's a left over insurgency that happens to know where the camouflaged stuff is, and that's people came from and developed military and received training to fly the aircraft, than maybe. Basically if America fail and say, the Russians took over or vice versa, there'd be ex-military resistance fighters operating a handful of hidden aircraft that are placed around the country in secret underground hangars.

They could also recruit say, ex-pilots from bigger countries fly the planes, like Russian mercenaries or something. With modern day VTOL and STVOL aircraft, like the F-35, the don't need long run ways and also take less maintenance, so it's a possibility. But it would be rare of course. There's also the obvious course of action which is to use drones, which doesn't require the same training or skill, but also is not very good against larger aircraft, but it would be good for surveillance or attacking ground targets.

Just like how aircraft carriers have catapults, you could have an uber short runway hidden underground or something with a small, concealed opening to launch plans to attack people with. The only problem is landing but, the same sort of hook system could be used. These sorts of underground systems would be expensive and difficult to set up, but if designed by a bigger military could potentially continue operating for many years after the bigger government fell apart.

We're talking a rebel group, I doubt a rebel group can do all of the stuff you just said they could do, it sounds incredibly unlikely for an illegal rebellious, maybe guerilla organization to not only achieve but maintain all of the stuff you just said. I dont see a way an organization like I described could get access to these facilities you described without facing fierce resistance from the government unless they're in absolute shambles and basically already collapsed by which point you could easily just seize power already instead of trying to gain control of facilities like that. Also your answers don't really fully address many of my questions like acquiring spare parts, modifying civilian aircraft for combat, the required funding that would be needed to be redirected to maintain an airbase and its equipment and aircraft, how much training is required to maintain said aircraft and rearm them, if it would be possible to even use these aircraft without them instantly getting taken down by national AA systems even in a small, underdeveloped third world nation and if it's even worth it to keep the aircraft and required infrastructure to use them. You seem to be thinking of military remnants organizing insurgency while I'm mostly referring to less trained and weaker rebel armies engaging in combat against a superior (but not necessarily by a lot) force.

[The Akasha Colony]

We're talking a rebel group, I doubt a rebel group can do all of the stuff you just said they could do, it sounds incredibly unlikely for an illegal rebellious, maybe guerilla organization to not only achieve but maintain all of the stuff you just said. I dont see a way an organization like I described could get access to these facilities you described without facing fierce resistance from the government unless they're in absolute shambles and basically already collapsed by which point you could easily just seize power already instead of trying to gain control of facilities like that. Also your answers don't really fully address many of my questions like acquiring spare parts, modifying civilian aircraft for combat, the required funding that would be needed to be redirected to maintain an airbase and its equipment and aircraft, how much training is required to maintain said aircraft and rearm them, if it would be possible to even use these aircraft without them instantly getting taken down by national AA systems even in a small, underdeveloped third world nation and if it's even worth it to keep the aircraft and required infrastructure to use them. You seem to be thinking of military remnants organizing insurgency while I'm mostly referring to less trained and weaker rebel armies engaging in combat against a superior (but not necessarily by a lot) force.

Most of what he said is not just inapplicable, it's just flat-out wrong.

In any event, the ability to maintain a fleet of aircraft or of any complex vehicle is dependent on the number captured. A single plane will not be flying for long; the moment something breaks and there are no available spare parts, you're up a creek until you can source more. Capturing multiple aircraft eases this problem since replacement parts can be cannibalized, but unless more can be sourced or fabricated, the number of flyable aircraft will of course slowly decrease as parts are worn out. This is how Iran was able to maintain at least some of its F-14s in flyable condition after the Iranian Revolution meant the US was no longer willing to supply parts and expertise.

The issue with maintenance is less money than it is specific resources. Planes need fuel, spare parts, and labor to remain flying, and while these might be purchasable on the black market with cash, at least some of these (labor and fuel) can also be bartered for, stolen, or even donated by sympathetic causes. This becomes more problematic the newer the aircraft is, though, because newer and more modern aircraft tend to be much more tightly controlled than old cast-offs. The more widely exported the captured aircraft are, the easier sourcing parts and experience gets.

The real issue though is that by and large, it's just not worth it. A handful of old MiG-21s with limited ammunition and availability will neither win air superiority nor will they win a ground campaign on their own. They won't even contribute very much at all to either operation. Given the effort involved in operating aircraft, rebel groups almost never bother. Better to just wreck them so the government can't take them back, or maybe try to sell off some parts or equipment for cash.

The growing threat though is the question of small drones, especially repurposed civilian drones which are becoming ever more widely available. They've been used quite heavily in current conflicts in Crimea and Ukraine by both sides since they eliminate nearly all of the cost and logistical burden of "real" aircraft.

[Dostanuot Loj]

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

You used a lot of words, very little information was involved.

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.

You do realize that the M1A2SEP has among the most advanced electronics in the world, right?

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.

Yes, let us upgrade the Abrams with an engine that was as old when the Abrams was put into service as Abrams is now?
I think you mean Leopard 2, and you would be both right and wrong. It's more efficient in fuel use but not power density. Europower pack would be what you are thinking, which is even newer (And in service on UAE Leclercs), but better can be done.

The issue is, of course, that it is pointless. The Abrams engine is power dense enough, and pretty good at what it does. You're not going to shrink the size of it much. If you mean reducing fuel needs, that's pointless as fuel can be stuffed into otherwise useless areas and does not force much volume in the tank.

Either way, this line points out enough that you know nothing about tanks.

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.

I don't think you understand this can't really be done.
You won't find epic power density and shrink the engine.
You won't somehow shrink the ammunition stowage, or room required for the gun.
The armour on the Abrams requires volume, a lot of it (More than the crew!), so you will have to drastically cut armour to cut size.

These magic things only work in video games and anime.

The idea is shrinking down the size of the tank using automated systems. It doesn't need to be as big without a driver's cabin, a manned turret and so on, which shaves off weight and size. Thus it can be smaller and, lighter weight. Hence the 30-35 tons, as compared to 68 tons for most M1 abrams.

And how, please tell me, will it work without a crew? UGVs are not viable in this instance. If remote operated that is a whole host of issues which also make it undesirable, and you still need to provide a nice big, heavy, protected vehicle for the UGV driver, and that vehicle needs its own crew and weapons.

Of course, you could cut an Abrams down to 30 tons if you removed the crew because you could cut instantly 35 tonnes of armour off of it.

We're talking semantics here

Oh goodey, my first BA was in Linguistics, and I so rarely get to use it around here.

I'm talking about large areas needed to house the crew being removed

The bulk of these "large areas" are needed to house the equipment which makes a tank a tank: gun, ammo, radios, FCS, etc.
The difference in removing one man is the difference between Leclerc and Abrams.

and allow the crew to move

Crew don't move stations much, and when they do they use volume that is there for systems that need it. It is not put there for them.

which would reduce he volume of the vehicle

You can only do this in your proposed way by reducing the space required by the essential tank equipment. Which means drastic advances in technology, or major sacrifices in capability.

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.

There is little room to be cut that has not already been considered to be cut, and either deemed worth it or not. The loader/autoloader debate is ancient, and complex, and something you would have seen with even a modicum of research into protected volume reduction. Here's the short version: Getting rid of the loader is not necessarily a straight forward decision, it has drawbacks.

You don't need these areas designed to allow the crew to move

All areas with crew need to be designed to allow the crew to move. Humans don't like being cramped into small spaces and bad things happen physiologically. Experience with T-72s and Leclerc have shown crew fatigue raises dramatically when they don't have the ability to move, which means they must be rotated out of the vehicle frequently. This is a major factor in American/German/British designs retaining greater volume despite knowing they could be reduced and how to do it.

If, you are referring to moving around the tank, and not just stretching your legs, than the point is moot because as has already been repeated many times: Tanks are not designed with this space.

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.

Crews already use cameras, and have for more than three decades. Direct vision is still heavily favoured for a huge number of reasons ranging from reliability (camera only systems are not as reliable in combat as you want to think), to the capabilities and decision-making provided by human beings. There is no reason crews are "at the front to see the target". Scorpion and Merkava crews are not at the front.

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

And you go from Abrams to Leclerc. A far cry from the 30 tons you want to get to.

as well as things like food and water requirements)

Because tanks carry a store inside them?
Believe it or not tank crews usually carry this stuff (what little they carry) outside the armour. There is no designed protected area for food or water for the crews.

as well as remove the crawlspace needed for a turret hatch by automating the machine gun, as well.

The crawlspace which is actually just the space occupied by the crew member?
You realize they sit right under their hatches right? You don't "remove" this volume, you simply move it somewhere else in the tank. It doesn't change.

This reduces the size of the turret, and thus it's weight.

Yes, you can reduce both size and weight of a turret by taking the crew out of it completely. Armata does this. Because it has no crew in the turret it also reduces protection to the bare minimum needed to protect it against things like autocannons, so it is also less protected. That volume simply goes where the crew is though.

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.

No, the driver's "compartment" (Part of the same fighting compartment as the rest of the crew BTW, just not in the turret) is there so the driver does not get motion sick being in a turret which moves in ways his brain does not comprehend while driving. Read up on this issue with regards to the MBT-70.

With a 360 degree camera system, you not only have better situational awareness

You have worse situation awareness!

but you also remove the need for the driver's compartment.

And where does the driver go?
Anywhere the driver is, is the driver's compartment.

Theoretically, 3 soldiers should be able to be housed in something as small as an area as this.

The minimum space for three crew members is known, again this stuff has been studied to death. It is Armata's crew capsule. And it is not tiny, not by a long stretch.

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

The crew are not really that spread out. There are placed where they fit around the essential stuff.

or to be able to physically see out of the tank's turret

Which is super important. Cameras and automated systems break.

or aim down it's barrel

What is this, 1920?
No tank does this today.

With a system of cameras instead, this is no longer necessary

Until they break. Then you are completely taken out of the fight, whereas the tank which can operate like a normal tank can still operate.

and the tank can shrink down in size.

Only if protection is reduced, and other systems are cut.

Then there's the areas for the crew to move inside the tank, which also make up extra volume.

Again, no such volume is specifically designed into tanks. Excepting the open area for a driver to escape via the turret, which is not volume it is a hole in a sheet of metal, if it exists.

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.

Thank you for the irrelevant math lesson.

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.

I used protected volume as a single term for a reason, and it's not because it's just straight up volume.
Protected volume is the volume protected, and because of this it relies very heavily on face-areas. These face areas will then be considered along with armour densities (or more specifically mass efficiency but that's neither here not there), and you are wholly ignoring that. Take your 4ft cube reducing to 3.2ft cube as an example: you've only reduced the area of the forward face of that cube from 16 square feet to 10 (rounded down to help your argument) square feet. Your actual protected volume changes in regards to only the 6 square feet you actually lost on the protected face. If protected volume stays the same with frontal protection density remaining the same, you cut your volume in half for a loss of 40% of the armour mass on the front/rear and side faces, while top and bottom faces will not change. So in reality you dropped your internal volume by half for maybe 30% reduction in weight of armour for the same protection. But then of course things like guns, engines, transmissions, radios, etc. all take up weight and they did not change. So if you're really lucky your overall reduction is 10-20%.

Just like I keep saying, Abrams to Leclerc.

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.

The crew is already deep inside the middle of the vehicle. And already sitting in chairs.
But any of your cameras go and they're not stuck in a dark box with no way to do their job. That's why cameras and automation are coming to augment more direct interaction, not replace it.

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.

What is beinng developed and implimented is not to replace direct interaction like you claim though, but augment it. And again, nowhere on the scale you claim.

The idea is not that it is not being used because it's bad, but that it is not being considered because it's bad. Your machine gun example is a great strawman, but belies your complete lack of understanding on that as well.

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

Apparently not.

"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.

I'm sorry, but you and I must have very different definitions of a contradiction.
You do understand that when I said there was literally no room to cut in removing a hole in the turret basket, because there are no imagined pathways designed to take up space as you claim, that this did not mean there was no room to cut in removing a loader, or reducing engine size, or requiring smaller crew, right?

I picked a very specific example you provided, told you that you were wrong, then dealt with the rest. This is basic conversational English which is universal regardless of dialect.

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.

So you create T-14 Armata.
Which of course, despite doing this, is actually physically larger than the preceding tanks. Because what you think happens does not actually happen in reality.

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.

A UVG would be reduced in capability, that is not better than a crewed tank. It would also be smaller and lighter both because of the lack of a crew and the volume needed, and because of the lack of protection. There is little point armouring a UGV against anything but autocannons if you don't have a crew to keep alive.

"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?

I'm afraid I don't follow where you think I claimed you could reduce crew volume by removing "their ability to move through" the tank. Most of my posts have been pointing out to you that there is no such space purposefully designed into tanks, and you have not found some magic revelation to tank design by "removing it", because it is not there.

You can apply more power to the tracks with a lighter vehicle, comparative to it's engine.

True, but power is again only one thing, and this will still involve a heavy and large powertrain.
This is why lighter vehicles tend to reduce the size of the powertrain. There is also a diminishing return in power.

Also there are other functions to maneuverability, such as track design.

Yes, track design plays a part, but its major concern is less "maneuverability" and more things like longevity and strain reduction on the suspension. But I don't see how this helps your argument.

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.

Thank you for your concise explanation of why tanks are usually tracked. In three decades of study on the subject of tanks I have never once been told by somebody who does not understand tanks why they have tracks as well as you have.

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.

It is not a hard line to draw between your argument on mass/volume reduction and hybrids being part of it. But you are correct I made an assumption.
That doesn't make you any less wrong on any of your points, including hybrids by the way. Because you clearly do not understand how tanks work.

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

None of this is true. Hybrid systems don't have to be larger, but they usually are. The reasons hybrid drives are not in tanks now has nothing to do with their size or weight, because the weight increase is at best negligible. It has everything to do with high cost for low returns. The advantages that hybrid drives provide are not enough to be worth the cost of installing them over conventional drive systems right now. That will change (is changing), but has nothing to do with weight limits. Hybrid powered tanks of the future will be larger and heavier than current tanks because believe it or not weight is not a limiting factor.

You don't have to have as many crew compartments if the crew are all close to one another.

There is only one crew compartment in modern tanks. How do you reduce one down to anything but one if you still have crew?

The reason for crew dispersion is based on physical necessity,

Yes, the necessity of being able to fit the crew in around all that big, heavy, tank-stuff that has to be there.

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 this one sentence you have proven you know less about tanks, how they work, and how they are designed, than your average Call of Duty player.

Congratulations, you are either an epic troll, or have no idea what you are talking about.

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.

Yes, that was figured out in the 1920s. That's why crews are centralized into the single fighting compartment, and placed where they can fit and do what they need to do to make the tank work.

Even small gains could mean massive weight drops, and thus the tank becomes smaller.

Not with the stuff that actually makes a tank weight what it does. Stuff you are not addressing because you know nothing about tank design.

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.

You have literally just repeated a century of tank design. And I don't mean that in a good way. You are wrong on your conclusions or assumptions to basic pillars of tank design because you simply do not understand how they work. Gunners have never, in the history of tanks, popped their heads out to aim the gun. Machine guns have been remotely controlled for almost as long as tanks have existed at this point, and reasons why they are not always designed as remote controlled are not simply hand-waved away.

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.

So you do mean the Leopard 2, not the Leopard 1.
In that case you are still ignoring engine power densities, whereas the Abrams has a lighter engine.
And you're right, maximum range and operational range are not the same thing, which is why your conclusions are at best wrong. Operational range for tanks does not depend on the ammount of fuel carried, it depends on many other things ranging from getting fuel and ammo to the tank, to recce asset availability and beyond.

uh wot

IKR?
If this is a troll, it is my favorite troll in years.

It is only 48 tonnes

You do understand that the T-14 is the same weight mas the much smaller T-90, right?
The same weight, while being substantially larger.

Let's pretend budgeting is the biggest issue.

It is an issue. Armies don't like spending money replacing things that are doing the job just fine if the replacement does not provide a big enough capability jump. Which is the case here.

Then in theory, this is a superior tank, despite being more expensive.

You have yet to establish this.

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.

You can't train existing crews?
If you did this, you could reduce costs because for every three Abrams crews you could crew a single T-14 style tank. Replacing 1000 Abrams with 1000 of your tanks would actually reduce the crew manpower by 25%, this reducing costs substantially.

Despite this, however, the US is not doing this. Because the US Army understands how tanks work, how they are used, and has developed a concept of how it will operate.

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.

No, it does not.
It also does not mean they they will.

The point is these designs can shrink down a tanks size, even drastically if you really wanted to.

The only example of your idea so far that exists actually increased size for the same weight of its replacement.

As well, dialects are a thing

Yes they are.

and there is no concerted english language

Yes there is.

but an amalgamation of different sub-languages in to one, with but different words used in different areas.

In linguistics these are called dialects. They are not distinct languages, and in fact the interchangeability of semantics between dialects is a defining characteristic of being a language instead of merely a dialect. There are no "sub-languages".

Compare Australian, British, and even Southern english and you will find many different words being used, with many different implied meanings.

Yes, and you can see this among jargon-select linguistic tendencies as well. However the point of meaning, of semantics, is that it is understood to communicate meaning through context within the register which is expected. We as speakers of language (any language) understand the concept of register innately by our teens and can apply it.

Semantics, that is demanding someone uses one word to mean the same thing

That is not semantics at all. That is prescriptive lexicography.

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).

This is exactly what semantics is about.

Also my grasp on english has no bearings on my grasp on science or basic tank design

It does if you are learning or communicating it in English.
If we were doing this in Russian, the same would apply regarding Russian.

given that most Russians don't know english and were able to make a good tank.

Because they are not attempting to discuss tank design, or did not learn in English without knowing English.

Being a grammar nazi doesn't help you to understand ideas and concepts as well, it just arbitrarily restricts communication.

You have done the impossible, made me support the idea of a "Grammar Nazi".
Jargon, and even the register in which you communicate within a language, does help you understand and communicate ideas. That is why they exist within the linguistic environment. It enables effective communication.

Language is pragmatic, and designed to communicate ideas well,

Yes, by sub-selecting linguistic use into registers, jargon, and highly-specific aspects of language which are common to speakers working within that framework.

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.

It's not muddying it down, it's clarifying by working within a known framework that is shared among the speakers who are engaged in that activity. That you do not know that framework, or are unwilling to learn, is not pedantic, it is a lack on your part. Do you also expect to go to a neurologists convention and expect that they will all converse in the same jargon as fishermen?

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

You have failed to grasp very basic concepts in linguistics though.
Just like tank design.

Well when the new technology rolls around we'll see how it does. All of my stuff is based on these predictions, for future tech, rather than what's currently being used by most militaries. It's a potential option, and will be interesting to see how it plays out.

All of your stuff is based on fantasy and a misunderstanding of how tanks work.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, do as you like.

The problem is you are discussing reality in a realism consultation thread, where your fantasy is just that: fantasy.

It's pretty small in comparison to it's overall armor capabilities and those types of designs are what I would incorporate in to a new-and-improved Mk. II M1 Abrams to make it smaller. Exact figures are debatable obviously. 30-50 tons depending on exact designs.

Literally nonsense grounded in fantasy not based in reality.

[Veikaia]

We're talking a rebel group, I doubt a rebel group can do all of the stuff you just said they could do, it sounds incredibly unlikely for an illegal rebellious, maybe guerilla organization to not only achieve but maintain all of the stuff you just said. I dont see a way an organization like I described could get access to these facilities you described without facing fierce resistance from the government unless they're in absolute shambles and basically already collapsed by which point you could easily just seize power already instead of trying to gain control of facilities like that. Also your answers don't really fully address many of my questions like acquiring spare parts, modifying civilian aircraft for combat, the required funding that would be needed to be redirected to maintain an airbase and its equipment and aircraft, how much training is required to maintain said aircraft and rearm them, if it would be possible to even use these aircraft without them instantly getting taken down by national AA systems even in a small, underdeveloped third world nation and if it's even worth it to keep the aircraft and required infrastructure to use them. You seem to be thinking of military remnants organizing insurgency while I'm mostly referring to less trained and weaker rebel armies engaging in combat against a superior (but not necessarily by a lot) force.

Most of what he said is not just inapplicable, it's just flat-out wrong.

In any event, the ability to maintain a fleet of aircraft or of any complex vehicle is dependent on the number captured. A single plane will not be flying for long; the moment something breaks and there are no available spare parts, you're up a creek until you can source more. Capturing multiple aircraft eases this problem since replacement parts can be cannibalized, but unless more can be sourced or fabricated, the number of flyable aircraft will of course slowly decrease as parts are worn out. This is how Iran was able to maintain at least some of its F-14s in flyable condition after the Iranian Revolution meant the US was no longer willing to supply parts and expertise.

The issue with maintenance is less money than it is specific resources. Planes need fuel, spare parts, and labor to remain flying, and while these might be purchasable on the black market with cash, at least some of these (labor and fuel) can also be bartered for, stolen, or even donated by sympathetic causes. This becomes more problematic the newer the aircraft is, though, because newer and more modern aircraft tend to be much more tightly controlled than old cast-offs. The more widely exported the captured aircraft are, the easier sourcing parts and experience gets.

The real issue though is that by and large, it's just not worth it. A handful of old MiG-21s with limited ammunition and availability will neither win air superiority nor will they win a ground campaign on their own. They won't even contribute very much at all to either operation. Given the effort involved in operating aircraft, rebel groups almost never bother. Better to just wreck them so the government can't take them back, or maybe try to sell off some parts or equipment for cash.

The growing threat though is the question of small drones, especially repurposed civilian drones which are becoming ever more widely available. They've been used quite heavily in current conflicts in Crimea and Ukraine by both sides since they eliminate nearly all of the cost and logistical burden of "real" aircraft.

Thanks, this actually answers a lot of questions but I got two more to add. Would you be able to tell me how viable the usage of captured aircraft would be in a different time period like interwar and WW2 (Maybe WW1 if pushing it)? And, do you have any reading material on repurposed civilian drones at hand or nah? It's ok if you cant answer either, tbh, you were already extremely helpful.

[Austria-Bohemia-Hungary]

All areas with crew need to be designed to allow the crew to move. Humans don't like being cramped into small spaces and bad things happen physiologically. Experience with T-72s and Leclerc have shown crew fatigue raises dramatically when they don't have the ability to move, which means they must be rotated out of the vehicle frequently. This is a major factor in American/German/British designs retaining greater volume despite knowing they could be reduced and how to do it.

I feel like Manokan is trying for Ryanair cattle class in tanks here...

[Austrasien]

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.

The T-14 is 20% lighter than the Abrams

Since the issue was first seriously looked at in the 90s it has been estimated that a new tank with the same protection and firepower as existing tanks, but incorporating all available weight saving technologies, would weigh between 40 and 50 tonnes at least. And since two-man crews have consistently proven to be a non-starter it would likely weigh towards the upper end of that range. Like the T-14. 30 to 40 tonnes is unfeasible without reducing the weight of the armour substantially, which is impossible because there have been no major advancements in heavy armour since the end of the cold war.

[The Akasha Colony]

Thanks, this actually answers a lot of questions but I got two more to add. Would you be able to tell me how viable the usage of captured aircraft would be in a different time period like interwar and WW2 (Maybe WW1 if pushing it)? And, do you have any reading material on repurposed civilian drones at hand or nah? It's ok if you cant answer either, tbh, you were already extremely helpful.

It might be slightly easier in older time periods if only because many of the parts can literally be made by a skilled machinist in a well-stocked garage. If the planes are wooden like some aircraft of the period, some repairs can also be carried out by a few skilled carpenters if proper lumber can be sourced. The more modern a plane gets the harder it becomes to fabricate replacements locally since most insurgent groups don't have access to semiconductor foundries to make replacement processors for the avionics nor much experience working with titanium or carbon composites.

Actual utility would still be limited though. Maybe you could throw a few grenade-sized improvised bombs at the government troops, or do a machine gun pass or two, but it won't actually do very much.

I don't have any immediate links regarding the use of civilian drones in the Ukrainian conflict, but Allanea might.

[Axis Nova]

Didn't the MBT-70 have a problem with the crew getting motion sickness due to the entire crew being in the turret?

[The Akasha Colony]

Didn't the MBT-70 have a problem with the crew getting motion sickness due to the entire crew being in the turret?

Just the driver, since his counter-rotating cupola designed to keep him facing forward could be a little disorienting to some drivers.

Again, no such volume is specifically designed into tanks. Excepting the open area for a driver to escape via the turret, which is not volume it is a hole in a sheet of metal, if it exists.

If only I could magically make my apartment bigger by removing all the doors!

You have literally just repeated a century of tank design. And I don't mean that in a good way. You are wrong on your conclusions or assumptions to basic pillars of tank design because you simply do not understand how they work. Gunners have never, in the history of tanks, popped their heads out to aim the gun. Machine guns have been remotely controlled for almost as long as tanks have existed at this point, and reasons why they are not always designed as remote controlled are not simply hand-waved away.

Pictured: Advanced testbed for future "automated machine gun" technology. The US Army hopes that one day such advances will enable troops to safely operate machine guns under armor without having to expose their heads to enemy fire in order to aim and operate their weapons. Critics however have accused this of being a bridge too far, and that such feats will not be achievable for perhaps a century or more.

[Manokan Republic]

If a previous military fell apart and had hidden aircraft in places designed to be used in the event of a government take-over by a guerrilla force, or some other military rebel force came along and found said hidden aircraft bases, than maybe. The germans and Russian have a lot of hidden bunkers in their country designed just for this reason, and even America hid nuclear warheads under cities and things during the cold war, so that way all of our missile defense systems couldn't be sabotaged and only a portion. So if it's a left over insurgency that happens to know where the camouflaged stuff is, and that's people came from and developed military and received training to fly the aircraft, than maybe. Basically if America fail and say, the Russians took over or vice versa, there'd be ex-military resistance fighters operating a handful of hidden aircraft that are placed around the country in secret underground hangars.

They could also recruit say, ex-pilots from bigger countries fly the planes, like Russian mercenaries or something. With modern day VTOL and STVOL aircraft, like the F-35, the don't need long run ways and also take less maintenance, so it's a possibility. But it would be rare of course. There's also the obvious course of action which is to use drones, which doesn't require the same training or skill, but also is not very good against larger aircraft, but it would be good for surveillance or attacking ground targets.

Just like how aircraft carriers have catapults, you could have an uber short runway hidden underground or something with a small, concealed opening to launch plans to attack people with. The only problem is landing but, the same sort of hook system could be used. These sorts of underground systems would be expensive and difficult to set up, but if designed by a bigger military could potentially continue operating for many years after the bigger government fell apart.

We're talking a rebel group, I doubt a rebel group can do all of the stuff you just said they could do, it sounds incredibly unlikely for an illegal rebellious, maybe guerilla organization to not only achieve but maintain all of the stuff you just said. I dont see a way an organization like I described could get access to these facilities you described without facing fierce resistance from the government unless they're in absolute shambles and basically already collapsed by which point you could easily just seize power already instead of trying to gain control of facilities like that. Also your answers don't really fully address many of my questions like acquiring spare parts, modifying civilian aircraft for combat, the required funding that would be needed to be redirected to maintain an airbase and its equipment and aircraft, how much training is required to maintain said aircraft and rearm them, if it would be possible to even use these aircraft without them instantly getting taken down by national AA systems even in a small, underdeveloped third world nation and if it's even worth it to keep the aircraft and required infrastructure to use them. You seem to be thinking of military remnants organizing insurgency while I'm mostly referring to less trained and weaker rebel armies engaging in combat against a superior (but not necessarily by a lot) force.

The basic idea is the remnants of a larger military becoming an insurgency, not a new rebel group taking over airports. In the event of a U.S. government collapse for example, U.S. military forces would cease being united soldiers and instead become guerrilla rebel forces. U.S. soldiers, many of them, are actually trained what to do in the event U.S. territory becomes captured, to fight as a resistance group in a sort of Red-Dawn like scenario as guerrilla fighters to harass or attempt to retake the U.S. government. While unlikely to happen, it's more likely to happen in countries in Eastern Europe or the middle east, with for instance this sort of thing going on right now in Ukraine, with many of the rebels being previous government forces, now being supported by the larger Ukraine government. In the case of Iraq for example, when we toppled the government structure we didn't get rid of the military, but merely created an Iraqi insurgency that went in to hiding. The best of the best, such as the special forces soldiers, are still operating to this day and famously many of them joined ISIS. The military doesn't just go away after an invasion, but goes in to hiding, sticking over for several decades as you have to continue to fight them despite their shattered government.

A small number of tanks and higher end weapons have been used following the collapsed of the Iraqi government, although of course no aircraft. However Iraq's airforce was abysmal to begin with, with 180 aircraft, and only half of which were operational. A country like Syria or Iran on the other hand has a much more advanced air force, many with modern Russian aircraft, and that are generally fully functioning. It's not inconceivable that, after an invasion in on of these places that, forces of the now shattered army could continue to operate for quite some time. As for things like maintenance, you would have all the repair parts you needed squirreled away with your aircraft, and a small crew of pilots and maintenance workers would be biding their time, waiting for things to calm down before striking again. Basically everything you would need to repair and operate the aircraft would need to be safeguarded and stored before the collapse of the government, such as fuel and whatnot, giving a very short life-span of these aircraft's operation in the field, but if you waited several years before launching attacks they could last longer, as long as nobody could find them. For example years after the war continued in Iraq, aircraft were found that were buried or hidden away in secret hangars, designed to be protected from american aircraft bombings in the event that the Iraqi insurgency could gain enough control to take back the government for it to matter.

As for a third-world guerrilla force modifying civilian aircraft for combat? The best bet is helicopters to use miniguns or machine guns to shoot people with or dropping low-tech barrel bombs on their enemies. Helicopters are typically easier to get ahold, *some* don't require nearly as much maintenance (such as news helicopters or medical helicopters), they can hover over a battlefield at low altitudes so they're useful to help ground troops and harder to spot with radar and take down with large-sweeping missile defense systems (albeit, other weapons are more easy), and they don't need airports which makes them both easier to hide and operate in a more dynamic environment. They can theoretically land and be launched off of the back of a truck, so you could transport them to a battlefield, attack really quickly, and then have them be hidden soon after, useful for hit-and-run tactics, and reducing their time in the field, thus reducing maintenance costs and the chance of retaliation (I.E. being discovered and then shot down). You can buy some out-dated migs on the black market or get it from a larger country, such as when Russia backed the cubans and gave them weapons, or Iran or basically any other small government like that. The only problem is you can't get the weapons systems for them, except for maybe guns/dumb bombs. You could hire mercenary pilots from the Russian military or the like to pilot them, and since something like 30% of Russia's military are already mercenaries, or "contractors", and a lot of military troops defected to the Russian mob at the end of the cold war, with 100,000 KGB members losing their jobs, you could potentially have a lot of higher end criminal types serve as the more skilled soldiers for you, or if they're Spetsnaz train your forces and whatnot. Basically hire mercenaries, to train your forces or even to fight if you need them. In fact, the Los Zetas cartels [1][2] was originally about 30 or so special forces guys defecting to the cartels, during the anti-corruption campaign of the Mexican government (with the death squads of the previous administration obviously being on the chopping block), and then they basically took over the cartels and now recruit a lot of ex-military guys. There's rumored to be about 50,000 to 100,000 ex-military personnel in the cartels, out of 100,000 to 200,000 people, or roughly on par with the 90,000 active Mexican military troops, and 45,000 involved in the cartel wars. Obviously if you put out contracts looking for pilots, say paying them a million per year or something, you'd get a ton of cold war pilots and pit crews coming out of the woodworks to work for you.

[Manokan Republic]

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.

The T-14 is 20% lighter than the Abrams

Since the issue was first seriously looked at in the 90s it has been estimated that a new tank with the same protection and firepower as existing tanks, but incorporating all available weight saving technologies, would weigh between 40 and 50 tonnes at least. And since two-man crews have consistently proven to be a non-starter it would likely weigh towards the upper end of that range. Like the T-14. 30 to 40 tonnes is unfeasible without reducing the weight of the armour substantially, which is impossible because there have been no major advancements in heavy armour since the end of the cold war.

Presumably these two figures would be added together for an additional drop, as one is a design technique and the other is higher quality materials. As well, there have been few major upgrades to armor, but that doesn't mean the technology doesn't exist. As the article states there is the potential to drop the weight of the armor using new manufacturing techniques, and as Abrams tanks are 30 years old, having been used since the 80's and designed since the 70's, newer materials exist that just haven't been implemented due to us not replacing our tanks yet.

Also the T-14 has like a 40% drop in size, I think compared to the M1 abrams.

[Manokan Republic]

All areas with crew need to be designed to allow the crew to move. Humans don't like being cramped into small spaces and bad things happen physiologically. Experience with T-72s and Leclerc have shown crew fatigue raises dramatically when they don't have the ability to move, which means they must be rotated out of the vehicle frequently. This is a major factor in American/German/British designs retaining greater volume despite knowing they could be reduced and how to do it.

I feel like Manokan is trying for Ryanair cattle class in tanks here...

The idea of a much smaller area where they don't have to move back and forthwith between different crew departments can easily shrink the overall size of the vehicle. You can centralize the crew compartment in to one, relatively small area by having much of the vehicle by automated and using cameras for everything instead of a person acting as a spotter instead.

[Kazarogkai]

Thanks, this actually answers a lot of questions but I got two more to add. Would you be able to tell me how viable the usage of captured aircraft would be in a different time period like interwar and WW2 (Maybe WW1 if pushing it)? And, do you have any reading material on repurposed civilian drones at hand or nah? It's ok if you cant answer either, tbh, you were already extremely helpful.

It might be slightly easier in older time periods if only because many of the parts can literally be made by a skilled machinist in a well-stocked garage. If the planes are wooden like some aircraft of the period, some repairs can also be carried out by a few skilled carpenters if proper lumber can be sourced. The more modern a plane gets the harder it becomes to fabricate replacements locally since most insurgent groups don't have access to semiconductor foundries to make replacement processors for the avionics nor much experience working with titanium or carbon composites.

Actual utility would still be limited though. Maybe you could throw a few grenade-sized improvised bombs at the government troops, or do a machine gun pass or two, but it won't actually do very much.

I don't have any immediate links regarding the use of civilian drones in the Ukrainian conflict, but Allanea might.

The closest I can think would be the Tamil Tigers when it came to air power. They were small craft and used principally as scouts and suicide bombers rather than fighting against the government air force. To be fair though one could argue they effectively fought their war at many points like a conventional rather than an insurgent force.

[Puzikas]

MilRealism is my favorite anime.

[Schwere Panzer Abteilung 502]

I’m going to drive a car purely by looking through video cameras. Wish me luck.

[Puzikas]

no

[Allanea]

I don't have any immediate links regarding the use of civilian drones in the Ukrainian conflict, but Allanea might.

I will do you one better.

I researched the issue for a think-tank report back in 2014.

People used store-bought and home-built drones on both sides. Some of them have been refitted for primitive air strikes (effectively, dropping hand-grenades that were modified as sort of miniature unguided bombs). Both quadcopters/hexacopters and small fixed-wing drones were used. There was even an independent DPR Air Reconnaissance Squadron using drones and an motodeltaplane in the anti-air role (using a hunting shotgun and a large butterfly net to try and catch Ukrainian drones in mid-air, I am not making this up), however the unit's drones were seized by a competing DPR unit, its operators bribed away, and the commander arrested in Moscow on unrelated charges, and we were deprived of the no doubt amazing spectacle of motodeltaplanes fighting hexacopters in vicious close combat.

[The Corparation]

I don't have any immediate links regarding the use of civilian drones in the Ukrainian conflict, but Allanea might.

I will do you one better.

I researched the issue for a think-tank report back in 2014.

People used store-bought and home-built drones on both sides. Some of them have been refitted for primitive air strikes (effectively, dropping hand-grenades that were modified as sort of miniature unguided bombs). Both quadcopters/hexacopters and small fixed-wing drones were used. There was even an independent DPR Air Reconnaissance Squadron using drones and an motodeltaplane in the anti-air role (using a hunting shotgun and a large butterfly net to try and catch Ukrainian drones in mid-air, I am not making this up), however the unit's drones were seized by a competing DPR unit, its operators bribed away, and the commander arrested in Moscow on unrelated charges, and we were deprived of the no doubt amazing spectacle of motodeltaplanes fighting hexacopters in vicious close combat.

IS there any way we could look up a copy of this report?

[Allanea]

You can, but it's not really about drones. (My role in it was actually mainly just finding sites and information for the report authors.)

I'm credited though!

http://armamentresearch.com/Uploads/Res ... 0Flags.pdf