Armored Fighting Vehicles version M4 - are we going with that? Sure, man.

[glitterboy2098]

the main issue, to me, is that in tiers where you start facing some mid to late war stuff, you are using mostly early war period russian. so you have good guns, but your armor might as well be tinfoil. and unlike most of the others in your bracket, you don't really have much speed to rely on.

hopefully i can get through to the KV-1 soon, get into the stuff that ought to be decent.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

the main issue, to me, is that in tiers where you start facing some mid to late war stuff, you are using mostly early war period russian. so you have good guns, but your armor might as well be tinfoil. and unlike most of the others in your bracket, you don't really have much speed to rely on.

hopefully i can get through to the KV-1 soon, get into the stuff that ought to be decent.

Also, Russian tanks are blind so you're always getting surprised by snipers and your guns are so inaccurate that you can't return fire even if you can see who's shooting at you.

[PsihoKekec]

Issue with Armata is that is still a prototype, so they will build a small production run, test it extensively, iron out the bugs and then put the troubleshooted/perhaps upgraded version into full production (they intend the same with Su-57). They acknowledge that this is not Cold War anymore, when new weapons systems had to be put into production immediatly, shortcommings be damned.

T-80 upgrade is driven by two factors, turbine engines doing better in arctic conditions than diesels and desire to keep production capabilities/know how alive.

[glitterboy2098]

Also, Russian tanks are blind so you're always getting surprised by snipers and your guns are so inaccurate that you can't return fire even if you can see who's shooting at you.

i'm hoping that once i get into the IS series it'll be worth investing in some of the upgrades that'll improve the accuracy and vision.. at the moment i'm progressing through hulls too fast to make it worth it. (it helps i had a fair amount of silver saved up from dilettante playing over the last few years) can't afford gold, so main limiter is vehicle slots (so i'm selling off older vehicles..except the starter) and Xp.

[Matti]

i'm hoping that once i get into the IS series

I haven't played those tanks, but they have guns up to 122 mm with slow rate of fire. As armchair general, I would draw the line to 85 mm guns for general purpose use and use 122 mm as specialist to counter Kingtiger II (or whatever the game calls it) and other heavies.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

i'm hoping that once i get into the IS series it'll be worth investing in some of the upgrades that'll improve the accuracy and vision.. at the moment i'm progressing through hulls too fast to make it worth it. (it helps i had a fair amount of silver saved up from dilettante playing over the last few years) can't afford gold, so main limiter is vehicle slots (so i'm selling off older vehicles..except the starter) and Xp.

Soviet tanks are universally painful grinds.  It's brutally painful trying to fight in a Tier IX game with an IS or KV-3: even when fully upgraded, their guns have terrible penetration and accuracy.  And that's on top of the utter lack of gun depression.  But we should take this to a different thread if we want to continue the conversation.

[Kidd]

Namer IFV with turret. The circle is complete.

[Fat Guy]

Looking at that makes me wonder why the US Army has never considered replacing the Bradley's current turret with an unmanned non-penetrating one. You could reduce the crew by one and increase the carried troops by four. Not to mention reduce it's ridiculously high silhouette a bit.

[Garrand]

Unmanned turrets are pretty new. The Brad was designed in the late '70s into the '80s before those became a thing. Some Strykers are getting unmanned turrets. Maybe the Army is holding off until they decide what the Brad successor will be...

Damon.

[Cannonshop]

Looking at that makes me wonder why the US Army has never considered replacing the Bradley's current turret with an unmanned non-penetrating one. You could reduce the crew by one and increase the carried troops by four. Not to mention reduce it's ridiculously high silhouette a bit.

okay, imagine yo've got your new, shiny unmanned turret...

change teh ammo belt on the gun.
clear a jam.
poke your head out to see where you're going.

etcetera.

[glitterboy2098]

Looking at that makes me wonder why the US Army has never considered replacing the Bradley's current turret with an unmanned non-penetrating one. You could reduce the crew by one and increase the carried troops by four. Not to mention reduce it's ridiculously high silhouette a bit.

probably because they are conditioned to think in terms of replacing the whole vehicle rather than just do a major overhaul. since i don't think that any new ones have been built since the 90's, beyond spare parts, i suspect it might be a bit tricky to modify as well.. pretty sure a turret change like that would require some mods to the turret ring.

though if they wanted to do it, they could probably slap some on some of the stuff to fix the Bradley's other flaws.. 30mm chaingun (the 25mm has proven to wimpy for more modern targets), maybe whatever active protection system they settled on. heck, i wonder if you could fit add-on armor to make it tougher.

hmm.. i wonder if there is a lighter ATGM they could fit instead of the TOW.. free up a bit more space inside. currently the M2 can carry 7 men (in space originally designed for 6), but the basic squad is 9. so they need to cram another 2 in. unmanned turret gives you 1.

okay, imagine yo've got your new, shiny unmanned turret...

change teh ammo belt on the gun.
clear a jam.
poke your head out to see where you're going.

etcetera.

linkless feed on the gun, so no need to change belts. either you have ammo in the drum or you don't. and the drum would still be inside the hull, so reloading from any stored reserve drums would be unhindered.

jams are already handled automatically through the chaingun's feed system, as are misfires. modern weapons are pretty jam resistant by design anyway.. you can fire over a hundred thousand rounds (IE, about 333+ full ammo loads for the current bushmasters) without ever running into one, and the motorized cycling just ejects the errant shell.

and vision blocks and systems have gotten good enough that commander don't need to poke their heads out.. and are trained not to, since that makes them more vulnerable. besides, the M2 still has its aft dorsal hatch, currently used for reloading the TOW launcher.

[Kidd]

okay, imagine yo've got your new, shiny unmanned turret...

change teh ammo belt on the gun.
clear a jam.
poke your head out to see where you're going.

etcetera.

The Namer has a comparably large turret ring to allow a one man maintenance hatch so weapons can be serviced under armour.

As for vision, I don't know, conventional wisdom maintains that unmanned turrets still don't match manned for situational awareness, but that might have been before the advent of 360-degree sensor-fused see-through-armour vision feeds which yes, are making the jump from scifi anime to the battlefield

http://youtu.be/XOi__MmtN1M

But even that is dependent on the survival of the 10 or so optics placed around the vehicle. The Israelis' good buddies Singapore had pitched something like this in the Terrex offered to the Marines.

[kato]

that might have been before the advent of 360-degree sensor-fused see-through-armour vision feeds which yes, are making the jump from scifi anime to the battlefield

That's the ground equivalent of 5th generation fighter jets. 6th generation equivalent ("command fighter") is slowly making its way to the battlefield now, at least in Europe.

Integrates both on-vehicle (sensors) and off-vehicle (drones/troops) data sources into a full 3D environment simulation with AI-supported target detection and integrated weapon effect discrimination. I.e. you get a 3D simulation in which contacts even beyond hills and in buildings and such are marked, and you get pretty much a point-and-click interface to control direct, indirect or off-vehicle weapons such that you eliminate specific contacts or areas. With access to that simulation by multiple operators and no clunky helmets.

[beachhead1985]

WOT (I play on PC) is a neat game, but it's game-balanced all to hell and gone. I've just about had it with these unbelievably tough and effective Italian tanks everyone has now and the ignorance of technical realities bugs me too.

Yeah; the west *thought* the Russians had bad gun-laying, but when they tested the optics of their captured T-34/85s after Korea and the IS-III they cut up after the IDF gave it to them; they found they were top quality. Turns out it's the crew.

By contrast; no firefly should be able to hit the broad side of a barn with their discarding sabot ammo.

The Char B1 was...weird...to play too. They took the extra crew for the 75 which does not work in game and assigned them to the Turret gun; making it VERY fast-firing. Which is weird because the Char b1 had a 2-man turret, right?

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Yeah, all the French tanks had two-man turrets that were pretty cramped.

With the Soviet tanks, the IS-3 and T-34/85 had good optics, but the Winter War era tanks like the original T-34, the T-28, or the KV-1 were pretty blind and were further hindered by their guns being inaccurate.

[Matti]

Yeah; the west *thought* the Russians had bad gun-laying, but when they tested the optics of their captured T-34/85s after Korea and the IS-III they cut up after the IDF gave it to them; they found they were top quality. Turns out it's the crew.

There can be differences depending on a factory and the time frame tank was made.

By contrast; no firefly should be able to hit the broad side of a barn with their discarding sabot ammo.

"The problem was that you couldn't hit the broadside of a barn from the inside with a sabot"

[beachhead1985]

There can be differences depending on a factory and the time frame tank was made.
"The problem was that you couldn't hit the broadside of a barn from the inside with a sabot"

I'd buy that.

[I am Belch II]

I dont know if this is a true photo, but is says M1A3 version

[Fat Guy]

That's the M1 CATTB (Component Advanced Technology Test Bed) from 1987. Basically an even tougher M1.

Positive results, but deemed overkill and never produced.

[I am Belch II]

Overkill.....that's funny. I guess the 140mm would of done that seeing what the 120mm did to things.

[Cannonshop]

there is no 'overkill', just 'open fire' and 'time to reload.'

[ANS Kamas P81]

Well, the 120s are fifty pounds already and three feet long; a 140mm is well



A lot more than that.  Very clearly it's a two piece round, but each shell is 88 pounds total and would require two loaders or an autoloader setup, neither of which was something anyone wanted in the Abrams.  And really, is there that much of a need for 1000mm of penetration at 2km?  Name a Soviet or other OPFOR tank that got anywhere near that...hell, name any Western ones!

[I am Belch II]

If the US tanks would get the auto loader then that 140mm might be more useful.

[Kidd]

If the US tanks would get the auto loader then that 140mm might be more useful.

It's a matter of tradeoffs. Speed, firepower, protection. If they want a bigger gun, autoloader or not, the tradeoffs facing the Leo/Abrams/Chally family now are still:

Firepower - bigger gun = smaller ammo load, perhaps less RPM

Protection - possibly less armour and blowout safety

UNLESS the tank grows bigger and heavier, which leads to

Speed - any bigger and heavier and it won't just be tactically less mobile, it will no longer be economically transportable even by C-5 Galaxy, and that limits it to shipborne deployment, plus new investment in tank transporter vehicles to ferry them from ports to front lines

[Feenix74]

Mobility limits are not just C-5 Galaxy but also things like size and load limts of your rail and road infrastructure and equipment.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Yeah, you'd be surprised just how insistent bridges are about carrying capacity...

[kato]

Ships too actually. That's why RoRos have a limited tank load of (for MSC ships) typically one battalion - that's what you fit on the reinforced lowest deck...

And surprisingly often it's also done this way just to make sure you can actually still use that deck afterwards:

[worktroll]

In honour of the Kanga, invented on this day in 2653!*



And this!



"This is a photograph of the SADE experiment using a Valentine tank fitted with 26 rockets, 13 each side in four containers, to see if it was possible to make a tank jump over large gaps and minefields. It did not work and never entered production." - tanks-encyclopedia.com

W
*not really, but I needed a hook

[Fat Guy]

Provided this image hasn't been retouched, I wonder the magnitude of the injuries that resulted from this:

[BairdEC]

Given how much dropping just a couple feet in a Sheridan hurt, I'm gonna go with "lots and lots."  You could also look up a major incident at Ft. Irwin around '93 or maybe '94 where a BlueFor scout platoon in Bradleys drove over the side of a large wadi, the Colorado wash IIRC.  There were several deaths; I don't believe any of the soldiers were completely unharmed.