Where do we go from the M1-series (and it's counterparts in the form of the Leopard2 and Challenger2)?

Exotic material armor? Active armor (both ERA and electric/energized armor)?

Light (<50Mt)? Heavy (>70Mt)? Super Heavy?

Stick with the smoothbore 120mm? Uparm to 140mm? ETC? Railguns (Coilguns, but we won't quibble)? Add missiles for NLOS?

4-man crew? Less? More? Autonomous?

Powerpack? Diesel? Gas Turbine? Hybrid? Hydrogen (unlikely, but I had to list it)? Nuclear?

Seeing as how there really is not an honest attempt at a follow-on to the current generation, it's all up in the air.


Falken

The MEGA GAVIN in all its forms of course!

Here it is in VSTOL self-deploying mode:



(You should know enough to specify Gavin-free or not.

Protection
Active Protection (hardkill) Systems will become the norm. Still, a significant passive or even ERA (or electrical) reinforced armor array will be required to absorb the debris of the incoming projectile (or even to deal with an only partially damaged projectile). To that extent I expect something in the 50t range, maybe a bit less, maybe a bit more.
Should the Bundeswehr make good experiences with the Puma, I expect to see more and more unmanned weapon turrets while the crew will be concentrated in the hull. Most likely for MBTs we'll see a reduction to a crew size of three, maybe even just two. A combination of all these factors should result in a higher protection level than today, at lower total vehicle mass.

Armament
Purely electrical guns are not ready yet, and I think that the manufacturers will mount them on naval units first where miniaturization is not SUCH a big necessity. So, before I haven't seen an electro-thermal or electro-chemical gun on a ship I will not expect to see them on a tank. There should be maybe a five to ten year delay between its appearance on ships and then its transition to land vehicles.
It may very well be that we will see a separation between sensor and effector vehicle. There's no law that would prohibit a tank from firing at a target that it can't see as long as there is some sort of terminal guidance mechanism for the incoming round. It may be that the introduction of active protection mechanisms will require the firing of rapid bursts like "HEAT tandem charges", e.g. two to five rounds of medium caliber APFSDS preceding the one large caliber round, all of them impacting within a second or two on the target (MRSI for direct fire, anyone?).

Communications
Despite the buzzword character of it, I expect to see battlefield management systems and blueforce trackers, IOW network centric warfare to come to life and to be a standard for all major armored fighting vehicle systems of the future.

Robotization
I don't see the transition to robotic combat vehicles yet. I am impressed with the progress that has been demonstrated in the DARPA Challenges, but it seems to me that the biggest demand is to create a fleet of robotic supply vehicles and maybe also sentry robots (armed or not may vary from one country to the other). Consequently I'd expect to see short to medium range robotic reconnaissance and/or surveillance vehicles, but signal emission is an issue which you cannot really avoid.

Engine
I think that we will, indeed, see hybrid Diesel-electric powerpack solutions. Once that (semi-)electrical gun systems are being introduced, the only currently conceivable idea to power these guns is to charge a capacitor bank with the engine before you can fire a shot. If this is already a necessity, you have most of what's needed for a hybrid drive already in place - an engine as a giant APU, a storage system for electrical energy. Electrical components don't need a gearbox, there's weight savings potential in this. And, especially for multiple ton heavy vehicles a recycling of brake energy makes a lot of sense, and be it just to boost the acceleration next time that you jump from one battle position to the next.

You should know enough to realize that is a doctored photo designed to besmirch the magnificent capabilities of the Ueber-Gavin! After all, where are the bike racks?

The challenge here are the very high loading currents, and electrical energy storage solutions with a sufficient energy density. Much of that issue will have to be solved from the automotive indutry anyway if hybrid engines will become more and more popular. Once that the technology has matured in consumer cars it will find its way into armored vehicles as well. It has been tried so often because of the all to obvious advantages; it was just that electrical energy storage technology just wasn't mature. Now there is a much stronger industry-wide incentive to invest in R&D in this area, something that the defense industry simply couldn't do over the past decades.

Tanks are dead and Have No Future™ in modern warfare, as we'll Never Fight This Sort of War Again™

You heard it here first folks...

We just need a light, C-130 transportable 8" armed amphibious vehicle to deploy sub-orbital MAR!NES (soon to be disbanded).

Snakes analysis is pretty through and accurate (IMHO) My comments are posted above.

i think MBTs will be around the 50 ton range, with an MT-892 style diesel engine, and fully electric transmission.
more work will be done to create a better allround protection for the crew compartment, and improved mine protection.
in the near future, more work will be done to research liquid propellant, as an intermediary step towards the rail/coilgun.

Ssnake
Do you see the rail guns as an addition to a traditional gun or a total replacement. I could see the rail gun taking the place of a TOW missile launcher, or perhaps a mix of rail gun tanks supporting traditional tanks. I suspect the time between shots will be fairly long at first and I can also imagine the eletrical pulse would be easy to detect. Shoot and scoot?

Coil guns supported by medium-caliber autocannons?

Exotic material armor? Active armor (both ERA and electric/energized armor)?
Yes, and yes.

New and useful armor effects are constantly being published in IJIE and other technical journals, and these effects will eventually make their way into fielded systems.

I think deployment of EEA is probable, dazzlers will become increasingly common, and the west will eventually clone Nozh for its own use. I'm a bit skeptical that practical Drozd/Arena-style projected defenses will be developed in the west -- they keep fumbling it, imo -- but Russia and Ukraine will continue to improve their existing technologies.

Light (<50Mt)? Heavy (>70Mt)? Super Heavy?
I suspect America will eventually give up this silly pursuit of the lightweight tank and go the other way, into vehicles much heavier than today's M1A2. Survivability is key. The western doctrine of training the hell out of its soldiers makes the soldiers too valuable to risk, and infocentric theories of warfighting simply will not pan out. As advances in materials and manufacturing technology make it practical to increase the weight of the tank (through stronger and more resilient bearings, and engines capable of operating at higher combustion pressures), its weight will go up, and more of that weight (as a fraction of total vehicle weight) will be armor. Eventually Russian and Chinese tanks will follow suit, though these countries have too much territory to defend to totally give up on their 50-tonne families of vehicles, and the cost of upgrading all their railroads and bridges to a new standard will prove prohibitive.

In America's case, instead of attempting to deploy armored forces rapidly via C130, it will be more practical to establish bases where deployments are likely, stock these bases with a small number of very heavy and capable vehicles (delivered by ship and train), mothball them in place, and rapidly deploy their crews and support personnel when deployments are necessary. It will mean overproduction of the vehicles (so that you have enough everywhere they might be needed), but I think that will be cheaper than trying to airlift similar capabilities as-needed.

On the other hand, in places like Africa (where even today many countries' militaries field armored cars in lieu of tanks) lighter models of tanks will remain popular. Variants of the T55, T72, and T90 will be with us for a long time, perhaps seeing upgrades like Ukraine's T-72-120 or T-72AG.

I will also say a piece about the potential of robotic vehicles and how automation will change mass requirements a bit later.

Stick with the smoothbore 120mm? Uparm to 140mm? ETC? Railguns (Coilguns, but we won't quibble)? Add missiles for NLOS?
I'm skeptical railguns *or* coilguns will ever be practical for land vehicles, but ETC shows more promise. I think as vehicles get larger and more extensively protected, guns will upgrade to 140mm first, and then 140mm ETC. I used to think 120mm ETC would come before the upgrade to 140mm to maximize the useful lifespan of existing 120mm munitions, but I don't think it's practical. Increasing the velocity of existing 120mm APFSDS would render it more vulnerable to composite armors which use the energy of the penetrator to damage the penetrator. To make use of ETC, the penetrator would have to be redesigned to be longer and/or heavier, and at that point you'd might as well just switch to 140mm munitions. 120mm ETC would boost the velocity and range of CE munitions, but that doesn't seem like a satisfactory substitute for having effective long-rod penetrators.

The west seems incapable of producing a missile that costs less than a gold-plated cadillac, so I'm skeptical that the M1's/Leo2's replacements will ever get the benefits of tube-fired ATGM's.

4-man crew? Less? More? Autonomous?

The west will probably stick with 4-man crews, even after the transition to 140mm main guns make autoloaders a necessity. The human loader will possibly morph into a dedicated surveillance and machinegunner role, much like the Abram's loader's current auxillary roles. He may also find a niche as a dedicated communications and intelligence operator, interfacing with the vehicles' command and control systems and feeding facts to the TC when prudent, while the TC focusses on commanding the tank.

I still think fully autonomous fighting vehicles are probable, and sooner than we think, but not in the west. The American Army's efforts in this direction have been half-hearted and hamstrung by a paralyzing level of caution and conservatism when it comes to gun-toting robots. Efforts like BAE's Black Knight reveal (imo) an inability to get away from the gold-plated mentality, which will prevent unmanned combat vehicles from realizing their potential. Also, in the west soldiers are trained to a high degree of competence, and fully automated vehicles will compare poorly to such soldiers for several years yet.

The main reason western combat systems are so sophisticated and expensive is because the high expense of training troops makes inexpensive systems impractical. If the army has spent four years and ten million dollars training four men to a high level of competence, are they going to put those men into a $3M vehicle, or a $4M vehicle? Even if the $4M vehicle is only 10% more capable than the $3M vehicle, it's worth it because the difference in vehicle cost makes for a much smaller difference (percentage-wise) in the cost of the vehicle-plus-crew system ($13M vs $14M, a 7.7% increase in cost of the total system for 10% more capability). Fielding a smaller number of more-capable systems also maximizes the return on investments in logistical support and strategic transport.

Take the humans out of the system, and much of the incentive to spend more to make the system slightly more capable simply goes away. Similarly, much of the incentive to heavily armor the vehicle goes away. Since there is no longer a precious human cargo to protect, only relatively inexpensive gears and circuits, it may be preferable to reduce the weight (and thus cost) of the system to 25mt, 10mt, or even less. If destroying a $200K 10mt robot (armed perhaps with a merlin-style top-attack weapon) requires exposing a $4M tank (and its $10M crew) to a slight chance of being damaged or destroyed in the process, the 10mt robots deployed in sufficient numbers might be the more economical solution.

Robotic fighting vehicles will continue to compare poorly to well-trained professional soldiers, but not every country which can afford new hardware has well-trained professional soldiers to crew that new hardware. Such countries represent a market for autonomous systems which perform "well enough" to compare favorably to the indigenous human soldiers. Where there is a market, there is opportunity for entrepreneurs to provide a product satisfying that market. Also, though there are many things which are easy for a human to do which computer logic does poorly (such as realtime target recognition and adaptive use of terrain), there are also things which computer logic does easily which humans often find difficult, like sticking to a mission, obeying difficult orders, putting themselves in harm's way, remaining alert for prolonged periods, and synchronizing to a schedule.

This makes me think it likely that we will first see fully autonomous fighting vehicles not in the west, but in central asia and the more affluent states of africa, where the soldiers tend to be less well-trained and the military leaders less conservative and more willing to disregard risks to seize an advantage. The company offering the product is less likely to be a BAE or General Dynamics, and more likely to be a Kharkiv Morozov or Hyundai, or perhaps a startup company from the west.

Powerpack? Diesel? Gas Turbine? Hybrid? Hydrogen (unlikely, but I had to list it)? Nuclear?
Diesel engines are the superior technology for ground vehicles today, and seem likely to remain that way for a long time.

That having been said, there are a couple of interesting alternatives.

Hybrid systems offer advantages not only in fuel economy, but also in compacting and simplifying the transmission component of the vehicle. If a copper cable and a fistful of relays can replace the gearbox, clutches, and driveshaft traditionally used to transfer and modulate mechanical energy between the engine and the drive sprocket, significant savings might be seen in vehicle size and weight, and may reduce the financial cost of the vehicle.

I realize you probably suggested it in jest, but there are some interesting developments on the horizon regarding nuclear power. A company called LAVM has been working towards using nanotube-based materials to convert radioactive materials' emissions directly and efficiently into electricity. If made sufficiently economic, such a system might provide superior energy density to the conventional diesel engine. Or it might never materialize at all. We'll have to wait and see what the eggheads can do with it.

What about CKEM-like and LOSAT-like systems? Will they be good way to fighting tanks fitted with APSs? Or is it a dead way?

I could imagine a total replacement provided that munitions other than just KE will be made available. The need for high explosive or at least a programmable fragmentation-intensive round won't go away. For an MBT in the classic sense only rounds in the 35mm upwards range seem to have the potential to solve the anti-personnel role (e.g. like the AHEAD rounds). I'm not sure if a high amount of HE filler is needed if you can disperse fragments with spin just as well, if you can use precision gunnery and precision timer fuzes, and as long as the obstacle reduction requirements aren't compromised. The question is, can we still fire a sufficiently potent KE round with 35mm caliber without having to resort to sabots again. The alternative would be a more or less conventional HE lugger, e.g. a 50mm gun with a relatively high cadence, and a secondary "anti tank" armament in the form of a purely electrical gun.

The energy demand of a purely electrical gun as opposed to an electrochemical or electrothermal gun design is much higher however, so that will make its implementation in AFVs even more demanding. I will happily join the ranks of German "conventional theorists" that recommend a baby-steps development approach as opposed to designing a fleet of vehicles with maximized commanlity that relies on 50 or more revolutionary technologies, out of which 49 are still unsolved.

I don't think that I agree with everything that TTK wrote

AMAP?
AWISS?
All failures?

In America, anything seems possible. If, as you predict, four man crews will stay, 80t and heavier MBTs are inevitable. But they will be totally impractical - be it because many road embankments crumble under the weight of M1s already, be it bridges that cannot support operational maneuvers, be it dimension limits for rail transport. This is the primary reason why armies will have to consider smaller crews seriously. There is little growth potnetial in the protection of cour-man crews, they simply take up too much space that would require armor protection. Let's not forget that neither for the US nor for most other western countries MBTs are required in the forseeable future for domestic national defense. They will be required in expeditionary warfare for as long as our nations have interests abroad, and allies to defend. Our tanks must suit these purposes. It's not enough to improve our national bridges and roads to support these MLC80+ loads.

While I share your skepticism about purely electric guns, I'm not convinced of the 140mm necessity. If KE projectiles can do without a sabot we can shed 20 to 40% of parasitic mass already. For most anti-personnel and anti-materiel purposes medium caliber rounds of 35mm+ pack a sufficient punch already. The only reason why we still have large caliber guns is the requirement for a potent anti tank round. I'm not quite sure how the upgrade path will finally look like, but I'm not convinced yet that it has to involve a caliber beyond 120mm. If ETC can help to achieve miniaturization while preserving performance, that would be a highly desirable step. More stowed kills in the same volume. 40 rounds aren't much, really.
The weight penalties of a large caliber gun and the associated ammunition are severe, and make looking for smaller alternatives very attractive. And quite frankly, I'm impressed with what 35mm AHEAD can achieve already. Were it not for the kinetic energy rounds I'd see little reason for larger calibers right now. One radical idea would be to give up the KE armament and to rely on indirect fire with EFP top attack munitions featuring intelligent sensors (like SMArt, BONUS, or even Krasnopol and Copperhead (acknowledging that Copperhead's implementation leaves much to be desired)). It will be less and less possible to achieve an all-round protection while keeping the weight of vehicles at no more than the current levels, preferrably less. Artillery systems are not necessarily limited so much with their calibers, so bigger top attack munitions and indirect fire may be sufficient, especially if combined with robotic surveillance sensors that locate and automatically acquire targets, then send their sensor data to a remote artillery gun.

Maybe not a missile, but there's still guided rounds like APAM. And, like I wrote before, there's no law that would force us to keep the unity of sensor and effector.


I think that's the fundamental difference, the rest is a more or less deterministic consequence from this fundamental decision. Reducing to three people doesn't really offer a lot of space and weight savings, see the Leclerc as an example. The biggest savings can be achieved by giving up manned turrets, and they require a crew reduction to three or even just two. I agree that this will make it necessary to have a second crew maybe for day and night shifts, also for maintenance and local security. Which will eventually necessitate armored transport vehicles, or a much closer integration with mechanized infantry. Clearly, going from four to three does not necessarily require a significant shift in doctrine, going to two will make such a shift inevitable.

I don't see a crew size reduction happening before we can give up manned turrets and increase automation in other systems as well to a whole new level. Of course a two-man tank would be technologically feasible even today, but those technologies have to be tested and proofed for mil use. The biggest obstacle I see is with situational awareness.

To give up the commander's ability for an unhindered 360 degree view and the ability to use hand signals for command requires very good artificial all-around visibility (like in F-35) and reliable battle management systems. Once those are combat proof, an unmanned turret becomes feasible, but not a moment sooner. I am very skeptical about the Puma for instance.

how about instead of an unmanned turret, go with an unmanned hull instead?
robot driver! there's some weight savings to gain from that as well, since the hull can be shortened, which means the tracks can be shortened too.

MBT70 tried that, with the driver in the turret. It was doable but not feasible.

I'd never give up my driver for a robot, since my staying alive would depend on it driving smart. Robots and smart are a contradiction in terms.

I'd rather automate the gunner so that a computer handles the engagement after the human commander has given it a target.

DARPA challenge says otherwise:

http://www.darpa.mil/GRANDCHALLENGE/

and i think having secondary controls and semi-indirect as well as direct control of the driver would be beneficial, as the driver would react immediately to commands.
for example, 5 arrow keys to tell the driver to stop, move forward, reverse and turn left/right, sort of like the driving controls in Steel beasts, and a switch to turn the joystick or cadillacs into driving controls.
the robot part would be for obstacle avoidance, and with the right sensors on all parts of the vehicle, a robot driver could be potentially safer than a human driver.

No way. Tactical driving doesn't work like in Steel Beasts. You're drawing very far reaching conclusions from a small basis. In real life the commander doesn't micromanage the driver but instead describes the destination, and leaves the rest to the driver. I don't see robots, as capable as they are, to challenge the situational awareness of a human driver yet. Robotic driver assistants, like we're seeing in the piloting of UAVs - sure, that might happen.

Besides, the primary reasoning for putting the crew in the hull is to reduce their exposure to direct fire. The only protection gains from putting the entire crew into the turret would be IEDs and mine threat. But adding mass to the turret to armor it better against the surrounding hull would make the vehicle more top heavy and require more power for the turret drives. The disadvantages clearly outweigh the benefits.

The DARPA robots can't for instance make intelligent decisions about using terrain features for cover. Contrary to popular belief, driving a tank requires more human intelligence than either loading or gunning. And I say that as a proud gunner. Besides commanding, driving is the last operation that I would leave to a machine.

Following your suggestion about compensating for the robot's stupidity (sorry, lack of intelligence - but I'd wager that falling casualty in combat because of the actions of a robot would be termed stupid) would in practice do little more than merge the tasks of commander and driver. They are separate jobs for a reason, and tasking the commander with such additional operations would only serve to overburden him and hinder his ability to command.

An immobile tank is useless, no matter its survivability. The roads and bridges of the world cannot handle ultra-heavy tanks.

How might a delopment of the liquid NA batteries GE invented for it's hybrid locomotives work? They have quite high input/output limits, and good power density, excellent for teh future EM guns.

OTOH, battle damage to a giant container of molten sodium is not a pretty picture


Matt

Allot sounds like Mounted Combat System but bigger. Heavy Arty and maybe a heavy APC vehicle on same chassis. Think Merkava and Namer. Infantry are going to get better protection since crew and squad are allot of dead men if taken out or expensive if injured.

Size- Probably expect the upper weight limit to be 45-55 tons with Level 3 armor and options. It will be smaller since more weight means more cost in gas to move and metal to cut.

Men in a vehicle- The trend seems to reduce the amount of men in a unit. Example: Less sailors in a destroyer or aircraft carrier to do the same work. Since manpower is a significant cost. Going to a 3 man crew is likely for western tanks. Most likely the driver will be more integrated in the crew in regards to situatonal awareness with thermal periscope viewing the 12 o'clock but more camera's monitoring the 3, 6, and 9 o'clock. Also see an LCD with GPS navigation, Blue Force Tracker in the drivers position( if not in there already).

Engine- Probably electric drive with different power pack options.

Gun- Still 120mm but more options for the round. 7.62 for coax. What ever it is the Germans will field it first.

Maintenance and upgrade friendly- More contractors in the rear. FRU's on steroids designed to be easy to diagnose and replace.

Armor- Parts are going to be more upgradable. Probably next tank will have better all around including top protection with different Level 1, 2, and 3 armor options. APS sounds great until someone starts deploying SEAP( suppression of Enemy Active Protection rounds). Expect exotic materials in the composite armor*.


*Composite armor= Peanuts butter creamy and crunchy layers with Jelly.

My prediction of the future tank:

1. Crew removed from the turret / automated turret
2. Only the Crew area is extensivily armored, the rest of the tank is designed with redundancy instead
3. Self loading large bore gun using conventional chemical explosives to shoot the projectile
4. Autoloader on gun capable of unloading weapon / reloading it with differant types of large projectiles (sabot, heat, HE, canister)
5. Active protection system, backed up by heavy armor for crew compartment + redundacy for the rest of the tank (similiar to helicopter)
6. Smaller crew allowing for smaller crew compartment allowing for less armor and less weight
7. Electric drive for redundancy, ability to drive on road wheels if need be
8. Digital cloud type network used for everything, including voice com
9. Hud systems showing where you and your allies are
10. Ability to interface with remote sensor systems

My prediction on what we will not see in a tank in the next 50 years:

1. Any coilgun / rail gun tech of any type
2. Use of active protection systems for a primary protection role, instead these will be used more like bonus protection

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As far as robotic vechiles, I do not see any of those taking the role of the tank just yet. To huge problems with them as is:
1. To stupid
2. Human in the loop liablity
3. Remote control vechiles seems to lack awareness of what is around them

Judging from Warhammer 4k:
Spikes.
rerlatively tiny, M-113 shaped body.
Small turret.
Skulls.
Gun bigger than turret.
Crew of how many you want.
Spikes.
Sponsons.
Spikes.
Oh, and spikes.

And flags. Lots of flags.


Shot

I think we are going to see a cyber tank, if not a fully robotic tank next.

Cyber tank would be a tank that gives its crew VR or directly linkage to a high level of situational awareness. Think the thought control things that are in development, along with VR displays in helmets. Equals tankparant armor....if you can do this though why not go remote control and take the crew out.

If the crew stays in, it will be 2 with mixed duties. Drive or shoot. C&C will come from elesewhere, a commander sipping coffee looking at UAV feeds.

Targeting will be partially automated, with only a trigger pull needed to execute on target.

It will have wheels, which makes it debateable if its a tank or not. Think F1 tank...not much room for the crew, nearly laying down, unmanned turret.

Turret has all of the wearpons, small profile.

Weapons consist of EM gun fireing a variety of smaller by high velocity ammo, both HE and KE and Buckshot. 200 or more rounds for main gun, autoloading.

Other weapon is 2-3 HELs (high energy lasers). These take the place of MGs, shoot at anything, even incoming rounds to deflect them. One coax, 2 in ball turrets up top. Automated defence system, priority to hit incomfing roudns over targeting.

Driver/guner has HEL slaved to his helmet, Gunner/driver has main gun/coax HEL slaved to his helmet, other HEL is on automated for defence.

Hybrid electric drive. Motors in wheels, traction control aids in off road ability, not going to be as good as tracks though.

Weight...<18 tons.

...and the armour can be compromised by any insurgent-du-jour with a 7.62mm rifle.

I forgot to mentioned it will be made form high end alloy, IE Titanium.

No, it wont have the skin of a real tank, but this is the way things seem to be headed.

I wish we would have the time and energy to come back to this thread in 20 years to see who was right. Too much science fiction in your predictions for my taste. In fourty years, maybe (probably not, still). While I agree on the VR thing as the way to go to provide situational awareness (no HUDs but HIDs), but there still is an awful lot of work to do. It's still experimental, and the IT industry as far as the announcement of novelty breakthrough technologies are concerned oversells as much if not more than the air force. They promised us unified messaging in the 90s, and we got WAP. Bill said something about information at my fingertips. OK, so I do have WLAN in my hotels these days, and sometimes they're even for free, but that's about as good as it gets. They promised mobile computing in the 1980s, and now, in 2008, we finally have the Eee PC which may be the first truly mobile computer. They promised universal speech recognition, and what we got is NaturallySpeaking for lawyers. And let's not even start with that "A.I." scam, right next to cold fusion.

The truth is, if it works in a lab it doesn't mean that it's ready for production yet. That may still take twenty and more years to mature until its considered reliable and beneficial enough to be integtared into combat vehicles. Cyber tanks - the concept requires low latency large bandwidth networks on the battlefield. Somehow I'm at a loss to see how that is supposed to work out. Have you ever tried to watch a video over RDP or from a Citrix server? Try to see if you can play Pong with a latency of half a second.

Perhaps "efficiency" should be a metric, then?

By "efficiency", I mean the global value of the design, a synthesis to include (but not limited to):

Combat Effectiveness (Tank A is 10% more likely to kill Tank B than vice versa)
Crew Survivability (how unlikely it is that the crew will fry or be turned to jelly by events which would kill/cripple the tank)
Range and Speed (fuel efficiency and rate of travel)
Ease of maintenance (in terms of hrs of PMCS per hour of operation)
Cost and Ease of Construction
Modularity? (stock tank hull and turret, with drop-in plug and play capacity for vehicle systems like the FCS, armament and engine?)
Mobility (cross bridges, not tear up roads, ford, etc)

It's no good having a design that could annihilate everything on the battlefield, if it is too expensive to field in sufficient numbers, can only operate for 2 hrs on a tank of gas, requires a depot-level rebuild after one day of ops, brews up when struck by RPGs, or can only be built in one factory in one production run by one fabrication team (no possibility of making good on wrecked vehicles).



Falken

Better question:

Given the T-80 and T-90 as a reference, what would a 45-ton tank be like if it was designed by US/UK/European countries now or within the next few years? If you have 45-tons as a limit, what does the US Army (British Army, Heer) want or require.



Falken


(Note: comments like "a shambles cuz our procurement process sux" are noted, but redundant. Keep to the topic)

Think Leopard 2A4 (55t) with a compact powerpack and at least a meter shorter hull. Loader replaced with autoloader in the turret bustle, turret somewhat smaller. New light-weight gun. By a conservative estimate that should save at least 5 tons of the weight without sacrificing any protection, quite possibly more. If we can manage band tracks that should save a ton or two still. Getting close to the 45t limit, but of course the protection is still somewhat less than with an A6 or M1.

You forgot the other end of the spectrum.



You make it huge and put as many guns as you can fit on the thing.

Hate to ask this taboo question:

What will be the propulsion for the tank of the future: track, wheels or air-cushion etc?

In the immediate future, tracks for anything over 30 tons. In the future who knows? Depends on when "anti-gravity" gets invented. Wheels are getting more effective, but will always lag tracks in rough ground performance. Air-cushion vehicles will never really gain any more than specialized utility. Their lift limits, high fuel/energy demands, and signature (noise and dust/spray) will make them to impractical for general AFV useage.
There are hybrid wheel and rubber track systems that might let you have your cake and eat it, but by the time they are perfected, something completely different might come along. IE:







Depends on just how energetic they are when hit. Placed externally, could be that they could serve double duty as batteries and ERA.

If it has a large-bore high-pressure main gun, it cannot operate on an air cushion.

Tracks vs wheels depends on expected terrain, and perhaps limitations of strategic mobility infrastructure (qv: south africa).

As we've seen, wheels simply don't cope with mud.

I've heard some claims on this board that tracks are necessary to deal with the rubble of urban combat as well.

Ogorkiewicz has a few things to say about it in _Technology of Tanks_:

"Tanks are, in essence, mobile, protected weapon platforms. More specifically they are automotive, tracked, armoured carriers of heavy direct-fire weapons. As such, they stem from developments in two different fields. One is that of automotive vehicles and in particular of tracked tractors, which formed the basis of the construction of the first tanks as amorured vehicles capable of cross-country movement. The other is that of the development of heavy weapons, which had grown in importance in relation to individual, portable weapons but whose effectiveness was constrained by their limited mobility until it proved possible to overcome this by mounting them in tanks. In consequence, the automotive mobility and the armor protection with which tanks were endowed became a means of increasing the effectiveness of heavy, direct-fire weapons by making them more mobile and this has come to account for the lasting importance of tanks." (1.1)

"The third kind of mobility is battlefield mobility, which implies the ability of tanks to move when in actual or imminent contact with enemy forces. This involves movement over various types of terrain, ranging from soft soils to hard rough ground, and negotiating natural and man-made obstacles, such as streams, ditches and trenches, all at the highest possible speed in order to minimise the exposure of tanks to the enemy forces and to provide the opportunity to outmanoeuvre the latter.

The ability of tanks to move over soft soils depends primarily on the pressure they exert on the ground and increases as the pressure decreases. The pressure increases with the weight of tanks, because the size of their tracks and, therefore, of the ground contact area cannot be increased in proportion to their weight. In consequence, the ability to move over soft soils generally decreases as tanks get heavier.

On the other hand, the ability of tanks to move at speed over rough ground is governed by their suspensions and in particular by the vertical travel which these provide for the road wheels. Otherwise it is enhanced by the length of tanks and to the extend that their dimensions generally increase with weight the latter may be regarded as beneficial from the point of view of speed over rough ground. For the same reason weight can be, indirectly, an advantage so far as ditch and trench crossing is concerned." (10.3)

"Tank tracks have to perform two basic functions. One of them is to spread the load acting on the road wheels over an area of the ground sufficiently large to prevent tanks sinking unduly into it when it is soft and, therefore, to make it possible for tanks to move over it. The other function of the tracks is to transmit to the ground the tractive effort generated by the engines of tanks in order to create sufficient thrust to propel them against the resistance to their motion" (13.9)

He also has a chapter on soil/vehicle mechanics, in which he provides some compare-and-contrast between wheels and tracks .. I'm not going to type it up here, and it has interesting graphs as well, so I just compressed those pages (I apologize for the reduced quality) and put them at:
http://ciar.org/ttk/mbt/tot_soil_mechanics/

In summary, there are some concerns best addressed by tracks. If those concerns do not apply to the circumstances under which an armed force intends to fight, then they could conceivably opt for wheeled vehicles.


It had better have excellent active defenses (better than the current state of the art), because 45 tonnes is insufficient to properly protect its valuable human cargo if it relies only on armor. An America or England which presses such vehicles into active use will run out of trained crew long before it runs out of tanks.

-- TTK

45 tons may be outside the scope of realism if you want to maintain the current protection levels. However 55 tons or even 50 tons could well be within the realm of possibilities if the tanks was designed from scratch with modern technologies. Contrast Leclerc to the Abrams or even the Leopard 2A6. The base design in a decade younger and already saves 5-10 tons with approximately the same protection levels, due in large part to being physically smaller. It's still a 90s design, so how much more could a fresh 2010 design save out of that weight?

The Abrams in particular has a lot of unnecessary extra weight on it that is only an attribute of its 1970s base design.

I believe you could go down to the 45 ton range and still have pretty impressive protection, if not what we are used to now on the M1A2 SEP. Most Russian designs are in the 45-50 ton range and the newer models are pretty reasonably protected by today's standards.

Right now I think the Army should be following two routes for tank development. One should the a lighter, quick to deploy "cavalry tank" like the planned XM1202 MCS.

The other should be a true MBT and successor to the M1 Abrams for our heavy armor forces. This MBT could well be somewhat lighter but generally will still be in the 55-65 (short) ton weight class. A new engine, probably a hybrid-diesel would be used. I believe a 120mm gun should be fine, possibly a ETC design, but the tank should include the ability to upgun to a 140mm cannon if called for. The crew of three would be located in the hull, and heavier secondary weapons (.50 caliber coax, 30x113mm remote controlled autocannon?) would be standard. Modular composite armor, and possibly explosive or electric reactive armor would protect the tank. As well as active protection systems developed for FCS vehicles.

The chassis of this MBT could possibly be used to develop a heavy IFV to be used in limited numbers by HBCTs, or as the basis for a more capable 155mm SPG for HBCTs like the Crusader. Yet even if such a new MBT and some of the lighter FCS designs entered service good numbers, there is still the question regarding what do we do with all of those old Abrams and Bradleys?

After this I would imagine that the next generation of armor will all be lighter designs, include railguns, and all sorts of other things. Perhaps we will even see hovertanks.

Would there be an idea in locating the gunner in the hull next to the driver, but keep the commander in the turret to provide situational awareness? That would still allow you to reduce the turret volume quite considerably without having to compromise on the commander's ability to use Mk.1 eyeballs to look around.

The MCS "is" (rather, will be, when it actually exists) in the 20ton range. It's not a tank. It's a tracked version of the MGS.

An "RDF tank" would be more in the realm of ~40-45tons, trading crew size (down to 3) and absolute armor (ERA, smaller silhouette and APS might go a long way to making good on that) for speed, portability (2 per C-17 or C-5?) and ease of maintenance. The main weapon would still be in the 120mm range. Basically, the US/Israeli version of the T-90 (with all the bennies of our tank philisophy and knowhow).

No RDF is going to be deploying a massive Mechanized force (due to LOC and supply issues, vehicle weight being almost irrelevant) anyway, so being able to airlift in (and support) a short battalion of medium tanks is better by far than only being able to bring in a company of M1s or similar heavy tanks (plus the massive supprt force). You want to give an armored fist to an otherwise Light organization.

The "Main" Battle Tank could be in the M1-class (65-70tons) or slightly heavier (if they can do something about the ground pressure), with all the added bennies of being designed in 2010 instead of 1975.


Falken

Why would you want to impose this (at first sight) totally arbitrary weight limit?
The only serious reason I can imagine was to keep it at a level that two will still fit into a Galaxy or other heavy transport plane (since the Antonov can carry 120 t, the limit should be "under 60t"). It's not as if the agility of today's heavies are seriously endangered. Of course we want to shed mass wherever it doesn't contribute to functionality and/or protection, but isn't that exactly the point - if it adds to protection and doesn't otherwise limit performance and operational mobility, why should we pack less?

Ideal?

No because the "GAS", the backup auxillary sight slaved to the gun and the controls to the primary sights and sensors would only be available to the TC if the tank went to degraded mode. Also the TC would be solely responsible for the care and feeding of the autoloader and MGs. All of which will take away from his primary job of directing the crew, communicating, and observing.

Excuse me, but unless I am mistaken it's *not* in the 20ton range, it's in 30ton range if not more.

For the sake of discussion. Given my (near complete) lack of knowledge of tank design, I simply selected the parameters for a Western version of the later T-xx tanks, which do operate within those parameters.

Falken

AIUI, all the FCS vehicles are planned to be in the same general weight range of ~20tons, to include ICV and MCS. If I'm mistaken, please correct.

Falken

*-note the bolded part...

Well, that was the initial plan, carry the vehicles in C-130s. This has clearly long been abandoned however (if the Army ever seriously believed it in the first place).

To quote the interview with MG Charles A. Cartwright, FCS(BCT) Program Manager (PM),



Note the quaint "multiple" there... I suppose this means more than one, shall we say two? Because three 30ton vehicles aren't gonna fit all too well in a C-17... But at least it does make at least *some* sense as opposed to C-130-transportable family...

I thought the requirement for both the Stryker and now FCS was three vehicles in a C-17?

Regarding a "RDF tank" I believe the XM1202 could be considered that. Sure it is not a tank in the sense of a MBT but it is a tank in the sense of a typical light tank. In my mind it will be something like a modern day tank destroyer/fire support vehicle.

What about:
45-50 ton vehicle with "basic" armor but with massively overstrength engine and suspension and possibility of adding up modular composite armor of considerable weight?

Then it will keep being deployed at its max load configuration. Commanders will likely clamor to keep the full armor set with them at all times and start screaming bloody murder at the chain of command if they don't get the full set. Lots of nasty accusations about disregard for soldiers' life and somesuch will get thrown around by units forced to deploy "light". That right away negates part of the advantage of airtransportability because, even though the tank could fit into a plane, you'll end up needing extra planes to transport the armor packages. Still, better than nothing I suppose.

Actually, such a concept might be useful to anticipate modernization of armor/defensive measures, so that as new armor and/or active defense technology becomes available the tank would be ready to accept them with ease. Changing clothes instead of changing skin.