M1A3 Abrams Upgrade?

[My2Cents]

The Australian "Manual of the Law of Armed Conflict" states:

The problem with looking too closely at the laws of war is there are lots of apparent inconsistencies that will have been covered somewhere by some lawyers work through. As to incendiaries there is increasing bans on primary incendiary weapons like white phosphorous, triethylaluminium, etc. They can still be used on the battlefield but not as anti-personnel weapons.

Interesting.

Do they use 20mm cannons? The projectiles only weigh 100 to 130 grams.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Interesting.

Do they use 20mm cannons? The projectiles only weigh 100 to 130 grams.

See my later post:

Yes there is but it is very specific and a typical legal nonsense. The Australian LOAC manual I quoted above leaves out an important qualification which makes the argument.

Customary laws of war prohibit the use of explosive projectiles under the weight of 400 grams that can only disable the person directly targeted. Most explosive shells under the weight of 400 grams like the 20mm, 25mm, 30mm and 40mm HE rounds produce fragments that will disable nearby soldiers. They are area weapons so therefore legal. But some particular explosive types and sizes under 400 grams in which if they hit an individual will not cause damage to anyone else are banned. Of course these projectiles will need to be much smaller than 400 grams to achieve this aim.

The laws of war outlaw explosive ammunition under the weight of 400 grams that can only effect a single person when hitting them. So that most explosive rounds under the weight of 400 grams that when exploding in contact with someone will also wound someone standing nearby are legal (20mm, 25mm, 30mm and 40mm grenades).

To be illegal your explosive shell needs to small enough not to generate any fragments that would escpae the target body and injure people nearby or have a thin wall that generates no fragments and a blast that isn't big enough to cause other people wounds. All sounds pretty crazy but that's the law.

 

[My2Cents]

What would be interesting is a modern-day, highly manoeuvrable, heavily armoured short overall length tank destroyer / assault gun. It would have an auto loading 120mm gun (either fixed or in a casemate), firing conventional and guided projectiles. It would be fitted with a comprehensive ISR kit and RCS for self defence and a two or three man crew. The whole vehicle would be little larger than a CVR(T) or M-113, but lower and weight would, if possible, be limited to 20-25 tonnes. The idea would be to drop a troop of these in to increase the weight of a deployed Infantry force as required without needing to deploy MBTs but being more survivable than striker AGS etc.

Sounds like you are proposing something along the lines of the Swedish S-tank. It had 3 man crew with 2 drivers, one for forward and one for reverse

The problem with a fixed gun mount is that it is slow to engage targets and you have to be traveling towards (or away from) the target, giving them a low deflection shot.\

 

[Volkodav]

Sounds like you are proposing something along the lines of the Swedish S-tank. It had 3 man crew with 2 drivers, one for forward and one for reverse

The problem with a fixed gun mount is that it is slow to engage targets and you have to be traveling towards (or away from) the target, giving them a low deflection shot.\

Looking more at something that could be used as an assault gun against fortifications and other hard targets on the offensive and as a tank destroyer on the defensive. If you look at history Germany developed assault guns to support their Blitzkrieg offensive that eventually ended up being used as tank destroyers when they found them selves on the defensive. The Allies on the other had developed tank destroyers as a defensive weapon to blunt Blitzkrieg but switched to using them as assault guns in support of infantry once they were on the offensive. In neither case was speed of slewing the gun onto the target really an issue.

In a modern context you would have the RCS with an HMG or AGL to slew and engage the majority of targets rapidly, even in MOUT as I can’t imagine a MBT would be firing at you from a third storey window, with the main gun being used on specific hardened point targets at ground level.

These would be a DFS weapon for infantry and cavalry. This vehicle, lacking a turret, would have a very low profile, be shorter and narrower than a MBT or even an APC or AIFV so theoretically could have MBT level armour but weigh much less, half the size half the weight, but still have a high degree of mobility using a smaller engine.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Sounds almost like a modern version of the German/Czech "Hetzer" from WWII. With such a small vehicle you could have very high levels of armour and low gross vehicle weight. The key for urban mobility is reducing the width as much as possible.

PS you could make the main gun have very high elevation if you wanted to. In order to reduce width and internal volume you could mount the main gun externally along the roof. The breech could be at the rear of the tank with a loading arm from a magazine in the hull rear. The gun could then be elevated from 0 to 90 degrees with no problems with recoil. For depression you would need hydro-pneumatic suspension to kneel the AFV.

 

[Damian90]

Ohhh Kayyy so tell us all if your armour module has a lot of empty space in order to react against threats how much does this empty space weigh?

The problem is not in empty spaces, but the need to increase size of some of plates creating the armor box, for example top and bottom cover plates, these plates also have their weight.

What you have said has nothing to do with the original point. You are going on about the weight of armour modules per their degree of effectiveness. The whole point I tried to make was the design of the tank sans armour determines the surface area requiring armour which has a huge impact on gross vehicle weight between designs that may have the same level of armour. The classic example used is the Swedish S-Tank vs the British Centurion Mk 7. Both had the same level of armour thickness, firepower, mobility. But the S-Tank weighed in at under 40 tonnes and the Centurion at well over 50 tonnes because of the more volume efficient design of the S-Tank (no turret).

Yes, but You are comparing apples and oranges. Centurion and Strv103 used homogeneus armor, which was more space efficent. Compare turret front armor thickness of Centurion with for example M1A2.

In case of Centurion from the top view, You have only turret top armor as significant surface, while in case of M1A2, there are additional surfaces over top, these additional surfaces are from front and side turret composite armor cavities, and these cover plates are additional weight.

IMHO using older design that used simpler protection, as example and comparing them to vehicles with more modern protection, is not good idea.

No, no, yes, no and no.

The maximum weight for MGVs at cancellation was over 40 tonnes. Armour level was scalable via modules. With the highest module having protection greater than frontal armour of a M1A2. There was some debate as to whether these modules would be fitted to the MCS variant of MGV because of an operational concept of using it as a high speed, stand-off tank firing non line of sight weapons. However the ICV variant was to have the high level armour modules fitted to front and sides (which has now been carried over to the GCV).

Do You have any reliable source, that confirms this?

As to APS it was to be the primary active defence of the MGV and they can defeat APFSDS ammunition. Some types of APS are actually extremely effective against APFSDS rounds. It depends on the hard kill (HK) solution but something like the IMI Iron Fist will reduce the effectiveness of a 125mm APFSDS so that even a LAV class vehicle will resist it. The overloading argument is nonsense. Most APS concepts have the ability to defeat between 4-10 near simultaneous threats before needing crew reloading. Decoys can be easily rejected by the kind of threat detection systems used and targeting a tank with more than four near simultaneous threats in a combat situation by anything other than a purpose designed swarm weapon is near impossible.

1) Yes, some are capable to defeat APFSDS, although I doubt if LAV class vehicle is capable to survive a hit of even yawn penetrator.
2) It is not a problem if swarm weapons or tactics but just battlefield where we have a plenty of vehicles and soldiers firing to each other. Expecting that future battlefield will be only assymetric battlefield is in my opinion same naive thinking as it was in 1918 when there was wide spread belive that it was last war (in europe at least).

Tell that to all the armour designers of the last 20 years.

I am sure that they are perfectly aware of advantages given by CNT's and ADNR's, the problem is in manufacturing them in proper quanitites and forms, it might not be possible yet, but in future perhaps yes.

 

[Volkodav]

Sounds almost like a modern version of the German/Czech "Hetzer" from WWII. With such a small vehicle you could have very high levels of armour and low gross vehicle weight. The key for urban mobility is reducing the width as much as possible.

PS you could make the main gun have very high elevation if you wanted to. In order to reduce width and internal volume you could mount the main gun externally along the roof. The breech could be at the rear of the tank with a loading arm from a magazine in the hull rear. The gun could then be elevated from 0 to 90 degrees with no problems with recoil. For depression you would need hydro-pneumatic suspension to kneel the AFV.

You are a mind reader Abe, or perhaps I am just transparent. US Army Tank Destroyer battalions existed in both towed and self propelled types with the majority of losses suffered by the towed type while most kills and tactical versatility was achieved by the SP btns. A simple extrapolation would have been to replace towed AT guns with Hetzer type tank destroyers in all Infantry btns equipped with AT guns. Provide HE ammo in addition to AT and you have a decent SP assault gun as well.

I don’t care if they are embedded in the Infantry btns or whether they for part of a Cav Sqn supporting the infantry along with rec and APC elements, the fact remains is they make sense and would allow MBT to be used as they should be, concentrated and used for manoeuvre. What applied in WWII still applies now.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

The problem is not in empty spaces, but the need to increase size of some of plates creating the armor box, for example top and bottom cover plates, these plates also have their weight.

Yes but it’s a very small amount of weight as its just HHS plate 1-2 cm thick. The effect on GVW of adding extra depth to armour modules via the box only is tiny. Insignificant.

Yes, but You are comparing apples and oranges. Centurion and Strv103 used homogeneus armor, which was more space efficent. Compare turret front armor thickness of Centurion with for example M1A2.

In case of Centurion from the top view, You have only turret top armor as significant surface, while in case of M1A2, there are additional surfaces over top, these additional surfaces are from front and side turret composite armor cavities, and these cover plates are additional weight.

This is a crazy line of reasoning. Of all things that contribute weight to a contemporary tank design the metal for the depth in armour module boxes is negligible compared to the weight of armour used to face threats, vehicle structure and all of its components.

IMHO using older design that used simpler protection, as example and comparing them to vehicles with more modern protection, is not good idea.

Which wasn’t what I was doing. That you can’t understand what I was writing does not bode well for you having even the most simple understanding of AFV design.

The whole point of the S-Tank vs Centurion example was to demonstrate the importance of the configuration and size of internal volume which produces surface area. Said surface area determining how much area a tank needs to have armoured. It is entirely independent of the type of armour applied and its thickness. Be it RHA, BURLINGtON, or boiled leather hide. If a tank of one design only has half of the surface area needed to be armoured as another tank it will save a lot of weight.

Do You have any reliable source, that confirms this?

Yes lots of them but I’m not going to be doing all your research for you this early in the morning.

1) Yes, some are capable to defeat APFSDS, although I doubt if LAV class vehicle is capable to survive a hit of even yawn penetrator.

There is no such thing as a “yawn” penetrator but perhaps you are referring to “yaw”? That you knew of this yet claimed in a previous post that APS has little effect on APFSDS does not speak well, again, for your understanding. And yes even armour designed to resist HMGs (with a spall liner) will have little problem with a 125mm APFSDS hitting it with over 30 degrees of yaw. It won’t be pretty but life will go on for the target.

2) It is not a problem if swarm weapons or tactics but just battlefield where we have a plenty of vehicles and soldiers firing to each other. Expecting that future battlefield will be only assymetric battlefield is in my opinion same naive thinking as it was in 1918 when there was wide spread belive that it was last war (in europe at least).

More BS. This has nothing to do with asymmetric battlefields versus conventional warfare but with the realities of war.

I am sure that they are perfectly aware of advantages given by CNT's and ADNR's, the problem is in manufacturing them in proper quanitites and forms, it might not be possible yet, but in future perhaps yes.

You miss the point. In the past 20 years there have been significant breakthroughs in armour without application of nano technology.

 

[Damian90]

Yes but it’s a very small amount of weight as its just HHS plate 1-2 cm thick. The effect on GVW of adding extra depth to armour modules via the box only is tiny. Insignificant.

Without exact data of how much these plates weight and how many of them there are, such argument about being insignificant is not reasonable.

This is a crazy line of reasoning. Of all things that contribute weight to a contemporary tank design the metal for the depth in armour module boxes is negligible compared to the weight of armour used to face threats, vehicle structure and all of its components.

And did I said somewhere that these are insignificant? No, you have also right.

Maybe I should clear something here. I am not fighting with you, neither I am your enemy.

Yes lots of them but I’m not going to be doing all your research for you this early in the morning.

Well you claimed something, and this took my attention. So as I am interested in increasing my knowledge, then I humbly ask for sources, because nowhere I found such claims, but of course there might be something. So hopefully you will provide something, which I will be very thankfull.

There is no such thing as a “yawn” penetrator but perhaps you are referring to “yaw”? That you knew of this yet claimed in a previous post that APS has little effect on APFSDS does not speak well, again, for your understanding. And yes even armour designed to resist HMGs (with a spall liner) will have little problem with a 125mm APFSDS hitting it with over 30 degrees of yaw. It won’t be pretty but life will go on for the target.

Yes yaw. It is possible to stop such penetrator, but then again, question is how thick, hard, dense such armor need to be to stop such penetrator. Even with decreased penetration capabilities this is still junk of metal with big velocity and kinetic energy flying towards vehicle. So it is reasonable to ask such questions.

More BS. This has nothing to do with asymmetric battlefields versus conventional warfare but with the realities of war.

I don't understand why you call concerns about capabilities of APS as BS when there is a lot of projectiles flying towards vehicle? This is in my opinion very reasonable concern. This does not mean that I say, "hey military and engineers never had such concerns and attempted to solve this problem", but the question is if they solved it? If yest then good, if no, then how to solve it?

I must say that concept of Quick Kill APS was probably closest to that problem being solved, the VLS launchers have potential.

You miss the point. In the past 20 years there have been significant breakthroughs in armour without application of nano technology.

Yes there were, the question is however, where are limits for conventional materials?

Especially in terms of protection capabilities and weight.

 

[Abraham Gubler]

Without exact data of how much these plates weight and how many of them there are, such argument about being insignificant is not reasonable.

Garbage. It is just steel plate which is well established by OSINT and basic engineering practice. There is no great mass of weight hidden away in BURLINGTON armour tanks in the metal of containers of their armour modules.

Maybe I should clear something here. I am not fighting with you, neither I am your enemy.

I know that but you are making lots of in-correct statements. I have been pointing these out. It began with your claim that a contemporary IFV based tank would not be “heavy” enough to provide the same level of armour as the 1970s design tanks the world’s armies use today. I have been trying to point out how wrong this statement is and you have been ‘fighting’ a rear-guard action to defend your original statement.

 

[gf0012-aust]

This one is going on holiday for a while as its going around and around in circles