M1 Abrams MBT Replacement

[Scott Kenny]

A new vehicle basis which weighs closer to 20tons not Griffin (a 40tn Ajax) able to fit different bodies and guns up to 155mm direct/indirect fire guns.

Had that, it was called Future Combat Systems Manned Ground Vehicles.

Tech wasn't there yet for the APS.

I'm not sure it's there now.

Hopefully, the Army saying 'power plant agnostic' is some glimmer, as clearly there still is no powerplant solution as current hybrids are a still a step backwards. Energy density for batteries is bad juju need Fuel directly to electricity w/ an efficient engine.

Having batteries in the system allows you to have a smaller overall engine. You leave the fuel engine spinning at whatever best-efficiency RPM is, and push any extra electricity generated above what the drivetrain needs to go into batteries. Then, when you need more power than your fuel engine can deliver, you tap the batteries for that boost. Depending on capacity of the battery pack, this may give you some distance you can run on pure batteries for max stealth.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The principal value of the Rafael presentation is addressing the big problem with tank operation namely the constricted visibility. A cockpit providing 360 degree visibility would be very desirable. Whether it's done better with panoramic displays or an F-35 style HMD is another matter.

I suspect that the HMD will happen first, but the panoramic display is likely to have less eye strain over time.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Though thinking about the constraints a bit, I think huge number cheap stowed kills can enable completely different engagement logic. One can start firing semi-blind into smoke, cover, and poorly localized radar signatures and likes. However with a big chemical gun is still too constrained by ammo count and such such tactic would probably have to wait till practical railguns. You probably also need an anti-sensor revolution for this to be actually useful.

Back to WW2 theories and lots of firing-for-suppression.

 

[Scott Kenny]

And in the '80s the M1 CATTB was fitted with a 1450hp Cummins XAV-28 V-12 diesel, but that thing was hella weird and used the same oil for cooling and lubrication.

That actually struck me as a really clever idea. Not least because your oil temps are going to be about 400degF and mean you can use a physically smaller radiator that is more tolerant of small holes in it.

 

[trajan]

Thirty years ago General Dynamics introduced a lightweight Abrams programme. Many of its elements are used in the current, "new" Abrams X and M10 MPF.
The US Army is still searching for forgotten gold in the junk heap of yesteryear

 

[Scott Kenny]

"The point of a robotic turret is that it doesn't need armoring lol".

So, you end up with a protected crew driving around in a pos vehicle and no means of defence or offence.

You can have a fully armored robotic turret if you don't want things like side protection or APS I guess. The M1 is more than half the mass of a Maus already. It will probably tip over into the triple digits once it gets the new armor package and 130mm gun, once you factor in the TUSK ERA, Trophy, and fluids/ammo load. With the mine rollers, TUSK ERA, and full ammo, M1A2 SEPv3 is sitting north of 90 tons. That's without the M1A2D's new armor package, which makes the turret even heavier.

So now the M1A2D is going to collapse the sewers under the streets it is driving on. Great.

It's not collapsing the bridges in the area that is the issue.

It's destroying the local infrastructure entirely because the tank is stupidly heavy.

Offload some of that armor mass into APS. No, more than that. APS can't intercept sabot rounds yet? Time to figure out how to make an APS that will.

Use multiple APS while we're at it, too, the same way modern ships have 4+ layers of hard kill antimissile defenses. Aside from the max range stuff like SM6 and SM2ER, a ship has basic SM2MR, ESSM, RAM, and finally CIWS. Not counting the soft kill defenses like chaff, flares, decoys, and jammers, which I note a general lack of on tanks.

Using modern APS just to give an example: SM2 corresponds to Quick Kill, conceptually. ESSM engages what gets past the SM2s, and Trophy corresponds to ESSM. RAM engages what got past the ESSMs, that's Arena. And finally the CIWS is the last ditch, that's Iron Curtain APS.

The trick is timing all of this, and figuring out if a given layer was effective or not when the total time from "incoming fired" to "impact" is all of 1 second.

 

[Scott Kenny]

I meant ammo expenditures for 2d ACR's tanks in ODS. I don't know what the British were shooting.

2d ACR weren't firing full ammo loads. It was closer to half between resupply periods. Which jives with the NTC ammo expenditures where M1s expend about 10-12 rounds per combat phase of training. Since ODS represents about the absolute state of tank on tank violence, being that one side so lopsided engaged and killed a multitude of targets, you probably aren't going to exceed ammo expenditures of that type, nor at the NTC, which tries to replicate portions of ODS. During NTC tanks usually expend 10 rounds in a offensive phase and 11 rounds in a defensive phase, which is half the main gun storage, before being resupplied or at the end of a day.

A future M1 could get away with a single belt/ribbon autoloader of 24 rounds with two natures of ammo: sabot and high explosive/AMP and not be too worried about ammunition use I think. This would definitely free up more space for armor or fuel or whatever.

The only question here is how much more commonly do M1s engage infantry targets in strongpoints with main gun rounds while supporting troops in infantry combat I guess. No one actually knows this answer AFAIK, but OIF didn't see an appreciably higher 120mm ammo use. It was an order of magnitude less 120mm ammo fired despite the deployed ground forces being closer to 1/4th.

Clearly the expenditures of main gun rounds proportionate to tanks in action has been diminishing, despite intensification of urban combat, so I don't think that urban fighting appreciably increases the amount of ammo used, as OIF saw a good amount of it in Baghdad, certainly more than Desert Storm.

View attachment 673426

View attachment 673427

As far as historical data goes it's probably fine to use this.

The study itself is kind of useless IMO because the author commits several bad statistical problems but it's a student's master's thesis for the military equivalent of a general education degree, not anything groundbreaking or important, so glaring errors can be forgiven I guess (he thinks you can cut the number of ammo trucks used in ODS by 80% because "they only shot 20% of the ammo they had on hand" as if it was evenly distributed across all wagons [which he notes himself lol]); the data itself, not the conclusions, is mostly sound though.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA451782.pdf

tl;dr History says that M1s have too many main gun rounds and probably too few machine gun rounds. This is similar to the Vietnam experience, where Pattons routinely ran out of ammunition for the machine guns and had to expend main gun rounds on infantry formations. It's partly why the M1 has almost double the .30 caliber ammunition load of an M48 or M60, but even that seems to be not enough.

Eh, that's 1/5 the total number of tanks firing 1/10 the total ammunition, which works out to the tanks in OIF firing half as much main gun ammo on average as the tanks in ODS.

Then again perhaps the M1's issues aren't the ammo load per se, but rather that the readily available machine gun rounds are still around 5,000 rounds, same as an M60, and requires reloading by the crew. A fully integrated might be a good idea, with the whole 11,000 rounds available for use by the crew. But that's a bit futuristic and still would require reorganization of the loader's compartment AFAIU.

I'm not sure that having all 11k rounds readily accessible is an improvement. How long does it take to reload the coax hopper? If you've already put all 5k rounds through your coax, it's likely time to scrap the barrel, too.

 

[Scott Kenny]

How many of the deployed [Abrams] carry ALL of that weight? LBH, the additional kit is distributed and while it sounds all very good when you add it all together it just does not happen. Or, can you show it all being fitted to every M1 please? As a way to develop the need to redistribute weight in the turret it is a good method, shame it just does not work in the real world.

Pretty sure Mine roller/plow/dozer blade is a one in 4 item, otherwise they're wearing all of that 24/7.

 

[Scott Kenny]

There is no electric motor strong enough to drive a tank, which is why the ACT exists in the first place?

You haven't been paying attention to the aviation folks, have you? Various organizations are making megawatt class electric motors for eVTOLs and other things, and they weigh under 100kg. The MIT one weighs less than 60kg.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Thirty years ago General Dynamics introduced a lightweight Abrams programme. Many of its elements are used in the current, "new" Abrams X and M10 MPF.
The US Army is still searching for forgotten gold in the junk heap of yesteryear.

I think that's because the technology just wasn't there to make it a fieldable item yet.

I mean, there's a request from WW2 for a gunner's sight that can see through smoke. When did thermal sights first become a thing, late 1970s?

 

[Andrei_bt]

Future Main Battle Tank Western Design Corporation.

 

[bobbymike]

Is anything being learned in Ukraine? Has there been tank on tank action? Tank vs. missile carrying APCs?

 

[jsport]

A new vehicle basis which weighs closer to 20tons not Griffin (a 40tn Ajax) able to fit different bodies and guns up to 155mm direct/indirect fire guns.

Had that, it was called Future Combat Systems Manned Ground Vehicles.

MCS (tank replacement) was only 120mm although even a 105mm significant rg (50km) indirect fire gun was proposed for MCS..

APS must be near perfect as 20t vehicle, even if the armor can withstand impact/penetration the shock will send the vehicle bouncing down the road like a toy--an issue a FCS grey beard raised.

Hopefully, the Army saying 'power plant agnostic' is some glimmer, as clearly there still is no powerplant solution as current hybrids are a still a step backwards. Energy density for batteries is bad juju need Fuel directly to electricity w/ an efficient engine.

Having batteries in the system allows you to have a smaller overall engine. You leave the fuel engine spinning at whatever best-efficiency RPM is, and push any extra electricity generated above what the drivetrain needs to go into batteries. Then, when you need more power than your fuel engine can deliver, you tap the batteries for that boost. Depending on capacity of the battery pack, this may give you some distance you can run on pure batteries for max stealth.

The wardens of Warren Mich know that battery SWAP is far away from being practical for 60ton behemoths but if u push/say it ur fired. Small batteries for short stealth maneuvers is all that has ever made sense.
google

Liquid hydrocarbons (fuels such as gasoline, diesel and kerosene) are today the densest way known to economically store and transport chemical energy at a large scale (1 kg of diesel fuel burns with the oxygen contained in ≈15 kg of air).

 

[jsport]

Future Main Battle Tank Western Design Corporation.

Though thinking about the constraints a bit, I think huge number cheap stowed kills can enable completely different engagement logic. One can start firing semi-blind into smoke, cover, and poorly localized radar signatures and likes. However with a big chemical gun is still too constrained by ammo count and such such tactic would probably have to wait till practical railguns. You probably also need an anti-sensor revolution for this to be actually useful.

Back to WW2 theories and lots of firing-for-suppression.

no need for different engagement logic, sensor based threat awareness is there, but you want a revenge shot capability if awareness comes too late. you dont want to risk any peeps/pax and you want resilience. ie a need for heavy surrogate

 

[GTX]

Israel makes Sabra so blueprints/specs/upgrades lighweighting are all easier cheaper options than a new robust heavy surrogate robotic vehicle.

Sabra was an upgrade package. You still need the base vehicle to begin with.

 

[jsport]

Israel makes Sabra so blueprints/specs/upgrades lighweighting are all easier cheaper options than a new robust heavy surrogate robotic vehicle.

Sabra was an upgrade package. You still need the base vehicle to begin with.

an unmanned GDLS M60-2000 would appear, from a distance like a Abrams as well, ie able to draw fire and thus inducing effective counterfire.

 

[Kat Tsun]

I meant ammo expenditures for 2d ACR's tanks in ODS. I don't know what the British were shooting.

2d ACR weren't firing full ammo loads. It was closer to half between resupply periods. Which jives with the NTC ammo expenditures where M1s expend about 10-12 rounds per combat phase of training. Since ODS represents about the absolute state of tank on tank violence, being that one side so lopsided engaged and killed a multitude of targets, you probably aren't going to exceed ammo expenditures of that type, nor at the NTC, which tries to replicate portions of ODS. During NTC tanks usually expend 10 rounds in a offensive phase and 11 rounds in a defensive phase, which is half the main gun storage, before being resupplied or at the end of a day.

A future M1 could get away with a single belt/ribbon autoloader of 24 rounds with two natures of ammo: sabot and high explosive/AMP and not be too worried about ammunition use I think. This would definitely free up more space for armor or fuel or whatever.

The only question here is how much more commonly do M1s engage infantry targets in strongpoints with main gun rounds while supporting troops in infantry combat I guess. No one actually knows this answer AFAIK, but OIF didn't see an appreciably higher 120mm ammo use. It was an order of magnitude less 120mm ammo fired despite the deployed ground forces being closer to 1/4th.

Clearly the expenditures of main gun rounds proportionate to tanks in action has been diminishing, despite intensification of urban combat, so I don't think that urban fighting appreciably increases the amount of ammo used, as OIF saw a good amount of it in Baghdad, certainly more than Desert Storm.

View attachment 673426

View attachment 673427

As far as historical data goes it's probably fine to use this.

The study itself is kind of useless IMO because the author commits several bad statistical problems but it's a student's master's thesis for the military equivalent of a general education degree, not anything groundbreaking or important, so glaring errors can be forgiven I guess (he thinks you can cut the number of ammo trucks used in ODS by 80% because "they only shot 20% of the ammo they had on hand" as if it was evenly distributed across all wagons [which he notes himself lol]); the data itself, not the conclusions, is mostly sound though.

https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA451782.pdf

tl;dr History says that M1s have too many main gun rounds and probably too few machine gun rounds. This is similar to the Vietnam experience, where Pattons routinely ran out of ammunition for the machine guns and had to expend main gun rounds on infantry formations. It's partly why the M1 has almost double the .30 caliber ammunition load of an M48 or M60, but even that seems to be not enough.

Eh, that's 1/5 the total number of tanks firing 1/10 the total ammunition, which works out to the tanks in OIF firing half as much main gun ammo on average as the tanks in ODS.

Then again perhaps the M1's issues aren't the ammo load per se, but rather that the readily available machine gun rounds are still around 5,000 rounds, same as an M60, and requires reloading by the crew. A fully integrated might be a good idea, with the whole 11,000 rounds available for use by the crew. But that's a bit futuristic and still would require reorganization of the loader's compartment AFAIU.

I'm not sure that having all 11k rounds readily accessible is an improvement. How long does it take to reload the coax hopper? If you've already put all 5k rounds through your coax, it's likely time to scrap the barrel, too.

Tank machine guns will need to go back to water (steam) cooling or have built-in swappable barrels like the Rheinmetal RMG 7.62.

 

[jsport]

Israel makes Sabra so blueprints/specs/upgrades lighweighting are all easier cheaper options than a new robust heavy surrogate robotic vehicle.

Sabra was an upgrade package. You still need the base vehicle to begin with.

an unmanned GDLS M60-2000 would appear, from a distance like a Abrams as well, ie able to draw fire and thus inducing effective counterfire.

M-60-2000 would be a NRE baseline form factor based on the M-60 when possible and designed as an unmanned tank which would still have open space for a driver and would not have high speed return fire as following manned M1s would do most of the shooting unless the concealment of the manned M1 is operational necessary.

 

[Scott Kenny]

A new vehicle basis which weighs closer to 20tons not Griffin (a 40tn Ajax) able to fit different bodies and guns up to 155mm direct/indirect fire guns.

Had that, it was called Future Combat Systems Manned Ground Vehicles.

MCS (tank replacement) was only 120mm although even a 105mm significant rg (50km) indirect fire gun was proposed for MCS..

NLOS-C was the 155mm gun on a 20ton chassis.

APS must be near perfect as 20t vehicle, even if the armor can withstand impact/penetration the shock will send the vehicle bouncing down the road like a toy--an issue a FCS grey beard raised.

Yup. Why I said that APS tech wasn't there at the time, and I'm not sure it's there now, even if we layered 2-3 APS on top of each other.

Hopefully, the Army saying 'power plant agnostic' is some glimmer, as clearly there still is no powerplant solution as current hybrids are a still a step backwards. Energy density for batteries is bad juju need Fuel directly to electricity w/ an efficient engine.

Having batteries in the system allows you to have a smaller overall engine. You leave the fuel engine spinning at whatever best-efficiency RPM is, and push any extra electricity generated above what the drivetrain needs to go into batteries. Then, when you need more power than your fuel engine can deliver, you tap the batteries for that boost. Depending on capacity of the battery pack, this may give you some distance you can run on pure batteries for max stealth.

The wardens of Warren Mich know that battery SWAP is far away from being practical for 60ton behemoths but if u push/say it ur fired. Small batteries for short stealth maneuvers is all that has ever made sense.
google

Liquid hydrocarbons (fuels such as gasoline, diesel and kerosene) are today the densest way known to economically store and transport chemical energy at a large scale (1 kg of diesel fuel burns with the oxygen contained in ≈15 kg of air).

Right. Engine sized for whatever the typical cross country "cruise" speed demands for horsepower, say 500hp or 850 or whatever it happens to be for off road at 50kph, but electric motors big enough to deliver at least 1500hp (assuming an Abrams sized vehicle). Batteries to make up the difference when you're really pushing it at 100kph off road.

Same way you can build a crazy good fuel economy hybrid car with a 50hp gas engine and 400hp electric motors.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Then again perhaps the M1's issues aren't the ammo load per se, but rather that the readily available machine gun rounds are still around 5,000 rounds, same as an M60, and requires reloading by the crew. A fully integrated might be a good idea, with the whole 11,000 rounds available for use by the crew. But that's a bit futuristic and still would require reorganization of the loader's compartment AFAIU.

I'm not sure that having all 11k rounds readily accessible is an improvement. How long does it take to reload the coax hopper? If you've already put all 5k rounds through your coax, it's likely time to scrap the barrel, too.

Tank machine guns will need to go back to water (steam) cooling or have built-in swappable barrels like the Rheinmetal RMG 7.62.

Nothing inherently wrong with that, not like a tank is going to notice 5 gallons of water.

 

[Kat Tsun]

It's a little less than a quart.

The prototype M240B's steam jacket was scarcely larger than an integrated silencer. It's far more elegant than the primitive RMG 7.62 system of a mechanical barrel swap, but the method of superheated steam/phase change cooling is not very interesting, at least until you get into quintuple digits of machine gun ammunition.

https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2017/armament/Kent19187.pdf

4,100 rounds over 20 minutes is nothing to sneeze at and comparable to expenditures of ammunition in some medium-intensity close combat cases. Wanat, Chechnya/Grozny, and some battles in Vietnam come to mind immediately, but that's specifically based on the first one.

However, tanks usually don't carry that much ammunition in the first place (the M1 is somewhat unique in carrying >10,000 rounds of coaxial ammunition; the Pattons only had like 7,000 rounds of .30 cal, which is still double European vehicles like Leopard 2 and Challenger) and the PCB jacket's designer was envisioning something like a robotic combat vehicle with 10-20,000 rounds of onboard ammunition in a single massive magazine.

So no, neither the tank, nor the infantryman, would notice it. The hard part is, obviously, finding a use for that sort of cooling capacity. That's a lot of ammunition and barrels add fairly little excess mass relative to their heat capacity already, so simply carrying a couple barrels for every box of ammo and finding a rain puddle is what is normally done.

This only makes sense in the case of a high density robotic or computer-aided machine gun where the mass of tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition is accounted for. So a tank (or RCV) coaxial is just about the only place where it's useful. Aircraft already have high air speeds working in their favor and dismounted combat troops can just lug more barrels. Tank crews are sort of stuck.

 

[Scott Kenny]

It's a little less than a quart.

The prototype M240B's steam jacket was scarcely larger than an integrated silencer. It's far more elegant than the primitive RMG 7.62 system of a mechanical barrel swap, but the method of superheated steam/phase change cooling is not very interesting, at least until you get into quintuple digits of machine gun ammunition.

https://ndiastorage.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net/ndia/2017/armament/Kent19187.pdf

View attachment 702744

4,100 rounds over 20 minutes is nothing to sneeze at and comparable to expenditures of ammunition in some medium-intensity close combat cases. Wanat, Chechnya/Grozny, and some battles in Vietnam come to mind immediately, but that's specifically based on the first one.

However, tanks usually don't carry that much ammunition in the first place (the M1 is somewhat unique in carrying >10,000 rounds of coaxial ammunition; the Pattons only had like 7,000 rounds of .30 cal) and the PCB jacket's designer was envisioning something like a robotic combat vehicle with 10-20,000 rounds of onboard ammunition in a single massive magazine.

So no, neither the tank, nor the infantryman, would notice it. The hard part is, obviously, finding a use for that sort of cooling capacity. That's a lot of ammunition and barrels add fairly little excess mass relative to their heat capacity already, so simply carrying a couple barrels for every box of ammo and finding a rain puddle is what is normally done.

This only makes sense in the case of a high density robotic or computer-aided machine gun where the mass of tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition is accounted for. So a tank (or RCV) coaxial is just about the only place where it's useful. Aircraft already have high air speeds working in their favor and dismounted combat troops can just lug more barrels. Tank crews are sort of stuck.

Oh, that's cool!

I went a little literal with the water cooling, clear back to Maxim or M1917.

 

[Kat Tsun]

A Maxim gun beats a PK if Debaltseve, Bakhmut, and Mariupol have anything to say about it. Infantry are still the preeminent combat arm closing in on 150 years of crushing cavalrymen and their spurs thanks to the socket bayonet and breech-loading rifle. They have yet to recover from the last time cavalrymen could effect significant battlefield change.

Even gas turbine engines and tracklaying field guns can't undo the damage done to the Stetson wearers by the trapdoor Springfield.

Tanks just need more coaxial ammunition, a magazine sufficient to deliver it in five-digit quantities, combined with the ability to lay their machine guns on a beaten zone and hose an area with bullets indirectly. Mechanical assaults are out, stormtroopers are in, and we're back to crawling on our bellies across no man's land.

The more things change the more they stay the same, and it seems really hard to break this cycle, at least when GI Joe can use ghillie suits made from Barracuda nets to hide from hyperspectral sensors and GMTI radars during his infiltration of the enemy trench.

 

[trajan]

By the way, in fact, apart from the XM91/M1X-based tailpipe autoloader. The US Army was actually testing a "thunderbolt" based on the XM8 AAM system as late as 2004. It is equipped with 18+1 rounds and is used with the XM291 120mm gun. Rate of fire 12 rounds per minute

IT first shown in 2003 AUSA

 

[jsport]

Abrams based IFV fictional artist impression

 

[Scott Kenny]

By the way, in fact, apart from the XM91/M1X-based tailpipe autoloader. The US Army was actually testing a "thunderbolt" based on the XM8 AAM system as late as 2004. It is equipped with 18+1 rounds and is used with the XM291 120mm gun. Rate of fire 12 rounds per minute

IT first shown in 2003 AUSA

Ah, that's another reason why the MPF went with 105mm. M8 AGS with the 105 held 31. That's a pretty severe loss of stored kills, and it's about 2 less than the usual NTC course of fire.

And personally, I prefer the M1TTB autoloader/unmanned turret. Too bad it's in really rough shape right now, but it is on the list to be cleaned up and restored at the US Army Tank Collection.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Thunderbolt was a United Defense thing not a U.S. Army thing. The U.S. Army lost interest in M8 in 1998. Thunderbolt tested a hybrid-electric drive (for the FCS program, no less). Lightning Bolt tested the electro-thermal chemical ETIPPS generator/capacitor bank in a modified bustle rack. The most interest the U.S. Army had in M8 after the bid failed was the driver's hatch, which was similar to the one eventually used on the FCS MGV, in all seriousness.

That itself might just be UD's common design philosophy though. The FCS tankettes owed a lot of their general layout to M8.

Stored kills also aren't really important outside of shooting ranges, honestly. MPF went with 105mm because its purpose is to act as a MGS for IBCTs. There's plenty of 105mm HEP sitting around. There's barely any AMP rounds, much less HEAT-MP, though. That's about the only reason.

Killing tanks is something it would be uniquely bad at. Tanks are why the Infantry have the TOW and Javelin.

 

[Elan Vital]

Thunderbolt was a United Defense thing not a U.S. Army thing. The U.S. Army lost interest in M8 in 1998. Thunderbolt tested a hybrid-electric drive (for the FCS program, no less). Lightning Bolt tested the electro-thermal chemical ETIPPS generator/capacitor bank in a modified bustle rack. The most interest the U.S. Army had in M8 after the bid failed was the driver's hatch, which was similar to the one eventually used on the FCS MGV, in all seriousness.

That itself might just be UD's common design philosophy though. The FCS tankettes owed a lot of their general layout to M8.

Stored kills also aren't really important outside of shooting ranges, honestly. MPF went with 105mm because its purpose is to act as a MGS for IBCTs. There's plenty of 105mm HEP sitting around. There's barely any AMP rounds, much less HEAT-MP, though. That's about the only reason.

Killing tanks is something it would be uniquely bad at. Tanks are why the Infantry have the TOW and Javelin.

People keep claiming ammo load was the reason for the 105, but AFAIK the RFP had absolutely nothing on the required ammo capacity. The choice of 105 might be far more mundane: the companies deemed it will be enough so didn't bother pushing for a 120.

 

[Firefinder]

Stored kills also aren't really important outside of shooting ranges, honestly. MPF went with 105mm because its purpose is to act as a MGS for IBCTs. There's plenty of 105mm HEP sitting around. There's barely any AMP rounds, much less HEAT-MP, though. That's about the only reason.

Actually store kills is a pretty major issue.

What the M10 is basically replacing was the Stryker Main Gun System in role if not deployment .

Which had 18 shots.

Which the Crews HATED in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Traingcause they were constantly running out of ammo. Forcing them to run back to the FOB to resupply. Taking them off their primary role.

Derping 105mm into buildings.

Which is the M10s, and M1s for that matter, primary job.

Which ss seen in Ukraine?

Is a job that needs doing ALOT.

Also needs to be pointed out that the Amp shells hit prime time 2 years back, thats no where near enough time to offset the what?

20 to 40 years of the older ammo production.

Even with the Age out in full effect, going to take another five years at least for the AMP shells to fully supplant the older types.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Thunderbolt was a United Defense thing not a U.S. Army thing. The U.S. Army lost interest in M8 in 1998. Thunderbolt tested a hybrid-electric drive (for the FCS program, no less). Lightning Bolt tested the electro-thermal chemical ETIPPS generator/capacitor bank in a modified bustle rack. The most interest the U.S. Army had in M8 after the bid failed was the driver's hatch, which was similar to the one eventually used on the FCS MGV, in all seriousness.

That itself might just be UD's common design philosophy though. The FCS tankettes owed a lot of their general layout to M8.

Stored kills also aren't really important outside of shooting ranges, honestly. MPF went with 105mm because its purpose is to act as a MGS for IBCTs. There's plenty of 105mm HEP sitting around. There's barely any AMP rounds, much less HEAT-MP, though. That's about the only reason.

Killing tanks is something it would be uniquely bad at. Tanks are why the Infantry have the TOW and Javelin.

People keep claiming ammo load was the reason for the 105, but AFAIK the RFP had absolutely nothing on the required ammo capacity. The choice of 105 might be far more mundane: the companies deemed it will be enough so didn't bother pushing for a 120.

Yeah, no one looked at the ammo load. I think they said "120mm is nice but not necessary" and 105mm has more availability of rounds. Both in terms of natures of ammunition and simple availability. That's an automatic shoe-in for it.

Stored kills also aren't really important outside of shooting ranges, honestly. MPF went with 105mm because its purpose is to act as a MGS for IBCTs. There's plenty of 105mm HEP sitting around. There's barely any AMP rounds, much less HEAT-MP, though. That's about the only reason.

Actually store kills is a pretty major issue.

What the M10 is basically replacing was the Stryker Main Gun System in role if not deployment .

Which had 18 shots.

Which the Crews HATED in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Traingcause they were constantly running out of ammo. Forcing them to run back to the FOB to resupply. Taking them off their primary role.

Derping 105mm into buildings.

Which is the M10s, and M1s for that matter, primary job.

Which ss seen in Ukraine?

Is a job that needs doing ALOT.

Also needs to be pointed out that the Amp shells hit prime time 2 years back, thats no where near enough time to offset the what?

20 to 40 years of the older ammo production.

Even with the Age out in full effect, going to take another five years at least for the AMP shells to fully supplant the older types.

18 shots is enough for bunker busting and infantry support. By the time you fire them in a major ground war, like China or Russia, half your company will be WIA and a quarter KIA. By the time you'd fire 18 rounds in Iraq or Afghanistan you'd have gone through half your tour probably.

If McMaster wasn't expending full ammo loads in his thunder run, and 2 ID wasn't doing the same in Baghdad, then guys definitely weren't doing it in Iraq or Afghanistan's occupations where individual shells were tracked and you'd get your ass chewed for firing a single 120mm round from an attached M1 because the battalion commander is mad about "wasting ammo we might need". Like my dude, you haven't fired a round since June and it's almost August, come on.

Anyway I'm pretty sure the Mobile Gun System was jamming, not running out of ammo, because GDLS never fixed it.

If anyone actually ever fired a full ammo load from the thing without jamming that in itself would be marginally newsworthy tbh.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Thunderbolt was a United Defense thing not a U.S. Army thing. The U.S. Army lost interest in M8 in 1998. Thunderbolt tested a hybrid-electric drive (for the FCS program, no less). Lightning Bolt tested the electro-thermal chemical ETIPPS generator/capacitor bank in a modified bustle rack. The most interest the U.S. Army had in M8 after the bid failed was the driver's hatch, which was similar to the one eventually used on the FCS MGV, in all seriousness.

That itself might just be UD's common design philosophy though. The FCS tankettes owed a lot of their general layout to M8.

Stored kills also aren't really important outside of shooting ranges, honestly. MPF went with 105mm because its purpose is to act as a MGS for IBCTs. There's plenty of 105mm HEP sitting around. There's barely any AMP rounds, much less HEAT-MP, though. That's about the only reason.

Killing tanks is something it would be uniquely bad at. Tanks are why the Infantry have the TOW and Javelin.

People keep claiming ammo load was the reason for the 105, but AFAIK the RFP had absolutely nothing on the required ammo capacity. The choice of 105 might be far more mundane: the companies deemed it will be enough so didn't bother pushing for a 120.

Yeah, no one looked at the ammo load. I think they said "120mm is nice but not necessary" and 105mm has more availability of rounds. Both in terms of natures of ammunition and simple availability. That's an automatic shoe-in for it.

Stored kills also aren't really important outside of shooting ranges, honestly. MPF went with 105mm because its purpose is to act as a MGS for IBCTs. There's plenty of 105mm HEP sitting around. There's barely any AMP rounds, much less HEAT-MP, though. That's about the only reason.

Actually store kills is a pretty major issue.

What the M10 is basically replacing was the Stryker Main Gun System in role if not deployment .

Which had 18 shots.

Which the Crews HATED in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Traingcause they were constantly running out of ammo. Forcing them to run back to the FOB to resupply. Taking them off their primary role.

Derping 105mm into buildings.

Which is the M10s, and M1s for that matter, primary job.

Which ss seen in Ukraine?

Is a job that needs doing ALOT.

Also needs to be pointed out that the Amp shells hit prime time 2 years back, thats no where near enough time to offset the what?

20 to 40 years of the older ammo production.

Even with the Age out in full effect, going to take another five years at least for the AMP shells to fully supplant the older types.

18 shots is enough for bunker busting and infantry support. By the time you fire them in a major ground war, like China or Russia, half your company will be WIA and a quarter KIA. By the time you'd fire 18 rounds in Iraq or Afghanistan you'd have gone through half your tour probably.

If McMaster wasn't expending full ammo loads in his thunder run, and 2 ID wasn't doing the same in Baghdad, then guys definitely weren't doing it in Iraq or Afghanistan's occupations where individual shells were tracked and you'd get your ass chewed for firing a single 120mm round from an attached M1 because the battalion commander is mad about "wasting ammo we might need". Like my dude, you haven't fired a round since June and it's almost August, come on.

Anyway I'm pretty sure the Mobile Gun System was jamming, not running out of ammo, because GDLS never fixed it.

If anyone actually ever fired a full ammo load from the thing without jamming that in itself would be marginally newsworthy tbh.

Friend of mine was in Strykers for Afghanistan 2010, IIRC. He said that the GDLS had a whole company of engineers at one or more bases in country, trying to keep the MGS loader working, but never managed to do so.

 

[Kat Tsun]

Yeah I think the issue was three fold: the carousel's bins were improperly sized for the 105mm (not enough support at the lower end) which caused the shells to jiggle, the floor plate of the turret (or magazine) was too thin and jammed up, and the rim grabber would extract shells without a proper grip.

Put together that means that the shells would slide into position either too far or too short, then be at a bad angle, and get grabbed by the grabber. It would retract on its little racetrack back to the bustle of the turret where the rammer lives, but the shell ends up getting caught somewhere in the track because the grabber has a poor grip on it, or get caught during the ejection cycle in less common cases.

So you had to disassemble the whole thing when this happened, by removing the turret, and it happened a lot. Usually occurred if the wagon was mobile when reloading or if the turret was rotating AIUI.

That's how it was explained to be in a phone call anyway.

GDLS and the Army both knew what was up but GDLS was asking way more than the Army's engineers at Benet or Picatinny thought it was worth to fix their own mistakes then the new V-hull Strykers made it irrelevant anyway.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Yeah I think the issue was three fold: the carousel's bins were improperly sized for the 105mm (not enough support at the lower end) which caused the shells to jiggle, the floor plate of the turret (or magazine) was too thin and jammed up, and the rim grabber would extract shells without a proper grip.

Put together that means that the shells would slide into position either too far or too short, then be at a bad angle, and get grabbed by the grabber. It would retract on its little racetrack back to the bustle of the turret where the rammer lives, but the shell ends up getting caught somewhere in the track because the grabber has a poor grip on it, or get caught during the ejection cycle in less common cases.

So you had to disassemble the whole thing when this happened, by removing the turret, and it happened a lot. Usually occurred if the wagon was mobile when reloading or if the turret was rotating AIUI.

That's how it was explained to be in a phone call anyway.

I didn't get that much detail, other than "a full engineering company of GDLS mechanics and engineers can't get and keep the things working! [rant rant cuss]!!!!"

GDLS and the Army both knew what was up but GDLS was asking way more than the Army's engineers at Benet or Picatinny thought it was worth to fix their own mistakes then the new V-hull Strykers made it irrelevant anyway.

Which is somewhat unfortunate, but I guess the Strykers are last in line to get MPF since the MGS will work for a few rounds, even if they've pulled most of the MGS out of the Company level and assigned 9 of them to Brigade instead of the 27 they used to have.

 

[Kat Tsun]

The MGS are actually heading to Ukraine in a few months. Some are already there. The Stryker units will need to make do with more TOWs and Javelins instead, and they luckily have TOW-BBs with the tank destroyers.

This is still easier than what the IBCTs get which is some dumpy Humvees and a 5-ton, and eventually, a glorified CUCV.

 

[Prophet141]

Buy the Meerkava and develope it, they OWE the US big time. Pretty sure the concept could come up with something more than usable as the Namer came out OK.

The Merkava is a good tank if you want to defend your own country (or drive a short distance into the next one) but is a poor choice for a nation that has a habit of making expeditions all around the world. It's wider than many similar MBTs, and in general isn't designed for the same purpose.

 

[Prophet141]

Yeah I think the issue was three fold: the carousel's bins were improperly sized for the 105mm (not enough support at the lower end) which caused the shells to jiggle, the floor plate of the turret (or magazine) was too thin and jammed up, and the rim grabber would extract shells without a proper grip.

Two of these things sounds like poor quality control or under engineered components. Can't they just thicken the floor (You wouldn't need to add much steel to make it stronger) and add some padding to the ammunition bins? They'd had decades to develop this particular gun system (given that to my knowledge it's descended from the same one on the expeditionary tank from the 1980s).

 

[Kat Tsun]

"Poor quality control" and "under engineered components" describes a lot of American (and Canadian) products, yes.

The Expeditionary Tank, and Teledyne's turret in particular, never actually functioned properly. It (the turret, but also the tank) went through a rather torturous development phase and shifted hands of ownership almost as often as the factory lot it sat in. Mobile Gun System addressed the bulk of issues besides the problem with ammunition storage and weak shell handling during transfer from the magazine to the breech rammer-loader: the ammunition replenisher and the ability to rotate the drum.

The things remaining were well known and fairly simple to fix if you were willing to replace everything for a third time. The cost quoted was too high for the Army to absorb, probably because GDLS Ontario was trying to grift them. Stryker itself already has a rather significant cost increase over the LAV III it's made from. Maybe they counted in CAD$ and quoted as USD$ to get a free 25% profit margin? Who knows.

When Mobile Gun System became too heavy to use the new V-hull the MGS fate was sealed: Why spend money on a dead end weapon system? Just use it until the hulls wear out and fob it off onto an unsuspecting ally or send it to the scrapyard. Not an ideal solution but America isn't good at the whole "war economy" thing.

In an ideal world, it would have just bought Armored Gun Systems for the Stryker brigades, like it wanted in 1988 for the 9th ID (MTZ).

 

[Elan Vital]

"Poor quality control" and "under engineered components" describes a lot of American (and Canadian) products, yes.

The Expeditionary Tank, and Teledyne's turret in particular, never actually functioned properly. It (the turret, but also the tank) went through a rather torturous development phase and shifted hands of ownership almost as often as the factory lot it sat in. Mobile Gun System addressed the bulk of issues besides the problem with ammunition storage and weak shell handling during transfer from the magazine to the breech rammer-loader: the ammunition replenisher and the ability to rotate the drum.

The things remaining were well known and fairly simple to fix if you were willing to replace everything for a third time. The cost quoted was too high for the Army to absorb, probably because GDLS Ontario was trying to grift them. Stryker itself already has a rather significant cost increase over the LAV III it's made from. Maybe they counted in CAD$ and quoted as USD$ to get a free 25% profit margin? Who knows.

When Mobile Gun System became too heavy to use the new V-hull the MGS fate was sealed: Why spend money on a dead end weapon system? Just use it until the hulls wear out and fob it off onto an unsuspecting ally or send it to the scrapyard. Not an ideal solution but America isn't good at the whole "war economy" thing.

In an ideal world, it would have just bought Armored Gun Systems for the Stryker brigades, like it wanted in 1988 for the 9th ID (MTZ).

I remember you or someone else saying the Army lost interest in the M8. Did you mean the entire brass thought the M8 was bad or just Shinseki who was already dreaming of FCS and also had to save money somewhere to keep some 300 000 soldiers (allegedly that's what was at risk if M8 kept being funded, due to budget cuts)?

 

[Prophet141]

Black Knight looks like a miniature M-1.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUn0qit99IE

Seems like a very bloated vehicle now that every light vehicle can have a 30mm RWS stuffed on top.

Armor that protected not the weapon, the sensors, the communications, the running gear, or any men is almost completely pointless. What is armor protecting really, the engine and transmission? But this isn't 1930 where the engine can be precious and a bottleneck.

----
The lynx family probably have a lower risk concept that works better:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17pmxNHqpJ0


Note the seats on the vehicles, and the low total weight. It is one where where crew can dismount to fight but still generally be collocated for all the support tasks and deal with communication issues.

Protecting the hull isn't about the engine being expensive, it's about it being a mission critical piece of hardware. The question is why isn't the armour just contoured to the particular item it needs? In a crewed tank it needs to be an armoured box, that's the most weight efficient way of creating a protected space for components and crew. In an unmanned drone you can have an armoured box around the engine (and batteries/fuel), an armoured transmission, a barbette protecting the turret and some armour on top to protect the gun itself, again contoured around the gun. The armour itself is never going to stand up to a modern anti-tank missile so just make it immune to, say, 25mm NATO. Everything else is just a cover that might be immune to 7.62. That entire front end could be spaced armour (which might actually be useful against simple RPGs and the like, which in a lower threat environment are as dangerous as you'd be likely to find).

But I'm not an expert on anything.

 

[Kat Tsun]

"Poor quality control" and "under engineered components" describes a lot of American (and Canadian) products, yes.

The Expeditionary Tank, and Teledyne's turret in particular, never actually functioned properly. It (the turret, but also the tank) went through a rather torturous development phase and shifted hands of ownership almost as often as the factory lot it sat in. Mobile Gun System addressed the bulk of issues besides the problem with ammunition storage and weak shell handling during transfer from the magazine to the breech rammer-loader: the ammunition replenisher and the ability to rotate the drum.

The things remaining were well known and fairly simple to fix if you were willing to replace everything for a third time. The cost quoted was too high for the Army to absorb, probably because GDLS Ontario was trying to grift them. Stryker itself already has a rather significant cost increase over the LAV III it's made from. Maybe they counted in CAD$ and quoted as USD$ to get a free 25% profit margin? Who knows.

When Mobile Gun System became too heavy to use the new V-hull the MGS fate was sealed: Why spend money on a dead end weapon system? Just use it until the hulls wear out and fob it off onto an unsuspecting ally or send it to the scrapyard. Not an ideal solution but America isn't good at the whole "war economy" thing.

In an ideal world, it would have just bought Armored Gun Systems for the Stryker brigades, like it wanted in 1988 for the 9th ID (MTZ).

I remember you or someone else saying the Army lost interest in the M8. Did you mean the entire brass thought the M8 was bad or just Shinseki who was already dreaming of FCS and also had to save money somewhere to keep some 300 000 soldiers (allegedly that's what was at risk if M8 kept being funded, due to budget cuts)?

The Army lost interest in a very literal sense of "we don't consider this item suitable for mass production" until the MPF requirement showed up? It was extremely interested in the Armored Gun System from 1984 to 1996, when the program ended, or whatever timeline was. It was about 12 years.