MBT-70 composite turret upgrade

[Phantom Fanatic]

Does anyone have Info on if there was ever a more slab sided turret proposed for the MBT-70? I am speaking specifically about a turret with composites. I might be wrong but the MBT-70 predated fully developed composite armor. Any answers would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Kat Tsun]

There was no such thing. XM803 focused on lowering costs by simplifying the fire control, suspension, and air defense armament. XM815 was a placeholder name for the M1 tank.

 

[Colonial-Marine]

There do seem to be a good number of photographs of the MBT-70 or XM803 with what is either armor added to the turret or weights with the likely goal of simulating some sort of additional armor.

 

[Andrei_bt]

Glass filler was installed in XM803 turret bustle sides to protect vs RPG as an addition to bar armor, it did not work. No composites in MBT70-XM803

 

[Kat Tsun]

There do seem to be a good number of photographs of the MBT-70 or XM803 with what is either armor added to the turret or weights with the likely goal of simulating some sort of additional armor.

There are weight simulators on the prototype at Aberdeen alone. They're there to simulate the weight of the uninstalled 20mm gun, ammunition, and missing fire control elements. I'm not even sure if the main gun is installed, since the tube lacks the fume extractor of the other prototypes, and the vehicle is a mild steel automotive prototype anyway.

MBT-70 was never going to have any Special Armor in its finished design. Whether it would get something like a Stillbrew kit or T-62M's applique is an open question.

XM815 was the shift from focus on austerity (XM803) to armor (Burlington) and was renamed XM1.

 

[Elan Vital]

There was some research on composite armor for MBT-70 at the time, they looked at polyethylene and boron carbide which doubled as radiation liners (or rather the added shaped charge protection was a bonus while radiation attenuation was the main goal).

However, PE was not present in sufficient thickness in the MBT-70 prototypes to stop shaped charges. MBT-70 used only 6-8 inches of PE, 1.5 inches of steel frontplate and 5" backplate in the turret while the array required to stop non-precision 105mm shaped charges was 1" steel-12" PE-4" steel at 60 degrees.

That said the PE would have helped against spall and HE.

For boron carbide it was estimated that using it would reduve the weight of the armor by 41% compared to a steel-only array.

 

[Firefinder]

Honestly considering how the Tank was designed.

It will likely be easier to design an entire new turret to fit in the hull that had Composites from the get go and drop that in place. That will largely protect the crew extremely well.

Irc the Front hull was basically a big old fuel tank since tge Driver was in the turret. So it shouldn't need that much HEAT protection thanks to being basically full on spaced armor. Put some era blocks on it and it be good for most threats from the 70s to early 00s.

Kinetic will still punch right thru that part through...

It will not be as good as a proper clean sheet design thru.

 

[Kat Tsun]

The primary threat the MBT-70 was designed to defeat was the 100mm BR-412, TBF. I guess if you really needed HEAT protection, you'd have a simple hardened steel flyer bolted onto the turret face, and ensconcing some polyurethane sheets, like BDD or Stillbrew.