Tanks converted to APCs?

JWilly said:
therefore de facto a wheeled light tank for the Cavalry branch
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I appreciate the clarification. It's a rather bad habit to grown up under the usual assumption that a "true" tank would need to have treads, even though the literal definition is often called to as "an armored fighting vehicle for front-line compact" and quite a lot of things could simply fit under that umbrella of a term.

Still, though, thank you for the clarification.
 
JWilly said:
Panhard also is said to have planned a Cavalry personnel carrier version of the successor-to-201 vehicle...the same concept that after the war became the EBR ETT.
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Before the war, Panhard had also a dedicated APC truck, the Panhard 165 CBP (camion blindé Panhard) developed on the basis of the colonial armored car 165/175 TOE (théâtres d'opérations extérieures).
The CBP carried driver, commander, gunner and 10 dismounts or a GPMG squad. They served with the 1er REC (Camerone) during the Anti-Atlas insurrection.

fr.wikipedia.org

Panhard 165/175 — Wikipédia

fr.wikipedia.org fr.wikipedia.org
 

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Ravinoff said:
Whew, big update here on the Ladoga NBC-protected vehicle I posted a while back. Came across a site today that I believe only recently got translated into English (I've Google-translated it before for some obscure Russian armaments) with a pretty big article on the Ladoga with design details and...well, I'll get to the other thing in a minute.

https://en.topwar.ru/173623-zaschita-dlja-ladogi.html

Translation is a little rough, I think probably machine-translated, but there's some fascinating stuff in here.
  • Based on the T-80 MBT as I mentioned previously, essentially being a new superstructure on the hull in place of a turret.
  • Fully NBC-protected with filtered air intakes, also has a self-contained air supply system fed from a compressed air cylinder. Turbine engine is effectively self-cleaning, running with no filters and modified internals to basically dump any contaminants out the exhaust. Drivers use external cameras and periscopes to stay buttoned up. And the whole thing has a boron-based radiation shield lining the armor.
  • VIP transport was only one application, it was also made to function as a mobile command post or recon vehicle.
But here's the real kicker: they actually field-tested the damn thing. And not just the usual driving it around a test area, they had this thing crawling the Karakorum Desert and northern Siberia. And then they tested it in a live radiation hazard area. Yeah, you know where this is going. April 26, 1986, the Chernobyl No. 4 reactor suffers a critical failure resulting in an explosion and meltdown. On May 3rd, they flew a Ladoga unit in from Leningrad. By the 5th, it was doing reconnaissance in the contaminated zone, through areas hitting 1000 roentgen/hour. And apparently that still wasn't enough, because in the course of the four months it operated in the Chernobyl NPP area, they took it as far in as the (still wide-open) reactor building, where the external conditions registered an eye-watering 2500 roentgen/hr. It naturally required decontamination every time they brought it back, but there were no issues noted and that specific vehicle was scrubbed and returned to Leningrad. Pictured below is that vehicle, Ladoga "317", allegedly during its exploration of the exclusion zone.

View attachment 639190
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That's fascinating and more than a little horrifying...
 
Mark V * - British heavy tank during the First World War. It is a front-line modification of the Mark V heavy tank.
In an attempt to stop the tank threat, the German army began to dig wider trenches that made it difficult for tanks to cross. For example, the trenches on the Hindenburg Line were expanded to 11 or 12 feet (3.4 or 3.7 m), which exceeded the trench-crossing capability of British tanks by 10 feet (3.0 m). To counter this, Sir William Tritton developed the "tadpole tail", an extension of the tracks to fit on the rear of the Mark IV tank, which lengthened the tank by about 9 feet (2.7 m). Although 300 shank sets were sent to France in the spring of 1918, they were never installed and the design was never used in combat.

This, in turn, prompted Major Philip Johnson from the workshops of the Central Tank Corps to develop his own plan in early 1918. He cut the Mark IV in half and inserted three additional panels, lengthening the entire hull by six feet. Three cars were modified in this way. (For a long time it was thought that most Mark V*s were field conversions made by Johnson. In fact, they were all new, factory new designs.) The Mark V* featured a reshaped rear turret with two additional machine gun mounts, a door on each side of the hull with an additional machine gun mount on each side. This tank weighed 33 tons.

The extra space also allowed up to fourteen men to be carried in addition to the standard crew: the 1st Battalion, Royal Tank Regiment claimed that 2 Lewis guns with a two-man crew could be squeezed in; 2 Vickers guns with a crew of four; plus an infantry reconnaissance officer and an officer. However, as described above, they tended to be exposed to smoke-filled atmospheres.

The total order for the Mark V* was 500 men and 200 women, 579 built under the Armistice – the order was completed by Metropolitan Carriage in March 1919. Shortly before the end of the war, Britain delivered 100 vehicles to France. Mk V* (80 males and 20 females). They were not used in action, but remained in French service throughout the 1920s. Discharged from active service in 1930, they were left in storage to have heavy tanks to discard in case the Conference on Arms Reduction and Limitation required it.

Because the Mark V* was lengthened, its original length-to-width ratio was messed up. The lateral forces in the turn now became unacceptably high, which led to the dropping of tracks and a huge turning radius. So Major Wilson redesigned the track in May 1918 with a stronger camber to the bottom, reducing ground contact (but increasing ground pressure as a compromise), and the tracks were widened to 26.5 inches (67 cm). The Mark V engine was bored out to 225 hp. (168 kW) and located further in the building. The driver's cab was combined with the commander's cab; now there was a separate machine-gun position behind. Of the revised order for 700 tanks (150 females and 550 males), only 25 were built, and only one of them by the end of 1918
Male Mark V*, number 9591, has been part of the collection of the National Armored and Cavalry Museum at Fort Benning, Georgia since 2010. Issued to Company A of the US 301st Heavy Tank Battalion and hit with 57 mm (2.2 in). on September 27, 1918, during the attack on the Hindenburg Line, it was repaired and sent back to the United States. This is the only surviving Mark V*.

Mark_V_star_7.jpg Mark_V_star_6.jpg


Mk V * can be considered, if not a forerunner, then a distant prototype of the BMP
Mk V * even managed to be nicknamed the "Trojan horse of the Tank Corps" (45 years later, the British will give the name "Trougen" to the tracked armored personnel carrier FV432)
 
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monochromelody said:
A prototype from FVRDE, not the British one, but India DRDO's FVRDE.
Inspired by captured Pakistan M113, India tried to built an APC on AMX 13's running gears, the APC 70. They also built an SPG variant.
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I'd love to know more about this program, I'm not finding anything on it
 
prof12 said:
Mk V * can be considered, if not a forerunner, then a distant prototype of the BMP
Mk V * even managed to be nicknamed the "Trojan horse of the Tank Corps" (45 years later, the British will give the name "Trougen" to the tracked armored personnel carrier FV432)
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New information, always a gift. Thank you.
 
GTX said:
www.armyrecognition.com

Israeli Ministry of Defense unveils Namer 1500 next-generation APC Armored Personnel Carrier | Defense News June 2023 Global Security army industry | Defense Security global news industry army year 2023 | Archive News year

Israeli Ministry of Defense (MoD) released a video on June 22, 2023, introducing its newest addition to the Namer APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) family: the Namer 1500.
www.armyrecognition.com www.armyrecognition.com
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Touchscreens?

No. You have to LOOK at a touchscreen. You can't work it by feel.
 
Scott Kenny said:
Touchscreens?

No. You have to LOOK at a touchscreen. You can't work it by feel.
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Not to worry because braille screens are only another year or two in the future. They are still working out how to electronically raise the bumps.
Hah!
Hah!
 
apparition13 said:
Depends on the task. Driving, or firing the armament? No. Using the computers? Sometimes mice work better, sometimes keyboards, sometimes touchscreens.
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Any task that you may have to do without looking demands physical buttons or knobs, and some intelligence in how you set up the knobs at that. Example: The M8 MPF fire control system has settings for something like 6 different types of ammunition. Sabot is all the way left, HEAT is all the way right. So you can twist the knob all the way to the left without looking and always get the Sabot loaded, or all the way to the right and always get HEAT loaded without looking. HEAT and Sabot are the two "oh, crap!" round types you will run into, the others you will have time to physically look and verify switch positions.
 
My very basic issue/provlem with the army I was in, was the lack of training/practice doing the tasks within the vehicle. Call it muscle memory or just basic rehearsal, you should as a vehicle crewman, be able to 'just do' any of the tasks simply by re3acting to the needs of the tactical situation.

The military is far too blase about this and put simply, does anyone think a crew of a supersoninc aircraft, have the luxury of having the time to think about the location of the next input required? Even formula one drivers have something like thirty switches and buttons on their steering wheel.

200 mph and coming up to a corner, do you have time to think about where the brake balance button is?

Lack of trade training refresh is part of the reason I left and it apparently is no better.
 
apparition13 said:
Depends on the task. Driving, or firing the armament? No. Using the computers? Sometimes mice work better, sometimes keyboards, sometimes touchscreens.
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Touchscreens are cheap. Cheaper than buttons. They have no use beyond that and have directly been responsible for at least one historically notable fatal incident in military service.

They are good if you want to skim money off the development budget to pad your own checkbook but that's about it. They are actively dangerous if you have to operate them in combat, and will get people killed, which is why good combat systems don't rely on them. Ideally no one would use them period, but Star Trek TNG was really popular in the 1980's and led to JSF and V-22 getting touch screens.
 
Kat Tsun said:
Touchscreens are cheap. Cheaper than buttons. They have no use beyond that and have directly been responsible for at least one historically notable fatal incident in military service.

They are good if you want to skim money off the development budget to pad your own checkbook but that's about it. They are actively dangerous if you have to operate them in combat, and will get people killed, which is why good combat systems don't rely on them. Ideally no one would use them period, but Star Trek TNG was really popular in the 1980's and led to JSF and V-22 getting touch screens.
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Yup.

Like I said. Anything you have to operate without looking needs to be a physical switch or knob, with detents so you can feel the position!
 
Scott Kenny said:
Yup.

Like I said. Anything you have to operate without looking needs to be a physical switch or knob, with detents so you can feel the position!
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I suspect the feedback from fans will be to suggest haptic feedback operation but then, reducing operator overload has never been in their dictionary. This is why I come back to "Have you ever tried to do the job as you suggest while sleep deprived and stressed with imminent death etc"?

The belief is that "The serving soldier will just have to suck it up and get over it". Etc etc.

I was invited to talk to students and faculty of a UK educational establishment but then we had lockdown so that never happened. Suggestion, get these folk to live the environment, with the same fatigue etc levels THEN design the systems. For example, the sound of fans for radio etc systems is just at that pitch to encourage a headache/migraine.

Do folk designing these systems even THINK about that aspect of engineering. No, back to the operators having to suck it up and get on with it. Always happy to reduce the chances of the operator doing a good job and then blaiming failure on said operators.

Sorry, went on a bit too much.
 
Foo Fighter said:
I was invited to talk to students and faculty of a UK educational establishment but then we had lockdown so that never happened. Suggestion, get these folk to live the environment, with the same fatigue etc levels THEN design the systems. For example, the sound of fans for radio etc systems is just at that pitch to encourage a headache/migraine.

Do folk designing these systems even THINK about that aspect of engineering. No, back to the operators having to suck it up and get on with it. Always happy to reduce the chances of the operator doing a good job and then blaiming failure on said operators.

Sorry, went on a bit too much.
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Oh Lord yes please!!!!
 
The British Army might have preferd an APC conversion of Chieftain to the lighter armour of MCV80/Warrior
 
It might make sense to use the previous gen MBT chassis to crerate heavy IFV or Infantry support vehicles. Construction numbers will be pretty low and availability of the previous gen should be high.

When Chieftain came in Cent should have been a shoe in but Chieftain might hgave been a brifge too far. Too much reworking so clean sheet might have been more economical.

Cent would have made a pretty good HIFV/Infantry support vehicle for a good long while.
 
There was a pretty large discrepancy in Chieftain, some were relative sports cars at 30mph. Cut the turret and main gun systems and it might be faster.

The Chieftain hull would be the problem, cutting and shutting would be a propper 'mare.
 
Foo Fighter said:
It might make sense to use the previous gen MBT chassis to crerate heavy IFV or Infantry support vehicles. Construction numbers will be pretty low and availability of the previous gen should be high.
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Isn't the usual setup 2x as many IFVs as MBTs, though?

Unless you're doing a limited HAPC/HIFV build (just for BAOR for example), that makes it really hard to maintain force numbers.


Foo Fighter said:
There was a pretty large discrepancy in Chieftain, some were relative sports cars at 30mph. Cut the turret and main gun systems and it might be faster.
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Weird. Then again, based on some of the British sports cars I've been around, not surprising. Some took some serious work to just get to where the others were from the factory.


Foo Fighter said:
The Chieftain hull would be the problem, cutting and shutting would be a propper 'mare.
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Spinning the entire chassis around under the armor would be ... "interesting" in the Chinese sense for sure.
 
What I meant was that the numbers available would be reasonable enough for a conversion process to run without troubling the infrastructure too much, while keeping lines open.

Also, 2 to 1 apc to MBT, yes but you would not requre that ratio if HIFV were within infantry units tasked with particular roles. Just as we have Scimitar and Scorpion in the recce roles. Something like one HIFV per platoon for example.

Some of the Cent operators were looking to replace them with Leo and those vehicles would be pretty cheap to acquire or even free.

You would not want to spin the chassis round, the more modern engine could do the job in less space, just put the driver where some ammo would be stored in the Cent. the engine compartment would become the troop compartment with decent access out the back of the vehicle.

Not saying it would be easy but the potential return by supporting local jobs and keeping the money in the tax system is more than compensation. To say nothing of giving BAOR or whoever more infantry options.

An infantry support variant would make for happier ground pounding campers too.
 
Foo Fighter said:
What I meant was that the numbers available would be reasonable enough for a conversion process to run without troubling the infrastructure too much, while keeping lines open.
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Ah, gotcha!


Foo Fighter said:
Also, 2 to 1 apc to MBT, yes but you would not requre that ratio if HIFV were within infantry units tasked with particular roles. Just as we have Scimitar and Scorpion in the recce roles. Something like one HIFV per platoon for example.
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I'm not sure that I'd want HIFVs mixed in with 432s or Warriors, I'd much prefer HIFVs replacing all IFVs in some units and other units keeping their 432s and/or Warriors.

Something like 90% of the logistics side of Scimitar and Scorpion are the same, while the HIFVs and IFVs are totally different.


Foo Fighter said:
You would not want to spin the chassis round, the more modern engine could do the job in less space, just put the driver where some ammo would be stored in the Cent. the engine compartment would become the troop compartment with decent access out the back of the vehicle.
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Except that the transmission is in the back as well and that's going to block access out the back. Spin the chassis around and you get the transmission out of the way of the crunchies in back.

Ukrainians were talking about doing that with their T64s probably 15 years ago. And fitting the tanks they were keeping as tanks with a ZU23-2 as the commander's "AAMG".


Foo Fighter said:
An infantry support variant would make for happier ground pounding campers too.
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Oh, definitely. Had a conversation about that with my friend the Stryker officer. He wanted a gun big enough to have an obstacle reduction round available in the APC/ICVs.
 
As I understand it, BAOR was the only Cold War formation (apart from training units in UK) to get Warrior.
What infantry wanted was not a British IFV like Marder but a battle taxi like 432 but with much better protection.
I dont think they intended Bundeswehr style Leopard/Marder charges. BAOR was much more defensive. It aimed to create killing zones where Chieftains/Challengers and Swingfire ATGM would kill tanks at long range. Infantry would be dropped off behind them to cover their withdrawal using Milans and Wombats. Fighting withdrawals would be the order of the day until BAOR asked for nuclear release.
 
uk 75 said:
As I understand it, BAOR was the only Cold War formation (apart from training units in UK) to get Warrior.
What infantry wanted was not a British IFV like Marder but a battle taxi like 432 but with much better protection.
I dont think they intended Bundeswehr style Leopard/Marder charges. BAOR was much more defensive. It aimed to create killing zones where Chieftains/Challengers and Swingfire ATGM would kill tanks at long range. Infantry would be dropped off behind them to cover their withdrawal using Milans and Wombats. Fighting withdrawals would be the order of the day until BAOR asked for nuclear release.
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So a Heavy APC then, in place of Warrior.

Possibly to have that 76mm low pressure gun for throwing HESH around.
 
VIKINGTANK said:
Having served as a infantryman, FV432 driver and a Milan ATGW No 1 (so the firer) in BOAR from 1978 to 1982 I would not disagree with most of comments equipment wise above; although I will mildly below and come up with some of my own ideas.

I always was greatly concerned about the extremely thin armour of the FV432 APC we used, 1/2 inch on the front at most, so I remember when attached to a armour heavy Combat Team (CT) (1 platoon of infantry attached to a Chieftain Sqn - less the tank troop attached to the rest of our infantry Company as a Infantry heavy CT) we were always taught to tuck our FV432's in behind the assault troop of Chieftains in the assault - better them than us to be hit! Just not too close as if they decide to stop and reverse .................!

Interestingly by the early 80's the Chieftains seemed to have worked out most of their engine issues as it was rare to see one broken down, screaming along yes but mostly still going, and during a 'play with the other units toys day' the young infantrymen all wanted to transfer to the tanks!

The Warrior was/is a great vehicle, I was a qualified armoured infantry Platoon Commander later in my time, thicker than the FV432, a great gun (less the 7.62mm chain which was utter rubbish) and decent sights. However to have given it fully stabilised turret (and a better gun/ATGW as some countries did on their IFVs) would have have made the vehicle much more expensive and also mis-understands the role and manning of the Warrior. It was mostly commanded by young Corporals who, while mostly very good, had a lot on their plate; they had to command the vehicle, load the gun, and command their section while dismounted - a simple gun and a simple turreted system worked better than a all singing and dancing turret that would likely be more unreliable. The vehicle of course did get thermal sights later. The vehicle was at its best getting the troops to the dismount area, withdraw to a firing position or, if resistance was weak, provide fire support from the dismount area. We always withdrew and provided flank fire support if possible. Its still thinly armoured and is not a tank!

BTW for those wondering why no ATGM; it was preferred in the UK that dedicated ground based ATGM teams were better trained to ID the bad guys versus the young Corporal, and his Lance Corporal gunner, who already had enough jobs to do! AFV recognition was not every bodies favourite subject! And money of course!

To come to my point on this thread and what would I have preferred vehicle wise then its a far more thicker APC. A Chieftain based APC at the time would have been far better in many ways, I won't bore you with why in detail right now (unless you ask later), but I never understood why they put 4 guys behind the heavy armour of a Chieftain but 8-10 behind 1/2 inch on the FV432. Also while the Warrior was a great vehicle for peace support operations I was never convinced it would work in a peer on peer conventional conflict because of the thin armour (the Gulf wars were hardly peer on peer). The utility of the IFV in a general war scenario can be read about in the book below in more detail; the author thinks the IFV was not the right way to go about things and would likely suffer heavy causalities.

Battlegroup!: The Lessons of the Unfought Battles of the Cold War

So a tank based APC would be the ideal vehicle; at least one in every four (so one per platoon) could have a Marder type turret with a belt feed cannon but not all four; the rest could have a HMG/MG/GMG fired from within the vehicle. So get the Corporal and his section to the dismount area in one piece and let him do his job.

I was interested to read in the recent book Chobham Armour that the UK was planning to replace the Warrior in 2012 (yes really!) and one of the options was a Challenger Kangaroo (Kangaroo as in WW2 turretless Canadian built Ram tanks used as APCs); not clear if this was converted Challenger 1 or new builds.

Chobham Armour: Cold War British Armoured Vehicle Development

Chobham Armour: Cold War British Armoured Vehicle Development: Amazon.co.uk: William Suttie: 9781472855268: Books

Buy Chobham Armour: Cold War British Armoured Vehicle Development 1 by William Suttie (ISBN: 9781472855268) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.
www.amazon.co.uk

BTW wheeled APC's are great for light mechanised units and peace support operations but it has to be tracked and have heavy armour for conventional conflicts. Any thing else is barmy; I commanded a Saxon platoon as a SNCO so I know trust me!

Happy to discuss more of my thoughts if anybody is interested; but go easy on me please.

Regards, VikingTank.
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Hi all,

See above my comments in the 'Alternative History and Future Speculation - British Army of the Rhine alternatives' from last year that also talks about a heavy APC.

In a nut shell I said; So a tank based APC would be the ideal vehicle; at least one in every four (so one per platoon) could have a Marder type turret with a belt feed cannon but not all four; the rest could have a HMG/MG/GMG fired from within the vehicle. So get the Corporal and his section to the dismount area in one piece and let him do his job.

So 3/4 infantry section vehicles and 1 fire support Platoon Commanders vehicle per platoon all on the tank based, heavily armoured chassis, works for me; and I spent many years either in Germany during the cold war or ready to re-enforce in time of war. Nothing I have seen recently changes my view on this other than to add a Trophy type Active Protection System (APS).

Regards, Vikingtank.
 

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