Tank design is dictated by doctrinal employment, which shifts accordingly to contemporary threats and assigned roles. If you have an extremely large pool of brainwashed conscripted and rich mothers you could go the Soviet way with the T-series tanks. If you are a first world country with employment issues and ever growing opposition to wars you go UGVs, or no MBTs at all and let airpower do everything. Probably with a couple of infantry regiments to do the dirty jobs on the ground.
One of the main problems with MBT employment is that they consume manpower. Casualties and humanitarianism tends to be the main killer for public support, and if you are a democratic nation, well you are dead, or at least sorta of. Yet MBT employment directly create these problems, since:
- The MBT is a forward deployed asset operating at the outermost layer of the FEBA ( direct contact, often below 10km, against enemy forces). You aren't gettin no casualties with that especially with the OpFor use artillery screens, mass PGM strikes, or modern shoulder-fired AT rockets/drones. So imagine Ukraine as a baseline.
- The MBT is historically a manned asset. Their operational deployment requires that ( close infantry support, breakthrough, etc) and these roles aren't getting done by AIs yet. The enemy could literally stage a couple of 130/203mm guns to throw jammers and your AI tanks are dead. A manned system could operate lone wolf style, but that's asking Javelins to the cheeks.
- PR. It's one thing to look at a dozen wrecked UGVs on a telegram clip and think " well we could make 10x that today". It's another thing to look at a captured MBT along with its crews on social media. Both things would happen, as it's the way of peer-to-peer wars, but the public often don't give a crap and will immediately protest. Plus UGVs don't need SAR missions.
Yet we still need a manned vehicle that can coordinate forward assets, bring localized fire support, and just plainly go forward.
The problem with using Ukraine to measure the effectiveness of the MBT is that it's a result of shitty RuGF tactics, poor morales and standards, rather ineffective EW usage and zero air superiority. Specifically:
- Drones are often mentioned as a MBT killer yet US ME bases have demonstrated this to be a non-problem. That is because they have actual proper knowledge of EW operations as well as extremely good EW assets. Proliferation of drones is largely because of poor EW use by RuGF yet when they use it properly as far as 10k drones is said to be downed per month according to RUSI. Keep in mind most of that 10k is commercial FPV drones with no EW hardening though, but the RuGF also have quite poor ESM/DF capability. The US Army would have routinely backtrack these exposed comms link and return 155mm fires immediately.
- Artillery is another supposed MBT "killer" but they are an actually serious threat. The main problem is: poor CBAT capability, poor coordination in maneuvering, poor/nil CRAM and poor quality control of tanks. I can forgive the last part but Panstir/Tor has demonstrated to be so terrible at CRAM already.
- Intelligence. COMINT or proper recce could tell a commander where the OpFor tanks are and he can plan a fire mission or stage assets accordingly. The UAF has a plethora of recon in addition to NATO intel and RuGF insiders. Plus cell phones.
- Determined infantry. I can't really blame the Russians on this one but the cause is insufficient overhead supppresion/recon leading to OpFor consolidation/dispersion. MPATGMs and drones are really dangerous to non-APS tanks or AA-less formations. The most realistic counter is to collapse every structure with an HE round but you are looking at Chinese/Soviet level of manufacturing here.
Tldr the problems faced by MBTs nowadays, as exemplified by the RuGF, is a combination of bad tactics, doctrines, troops, ORBAT composition, equipment, et al and zero air superiority. Basically most proper army would do better, because they would either send fast jets to neutralize any substantial opposition before committing to a large ground operation, or do whatever the RuGF is doing but better.
The optimum MBT is one that is:
- relatively cheap to buy, so you can have a large quantity of them in active service plus reserve. A LSCO will see mass destruction of MBTs so you want something that can repopulate real quick. IMO the failure of UVZ to put out T-90Ms to reequip battalions and RuGF reverting to T-62Ms for frontline use is rather telling of how you don't want one-trick ponies that dies from a dozen of JDAMs and still costs tens of millions.
- relatively survivable, as in being hard to spot to avoid optical recon which is cheap to acquire; can take 30-metre air/surface bursts of 152/155mm prefragmented HE shells ( precautionary measure only, modern arty often scores below 20 metres with unguided rounds at reasonable , 40km-esqe firing ranges); can take large-bore APFSDS from the front and side at 1km; can survive TM-46 bursts; and sensors protected from most small arms/ shrapnels.
- a reasonable M-APS strategy: DEW for outermost munitions defeat; HPM for point C-UAS defense; a hardkill APS that can kill Harop/JAGM size threats; large smoke magazines to negate visual/radar coverage.
- tactically and logistically mobile: it's a problem of weight class ( 50ton base is most preferred); transportable by railway/ships; can go on most roads/bridges/terrains; can execute close maneuver ( think T-72 with 1 reverse gear). Modern LSCOs barely reached above 30km in territorial gain anyway not counting ODS so Shinseki's FCS mobility is not required.
- Relatively lethal. Practically the easiest of the bunch. A large-bore ( 120-152mm) gun spitting APFSDS and/or HE-GP. 15-20 round magazine. Can kill tanks from the side/rear; most other threats out to 10 klicks.
- Sensors/situational awareness: penetrating radars in urban terraine ( Germany is often cited to have 500mm LOS); elevated optical/radar BLOS view, networking with offboard sensors; redundant/secured comms links etc.
So building from that specs:
- Take the base Puma hull. Refine the suspension system, improve underbelly protection, give it modular armour ( scalable to tank-level arrays) and CRT tracks. Enlarge the crew space to accomodate further sensors/terminals/control stations and living space. IMO the crew compartment should be as spacious as envisioned in Morozov's T-74. Whatever is left of the troop compartment, turn it into space for fuel + further automotives ( diesel APU, batteries, a hybrid drive, transverse turbine engine, plus more fuel). I actually prefer the FCS MGV/GCV hull design more since the automotives are moved into intergrated hull sponsons while reserving large internal volume, but the Puma is matured.
- The turret should use the SEPv4 array, but better top/side armour is a must (plus modularity). The magazine should resemble something like KF51's bustle. Dual PASEO sights, a mast housing a directional 10kw laser/HPM turret plus more sensors. Count: antennas for EW, ground-scanning radars, UHF/VHF, SATCOM, laser comms, etc. Quick Kill 2.0 with AESA radars in protected mountings, and large banks of smokes.
- A 120mm gun-mortar firing BLOS rounds to top-attack AFVs or HE-spam other targets. A gun-mortar also permits less space for the weapon ( lower recoil lenght, less boxy breech). You lose APFSDS though. A 30cal coax with minimum 10k round in a single continous feed, plus a 50cal CROWS. Or for the AbramsX feel, M230LF.
- Auxilliaries. IMO first of all a modular external storage system must be implemented. Already discussed on this forum previously so tldr modular protected containers for ammo, crew supplies, spares, armour and other stuff. Add a remote-fired smoke system (VL launched), and a launcher for small UAS and it's perfect. UGV control is an absolute neccesity, as is a more refined datalink/networking system. A remote IED detection and improved dozer blades should also be looked at.
Apologize for the extremely long post though.
Edit: Barracuda, imo, is another novel anti-surveillance capability that should also be further refined and implemented.
I will try to answer them. I think that the MBT's goal is to be able to go anywhere and fight anything doctrinally. I also think that they should provide AT firepower that is cheaper that a ATGM. Despite this, more often than not the tank would be shooting at infantry, and an increasing amount of warfare will likely be urban. My thinking had been that a long cannon for in the open and a short one or even a gun mortar for close combat in high cover environments was the way to go, but I am now wondering if stretching the gun is really worth it. With the XM30 being 55 tons at start and average IFV weight rising, do you think they could share turrets with tanks? A more radical idea has occured to me - put a reasonable autocannon or a short 105mm cannon on the tank and replace the freedup weight with lots of sensors, designators, communications devices, possibly even EW equipment and a drone catapult. Not only would it direct its drones from afar, it would also be set up as a FAC/FOO to call in CAS, artillery, and airstrikes.
