Lets say you were to build the best tank you possibly could in current year, the only caveat being that it couldn't use ceramics, aluminum, titanium, or depleted uranium for protection. What would your tank look like?
Modern Steel Hull Tank
Lets say you were to build the best tank you possibly could in current year, the only caveat being that it couldn't use ceramics, aluminum, titanium, or depleted uranium for protection. What would your tank look like?
Well i cant armor it with that, so as light as humanly possible.
You could armor it against autocannons and HEAT with steel and ERA. APS could provide a lot of protection as well.
>couldn't use ceramics, aluminum, titanium, or depleted uranium for protection
Thats rather loose criterium, like said you can still make normal modern tank using explosives (era/aps), glass textolite or tungsten
If we go by steel only then it would be challenging to offer protection against modern 1000mm+ chemical warheads. Probably it would look like T-72 Mahmia/Labna
Probably something similar to a Magach or M-55S; those being a modernized M48/M60 and T-54/T-55 respectively. They're more or less the same, featuring:
>More modern NATO guns (120 for Magach, 105 for M-55S)
>Modern fire control
>Thermals
>Improved stabilizer
>Fuckton of ERA
Those are still reliant on old hulls with old steels and machinery. There have been advances in technology since the 50s besides the invention of composite armor. New lighter, bust still strong steels, new engines, nERA, and all manner of APS.
hail Horus
Doesn't that have a composite hull though?
technically sheet metal and cardboard is composite right?
>MOM I POSTED IT AGAIN
Knock them all you want, but their goal was to make "tank that looks really cool on camera" and they succeeded
Spaced armor like a lot of prototype 60s/70s Western MBTs were experimenting with (MBT-70, early Leopard 2, AMX-40) combined with a very robust ERA package. Probably try and use fuel tanks as extra armor like M1 Abrams etc. do already.
Otherwise it would be the equal of any modern Western MBT.
A fucked up amount of spaced NERA, with the fuel tank in front for extra space for the projectile to travel, maybe even something stupid like water jackets within the NERA space in order for the shot to both hit a hard surface tension area, and for the energy to then seek the path of lease resistance, gradually deflecting the angle of the shot upwards.
A Magach with the electronics of a SEPV3 Abrams moron rigged into it
A modernized MBT70, basically. Lots and lots of spaced armor, a hard kill APS, lots of mobility, and a gun launched missile. You're inherently going to be vulnerable to shaped charge weapons so you want both stand off range and as many chances to defeat the jet as you can. Bustle ammo racks, internal subdivision of the tank, whatever you can.
I'd give it composite armor: multiple layers of tungsten sandwiched between Lego bricks and held together with Bondo.
And it'd be completely unarmed. Not even a pintle-mounted .30-cal. We going full EW build on this one. Jammers, spoofers, cyber, ECM, ECCM, ECCCM, IR and laser countermeasures, strobe lights, hologram projectors, maybe a big ass electromagnet to fuck up compasses. The aim is to trick the enemy into destroying themselves like it's a fucking Saw movie.
Oh, I forgot about the engine. Wankel, obviously. With a gas turbine APU. Both powered by methanol.
I'm leaning towards naming it the M2 Fredendall
Basically this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pereh
Heavily angled armor
Ribbed armor (low weight but adds extra protection to extreme slopes)
Low silhouette
Spaced/Slat armor
Engine in front of the crew
Spall liners
Basically a cross between an STRV-103 and merkava
The STRV UFP cant do much to modern long rod penetrators (source, YT simulations), I cannot attest to how much an engine and spall liner will handle afterwards|
>another indian "armor test" channel
SySimulations and DejmianXYZ are the only two good ones.
Technically you can make a sort of composite with layers of spaced angled tungsten or even steel. Fill the gaps with sand or something. Isn't that what T-72B/T-90 turrets are basically? I imagine the weight isn't great but for the limitations it can be used to increase angling of armour without actually doing some retarded super-sloped meme vehicle with no crew space or 120ton monster that can maybe stop ammo from the 70s.
Or you could
>remake the STRV-103
>improve the armor a bit
the T-72B actually had really good protection against even APFSDS on the hull armor even with just plain old steel
they switched from cast armor to high-hardness steel plate
while a lot stronger than cast armor you couldnt make it more than a few mm thick, s this would normally limit its usefuleness
but by making an array of high-hardness plates to incorporate air into the armor, it has a much greater mass-efficiency than steel armor
this was able to stop 105mm APFSDS and RPG rounds
>What would your tank look like?
Like any other modern MBT.
The armor would be very similar to a Leopard 2's armor. Super hard outer layer, softer steel back filling ultra hard bars inside the softer steel to help shatter sabot darts. Then some space for a plastic filler followed by more super hard layer armor backed by softer steel and more rods. Might include a full dedicated spaced armor all over like the ears on the L2A6+ versions.
But given modern advances in tech I think we should put a lot of weight on an active defensive system to try and impact incoming missiles or tank rounds away from the tank. A full suite of sensors could very likely detect and accurately measure and predict incoming or passing by projectiles to engage targets selectively. The ability of a passive sensor to try and select an incoming target might not be up to task but I think trying to hide active emissions to avoid detection would be less important than shooting down incoming fire.
Chieftain was probably one of the best protected RHA only tanks, the arrowhead M60 as well.
The main problem is that modern APFSDS largely nullifies the advantage of highly sloped RHA.
Unlike old fashioned penetrators with low L/D ratio that are deflected away from the armor resulting in equivalent protection even higher than LOS values, modern darts will treat sloped armor as less than the LOS value, normalising into the plate.