A guest post from Paul G
A strange title however it will be explained further on in the post.
Now that it has been decided that there will be an armoured brigade and it will have MBT’s, talk can now turn to having an MBT for the 21st century. I have a background in armour (7 armd wksps 87-92) but as my primary role was telecommunications, it was limited to fixing the radios and the intercom harness when the turret monster had a munch on the cables!
So, although having not lived and worked in them, I have always had a healthy interest which has inspired me to have a sort of “fantasy tracks” attempt at a post, makes a change from fantasy fleets. I was going to do a short history of the beast, but I’m more interested in its future, than it’s past. Challenger 1 and 2 were and still are highly respected pieces of equipment, chally 2 had impressive feedback from GW2 and yet due to piss poor circumstances countries like Canada are buying leopards, I say piss poor due to the fact that if someone did come asking, we no longer have the ability to produce them, or should I say there would be unwillingness by you know who to build them. (IMHO).
Before discussing replacements, I suppose we should ask what to do with the tanks that will be no longer required, I would hope we can avoid the scenes we witnessed with the nimrod where the cranes ran amok, nor would I like to see them become targets down range at lulworth. The obvious answer would be stripped down for spares or sold on /given away to Jordan like last time. Maybe some could be converted into more titan and trojan engineer vehicles. Personally if there were any going to the engineers I would like to revive the AVRE demolition tank. As we have seen urban warfare has played a prominent part in recent conflicts, resulting in the leopard being adapted with a front blade and a high elevating 12.7mm co-ax gun.
Cent AVRE were deployed in GW1 to deal with obstacles attached to the armour group to provide assistance and more importantly under cover reducing risk to soldiers. Now people like Tony Williams are the experts on calibres however a nice BFO gun to create a big enough hole for vehicles on a challenger chassis would be nice, space would be made by the removal of the gunner (crew of 3) and there would be no need for most of the present challenger (ie TOGS, and everything required for the stabilised turret). This could also relieve the infantry platoons from carrying weapons such as matador for breaching.
Centurion AVRE at Mutla Pass Kuwait
Centurion AVREs with dozers fitted arriving at Mutla Pass Kuwait City to clear abandoned vehicles at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Flickr: Paul Welling
Centurion AVRE at Mutla Pass Kuwait
Centurion AVREs with dozers fitted arriving at Mutla Pass Kuwait City to clear abandoned vehicles at the end of the Gulf War in 1991. Flickr: Paul Welling
Centurion AVRE
The Challenger production line closed many years ago and BAe are going to close the Newcastle factory in 2013 when the last terrier is completed, This fact effects the question “where or who in the UK could build a new MBT” and I did try and offer a solution in my last post with ref to converting the MLRS to command vehicles and HIMARS using the supacat chassis, mainly to retain the workforce and keep the factory while the challenger 3 was being designed on the computer. However could the cost of the design be that great that it would simply easier to buy the leopard 7 and ride the obvious political storm. That explains the first half of the title.
Obviously you have to compare the two side by side to weigh up which would be better, now this has been done on many forums by people far better qualified than me plus it would save on the comments by people pointing my mistakes. With that in mind I would like to give a brief overview, with a few numbers and what I think are salient points. The most obvious observation is that the UK is flying solo with the 120mm rifled barrel against the rest of the world with their 120mm smooth barrel pros and cons have been discussed at length but I think it’s time to join the party and get with the smoothbore. It has been fitted and trialled in a challenger turret but it was deemed too expensive to redesign the turret for it to be effective with a large percentage of challenger going it would seem that cost would now be reduced.
Challenger 2 with Rheinmetall 120mm smoothbore
One of the main problems is the smoothbore uses one piece ammunition and BAe stated that even with modification the turret could only hold six rounds, now you don’t need the brains of a rocket scientist to realise that’s pants! If you look at a side view of the challenger and the leopard you can see the difference in turret size, also bear in mind the challenger is 8.3m long and 3.5m wide compared to the leopards 9.97 and 3.75 respectively.
Not the best comparison, but 90% of the photos online aren’t side views! Basically the leopard is ma-hoo-sive.
Challpard or leopenger?
No I haven’t been on the sherry, to cover all bases I thought about a hybrid vehicle either a leopard turret on a challenger chassis or a challenger turret on a leopard chassis. Why? Well spreadsheet phil likes a bargain and with the aforementioned manufacturing problems purchasing a chassis from Germany but using a UK turret (preferably a newly designed not the present one) could soften the blow, We are the world leaders in protection and it’s only the new leopard 2A7 that has finally added more protection. I can’t see the present challenger chassis been used as the engine is possibly the weakest on a MBT today, it’s ironic that many years ago an export version of challenger was offered to Greece (lost to leopard) with a more powerful, smaller and economical engine, yet it was never adapted by the British army something I have never understood. Even now there smaller engines than the perkins 1200bhp, these knock out 1800+bhp it would be nice to leap over the leopards 1500bhp and get out front again.
The rank outsider options
The Abrahams has to get a mention however this is just as old as challenger 2 and has a very complex and thirsty gas turbine engine (watched some REME air techs fix one by the roadside in GW2 while the vm’s stayed well clear)! Also there is our new chums, the French not to mention an emerging industry in the south east. The very last resort I forgot to mention above mainly because it’s stupid would be a cut and shut to lengthen the challenger chassis to bring it into line with the leopard (hey desperate times etc etc).
So what would I like? Well I like my AVRE idea with today’s tech a nice big cal gun (and possibly the MCLIC breacher) with modern rounds could be a game changer not only with punching holes for the vehicles if you’re on team shag nasty and something destroys your well built defences then morale sinks. Selling surplus hulls be it fighty or convert to engineer type to Jordan to fund this along with stripping down for high use areas like BATUS is a start.
After that let’s get the ball rolling on the new challenger 3, please don’t tell me we don’t need it in future wars it’s been decided we are going to have them and it’s not the point of the post. Let’s get in line with everyone else and go smoothbore, it would be nice to be designed and built in the UK, however I would accept the UK doing the turret and KMW providing the chassis, they are pretty good at it! Plus if we part funded with Germany to develop the 2000bhp engine, it exists already but needs some testing in armour. This could help with export if we developed turret tech that could be used with existing leopards as they are in service everywhere.
I like the idea of a Challenger 4
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peggyjdb/5960392753/
But if that isn’t possible, we should ask if the cost of upgrading or developing new ammunition is more than the cost of buying new or refurbed Leopard 2′s
Interesting what if but lets look at reality! Post 2010 SDSR current policy is to husband the Challenger 2 fleet for the next twenty to thirty years. With a reduction of numbers in service they can part out the chassis no longer needed and the remainders will be rotated through those expensive climate controlled storage facilities that are operated for the army.
As for changing the gun as you point out they realised the ammunition load would be too low and they found a new source for HESH ammunition from Belgium. As for SABOT rounds again they will husband the remaining DU rounds which are politically sensitive as it stands anyway.
In the end the British Army has a world class MBT paid for and in service, they can husband that fleet for many years to come and finally they have a budget under pressure. Buying a new tank in the next ten years (or even twenty years)is a rather nonsensical draw on the budget when regiments are being retired!
Nice article Paul
The only company, I can think of off hand, which could build a new MBT in the UK using existing facilities, would be JCB.
However, with careful maintenance and upgrades. Their is no reason at all, to build a new MBT, not for at least 20 years. You only have to look at what upgrades, Israel and South Africa have done with their Centurions, to see what is possible.
I’ve often wondered why, we have never converted some Chally 2′s from carrying the 120mm gun to a Updated version of the 165mm Demolition Gun, carried on the Centurion AVRE. They would have pretty handy in GW2 and in Afghanistan.
@ Paul G – Thanks for writing a very interesting and knowledgeable post. I was un aware about the the ammunition size and Turret issue which I think as you point out rules out an upgrade to challenger 2.
I have to say though I remain unconvinced for anything other than Challenger 2 at this point. I do agree that the Army needs MBT’s but as you say Challenger 2 acquitted its self superbly in GW2. The rifled gun still holds the world record for a distance kill and while it would be nice to have NATO standard ammunition I just can’t see that as justification for spending billions on designing a new tank or buying a German tank which in my mind is not sufficiently superior to what we have to justify a swap.
Spending the money on replacing the armies other vehicles like FRES UV program and sorting out the myriad of different vehicles coming back from the stan would seem to be a better use of funds. I can’t see why with proper management the Challenger 2 can’t keep going for 20 or 30 more years.
I hope the government does not break up the spare C2′s. I would much prefer to see them kept in reserve on used for spare parts. While armoured warfare is an increasingly niche role it is still a vital one and that we excel in and I would hope the Army can still continue to perform this role all be it on a smaller scale
I Like TD’s Challenger 4 idea with hover capability. Only issue is we would have to get Lego to build it in Denmark but I am sure they could ship the parts to Windsor for assembly
many thanks to TD for padding out and correcting a rough draft. It was designed mainly as a think for the future (in ref to fedaykin point) to put that in perspective as a spotty hormonal young army cadet i looked in awe at the polystyrene mock up of the FLA at the army show at rushmoor arena, since then i’ve finished school and 22 in green and it’s still not in service so how soon is too soon!
Also it was to offer a solution to the problem of the surplus after the SDSR re-org, mainly spurred by the recent story in the media about how we were going to pay to keep MBT’s in sheds in germany (how come i didn’t put this in thread, what a dummy) I would like to avoid that and the points about sold off to museums/corperate day out businesses.
If we went down the leopard route it would take a while to thrash it out (mainly after the media start the “outrage” campaign)but there would be scope to either loan/lease 2nd hand chassis to get a nucleus of instructors or even be detatched to oversea arms (obviously the germans) to gain experience. I like chally, but we need to catch up and to start the ball rolling now we have actual numbers can’t be a bad thing .
oh and a BFO gun for the AVRE means a Big F**k Off!!
PS as a lot of armies operate the leopard think of export potential if we come up with any improvements, cummins are UK based not to mention our tech expertise in optical sysytems
Simon257
JCB facilities are not suitable for construction of a new MBT, it is a rather different business and I have a hunch the company isn’t interested in the investment.
The big players in the UK appear to be BAE Systems and General Dynamics. If there was investment in a new design it will be built outside the UK and finished out at a UK facility.
@ Paul G – I still don’t see where the need for catch up is. How is the rifled gun such a big problem that we would consider buying or building a new tank? What can the smooth boar gun do that the riffled one can’t. I take your point about engine issues but this does not seem to have hampered Challenger much. As for protection other than a new Leopard I can’t see anything in the world matching Challenger 2.
Alas Paul G,
Any surplus would go back to the treasury, the services are not allowed to save up money for the future under UK treasury policy. Personally I see that as a crazy idea but if the MOD has money unspent in the books it will get snapped back!
Tanks can be kept in service and upgraded for decades, technically both the Chieftain and Challenger 1 should still be in service now with upgrades but the end of the cold war put pays to that!
The storage facility in Germany and the UK for vehicles is an amazing place. All the vehicles are held in climate controlled hangers and the batteries are hooked into a computerised power system that maintains a load on them. This means the batteries are trickle charged in such a way to ensure maximum life and ensuring any can be started up at a moments notice.
Any Chally 2 replacement is a way down the line and whilst your post SDSR idea of plowing back savings is sensible it is rather sunk by treasury policy on surpluses within departments!
(1) The side views appear to have different scales (just look at the machine guns on top). The font of the Leo2A5, A6 and A6M turrets is a simple hollow steel triangle armour upgrade.
(2) That would be M1 Abrams, not “Abrahams”.
(3) Challenger 2 is considerably new than M1 Abrams; Challenger 1 and Chally2′s hull are about as old as Abrams.
(4) There is not going to be another national development project as long as the nation with the R&D facilities in question doesn’t plan to operate more than 200 MBTs n the future.
(5) Best would be if there was a commercial European MBT development by sufficiently competent company that European nations could adopt post-2020.
Krauss-Maffei proved this possible in the mid/late 80′s with the Puma armoured Combat Vehicle Family, a 25-38 t project that even the internet almost forgot despite multiple prototypes:
http://waffen-der-welt.alices-world.de/armour/apc/d_puma.html
http://articles.janes.com/articles/Janes-Armour-and-Artillery/Krauss-Maffei-Puma-Main-Battle-Tank-Germany.html
Same Thyssen-Henschel TH495 of the 90′s:
http://www.army-guide.com/eng/product4317.html
Royal Ordnance pulled this off in the 80′s and 90′s with the RO 2000, too.
(6) Right now Leopard has good mobility, payload, good maintenance etc. It has apparently the ability to accept lots of upgrades, especially electronic ones. This appears to be what MBT progress is about, so Leo2A9, A10, A11 are the most likely path in the future.
I think the Israelis said the Leopard was the best tank ever, as long as you didn’t want to go war.
Paul G
shamelessly nostalgic – i too was in 7 Armd Wksp during GW1 watching hardworking VMs relearning all the blackhand jobs the civdet used to do in F—ingBostel..
I remember having to get some special tool or test equipment for the Cent AVRE packed up and sent out to us from the Tank musem at Bovi.. then getting a polite note asking for it back some months later (sadly i think we’d left it in kuwait somewhere)
What are (in concept, if not execution) the two best tanks in the world?
The Challenger 2 and the Leclerc.
Why?
Because they are different.
The Leopard, the Abrams and the T72 are the worlds standard pattern tanks
Anti Tank weapons are designed, with killing those tanks firmly in mind.
The Challenger, is designed to resist those weapons, and seems to do so pretty well. Didnt one get hit by 127 anti tank rockets of various designs without being killed?
The Leclerc goes the other way, any weapon can kill it, but its nearly twice as fast as “normal” tanks.
The enemy will always train to fight against the T92, the Leopard, or the Abrams, and will be unpleasantly surprised when a tank Brigade outruns them, or just wades through their fire.
Can anyone corroborate the following anecdote or comment on its accuracy?
- During GW2, Advantage was taken of the turbine on the M1A2′s to surge. Advantage was then made of Challenger 2′s diesel persistence to consolidate while M1A2′s refuelled.
Challenger’s problem was always two-fold:
1) It was/is not MBT-80, if it was it would have had a much higher power-weight ratio and would have had far greater exportability having been available 5-10 years earlier
2) After the Rheinmettal gun won the international competition for Abram’s the UK should have seen the writing on the wall, swallowed its pride and moved away from the rifled weapons and either used RO’s own smooth-bore or license produced the Rheinmettal gun
Challenger 3 would be very easy to develop if we adopted an off-the-shelf drive-train and kept ambitions low as the South Koreans, Turks and Japanese have done with their latest vehicles. A combination of the 52 cal 120mm smoothbore, the 1650hp Europwer-pack and the latest armour innovations would do the trick nicely. There is however no point, and I say that as someone who is practically in love with heavy tracked armour.
What I would like to see is a new CBP in the heavy category on which AS-90, Warrior and Challenger replacements could be built , wont happen though.
@ Bob – maybe I am being thick but I still don’t see the issue with the riffled gun that requires us to look at a replacement. Can any one tell me? Challenger 2 seems to be more than capable of taking out any other tank and can take a beating better than anything.
I think the UK would be best served to just keep on with the Challenger 2 until it won’t work anymore. Then they will do what everyone else does and go with the latest Leopard or Abrams variant. The rifled gun will be a problem and no one will want to have them in the future, it just won’t be worth it. I would bet good money that the M1A3 ends up being an Abrams with the L55 just like the latest Leopard’s are. It just makes too much sense to do anything else. I am not a big fan of auto-loaders so the French gun is out.
I think the west will basically offer two tank variants in the near future. One American and one European but they are going to share a lot of things in common.
martin,
the UK would need to stem the R&D cost for every new ammunition itself because it’s the only user besides cash-stripped Jordania.
The UK army would deploy to war knowing that it could not use the same ammunition as its allies, and losing ammo depots or having small ammo stocks in general yourself could effectively disarm the Challys.
The rifling leads to inferior APFSDS and HEAT performance, its only advantage is that the spin helps with HESH. So any rifled gun will lag behind the 120 mm smoothbores.
The 120 mm rifled gun is already outclassed by 120 mm L/55 and new 125 mm developments of the Russians. Active defence suites with effectiveness against APFSDS may force a move back to shorter, sturdier or at least wider long rods, and this means raw power of guns would become relatively more important. Being outclassed by now already offers a bleak outlook to 2025.
Besides, it’s “highly” questionable that Chally2 can take more beating than a Merkava 4. Even certain T90s with the latest (Heavy) ERA tiles may be more resilient to APFSDS and HEAT.
martin,
Its not a capability thing, its a sustainment thing, TD probably has the precise details but the short answer is that the CHARM ammunition is being diminished and its not very economical to manufacture it for a handful of tanks.
There were two specific issues:
1) Legality, it was claimed by some that DU was illegal, MoD claims to have proven it is not illegal- basically just pointless hippy legal wrangling and nothing serious
2) The CHARM-3 propellent charges should time expire in 2013, there have been investigations into life extension but I do not know the outcome.
@Jeremy M H
Could you expand on why you’re not a fan of auto-loaders please?
Never having sat inside a modern tank, let alone assist in operating one, auto-loading nontheless appeals to me from an engineering point of view.
This is especially given the general approval of the four drum auto-loader system on the Oto Melara 127/64 Lightweight that is being submitted for the T26.
Really interested in the issues from an MBT point of view.
@S O : all the CR2 hulls were new. Yes, I know the original plans were that CR2 turrets would be added to CR1 hulls, but in the end they sensibly just went with new hulls.
Given the quantity of tank ammunition required compared to other ammunition types, I wouldn’t worry about commonality. The development angle is more significant, but moving to separate charge and shell should fix the issues with current smoothbore ammo as and when we need to move.
@The Other Chris: during GW1, 1st (UK) Div was way to the east of the rest of VII Corps. They were nowhere near any M1 or M1A1 (M1A2 didn’t exist at the time), so I can’t see how they could have covered them refuelling. If memory serves, the fuel consumption for a M1A1 on a “standard battlefield day” was 484 gallons of diesel, while a CR1 was 284, so it’s a lot more economical, although in recent times the M1′s turbine has been fitted with a digital control unit that reduces consumption by 15% or so.
@Bob: the new ammunition factory in Washington produces tank ammunition.
http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/MASS-for-Effect-The-UKs-Long-Term-Ammo-Contract-05047/
Doubt it’s producing DU long rods, but it can at least replace the charges, which are separate.
@wf
Anecdote from my Friendly Neighbourhood GW2 Storyteller specifically references GW2, but the additional GW1 aspect is interesting too.
wf, I meant design age, and understand he did, too.
Btw, an inherent problem with separate charge and shell is that the shell cannot extend into the charge. That hurts a lot with APFSDS, for its penetration is in great part a function of the length of the long rod employed. The long rods of fixed ammo can reach almost to the bottom of the cartridge, but with a separate-loading ammo that length could only match the shell length. This may lose relevance in the future, but it was a major factor in the 80′s to 2000′s.
Concerning fuel; some (old) figures:
http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.de/2009/08/afv-mobility.html
Btw, correct myself: It’s T-90, not T90. A typo.
The Other Chris,
Historically there have been two key issues with autoloaders that have usually manifested themselves in a single problem.
1) Creating a mechanical system that is as flexible as a human in that it can take rounds from multiple different locations and then load them in a gun where the breach could also move in 3 locations, all in a very tight space, has proven very difficult; the magazine is one option but this has usually resulted in a loss of capacity due to the need for uniform round storage
2) The other factor is that well trained gun-loaders have had the ability to work faster than those autoloaders that have been developed. Challenger crews were trained to achieve a very high RoF
The combination of complexity and speed have conspired to make autoloaders expensive to develop and unreliable in service.
wf,
It was originally intended to run Challenger 2 and Challenger alongside each other for a total of approximately 1,000 tanks- 400 Challengers and 600 Challenger 2s with the former to be refitted with the L30 gun and associated fire control system. All because the MBT80 programme was abandoned.
TankNutDave who runs a Youtube channel and Website has an explanation why the rifled gun was retained for the Challenger 2.
Instead of putting a new turret in a manufacturer (in Belgium I think) was found to make new charge bags to replace the ones about to life expire.
A loader also add to the available ‘pool of labour’ for the vehicle, maintenance, sentry, camming up and a million and one other things. You are also transferring the people overhead elsewhere as someone will still have to maintain the autoloader
Swing meet roundabout
@Bob
Thank you for the insights and taking the time to reply, appreciated.
@TOC
There are a few reasons.
First I don’t like having one less man on my tank crew. Some jobs relating to tanks are heavy work and having an extra body never hurts when you have to do impromptu field maintenance on a track or some such thing. I think one less crewman here is a bit of a false economy.
Second I don’t like having a live round in the chamber of the gun when I don’t need to. You can’t take the round back out easily with an auto-loader either.
Third in a short span a man loading the gun fires as fast or faster than most auto-loaders on the 120MM sized projectiles. Any longer than a minute or two and you would run most auto-loaders out of ready ammunition anyway and have to manually move ammunition from storage to the ready racks.
I just don’t see the benefit of it. Would rather have an extra man to help deal with stuff in the field given the negligible benefits of having the thing.
@Jeremy M H
As with Bob, thank you for the insights and taking the time to reply. Appreciated.
Just a few things. C2 is huge! Be careful comparing pics. Hull is longer than Leo or M1. C2 is basically a heavy tank, others are nearly mediums! Leclerc is tiny. C2 gun is good, we only have a few tanks now going to be in service, cira 200 out of 400 built. Keep using 120mm and HESH as long as the rifling and ammo lasts (same argument USN used for its BB’s 16 inch guns!) As pointed out the Israeli’s et al proved Tanks can last like modern aircraft, for 50+ years. Rebuild refurbish, update, see what BAE are doing with US army Bradley. Why can’t C2 turn into a remanufactured C3 in 20 years time? Remember the C2E export tank with the bigger 1500hp engine. That was the MTU powerpack from the Leo! Looks at C2 TES, amazing tech bolted on. Coming back to a previous post I like the idea of an infantry/engineer tank version like the Russians have been experimenting with. Uparmoured even more and looking more like an Israeli heavy APC. C2 Female with a chain gun / 120mm mortar / minigun / missile combo would be awesome. 100 Females and 100 males from rebuilding the 200 C2′s that are now in storage in 2030 onwards? I think small numbers of super heavy tanks will be the best way to complement the future Fres SV equipped RAC. We are moving towards medium and heavy tanks again. Let’s embrace it. Flexible multi role Brigades with small numbers of swiss army knife capabilities inc armoured route clearance. Let’s think the future war through, what kind of armoured brigade is going to survive even with AH support either against HezB in FISH or against massed N Korean armour? Get some Cat D9′s to clear the way. Small rock hard elite armoured units, the same way that fighter jets are moving to just a few dozen air dominance platforms per airforce per theatre so to with the tank. Leo 2′s recent export sucess is largely selling off the BW German tanks! Tanks are like aircraft carriers, i.e. like the Battleship in WW2, its sucessor is in existance but it can still do things nothing else can so don’t loose the baby with the bathwater. Remember Canada was going to go all Stryker and wheeled and then backed off replacing Leo1 with Leo2 for Afghan. Lord Strathcona’s Horse, one of the Commonweath’s finest tank reg traditions survived!
TD;
the relevance of such an additional crew member is limited if an army really goes all-mobile warfare and establishes a 2nd crew for every tank.
The Germans had 2nd crews in May 1940, which successfully helped against the problem of crew fatigue.
Nowadays it would be less about fatigue as the internal space of a modern tank is less hellish, but it would still help a lot against sleep deficits, against the maintenance burden and it would allow commanders to replace the men who turned out to be duds in combat (it happens, no matter how they excelled in peacetime training).
@Jeremy M H:
Russian autoloaders weren’t build for “economy”, but to minimise the internal volume and thus the area that needs to be armoured. That’s one of the reasons why the Russian have lighter MBTs. Likewise, autoloader upgrades for Western MBTs could free up pace for electronic gadgets, a better APU and stuff.
Given improvements in remote weapon systems, could you envisage a fully unmanned turret/”male” on an MBT in development?
Paul,
Thanks for the article. Some very good responses too. SO your comments are spot on. The L/55 120 mm smoothbore has become a more capable gun than the our 120 mm rifled equivalent, so sooner or later we will need to bite the smoothbore bullet.
If we urgently need to upgrade our Challenger 2s, the common sense thing to do would be to mount a new turret for the L/55 on them (and hopefully fit newer, more powerful engines too). Based on BAE Systems Warrior upgrade programme, new turrets are likely to be less expensive than new tanks – unless KMW wants to cut us a deal on Leopards.
The Germans excel at making tracked military vehicle platforms. The Leopard 2 drivetrain is world class. The chassis is better engineered and more modern than that of the Challenger 2. We know the gun is better. I suspect that the FCS is better too. The trouble is that both Leopard and Challenger are getting a bit long in the tooth now.
So, my ideal scenario is to wait until we really need new tanks. When we do, a joint venture between BAE Systems and Krauss Maffei Wegmann could easily produce something innovative and good. Future spec should be something like this:
- 120-125 mm smoothbore gun
- Low silhouette turret with autoloader
- Carbon nanotube reinforced armour
- V-shaped hull for mine protection
- Crew: driver, 2 in turret and additional crew station in rear of vehicle (like FRES SV Scout)
- 1,800 bhp hydrogen fuel cell and electric drivetrain
- Diesel back-up motor
- Banded tracks
- 100 kph road speed
- 60 kph cross-country speed
- 60 tonnes
- Engine forward chassis
- 3-man crew
@SO
I get why the Russians did it. I just don’t agree with it. It made sense in the 60′s and 70′s. By the 80′s fire control technology was good enough that it really didn’t matter. They did not put the extra weight back into armor really, they just built smaller and cheaper tanks for the most part. Once you could basically put rounds onto the part of the tank you wanted to hit from 1,500 plus meters the low frontal cross sections of Russian tanks really stopped being much of a benefit at all. For the most part the bigger turrets of the Western tanks have more room for gadgets to begin with. I agree one might cram more in there with an auto-loader but I don’t think it is worth the trouble frankly. I still don’t like having an active round in the gun either.
When I said “false economy” though I was not really referring to money spent. I was thinking more along the lines of auto-loaders sound great in theory but are less great in the field where being down an extra man in the field. I don’t think second tank crews are really going to solve that in most combat situations.
The Soviet situation was quite different as well. They were fielding tens of thousands of tanks to the point that having another crew member in each one would have had a pretty good impact on their numbers. With nations fielding numbers in the hundreds now it is just not as big of a deal.
@Monty
I look forward to riding around in one of the dozen tanks that most would be able to afford if they tried to make that many leaps at once. You might as well advocate bringing back the Horse Guards mounted on magical unicorns if your plan is a carbon nano tube armored tank powered by hydrogen fuel cells. I can’t even begin to scratch at the issues all of those things would create.
S O,
An autoloader would not free up any space unless it took a massive capacity sacrifice. The Russian 125mm autoloader only worked (I use the word loosely) because they adopted comparatively short ammunition (with a resultant velocity loss from shorter sabots and smaller charges. Whilst not an economy measure it did help to make up for less well trained crews. The reason the T-72 series is so light is they have very weak passive armour, especially on the turret, and are incredibly tightly built, there is not an inch of square space inside and they are the most uncomfortable space I have ever been in. The other thing they were after was a much lower silhouette to make it harder to see them and shoot them, thermal cameras and advanced fire control systems killed that advantage.
Ironically I have spoken to a number of comms and display guys who say that space in western tanks for gadgets is not much of a problem any more as most were either designed for or have since been rearranged to take fairly bulky early systems and miniaturisation has actually freed up space.
I am correct in thinking some Chally 2s have been scrapped?
Monty;
V-shape has little effect without a huge ground clearance; that’s simple rule of proportion geometry (also see the original V-hull vehicles such as Casspir). It’s more of a PR trick on MBTs.
Hydrogen: A risky bet on availability of fuel.
Band tracks; R&D so far suggests they’re no good beyond 30 metric tons. Besides, they can be burnt. De-coupled running gear as on the new Puma IFV can reduce the vibrations and noise inside just as well.
100 kph road speed; much less relevant than acceleration, and high road speed is very tricky concerning the almost exponential increase in wear.
related: http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.de/2011/01/historical-speed-of-advance-in.html
60 tonnes; weight is much less meaningful than mean maximum pressure under the tracks
related: http://defense-and-freedom.blogspot.com/2010/08/mean-maximum-pressure-paper.html
@ SO –
the UK would need to stem the R&D cost for every new ammunition itself because it’s the only user besides cash-stripped Jordania.
What is this magic new ammunition that we need to develop. The existing stuff seems to work pretty well.
I agree that the Merkava is better protected but then its way more heavy than any tank we would consider using. Great for Israel but not much use for an expiditonary force.
The Challenger and Challenger 2 have fought in a real war against other tanks and anti tank weapons and proven themselves. Can the Leopard say the same?
@ Bob
I take what you are saying about the CHARM 3 propellant and the difficulty of manufacture. However Challenger 2 cost £2.2 billion back in 1999 to develop and build. That’s probably £ 5 billion today. The Saudi’s are rumoured to be paying EUR 10 billion for 800 Leopard 2A7’s which would suggest a buy of 200 tanks for us would cost around £2 billion.
I would be interested to know just how big an issue ammunition is for Challenger 2. I don’t think it will cost anything like £ 2 billion and I recon if it was a massive issue the Army would probably have put in for a new tank by now. If it was a capability issue I might agree with a new tank but as you say that’s not the issue.
@ Wf
What was some one smoking when they wrote this
Then there’s Britain, whose long-term defense contracting practices are establishing world-class benchmarks.
The Other Chris,
A fully unmanned turret is entirely plausible, the KADDB Falcon turret is precisely that but it has a limited ammunition capacity. What the Russians were apprently trying to achieve in the T-90 was to divide the hull into 3, forward section for the crew, centre section for the weapons system with turret on top and rear for the engine with the sections separated by blast-proof (to a point) bulkheads, with insensitive munitions and propellent this would be even easier to achieve. A note of caution, this is just one of the ideas about T-95, all we have are grainy photos and the type has been cancelled now anyway.
Another interesting programme is the US Army ASM programme that was cancelled in 1992, it was trying to achieve something similar and was looking at common chassis for multiple vehicles. At least one M1 Abrams was modified as a test bed.
Forgot to mention:
“Challpard or leopenger?”
This existed; a Leopard2 hull with a British-designed turret. Early 80′s, no customers.
http://www.tanknutdave.com/component/content/article/202
martin,
I am not advocating Leopard for the UK, I actually think it would be a stupid idea, the issue was solely with the gun- and as other point out that largely seems to have been solved.
I was going to save this one for the advertised Urban Combat post but this thread is probably more relevant…
How many Challenger 2′s will we have spare after the new army structure is implimented? Could a new role be found for some of them? As Paul G says the old AVRE is missed and it is widely believed that urban combat will be increasingly important as the developing world urbanises, so what about the concept below? Imagine how survivable a C2 so equiped would be…
http://web.archive.org/web/20041204225659/http://www.sfu.ca/casr/id-fisher1-1.htm
loader also used to do all the freq changes on the radios (clansman days) and the NBC control panel was on his side of the turret. iie he was the odds and sods man while the commander got on with the important stuff.
@gareth i’m sure (although it’s been 20 odd years) that leopard 2 is longer than CR2 saw them side by side on the ranges at fally, and the figures researched for the post seem to back that up, and C2e is mentioned in the post, crazy decision not to upgrade to that engine.
Just read Gareth’s post above – very similar idea… Great minds and names think alike!
Another big issue with swapping CR2 for Leopard or moving to smooth boar to save a few quid is its a bit of a big f**k you to Oman who were nice enough to buy CR2 from us. What does this say to a key ally especially one that’s getting ready to buy Typhoon. If we have an ammo problem for 200 tanks then they are screwed for 38. Same goes for Jordan. What would happen to their Challenger 1′s
@bob i agree the leopard as a straight replacement for CR” isn’t a good idea, however as i’ve tried to put over in the post, we’re going to have a lot of spare tanks soon hence the start was on what to do with the spare ie be a bit more proactive rather than sticking in them in pres,in case of WW3 (somewhat akin to the fabled knights king arthur has hidden in a mountain waiting to save england).
Then as a study now we know hull numbers, and smaller means less costs think to the future, as we know the speed these projects trundle on at. The suggestion of the leo chassis is simply because it’s proven it’s good because the germans lets face are bloody good at mechanicals think VW,BMW,porsche audi four sprung pork technique and all that!! So, there’s a chassis no costs on R&D, and a factory with the jigs already set up (ok it’s not the UK but hey ho) now we’re good at the armour side of life and, to put a label on it “turret tech”.
So to summerise let’s go CAD crazy have a chally AVRE, hells bells why not even an AA version every detractor of armour says a tank reg would be decimated by air so let’s get some oto 76mms and starstreaks successor on a chassis beg borrow and steal some leo chassis and have a small team at lulworth looking at a LOW COST upgrade, just develop a turret that goes on the top.
stuff it i’m rambling, maybe i’m suffering a boris britain is great type moment.
PS i get a non kevin/andrew post up and there’s no sign of the crimson avenger (AKA red trousers) funny you never see him and boris together in the same room and boris has been busy last few weeks!!!