Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog 9/15/2024
Or, more specifically, why they decided to do the M1A3 rather than than M1A2SEP4. And the main reason is weight.
• “This list of proposed capabilities for the new design that include:
• An autoloader
• New main gun new turret
• Hypersonic gun launched missiles that maneuver in midair
• The ability to pair with robots
• Masking capabilities to reduce thermal and electromagnetic signatures
• AI systems that detect incoming fire and prioritize return fire
• Hybrid electric drivetrain
• Reduction of crew from 4 to 3.
• Reduction of weight from 75 tons down to sub 60 tons.
• But the coolest thing is it’ll likely get a brand new sleek hull for the first time in 30 years.”
• “US Army leadership [is] reversing course on decades of tank design philosophy to do a last minute complete overhaul from the ground up based on new lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.”
• The gun-launched anti-tank guided missile is something the army has worked off and on for a long time. The Soviet’s had one, but mainly because their main guns were inaccurate at longer ranges. U.S. had a prototype ATGM that hit a T-72 at 8,600 meters. “But the Army never invested in it to go full rate production. Part of the reason for this might be because it’s also true that tank-launched ATGMs have a smaller warhead and they don’t perform as well against modern composite armor compared to the 1970s.”
• So why does the army want it now? Line of sight studies in Latvia and Lithuania (i.e, the border with Russia) shows a whole lot of areas where it would be useful.
• Tank optics are also a lot better now.
• The new XM 360 cannon uses the same 120mm diameter, but save a full ton of weight by using composites, and delivers the same 17 megajoules of energy to the target as a conventional 140mm cannon, thanks to more efficient plasma ignition.
• The Russo-Ukrainian War reveals a much more deadly threat environment for tanks. Drones are a huge threat.
• “They’re going to link the new cannon to a remote-controlled, optionally manned turret by switching to an autoloader and making the turret interior smaller. That’s a lot less volume that has to be protected by heavy armor, which equates to a lot less tons of armor.” When we last checked with western tankers looking at the T-14s autoloader some six years ago, they were skeptical of both smaller crews (“all we do is maintain tanks, and they still break down”) and autoloaders (Abrams tank crews currently put shots on target faster than Russian crews with autoloaders). But since then, the Russo-Ukraine War happened and technology galloped furiously, and presumably higher crew survivability will make the tradeoff worthwhile.
More:
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=60183https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw_PFCPWxCE&t=1s
