Why Can’t Tanks be Larger? Rheinmetall’s 130mm Gun and the Future of MBTs

[Colin Parkinson]

Time for NATO or the West to create and pay for a Gurhka Battalion to augment our lack of infantry. Perhaps a "Foreign legion" of Westerners to operate specialist equipment including TD, ATGM, ADA. 

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

Time for NATO or the West to create and pay for a Gurhka Battalion to augment our lack of infantry. Perhaps a "Foreign legion" of Westerners to operate specialist equipment including TD, ATGM, ADA.

Maybe these last few posts could be sent somewhere? They don't really belong in this thread.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

true I tried to tie it in by mentioning specialist forces, in any advent the day of the MBT may be over, but not of the tank itself, we may see a divergence again into specialized tanks. 

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I wonder Canada would follow suit or team up with the Germans on this?
https://defense-update.com/20190124_germany-to-field-trophy-aps-with-leopard-ii-tanks.html

 

[tomahawk6]

Isreal for example can afford heavy tanks because they wont need to be transported anywhere. The US has to make sure our armor can be transported by sea and possibly by air. The Russians are not limited. Their tanks can be moved by rail and roads. I liked Robert Heinlin's concept of armor propelled by air cushions.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Until you try it. Having spent a number of years working on SRN 6 Hovercraft, anything that hovers on the ground will find a slight slope and slide that way and is a utter bitch to move when it does, because it's managed to slide right between two things that prevent it from going downslope, front or back.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Until you try it. Having spent a number of years working on SRN 6 Hovercraft, anything that hovers on the ground will find a slight slope and slide that way and is a utter ***** to move when it does, because it's managed to slide right between two things that prevent it from going downslope, front or back.

Meanwhile, the US wants to develop AI enabled tanks: https://www.zdnet.com/video/the-military-wants-to-build-lethal-tanks-with-ai/

 

[Shrek1985]

Ahem. Rail Gauge. Follow that where it takes you.

 

[Czech_pivo]

Ahem. Rail Gauge. Follow that where it takes you.

Tell'em Gerald sent you.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Ahem. Rail Gauge. Follow that where it takes you.

Frankly I don't give horses ass or two about rail gauge....    ;D

 

[MarkOttawa]

Remember the Maus that roared:
https://www.militaryfactory.com/armor/detail.asp?armor_id=319
http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2-german-prototypes/panzer_maus.php
https://www.learning-history.com/world-war-ii-super-tank-maus/

Mark
Ottawa

 

[brihard]

Ahem. Rail Gauge. Follow that where it takes you.

These days? Not very far.

 

[a_majoor]

Semi idle thought: The US Army is looking to create a cannon with a range of 1000km, but apparently there is no work on anything like a Gerald Bull Supergun or a WWII era German Railway Cannon for firing such a thing.

This suggests that the round will be self propelled, perhaps by a ramjet engine during most of its flight, while launched from a conventional (if perhaps lengthened) 155mm cannon. Could it be possible to scale this down from 155mm to 120mm and have a ramjet powered round accelerating all the way to the target at speeds well beyond the 1200m/s currently attained by APDS-FS rounds?

 

[NavyShooter]

And for those concerned about rail movement...consider this somewhat historic tale:

https://dwanethomas.com/roman-chariots-and-the-space-shuttle/

 

[daftandbarmy]

And for those concerned about rail movement...consider this somewhat historic tale:

https://dwanethomas.com/roman-chariots-and-the-space-shuttle/

Partially true, apparently: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The Tiger 1 was the upper limit of what the Germans could effectively recover, it took 4 halftracks to recover a Tiger II, if at all. So it's not only a case of the infrastructure in theatre, but the ability to recover your own vehicles.

 

[daftandbarmy]

The Tiger 1 was the upper limit of what the Germans could effectively recover, it took 4 halftracks to recover a Tiger II, if at all. So it's not only a case of the infrastructure in theatre, but the ability to recover your own vehicles.

If you recreated that photo as a diorama, it would win the competition at the Logistics Convention

 

[tomahawk6]

I suspect that the next US MBT will have a gun/launcher like the old Sheridan light tank issued to the 82d back in the 60's. But some new kind of armor would be necessary for survivability.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-curious-case-the-us-armys-m551-sheridan-light-tank-19227

 

[Retired AF Guy]

And for those concerned about rail movement...consider this somewhat historic tale:

https://dwanethomas.com/roman-chariots-and-the-space-shuttle/

The problem with this theory is that the Romans never used war chariots. If they did use chariots it was primarily for ceremonial purposes.

 

[FJAG]

The problem with this theory is that the Romans never used war chariots. If they did use chariots it was primarily for ceremonial purposes.

Quite right, but the Romans used a lot of wagons for transport. An interesting picture from Pompeii shows stepping stones for pedestrians in the streets and the wagon wheel ruts leading up to them:

On top of that the Romans actually had laws setting standards for road width:

The Laws of the Twelve Tables, dated to about 450 BC, required that any public road (Latin via) be 8 Roman feet (perhaps about 2.37 m) wide where straight and twice that width where curved. These were probably the minimum widths for a via; in the later Republic, widths of around 12 Roman feet were common for public roads in rural regions, permitting the passing of two carts of standard (4 foot) width without interference to pedestrian traffic.[11] Actual practices varied from this standard.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads

Standard gauges for Roman wagon wheel bases probably grew from this type of thing.

There's also this:

A popular legend that has been around since at least 1937[7] traces the origin of the 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) gauge even further back than the coalfields of northern England, pointing to the evidence of rutted roads marked by chariot wheels dating from the Roman Empire.[a][8] It is curious that the Roman pace or passus was 4.855 ft or 1435 mm; a thousand such was one Roman mile. Snopes categorised this legend as "false", but commented that "it is perhaps more fairly labelled as 'True, but for trivial and unremarkable reasons'".[9] The historical tendency to place the wheels of horse-drawn vehicles approximately 5 ft (1,524 mm) apart probably derives from the width needed to fit a carthorse in between the shafts.[9] In addition, while road-travelling vehicles are typically measured from the outermost portions of the wheel rims (and there is some evidence that the first railways were measured in this way as well),[citation needed] it became apparent that for vehicles travelling on rails it was better to have the wheel flanges located inside the rails, and thus the distance measured on the inside of the wheels (and, by extension, the inside faces of the rail heads) was the important one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard-gauge_railway

:cheers: