wolfone@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Patrick Chester) (05/03/91)
From: wolfone@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Patrick Chester) Does anyone know the designation of the latest Soviet tank design or if it exists yet? I've heard that it was supposed to be called the T-90, but I'm not very certain. Thank you, Patrick Chester
bxr307@csc1.anu.edu.au (05/05/91)
From: bxr307@csc1.anu.edu.au > From: wolfone@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Patrick Chester) > Does anyone know the designation of the latest Soviet tank design or if > it exists yet? I've heard that it was supposed to be called the T-90, > but I'm not very certain. Thus far I have seen no publicly released material as to what form the next Soviet tank will take or its designation beyond the "FST" (Future Soviet Tank) one which appears more to be "sliding" one than a permament one (in other words its applied to each successive vehicle in turn). There was some conjecture that it was going to be a "supervehicle" with an elevated gun and all the crew in the hull, under armour. However just as the mythical "T80" which appeared in the early issues of "Soviet Military Power" (the Pentagon publication) were proven to be rather false (it was supposed to have Chobham armour and a very advanced fire control system the equal of the west's), I suspect that the idea that the Soviet's will be the first to field an elevated gun vehicle before the West as rather laughable. The western countries are having a hell of a lot of trouble building one, and as we know only too well the quality of Soviet vehicles is rather low technically (they prefer an evolutionary path, rather than a revolutionary one) I'd be rather surprised if their next vehicle doesn't look basically like the last with a conventional turret. One thing which was let slip though, by the Soviets when they put in an unsolicited bid to sell the UK T80's as part of the Challenger competition was that they are apparently now about to build armoured vehicles where the main structural components have been replaced by ceramics, instead of steel. If true, it will allow them to beat the ever upward weight trend in armoured vehicles for a while, and produce much lighter MBT's which are just as well protected. Now that will in itself cause a bit of a panic in some quarters. ;-) -- Brian Ross
Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com (05/08/91)
From: Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com What is an elevated gun vehicle and what is the U.S.'s progress on building one? Eric Klien
bxr307@coombs.anu.edu.au (Brian Ross) (05/11/91)
From: bxr307@coombs.anu.edu.au (Brian Ross) Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com writes: >What is an elevated gun vehicle and what is the U.S.'s progress on >building one? An "elevated gun vehicle" is where the gun is mounted externally to the vehicle, above the turret or hull and is basically designed to be poked over things to enable the tank to assume a completely turret down positionwith nothing showing except the very small frontage area of the gun itself. This has the obvious advantage of that it makes a firing vehicle a much, much smaller target. It is also able to make full use of concealment and be much harder to spot. Tanks already attempt this when they assume hull down positions on the reverse slopes of hills with only their turret showing. Even so the advantages offered by only actually exposing the gun, rather than the whole turret are considerably. The potential target offered to the enemy is about 1/4 or less with an elevated gun vehicle, compared to the normal turreted vehicle. The problems being encountered in the West with developing such a vehicle concept is not so much in actually building a tank with a gun elevated above the hull but rather with the associated fire control systems and optics. The biggest problem thus far encountered is the considerably decreased field of view which the commander is provided with when he has to rely upon an indirect optronic system for observation of the surrounding countryside. As I am sure the ex-tank commanders who post here would confirm, one of the best things a tank commander can do, if he's brave enough is operate with his head out of his turret. It ensures that he has a much better field of view than relying upon his cupola, and can detect threats much more quickly. If the commander is forced to rely on an optronic system for his vision, then he has to act much more cautiously and has much greater difficulty scanning the surrounding terrain for potential dangers. Also in a conventional tank turret, if all the expensive machinery is knocked out, its still possible for a tank commander to control his own little bit of the battle by poking his head out occassionally, whereas if he is buried in the hull of the tank, below the level of the gun (which is how most of these elevated gun vehicles place him for added protection), he has to expose much more of himself in order to be able to adequately survey the surrounding terrain. The same goes for the reloading of the gun. While its now relatively easy to overcome the technical problems emplied in having to resort to a mechanical loader, the tank crew can still act as a last resort manual backup system if it fails, as they are inside the turret with the gun. If the weapon is mounted above the tank, or the crew are physically isolated from it (some of these proposals have a "stub-turret" where the gun is surrounded by the absolute minimum of turret in an effort to reduce its frontal area) they cannot reload the gun. Instead they are forced to withdraw from the battle and have it repaired. The final major problem, which is related to that of the commander, is the gunner's. He is also expected to be able to operate the gun, while physically isolated from it. While its less of the problem for him, the use of a pure optronic system, and being removed from the rotating mass of the turret could lead to disorientation. In otherwords he might think the gun is pointing somewhere else, when in fact its not. This sort of problem is lessened when he's actually in the turret and rotates with the gun. A similar problem was encountered when developing the MBT-70 (the failed predecessor to the M1 and Leopard 2). It had the driver in the turret, physically isolated from the rest of the crew in a rotating "drum" cupola which was designed to counter-rotate and keep him facing forward when the turret rotated. It was fine in theory and usually worked in practice, however it was found that too often the driver became disoriented as the turret traversed around him (the driver was subconsiosely relying upon visual cues in his field of vision, such as the corners of the turret and so on to keep himself oriented as to where the tank was going and what it was doing. However these visual cues kept changing while the vehicle was even moving in a straight line. While it was possible for a driver to be trained to overcome this it was felt to be too time consuming). Before its cancellation the MBT-70 was undergoing a redesign to eliminate the "driver in a turret" concept and return him to his proper place at the front of the hull. -- Brian Ross
wbt@cbema.att.com (William B Thacker) (05/15/91)
From: wbt@cbema.att.com (William B Thacker) Eric_S_Klien@cup.portal.com asks: >What is an elevated gun vehicle and what is the U.S.'s progress on >building one? I hope Carl doesn't nail me for quoting the entire article ! 8-) Apart from the couple of articles that have already been posted, I'd like to add a few tidbits. One driving force toward the elevated gun concept is that the elimination of the heavy turret frees up weight; one current view is that as top-attack missiles (such as the TOW 2B, which fires downward at the tank's thin deck armor) will force tank designers to increase deck protection, and therefore weight. An analogous system is already in US Army service, in the form of the M901 Improved TOW Vehicle, which mounts a twin TOW missile launcher on a "cherry picker", together with optics. The platform can be raised above intervening terrain (*not* something proposed for elevated gun tanks, BTW), offering the same advantages as the elevated gun. -- Bill Thacker AT&T Network Systems - Columbus wbt@cbnews.att.com Free the Lagrange 5 !
silber@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Ami A. Silberman) (05/16/91)
From: silber@m.cs.uiuc.edu (Ami A. Silberman) [16 lines quoting entire MBT-70 driver disorientation problem deleted. --CDR] The B-17 had a similar problem. On the prototypes for the first turret armed versions (E, I think) they initially tried to use electrically controlled ball, top, and perhaps tail turrets, using a complicated mirror system to aim the gun. The gunners became disoriented, and could not track targets, so it was resolved to place them in the turrets as on the medium bombers. When a chin turret was added (G model?) it was controlled from within the nose section by either the bombardier or the navigator. The B-29 managed to lick these problems, all guns aside from the tail gun were controled remotely. [OK, so how did the B-29 fix the problem and why couldn't they use that for the MBT-70? --CDR] -- ami silberman - janitor of lunacy silber@cs.uiuc.edu
Scott.Johnson@f15.n391.z1.FidoNet.Org (Scott Johnson) (05/18/91)
From: Scott.Johnson@f15.n391.z1.FidoNet.Org (Scott Johnson) >The B-17 had a similar problem. On the prototypes for the first turre >armed versions (E, I think) they initially tried to use electrically Nope, they just had the periscopic ventral turret. Everything else was as-is (was?), electrically operated but manually aimed/direct sited. The periscope was notorious for giving the gunners headaches and airsickness, and there was not a single confirmed kill using the thing. Most removed it to save weight. > [OK, so how did the B-29 fix the problem and why couldn't > they use that for the MBT-70? --CDR] The B-29 used a central computer to calculate lead and firing position from information provided by special gunsights (3 in the waist and 1 in the nose). The part that the gunner looked through was little more than an elaborate reflecting gunsight-- no "periscoping" involoved. An interesting note is that the top-waist gunner was the "gun commander", and had complete control over who controlled what turret. Normally he had exclusive controll over the top back turret, the bombadier had primary control of the top forward turret (gun commander had secondary control), and the two waist gunners had the bottom two. Through switches at his station, the gun commander could switch turrets to whomever needed them. This made the B-29 a MOST formidable target, and many times a wounded -29 was protected by an undamaged one. I have read many accounts where the fighters were literally beaten away from the hurt bomber. See ya! Scott J.