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3 hours ago, DarkLabor said:

BMS burden?

More simply : every battle day life. 

You can work efficiently during a short period of time with a tinny crew, but you work better over long period with a 4 men crew.

 

In France, we are lucky because of our specific troop organization. But, it’s simply crazy to think it’s possible to work with a 2 men crew tank, whatever the technology considered. I can’t imagine a 8 or 6 men troop (cost effective BTW).

If doctrine makers are only considering borders patrol duty, it’s ok. But, this is not the real life. 

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2 hours ago, Serge said:

More simply : every battle day life. 

You can work efficiently during a short period of time with a tinny crew, but you work better over long period with a 4 men crew.

 

In France, we are lucky because of our specific troop organization. But, it’s simply crazy to think it’s possible to work with a 2 men crew tank, whatever the technology considered. I can’t imagine a 8 or 6 men troop (cost effective BTW).

If doctrine makers are only considering borders patrol duty, it’s ok. But, this is not the real life. 

Tanks with crews of 2 will still be manned by 3 men. So it's going to be just as effective as any existing 3-man tank. It's just that the gunner is relegated to another duty and no longer controls the tank's core systems, rather he operates support elements.

 

The reduced manpower is thus moved to specialized maintenance works, which makes the overall maintenance of the tank easier, and the serviceability rates higher.

 

Having a 4th crewman may be helpful when the tank is hit or when you have a lot of maintenance work. But new automotive technologies have been reducing the workload tremendously over the years and will continue to do so.

And let's not kid ourselves. When the tank's hit and a crewman is dead, the tank stops in its tracks and becomes easy bait for quite a while. There's even statistics about it. All tanks that were penetrated in the crew compartment in the Yom Kippur War, were considered mobility kills and were inoperable for a relatively considerable amount of time on the battlefield.

 

IFVs have already made the move. They went for robotized loaders. At some point, and I think they will be first to make the move en masse, will be to relegate the gunner to drone operation.

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3 hours ago, Serge said:

A vehicle is a 2 or 3 men crew vehicle, not a 2 and 3 men crew one.

 

Israel loves plasma leadership. 

 

Remember the Carmel tech promo video (with really, really shitty quality) from a while ago?

Spoiler

 

 

Well as you can see there are 3 men inside the vehicle. But only 2 are actually operating the vehicle and the other is a force commander or a drone operator depending on whether it's a standard vehicle or command version. This is what I meant.

 

In 2016 we got these news:

US Army To Demo Robotic Wingman Vehicles in 2017.

Recently, in March 2018, we got follow-up news on the same project:

First Next Gen Combat Vehicle (NGCV) and Robotic Wingman Prototypes To Emerge in 2020.

 

Their train of thought was replacing the loader with an automatic loading system, but not removing the loader - They re-tasked him, let him operate drones. So for all intents and purposes, when you're looking at the operation of the vehicle itself, they basically tested an Abrams driving, acquiring, and shooting with only 3 men. That 4th man was operating drones, and these have direct influence on the acquisition of targets, engagement, and possibly even protection if we'll start looking into mobile, semi-autonomous APS stations.

Apparently it worked and they liked the idea, and are proceeding with a full project on the agenda.

 

When it comes to maintenance, again, you have the same capabilities. When it comes to survivability, it's then all a matter of whether you teach the drone operator to also operate crewmen's systems, and a UI design. 

 

Don't be close minded, guys.

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Quote

In the publicized annual report of OJSC "Kurgan Machine Building Plant" for 2017 it is reported that the enterprise concluded state contracts for
the supply in 2019-2021 of pilot/test vehicles on the "Kurganets-25" platform.

/.../

OJSC "Kurganmashzavod" concluded state contracts for the supply of AFVs in 2019-2021. In the end, these works should be completed in 2021 by adopting (into service) the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of combat vehicles (such as BMP and BTR on unified light armored tracked platforms (6 and 7 rollers)) for the subsequent creation and production on their basis of a family of lightly armored vehicles for various purposes. "

 

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Some time after T-14 was revealed, i looked at T-14 layout vs Object 299-based MBT layout and i think T-14 have less optimal placement of crew during movement. 

image001.jpg

 

   Object 299 MBT variant placed crew in the middle of the chassis, where oscillations of the hull is minimal in a tracked vehicle during movement on rough terrain. T-14 crew is located in most forward position possible, where crew will feel higher accelerations from bumps. I don't know how this will affect working conditions of crew in combat (i think it will be not noticeable as they will not drive at high speeds), but during long distances off-road driving that may result in higher/faster fatigue and amplification of spacial disorientation because of lacking direct view on enviroment outside of the vehicle.

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  • 2 weeks later...

After some talks on Discord, i decided to post some of it here.

 

   I don't understand why Kurganets being developed. There is a BMP-3 version (Dragoon) that have basically same features as Kurganets chassis have like engine in the front and bigger troops compartment.

1508803281_bmp3m_3.jpg

 

Spoiler

1508803235_bmp3m_1.jpg

 

drag10.jpg

 

   With Boomerang-BM unmanned turret that don't penetrate into the hull, it could be almost as spacious as Kurganets. Armor could be made as add on modules (as on Kurganets) and so what we left is that there is nothing what Kurganets offer over BMP-3M Dragoon, or at least nothing that is visible for me.

 

Spoiler

BMP-3_DRAGUN_150923_02.jpg

 

BMP-3M-Dragun.jpg

If there was an unmanned version of BMP-3-like turret with 100 mm gun + 30 mm coaxial...

Spoiler

348776_original.jpg

 

15333_original.jpg

 

349544_original.jpg

 

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Well, you can *almost* say goodbye to Armata. MoD decided to cancel mass production of it. Will translate Borisov's words later, after work. People who thought that Armata will be produced in very small numbers were right. Even I thought that at least Kantemirovskaya and Tamanskaya would got some amount of T-14s before 2020, but chances of that are even smaller now.

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4 minutes ago, Mighty_Zuk said:

So the batch of 100 operational test vehicles was only planned and not yet complete?

delivery of those 100 is planned to be completed in 2020, there are chances for a more tanks to be purchased, but in small numbers. As Borisov said - no mass production, but no cancellation of project either .

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Found the source:

https://ria.ru/arms/20180730/1525561724.html

 

Mr. Borisov says the T-72 is plenty at the moment, that its cost, effectiveness, and quality substantially overcome those of the Abrams, Leclerc, and Leopard. Thus it makes no sense to mass-produce the T-14 and it will save them money. 

Basically it's the exact reasoning as behind the decision to cancel mass-production of the SU-57, although I would argue the SU-57 was also technologically immature, as it required a lot of work on its new engine before the project could continue. 

 

Makes me wonder if their Kinzhal, nuclear powered cruise missile project, and nuclear powered USV/torpedo hybrid, as well as Sarmat, are really still being worked on or are also overhyped and significantly behind schedule or just underfunded.

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those are projects that eat money and apparently they need more. They are priority in state program, I suspect that others are victims of reconsideration of where they want to spend more in situation of stagnant economy. Although for some reason they want to make ekranoplans now. 

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39 minutes ago, LoooSeR said:

those are projects that eat money and apparently they need more. They are priority in state program, I suspect that others are victims of reconsideration of where they want to spend more in situation of stagnant economy. Although for some reason they want to make ekranoplans now. 

Thanks for the update. Interesting.

 

re Ekranoplans Drool. I love them!

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