That_Baka

Soviet Obj. 299, Jordanian Falcon, British COMRES, various American projects...
 
Except for the stryker MGS, none of them has entered service.  I wonder if there is a problem with the concept.

Yeah, and it is called Object 299. Those are not new ideas, there are smarter people that wanted to do that. If USSR did not had such shity elites in 1970-80s, we could already see them in use.

Anyway, I suspect that next crew member, who will find itself outside of tank is gunner. Not any time soon, but most likely it would be him.
 
About tank layout from Teledyne:

 

 

Not just any robots.  Communist robots.

So not only did they strap a million machine guns to IS-7, they also wanted them to be fired by robots?

Automatization. Loader work was first to be automated, according to Soviet tank designers calculations next should be gunner work. IIRC they thought that driver and commander work is hardest to give to non-human systems to do as reliably as human can.

In that case you increase chances to hit autoloader, and turret in general, which will lead to overall higher number of damaged tanks during battles. 70% of hits, IIRC, during Israel conflicts were turret hits, and this is data for T-72 with its not so big turret. 

It's weird that it was used on the MS-1 and then never used until the T-44.

The specs required a highly mobile tank capable to destroy any Warsaw pact (PAVA) tanks at long range with a high hit probability on first shot. This led to the crafting of highly precise system.
To be honnest with you there is no stabilisation on the Leclerc. The gun is slave to the ballistic computer which computes the ideal LOF from the stabilised LOS.
When reloading, the gun goes to the reloading elevation. Meanwhile the LOS is still stabilised to the direction of observation (in the limits of the mirrors amplitude). Unless you release the palm switches, the mirrors go to their mechanical neutral positions.

The gunner sight is mechanically mounted to the main armament. When the gun goes up and down; the sight bows up and down.
Since the both move along with the exact same angle, boresighting can be done automatically with a deviation measurement laser (AMX 10 RC being the first french AFV to be equiped with such device).
Crews do some alignments (what we call "harmonisation" where we keep the parallax in check), but that's not the bullshit stated by Sergei Suvorov where crews were forced to boresight everytime they move their tanks...
 
At the time engineers were open minded on what could replace the classical tank. Once they defined that their platform was still an AFV, they assessed every kind of compromise to take what was the most favorable and compatible to their specs guideline.
 
 
Fun fact regarding the tracks. They spent quite some time to switch to steel tracks. They initially used the same arrangement as the aluminum alloy tracks (the shape of the rubber trackpads were supposed to reduce the stomping effect). Surprise, surprise, the vibrations at high speed were strong enough to be a handicap. This explains why we transition from V2 (alloy) to V5 (steel). Apparently V4 was also a disappointment.

Even with V5 or DST 840 the vibration is quite awkward compared to V2.

Maybe we should add here T-72 timeline and compare it to NATO tanks timeline.

Oh boy, T-72 variants! What a time for scale model manufacturers to make new kits loosely based on blurry black and white parade photos!
 

Looks like someone dropped their Ak in a pile of shit

I have it on good authority that the real SS stenciled huge runes on their wife beaters and ran around with AKs.
 

Low budget historical reenactment.

That Shmaiser looks like MP-40! Such terrible cosplay.

Or just create a whole tower, with the dual 30mm guns at the bottom with ATGMs to the side, on top of it 2 AGLs attached in the same manner as the autocannons, and on top of them 2 HMGs again in the same manner. A panoramic sight at the very top, one former AGL operator sitting on the sight, with the other sitting on his head (both, of course, protected with the best Blyatnik-3 gear), acting as one majestic periscope. 

This turret, albeit for a BMP-2, is part-way there
 

From a brief overview of his books they seem a bit sensationalist and more analytical than technical (even though he is an engineer), but he also opposes Suvorov/Rezun, so that's something. I can't find what book this is supposed to be translated from, it might be an adaptation of "June 1941: a pre-programmed defeat". 

Laviduce, about your scheme with 80mm at bustle  turret side, Leopard-2 never had plates thicker than 45mm, and turret side - spaced armor with 90mm LOS, not 80mm RHA plate, if you do not believe me, you can knock this part in some museum with your fist (of course, if you do not have the opportunity to use USG) and realize how thin the outer plate is there, main requirement for turret bustle side spaced armor - protection from 14,5mm and 20mm, thats all. 
 
and of course turret roof have only 40 and 20mm plates, not 70... 

@Andrei_bt posted this archive on Livejournal, I'm going to share it here. This folder has the English language documents and books, if you go one up there's a ton of Russian stuff. The server is very wonky, so if you download anything (click the checkbox and then Скачать in the toolbar above) only do one or two docs at a time. Also the site periodically 404s, but it always comes back.

There was a diagram from the LS-Dyna simulation software on some T-90S advertising poster, which suggests that the general armor layout of the T-90S' welded turret is identical to the T-72B turret; however armor thickness and materials might be different. I'll try to find the picture. The T-84 also seems to utilize the same armor as the T-80U, but with improved materials (much higher quality steel) and increased overall thickness (1,200 mm instead of 700-800 mm).
 
The T-72B doesn't use BDD though.
 
PS:

 
The welded turret is supposedly made out of electro-slug refined steel, which provides 15% more protection than cast steel at the same weight/thickness. 

Found some 75 year old plagiarism: a Ferdinand drawing in a Russian report and a British report.