alanch90

FINALLY got a relatively good top down view on Merkava 4 turret and again could make some pixel counting on the thickness of the externally mounted armor modules (that is, not accounting for the thickness of the steel backplates/turret walls).

That's very interesting and sounds very similar to what the Chinese are doing. However i will express the same doubts that i did on the occasion of commenting on the AI assisted target detection and full AI gunnery. The latter is more difficult than the first especially in the kind of procedure described in the article (which point to a 2 man crew, driver plus commander). Why i say this? Because since the commander is busy confirming the targets offered to him by the AI and passing them over to the AI gunner (to smartly prioritize the order in which the targets will be engaged should be relatively simple), the "AI gunner" must be able to do three basic tasks in growing difficulty: calculating a fire solution, which is the simplest, but also be able to distinguish a missed shot from a successful impact (and hence apply corrections for the following shot) which might require other types of sensors other than just very fancy thermal cameras (for example a radar capable of tracking both the enemy target and the trajectory of the projectiles fired at it) and lastly the most difficult: to be able to judge whether the target has been successfully neutralized or not. I would argue that to make this judgement is even more difficult than distinguishing a target from a non-target. In fact the process may require the commander to interrupt the recognition of targets in order to go back at an already engaged target and order the system to re engage or proceed to the next one on the list. These are just the first "bottlenecks" that i can think of relating to the system described above which in the absence of a dedicated human gunner among the crew might render the system as not much faster in practice than the systems we already have.

@LooSeR that channel´s videos do get deleted from time to time.

But those are 2 very different things (having the vehicle be remotely operated vs having an AI "commander"). However for an IFV its the most efficient use of the interior volume. You get to have a full sized squad being the only people actually sitting inside the vehicle in combat. In addition, you can have no more than 2 people of said squad doubling as assistant crewmen, but meant to dismount with the rest of the squad.

AI as commander? That's even more daring than having AI replacing a gunner or a driver in my opinion.

That is assuming GDLS wins OMFV which is not going to happen sooner than about 5-8 years at least. Meaning, that the contract for MPF will be awarded before that.

Is there any actual reason for the Army to choose GDLS's proposal over the XM-8, apart from GDLS being GDLS? Because i dont see one.

" According to Viktor Murakhovsky, the concentration of the latest AFVs in the same regiments and brigades is much more effective than the even distribution of equipment among all the Ground Forces. This will allow, if necessary, to assemble an armored strike group in an important direction, which can decide the outcome of the battle." Guderian be like "No shit Sherlock"

Well, places like JAPAN or TAIWAN are still islands on the Pacific, and at least the first one is a place where a a tank weighing more than 50 tons can´t be deployed on 70-80 percent of its territory. And then you start connecting dots and realize that the Chinese must have pretty good reasons to develop a lighter 2 man next gen MBT which from what we got until now seems to be in the 40-50 ton class.

I do agree with all of that, i´m just exercising my imagination with what alternatives the americans might consider to a traditional design (can get too heavy) or an unmanned turret (that they tried and since then said again and again that they don't like). Some pages ago we discussed a concept "leaked" from one of their brainstorming meetings which we speculated that it pointed to a 3 man crew with the TC and Gunner sitting in the turret basket but below the turret ring. While this idea is very much plausible, it may be that even this layout produces a tank heavier than what they need: imagine the chinese bringing a 2 man tank with unmanned turret weighting 40 something tons (and we already have articles and concepts posted in this forum covering that) to an island in the Pacific and the US Marines don't even have tanks. Then it occurred to me that because of this the americans may give the 2 man crew another shot and so i started thinking all what i wrote.

Of course, it's a matter of proportions and something to be solved in an actual design. However, having a relatively higher center of gravity didn't pop as an issue during the MBT-70 program: adding more weight to the turret proportionally to the hull can be mitigated by making the hull (and hence the whole of the tank) shorter and thus lowering the center of gravity which is something simple when you don't need to place the crew there.

Well, i did say that such a layout brings "most" of the benefits of a tank with unmanned turret, not all. And yes, the crew and ammo are less protected as they are placed above the turret ring. But on the other hand, since the hull is unmanned/smaller, more weight can be assigned for the heavy armor of the turret. On the other hand, an advantage of this layout over the unmanned/lightly armored turret would be that if the turret is hit by anti tank fire, it won't necessarily lead to the loss of the main gun. That's what i meant by "Abrams testbed". Thing is that they tried that idea and didn't like it for the reasons i mentioned. That's why i started thinking of alternatives they may consider in the future during this "brainstorming" phase they are having. I mean, if I were to design a tank i would go for an unmanned turret but since they have not shown much affection to that concept, the "unmanned hull" comes as a rational choice given the most likely requirements.

Bottom line me reasoning is the following: provided that the development of AI reached the point of being equally able to replace either the gunner or the driver, who would be the most preferable one to replace in a 2 man tank* ? For all we know, the Chinese are focusing AI development in replacing the Gunner and also in assisting the TC for spotting targets. My guess is that the process could work in the following way: the AI fuses data coming from a variety of sensors (hence, being able to detect many more probable targets than what a TC can do just by using his CITV) and passes the TC a full "menu" of likely targets. The TC then confirms the identification and authorizes the AI to engage. Then comes a second complex operation, the AI gunner must be able to recognize on his own when a shot has hit the target or missed and if this is the case must also be able to apply corrections for the follow up. This means that such an AI must be capable of (among other tasks) automatic target recognition and automatic shot correction. I don't see how this is any less complex than driving a tank. Moreover, AI assisted gunnery is not incompatible with a human gunner and i suspect that a team of a TC + Gunner + AI is more effective than "just" a TC + AI in this respect. My guess is that if the americans go for a 2 man crew (and if anyone has the time, resources and experience to develop this, it's them), they may be less willing to replace a gunner than a driver. On the other hand, i didn't suggest fully autonomous driving, when not in combat either the gunner or commander can drive the tank especially to negotiate complicated obstacles (and as far as i know, tanks do not tend to engage in combat in unfavorable terrain). The only requirement for a 2 man crew that includes a dedicated gunner is that the AI be able to drive the tank while the human crew is busy with combat tasks. But even so, lets say that a tank platoon is driving in a column and the leading tank encounters an obstacle that the AI can't solve and so the "operator" (human gunner-driver) takes control of the vehicle and with the assistance of the TC, clears the obstacle. Instantaneously, the rest of the tank platoon AI understands what the lead tank has encountered and how they've dealt with the problem and therefore can replicate the exact maneuver or apply a better one. As an alternative, the entire tank platoon may be assigned a dedicated remote human driver (being transported in a dedicated vehicle kilometers away in the rear ) to supervise the AI driving the lead tank and take control when necessary. Even more, having AI driving the tanks will ensure (or at least make less likely) that , for example, tanks of the same unit crash into each other or cross into their line of fire, as the networked AI is fully "aware" (certainly more so than a human driver with his hatch closed) of the position of the various vehicles in relation to each other. I can think of many other scenarios where a AI driver / optionally human driven tank can prove more efficient than a dedicated driver placed inside the tank. Having said all this and again taking for granted that this crucial technology works, i think that a tank layout reminiscent of the MBT-70 could fully comply with what various american officials stated that they would like in a future tank. In fact, the americans have experimented a lot with virtually every type of tank layout in the last decades. They have experience with a "T-14 like" layout (Abrams testbed), 2 man crews (FCS) and also the aforementioned MBT-70. They need a tank that is more deployable than the Abrams but also can hold his own against T-14 or whatever the Chinese get to Pacific Ocean islands. But on the other hand, they have a requirement need for the crew to be able to manually access the weapons compartment to service the main gun in case of malfunction (or also manually operate the turret and weapons) and also many american TCs in various opportunities have expressed that they don't like not being able to pop their heads through the turret hatch. Granted, the development of VR/AR can partially or fully compensate for this but the american decision makers could and likely will argue that a tank must have a backup when those cameras/visor systems fail. These two things combined pretty much rule out a "T-14/XM1202 like" reminiscent tank. So either the americans can go with a more traditional approach, which won´t get light enough for global deployability, or they can go back to the MBT-70 "unmanned hull" layout (and its concept that they already experimented a lot, finding that the only "weak link" was the human driver), which could combine most of the benefits of a tank with unmanned turret (comparable or higher protection than a traditional tank with a potentially much lower weight) with the 2 requirements described above. *side note: a 2 man tank could fulfill US requirements for global deployability, and if its armor is fully modular then its protection and weight could be scalable up or down to be used both in Europe and SE Asia

My point is that eventually they are going to solve it and certainly within this decade, which kind of coincides with the approximate timeframe for the development of an Abrams replacement. I'm just wondering if, taking for granted that the tech is going to work, such a layout would be tempting enough for them to actually go for it as it combines a reduced overall tank weight with the situational awareness that they love so much (and in theory can´t get with an unmanned turret).

Sooner than later they are going to figure it out all this thing about autonomous driving and once they do there's little incentive to keep a human driver in the tank. Let's say that the AI will be able to understand TCs verbal orders, will be able to feed from a variety of sensors and not just video footage (for example integrating laser terrain scanners which are also needed if the tank is to have active suspension). Another possibility is that the gunner may be able to double as driver for dealing for a particularly tricky obstacle while in combat the thing could drive completely autonomous. The israelis actually are fully going ahead for the replacement of the driver with AI. I imagine that such a tank could easily weight in the low 50´s or even in the 40-50 ton range while retaining equal or better crew protection than an M1. With that weight it becomes usable in many more battlefields. The chinese are also going for a 2 man + AI (gunner) crew for the same reasons.

I just saw some footage of MBT-70 and it got me thinking. Given that the only problem of that tank´s layout was the placement of the driver i in the turret, if autonomous driving becomes a mature technology in the next 10 years, it could make a lot of sense that the americans went for a design somewhat like that for the Abrams replacement. I mean, a crew of 2 (TC and gunner)+AI, all placed in the turret, that would lighten overall the tank a lot while still retaining a lot of armor for the crew and the ability for the TC to pop his head out of the turret, right?

For the Mk4 should be Lebanon 2006, the only confirmed instance of losses of Mk4s. IIRC, about 5 Mk4 were totally destroyed back then, half of them from IEDs.

@LoooSeR when i saw that part i thought it was so absolutely stupid that i was wondering if it was actually a screw up of the automatic translation of subtitles.

I´m surprised no one posted this yet.

What is that exposed wiring at T-14 sides (coming from the front hull, going below the fenders)? Is that part of the "magnetic defense system"?

Gurkhan shared this, from Army Forum 2020. Official data of T-14 by UVZ: Hull width, including side armor modules, is 3820mm which led me to update my estimation of the thickness of the hull armor itself: Now the most likely hull base armor LOS thickness in my opinion is 938mm. Another interesting info from UVZ is that T-14 does have a coaxial 7.62mm machine gun finally ending years of debate. Also the maximum on road speed is no less than 75 km/h and we know that the tanks speedometer goes up to 85 km/h. Cruising range is also not less than other standard Russian service MBTs (T-72s, T-90s).

It comes down to the following: Kurganets was a VERY good IFV for today's standards, for tomorrow´s not so much. Unlike the T-14, K-25 increase in capabilities relative to what it was meant to replace were much more incremental than a leap ahead. Its protection characteristics are comparable to most other modern IFVs. Unmanned turret has been done before. Perhaps it was a little bit faster but not by a lot. What was indeed interesting was that K-25 could achieve that and still be capable of swimming. Another interesting aspect was the weapon selection, although the ATGMs badly need modern replacements and the turret itself can be installed in other older and cheaper vehicles. Not only the turret but also the armor and most of its systems may be mounted in a modernized BMP-3. If the russians choose to radically modernize BMP-3 or make a "BMP-4" on the basis of BMP-3 (like BMP-1 was to BMP-2) instead of pursuing the Kurganets program, the Dragun project or more specifically, the recently unveiled "Manul" is an excellent starting point; perhaps with an improved engine capable of supporting most or all of the electronics to be mounted on the K-25, together with improved armor (for example, the ceramic panels mounted on K-25 UFP) it could achieve comparable capabilities with a much lower price and less production problems. Another aspect that could point to K-25 not being "ambitious enough" could be what we know about OMFV. Indeed the american program is much more forward looking, considering they may accept a 2 man crew in order to fit a full sized squad with the same vehicle internal volume. That requires a much more advanced FCS than what K-25 was aiming to have. On the other hand, OMFV may be required to be protected vs the russian 57mm (at least the shorter one to be mounted on Kurganets) while K-25 armor most certainly can't defeat the american 50mm rounds.

Looks like "F" for Kurganets. Too bad, i was starting to like it.