Alternative Armour Thoughts

[GTX]

Hi folks,

The discussion about the SADF Merkava II started me thinking (always a dangerous thing ).  How about a western tank done up with something like the Slovakian T-72M1 Moderna:

Image Source: http://www.army-technology.com/projects/t72/t726.html

How would a Merkava, Challenger, Abrams or Leopard 2 look with some extra cannon added to the turret?  What else would you modify - let your ideas run wild?

Regards,

Greg

[Madoc]

Greg,

In John Birmingham's "Axis of Time" series he features a M-1 Abrams tank outfitted with a whole bunch of additional heavy caliber weapons.  These, for anti-personelle use.  I'm calling this up from memory but I believe he had the Abrams sporting at least one 40mm grenade launcher turret and an additional .50cal or 20mm turreted gun as well.

His description of it was somewhat vague but made it clear that the current version was just as deadly to enemy armor as the M-1A had always been but now it could well handle itself in urban settings where the bad guys were trying to swarmm it with bodies.  The only price paid here was the new version's no longer having the clean and uncluttered lines of the original Abrams.

Madoc

[cletus spuckler]

A little off topic......

I have a 1/35 Tamiya PBR, 1/35 Little Bird, and a lot of armour kits. I have been toying with a twin Minigun with 7 round FFAR pods on the front of the PBR, and a Mk-19 auto thumper in the Thumper pit. The aft weapon station is a .50 cal, but what could I mount to give this kit the right "feel".  Obviously a little stretch and uparmouring needs to be done, but I can't bring myself to do it, as they are all great kits.


cletus spuckler

[Radish]

About 15 years ago, I built the 1/35th ESCI T-55:

Deepened the turret as it was always needed on this kit
Added the 120mm from the ESCI (crap) Leopard II kit
Added the running gear and tracks from L II
Added a new engine deck from card and an exhaust from L II
Added cut down side skirts from L II
Added stowage and armour like on the Leopard A5
Painted it in brown, green, black NATO camo, and added German and UN markings.

Scenario......1998 Romania....NATO takes over.

At the same time I completed a Dragon 1/35th T-72:

New turret basket like on the M60 Pattons
New side skirts on it, made from card, and consisting of thick armour.
TWIN 125mm guns on the front of the turret
Black, two-tone green camo.
German and UN markings

Scenario....Demolition tank, Romania 1998.

"Might" have pictures somewhere....I'll try to scan and send them, but the models no longer exist.

What does exist is my AWB (South African) "White Rhinos", ie Merkavas
AWB "Armadillo"....ie upgunned, uparmoured, up stowaged T-62
An Aztec Pirannha.......    

[Jschmus]

In John Ringo's novel Gust Front, there are Abrams tanks that have been fitted with pods on the sides of the turret, each containing four M242 Bushmaster 25mm cannon, for use as anti-Posleen weapons.  Later in the series, he introduces a further M1 variant where all the original armament has been deleted and replaced with pods of Metalstorm guns.

[mgp]

I've always figured that the lack of anti-aircraft defences on most tanks has been a weak spot. Add a pair of surface to air missile pods containing Stingers or something slightly bigger to one or both sides of the turret and enemy choppers will be in for a nasty shock. Even if you don't succeed in hitting anything your opponent's helicopters are effectively forced to keep their distance.

[dragon]

Then again, I have also seen 106mm Recoiless Rifles mounted on top of a TPZ-1 Fuchs serving in the Venezuelan Army in order to give it more firepower.

[GTX]

Madoc,

Funny you should mention John Birmingham – I just finished reading ‘Designated Targets’ a couple of days ago.  His description of the M1A3 was as follows:

“The low-profile turret now bristled with forty-millimetre grenade launchers, an M134 7.62-millimetre mini-gun, and either a small turret for twin .50s or a single Tenix ADI thirty-millimetre chain gun.  The 120-millimetre cannon remained, but it was now rifled like the British Challenger’s gun…. The tanks were typically loaded out with a heavy emphasis on high-impact, soft kill ammunition, such as the canistered ‘beehive’ rounds, Improved Conventional Bomblets, White Phos, and thermobaric and flame-gel capsules…the tank commander now enjoyed an independent thermal and LLAMPS viewer, while 360-degree visibility came via a network of hardened battle-cams.  A secondary fuel cell generator allowed the tank to idle without guzzling JP-8 jet fuel.”

As to my what-if concept:  Maybe an Abrams, Challenger 2 or Leopard 2A6 fitted with a High velocity 30mm cannon on one side (such as in the T-72M1 Moderna mentioned at the top), a mini gun/ 40mm grenade launcher (i.e. short barrel) on the other side, a retractable sensor mount at the rear of the turret able to extend to give additional vision (this would also contain a laser designator to guide laser guided rounds), at least 2 remote 7.62mm machine guns on the turret top to allow for close in work, and maybe an armoured platform on the rear decking to allow for the carriage of a small VTOL tactical UAV.



Jeffry,

Good points.  Correct me if I'm wrong but the reason the Abrams (and most other modern Western tanks) don't have a HESH round is that such a round requires a rifled barrel?

In my what-if dreaming above, I guess I was trying to introduce some of the elements from the FCS. 

Maybe an alternative would be to develop a heavy support vehicle.  This would involve removing the 120mm main gun and replacing it with a weapons pack including something like the 40mm used on the Swedish CV-90 or a 35mm weapon.  This could be coaxially mounted with a grenade launcher or the like - another option would be something like the Russian BMP-3 setup (coaxial 30mm and 100mm weapons).  For tank v tank combat (which this would not be designed for)  the vehicle could carry a pod of guided missiles.  I would still include the retractable sensor platform (maybe even with a version of the Apache Logbow Radar (suitably protected of course) and the close in weapons.

I wouldn't do this mod for all tanks in the fleet though - many would still carry the 120mm gun.  The end result of this would be a heavy armoured vehicle used more for supporting tanks/providing support to infantry. 


Having done a little more research on this one, I guess my idea above is turning into something akin to a western version of the BMP-4/BTR-T

Info:  http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/bmp-4.htm
Pic:  http://www.geocities.com/peru_defensa_naci...ages1/BTRT.jpeg

Regards,

Greg

[Jschmus]

The gist of those articles is that the BTR-T is a nice idea, but the T-55 chassis is too slow to keep up with current tanks.  Now if they applied the concept to the T-80, or better yet, to the American Abrams...

I can see it now, with a low-profile turret mounting the M242 25mm cannon, with a twin TOW launcher (as in M2/3 Bradley) on one side of the turret, and a quad Stinger pod (see M6 Linebacker) on the other.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

Then again, I have also seen 106mm Recoiless Rifles mounted on top of a TPZ-1 Fuchs serving in the Venezuelan Army in order to give it more firepower.

The M40 106mm RR was also mounted on M113s during the Vietnam War for use as a direct support weapon.  The Canadian Army fielded their own version of the same weapon mounted on top of the M113 in a cradle that allowed them to dismount the weapon on its wheeled man-handled/man transportable mount if necessary.  The American and South Vietnamese version had the weapon mounted on the right rear of the vehicle which was kind of awkward and limited the firing arc of the weapon since it would place the muzzle end right over the top of the vehicle commander if they were engaging a target to the front.  The Canadian version had the weapon mounted up high enough to clear the commanders hatch and give it a 360 degree field of fire.  Being ever so polite to shout "clear the back blast area" was still important for either version.   

I imagine the Venezuelan TPZ was also deployed in such a fashion to ensure that the weapon was not super-firing over the top of the vehicle to expose the occupants to any dangers from the weapon back blast. 

[GTX]

The gist of those articles is that the BTR-T is a nice idea, but the T-55 chassis is too slow to keep up with current tanks.  Now if they applied the concept to the T-80, or better yet, to the American Abrams...

I can see it now, with a low-profile turret mounting the M242 25mm cannon, with a twin TOW launcher (as in M2/3 Bradley) on one side of the turret, and a quad Stinger pod (see M6 Linebacker) on the other.

Pretty much where I was heading - a Western Heavy Support Vehicle.  I guess an advantage of using the Merkava as a basis would be the possibility of also carrying a small compliment of infantry inside.



Further to my initial post in this discussion, here is an additional picture of the T-72M1 Moderna that I just found in an old Military Technology - use for inspiration:





Whilst not a what-if, I thought the following pictures of the Centurion Mk1 tank might provide people with some ideas for some armour what-ifs.  I especially like the 20mm Polsten cannon:


Regards,

Greg

[Gary]

I'll see if I can find the drawings I did some years ago. I had a three man crew in a drive unit, tracks with turbine power, a sealed crew compartment with synthetic apetures for viewing (monitors instead of windows) under a raked back almost airplane like compartment. Then there was a pickup truck style back half for mounting a variety of combat packages. I invisioned originally the 30mm Avenger cannon, a 120mm smooth bore, an anti air package with both gun and missle, an APC pagkage for 10 troops and sporting a dual 50cal turret, a verticle launch platform for missles, a control unit for flying and crawling ROV's, an armoured ambulance, command centre, and cargo hauler. The idea was that there was in the crew compartment a commander and driver and a mission specialist. If it was a big gun, your third person was a gunner. If it was missles, andti-air and so on, the mission specialist filled the role. The trick was that the pallet you loaded met the operational need. Your drive unit could be fitted with a honking big gun for desert warfare, the Avenger cannon (A-10 gun) for closer in combat say in a forest, the APC for street fighting and so on. The pallet would be unmanned. Strike the pallet, you don't kill the crew or destroy the vehicle. The pallet is the part seen above the drive unit and is the biggest target. All the power needed to drive the auto loaders and so on would be self contained in the pallet load.

Now with VR helmets and such, you don't need such big screens. You could mount six or seven armoured cameras to provide the crew with the needed visual ques for the outside view. Air conditioned comfort and a lazyboy recliner with built in joysticks and away we go.

I wrote a rather long novella about it's use in the Pan American War of 2023.  

[GTX]

Gary,

I like your idea - sounds like some of the Future Combat Systems (FCS) and original Multi-Role Armoured Vehicle (MRAV) concepts.  I would love to see your drawings.

Regards,

Greg

[mgp]

Then there's proof that reality can out-wierd anything: German prototype with twin 120mm cannons

Yep, a tank destroyer with twin 120mm Rheinmetall cannons. Now that is some firepower!

[Jschmus]

I seem to remember seeing some designs from a Japanese computer game a couple of years ago.  The game was based on the idea that the land war lasted into 1946, and that all sides of the war were able to enter new tank designs.  One of the designs was for a streamlined TD along the lines of the E-100.  There was an American medium tank that looked like an evolved M5 Stuart, as well as a modern-looking Japanese tank.  I can't for the life of me remember the name of the game, though.  Some Japanese garage kitter had made up a couple of the designs in 1/35.