http://www.baen.com/TanksFuture.asp

Crossposted in General Armor Sim forum. Hope this is OK

"Does the Future Have a Future?"

It's not that we haven't heard any of this before, but there is a point that is made in this writer's opinion that is just as easily turned back around, that is:



Everything is due to circumstance, everything is incidental. The US penetrating into Baghdad, accomplished with armor, was due to the circumstances of that conflict (and even that wasn't easy as many might have thought). The Syrians currently using armor to quash a rebellion using armor is due to circumstance, the Israelis holding a long tradition of a crack tank force is due to circumstance, and so on. If nothing were due to circumstance, it seems then that everything would happen without context, everything would therefore be ineffable- and what could we predict then, what would we be able to argue?

The same points could be made that alongside the tank, the infantry rifle has no future, the grunt on the ground has no future, nothing has a future because it can all be nullified by technology that can kill it before it even got into position.

Tanks will always have a presence on the battlefield, they will just evolve with technology or the type of threat/theatre.

IMHO of course

As a Science Fictional aside, it was an interesting trope in the "Mechwarrior" universe that human powered "Mechs" totally eclipsed 'tanks'. There were still some tanks on the battlefield but they were puny and easily disposed of. As far as I know, there was no real REASON given why it was better/easier to build skyscraper sized humanoid fighting vehicles vs. BIGGER human crewed "SUPERTANKS". The "BOLO" series showed a real evolution of the TANK itself, as bigger smarter better armed and armored. Two different visions of the future battlefield.

If anything the future of the tank is smaller but better armoured ~ if not frontally than to the sides and rear plus top.

It may be that the Leopard 1 design choices may be valid again ~ immunity against common mid-level threats, but an acceptance of vulnerability to the heaviest.

Signature reduction and maintenance of mobility suggest against ever larger/heavier vehicles, or the use of non-tracked forms ~ neither wheels nor 'legs' offer any advantage in ground stability and would seriously limit maximum weight while increasing vehicle apparent size.

Additional sensor masts or UAV/UGV would seem a useful addition to the standard vehicle/formation.

The futuristic technology of the Mechwarrior/Battletech universe is a step backwards- for one thing, legs should be inferior to tracks, less mobile, less able to grip certain surfaces or would trip on slopes or depressions in the terrain, it's just that the game engine didn't bother with details like ground pressure or traction (these mechs should sink, practical experience is that tanks reach a certain weight limit of around 70 tons or so and they have too many problems).

Those designs furthermore make them huge targets- they are pound for pound far less efficiently armored than a tank, since that protection would have to be spread over a much larger surface area, and since most of the profile is exposed in all directions, a given 5 story 60 ton mech which weighs the same as a two meter tall tank should be a flimsy target- then again, weapons and targeting systems seem to be inferior as well, either under-powered, less accurate or shorter ranged.

In Battletech, you rolled dice to check if you hit the target, in Mechwarrior, hits seemed to be much more common, but to compensate, weapon strength was apparently weak in relation to armor, these things would often square off toe to toe and do circles around each other at short range pumping volleys into one another until a limb was shot off.

mechs would come to their own in rough terrain like mountains and jungle, whereas tracks reign supreme on the plains.

future for tanks is this:



or this:



this one is a bit more ambitious:



the idea behind the design is to reduce the front armour on the turret that needs to be protected, thus reducing the weight.
a modern tank turret currently weights about
20-25 tons, while a turret with this configuration could reduce the turret weight to about 5-7 tons, depending on how much it is armoured. it also reduces the front profile of the tank, reducing hit probability by 2/3.
the 15 tons you save on reducing turret weight, can drastically improve mobility, or be spent on increasing side and front hull protection, thus maintaining the weight, but increasing protection.
the 62 tonne M1A2 abrams could for example become a 45 ton or less tank, which would save massively on maintenance cost.

Perhaps- if they had a flexible, compressible spine and were constructed in such a way that they could bend in more places than at one joint. The designs you see in Battletech don't really look like that for the most part- other than the knee joints, which don't look like they have too much range of motion, the legs can't spread apart or come together, they don't have arched feet or toes, no ankle which can rotate the feet side to side or up and down, the waistline can pivot, but not much more. The Mech pilot would probably have a difficult time sensing what kind of terrain he was actually on without the feedback that all these come together to sense.

Tanks will always be around. A lot of people say that the 120mm gun is outdated by things like missile systems and in the future railguns and lasers. The Abrams already has two guided round in development, the MRM KE and the MRM CE. Although the recent quick kill system has been cancelled, I am sure that the Army will not want to miss out on the awesome advantage offered by that APS capability, and either fit the Trophy or make another one. Also, these people forget that the M1A2 SEP is digital as well as a physical beast, and is on par with if not equal to specialized command posts in terms of digital communication capability. The superior FLIR optics allow the Abrams to serve as a reconnaissance vehicle as well as a combat one.