/k/ - Weapons

Wishful thinking.

>>534918

I see your points, and war is never as neat in real life as it seems on a map, but it just seems that a medium tank/MBT is unsuited to both roles. It will never be as effective at breaking lines as a purpose designed heavy tank whose speed is limited by weight of weapons and armour rather than a problem with the engine. That same medium battle tank (a good half way name for it :^) ) will not be as fast or well suited to the almost 'raiding' mission plan of a dedicated lighter cruiser tank design.

I suppose it's the same 'good enough' thinking that produced intermediate rifle rounds and multirole aircraft, but it just seems unnecessarily expensive and time consuming to research, design, test, redesign, test and produce one design to do 3 jobs rather than to just design, test, and produce three separate designs for those 3 jobs. You saw the same sort of thinking with the Roman Legions towards the end of their development (going from specialised formations to a one size fits all design) It worked for Rome, but there has to be a point where 'strategically/logistically easier' causes enough problems at ground level to not be worth the trouble anymore.

>>534908

>why were the armies of the cold war not focused around this idea?

In the second half of 20 century there was the period when even a big tonks seemed kinda obsolete thanks to the power of an anti-tank weapons. Due to that some guys were even thinking "this shit is gonna be all destroyed anyways, so let's make tiny virgin tonks instead that'll be at least fast". Then technology improvement unleashed both decently protected, relatively rapid and overall handy Chad MBT monster. So, in that times there was simply no real place for such ideas.

>>534940

I think they waste too much fuel on hovering, and that itself is not very useful if you aren't in a swamp or a shore.

The game changer was decent AT gun proliferation. If your tank was slow enough to get flanked by an AT team dragging an AT cannon behind a jeep, you lost the war jack.

A lot of people say it was airplanes but those people don't know how often airplanes missed tanks.

Ergo everyone opted for tanks that were /at least/ fast enough off road not to be flanked by an AT team riding in a wheeled vehicle on roads.

>>534961

You can get fully electric hovercraft, combined with a well made diesel-electric motor they would drop fuel consumption well below the M1 Abrams jet-turbine bullshit (0.26 km per litre). I can see your point, but if speed is the current 'survival determining factor' for tanks then surely a hovercraft travelling at about 120 kmph over any flat terrain will be a much better, longer lasting, investment than a tracked tank moving at 70 something kmph over ideal conditions.

>>534962

>AT gun proliferation

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but hasn't the AT role largely passed to missiles? A tank would need to be able to evade or take shots from all angles at any given moment (as heavy as MPATGMs are they're a lot lighter and more portable than even a small AT gun).

You also have the advantage that hovercraft are all but immune to AT mines - the downforce applied by the vehicle is almost always lower than the trigger weight of the mine.

I think it's a mix of increasingly mobile warfare, and better AT capabilities as already discussed. It would be interesting to see what someone would come up with as a modern heavy tank though.

>>535055

That was my point with the 'armoured hovercraft', as AT weapons develop it will get harder and harder to defend against anti-tank attacks in a cost-effective fashion. If we shift to shooting down missiles before they can hit then there's no need for thick, heavy, armour on the vehicle - at that point you just need to stop projectiles too small for the AMS to notice and you get more speed for a lower cost. Also, with the potential for using a very fuel efficient diesel-electric motor for an all electric hovercraft the operating costs would be a huge improvement over modern MBTs.

>a modern heavy tank

It's an interesting idea, are you picturing 3-4 metres of composite armour there? Or would it be better to mount a couple of CIWS equivalents on the roof?

The infantry/cruiser doctrine was an artifact which resulted from the contextual understanding of the limitations of late-WWI era propulsion and suspension technology. Designing a tank with enough armor to serve as a breakthrough vehicle that also had the mobility to exploit said breakthrough was beyond the technological state of the art in 1919. While most nations simply abandoned intensive development of heavy arms, Britain pressed on and began establishing future doctrine in this early post war period.

Their assumptions that such limitations would continue to exist for the foreseeable future wasn't entirely misguided. It wasn't until the 1930's that advances such as the torsion bar suspension allowed for heavy tanks to travel at "high" speeds (speeds closer to early cruiser tank speeds than WWI trench crawlers). You also had advances in metallurgy and design which not only allowed powerplants produce enough power to provide an "infantry" class tank a "cruiser" class power to weight ratio, getting that kind of power to the ground reliably also became feasible. By the time WWII was on the horizon, the infantry/cruiser doctrine had been institutionalized for so long that revising British armor doctrine to reflect these new realities was only going to be possible under the "trial by fire" conditions of wartime.

So why don't modern militaries practice such a doctrine? The answer is simple, tanks are designed along strategic needs more than they are designed around tactical needs. Modern MBTs are already as heavy as they can be in terms of strategic mobility (the ability to cross most bridges and use paved roads for rapid (re)deployment without tearing them to shreds) and modern powertrains plus suspension design allow them to retain excellent tactical mobility.

>>535157

Thanks, that explains things very clearly.

Could you not get more bang for your buck by assigning the raider/cruiser role to a column of IFVs/AFVs? They'd be faster than tanks, cost less to produce and run (making them at least a little bit more expendable, if only on paper), and would be able to deal with targets at least as well as an MBT.

>>535162

Not only do you have the right idea, that idea is already in place for the most part. The Russians and Americans have implemented that doctrine to a certain extent ever since the 1960's. IFVs and other forms of fast, light, troop carrying armored vehicles are the shit in terms of strategic capability IMO. MBT's still have their uses but the IFV class of armor design is both perfectly suited for the modern sandbox style conflicts as well as any potential 1st world on 1st world conflict.

>>535163

As active defences are improving (and getting cheaper) surely slabs of metal are becoming less relevant as a form of protection - if the missile/RPG/shell can't hit you then it doesn't matter if you can take the hit or not - shouldn't we see more of a move towards IFVs carrying more ATGMs and using airburst 20mm shells for anti-infantry work? Or am I oversimplifying there?

>>535167

thats pretty much what we were discussingbfor the past 4years

fam

>>534918

>I think it all came down to the fact that it's easier to use the same units to both break through the enemy line and then wreak havoc behind those lines.

You mean Cheaper

>>534908

The Soviets had a "similar" doctrine with their more expensive and advanced tank breaking lines and their cheaper tank to take up the slack behind the broken line.

Though I think with Armata that will change and they haven't really done it alot since the T-90.

It all came down to what was cheaper to do. Make a good all round tank in multiple factories, or make two (or three) different types of tank in 2 (or three) different types of factories. Then Train two different types of tank crews etc.

Maybe something similar will come back with applique armor and active protection systems where the more protected tanks are at the front and the "base" level tanks are the ones breaking through the exploit in enemy lines.