NationStates Jolt Archive

[OOC: This is my first attempt to even try to put together a MBT so constructive feedback is strongly encouraged. I looked at this website (http://www.army-technology.com/projects) for information on various tanks and this is what I came up with.]

Engineers at the Windham and Green Industries subsidiary in Portsmouth are in the process of developing a main battle tank that will allow Sarzonia to reduce its reliance upon foreign-built designs. The Incorporated Sarzonian Army has expressed an interest in the project and members of the Army Corps of Engineers are working with the company to help the tank meet the army's objectives for a MBT.

During the process of building such a tank, W&G engineers studied several designs and has attempted to incorporate them into this design.

Z-31 'Rhino' MBT
Armament: 120 mm smoothbore gun on fully-rotating, all-electric turret (360 degree rotation) with minus-15 degree to plus-30 degree elevation. Capacity for 65 projectiles; two 5.56 mm co-axial chain guns machine guns; and a 60 mm mortar system with a 2,800 m range.
Protection: Automatic fire and explosion protection system, threat warning system and smoke grenades; 1090 mm RHA value composite armor including layers of ballistic ceramics, titanium and aluminum along with Chobham armor. Tanks will be given a full coating of radar absorbent paint to inhibit detection.
Propulsion: A water-cooled four-stroke diesel engine; 12 cylinders, 1,500 hp
Speed: 65 km/hr road; 50 km/hr cross-country
Range: 425 km by road; 225 km cross-country
Dimensions: 9.2 m length; 4 m width; 3.1 m height; 66,000 kg weight
Crew complement: Four.
Systems included: LADAR and GPS-guided target acquisition system; explosion reactive armor.

OOC:RHA values?

[OOC: I'm honestly not sure what that means.]

Have you considered using a diesel-electric system instead of a straight diesel engine?

OOC:RHA= rolled homogenous armor, measured in milimeters. Here's an example:

The M1A2 MBT's chomham armor provides up to around 1200mm RHA. That's one of the best protected RL MBTs (although I think the Challenger II has more armor). I've seen NS MBTs with armor as high as 2200mm RHA with some fancy armor composite. Your tanks looks to be relatively thin-skinned compared to others.

ooc: The Abrams has 800mm RHA vs. KE and 1200mm vs. HEAT. Leo 2AX6 or whatever is much better. But I digress...

OOC:Yeah, I can barely remember the specs, but that's without the DUIES plates (I think).

OOC: Though I don't know much about the usual actual thickness of the sorts of armour you've used (not the effective RHA value but the real dimension as listed) so can't comment on that, I'd say that at a glance it looks like a quite reasonable and modern tank. Not one of the uber-tanks used by many Nation States, but those are ugly and boring, and often impractical, and arguably future-tech, anyway, so I'd say largely good work, especially for a first try.

OOC: The Leo 2a6EX has 1600 on the mantle, lower than the abrams in most places though. Abrams is about 1200-1300 front, high triple digits for sides.

Nice MBT though. Good to see realistic MBT's being made.

You may want to remove one of the co-axil machineguns and replace it with an AAMG fired from the commander's position, possibly with the ability to be aimed remotely from inside the tank. Gives the tank more protection from helocopters and the ability to engage two targets simultaniously

While I'm no expert at designing tanks (or anything else for that matter), you might be interested in upgrading the 5.56x45mm machine guns to a bigger calibre, because the 5.56mm round doesn't really provide sufficient penetration power to shred any vehicle on longer distances, for example, or down low-flying helicopters, if you choose to replace one with a AAMG as Verdant Archipelago pointed out. A 5.56mm round will probably just ricochet off the fuselage.

Another point is that ERA might not be a good idea if you often accompany your tanks with infantry on foot. The best choice might be to include this as an optional add-on.

Z-31 'Rhino' MBT
Armament: 155 mm ETC or 50mm Pwnage Tank Railgun (feeling futuristic?), good idea on the mortar though, but you can make the cannon fire artillery style with a variable drive loader. For machineguns, the driver's side should have an M134 minigun. Commander should have a .50 cal machinegun. Also, shouldn't your tank be able to launch TOW missiles?
Protection: Automatic fire and explosion protection system, threat warning system and smoke grenades; 180 mm composite armor including a layer of kevlar and aluminum along with steel. Tanks will be given a full coating of radar absorbent paint to inhibit detection. Also, what about jamming systems?
Propulsion: Turbine, or diesel electric is better
Speed: 65 km/hr road; 50 km/hr cross-country (wider tracks=better cross country speed)
Range: 425 km by road; 225 km cross-country (use a hybrid drive on your engine)
Dimensions: 9.2 m length; 4 m width; 3.1 m height; 66,000 kg weight
Crew complement: Four.
Systems included: LADAR and GPS-guided target acquisition system; NxRa is better than ERA

Wait, how heavy is this thing, anyway?

66,000 Kg.

I'll definitely have a lot of things to think about as I work on this tank. Clearly, this is a work in progress since it's my first attempt at creating an MBT, but the feedback's going to be a big help as I work on the revisions that will come.

I'm pleasantly surprised by how many replies and reads this has gotten. :)

Z-31 'Rhino' MBT
Armament: 155 mm ETC or 50mm Pwnage Tank Railgun (feeling futuristic?), good idea on the mortar though, but you can make the cannon fire artillery style with a variable drive loader. For machineguns, the driver's side should have an M134 minigun. Commander should have a .50 cal machinegun. Also, shouldn't your tank be able to launch TOW missiles?
Protection: Automatic fire and explosion protection system, threat warning system and smoke grenades; 180 mm composite armor including a layer of kevlar and aluminum along with steel. Tanks will be given a full coating of radar absorbent paint to inhibit detection. Also, what about jamming systems?
Propulsion: Turbine, or diesel electric is better
Speed: 65 km/hr road; 50 km/hr cross-country (wider tracks=better cross country speed)
Range: 425 km by road; 225 km cross-country (use a hybrid drive on your engine)
Dimensions: 9.2 m length; 4 m width; 3.1 m height; 66,000 kg weight
Crew complement: Four.
Systems included: LADAR and GPS-guided target acquisition system; NxRa is better than ERA

You really don't want to be putting a proper 155mm ETC AT gun on anything lighter than 70tons, now short barrel Gun/launchers area different matter...

Forget a mini gun, for the more or less the same weight you can have a M230LF cannon which might actually be able to hit anything and gives you a wider rnage of targets, esspecially if you fit it with a smart fuze settign system. A .50cal is always nice for the commander but an improvement would be the OCSW...

Up the armour (and use RHA values rather than actualy values, which dont really mean anything) and replace the 120mm with a 135mm - 145mm ETC. Ditch the kevlar, it's useless. Aluminium alloys are the strongest materials available, but they have an irritating tendancy to catch fire, so throw in some ballistic ceramics and titanium as well. You might also want to investigate a Chobham like layer... and maybe DU casing.

ANyway, ditch either the mortar or the ERA. ERA explodes, killing any infantry nearby whereas a mortar is useless unless for supporting infantry. Change one of the mgs to 12.7mm, for attacking low flying helicopters and soft skinned vehicles, but leave the other at 5.56mm.

Dont go for a railgun - they're godmod with any MT powerplant in a tank.

Isn't an ETC cannon pushing the bounds of truly modern tech, already? I don't feel comfortable with all these, "it'd be modern tech if real-life nations had twenty trillion dollar economies" stuff, which I suppose is why Lusaka has a fixed 42million population.
Good point about the ERA/mortar though, I think. I suppose it's indicative of the need to consider for exactly what purpose an item is being designed. The mortar would probably be dead weight when taking on other tanks, while ERA would be an outright threat to friendlies if supporting infantry.

120 mm smoothbore is a decent size for a modern tank gun, 7.62mm best for coaxial MG. The US uses, or did use 12.7mm-13mm HMGs for the commander's machine gun for mixed anti-air/anti-vehicle attacks. Modern tech. would certainly permit the commander's MG to be controlled remotely with the commander in-hull using sights. (Best to list those as well -- imaging infra-red, low-light TV, etc.) Laser rangefinders are common in modern tanks as well. Smoothbore permits the widest choice of munitions use, from standard rounds to missiles.

I disagree with Praetonia on discarding the 60-66mm mortar. Tanks are often used in combination with infantry assaults -- indeed, tanks require infantry support because they cannot hold ground as effectively as infantry. Explosive reactive armour is still worth considering as an add-on for specific assaults.

Diesel-electric would certainly be possible.

(Wish I'd gotten 'round to developing my land force systems earlier...)

Yeah it might be modern tech in teh truest sense of the word, but this tank will die horribly against anyone in NS who doesnt use RL tech. Sorry, but it's true.

Isn't an ETC cannon pushing the bounds of truly modern tech, already? I don't feel comfortable with all these, "it'd be modern tech if real-life nations had twenty trillion dollar economies" stuff, which I suppose is why Lusaka has a fixed 42million population.
Good point about the ERA/mortar though, I think. I suppose it's indicative of the need to consider for exactly what purpose an item is being designed. The mortar would probably be dead weight when taking on other tanks, while ERA would be an outright threat to friendlies if supporting infantry.

Full scale working 120mm ETC tanks guns have existed since about early 2000.

The germans and brits seriously cosndiered them as a repalcement tank weapon but reconed that thier development woudl face too much in the way of splippage risk which might push the in service date beyond 2010 so they turned thier attention to a 140mm gun and then eventually to a 55cal 120mm gun.

I would be very very sceptical of ETC guns appearing in MAW but for general modtech NS they are perfectly feasible if not as perfect as many people make them out to be (hence why crookfur ETC guns are very very bulky).

Out side of tank guns (the main focus of ETC research) it is estiamted that a rapid fire medium calibre weapon could be in service by 2015. The issue of warship scale weapons is another area but they have become pretty much accepted.

it all coems down to what you cosnider modern tech, as on the strict interprtation the F-35 and the later models of the Flanker would be unavailable.

Regarding the 60mm mortar, tanks are quite vulnerable when not accompanied by infantry (especially in urban areas, as the Russians found out in Chechnya), so a 60mm mortar would be quite helpful to provide emergency suppressive fire against entrenched anti-tank teams, as well as a tool to lay down smoke screens and provide illumination.

Edit: Again, it's all about how you tend to employ this tank. The Israelis are facing their threats in an urban enviroment, so they add a 60mm mortar, as well as a small troop compartment. Most other MBTs aren't that much geared towards urban warfare, but more to engagements on relatively open terrain, at medium distances.

60 mm mortars are good for infantry support, but any entrenched infantry position can be more easily destroyed with the main gun. The speed and armor of the tank make me feel like it's a cruiser design, in which case I'd suggest adding an active defence system like Arena which basically doubles suirvivability against ATGMs but makes close infantry support inadvisable. If you want mortars to accompany your tanks, I suggest mounting a turreted 120mm mortar on a bradley chassis. More fire power and more ammiunition storage.

You may want to consider gun launched missiles like LAHAT. While less effective than HEAT and APDS ammo, they have more than double the range and perform top attacks.

*bump*

Looks good. If you want to mount a turret mounted machine gun for the commander I'd recomend the FN BRG-15. (http://world.guns.ru/machine/mg26-e.htm) That sucker can chrew through a APC. I mount it on my T-1.

[OOC: I'll be doing some updates later on in a post where it'll be called the Flight II. That will be more of a NS design.]

[OOC: This is my second attempt to even try to put together a MBT so constructive feedback is still encouraged. I incorporated some of the suggestions listed in this thread to create the NS-ified version.]

Engineers at the Windham and Green Industries subsidiary in Portsmouth are continuing to work on developing a main battle tank that will allow Sarzonia to reduce its reliance upon foreign-built designs. After evaluating computer simulations of the Flight 1 version of this tank, engineers from Windham & Green and the Army Corps of Engineers have made several revisions to the design to create the Flight II version.

Z-31 'Rhino' MBT
Armament: 140 mm smoothbore gun on fully-rotating, all-electric turret (360 degree rotation) with minus-15 degree to plus-30 degree elevation. Capacity for 65 projectiles; one 12.7 mm co-axial chain gun for attacking low-flying helicopters and soft-skinned vehicles; 5.56 mm co-axial chain gun machine guns; and a 60 mm mortar system with a 2,800 m range. Tank can also carry up to 30 gun-launched missiles similar to
Protection: Automatic fire and explosion protection system, threat warning system and smoke grenades; 1180 mm RHA value composite armor including layers of ballistic ceramics, titanium and aluminum along with Chobham armor. Tanks will be given a full coating of radar absorbent paint to inhibit detection.
Propulsion: Diesel-electric hybrid engine; 12 cylinders, 1,500 hp
Speed: 65 km/hr road; 50 km/hr cross-country
Range: 425 km by road; 225 km cross-country
Dimensions: 9.2 m length; 4 m width; 3.1 m height; 66,000 kg weight
Crew complement: Four.
Systems included: LADAR and GPS-guided target acquisition system and laser range-finder; commander's MG controlled remotely with commander-in-hull using sights such as infared, low-light, night vision technology, etc.

The 60 mm mortar system will be removed on Flight IIA tanks to allow the Flight II tanks to concentrate on urban warfare.

bump

bump... any other comments?

I'm also thinking of offering the original as a Flight I MBT (for those who are strictly MT) and the revised version as a Flight II MBT (for typical NS warfare). I'm thinking of prices like $7 million and $8 million respectively.

Thoughts?

Put in RHA values for the armor. While it's nice to know how thick the armor is too, RHA is more useful.

I just changed the first one to RHA values as opposed to real thickness. The second one actually has an RHA value instead of the real thickness.

You and your modern tanks!

The LRRA still uses, for the most part, T-62s. Cheap and, well, cheap.

If the army actually expected to ever fight a war, it might buy some better tanks.