NationStates Jolt Archive

I know each side has it's ups and downs (I read one of Clan Smoke Jaguar's posts a while ago), but what is the consensus on the armament of tanks? ETC guns or traditional gunpowder guns?

I've stuck to powder guns, but my army is in need for a new MBT and I'd like to know which is best.

Tanks in general are obsoleted by the huge length of time it takes to deploy them in any significant numbers. Instead of an MBT go for a lighterweight tank that can be deployed by air.

Not necessarily so; such a statement is blithely ignoring the various factors affecting deployment speeds and the operational requirements which the user has. personally, I find tanks to be a very effective weapon, if one that takes some time to deploy. The way to counter that long deployment time is to plan, so that you aren't caught in a position where not being able to instantly deploy the damn things leaves you in the shitter.

Regarding guns, it depends. ETCs have the advantage of higher velocity and range coupled with easier storage (of propellant at least), but at the same time they're bulkier, harder to maintain and more reliant on having a reliable power source than powder guns.

I use my tanks in the role "The best anti-tank weapon is another tank" so I use an ETC gun in them while using traditional guns in smaller vehicles.

Given that conflicts on NationStates (as in real life, though to a greater degree) tend to flare up with little warning, planning time is a luxury that is not available. The only things tanks are good for is homeland defence and long term conflicts\cold war scenarios.
During the several weeks\months transit time, the opposing force can quite happily destroy the facilities needed to unload the tanks, such as ports and railways. Also convoys carrying the tanks can be easily intercepted and attacked by anything from land-based bombers, submarines, naval aviation or
Even then, tanks are easily countered by shoulder launched anti-tank weapons, helicopters launched anti-tank weapons (as demonstrated by the Hellfire's performance) and even strategic bombers, which due to their long range don't even need to deploy. They are also easily detectable by synthetic apeture radar, which can be deployed on anything from aircraft to satellites.
Conclusion: Tanks take ages to deploy, can be intercepted whilst in transit, are easy to find once they are deployed, and once found can be easily destroyed using a wide range of weaponry.

Are ETC's more vulnerable to breaking in battle? Which reloads faster?

Tanks need to do three things: Shoot, Move, and Communicate. A Tank needs to be able to do this with great reliability.

ETC guns are bulky and heavy, this means your platform to use them is likewise going to be bulkier, and heavier, than a traditional tank. This in turn restricts your movement in several ways:

1. You need more fuel per mile travelled.
2. You exert more ground-pressure, which limits you more as far as what terrain you can effectively move around on.
3. Weight. The heavier your tanks are, the fewer bridges they can cross. Likewise, the wider they are, the fewer roads and passes they can navigate.
4. Ground Speed. ETC guns are more vulnerable to jarring, which occurs in any military vehicle that is moving/mobile. Tracks don't have a nice ride, no matter who builds them-at speed. Gunpowder weapons are very insensitive to jarring in comparison with ETC style weapons and the associated systems to fire them.

Without going Futuretech, you're going to have to choose between mobility, armour, and firepower. (the Merkava is a tracked pill-box that sucks fuel as fast as an abrams but doesn't go as far in the same time as the M-48. The LeClerc is fast, and hard-hitting, but has body-toilet-paper for armour.)

on the balance, I tend to see ETC guns as more-or-less a neat-idea, but impractical in the field on a platform as small as a main battle tank. The cost per gun is very high, as is the ammunition, you also have to account for spares, downtime for maintenance, and restriction on travel-because it slants the weight balance toward sacrificing both mobility and armour protection (whereas most tank designs sacrifice only one of the three). Without neato-super-materials that can lower your weight in armour while retaining the same protection, an ETC gun's increased ballistic range and impact wiht solid-shot is purchased at a pretty nasty cost in comparison, and it's not necessarily what you want in close-terrain fighting, or to take across soft ground. And there's still the pricetag to consider. For 4 to 7 million dollars, you can get decent mobility over a wide range of terrain, good armour protection, and a gun that is, against a competent opponent, arguably as effective. This is at a fraction of what the operating costs of an ETC equipped force can deploy.

IDK... I think that ETCs are more expensive though

Shildonia: Your points are valid enough, but are no reason to dispense with the tank. The fact that conflicts tend to flare up without warning no more renders the tank obsolete than it renders the aircraft carrier obsolete; it merely means that you have to have better contingency plans, forces positioned closer to areas of potential conflict, better co-operation between arms to allow quick implementation of transport, et al.

You contend that the tank is easy to intercept in transit. Well, perhaps, but so is anything that moves, unless you're planning on Techwanking some "invisible" hypersonic bomber or similar; by that argument, again, naval power of almost all types becomes obsolete, along with...well, everything, really. Anything can be intercepted in transit, and tanks are no more vulnerable in that respect than IFVs, paratroops or indeed offensive aircraft.

Your contention that tanks are vulnerable to shoulder-launcher and air-launched missiles has a simple counter: infantry are vulnerable to explosives and aircraft to AAA and SAMs, not to mention your own air cover. The entire idea of combined arms is that the elements of your forces are able to defend one another and compensate for their weaknesses, and unless you're stupid enough to roll tanks against an enemy position with no support from artillery, infantry and aircraft, you will generally find that these threats can be reduced acceptably in effectiveness. Furthermore, you're failing to account for the effectiveness of tank protection systems, especially those on NS, and your usre of the Hellfire missiles as "proof" is nonsensical; the Hellfire's most deadly opponent in combat has been cheap Iraqi knockoffs of the poor-quality export variant of a twenty-year-old tank, hardly the basis for decisive analysis. Your contention concerning detectability also relies on the tank being unsupported.

Conclusions? Well, any unsupported weapon is going to have a very hard time of it. If you send tanks in when you have no forces to secure their LZ, in unescorted convoys, and with no support from aircraft, infantry or artillery (not to mention EW and suchlike) then yes, they become wasteful, uneconomic weapons. If you use them properly, however, they are not.

I agree with DPUO. Conflict here do often flare up with little warning. In fact, I don't think I've been in a war where I had much more than an RL day's notice. As DPUO stated, this is where contingency plans come into play. Usually I just assume a generic plan, that I can alter depending on variables. Though, I do have some specific plans, like for the Dracun Imperium (my main IC enemy) and Kahta (before he was DEATed).

But I digress from JA's question. As to whether ETC or powder-guns are more effective, I tend to go with regular guns. I've found through reading various sources that they're more reliable, cheaper, and frankly more practical. But as this is free-form, I suggest go with whatever you want.

I prefer to just go with linear guns, but then I'm postmodern :p

ETC for an MBT, gives you a more powerful gun without as large a round.
(For example the effect of a 140mm with a 125mm ETC round) Or atleast that's what I understand of it.

It depends on the purpose of the tank. If you want a tank-killer, I'd suggest going with a relatively small caliber (100mm) ETC gun; the smaller gun gives you a higher turret traverse rate, the smaller caliber has little effect on armour penetration using kinetic rounds, and ETC tech gives you high muzzel velocities with relatively long barrel life and smaller rounds.

Larger, lower velocity guns are more effective for engaging infantry and buildings, conversly.