NationStates Jolt Archive

ooc; Mwahahahaha. This won't be complete for a few days. I'll be constantly editing this thread and posting crap up piece by piece, as I wrote everything down for this tank by hand, and I'm too lazy

Description: Not an upgrade to the T-125, but rather a system that complements it. The T-132 is lighter and faster than the T-125, designed as a tank to be used in larger numbers than the T-125 for general grunt work instead of being used in the breakthrough role.

Bare Bones Stats:

Role: Next Generation Main Battle Tank
Crew: 3
Main Armament: 125mm Rail-assisted Electrothermal Cannon.
Length: 8.5 meters
Length Gun Forwards: 10.5m (It's a rear turreted tank)
Width: 4.0 m
Height: 2.5m
Cost: $10 million

More later.

Gun: The gun of the T-132 Poison Arrow MBT is a 125mm Rail Assisted Electrothermal Cannon. This means that although the main method of propelling the shell forward is the electrothermal cannon, the velocity of the round is drastically improved by passing through a railgun system which can boost the velocity of the round by up to 8 km/s.

In order to prevent erosion of the rails, the round is magnetized by the electrothermal mechanism and never touches the rails. Also, a set of magnets prevent any matter, including the gases created by the detonation of the shell from touching the walls of the gun. The magnets can be rotated to create a rifling effect.

Now this takes up a lot of power. In order to keep enough energy in the gun system without overtaxing the batteries, the gun's recoil energy powers a generator mainlined to the tank's compulsation unit, thus allowing the tank to reclaim much of the energy used. Also, the amount of power flowing into the gun system can be dialed so that killing something like a house pet doesn't suck up as much power as killing a fortified bunker.

Since the rails are not superconducting, they have to be replaced every 300 shots, due to heat damage. They are fairly easy to replace, as the sides of the gun swing open at the push of a button, revealing the rails.

The Autoloader: The autoloader is an updated version of the old Soviet carousel loader. The electrostatic loading arm basically grabs a shell from the carousel and then, through a variable drive mechanism, adjusts itself so that it can load at nearly any angle. While the arm is moving, another shell spins into place, and as the gun fires, the arm is already diving back into the carousel for another shell. Streamlining everything like this allows for an extremely quick technical rate of fire of up to 30 rounds per minute, although this would deplete the carousel's ammunition stocks and drain the tank's batteries at the same time, so practical rate of fire is around 15 rounds per minute.

My questions are projectile related; how do you prevent the shell from exploding as it is charged in the rails, or is it a kinetics-only type weapon?

How is the shell stabilized in flight, I mean once it has passed beyond the rails? Are your rails spiral shaped, to impart a spin on the projectile? Or is the shell spherical?

Also, how is your tank equipped to deal with EMP/HERF and other electronic warfare?

Again, this is a work in progress, i'll address those concerns later.
The magnets in the railgun are rotated to create a rifling effect.

Why would you fire a 125mm ETC tank gun at a domestic pet?

Just wondering.

OOC: Interesting, I ought to keep an eye on this.

It's animal cruelty Prae.

Anyways, the secondary armament (to be elaborated on later):

1x18x121mm coaxial mounted machine gun.

1x25mm rail assisted electrothermal autocannon on roof mounted turret

2x 8x60mm CIWS minigun.

2x Missile Pods on the sides

Rear Defense System

81mm Electrothermal Mortar

18x 81mm Smoke/Countermeasure Grenade Launchers

Hatch mounted 25x120mm rail assissted electrothermal anti-material rifle (optional)

.50 caliber machine gun (optional, remove the AMR)

Seems too cheap and has too much stuff for a tank of that size... and how are all those weapons supposed to be used with a crew of only three?

Most of the weapons are controlled automatically, or just with a single push of a button.

(i.e) the autocannon can either automatically seek its own targets, or can be controlled by the commander with a small joystick.

The grenades launch either automatically, or via a simple push of a button. The rear defense system is modular, and will be explained later.


The size is fine, an 81mm electrothermal mortar isn't really that big.

It's animal cruelty Prae.

Anyways, the secondary armament (to be elaborated on later):

1x18x121mm coaxial mounted machine gun.

1x25mm rail assisted electrothermal autocannon on roof mounted turret

2x 8x60mm CIWS minigun.

2x Missile Pods on the sides

Rear Defense System

81mm Electrothermal Mortar

18x 81mm Smoke/Countermeasure Grenade Launchers

Hatch mounted 25x120mm rail assissted electrothermal anti-material rifle (optional)

.50 caliber machine gun (optional, remove the AMR)

I'm referring to the fact that you have all this plus a rather large gun on it...

Also, the concerns about price still remain.

True, also the smallest rail-gun i know of fit's on a battleship, how rae you able to drop the size?

the smallest railgun is about the size of a yardstick and is powered by a car battery.

And again the armament isn't excessive.

The price is tentative.

Prevention of Shell detonation: For things like HEAT shells or other explosive based shells, detonation is prevented by bonding the first metal layer to the core of the shell with a powerful adhesive that doubles as an insulator.

The Autocannon: The 25x200mm rail assisted autocannon is used as the tank's defense system against things like infantry, helicopters, and low flying migratory birds. The cannon can fire at up to 1200 rounds per minute in order, or as slow as 5 rounds per minute on full rail charge. However, continuous firing of the autocannon with electrothermal and rail assist, although not very taxing of electricity, does tend to damage the gun through sheer heat buildup. In the autocannon, the gun rails last around 2000 rounds before they need to be replaced.

The autocannon comes with its own optics and laser rangefinder. An optional wideband search radar can be mounted on there as well.

On behalf of the Freudotopian Imperial Army (FIA), I would like to place an order for one (1) T-132 Poison Arrow main battle tank, for a sum total of 10 million USD. Money will be wired automatically upon confirmation of purchase. Thank you for your business.

--Colonel Edgar Doolittle, Director of Procurement, FIA

ooc: I'm not done yet.

Smoke/Grenade Tubes: The smoke and grenade tubes fire out a variety of smoke grenades and high velocity fragmentation grenades. They can be reloaded from the inside if necessary.

The grenade launchers can be programmed to either launch smoke grenades to block lasers, or launch frag grenades back at targets that are firing at the tank to disrupt their sensors.

The grenade launchers are distributed at the 4 corners of the turret.

To: Whomever it concerns
From: The Oligarch of Kriegorgrad, Comrade Leader Nikolai Fedorenkov
Subject: Tsk tsk…

------------

”Another shoddy piece of machinery by the inept engineers at MassPwnage – can’t the fools acknowledge where they are beaten by Kriegos superiority? The Centurion battle tank is far superior to this shoddily designed algorithm of second-rate materials, just back down: Kriegorgrad has won the arms race; and there’s nothing you can do about it.

Please don't even bother finishing the tin-pot-contraption.“

Yours Sincerely,


The Oligarch of Kriegorgrad, Comrade Leader Nikolai Fedorenkov

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v227/Kriegorgrad/seal.jpg

ooc: Err... I haven't released this thing Icly yet. Oh yea Krieg, you have a nice tank there. Very...Vintage.

Engine: The T-132 uses a diesel/electric quasiturbine. What is a quasiturbine? Well, honestly, I'm too lazy to explain it. Wikipedia will do it for me however.

In the Quasiturbine engine, the four strokes of a typical cycle de Beau de Rochas (Otto cycle) are arranged sequentially around a near oval, unlike the reciprocating motion of a piston engine. In the basic single rotor Quasiturbine engine, an oval housing surrounds a four-sided articulated rotor which turns and moves within the housing. The sides of the rotor seal against the sides of the housing, and the corners of the rotor seal against the inner periphery, dividing it into four chambers. In contrast to the Wankel engine where the crankshaft moves the rotary piston face inward and outward, the Quasiturbine rotor face rocks back and forth with reference to the engine radius, but stays at a constant distance from the engine center at all time, producing only pure tangential rotational forces. Because the Quasiturbine has no crankshaft, the internal volume variations do not follow the usual sinusoidal engine movement, which provides very different characteristics from the piston or the Wankel engine.

The advantages:
*High low end torque
*Really, really high horsepower
*Greatly reduced fuel consumption
*Fewer moving parts.

Disadvantages: Wha?

More: There are a series of feedback sensors in the engine that run into the drive system. The drive system then procceds to adjust ignition and compression rates in the engine to maximize horsepower and torque while trying to save as much fuel as possible.

The engine system is entirely closed loop, as as such is EMP hardened.

Smoke/Grenade Tubes: The smoke and grenade tubes fire out a variety of smoke grenades and high velocity fragmentation grenades. They can be reloaded from the inside if necessary.

The grenade launchers can be programmed to either launch smoke grenades to block lasers, or launch frag grenades back at targets that are firing at the tank to disrupt their sensors.

The grenade launchers are distributed at the 4 corners of the turret.


[OOC: Smoke won't block out infra-red light, which is the advantage of using infra-red light in space - gas nebulae can't block it out. Invariably, it also has a big advantage when you apply it to military hardware.]

Transmission: The transmission uses a series of electric motors and sensors instead of gears. Why? Although its complexity is greater than that of a gear based transmission, it can stand up to damage better than a hydrodynamic transmission and is less prone to failure. Also, performance is much greater, especially with the computer controlled drive system that continuously adjusts the motors in order to provide maximum horsepower and torque while trying to minimize the fuel used.

The transmission casing is entirely closed loop and is thus EMP hardened.

More on the Gun: The gun has a few more features on it.

One: It is stabilized on 4 possible axes, side to side, up to down, diagonal, and front to rear. This provides an extremely stable platform from which the tank can shoot.

Two: There is a muzzle reference sensor with a camera, wind sensor, and brandy snifter gyroscope mounted on the end of the gun. This is in order to ensure maximum fire accuracy.

Three: There is a flash hider to reduce some of the gigantic visual signature that results when the gun is fired. Also the gun reduces the signature of the plasma wash the railgun generates.