NationStates Jolt Archive


Desert Fox MBT Released

Ankara Alphyaz
20-10-2005, 07:58
ANKARA ALPHYAZ MILITARY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT...
...PRESENTS
Desert Fox Main Battle Tank
http://img228.imageshack.us/img228/8586/conquerermbt3hd.png

Overview
The Desert Fox is Ankara Alphyaz' latest innovation. Well, when I say innovation, more like design. The Desert Fox incorporates both old and new methods, taking into account speed, firepower, armour, and reliability. Since Ankara Alphyaz' wide deserts caused severe problems for Ankara Alphyaz' last Leopard 2A6 and M1A2 Tanks. With this in mind, Ankara Alphyaz designed the Desert Fox as a primary MBT to replace these... less useful counterparts. The Desert Fox is based off some existing tanks and also uses indigenous technology to solve a few problems.

Dimensions And Other
Length: 9m
Height: 2.55m
Width (including skirts) 4.01m
Weight: 65,250 kgs
Crew: Commander, Driver, Gunner, Loader

Weaponry
The main gun of the Desert Fox is a L92 130mm Smoothbore. This gun has the capability to fire many times of round, most famously including HEAT, HEAP, APDSFS, and SABOT. The Desert Fox' turret holds 44 rounds, reloaded manually. A decision was made to make the loader manual after it was discovered high speed winds in the Southern Wastes made autoloaders jam on some tanks. Athough reducing the reload speed by approximately 42%, the manual loader used has been found to be extremely reliable under intense pressure from the weather or from other blockages. The Desert Fox can also fire light anti tank missiles, like the T90, from it's main gun. These missiles are designated ATGM-912 and ATGM-918, the latter being faster with a smaller payload. Generally, the ATGM 918 would be used against light APCs and trucks and the ATGM 912 against heavier vehicles, maybe AFVs and IFVs. The L92 can elavate from -9 degrees to 22 degrees with a maximum engagement range of 3,780km.

The Desert Fox sports a 7.82x56mm Un'Fairaye L11 [A Fair Deal, Ankaran Arms Company] LMG over it's commander cupola hatch, that can be remote controlled and belt fed reloaded through the turret if neccessary. The 7.82mm UnFairaye L11 can be used with either the belt feed or 40 box magazines, of which thirty are kept in the rear of the turret.

In addition, a coaxial 12.7mm L415 Un'Fairaye three barrel rotary chaingun, fully controllable by the driver, is mounted on the right of the turret.

Again, some squadrons have decided to add a dual tube SAM-845, which also accepts TOW missiles and the like, on the turret. This is not part of the official Desert Fox design, but there are still places where tube missiles can be installed. AARD does not recognise that tube missiles on AFVs are a good idea, however.

The Desert Fox also has a rack on the rear of it's turret, that, while in use with Ankaran forces would hold FAMAS F2s. There are spaces for five carbine size guns.

In addition there are a pair of L7 Qintuple Smoke Launchers on either side of the tank that can fire standard gas canisters or tear gas for crowd control, as demonstrated in the Alphyaz Un'latei Riots.

Armour and Protection
The Desert Fox' main layer of armour is a composite of ceramics, mainly titanium and aluminium with nylon coating . This armour is layered between rolled homogenous steel, creating an effect not unlike chobham. The armour includes several layers of tungsten plating, backed up with boron and silicon carbide tiles and in some cases depleted uranium linings. In addition, the Desert Fox is fitted with 120mm tungsten ERA tiles on important parts, arranged very similar to the Kontakt-5 Russian design, which can make certain parts of the Desert Fox completely invulnerable to rounds from calibres up to 105mm-135mm in certain parts. There are however, shells that can defeat this arrangement of armour. While they are most likely in wide circulation, this type of ERA will still be effective against some 88mm+ weapons.

The RHA armour value is a thick as the following:
Front: 900mm
Sides: 750mm
Track Skirts 80mm
Rear: 250mm

In some cases, the Desert Fox is also protected by Electric Reactive Armour but the Ankara-Alphyaz People's Army favours Explosive Reactive Armour over the former.

The Ankara-Alphyaz 18th Mechanised Regiment, which is the only mechanised regiment to use the Desert Fox, uses NERA instead as it works closely with infantry to achieve objectives.

The Desert Fox is fully NBC protected. Heating and cooling systems are fitted in the turret and tank in addition to climate control, a neccessity for any soldiers operating in Ankara Alphyaz' sweltering deserts.

Speed and Propulsion
It is unknown the exact systems of the Desert Fox, but we do know the engine is a Diesel Engine "Mar'lo Dya'erei" Class 13C 1450 BHP engine with a gearbox of the same make, with 6 forward gears and 2 reverse.

The Desert Fox' systems allow it to travel up to 52 km per hour on road and 40 off road.

Each side of the Desert Fox's hydraulically assisted single pin tracks is driven by fourteen roadwheels, backed double behind each other in pairs. The drive wheel is precisely 60cm off the ground when the tank is stationary and the tracks are titanium 6cm "Mar'lo Dya'erei" tracks.

The Desert Fox can travel, across road, including it's two protected 25litre fuel drums, 480km.

Systems
The Ankara Alphyaz Variant of the Desert Fox features high power modern technology because Ankara-Alphyaz tankists must rely on both their knowledge of the battlefield, coupled with high technology and UAV/AWACs flights and other knowledge from spotters to destroy their targets, as it is impossible to tell when the sand blizzards of Ankara Alphyaz will strike and usually they will make all form of traditional aiming useless.

The driver, sitting in the hull, can use two day and night periscopes with full Infrared, Infrapurple, Day Vision, Night Vision, and in elite units of the Ankara Alphyaz unit, a direct relay to their waypoints and orders.

The Gunner/Aimer Station is equipped with two Thermal, Infrared, Infrapurple, and Nightvision viewmodes and both the Gunner and the Aimer can use Laser neodymium range finders and external mounted RC cameras to determine distance between their target and the gun.

The Commander has all of the above mentioned features and more. The Commander's station also has radios and various GPS trackers.
Saint Fedski
20-10-2005, 08:04
The front armour is almost 2 meters thick! thats 2 yards or 6 feet! one might need to shave quite a bit of that off man lol. But then again it is your tank, just a suggestion.
Ankara Alphyaz
20-10-2005, 08:07
Well, from what i've seen, alot of NS tanks are armoured that much. But if someone takes it into consideration, I *will* lower it. I don't think it means exactly 1800mm..not sure.
Thanks for the comments anyway.
Verghastinsel
20-10-2005, 12:37
OOC: It's not actually two metres, it's the armour's effective defence. Basically it's saying that shooting at that tank is like shooting at two metres of steel.
Sarzonia
20-10-2005, 14:35
OOC: That height seems a bit low to me (2.55 metres or roughly eight feet); IIRC, a lot of NS tanks are roughly 4 metres tall or 13 feet tall. The four metre width seems about right.

And I agree with Verghastinsel. The armour values most people refer to are what's called Rolled Homogenous Armour (aka RHA values), and like he said, they refer to the effective protection rating rather than the actual armour. As for the armour values, side, rear and top armours are extremely heavy in comparison to the front. The front armour should be thickest with sides roughly 50 percent of the front's effectiveness, the rear about 1/3 and the top about 1/4. Though Clan Smoke Jaguar would have better information in his thread (and GMC Military Arms also has pretty good information at her fingertips).

If your actual armour values are nearly six feet thick, there'd be no way it could move at 56 km/hr. And to be truthful, the engine you have seems a bit underpowered. You may also want to consider a hybrid engine for greater fuel efficiency and perhaps more power.
The Macabees
20-10-2005, 15:07
Those rolled homogenous values are too high. That ceramic/steel/tungsten composite is weaker than chobham and cermat, meaning that the RHA value of that should be <900mm, while you're not going to get 500mm ERA bricks, since that's not how ERA bricks work. The highest current RHA value of ERA bricks is Kaktus-3, which has an RHA value of 300mm. Your rear armor value is [b]way[b/] too high, and should be around 300mm, no more, while your track skirt should be even less than that, or it would be too heavy.
Ankara Alphyaz
20-10-2005, 16:12
W/ thanks to Sarz/Macabees, edited.
Ankara Alphyaz
20-10-2005, 18:29
bump
Potty 5
20-10-2005, 20:03
900mm front? The front of the armor (Turret & Glacis) is a Leclerc is estimated to be over 1m (RHAe) by a large amount and it has inferior protection compared to Leopard 2A6's, Challenger 2's, M1A2 SEP's, or Merkava Mk. 4. Also it is almost 5% heavier then a leopard 2A6 and much slower (the Leopard 2A6 can go over 70km/hr). The Merkava does not use chobham armor and it has a RHAe much higher then 900mm.
The Macabees
20-10-2005, 20:05
900mm front? The front of the armor (Turret & Glacis) is a Leclerc is estimated to be over 1m (RHAe) by a large amount and it has inferior protection compared to Leopard 2A6's, Challenger 2's, M1A2 SEP's, or Merkava Mk. 4. Also it is almost 5% heavier then a leopard 2A6 and much slower (the Leopard 2A6 can go over 70km/hr). The Merkava does not use chobham armor and it has a RHAe much higher then 900mm.

I don't know where you got those estimations, but they are incorrect. The Abrams is considered to be heavier than the LeClerc, and it was a rolled homogenous armored rating of 900mm. The Challenger II has a smaller RHA rating, although not by much. The Leopard 2A6 uses a different armored scheme, while the LeClerc uses Cermat, rated at below Chobham.
Willink
20-10-2005, 20:34
You Stole Hogsweats drawing ???!?!?!
The Macabees
20-10-2005, 21:37
You Stole Hogsweats drawing ???!?!?!


*smacks head*
Ankara Alphyaz
20-10-2005, 21:48
You Stole Hogsweats drawing ???!?!?!
Not stole, more, licensed, as in, took it from his lineart folder.