Saint_Fuller

Vickers Mk 11. A wheeled IFV with 14 dismounts and the entire turret from a Vickers VFM5 with a 105mm L7 mounted on top. It's somewhat unfortunately also the size of a house.

The Vickers Medium Mark I predates the Panzer III by over a decade, and had a three-man turret. The Swedes also made a prototype design with a three-man turret in 1934, which eventually ended up as Strv m/42. The Germans were not first with the 3-man turret, and it's hard to claim they were "ahead of their time" with it when the British did it over a decade before them. Panzer III is hardly the originator of the MBT concept, at least not any more than any other medium tank is. In fact, if any WW2 tank in particular can be said to be "the grand daddy of the MBT" (and I honestly don't think any of them truly can be), the British cruisers would have more of a claim than Panzer III, given cruiser tank development led basically directly to Centurion, the "Universal Tank". The Panther's side armor wasn't particularly thin by the standards of the time: both the T-34 and Sherman had about 40mm thick sides as well, and Centurion had 50mm. The shot trap was a problem, but all it took to fix that was adding the "chin" to the mantlet and it was a non-issue. Finally, the interleaved suspension achieved good flotation by reducing peak ground pressure (by spreading the weight out over more contact points), and also saved on rubber, which was a scarce resource in wartime Germany. It was a nightmare to take apart, especially if you needed to get at one of the inner wheels, and it liked to get all stuck together with frozen mud overnight, but for what Germany's requirements were, the interleaved suspension was really not a bad design choice.

I don't see how the Germans could have "evolved from the cavalry/infantry tank roles" when they never, afaik, subscribed to any such ideas about tanks in the first place.

Because "heavy tank" refers to a tank's intended doctrinal role, and not an arbitrary physical quality like weight?

The Type 10 theoretically has provisions for special armor arrays to be added on the sides of the turret, rather like Merkava, yes. It does not actually have this armor as deployed. The yellow boxes shown in that diagram are storage boxes, not special armor packages.

Eh. The Abrams started at ~27 hp/t specific power in the M1, at 54 tonnes. 11 tonnes of armor upgrades later, it's down to ~24 hp/t. The Type 10, at 48 tonnes in its combat-ready configuration, starts at about 25 hp/t of specific power. It's better than the current Abrams sure, but not by much, and if they start adding more armor (like, say, to get some protection on the currently entirely bare turret sides), the power-to-weight ratio is only going to drop further.

There are legitimate issues with the Type 10, which are mostly the consequence of the JSDF insisting on cutting down the weight for bridge passability across Japan, to avoid a situation like with the Type 90 only getting deployed to Hokkaido because the bridges elsewhere couldn't handle it. For one, it has no side armor on the turret, and the engine output is a relatively small 1200hp (which is compensated for with some really wild automotive voodoo, granted). The autoloader capacity is also likely smaller than Type 90, given the tank's overall small dimensions. All the networking stuff is there to augment existing capabilities and make tanks more effective by improving things like fire coordination and C4I at all levels, and so the JSDF can avoid issues with C4I bottlenecks in the future by integrating all the capability they need in their shiny new kit. Maybe they went a bit overboard with the electronic toys by having things like bustle sensors to share ammunition status with the rest of the platoon, but overall, what they've tried to do with it is perfectly sound. Ultimately, what I want to say is... If a Type 10 were to lose access to all its fancy networked C4I systems because the entire company's nets are getting jammed into oblivion or something, it's only going to be brought down to being a regular modern tank, which still leaves it a perfectly capable tank.

The Type 10 is insanely networked, and it's likely this is a big contributing factor to its high cost. Developing the data radios and network infrastructure necessary to achieve that kind of networking capability requires practically pouring money into it, as it happens. For example, the tanks in a platoon share targeting information and vehicle status between each other and can track up to 8 targets simultaneously between them, which means the platoon commander can theoretically automatically direct the fire of all four tanks at once. PS: The "nanocrystalline steel" thing is apparently a mistranslation from what I've heard, and it's actually just referring to powder metallurgy.

Not very. GLATGMs are for obvious reasons restricted to the diameter of the gun, which means 120-125mm. A hollow charge warhead of that size is inadequate for penetrating the frontal armor of modern MBTs: even big 150mm+ ATGW like Kornet are not really capable of that. ATGMs are useful for infantry because you can't make a 120mm cannon man-portable. They are not really that useful for a tank, because a tank with a 120mm gun can sling APFSDS, and a 120mm LRP is better than a 120mm GLATGM in basically every way.

The Bundeswehr is in terrible shape. It was only a couple of years ago that it came out that they could barely get Panzergrenadierbataillon 371 up to its paper strength even when stripping the rest of the army for equipment. https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article144983577/Muessen-uns-fragen-ob-wir-im-Ernstfall-abwehrfaehig-sind.html In a normal army and with a regular unit, this wouldn't really be a big deal. No one is able to fully meet their paper allocations anyway in most units. When they do get up to paper strength, it's by stripping parts and materiel from other battalions or brigades. But this is supposed to be Germany's contribution to the NATO VHRJTF, effectively Germany's highest readiness unit. It's supposed to be as well equipped as the Bundeswehr can get. Yet they can barely keep their vehicles running and weapons shooting. It isn't much of a leap to assume that the rest of the Bundeswehr is in similar dire straits with regards to equipment availability. The state of the German military is a trainwreck, even the Germans acknowledge it and have been wringing their hands over it for years, but no one knows where to find the money to pay for the things the Bundeswehr need to do their jobs.

Oh, right. I'm too lazy to register on CMmods at the moment, so here, have a dropbox link.

Not entirely clear on where to publish them, honestly.

Some Ukrainian soldiers wearing steel pots. A mod done at the request of @Rinaldi.

Yep. Polish T-54A. Can apparently be found at Panzermuseum Thun in Switzerland.

this might not apply in CM Afghanistan, I don't know how they've been modelled in that game, but more generally vis-a-vis identifying if a tank is a T-54 or a T-55... T-54s were made with the fume extractor at the end of the gun too, like here: the most reliable way, as far as I'm aware, to distinguish T-54 from T-55 is the dome-shaped ventilator on the turret (as seen in the above picture). It exists on the T-54, but got deleted when they were making the T-55 because it compromised NBC sealing. Many T-54s and T-55s were upgraded and refitted over their service lives, which means almost everything else was changed at some point or other, but the dome ventilator stays constant AFAIK. Just FWIW, a bit of trivia.

As it happens, I have played that specific scenario as the Russians in a PBEM with @Rinaldi. He can probably tell you more about how his Bradleys fared when I got them under drone observation and started dropping PGMs on their heads.

It took one round. You can see the impact point on the front of the turret, actually. And it's more evidence than you've ever bothered to show, to my knowledge, of these alleged super-Bradleys that shrug off PGMs and ATGW with no significant damage. Because it's sure as hell not the case with the Bradleys I've seen in game, but who knows, maybe I'm just inordinately lucky (because I have in fact found that I can kill Bradleys fairly reliably using Russian artillery-fired PGM). Maybe it is in fact the case that M2s that somehow magically absorb direct PGM hits are the norm for everyone else???

Hmmm...

Bah. Such luxuries are unnecessary Western decadence. The supermen of Azov can obviously see through solid steel.

Speaking of Azov Battalion creations, I'm a fan of the "Azovets" personally. Take T-64, remove turret, bolt ~15 tons of applique and a superstructure on, install two turrets with 23mm aviation cannons and ATGM launchers. What more could you ask for???

"T-Rex" is just a 3d model as far as I know, hardly a prototype by any stretch of the imagination. More of a glorified napkin drawing than anything TBH. Anyway. The US briefly looked into unmanned turrets in the 90s with M1 TTB, decided the reduction in situational awareness that came from having to use only cameras and maintenance issues with the unmanned turret weren't worth the advantages (losing like ten tons of weight by stripping the turret of armor, and putting the crew in a position where they were less likely to be hit in the hull), and stayed the course with manned turrets. FCS's Mounted Combat System (as close to Block III as we actually got) and M8 AGS both had manned turrets if memory serves, and I suppose that it's a fairly safe bet to assume that any eventual Block III tank would have had that too, since I'm pretty sure the Armor School never really changed its opinion on the matter of the necessity of the TC to be able to actually look around his vehicle. So, considering all that as well as the poor experience the US has had with an actual robotic turret (Stryker MGS), I'm fairly sure they're going to stick with manned turrets for their next tank too. Whenever that happens.

There have been a lot of attempts and proposals to stick an autoloader in M1, actually. The thing is that the US regards (and rightly, IMO) the advantages of an autoloader as being outweighed by the problems, as well as the benefits of a fourth crew member. With a human loader, you get an extra pair of eyes, an extra pair of hands for maintenance, your loader can actually think for himself, and he performs faster in the short term. Just having that extra pair of eyes is a serious advantage in the see-first shoot-first environment of tank combat. Ultimately, the fact that the US hasn't elected to buy into any of the proposals for an autoloader for M1 should be enough of an indication of its (lack of) interest in the idea.

Did you mean Chieftain or Challenger, perhaps? Not that those are very similar to M1 either, mind you. Because the M1 has very few similarities to Centurion, beyond the very superficial (having tracks, a turret with a gun in it, four crewmen, etc). What the British contributed to M1 was mostly the special armor formula, and the L7 (otherwise known as M68) gun that was in US service long before M1 was a twinkle in some tank engineer's eye. Speaking of L7, I vehemently disagree with your characterization of mounting the 105mm on early M1s as being a mistake. Not only was the M68 with M774 capable of killing almost every Soviet vehicle that would've laid tread on the battlefield circa 1980, but M833 and M900's introduction also ensured that it could defeat even the new Soviet tanks with K-5 appearing on the stage in the late 80s. Additionally, the 105mm had the advantage of being able to use existing ammunition stocks, and it was also explicitly a temporary thing: the Abrams was designed from the start to accommodate a future mounting of the 120mm gun, because US tank engineers weren't dumb and could anticipate the need for a bigger gun once the 105mm started to reach the end of its development potential. This is asinine. If everyone doing it meant it was good, this would mean putting vulnerable ammo in the fighting compartment is a good idea. It isn't. It's a deliberate tradeoff to achieve some other purpose: in T-72 it's the autoloader that demands it, in Leopard 2 the hull ammo storage exists because half the bustle is occupied by all the hydraulic drives and the radios (in order to protect the crew from high-pressure hot oil if the hydraulics are hit), etc etc. Just like the choice of using diesels over gas turbines is such a tradeoff, despite gas turbines being demonstrably superior for tank purposes: they have better acceleration, are far quieter, and perform better than diesels in extreme temperatures (Soviet experience with T-80s and T-72s in Siberia attests to this: the turbine-engined T-80s were easy to start in a matter of minutes even at -40C, while T-72 diesels would take up to and even over 45 minutes to get going in the cold). Diesel engines are used primarily because they're less fuel thirsty, not because they're better engines in any particular way.

I just rewatched the video quickly, and I counted three TCs who bit it while unbuttoned - a fourth got wounded/killed while buttoned up, and a fifth lost two crewmembers to a double tap from a Khrizantema tank destroyer while buttoned up (if I recall correctly - the video doesn't show if it's unbuttoned or not, and I can't pull the save file up to check anymore, so) I was trying to say that even if you're scanning with binoculars/the naked eye while unbuttoned, it's not hard to look down at the CITV display while you're doing so, btw. Anyhow, I can't say I've played enough to say if there's a noticeable difference and I'm not sure how exactly it works in CM, but I think that the TC going unbuttoned to scan with binos while the gunner scans with thermal optics could be helpful, regardless of the risk to TC's life and limb. I could be entirely off the mark though, I guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Picture from Steel Beasts, but it works to illustrate: Scanning with the CITV while fighting your tank in open-protected position is as easy as looking down at the big ol' display. Anyway, the Mk1 Eyeball + binoculars can be surprisingly effective for spotting things (especially when the gunner is already scanning the same direction with thermals, having a naked eye spotting too can help), and unbuttoning to scan is (AFAIK) standard procedure for western tankers in the attack (weather permitting - no unbuttoning when it's raining 15cm HE-F or Sarin) partially for this reason. And, mind you, he did button up. As the guy on the opposite end of the beatdown in the video, I only saw one TC bite it while unbuttoned, and I didn't catch any other tanks unbuttoned after that.