Next Generation tank

What do you think the general technologies and look of a 2015 main battle tank will be?



My own thoughts are that as well as small air mobile tanks, the general shift towards 140mm main guns plus "iron storm" technology will blur the lines between MBT and artillery.


[edit on 4-5-2006 by planeman]

The electrical gun will be such powerful that 140mm will not need.
I think the 140mm caliber is too big which occupied many valuable place in tank. I have seen a report say that imformative 120mm is enough powerful to penetrate every kinds of armor existing. For defense 55 times 120 mm caliber, the armor fixed tank will lead to the tank too heavy there is no maneuver and couldn't be transportable. So for the gun, next generation tank will be fixed electrical gun less 140mm.

I can see two types being in the run, both based on a lower profile. Useing an unmanned MBT with auto loading weaponry, the first concept takes advantage of "human interface" area. By converting wasted space.
The second being lighter and more armored with less "human interface" requirements. Space once used for occupants will be replaced with hardware, allowing for occupant requirements.

Systems would be fully modular for branches of militaries to modify on own, each subsystem being specialized for readiness.

140mm tank gun hmmmmm.....
120mm is the biggest possible cannon for a APFSDS-round. So it wolud be a waste of place to take a 140 mm gun.
And one other aspect:
Were is the rocket?
I mean sonmething like a HOT or a TOW.

Hello to all:

Tank of the future, eh? I'm thinking that there won't be any one single design. I think we'll see different tanks built for different purposes and environments. This may include the development of more than one kind of propulsion system.

Most will employ the crew-in-body concept. A few specialist vehicles may still have crew in a mission-specfic turret. Some will certainly be fully automated. Remote controlled vehicles will have their place.

In keeping with the idea of different designs for different missions, I think we may see the use of wheels, tracks, and lift fans. Some designs may incorporate bouancy. Variable camouflage concepts are already on the drawing boards. The idea of traditional paint, as we know it, may soon be a thing of the past.

In all cases, these vehicles will be modular. This will be necessary due to expense and concerns over maintenance. We should expect to see a mix of weapons, which might very well include missiles and main gun rounds. To this end, I speculate that we will see tanks with their on-board air defense. Maybe even reflexive local missile defense to combat a wide range of anti-armor missiles and grenades.

I live near a company named L3 communications that builds and test's military equipment. They have a vehicle that looks like your everyday dune buggy, however it is covered in armor and sports a gatling gun on each side. It isnt a tank, but I'm sure they have designed it for fighting in the middle east. I recently saw one on the test track which runs parallel to the road. I was travelling at aproximatly 55 mph and when the driver of the vehicle punched the gas both front tires came off the ground and the tires both threw 30' rooster tails. I don't know if I would consider this the tank of the future, or the replacemnt for the tank. The way the world is going these days I believe a tank is just too slow to be a logical vehicle in warfare of the future. Either way, I would give my left nut to test drive the vehicle I call a dune-tank.

The term "tank" is likely to mean different things in the future. Like the dune buggy you saw, we are likely to witness a wide range of auto-based military vehicles in the future. The term "armored vehicle" or "combat vehicle" may apply.

MBT's a a big investment. They might very well be prestige weapons in the far future, used more for show and intimidation than actual warfighting. Consider that a $10,000,000 MBT can be killed by a weapon costing $10,000 or less. If you put that man-portable weapon on a vehicle of any kind, to improve its mobility, you imporve your military options by a wide margin.

If you factor in vehicle-mounted sensors, the future for big expensive vehicles begins to look dark, indded. Even so, I wouldn't want to be the guy in a throw-away truck with a throw-away missile trying to kill a 70 ton MBT that is being operated by a hostile and alert crew.

MBT's of the future...the big ones...will have an arsenal of support weapons that will be potent enough to make them dangerous. I woldn't write them off just yet. Imagine trying to kill an MBT that can ignore small arms and anti-personnel mines, systain some hits from main gun rounds, shoot down or deflect theater-grade missiles, and stop RPG's...while shooting on the move.

It won't fit in my garage, but I'd want one.

Next generation tanks and/or IFVs will be comparably lighter in design and more ambitious, possibly utilizing nano-technologies (ie: smart-materials: composite armor and materials, etc), direct fire EM main gun technologies (ie: utilizing Kinetic Energy Penetrators till EM guns come online and mainstream), use smart and tungsten ammunition, ETC technology, a variety of defensive measures (ie: for urban and open terrain warfare), and will still utilize ERA-like armor packages, etc.

These type vehicles will come with two main options: manned and unmanned (ARV). They will also, more than likely, have 12-megajoule capability or have a 12-megajoule shot (ie: a US EM main gun requirement).

In short, the most significant changes in future tank designs will be the eventual shift to a stronger, more well defended light tank platform with ETC technology and EM technologies being the main differences, along with the increased use of nano-technologies.

The inherent problem with all this speculation is that as tank technologies change and shift, anti-tank technologies likewise changes and shifts. Imagine an EM technologies shoulder launched or utilized anti-tank weapon carried by a soldier wearing nano-technologies protective wear.








seekerof

The next US tank, which will replace the Abrams, will use anti grav instead of caterpillar tracks and will be armed with Lasers and EMP pulse cannon, it will also have a force field in addition to its regular armour, I think it is being secretly tested in the Arizona desert as we speak.

honest guv.





Oh, and the UK will buy 15,000 of them but 14,500 will be kept in storage

[edit on 12-5-2006 by waynos]

Originally posted by waynos
The next US tank, which will replace the Abrams, will use anti grav instead of caterpillar tracks and will be armed with Lasers and EMP pulse cannon, it will also have a force field in addition to its regular armour, I think it is being secretly tested in the Arizona desert as we speak.

honest guv.

Oh, and the UK will buy 15,000 of them but 14,500 will be kept in storage

Yeah, three of those tanks just flew over my house, do you think it's related to Iran?

A lot of what's posted makes sense. I think that we will see three seperate trends:

1) Continuation of the MBT theme but with bigger/better guns - operationally this will lead to a blurring of the distinction between MBT and artillary, but due to costs these will never completely replace artillery.

2) Continuation of the "tank destroyer" and "direct fire support" lineage, typically of wheeled vehicles or light tracked vehicles. These will become ever more like MBTs in terms of survivability and firepower and because they will be air-deployable, will be used extensively by US and Western European armies. The top of range ones will end up costing nearly as much as MBTs.

3) A reemergance of the "Infantry tank" - MBT levels of protection but with a multitude of infantry support weapons instead of the typical tank gun. ATGWs will give these a limited MBT capability. The emphasis will be on urban combat. The pioneer of the class is the Russian BMPT based on the T-72 which simultaneously deploys an array of weapons: 30mm cannon, Kornet ATGWs, Grenade launchers, GPMGs:



I also think anti-air weaponary will improve. Some Russian light recce tanks already have IR-SAMs. a particularly interesting tank on this theme is the modernised Slovakian T-72s which have twin 20mm AAA:


[edit on 12-5-2006 by planeman]

Is it possible that there won't be a next generation tank?

Unless you count the Styrker as a tank, net-centric and aviation delivered munitions seem to be where combat is headed. Even the roles of "holding territory" or making massive invasions of the type the M1 spearheaded in both Gulf wars seems to be increasingly obsolete.

Given the choice of Preditor or Dominator UAV's equiped with Skeet, or investing in the metal, gas, and manpower for even a single tank, where would you put your money to achieve the best result?

Tanks will probably fly in the future, the armor will be tougher, but lighter in weight, the armement will be more powerful but also lighter in weight. The tanks will have advanced electronics etc.

Oh yeah, for those of you who say they will be vulnerable to SAMs, consider that they can fly AS LOW AS THEY WANT so you could cross that out. I'm sure they will fly maybe 2 or 3 ft off the ground or something. The shells that they will shoot will fly at extremely high speeds and will penetrate first, then explode ( actually this shells and missile already exist, but they will be more common and better in the future) You know, we should just wait. We already got the Black Eagle made. Who knows what other tanks are on the horizon?

Originally posted by Russian soldier
Tanks will probably fly in the future, the armor will be tougher, but lighter in weight, the armement will be more powerful but also lighter in weight. The tanks will have advanced electronics etc.

Oh yeah, for those of you who say they will be vulnerable to SAMs, consider that they can fly AS LOW AS THEY WANT so you could cross that out. I'm sure they will fly maybe 2 or 3 ft off the ground or something. The shells that they will shoot will fly at extremely high speeds and will penetrate first, then explode ( actually this shells and missile already exist, but they will be more common and better in the future) You know, we should just wait. We already got the Black Eagle made. Who knows what other tanks are on the horizon?

Or, you could stick with gunships such as the AH-64D Longbow which probably is capable of everything you just said, and is also possible even more mission capable.

Shattered OUT...

doesn't sound advanced to me unless there is no crew!

I think planeman used the right word. we're going to see a lot more tank destoryers. Heavily armed vehicles. I don't think any of us on the board will live oong enough to see grav tanks. Current advances in electrical armor suggest some very interesting possibilities, but I don't think the power generation problem will be cracked in our lifetimes.

If you can see it, you'll need to kill it. that's going to sum up the battle space of the future. Barrett has recently developed a low-recoil .50 caliber sniper rifle. As I read it,the technology seems adaptable to all osrts of weapons. Future tanks will certainly benefit from that sort of thing. Imagine something that goes beyond the gyro-stabilized gun.

Amen. So if it's seen, it's scrap metal.
Small is the future. Not flying tanks, not anything that takes people inside the point of the spear.

I think heavy tanks of the future will be able to take a tremedous beating. You won't need them unles your enemies have them. You may want to have some for prestige purposes, though. May just to show off a little.

In the late 1970's a man named Keith Laumer wrote a book called "Bolo." In this book, he speculated that future heavy tanks might be very large, and very capable. Has anyone here read that book?

How about the evolution of the actual capitillar treads? Using Nanotech Robotics advances in the near future, it may be possible to go in a completely radical new direction.

It should go Biomemetic. Try to meld the best of the best, for gait and structural traits in the Animal Kingdom and come up with a compromise design, or maybe even one that could even modify itself to the terrian.

Instead of using a Catipillar Tread system, they might just use a Catipillar Leg system with thousands or tens of thousands of multi-articulating legs covering the entire "belly of the beast," with the actually body of the tank being semi-flexible to get over the roughest terrain imaginable. Combined with tractions gain through Van Der Waals forces(Article 1, Article 2), and telepresence control Through a CAVE(See figure below), this could be a literal "go anywhere," MBT.



Add this in with a perfected adaptive matrix skin for Optical Camoflauge using Apples new "All Seeing Screen" technology, here is the article. What do you think this will result in?

As for the intimidation factor of so called "Prestige Weapons," you could also make them as big as a house.

[edit on 13-5-2006 by sardion2000]

i dotn think we will see something as expensive and powerful be unmanned for a very long time.

this is what i see:

shealth: heat, fiction and visual
shielding: force electro and emp
armour: compsite, smart material "alive"
fuel: none solar or electrochemical
arms: metalstorm "rounds" where each round is several bullets for none main gun
main gun: shorter barreled unmanned turret with "lightening" or ion beam or rail gun or metalstorm round but in 80mm to 105mm

they will be quiet more ambushing than rolling thunder i believe

as for other vehicles like Infantry tanks i think they are being reborn in three different types: heavy medium and light

heavy: most like the british ww2 inf tanks cannon or mortor maybe even a combo daul purpose made for destroying bunkers pill boxes..etc

medium: smaller caliber 40mm to 30mm twin cannons with many rockets mini missiles and and a special weapin

light: one 20mm chaingun and twin small caliber weapons with small grenade launcher.

if war changes and people stop caring about civilians and just destroying the design of these weapons could change. like: " if you are in the war zone and dont leave you will be in the line of fire and neither force will care if you are caught."

I have no doubt that we're going to see a number of innovative propulsion systems tried out. A lot will hinge on what power fources are available. For example, as the lithium-ion battery system comes in to hits own, we may see any number of new concepts which are made possible due to this superior power storage technoogy.