The perfect tank of tomorrow

Brian Hook

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Dec 8, 1994, 12:17:35 PM12/8/94

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I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
have to say on this.

Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank? Obviously
there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?

For example, Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" assume fusion generated
behemoths that are hover tanks. I find this hard to believe, since
the hovertank platform is inherently unstable (you couldn't use
projectile weapons) and difficult to maneuver. Some common
questions:

o What will the future tank crew size be?
o What type of armor would be used?
o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to
become more popular? Will energy weapons become
more popular?
o Will the turret be removed?
o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
into play?

Assume 'medium future', say 40 years from now. In other words, what
type of tank would be around in 40 years that would LIKELY exist
given today's technological and physical constraints. E.g. fusion
power supplies are probably not going to be happening. What
type of weapons, armor, etc. would be around 'only if we could do
this....' Is there a better armor material that we aren't using
because of cost or difficulty manufacturing? Etc. etc.

Thanks,

Brian

--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Brian Hook | Mail me if you want a copy of the Great 3D |
| | Programming Book List with Reviews |
+- "Style distinguishes excellence from accomplishment" - J. Coplien -+

David A. Terhune

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Dec 9, 1994, 12:44:27 PM12/9/94

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From dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune)

Brian Hook (b...@netcom.com) wrote:

: From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)

: I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
: supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
: basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
: have to say on this.

: Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank? Obviously
: there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
: heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
: really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?

: For example, Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" assume fusion generated
: behemoths that are hover tanks. I find this hard to believe, since
: the hovertank platform is inherently unstable (you couldn't use
: projectile weapons) and difficult to maneuver. Some common
: questions:

: o What will the future tank crew size be?

It will probably stay 3-4: driver, gunner, commander, maybe a
second gunner.

: o What type of armor would be used?

I would assume something like a Zero-G grown perfect crystalline
lattice structure "super-steel" alloy thing, layered with ceramics for
energy weapon defense & defense against shaped charges.

: o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to

: become more popular? Will energy weapons become
: more popular?

I would think, given sufficient increase in battery technology,
energy weapons may become feasable. With the advances in armor, missiles
will become more popular. Perhaps a CLGP (Cannon-Launched Guided
Projectile) system?

: o Will the turret be removed?

Definitely not. Unmanned turrets will become extremely popular,
however.

: o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
: into play?

Perhaps treads made of the same stuff as the armor (although that
would be a bit expensive) will appear, but I don't see a different
propulsion system other than tracks appearing in the "medium future."

: Thanks,

You're welcome.

: Brian

--
David A. Terhune Unfortunately, we ARE on a budget here.
dter...@sprint.uccs.edu -Londo Mollari, "Believers"

Eric Remy

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Dec 12, 1994, 12:31:05 PM12/12/94

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From edr...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Eric Remy)

In article <D0I5D...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,

Brian Hook <b...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
>From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)
>

>Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank? Obviously
>there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
>heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
>really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?

Define the mission you want the tank to do- then design the tank.

>
> o What will the future tank crew size be?

Smaller than now. 3 certainly, 2 possible. 1 man isn't really
feasible until robotics gets good enough to replace the driver, which
isn't going to happen soon. (And no, even if a computer can drive a
car on a road, that's nowhere near good enough to replace a human tank
driver.)

> o What type of armor would be used?

Currently, Chobham and varients. Research is being done into all
ceramic armor for light tanks at least. Active countermeasures will
vastly increase, including radar jammers and IR/laser spoofers to
defeat ATGMs. (See Armor about two months ago)

Armor tends to be driven by weaponry- Chobham was developed solely due
to the proliferation of shaped-charge ATGMs. Thus, I suspect we'll
see a lot of new ways to armor the top of a tank, given the large
number of top attack weapons being built.

I don't think we'll see the use of active defenses, ala the Phalanx
CIWS gun- these are just too dangerous for everyone around the tank.

> o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to
> become more popular? Will energy weapons become
> more popular?

I think the gun/missile launchers will make a comeback. The high
performance gun isn't going anywhere, although the next
generation of kinetic energy kill rounds may use rocket boosters to
get higher speed. We have electronics which withstand cannon launch-
we'll probably see guided sabot rounds within a few years.

Within 40 years, I'd expect the main ammo to be a high velocity
missile, possibly with over the horizon capability.

We don't currently have the energy storage density in batteries and
the like to get energy based weapons such as lasers or particle beams
functional, and probably won't for a while.

> o Will the turret be removed?

No. You give up shoot on the move capability if you do this, unless
you have missiles which can turn damn fast. People won't be in the
turret though- they'll be buried in the hull.

> o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
> into play?
>

We're stuck with treads for now, since wheels can't handle the weight
of current tanks. Hovercraft will almost certainly be too noisy and
unable to handle enough weight for quite a while.

We'll probably go to diesel- electric drive in the next generation or
so. (Standard engine powers a generator, power goes to motors on each
drive wheel.) This will remove the transmission, a very good thing,
plus allows creative placement of the engine since you don't need a
drivetrain.

Most of the changes I've given here are more evolutionary than
revolutionary. I suspect that the future tank will never be the dominant
force on the battlefield it's been in previous wars- there are simply
too many things which can kill them.

However, they won't go away either. They have enormous firepower,
high mobility, and they can take and hold terrain, unlike planes and
choppers.

>
>Brian
>
--
Eric R. edr...@fermion.Stanford.EDU Department of Chemistry
"Any desired property can be calculated from the Schrodinger equation of the
system. The solution is left as an exercise for the reader." JIR, 3rd ed.

Dan Sorenson

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Dec 12, 1994, 12:31:03 PM12/12/94

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From vik...@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson)

In <D0I5D...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook) writes:

>I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
>supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
>basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
>have to say on this.

While by no means an expert, it appears that you are writing
science fiction and thus I'd like to interject a few opinions.

>Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank? Obviously
>there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
>heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
>really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?

Seek out a rather small board-game called, "Ogre." The
premise is an AI-controlled tank rampaging across the battlefield,
and it's a fairly interesting game. Similar to "Car Wars" or
"Starfleet Battles" for that matter. Any local science fiction
group is likely to have a copy you might peruse. That is the
response "if given sufficient technology." I think the near-term
scenario will be decidedly different.

>For example, Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" assume fusion generated
>behemoths that are hover tanks. I find this hard to believe, since
>the hovertank platform is inherently unstable (you couldn't use
>projectile weapons) and difficult to maneuver.

I disagree. An M1 cruising over uneven terrain and,
for that matter, a battleship in 1940 both had gun mounts
quite capable of compensating for the rolling, pitching motion
inherent in a rather unstable platform. Granted, the laws of
physics say you're going to need incredible pressures to keep a
gun solidly stable in such an environment, but is a delay in
firing until the gun is in the proper position such a trade-off?
That is just one possible solution. Press the button, and when
the gun is again at the proper position to hit the target it fires.
That's technology 50 years old, accomplished by cams, chains, and
gears. A far better question is how the battlefield has changed.

> o What will the future tank crew size be?

Eventually, I suspect one. None is too much of a
leap to automation for the military mind, and frankly I'd
sleep much better at night knowing a human directed the tank.

> o What type of armor would be used?

Does it matter? Reactive, ceramic, steel... The armor
changes with the threat, just as it has since the times of our
earliest recorded history. It's much easier to defeat a
weapon than it is to come up with the new weapon, after all.
I suspect a reactive outer layer and a ceramic inner layer,
given that glass has a *very* high melting point and a tensile
strength of nearly one million PSI given no flaws in the material,
but that is merely given present technology. Should we assume
the advancement of technology in chemical engineering, I strongly
suspect we will be able to manufacture the four-carbon bond of
diamonds in a somewhat angular but still formable shape. A tank
encased in diamond, the hardest substance around. <sigh!> What
would you use to penetrate it? Another diamond? See the race?

> o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to
> become more popular? Will energy weapons become
> more popular?

Missiles and projectiles, no doubt about it. The power
isn't available for energy weapons, and given that it would
practically take a very advanced nuke to power the thing there
is no way the populace would sit still for it. But, let's place
a diamond or depleted uranium tip on a conventional warhead or
projectile and we've a viable, cheap a nice penetrating weapon.
Energy weapons require that the target absorb energy faster
than it can be removed. Given the high heat potential of
ceramics, not to mention the problems of heating a target at
any significant range, I don't suspect we'll see these in the
next couple of decades at least.

> o Will the turret be removed?

No. A fixed weapons platform has limited itself to
certain firing angles. A better solution is to mount multiple
weapons and have them give a 360 degree field of fire. I
would suspect that the weapon would be given some degree of
independence and not require a rotating turret, but the
versatility will not be lost. The turret will be retained
simply as a matter of tradition and as a convenient
point to mount projectile weapons.

> o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
> into play?

Tread design might work. We could even have hovercraft-style
air skirts, or for that matter wheeled vehicles instead of tracked.
I believe this depends quite a bit upon the armor used and hence
the weight of the vehicle.

>Assume 'medium future', say 40 years from now.

A mere fifty years ago we had no idea of the power to
be unleashed from the atom. A mere forty years ago we had no
idea that a man could be placed on the moon and returned.
Forty years from now? Use your imagination, dare to dream,
and write what you want. The future 40 years from now is
just as unknown as that 400 years from now. The only
educated guess we can make is, perhaps, ten years from now.

--
* Dan Sorenson, DoD 1066 vik...@iastate.edu z1...@exnet.iastate.edu *
* Vikings? There ain't no vikings here. Just us honest farmers. *
* The town was burning, the villagers were dead. They didn't need *
* those sheep anyway. That's our story and we're sticking to it. *

Lane

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Dec 12, 1994, 12:31:09 PM12/12/94

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From la...@ulantris.csci.unt.edu (Lane)

Brian Hook (b...@netcom.com) wrote:

: From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)

: I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
: supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
: basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
: have to say on this.

: Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank? Obviously
: there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
: heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
: really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?

: For example, Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" assume fusion generated
: behemoths that are hover tanks. I find this hard to believe, since
: the hovertank platform is inherently unstable (you couldn't use
: projectile weapons) and difficult to maneuver. Some common
: questions:

Hover tanks are not out of the question, especially if powered by a fusion
generator...this would most likely (who knows?) weights enough to counter
balance recoil from a typical cannon.

: o What will the future tank crew size be?

3 seems to be the ideal crew size...possibly 4.

: o What type of armor would be used?
Most likely synthetics.

: o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to

: become more popular? Will energy weapons become
: more popular?

Beam weapons probably have a while before they reach an effective level.
IMO, the most likely future weapons are Gauss accelerators, which can
obtain velocities not capable with chemical propellants (Gauss accelerators
can propel an object in excess of 20k per second, while the top speed of
a chemica propellant, due to gas expansion properties, is around 8km per
second).

: o Will the turret be removed?
Maybe, maybe not...depends on how it affects signatures of tanks. Arguments
can be made for and against turreted tanks.

: o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
: into play?
Not for a long time.

: Assume 'medium future', say 40 years from now. In other words, what

: type of tank would be around in 40 years that would LIKELY exist
: given today's technological and physical constraints. E.g. fusion
: power supplies are probably not going to be happening. What
: type of weapons, armor, etc. would be around 'only if we could do
: this....' Is there a better armor material that we aren't using
: because of cost or difficulty manufacturing? Etc. etc.

: Thanks,

: Brian

: +- "Style distinguxishes excellence from accomplishment" - J. Coplien -+

Steve Wall

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Dec 12, 1994, 12:31:07 PM12/12/94

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From Steve Wall <smw...@pica.army.mil>

In article <D0I5D...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, b...@netcom.com (Brian
Hook) wrote:

> From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)
>
>
> I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
> supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
> basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
> have to say on this.
>
> Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank? Obviously
> there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
> heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
> really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?
>
> For example, Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" assume fusion generated
> behemoths that are hover tanks. I find this hard to believe, since
> the hovertank platform is inherently unstable (you couldn't use
> projectile weapons) and difficult to maneuver. Some common
> questions:
>
> o What will the future tank crew size be?

I'd say two or three crew members would be a minimum. Current US
tanks have a Driver, Loader, Gunner, and Commander. In 40 years, I'd
assume that the Loader would be eliminated. This leaves three
crew members which perform the three major functions of driving,
shooting at a target, and deciding what to do next. In 40 years it's
possible that the gunner could be eliminated by making the fire control
and/or ammunition smart enough to do exact aiming given a rough target
designation by the Commander. That would leave you with two crewmen.

--
Steve Wall

Alan R. Gross

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Dec 12, 1994, 12:31:10 PM12/12/94

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From maka...@sactoh0.sac.ca.us (Alan R. Gross)

In article <D0K1A...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune) writes:
>
>From dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune)
>
>Brian Hook (b...@netcom.com) wrote:
>
>: From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)
>
>

>: o Will the turret be removed?
>
> Definitely not. Unmanned turrets will become extremely popular,
>however.

I would hesitate to say definitely not. Perhaps future tanks will have
mounts for removable modular turrets -- a different turret for a different
mission. Picture a missle turret, a recon turret, etc. With different
technologies becoming available, I could see a different turret for each
type of weapon load.
-- Thanks, Randy

--
# Randall A. Gross A.R.Gros...@Sprint.com #
# Sacramento Public Access UNIX maka...@sactoh0.SAC.CA.US #
# "Never give a rifle to a melancholic bore." W.H. Auden Ego Loquito #

Lasse Olsen

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Dec 12, 1994, 12:31:12 PM12/12/94

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From lol...@hsr.no (Lasse Olsen)

Brian Hook (b...@netcom.com) wrote:

: From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)

: I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
: supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
: basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
: have to say on this.

: Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank? Obviously
: there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
: heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
: really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?

: o What will the future tank crew size be?

If you mean 40 years from now (have I got this?)
- probably none. Totally computer-opperated..

: o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to

: become more popular? Will energy weapons become
: more popular?

Some type of "ray-gun" - electromagneticly powered gun -
could be part of the "outfit".

: o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
: into play?

Sertainly some new type of fuel is beeing developed, even
now, within the USForces. It's looking at at least 100
times more efficient than current fuel technologies..

Cheers...

Gary Coffman

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Dec 12, 1994, 12:31:14 PM12/12/94

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From ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary Coffman)

In article <D0I5D...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook) writes:
> o What will the future tank crew size be?

Ideally zero, IE an autonomous battlefield vehicle. With the IFF
problems on near future coalition battlefields, however, that's
likely not feasible. So expect crew size to remain at 3 to 4.

> o What type of armor would be used?

In the near future, composite armor will likely remain the best
choice. Both KE and HE threats remain likely, and composite armor
does the best job of dealing with both of them. If the KE threat
declines, then reactive armor may make a comeback. Expect to see
much more attention being paid to protection from top attack in
future fighting vehicles. The top of the vehicle is the most likely
position to see a return to reactive armor protection, and/or better
defensive armament to ward off air attack. Current armor is sufficient
to deal with most ground attacks, but attack from the air is where
most current vehicles are most vulnerable. Expect to see armor designers
concentrate much more heavily on this threat in the future.

> o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to
> become more popular? Will energy weapons become
> more popular?

Directed energy weapons aren't likely to appear in the next 40 years
as armor threats. They aren't efficient, and massive armor offers
a large heatsink against such attacks. The attacking vehicle is likely
to have to dissipate 10 to 100 times the energy that the target vehicle
will have to handle. That's a losing game. Fire and forget missiles
have attractions, but good old gun fired KE penetrators are likely to
remain the primary armament of armored fighting vehicles. Some innovations,
such as liquid propellants, may appear in the next 40 years, but I'd expect
a hardened penetrator to remain the best munition for attacking other
armored vehicles. Anti-air missiles may become popular, however.

> o Will the turret be removed?

Not likely. Because I expect the gun to remain the primary anti-armor
weapon, a turret offers too many advantages to ignore. If missiles
became the primary armament, vertical launchers might replace the
turret.

> o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
> into play?

I expect propulsion to still be based on tracks powered by a diesel
or turbine engine. A real wildcard here could be fuel cells. If the
technology becomes cheaper and more reliable, we may see vehicles
with electric drive, and much lower IR signatures. Tracks have
substantial advantages in the soft, rough, or broken terrain that's
typical of most battlefields. But all wheel drive systems with run
flat tires do have certain attractions, among them better on road
performance, and possibly better survival against mine attacks. It's
better to have a wheel blown off and be able to go on than to have
a track blown off and have to get out and fix it under fire.

Carl D. Casey

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Dec 12, 1994, 12:31:16 PM12/12/94

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From c...@asbt14.phx1.aro.allied.com (Carl D. Casey)

> o Will the turret be removed?

> Definitely not. Unmanned turrets will become extremely popular,
> however.

Given that turrets have traverse time, How about a vertical launch system or
a phased array energy weapon? Kind of an AEGIS (SPY-1?) box structure?

--
Carl D. Casey
AlliedSignal Engines
Flight Test Telemetry Data Center
Phoenix, AZ
(602) 231-4615

c...@pelab.allied.com

John Schilling

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Dec 12, 1994, 12:31:18 PM12/12/94

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From John Schilling <schi...@spock.usc.edu>

b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook) writes:

>From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)

>I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
>supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
>basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
>have to say on this.

>Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank? Obviously
>there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
>heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
>really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?

>For example, Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" assume fusion generated
>behemoths that are hover tanks. I find this hard to believe, since
>the hovertank platform is inherently unstable (you couldn't use
>projectile weapons) and difficult to maneuver.

To be fair, Drake's hovertanks didn't *use* projectile weapons.
And tracks aren't exactly what I would call easy to maneuver, themselves.

>Some common questions:

> o What will the future tank crew size be?

Probably 3. Driver, Gunner, Commander. Personally, I think a fourth
crewman to handle assorted odd jobs wold be a good thing, but the trend
seems to be towards reducing crew size, and three is a practical minimum.

> o What type of armor would be used?

Compound laminate of unknown type, but probably involving metals, cermaincs,
and fiber composites in alternating layers. Probably a *better* laminate
than we have now, but not qualitatively different.

I also suspect the current trends toward all-around protection and strategic
mobility will result in a new distinction between medium and heavy tanks.

The former would be protected against light weapons (up to RPG-7 class)
from all angles, rather than just the front as is currently the case.
But it would make no effort to be impenetrable to heavier weapons, and
instead would focus on assuring crew survival even though the vehicle
is a write-off.

The latter would have all-around protection, *and* frontal armor capable
of standing up to (almost) anything on the battlefield. It would also
be an incredibly heavy beast; I wouldn't be surprised to see the gun/armor
battle push such vehicles over the 100-ton mark.

Note that it might be possible to build both types of vehicle on a common
chassis, using modular armor.

> o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to
> become more popular? Will energy weapons become
> more popular?

Energy weapons are probably not in the cards, as they tend not to be
very big on penetration. But new types of kinetic-energy weapons will
be developed, probably including electrothermal and electromagnetic
guns. Think muzzle velocity in the 3-4 km/s range...

So long as conventional or near-conventional guns are in use, there
will be attempts to integrate missiles with the gun armament. But
for the most part, missiles will remain on dedicated missile vehicles,
which will serve more as tank destroyers than as classical tanks.

> o Will the turret be removed?

Somebody will certainly try; I don't expect it will work out as well as
they hope. Expect unmanned turrets housing the main armament and sensors
to be the norm.

Possible exception: If the aforementioned medium/heavy tank division
occurs, it might be desirable for the heavies to use hull-mounted guns
similar to WWII assault guns or the modern Swedish S-tank.

> o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
> into play?

Probably not, aside from electric transmission. Again, a possible
exception if the medium/heavy split occurs. Medium tanks might well
use wheels rather than tracks; the latter being a major source of
mechanical problems. Several nations have recently reported reasonable
performance from wheeled combat vehicles in the 40-ton range, and this
might be incorporated in medium tank designs.

--
*John Schilling * "You can have Peace, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * or you can have Freedom. *
*University of Southern California * Don't ever count on having both *
*Aerospace Engineering Department * at the same time." *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * - Robert A. Heinlein *
*(213)-740-5311 or 747-2527 * Finger for PGP public key *

Brian Hook

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Dec 12, 1994, 12:31:37 PM12/12/94

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From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)

In article <D0K1A...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune) writes:

> : o What will the future tank crew size be?

> It will probably stay 3-4: driver, gunner, commander, maybe a
> second gunner.

Won't a lot of these duties be offloaded to a computer, much the
same way an F-14 can be manned with only a two man crew? I would
assume (but I'm pretty clueless with this) than an M1 and F14
aren't all that different in complexity, unless the F14 is more
complex and would therefore, eif anything, warrant a larger
crew.

> I would assume something like a Zero-G grown perfect crystalline
> lattice structure "super-steel" alloy thing, layered with ceramics for
> energy weapon defense & defense against shaped charges.

Interested, I've never heard of this before. How difficult is it
to produce this stuff in quantity, and would it justify the cost?

> I would think, given sufficient increase in battery technology,
> energy weapons may become feasable. With the advances in armor, missiles
> will become more popular. Perhaps a CLGP (Cannon-Launched Guided
> Projectile) system?

Maybe something like a "smart bomb" that can only be guided only so
much? I thought one of th reasons missiles weren't popular is that
you can't have as large a diversity in munitions, and they take up
more room, and require a more high profile launching system. Is this
still true (will this still be true?)

Thanks again,

P. Joseph Hong

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Dec 13, 1994, 12:44:13 PM12/13/94

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From pjh...@cs.sunysb.edu (P. Joseph Hong)

In this exchange BH is Brian Hook (b...@netcom.com)
and DT is David A. Terhune (dter...@sprint.uccs.edu)

BH: What will the future tank crew size be?
DT> It will probably stay 3-4: driver, gunner, commander, maybe a
> second gunner.

Three to four sounds right. Even if tech advances make it
possible to replace the second gunner-cum-loader, I think a fourth
crewman is still desirable.

BH: What type of armor would be used?
DT> I would assume something like a Zero-G grown perfect crystalline

> lattice structure "super-steel" alloy thing, layered with ceramics for
> energy weapon defense & defense against shaped charges.

No comment from me.

BH: What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to

: become more popular? Will energy weapons become
: more popular?

DT> I would think, given sufficient increase in battery technology,

> energy weapons may become feasable. With the advances in armor, missiles
> will become more popular. Perhaps a CLGP (Cannon-Launched Guided
> Projectile) system?

Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk -- that battery will be pretty large to
hold the MEGAWATTS needed for your energy weapon. The energy stored
in Explosives is more efficient than the energy you'll ever get from
a chemical battery. For even better energy storage (than explosives),
atomic or nuclear power, I guess, would be the only alternative.

A recent article in Proceedings of the Naval Institute (around
Oct or Nov) claimed that "The Tank is Dead!" Why? Because of precision-
guided munitions, especially those delivered by air assets. Examples are
Hellfire laser-guided missiles from attack helicopters and ground-attack
planes (i.e., A-10).
But the same principle should hold for landbased vehicles. There
is very good reason to develop a Hellfire launcher system to use against
other Armored and Mechanized Vehicles. I think that guided missile systems
will be more popular in the future. The CLGP that David proposes is already
here as the Copperhead round. But you already knew that.
Now the question is, who will do the designating for these
guided weapons? The role of the Tank is to breach and exploit openings
in the enemy's defense lines. The Tank is the one who's supposed to be
the first to get where the enemy is. No friendly infantry spotters there!
So I think FIRE-AND-FORGET missiles and rounds will be developed.
The tank-destroyer/missile-vehicle will have its own Laser Designator (just
like an attack chopper does), be able to paint multiple targets, and launch
multiple guided missiles. The designator will either track the targets and
the missiles will ride the beam, or the F&F missiles will track on their own.
I think the latter, using IR or robot vision. (Check out the post on
the NAG anti-tank missile).
A basic argument is: will the Tank ever be equipped with missiles
AND a gun? A single gun firing HE, HEAT, APDS, etc... is enough to do
the job, so far. Are missiles, ON TANKS, really necessary? Isn't it
better to equip lesser armored FVs with the ATGMs?

WILD PREDICTIONS: One Gun, NOT in a turret but buried in hull,
firing a variety of rounds, including the Copperhead guided stuff;
Missile Launcher, one or two racks, on a small turret behind main gun,
firing self-guided missiles (F&F). Tracking and designating electronics
galore, including track-breaking and jamming gear.
Crew has to remain at 3 or 4: Commander, Driver, Gunner 1 & 2.

Put wings on this thing and it's a cross between a Tomcat
and a Warthog!! Hmm....Thundercat?

BH: Will the turret be removed?
DT> Definitely not. Unmanned turrets will become extremely popular,

Turret stays, but in my case, for a different purpose.

BH: Will a new tread design or propulsion system come into play?
DT> Perhaps treads made of the same stuff as the armor (although that

> would be a bit expensive) will appear, but I don't see a different
> propulsion system other than tracks appearing in the "medium future."

No, Brian. I don't think BattleMechs will be viable in the
medium future. Tracked or wheeled is still the way to go.

-- Joe pjh...@clio.rad.sunysb.edu

Isaac Ji Kuo

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Dec 13, 1994, 12:44:15 PM12/13/94

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From isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Isaac Ji Kuo)

In article <D0I5D...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,
Brian Hook <b...@netcom.com> wrote:

>I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
>supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
>basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
>have to say on this.

I'm not an expert, but it's one of my hobbies.

>Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank?

No such thing. The ideal attributes entirely depend on what the its
working environment is like, which depends heavily on what equipment
is working alongside it and the personel using it, and less controllably
also depend on what it's working against.

>Obviously
>there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
>heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
>really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?

Will never happen. There's no such thing as "good firepower" if the
enemy uses enough armor/ECM to avoid it, and there's no such thing as
enough armor if the enemy uses weapons which defeat it. With foreseeable
technology, there will IMHO come a time when there won't be any such
thing as enough armor (but that this is too far in the future to make
any good guess as to what it would be like).

Anyways, assuming 40 years in the future...

> o What will the future tank crew size be?

My best guess is two. The driver and gunner/commander.

> o What type of armor would be used?

Composite layered armor, with at least 4 feet in the front, and 2 feet
to the sides of the crew compartment, as well as at least 6 inches
above. Various areas of the armor, have rather hollow spaces in which
water, fuel, and liquid propellant are stored.

> o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to
> become more popular? Will energy weapons become
> more popular?

The kinetic energy cannon currently has many advantages over all other
weapons against vehicles, but is extremely heavy and bulky, so is
restricted to battle tanks and is not optimal for other targets. It
will probably be refined to use liquid propellant rather than the
current powder propellant. Such liquid propellants could save space
(and weight, since less internal space used implies less armor needed)
since the tanks can be flexibly placed. Such propellant might be
stored in spaces in the armor, but this possibility is rather uncertain
because such propellants will likely be reactive. LP guns would
also be able to load its ammunition faster than SP guns, and
logistically would simplify reloading. In particular, larger and
heavier projectiles could be manhandled since the weight of the propellant
and shells would be eliminated.

Electromagnetic kinetic energy cannon are IMHO not likely.

The self guiding top attack 81mm Merlin mortar shell and 120mm Stryx
mortar shell suggest a light weight weapon capable of engaging the most
heavily armored opponents at useful ranges yet still has the ability to
use "dumb" ammunition against fixed targets or in infantry support. The
low pressure mortar/gun weighs much less and is much smaller than a
long barreled gun of the same caliber, and also puts much less stress
on the projectile (which makes design of guided munitions easier).
IMHO, this type of weapon will be the only really new vehicular weapon
in the next couple decades, and if the Merlin and/or Stryx prove
themselves resistant to countermeasures, such a weapon might even
become more common than the kinetic energy cannon. Such a mortar/gun,
with its high elevation and relatively light mounting, could also
prove useful for short range AAA (with guided shells).

Two significant directions that missile technology will go here is
hypervelocity missiles and TV guided/self guided top attack missiles.
Hypervelocity missiles would do basically the job of a kinetic energy
cannon, except without the weight of a cannon and with potentially
faster slew rate. TV guided/self guided top attack missiles could
be used at very long range as artillery, except that the forward
observers need not necessarily designate targets or even stay in the
target area. The potential anti-aircraft potential is obvious as
well, depending on how fast the missiles are.

The hybrid gun launched missile, IMHO, will not make a comeback, except
perhaps in the from of basebleed guided shells. Instead, missile
launch technology will converge to fixed launch (such as vertical
launch cells), with airslewing to provide a 360 degree arc. Fixed
launch racks are lighter and more durable/reliable than flexible ones.

My bet for what tanks will be armed with in 40 years? The front line
main battle tank will have a main armament of an automatically loading
LP mortar/gun and a small number of vertically launched missiles--a
standard cell launcher used for both a hypervelocity missile and a TV
guided/self guided missile. In addition, extra cell launcher racks
may be bolted onto the frame should they be needed. The main armament
will need a large ammunition store to hold both guided shells and
varied support ammunition. The hypervelocity missiles are needed
for "quick-draw" situations, and TV guided/self guided missiles for
long range fire or expendable reconnaissance.

The main armament will be in a remote turret with sensors and a
coaxial machine gun (or light machine cannon).

> o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
> into play?

Here is a potential for a great savings which would greatly affect
AFV design. A "corrugated" low temperature fuel cell may be developed
which doesn't use toxic/expensive materials and lasts long enough to
be useful in military vehicles. Such fuel cells could be placed
conformally around the vehicle within the spaces of the armor and/or
form a bulwark around the crew compartment. Unlike normal fuel
cells, a low temperature distributed fuel cell could work even with
parts of it destroyed or pocketed with holes (with proportionately
reduced power), which means enemy weapons penetrating the fuel cells
would not imply mobility kills. The distributed fuel cells may also
prove more reliable and require much less maintainance than internal
combustion engines, and would be much quieter as well. Also, no
APU for electronics is necessary.

IMHO, a distributed low temperature fuel cell power system (along with
electric motors), will start a future revolution in AFV design.
Such a power system would make internal layout incredibly more flexible,
and its resistance to damage may even make armoring against top attack
feasible (since only the crew need be armored).
--
_____ Isaac Kuo (isaa...@OCF.berkeley.edu)
__|_>o<_|__ As the world looked on ... Earth's fate hung in balance ...
/___________\ The fight for survival ... now begins! ... FINAL BATTLE IN ...
\=\>-----</=/ TOMOBIKI-CHO!

Harrison Osborne

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Dec 13, 1994, 12:44:17 PM12/13/94

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From hosb...@dgs.dgsys.com (Harrison Osborne)

Brian Hook (b...@netcom.com) wrote:

: From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)

: In article <D0K1A...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune) writes:

: > : o What will the future tank crew size be?

: > It will probably stay 3-4: driver, gunner, commander, maybe a
: > second gunner.

: Won't a lot of these duties be offloaded to a computer, much the
: same way an F-14 can be manned with only a two man crew? I would
: assume (but I'm pretty clueless with this) than an M1 and F14
: aren't all that different in complexity, unless the F14 is more
: complex and would therefore, eif anything, warrant a larger
: crew.

One big difference between the M1 and F-14 (among many) is that the F-14
doesn't carry its ground crew with it, and the M1, to a large extent
does. The tank crew does all the basic machine maintenance itself, you
don't see fighter jocks doing that. Eliminate one crewman from an M1 and
you've increased the remaining crew's workload by 33 percent.

Or you increase combat support personnel and get no real cost savings,
just more noncombatants following along in the already enormous "logistical
tail."

"Armor" magazine had an interesting discussion on how these human factors
will affect future tank design some months back.

Also, look at the July-August 1993 edition of "Armor" for winning entries
in their tank design contest to see what ideas are being considered in the
near future.

Mitch Osborne

pse...@cc-mail.pica.army.mil

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Dec 14, 1994, 11:04:26 PM12/14/94

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From pse...@cc-mail.pica.army.mil

In article <D0pKo...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook) writes:
>
>From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)
>
>In article <D0K1A...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune) writes:
>
>> : o What will the future tank crew size be?
>
>> It will probably stay 3-4: driver, gunner, commander, maybe a
>> second gunner.
>
>Won't a lot of these duties be offloaded to a computer, much the
>same way an F-14 can be manned with only a two man crew? I would
>assume (but I'm pretty clueless with this) than an M1 and F14
>aren't all that different in complexity, unless the F14 is more
>complex and would therefore, eif anything, warrant a larger
>crew.

NO. Don't confuse the crew of an aircraft with that of a tank. The
plane goes up, performs a mission, comes back. Then a ground crew
takes care of maintenance while the pilot, etc. get rest, briefed,
etc.

Tank crews operate for extended periods of time in the field living
out of their tank. For example: in Vietnam my section would support
an infantry unit on a sweep or operation .. moving all day .. then
taking up a defensive position at night. At least one member of the
crew is up during the night with radio/gun watch. Sometimes
50% alert, at others 100%. They also do the crew maintenance on
their own vehicles, clean weapons, resupply the vehicle, etc. Which
pilots don't do.

The extended operations aspect is one of several reasons why the crew
size is an important factor. Eg. a two man crew means that on two of the
four tanks [assuming the current four tank platoon] one commander is
also the platoon leader and another the platoon sergeant. Both have other
duties .. attending briefings at company/battalion .. arranging resupply
etc. That leaves 6 men between 4 tanks [which are not parked next to each
other in most cases] to take care of the on-going crew tasks. And clean
themselves, eat, clean their personal gear, get some sleep, etc.

There is a lot more to the design than just a neat drawing. Also you need
to consider the supporting vehicles that will work with it. It is better
from a cost and maintenance basis to have the command vehicles, infantry
carriers, recovery vehicles, etc. using similar parts as much as possible.

>
>> I would assume something like a Zero-G grown perfect crystalline
>> lattice structure "super-steel" alloy thing, layered with ceramics for
>> energy weapon defense & defense against shaped charges.
>

>Interested, I've never heard of this before. How difficult is it
>to produce this stuff in quantity, and would it justify the cost?
>

>> I would think, given sufficient increase in battery technology,
>> energy weapons may become feasable. With the advances in armor, missiles
>> will become more popular. Perhaps a CLGP (Cannon-Launched Guided
>> Projectile) system?
>

>Maybe something like a "smart bomb" that can only be guided only so
>much? I thought one of th reasons missiles weren't popular is that
>you can't have as large a diversity in munitions, and they take up
>more room, and require a more high profile launching system. Is this
>still true (will this still be true?)
>

Weapons and armor selection are another subject and directly effect the
size and weight of the vehicle. If it is too big or heavy to fit in our
current aircraft, landing craft, etc. then you are creating additional
logistic problems.

Some fun, huh!

pse...@cc-mail.pica.army.mil

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Dec 14, 1994, 11:04:23 PM12/14/94

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From pse...@cc-mail.pica.army.mil

In article <D0I5D...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook) writes:
>
>From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)
>
>

>I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
>supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
>basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
>have to say on this.
>

>Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank? Obviously

>there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
>heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
>really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?
>

>For example, Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" assume fusion generated
>behemoths that are hover tanks. I find this hard to believe, since
>the hovertank platform is inherently unstable (you couldn't use

>projectile weapons) and difficult to maneuver. Some common
>questions:

>
> o What will the future tank crew size be?

> o What type of armor would be used?

> o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to
> become more popular? Will energy weapons become
> more popular?

> o Will the turret be removed?

> o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
> into play?
>

>Assume 'medium future', say 40 years from now. In other words, what
>type of tank would be around in 40 years that would LIKELY exist
>given today's technological and physical constraints. E.g. fusion
>power supplies are probably not going to be happening. What
>type of weapons, armor, etc. would be around 'only if we could do
>this....' Is there a better armor material that we aren't using
>because of cost or difficulty manufacturing? Etc. etc.

World Fighting Vehicle and Ordnance Forecast lists the following
survivability factors in tank design:

Vehicle silhouette
vehicle height
agility
top speed
type/thickness of armor
angle of armor
internal storage of ammo/fuel [the lower it is in the hull the
better, use of blowout panels]
interior design
fire detection/suppresion equipment

Naturally survivability is high on the list of NEAT things to
include in the design of a tank [or other vehicle].

Other areas to consider:

ground pressure [the lighter the better]
vehicle dimensions/weight - effects transportation of the tank
optics/fire control [eg. TTS, laser range finder, etc.]
reload speed [that's one reason we have stuck with a human
loader over the auto-loader - plus cost, weight, etc.]
storage of veh & pers eqpt.
ammo capacity

and a bunch of other things.

How about a low profile tank, with an unmanned turret which
houses the gun, coax mg, auto-loader, ammo storage, range finder,
etc. The crew of two is low in the hull .. driver and commander/
gunner.

With improved weapons and ammo, perhaps a revisit of the gun/
missile launcher of the M551 [only better]. Preferably shoot
and forget munitions.

Note: as you reduce the size of the crew you face other
problems .. standing watch at night after operating all day.
Crews get real tired real quick, performing maintenance on
the vehicle, etc.

armor and weapon/ammo go hand in hand .. as guns/ammo improve
armor is developed to withstand / survive it. as armor improves
ammo/guns are designed to defeat it.

Tanks should have turrets to survive on the field .. the front
of the vehicle and the gun are not always facing the same direction
when engaging a threat. An armored vehicle with a gun but no
turret is a tank destroyer [sp anti-tank].

Tracks will probably remain, although improvements there to
reduce weight, etc. would be worth while.

GOULARD J

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Dec 14, 1994, 11:04:28 PM12/14/94

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From b9...@unb.ca (GOULARD J)

In article <D0rFx...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> pjh...@cs.sunysb.edu (P. Joseph Hong) writes:
>From: pjh...@cs.sunysb.edu (P. Joseph Hong)

>Subject: Re: The perfect tank of tomorrow
>Date: Tue, 13 Dec 1994 17:44:13 GMT

>From pjh...@cs.sunysb.edu (P. Joseph Hong)

>In this exchange BH is Brian Hook (b...@netcom.com)
>and DT is David A. Terhune (dter...@sprint.uccs.edu)

>BH: What will the future tank crew size be?
>DT> It will probably stay 3-4: driver, gunner, commander, maybe a
> > second gunner.

Sounds good, but 3 may be better.

>BH: What type of armor would be used?
>DT> I would assume something like a Zero-G grown perfect crystalline
> > lattice structure "super-steel" alloy thing, layered with ceramics for
> > energy weapon defense & defense against shaped charges.

>BH: What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to

> : become more popular? Will energy weapons become
> : more popular?
>DT> I would think, given sufficient increase in battery technology,
> > energy weapons may become feasable. With the advances in armor, missiles
> > will become more popular. Perhaps a CLGP (Cannon-Launched Guided
> > Projectile) system?

One method that I heard about (popular science I think)
detailed using a huge flywheel to store the energy for a
railgun. You get a 4-ton metal flywheel spinning fast enough
and then close the circuit on a generator and you get a really
high power surge. A little cumbersome and bulky, but fairly simple
mechanically. The KE delivered from projectials from a railgun
might not have to penetrate to kill. One officer I had the privilage
to talk to said enough KE could be delivered to knock a tank over!

I'll take that with a grain of salt....

> WILD PREDICTIONS: One Gun, NOT in a turret but buried in hull,
>firing a variety of rounds, including the Copperhead guided stuff;
>Missile Launcher, one or two racks, on a small turret behind main gun,
>firing self-guided missiles (F&F). Tracking and designating electronics
>galore, including track-breaking and jamming gear.
> Crew has to remain at 3 or 4: Commander, Driver, Gunner 1 & 2.

> Put wings on this thing and it's a cross between a Tomcat
> and a Warthog!! Hmm....Thundercat?

Question: With stealth technology making it's appearance in
aircraft and ships, is a 'stealth' tank unlikely? Those facted
sides might actually help in deflecting rounds.

Propulsion:

I think tanks will remain tracked for the forseeable future.
I cannot see a 'hovertank' being economically feasable for
quite a while. If you want high mobility with heavy armor
AND heavy weapons, take an A-10.

Well, that was my 2-cents.

Marcel J.G. Goulard

pse...@cc-mail.pica.army.mil

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Dec 14, 1994, 11:04:31 PM12/14/94

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From pse...@cc-mail.pica.army.mil

In article <D0I5D...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook) writes:
>
>From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)
>
>
>I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
>supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
>basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
>have to say on this.

This has been the topic of discussion on many occasions over the years
in "Armor" magazine. I'll dig through some back issues and see if they
have any earth shattering suggestions and post the results later.

>Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank? Obviously
>there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
>heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
>really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?
>
>For example, Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" assume fusion generated
>behemoths that are hover tanks. I find this hard to believe, since
>the hovertank platform is inherently unstable (you couldn't use
>projectile weapons) and difficult to maneuver.

I enjoy Drake's stories [he's a Vietnam Vet] but don't always agree
with the vehicles as he describes them .. but what the heck, he writes
a good yarn.

Some common
>questions:
>
> o What will the future tank crew size be?

The crew will probably remain at 4 unless they perfect a
fast auto-loader [most auto-loaders require the gun breech to
return to a level position so the loader can find it and insert
a new round -- people being somewhat smarter, a human loader
either reaches up or stoops down and loads -- advantage being
the gun tube remains aimed at the threat -- very important where
a second round is required]

> o What type of armor would be used?

Continued improvements to armor plate w/synthetic additives,
sandwich construction, reactive supplements .. as a guess.

> o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to

> become more popular? Will energy weapons become
> more popular?

For sometime to come it will probably be improved tank guns with
[120 mm now] with improved ammunition [caseless] and improved
projectiles. Tanks don't want to sit still and guide a missile.
[at least I wouldn't]

> o Will the turret be removed?

Turrets will remain .. a tank minus turret [fixed gun] is a tank
destroyer [sp anti-tank gun]. Smaller turrets that do not house
crew is possible if they solve the auto-loader compromise -- but
you got a big problem if the auto-loader breaks.

> o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
> into play?

Possibly in time, but what? Improvements in technology may offer
a lighter but stonger track. Providing reduced wear and reduced
ground pressure. Simplified track maintenance would be nice ..
breaking track is a bitch!

Wheeled variants are favored by some countries due to reduced
maintenance costs and down time .. but there is a trade off in
cross country mobility, obstacles, etc.

Something that runs quieter would also be nice .. stationary armor
is noisy .. on the move it is deafening.

Roger Moore

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Dec 14, 1994, 11:04:48 PM12/14/94

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From r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)

edr...@leland.Stanford.EDU (Eric Remy) writes:

>In article <D0I5D...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,
>Brian Hook <b...@netcom.com> wrote:

>> o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to
>> become more popular? Will energy weapons become
>> more popular?

>[comments about gun/missile system deleted]

>We don't currently have the energy storage density in batteries and
>the like to get energy based weapons such as lasers or particle beams
>functional, and probably won't for a while.

Not to pick a nit, but energy density (how much energy can be stored in
a volume of batteries) is not exactly the problem. More precisely, the
problem is power density- how quickly the energy can be released. The
sabot round from a modern MTB gun has several MJ of energy (9 MJ for the
M1A if a recent poster is correct.) That much energy, plus a sizeable
bit because of inefficiency in the system, muct be released in a few
milliseconds. That means that the power supply must be able to produce
well above 1000 megawatts (a decent size for an electrical generating
station)- perhaps ten times that- although only for a few milliseconds.
Current tank engines are in the 1 MW range, so the new power source will
have to be able to store several seconds of power and release it in
1/1000 of the time. That kind of burst power is only really available
today with capacitors, but ongoing work may allow batteries or fuel cells
to behave something like a capacitor for very short times. An equally
big problem is that the energy weapon will be drawing on power most
at a time when you will want to have the most power for driving- combat.

An alternative to the pure energy weapon is a hybrid system. Some posters
have commented on the idea of a conventional gun with an electro-thermal
"boost." In such a system, the gun uses conventional powder propellent to
start the round, and then keeps it hot by passing current through it.
That keeps the pressure in the barrel from dropping as rapidly, allowing
greater muzzle velocity without needing a much stronger barrel.

>> o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
>> into play?
>>

>We're stuck with treads for now, since wheels can't handle the weight
>of current tanks. Hovercraft will almost certainly be too noisy and
>unable to handle enough weight for quite a while.

>We'll probably go to diesel- electric drive in the next generation or
>so. (Standard engine powers a generator, power goes to motors on each
>drive wheel.) This will remove the transmission, a very good thing,
>plus allows creative placement of the engine since you don't need a
>drivetrain.

Another alternative which the Army is known to be researching is fuel
cells. They produce electricity directly from a chemical reaction, without
the need for any moving parts, an potentially with much greater fuel
efficiency. They may also be more compact than a conventional power
source, and can probably be designed with some damage tolerance. There
is also the possibility that they could be spread around the perimiter
of the tank, allowing them to fill in otherwise useless corners. They may
also allow lower exhaust temperatures, making the tank less noticeable
to IR detectors.

Their very compact and efficient nature is really the most important strength,
though. There is something of a cascade effect from reducing bulk for the
engine and fuel. That reduces the volume of the tank, meaning that less
armor is needed to protect it, making the tank lighter, and requiring a
still smaller engine and fuel supply. Combine that and the possibility of
removing a fourth crew member and you may wind up with a 20-30 ton MBT with
equal performance to a modern 60-70 tonner. Reducing weight that much could
make the tank much more important, as it reduces its outline (making it
harder to target) and may make it air droppable. I have read that the
Army desperately wants to reduce weight to the 20 ton range in order to make
tanks airborne compatable.

Raj
Master of Meaningless Trivia

Peter Brenton

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Dec 14, 1994, 11:04:52 PM12/14/94

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From pbre...@midway.uchicago.edu (Peter Brenton)

Here are a few items I expect to see on a future tank;

High Mobility; Current tanks are carried to the battlefield
on transport trucks. I think there should be a "road mode"
with wheels/transmission change to save wear and tear on tracks.

Active anti-air and anti-missile defense; radar controlled
CIWS system on top of the turret, plus a half dozen Vertically
launched anti air missiles (Stinger III's?). Advances in the CIWS
eventually allow shells and other tank rounds to be detonated
prematurely (or course diverted for long-rod penetrators)

"Gapped" Armor; Numerous possibilities certainly include some
form of "magazine" type armor where small active blocks get replaced
(somehow) from the inside resevoir. This means that reactive armor
would continue to be effective after the first shot.

Scatter PAck penetrators; Tank rounds would develop to where
"follow on penetrators" i.e. long rod penetrators which follow each other
into the target to defeat reactive armor, or "shotgun" type
penetrators are used to expose an entire facing of the enemy
tank by packing a dozen "short-rod" penetrators in one
shell, with the idea that this would allow the follow on
penetrator to get through.

Note that I think the Gun will be the tank's primary weapon
for quite awhile. This may mutate to a shell-only gun if
current research in "rail guns" is successful. Known as "gauss
guns" in certain sci-fi gaming circles, these weapons use
an electromagnetic field to accelerate the projectile down
the length of the barrel. a bias in the field immparts spin.

This weapon, as well as the other items, require tremendous
amounts of power which I think are going to come from advanced
technology batteries (developed from electric cars). This will
probably save some of the weight and space which all the "Gee-whiz"
systems will occupy (its still going to be a big tank) . (Note
also that this will be a "quiet" power plant).

Battlefield radar; probably not "radar", but using some adaptable
wavelength of electromagnetic emmisions to detect large masses and
small moving masses on the battlefield (plus direction for the
AA systems). Directional passive detection systems will become
even more important, making battlefield detection similar in
some ways to submarine detection, where if you "light off"
your active systems all you neighbors know exactly where you are.

Others; Without going into detail...stealthy materials, hardened
materials for armor and penetrators, remote TC vision devices,
recon drones (both ground and air based), laser-guided (or other
guided) tank projectiles, mechanical entrenching tools and enfilading
devices (i.e. small rocket launched camo nets) which dont require
the crew to leave the tank.

Note, many of the ideas here have been discussed previously (some
at length i.e. TC Observation systems). The opinions are my own,
but much credit to the excellent discussions here.

Pete

Peter Brenton, Fiscal Administrator
Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
University of Chicago

Chris E. Becht

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Dec 16, 1994, 7:02:28 AM12/16/94

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From cali...@crl.com (Chris E. Becht)

GOULARD J (b9...@unb.ca) wrote:

: One method that I heard about (popular science I think)

: detailed using a huge flywheel to store the energy for a
: railgun. You get a 4-ton metal flywheel spinning fast enough
: and then close the circuit on a generator and you get a really
: high power surge. A little cumbersome and bulky, but fairly simple
: mechanically. The KE delivered from projectials from a railgun
: might not have to penetrate to kill. One officer I had the privilage
: to talk to said enough KE could be delivered to knock a tank over!

: I'll take that with a grain of salt....

I'd take that with a whole salt lick. Enought KE to knock over a
tank will knock over yours first.
'Gunner...coax...look at de boids!'

Assuming that an MBT is around 60t, a 4t flywheel is an awful big
gyroscope to be lugging around. If it's spun up (and I imagine it would
be, if you want to be able to fire first) it's going to make the vehicle
a royal bitch to handle over anything but a parade ground. If you wait
until you're parked to spool it up, you've just given away the only
advantage of a tank over artillary (and some poor grunt with a target
designating laser)
--
Life is like a cow.
You get out of it what you put in. cali...@crl.com
But, umm... different somehow.

Isaac Ji Kuo

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Dec 16, 1994, 7:02:12 AM12/16/94

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From isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Isaac Ji Kuo)

Interesting. It looks like I was the only person to actually predict
_lower_ muzzle velocities 40 years from now. (I am guessing based on
the Merlin and Strix mortar rounds that relatively light weight
mortar/guns will replace the long barreled cannon, with a small number
of hypervelocity missiles supplementing the mortar for anti-vehicular
fire.)

Peter Brenton <pbre...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:

> Advances in the CIWS eventually allow shells and other tank rounds
>to be detonated prematurely (or course diverted for long-rod penetrators)

>"Gapped" Armor; Numerous possibilities certainly include some
>form of "magazine" type armor where small active blocks get replaced
>(somehow) from the inside resevoir. This means that reactive armor
>would continue to be effective after the first shot.

>Scatter PAck penetrators; Tank rounds would develop to where
>"follow on penetrators" i.e. long rod penetrators which follow each other

Ah, the issues of new types of warheads and armor can't be ignored,
can it?

IMO, reactive armor is highly overrated. It's heavy and bulky, and based
on the experience so far, it simply doesn't work as well as Chobbham.
Composite armor is heavy and bulky like reactive armor is, but unlike
reactive armor it has better potential to work more than once and can
be placed further inside the hull of the vehicle (which reduces the are
which must be protected).

What's worse is that reactive armor can be defeated by pre-detonators.
By its very nature, reactive armor must be placed on the outside, which
reduces the degree to which pre-detonators can be countered.

Also, reactive armor has little/no hope of doing anything about top attack.
Reactive armor depends upon the incoming weapon impacting at a particular
angle. Against horizontal threats, it's possible to approximately predict
that angle. Against threats from above, that's not likely at all.

That said, there's a great many possible new warheads:

The HEAT warhead is far from dead. Consider the dual warhead currently
used in some cratering munitions where a rear HEAT warhead detonates and
fires its stream through a forward ring shaped warhead which is funneled
into the tunnel dug out by the HEAT stream before detonating. It's not
hard to imagine the second warhead devestating the insides of a tank if
it entirely penetrates or at least ripping off great chunks of armor
if it only partially penetrates.

The countermeasure of CIWS suggests a need for high velocity and/or
kinetic penetrators. I personally doubt that gun based CIWS will be
effective on land vehicles within the next 40 years, but missiles
might have a chance. These could be inexpensive enough in 40 years
so that slowpokes could get tagged by small, lightweight,
"anti-missiles". This "anti-missile" technology would be first seen
on aircraft, though.

A way around that anti-missile technology is with Explosively Formed
Projectile warheads. These warheads are a bit like kinetic energy versions
of HEAT, except that they have much longer range. The EFP warhead
can be set at an angle, allowing a top attack munition to get a more
desired angle (either straighter down or more horizontal) and aleviates
the need to head straight at the target. The latter capability is
significant in that it both introduces the possibility of using unguided
munitions with such a warhead and the possibility of plastering the
target with a dozen "dumb decoys", which the CIWS has no way of
distinguishing from the real weapon.

The off-axis EFP warhead also allows horizontal trajectory weapons the
opportunity to attack the top and sides of the target.

Somewhat related to EFP, except more expensive, complicated, heavier,
and with longer range, are hypervelocity missile submunitions. A
mortar round could be a hypervelocity missile which points itself
at the target and then fires the main burn thrust. I doubt this will
work better than EFP and HEAT warheads, though.

Lastly, there is the issue of more advanced rocket propulsion. Today's
solid rocket propelled weapons are saddled with one preset continuous
burn. Already, however, research into how to make throttleable solid
rockets is progressing. At the very least, we can expect ducted
rocket/ramjets for long range sustained burns, and the development of
two "stage" burns. That is, a missile with a hypervelocity attack
warhead can use a "slow burn" rocket/ramjet to cruise to above and/or
to the side of the target and then it turns toward the target and
fires the main thruster.

All of these types of warheads will mean that the tank 40 years from
now will need more armor in the sides and above than ever before.
IMO, this will of necessity eliminate the high velocity long barreled
anti-tank gun in favor of a lighter mortar/gun. It might not
perform quite as well as the long gun, but it'll have to do.

>Note that I think the Gun will be the tank's primary weapon
>for quite awhile. This may mutate to a shell-only gun if

[...]

>Battlefield radar; probably not "radar", but using some adaptable
>wavelength of electromagnetic emmisions to detect large masses and
>small moving masses on the battlefield (plus direction for the

Don't forget sound detection. Passive tactical sonar will make things
extremely rough on low level aircraft, especially when the proliferation
of TV/self guiding missiles and self guiding mortar rounds totally
eliminate the possibility of hiding behind terrain. You just can't
fly at low level quietly nor can you engulf yourself in hot smoke or
surround yourself with convincing decoys for long. Nor can you carry
around the kind of armor ground vehicles can afford.

>Others; Without going into detail...stealthy materials, hardened
>materials for armor and penetrators, remote TC vision devices,
>recon drones (both ground and air based), laser-guided (or other
>guided) tank projectiles, mechanical entrenching tools and enfilading
>devices (i.e. small rocket launched camo nets) which dont require
>the crew to leave the tank.

I take the telepresense (virtual reality style) sensors as a given,
but I'm not so sure about entrenching tools or automatic enfilading.
Entrenching will become less significant with the top attack weapons
threat. A trench might dangerously limit a vehicle's ability to
avoid that fire. As for automatic enfilading--human hands seem to
do a good enough job of that. If the vehicle is under fire which
would threaten the crew if they got out, I don't see what help
camo nets will be.

Steve Wall

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Dec 16, 1994, 7:02:32 AM12/16/94

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From Steve Wall <smw...@pica.army.mil>

In article <D0rFx...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU
(Isaac Ji Kuo) wrote:

> From isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Isaac Ji Kuo)
>
> In article <D0I5D...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,
> Brian Hook <b...@netcom.com> wrote:
>
> >I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
> >supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
> >basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
> >have to say on this.
>
>

> The hybrid gun launched missile, IMHO, will not make a comeback, except
> perhaps in the from of basebleed guided shells. Instead, missile
> launch technology will converge to fixed launch (such as vertical
> launch cells), with airslewing to provide a 360 degree arc. Fixed
> launch racks are lighter and more durable/reliable than flexible ones.
>

I'm not really sure it'd be feasible to slew a hypervelocity missile
from a vertical launcher. Secondly, the rocket motor for an HVM
is going to be BIG, and I don't think you'd want an 8 foot tall fixed
launch platform on your tank. It'd present the worst possible target
profile (ie, a side shot) from any angle within the ground level plane of
attack. Putting the requisite x feet of armor around a launcher holding
even 20 missiles would make for a pretty big tank.

Top attack rockets in a vertical launcher sounds more practical, but
you'd have to live with chemical energy warheads.
>

--
Steve Wall

Azeez Hayne

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Dec 16, 1994, 7:02:30 AM12/16/94

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From aha...@cc.swarthmore.edu (Azeez Hayne)

In article <D0u3C...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, r...@alumni.caltech.edu
(Roger Moore) wrote:

>
> From r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)

> Another alternative which the Army is known to be researching is fuel
> cells. They produce electricity directly from a chemical reaction, without
> the need for any moving parts, an potentially with much greater fuel
> efficiency. They may also be more compact than a conventional power
> source, and can probably be designed with some damage tolerance. There
> is also the possibility that they could be spread around the perimiter
> of the tank, allowing them to fill in otherwise useless corners. They may
> also allow lower exhaust temperatures, making the tank less noticeable
> to IR detectors.
>
> Their very compact and efficient nature is really the most important strength,
> though. There is something of a cascade effect from reducing bulk for the
> engine and fuel. That reduces the volume of the tank, meaning that less
> armor is needed to protect it, making the tank lighter, and requiring a
> still smaller engine and fuel supply. Combine that and the possibility of
> removing a fourth crew member and you may wind up with a 20-30 ton MBT with
> equal performance to a modern 60-70 tonner. Reducing weight that much could
> make the tank much more important, as it reduces its outline (making it
> harder to target) and may make it air droppable. I have read that the
> Army desperately wants to reduce weight to the 20 ton range in order to make
> tanks airborne compatable.
>

There are a couple of problems with fuel cells that need to be overcome.
Obviously they are being worked on, but this being a tech newsgroup I
thought some of you might be interested in them.

I've been doing research into fuel cells as an intern with Villanova
University for three years, in those years I have come across lots of stuff
that doesn't pertain and a few tidbits that really do.

Alot of fuel cells use substances heated to a very high temp. sometimes
upwards of 400Ą C, obviously you don't want something like that where it
can be spilt on the crew. Also they involve the use of hydrogen, which
basically _will_ explode given the circumstances a breach of armor in a
tank would entail, also not good for crew survivability. On the line of
hydrogen, once while talking to a mechanical engineering prof I heard that
hydrogen is very hard to contain. Someting about it being able to leak out
of most containers because of small size. He also mentioned something about
it making iron brittle, I don't know if this would happen to steel, but not
a good idea in a fighting vehicle if it did. The suggestion he made was
magnetic storage, but that would be energy intesive I think. They are
working on granulated H or H in solid form, but as I recall there are still
problems.

Anyway, I'd love to talk about this stuff, I'm very interested, so if you
have anything to say don't hesitate to respond. Thanks.

Isaac Ji Kuo

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Dec 16, 1994, 7:02:34 AM12/16/94

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From isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Isaac Ji Kuo)

In article <D0rFx...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,
Harrison Osborne <hosb...@dgs.dgsys.com> wrote:
>Brian Hook (b...@netcom.com) wrote:

>: Won't a lot of these duties be offloaded to a computer, much the
>: same way an F-14 can be manned with only a two man crew? I would

>One big difference between the M1 and F-14 (among many) is that the F-14

>doesn't carry its ground crew with it, and the M1, to a large extent
>does. The tank crew does all the basic machine maintenance itself, you
>don't see fighter jocks doing that. Eliminate one crewman from an M1 and
>you've increased the remaining crew's workload by 33 percent.

>Or you increase combat support personnel and get no real cost savings,
>just more noncombatants following along in the already enormous "logistical
>tail."

For the next one or two decades, I'd agree, but we're talking about 40
years from now. Of course, it's ridiculous to try and do more than
_guess_ at what things will be like in that time, but IMHO one thing we
can reasonably expect is that weapons will be powerful enough and threaten
from enough sides that it will be impossible to provide main battle tank
protection to a 4 man crew without packing them in like sardines (this
might be a possibility).

If you're forced to reduce the crew size, then you're forced to add
combat support personnel into the logistical tail. This, I'd expect,
would prove to be much more expensive than having the crew be organic,
but if that organic crew can't be armored...

Oh, I've changed my mind about my guess at crew size in 40 years. I
had previously guessed 2, but looking at the geometry of things it
doesn't take much more armor to protect 3 crewmembers in an inverted
triangle layout than it does to protect 2 crewmembers side by side.
Even if the job of fighting could be reduced to 2 members, the organic
third member would still be needed for maintainance purposes, and
provides redundancy and extra endurance (by swapping members) and an
extra pair of eyes at little weight penalty. (I assume that the
weight of extra armor becomes a much greater consideration than the
weight of the extra person).

Bob Lyle

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Dec 19, 1994, 12:28:14 PM12/19/94

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From madr...@metronet.com (Bob Lyle)

40 year tank predictions . . . well, now that I have had a chance to
absorb everyone elses ideas, here are mine:

Crew size: probably TC, Gunner, Driver, all overworked w/o the loader.
Not much change.

Firepower: KE kill . . . thermal enhanced propellents may make MV in the
2 - 2.5 KPS range possible . . . unfortunately the kill mechanism of a
hypersonic missile is a bit different as the penetrator tends to vaporize
before complete penetration. Perhaps exotic materials manufactured in
zero g will help.
HEAT Kill . . . there is nothing on the horizon that looks much better
than KE. A Hellfire hit an Abrams on the glacis in Desert Storm without
scoring a kill.
Top attack. . . this leaves the firing tank vulnerable to counterbattery,
although shoot n' scoot will still be SOP.

Armor: Tell me what Chobham is (besides ceramic plates, kevlar, depleted
uranium and *something else* sandwiched between steel, and I'll guess
what might be an improvement. Zero G materials is my first guess, and
yesa they will be expensive. Prohibitavely? Depends on the Delta Clipper.

Engines: Probably turbines. Even if they get the high efficiency/ high
energy density fuel cell working, Hydrogen takes up to much space,{ even
if stored as hydrides. I am not worried about the flammability of
hydrogen: remember they use gasoline to make FAE bombs, not hydrogen.

Fire control: Integrated mast-mounted optics (maybe retractable?)
possibly therminal homing on KE projectiles (I know, shock, G's, etc.)

How about this: each tank is really two. One has a sensor suite and main
gun and the other has a driver, commander, and two teleoperators for the
first tank. The command link would be electro optical, with a
low-powered radio alternative for use if line-of-sight is broken. Second
tank may be mocked up to look like the gun tank to reduce vulnerability.

Hypervelocity missles, fire-and-forget top attack, and improved HEAT all
have uses. I think they would be most useful on an airborne platform.
Probably a ducted fan or tilt-rotor rather than a helicopter (well, maybe
and advancing blade concept helo) with armor good against small arms,
artillery frags, and maybe even HE warheads (SAM-7, etc). With the same
sensors as a tank it can use its speed and maneuverability to out fight
the armor the same way the Panzers outmaneuvered the French infantry.
It does have to use NOE flying, 'cause the armor ain't that good. It
would also have strategic mobility the tank lacks. As to holding ground
they could "roost" behind hills observing through passive sensors on
masts or pickets. Accompanying "slicks of the same design could act like
APCs, maybe even MICVs with port firing weapons fitted, carrying infantry
and mechanics.

Well, it's an idea.

BTW, the flywheel-that-stores-electric-power is called a homeopolar
generator and can be relatively small using composite materials to spin
at unbeleivable speed. Energy density can approach conventional propellents.
Theoretically.

And the energy to turn a tank over isn't so bad, probably less than 0.2
MJ, but the momentum transfer ain't there.

Bob Lyle

Roger Moore

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Dec 19, 1994, 12:28:11 PM12/19/94

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From r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)

pbre...@midway.uchicago.edu (Peter Brenton) writes:

>Here are a few items I expect to see on a future tank;

>High Mobility; Current tanks are carried to the battlefield
>on transport trucks. I think there should be a "road mode"
>with wheels/transmission change to save wear and tear on tracks.

This is not a new problem by any means. I believe that the "road mode"
approach was tried as early as the thirties, by Christie. The problem with
having an extra set of wheels and another transmission is that it adds yet
more weight and complication to an already over heavy and complicated beast.
Add extra stuff and you need more armor to protect it, more power to move it,
etc. and the problems start to spiral up fast. A better approach may be
trying to remove as much complication as possible with the goal of making
your tank enough lighter so that its road manners on tracks are a bit more
civilized.

James Dusek

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Dec 19, 1994, 12:28:17 PM12/19/94

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From du...@cadsun.corp.mot.com (James Dusek)

In article <D0u3B...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,

pse...@cc-mail.pica.army.mil wrote:
> > o What will the future tank crew size be?
> The crew will probably remain at 4 unless they perfect a
> fast auto-loader [most auto-loaders require the gun breech to

^reliable

>
> > o What type of armor would be used?
> Continued improvements to armor plate w/synthetic additives,
> sandwich construction, reactive supplements .. as a guess.

Depending on how far into the future, some energy shielding may
be possible.

>
> > o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to
> > become more popular? Will energy weapons become
> > more popular?
> For sometime to come it will probably be improved tank guns with
> [120 mm now] with improved ammunition [caseless] and improved
> projectiles. Tanks don't want to sit still and guide a missile.
> [at least I wouldn't]

Depending on the time frame (an the origional poster just said future!)
in the present and near future advancements will me made mainly in the
120 mm cannon area. Baring a breakthrough in energy research, these weapons
are too big and bulky to mount into a tank.

In the future rail guns and fire and forget missles may make apperances
on tanks.

> > o Will the turret be removed?
> Turrets will remain .. a tank minus turret [fixed gun] is a tank
> destroyer [sp anti-tank gun]. Smaller turrets that do not house

Turrets will always be a feature of MBT, as the allow the tank to engage
targets without moving the tank. This allows to many advantages to discard.
Specialized tanks are another story. TD (Tank destroyer) units remove the
turret to reduce the silloutte, makeing the tank eaiser to hide and increases
the chance of ambush.

> > o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
> > into play?
> Possibly in time, but what? Improvements in technology may offer
> a lighter but stonger track. Providing reduced wear and reduced
> ground pressure. Simplified track maintenance would be nice ..

Well, if you like fantasy!

Anti-gravity drives or hovertanks make nice fantasy writings, but who
knows if we'll ever see one. IN the near futures stronger tracks and tracks
that wear out slower would be possible.

A fantasy game called Renegade Legion :Centurion offers a look into future
tanks combats, for a board game its pretty impressive.

There are "normal" tanks and anti-gravity tanks. The weapons are
"gauss cannons", mass driver cannons, missles ( fire and forget :),
and missle weapons and lasers.

Which reminds me to ask a questions, why haven't they made a phalanx-type
point defence for tanks?

Gary Coffman

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Dec 19, 1994, 12:28:19 PM12/19/94

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From ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary Coffman)

In article <D0pKo...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook) writes:

>In article <D0K1A...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune) writes:
>> : o What will the future tank crew size be?
>> It will probably stay 3-4: driver, gunner, commander, maybe a
>> second gunner.
>
>Won't a lot of these duties be offloaded to a computer, much the
>same way an F-14 can be manned with only a two man crew? I would
>assume (but I'm pretty clueless with this) than an M1 and F14
>aren't all that different in complexity, unless the F14 is more
>complex and would therefore, eif anything, warrant a larger
>crew.

A computer can't hump a track back on the roadwheels, rig camouflage
nets, prepare fighting positions, fix the computers, or perform the
myriad other field readiness and maintenance tasks a tank crew has to
do. In your F14 comparison, consider the ground support crew in addition
to the flight crew, then realize that the fighting crew of an armored
vehicle is *also* it's own ground support crew, and they don't have a
nice safe base to fly back to after a couple of hours in the field.

How big would an F14 crew have to be if they also had to do all the
maintenance and readiness tasks in the field for weeks at a time?
Don't forget that they have to handle all the other things a carrier
or airbase supplies too, such as mess and sanitary facilities, security,
etc. Just standing watch in a dug in tank takes 3 men to do on a 24 hour
basis if any of them are going to be able to get enough sleep to remain
combat effective.

If anything, as tanks become more complex, a larger crew would be
welcome to keep them able to fight. Three or four men is about the
minimum to do the job.

Gary Coffman

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Dec 19, 1994, 12:28:40 PM12/19/94

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From ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary Coffman)

In article <D0wK4...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> cali...@crl.com (Chris E. Becht) writes:
>GOULARD J (b9...@unb.ca) wrote:
>
>: One method that I heard about (popular science I think)
>: detailed using a huge flywheel to store the energy for a
>: railgun. You get a 4-ton metal flywheel spinning fast enough
>: and then close the circuit on a generator and you get a really
>: high power surge. A little cumbersome and bulky, but fairly simple
>: mechanically. The KE delivered from projectials from a railgun
>: might not have to penetrate to kill. One officer I had the privilage
>: to talk to said enough KE could be delivered to knock a tank over!
>
>: I'll take that with a grain of salt....
>
> I'd take that with a whole salt lick. Enought KE to knock over a
>tank will knock over yours first.
> 'Gunner...coax...look at de boids!'

Ah, *momentum* is conserved via Newton's third law, energy is not.
Energy is conserved by degrading to another form, heat we'd expect,
when the projectile strikes the tank. A KE projectile weighing 22 lb
and going 15,000 fps has a momentum of 10,312 ft-lb. That'll kick a
60 ton tank back at 0.36 fps. Not very impressive. But it'll deliver
0.5*M*v^2 or 36.5 *million* ft-lbf of energy to the opposing tank.
Something's gonna break.

> Assuming that an MBT is around 60t, a 4t flywheel is an awful big
>gyroscope to be lugging around. If it's spun up (and I imagine it would
>be, if you want to be able to fire first) it's going to make the vehicle
>a royal bitch to handle over anything but a parade ground. If you wait
>until you're parked to spool it up, you've just given away the only
>advantage of a tank over artillary (and some poor grunt with a target
>designating laser)

And that isn't the worst of it. A railgun is less than 10% efficient.
That 4 ton flywheel is going to be spinning like mad to hold 365 million
ft-lbf of energy, about 496 MJ. What happens when a jolt throws it against
it's bearings? Or a flaw lets the wheel disintegrate in about 1/3000th of
a second? Can you say BLOOEY? I thought you could.

David A. Terhune

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Dec 19, 1994, 12:28:37 PM12/19/94

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From dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune)

Azeez Hayne (aha...@cc.swarthmore.edu) wrote:

: Alot of fuel cells use substances heated to a very high temp. sometimes
: upwards of 400! C, obviously you don't want something like that where it

: can be spilt on the crew. Also they involve the use of hydrogen, which
: basically _will_ explode given the circumstances a breach of armor in a
: tank would entail, also not good for crew survivability. On the line of
: hydrogen, once while talking to a mechanical engineering prof I heard that
: hydrogen is very hard to contain. Someting about it being able to leak out
: of most containers because of small size. He also mentioned something about
: it making iron brittle, I don't know if this would happen to steel, but not
: a good idea in a fighting vehicle if it did. The suggestion he made was
: magnetic storage, but that would be energy intesive I think. They are
: working on granulated H or H in solid form, but as I recall there are still
: problems.

Since hydrogen is such a b***h to store, why not use water
instead? You're already going to be generating electricity, why not use
electrolysis to separate out the hydrogen needed for further fuel? The
oxygen could then be cycled into the NBC system (this is a tank, after
all). Is this too difficult to do? (of course, I mean 40 years from
now, not present day)

: Anyway, I'd love to talk about this stuff, I'm very interested, so if you

: have anything to say don't hesitate to respond. Thanks.

Is this the sort of discussion you had in mind?

--
David A. Terhune Unfortunately, we ARE on a budget here.
dter...@sprint.uccs.edu -Londo Mollari, "Believers"
finger for PGP public key

Gary Coffman

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Dec 19, 1994, 12:28:43 PM12/19/94

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From ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary Coffman)

In article <D0u3C...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> pbre...@midway.uchicago.edu (Peter Brenton) writes:
>Note that I think the Gun will be the tank's primary weapon
>for quite awhile. This may mutate to a shell-only gun if
>current research in "rail guns" is successful. Known as "gauss
>guns" in certain sci-fi gaming circles, these weapons use
>an electromagnetic field to accelerate the projectile down
>the length of the barrel. a bias in the field immparts spin.

These things are horribly inefficient when compared to chemical
propulsion. See below.

>This weapon, as well as the other items, require tremendous
>amounts of power which I think are going to come from advanced
>technology batteries (developed from electric cars). This will
>probably save some of the weight and space which all the "Gee-whiz"
>systems will occupy (its still going to be a big tank) . (Note
>also that this will be a "quiet" power plant).

There's no secondary battery even remotely on the horizon that can
match the energy density and power to weight ratio of liquid fueled
combustion engines. I doubt there can be. In theory, primary batteries
could approach the power/weight ratio of liquid fueled combustion
engines, but not the energy density, IE they'd be bulky. A fuel cell
comes closest, but one with the necessary power output would still be
larger than a gas turbine engine, and much more expensive. To date,
high performance fuel cells also need a much more highly refined, and
expensive, fuel than a gas turbine or diesel too. (There are lower
performance systems capable of running directly off methane and air,
but high performance still requires pure hydrogen and oxygen feed.)

A gun system, or vehicle drive system, that needs a lot of energy
delivered quickly, and/or for a long time, without paying a huge
weight and/or bulk penality, is going to depend on combustion of
chemical fuels for the foreseeable future, IMHO. The electric car
is a creature created by Green politics to fit a different agenda
than delivering motive power at the levels or durations available
with off the shelf combustion systems. Only if we place smog limits
on battlefields will these types of systems find a home there.

Gary Coffman

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Dec 19, 1994, 12:28:50 PM12/19/94

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From ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary Coffman)

In article <D0u3C...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore) writes:
>An alternative to the pure energy weapon is a hybrid system. Some posters
>have commented on the idea of a conventional gun with an electro-thermal
>"boost." In such a system, the gun uses conventional powder propellent to
>start the round, and then keeps it hot by passing current through it.
>That keeps the pressure in the barrel from dropping as rapidly, allowing
>greater muzzle velocity without needing a much stronger barrel.

Easier to just use a progressive powder. This has been common in
small arms for decades. Progressive powders burn faster/generate
more gas as the burn progresses from ignition to burnout. With
proper web and deterrent coating design, it's possible to keep
the barrel pressure nearly constant to projectile exit from the
muzzle. Creates a hell of a muzzle blast though.

>>We'll probably go to diesel- electric drive in the next generation or
>>so. (Standard engine powers a generator, power goes to motors on each
>>drive wheel.) This will remove the transmission, a very good thing,
>>plus allows creative placement of the engine since you don't need a
>>drivetrain.

Modern transmissions aren't a serious failure point, or noticably heavier
or bulkier than a hybrid drive's generator and electric motors, but the
need to run driveshafts to the drive sprockets is a big constraint on
propulsion layout. Modern hydrostatic drives don't have driveshafts either,
with only hydraulic lines running between the hydrostatic transmission
and the hydraulic motors at the wheels. Damage is easier to contain,
and somewhat harder to sustain, with hydrostatic drive than with hybrid
electric drives too.

An all wheel drive system would also stress the track less, and that's a
very good thing. It's also amenable to all wheel drive rubber tire vehicles.
That offers an even greater advantage in that a mine could blow off a wheel
without crippling the vehicle's mobility as it would if it blew off a track.

Once you throw away the need for driveshafts, tracks don't look much,
if any, better than rubber tires for off road mobility. You can have
a driven wheel everywhere you had a bogey with tracks, and achieve
about the same traction and ground pressure as with a track. This gives
you multiple redundant drivers, so damage to the road wheels is less
critical than it would be for tracks.

This has been demonstrated with all wheel drive farm equipment. They
compact the ground less, and can go over softer and slipperier ground
than comparably sized tracked tractors. You just have to get enough
driven rubber on the ground. The Nebraska tests consistently show
a 15% to 25% greater effective drawbar horsepower for a rubber tire
all wheel drive than for a tracked drive of the same size.

Gary Coffman

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Dec 19, 1994, 12:28:47 PM12/19/94

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From ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary Coffman)

In article <D0wK4...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> aha...@cc.swarthmore.edu (Azeez Hayne) writes:
>
>Alot of fuel cells use substances heated to a very high temp. sometimes
>upwards of 400Ą C, obviously you don't want something like that where it
>can be spilt on the crew. Also they involve the use of hydrogen, which
>basically _will_ explode given the circumstances a breach of armor in a
>tank would entail, also not good for crew survivability. On the line of
>hydrogen, once while talking to a mechanical engineering prof I heard that
>hydrogen is very hard to contain. Someting about it being able to leak out
>of most containers because of small size. He also mentioned something about
>it making iron brittle, I don't know if this would happen to steel, but not
>a good idea in a fighting vehicle if it did. The suggestion he made was
>magnetic storage, but that would be energy intesive I think. They are
>working on granulated H or H in solid form, but as I recall there are still
>problems.
>
>Anyway, I'd love to talk about this stuff, I'm very interested, so if you
>have anything to say don't hesitate to respond. Thanks.

The standard reference fuel cell uses cryogenically stored liquid hydrogen
and liquid oxygen, warmed and gasified before being used as reactants over
a platinum catalyst. This is the design NASA used on Apollo. It has a good
power to weight ratio for a primary battery, and exhausts chemically pure
water as a waste product. This is the best reaction of the electromotive
series that can be run at room temperature. The cells are very expensive,
require chemically pure reactants, and are somewhat finicky in operation.
A 10 kW cell costs about $50,000, and is *very* easily poisoned by trace
contaminants.

Since a tank needs about 1 MW on tap to run it's motive systems,
this type of cell would cost around $5,000,000 per tank, and be
considerably bulkier than a 1000 hp diesel engine. If a 9 MJ kinetic
railgun is desired, another 90 MW will be needed to run it (railguns
are horribly inefficient), for another $180,000,000 worth of fuel cells.
Since both fuel and oxidizer have to be carried on board, and hydrogen
is the least dense element, the tankage would be extremely bulky as well.
And the hydrogen tankage needs to maintain -460 F for the duration of a
combat mission. Refueling requires very special equipment and very
special handling. Liquid oxygen is one of the most dangerous bulk
industrial chemical known to man. It's extremely prone to explosions
if exposed to the merest whiff of organic material. Other than the
fact it's so cold, cryogenic hydrogen is pretty safe to handle. It's
range of explosive mixtures with air is very narrow and easily avoided.

Because cryogenic fuels, and the need to carry pure oxygen in a sea
of air, are very undesireable characteristics of a power system for
a land vehicle, lots of other approaches have been studied. One of
the more promising ones reacts methane/air via a platinum coated
zirconium tube heated to 700 C. Methane is pumped into the tube under
pressure, and air is on the outside. The methane breaks down at the
catalytic surface and the hydrogen ions migrate through the zirconium
to the air via osmotic pressure. On that side, they react with the
oxygen in the air to form water vapor (actually superheated steam)
that keeps the cell at operating temperature. The ion transport
sets up an electrical potential across the cell that is used to
power whatever load is attached. Efficiency is fairly good, the
methane can be stored as LPG in a fairly unsophisticated tank,
and the high temperature keeps the catalyst from being easily
poisoned. Cell costs are still rather high, and a load has to
be maintained on the cell at all times to keep it at operating
temperature. Cold starts are slow bitches since the zirconium
tubes are brittle and can break from rapid thermal stresses.

There are variations on these themes. A popular variation is to
store the fuel as methanol and react it with steam to reform
hydrogen for the fuel cell. The carbon monoxide produced in the
reforming action has to be scrubbed from the gas before it goes
to the cell or the cell will be poisoned. That carbon monoxide
can be used to fuel the reformer, however.

None of these approaches come near to the small size or high
output of a gas turbine engine. Nor do any of them offer the
range or economy of a diesel. They do have appeal for electric
utilities who can site them near their customers, where more
economical coal fired or nuclear plants are unwelcome, and
where they can run off of pipeline gas.

Secondary batteries are even worse. The best of them currently
has 47 times less energy storage per pound than gasoline, with
little theoretical basis for hope of marked improvements. Even
though the best secondary batteries can achieve 90% charge/discharge
efficiencies while a diesel or gas turbine struggles along in the 30%
range, the much greater energy density of petroleum fuels means that
combustion engines are still about 16 times better as mobile power
sources, and aren't very finicky about the fuels they are fed or
the mechanical shocks they receive.

Tanks are already heavy and large, they don't need power systems
that are much heavier and larger still. Nor do cars, electric cars
are political engineering at it's worst.

Christopher Richmond

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Dec 19, 1994, 12:28:45 PM12/19/94

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From cric...@freenet.columbus.oh.us (Christopher Richmond)

pse...@cc-mail.pica.army.mil wrote:

: From pse...@cc-mail.pica.army.mil

: In article <D0I5D...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook) writes:
: >
: >From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)
: >
: >
: >I'm doing some research for a futuristic tank simulator that is
: >supposed to be very accurately modeled and REALISTIC. I know only the
: >basics of tank design at this point, so I'm wondering what you experts
: >have to say on this.
: >
: >Basically, what are the perfect attributes of any tank? Obviously
: >there are the basics -- good firepower, long range, light weight,
: >heavy armor, maneuvarbility, low profile, etc. But what would
: >really make all of this true if given sufficient technology?
: >
: >For example, Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" assume fusion generated
: >behemoths that are hover tanks. I find this hard to believe, since
: >the hovertank platform is inherently unstable (you couldn't use
: >projectile weapons) and difficult to maneuver. Some common
: >questions:
: >
: > o What will the future tank crew size be?

I'd be very surprised to see tank crews fall below three. Right now, a
standard four-member crew keeps pretty busy maintaining all the complex
systems in a tank. When the Soviets introduced an automatic loader in the
T-72 that replaced a human loader, they discovered that there was one more
really complicated thing to keep running and one less person to help with
it. As more and more high-tech gear is added to your hypothetical tank,
the maintainence requirements are going to begin to resemble those of
modern fighter aircraft. Unless you posit the creation of ground crews
for vehicle maintainance, the tank crew will have to handle this load
themselves.

: > o What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to

: > become more popular? Will energy weapons become
: > more popular?

Interestingly, this sort of depends on what kind of engine you'll be
using. If you expect to use a flywheel system, you'll have plenty of
surplus power - probably not enough to fuel an energy weapon, but there
should be enough for a rail gun. With a more conventional engine, you're
limited to either guns or missiles. My own guess would be rocket-assisted
projectiles fired from large-bore guns; missiles, and all their little
electronic systems, don't like being bounced around in high-speed tank
runs (not to mention the shocks caused by big bloody shells expolding
against your armor :) ).

: > o Will the turret be removed?

Almost certainly not, but there won't be anyone in it. It'll be a little
bitty turret with an automatic loader - assuming that you've dumped your
human loader.

: > o Will a new tread design or propulsion system come
: > into play?

Probably not; GEV's eat a _lot_ of power. Of course, if your tanks are
using fusion power instead of diesel engines, you've got power to burn -
and then energy weapons look more attractive.

: >Assume 'medium future', say 40 years from now. In other words, what

: >type of tank would be around in 40 years that would LIKELY exist
: >given today's technological and physical constraints. E.g. fusion
: >power supplies are probably not going to be happening. What
: >type of weapons, armor, etc. would be around 'only if we could do
: >this....' Is there a better armor material that we aren't using
: >because of cost or difficulty manufacturing? Etc. etc.

Well, extremely strong crystals can be manufactured in zero gravity. If
you forsee a boom in orbital manufacturing - maybe involving automated
factories cranking out great quantities of crystal to be picked up by
manned spacecraft every few months - you'd have a good armor. You'd need
to do some research on this, however; my own knowledge of such things is
extremely hazy.

Christopher Richmond cric...@freenet.columbus.oh.us
=============================================================================
"Yes, well, that's the sort of blinkered Philistine pig-ignorance I've come
to expect from you non-creative garbage." -Monty Python
--
Christopher J. Richmond cric...@freenet.columbus.oh.us
============================================================================
"Yes, well, that's the sort of blinkered Philistine pig-ignorance I've come
to expect from you non-creative garbage." -Monty Python

Paul L. Suh

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Dec 20, 1994, 10:18:12 AM12/20/94

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From pl...@econ.sas.upenn.edu (Paul L. Suh)

In article <D12J7...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, dter...@sprint.uccs.edu
(David A. Terhune) wrote:

> Since hydrogen is such a b***h to store, why not use water
> instead? You're already going to be generating electricity, why not use
> electrolysis to separate out the hydrogen needed for further fuel? The
> oxygen could then be cycled into the NBC system (this is a tank, after
> all). Is this too difficult to do? (of course, I mean 40 years from
> now, not present day)

Sorry, it won't work at all, courtesy of one of the laws of thermodynamics
(I forget which one). The energy required to split a water molecule into
its component atoms is exactly the same as the energy you get when you
burn the resulting two hydrogens and an oxygen to form a water molecule.
Thus, you have gained zero energy.

--Paul

--
P |\ / S University of Pennsylvania /---------\
| \ / Graduate Economics |/-------\|
| X || . . || My first Macintosh
| / \ Paul L. Suh || \_/ || 512K!
|/ \ D pl...@econ.sas.upenn.edu || ||
+------ Q |\-------/|
|---------|
|_________|

Matthew L. Ward

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Dec 20, 1994, 10:18:15 AM12/20/94

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From war...@picard.cig.mot.com (Matthew L. Ward)

dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune) wrote:

[deletions]

> Since hydrogen is such a b***h to store, why not use water
>instead? You're already going to be generating electricity, why not use
>electrolysis to separate out the hydrogen needed for further fuel? The
>oxygen could then be cycled into the NBC system (this is a tank, after
>all). Is this too difficult to do? (of course, I mean 40 years from
>now, not present day)

Neat trick, except for this operation violates the Law of Conservation
of Energy. One cannot burn fuel to make more fuel to burn fuel....

>: Anyway, I'd love to talk about this stuff, I'm very interested, so if you
>: have anything to say don't hesitate to respond. Thanks.

> Is this the sort of discussion you had in mind?

Very unlikely...

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Ward, Motorola Personal Digitial Cellular, APPLE ][ FOREVER !
Arlington Heights, IL. USA - My words are not Motorola's
_______________________________________________________________________________
For a good time call: The Capitol Hill Switchboard: 1-800-768-2221
and ask for the office of your Senator or Representative
(don't think of it a toll-free call, you already paid dearly for it)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Graydon

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Dec 20, 1994, 10:18:26 AM12/20/94

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From saun...@qlink.queensu.ca (Graydon)

Gary Coffman (ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us) wrote:
: If anything, as tanks become more complex, a larger crew would be

: welcome to keep them able to fight. Three or four men is about the
: minimum to do the job.

Which of course conflicts with the desire to reduce the internal volume
to the practical minimum needed to fight the vehicle.

My guess for the solution to this is doctrinal, rather than technical -
pair an APC and a tank; put three or four such pairs into a 'platoon'.

The APC crew does APC maintenance, the tank crew does tank maintenance,
and the infantry carried by the APC does both at need. Everybody stands
watch, etc; this gives ~6 people per vehicle, a much better number care
and feeding than three, especially if field maintenance is a major
concern when the vehicles are designed.

APC is used above in an extremely generic sense; ideally, the tank and
the APC, IFV, ATT, whatever, are using the same chassis, suspension,
engines, transmissions, and tracks. Simplifies maintenance. :]

--
Graydon Saunders |"Who shall look from Alfred's hood
saun...@qucdn.queensu.ca | Or breathe his breath alive?"
@qlink.queensu.ca | -- The Ballad of the White Horse, G.K Chesterton

Kossowski Craig D

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Dec 20, 1994, 10:18:21 AM12/20/94

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From 3c...@qlink.queensu.ca (Kossowski Craig D)

: BH: What type of weaponry? Are missiles going to

: : become more popular? Will energy weapons become
: : more popular?

: DT> I would think, given sufficient increase in battery technology,

: > energy weapons may become feasable. With the advances in armor, missi

: > will become more popular. Perhaps a CLGP (Cannon-Launched Guided
: > Projectile) system?

: Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk -- that battery will be pretty large to
: hold the MEGAWATTS needed for your energy weapon. The energy stored
: in Explosives is more efficient than the energy you'll ever get from
: a chemical battery. For even better energy storage (than explosives),
: atomic or nuclear power, I guess, would be the only alternative.

Not the only alternative... there is the possiblity of chemically excited
energy weapons... where a chemical reation in the main weapon produces
and energy discharge, e.g. chemically excted laser... this could use
billit chargesor liquid charges... might also have use in an infantry
weapons system, as you get the advantages of energy weapons withou the
need of massive amounts of electricity...

(please cc follow-ups to e-mail... I don't have access over the
holidays... e-mail will wait for me to get back... posts will expire)

Craig.
------> (Craig Kossowski, email at 3c...@qlink.queensu.ca) OS/2 Warp
=====================================================================
There's a difference between an open mind and an empty head

Jacob M Mcguire

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Dec 20, 1994, 10:18:24 AM12/20/94

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From Jacob M Mcguire <jm...@andrew.cmu.edu>

Excerpts from netnews.sci.military: 19-Dec-94 Re: The perfect tank of
tom.. by David A. Terhune@sprint.

> Since hydrogen is such a b***h to store, why not use water
> instead? You're already going to be generating electricity, why not use
> electrolysis to separate out the hydrogen needed for further fuel? The
> oxygen could then be cycled into the NBC system (this is a tank, after
> all). Is this too difficult to do? (of course, I mean 40 years from
> now, not present day)
>

No, because due to the second or third law of thermodynamics, you
never have 100% effeciency. So you spend some energy to get the
hydrogen out of the water, and get a bit less energy out of the
hydrogen.....

Not even theoretically possible.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| It is hard to be religious when certain people fail | Jake McGuire |
| to be incinerated by bolts of lightning - Calvin | jm...@andrew.cmu.edu |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

MICHAEL MOSOLOVICH

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Dec 20, 1994, 10:18:18 AM12/20/94

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From fom...@lmsmgr.lerc.nasa.gov (MICHAEL MOSOLOVICH)

In article <D12J7...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, madr...@metronet.com (Bob Lyle) writes...
>
>From madr...@metronet.com (Bob Lyle)
>
(SNIP)

My turn:

1) Crew size : 2 (TC/Gunner) and driver.
2) Armor composition - Chobham/depleted uranium mix.
3) Turret - none. I would venture to guess that a "cleft" in the hull
roof/decking would allow the KE gun to be elevated into action from the
safety of a hide position. Electroptical downlinking to CRTs would enable
the TC/Gunner to engage the targets that he/she (it is 40 years from now)
had identified via a 360 degree commanders passive viewer co-located with
the gun mount. The gun is mounted via a modified Buffington-Crozzier mount
(like "disappearing" coastal gun mounts circa 1910) and would be magazine
fed.
4) Gun - 14cm (or larger) smooth bore with automatic loader and recoil-
dampening/limiting system. Stabilized in elevation and azimuth with
computerized cant correction factored in. Accuracy while moving - in
excess of 90% first round hits out to 4000 meters while travelling cross
country at 60 kph.
5) Weight in the 50 - 55 ton range.
6) Engine - turbine 1500 - 2500 bhp. Thermal masking of exhaust plume and
decking accomplished through water/glycol/cryogenic heat dumping systems.
7) Passive camoflauge via "active" coloration systems - computerized to
match surroundings regardless of observers angle of view/perspective.
8) Hydropneumatic "kneeling" suspension with all wheel station rotary
shock absorbers. Vehicle has the ability to lower it's overall height ala
the "S-tank" as well negotiate extreme terrain at speeds in excess of 60
kph.
9) Silent track (this may well be impossible but a tanker can always dream
can't he ?)
10 Millimeter wave radar for target acquisition. IFF interrogation and
alarms for lasing as well as radar acquisition of the tank by active enemy
wavelengths.

Mike M. "Broke dick 'cav tanker and proud of it"
>

Roger Moore

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Dec 27, 1994, 3:26:22 PM12/27/94

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From r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)

pione...@aol.com (PioneerTom) writes:

>While many here have noted the possibilities in improving the specific
>technologies of an armored vehicle itself, I would like to note that the
>system of armored warfare (to the extent that there is "a system") may
>be improved by several support technologies for tanks far more easily
>and far sooner than by concentrating on the single MBT vehicle alone.

[Much commentary on the advantages of doing everything from orbit deleted]

>While the comments on wheeled mobility versus tracks and new firepower
>technologies are very well taken, I believe that cheap
>access to space (via Delta Clipper-SSTO technologies) will affect the
>future of armoured warfare much more in the next half century

I think that you fail to grasp what space guys mean when they talk about
"cheap" access to space. The SSTO technologies which are being discussed
today are supposed to reduce the cost of bringing mass into low earth orbit
from the current thousands of dollars per pound to a "mere" $100/lb. That
means that your 70 ton (140000 lb) M1 will cost only $14 million to take
into orbit (without re-entry vehicle, extra fuel, replacement ammo, etc.),
or several times its manufacturing cost. I think that orbital delivery
will have to wait for _much_ cheaper space transport (maybe $1/lb or less)
before it becomes significant.

par...@worf.infonet.net

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Dec 27, 1994, 3:26:23 PM12/27/94

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From par...@worf.infonet.net ()

In article <D183r...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,
Urban Fredriksson <Urban_Fr...@icl.se> wrote:

>but how about the
>manufacturing techniques and materials used for single-crystal
>turbine blades?

That technology avoids grain boundaries, which weaken the material at thigh
temperature. It is not a structurally perfect material like a whisker.

Johpa

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Dec 27, 1994, 3:26:25 PM12/27/94

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From jo...@aol.com (Johpa)

I am amazed that people would speculate that in 40 years a MBT would have
a crew. Future assaults will be inceasingly fought by microchip, guided
munitions, drones, etc. There will be few reasons to have any personnel
on a primary assault platform. One may want the occassional single
individual on board in a protected pod to monitor and control certain
internal systems that are more easily monitored and controlled from within
than from distant telemetry. And one could certainly argue for the
presence of some soldiers to provide that element of intelligence that is
uniquely human. But the maintanence argument doesn't hold salt on an
active battlefield. The primary reason that crews spend the bulk of their
time on maintenance is so that in case hostilites break out the machine
will be able to function at its peak for the maximum length of time before
it suffers a mechanical problem which the bastards will inevitably suffer
regardless of the long hours babying the bloody thing. If the machine
broke down in the heat of battle one is better off running and hiding
behind a dune waiting for the battle to pass in one direction or another
than to get out the tools and grease guns while the bullets are flying and
the sabots are discarding. By having an unmanned MBT one can decrease the
size, increase the speed and mobility while decreasing the costs which
would offset the losses sustained from increased mechanical-electrical
malfunctions.

The time of the great manned tank battles is over, probably ended in 1973
when the casualty rates in those last great armour battles in the Sinai
were unsustainable by either side. The manned MBT will still have
specific functions in more limited theatres of action just as the
infantryman is used for specific situations but certainly not for major
frontal assaults. Those manned machines will be more similar to the
Merchava which is capable of carrying some ground forces along with it.

So, in 40 years the MBT may, if it exists at all, have a similar shape but
will have both tracked and wheeled variants. Hopefully a way will be
found to make the things quieter. It is amazing how few people know what
a hellacious noise the damn things make. Smart weapons using neural nets
should be able to focus on a tank just from the noise signature. There
will be perhaps an optional single manned pod, not unlike a cockpit that
allows the occupant to bail out, better than having the driver having to
function with his seat up and one hand on the bottom hatch release.
Attached to the pod will be a small mountain bike so the soldier can try
to get the hell out of there if ejected. The machine will be guided and
monitored by soldiers just behind the front lines while the gunner will be
a microchip. It will probably contain both miniature smart weapons along
with some dumb weapons. Without the need for personnel, the machine might
have two parallel cannons which would allow fairly rapid fire with
correction and also allow for some type of automatic loading system.

My guess is that in 40 years MBTs as they now exist will be obsolete as
front line assault platforms. The smart munitions coming down the
pipeline soon will make all those big, clunky, (but loveable) tracked,
land vehicles obsolete if they aren't obsolete already. We will have an
unmanned "stealth" VTOL aircraft that will combine the capabilities of
helicopter gunships and the A-10 that will work in tandem with smaller
drones used for scouting and painting targets. VTOL capabilities will
allow quick refueling and reloading close to the front line. Only after
the primary assault is successfull will the manned vehicles be called into
an area.

Ever see what happens to a tank when it fires its main gun and the driver
don't have his foot hard on the brake. It's 55 tons flying backwards,
thus I don't think hovercraft are in the picture.

So, how many tankers can you put in a Volkswagen?

Two in the front, three in the back, and 39 in the ashtray. And that's why
unmanned assault vehicles are better!

Happy Trails Johpa

And I drove through the desert in a tank without name......

Brian Hook

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Dec 27, 1994, 3:26:41 PM12/27/94

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From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)

In article <D0pKn...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> vik...@iastate.edu (Dan Sorenson) writes:

> I disagree. An M1 cruising over uneven terrain and,
> for that matter, a battleship in 1940 both had gun mounts
> quite capable of compensating for the rolling, pitching motion
> inherent in a rather unstable platform. Granted, the laws of
> physics say you're going to need incredible pressures to keep a
> gun solidly stable in such an environment, but is a delay in
> firing until the gun is in the proper position such a trade-off?
> That is just one possible solution. Press the button, and when
> the gun is again at the proper position to hit the target it fires.
> That's technology 50 years old, accomplished by cams, chains, and
> gears. A far better question is how the battlefield has changed.

My point wasn't actually that the hovering platform was unstable,
since this can be compesnated for, but that any weapon that generates
significant recoil will knock the tank around if it is hovering!

Thanks for your reply.

Brian
--
+---------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Brian Hook | Mail me if you want a copy of the Great 3D |
| | Programming Book List with Reviews |
+- "Style distinguishes excellence from accomplishment" - J. Coplien -+

Richard P. Manning

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Dec 27, 1994, 3:26:43 PM12/27/94

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From az...@freenet.carleton.ca (Richard P. Manning)

the idea of a merged tank\apc is not new. The Bradly is an example
of how military designers have always wanted to give infantry
more firepower without having to rely on tanks. The problems,
however are many. To integrate infantry with a heavy tank would
mean making the thing so large and cumbersome it would only have
use in very limited terrain- and it would impossible to transport
via rail or aircraft. Providing enough armor to protect not only
the crew and engine, but the infantry would make this puppy a real
fuel hog.

Of course, you could scale down on the size of this thing and make
it an equivalent (tank wise) to a light tank. In the end, you would
arrive at somthing like a beefed up Brad. with better armor and cannon.
In the end, you would face the same prob. that we face with IFVs today-
are you going to risk a vehicle full of infantry (who are basically
useless on their asses in an IFV) in combat with REAL tanks, or in
a situation where they would be nailed with a law type weapon?
So you would dissmount the squad, and their "tank" would fight along
side them. But what happens when you need these "tanks" to take off
somewhere and do some tough "tank" work that infantry cant handle?
Will you take the squad with it, or leave them alone without transport
for a while?

The kind of vehicle you envision would only have a market in those
countries (3rd world) that already use a great number of apcs vs tanks,
and cannot really afford a true tank force.
--
###]

Graydon

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Dec 27, 1994, 3:26:45 PM12/27/94

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From saun...@qlink.queensu.ca (Graydon)

stan crist (ic...@rb.unisys.com) wrote:
: Graydon (saun...@qlink.queensu.ca) wrote:
[tension between minimizing crew for fighting and doing tank maintenance]
: : My guess for the solution to this is doctrinal, rather than technical -

: : pair an APC and a tank; put three or four such pairs into a 'platoon'.

: Why not take this concept a step or two further: Merge the tank and APC,
: creating a Combined Arms Tank (CAT). This would simplify logistics
: enormously (only one type of combat vehicle to provide parts/ammo for).
: It should also lead to better cooperation between the infantrymen and
: tankers, since they would all be part of the same crew/unit.

Not a good idea.

Infantry need a vehicle to carrry them around behind splinter cover
(small arms, 40mm HEAT, fragments and blast proof), a source of direct
fire fire support (HMG or light cannon) and a source of indirect fire
support (mortars, big automatic grenade launchers, howitzers). This can
all be done by the same vehicle, depending on what you chose to use, or
it can be spread over several sorts of vehicle - all the indirect fire
support in specialized heavy SP mortars, for instance.

Tanks are for toting around the best armor breaker you've got that can
be slewed fast and moved fast cross country; either large missiles or a
big high velocity gun at the present time.

The tasks are rather incompatible; trying to stuff them all on one
vehicle would produce a _big_ vehicle.

On the other hand, getting rid of the strong distinction between
'infantry' and 'armor' might be a very good idea in mechanized units,
particularly if the medium/heavy tank distinction comes back.

Evert-Jan_Duindam

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Dec 27, 1994, 3:26:46 PM12/27/94

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From dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam)

In article <D183r...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> ic...@rb.unisys.com (stan crist) writes:
>Newsgroups: sci.military
>Path:
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>.kr!agate!news.ucdavis.edu!library.ucla.edu!csulb.edu!nic-nac.CSU.net!charnel.ec
>st.csuchico.edu!newshost.marcam.com!news.mathworks.com!udel!gatech!howland.resto
>n.ans.net
>!math.ohio-state.edu!jussieu.fr!fdn.fr!uunet!ranger!military
>From: ic...@rb.unisys.com (stan crist)
>Subject: Re: The perfect tank of tomorrow
>Message-ID: <D183r...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>
>Sender: mili...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com (Sci.military Login)
>Organization: UNISYS Corporation
>References: <D0u3B...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>
><D12J7...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>
>Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 17:40:12 GMT
>Approved: mili...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com
>Lines: 20

>From ic...@rb.unisys.com (stan crist)

>James Dusek (du...@cadsun.corp.mot.com) wrote:

>: ...why haven't they made a phalanx-type point defence for tanks?

>It's a bit more complex of a situation than for naval warfare.
>On the ocean, the radar basically only has to distinguish the
>incoming missile from sea and sky, and the missile can be acquired
>several miles out. Anti-tank missiles must be sorted from all the
>"clutter" of vehicles, buildings, trees, etc, and may be fired from
>as little as a few hundred meters away, which gives very little time
>to react.

>Also, there is no feasible location to mount such a system on current
>MBT's, which means a dedicated Phalanx vehicle would have to be created.
>It probably would not pass a cost/benefits analysis...
The Point Defense system is being worked on in Russia. It is the most advanced
system of its type so far. It consists of a downward looking radar which is
capable of constantly scanning the forward 180 degrees of the tank. When an
incoming missile (maximum velocity it can handle is about the speed of a
hellfire) passes through the acquisition zone the system starts. It calculates
the speed of the projectile and when it has gotten closer to the vehicle an
explosive charge, either just a blast or a type of shotgun shell (this is
still unknown) goes of and detonates the hollow charge of the warhead.
Personally I think its a really nifty idea, and hope the West will come up
with something comparable.

Evert-Jan C. Duindam 'When in doubt use violence, and if it doesn't work,
Weapons Freak you havn't used enough....'

Brian Hook

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Dec 27, 1994, 3:26:48 PM12/27/94

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From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)

In article <D0rFx...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> pjh...@cs.sunysb.edu (P. Joseph Hong) writes:

> A recent article in Proceedings of the Naval Institute (around
> Oct or Nov) claimed that "The Tank is Dead!" Why? Because of precision-
> guided munitions, especially those delivered by air assets. Examples are
> Hellfire laser-guided missiles from attack helicopters and ground-attack
> planes (i.e., A-10).

So are you claiming that the tank is dead, i.e. do you agree with the
NI's assessment? If so, what about A.) the capability to defend
against preceision guided munitions via active defense, better armor,
and destruction of enemy delivery platforms and B.) if not the tank,
then what will be used as a form of hardened offenseive unit with good
loiter characteristics? Capable of holding and taking ground?

> So I think FIRE-AND-FORGET missiles and rounds will be developed.

Agreed.

> WILD PREDICTIONS: One Gun, NOT in a turret but buried in hull,
> firing a variety of rounds, including the Copperhead guided stuff;
> Missile Launcher, one or two racks, on a small turret behind main gun,
> firing self-guided missiles (F&F). Tracking and designating electronics
> galore, including track-breaking and jamming gear.

What is the gun going to provide that the turreted missile system won't?

> No, Brian. I don't think BattleMechs will be viable in the
> medium future. Tracked or wheeled is still the way to go.

I didn't think BattleMechs will be viable in the medium future or
the FAR future. The concept of the anthropomorphic fighting vehicle
is, to be honest, ludicrous. The fastest machines on land don't have
legs, the fastest land animals have more than two legs. BattleMechs
are the antithesis of good tank design -- they are extremely tall,
GIGANTIC profile that is nearly vertical, bad mobility, lack
a 180 fof, too easy to trip, etc. etc.

BattleMechs, I Think, were some of the stupidest ideas I've ever
heard of. I'm sure the BattleTecch Center is fun and everything,
but realistic it isn't.

Roger Moore

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Dec 27, 1994, 3:26:52 PM12/27/94

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From r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)

Urban_Fr...@icl.se (Urban Fredriksson) writes:

>madr...@metronet.com (Bob Lyle) writes:

>>Armor: Tell me what Chobham is (besides ceramic plates, kevlar, depleted
>>uranium and *something else* sandwiched between steel, and I'll guess
>>what might be an improvement. Zero G materials is my first guess, and
>>yesa they will be expensive.

>0G will supposedly let you mix materials of different densities,
>so that for example aluminium/uranium alloys becomes possible. If
>this makes for good armour I don't know, but how about the

>manufacturing techniques and materials used for single-crystal
>turbine blades?

You might be interested to see some of the work which is actually being done
in developing new technology for the army. I found that the Army Research Lab
has a very interesting WWW server located at:
http://info.arl.army.mil
Although they can't post exactly what they are doing in gruesome detail, there
is enough there for an interested party to get a reasonable idea about where
the US Army thinks that the tank is going in the near future.

PioneerTom

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Dec 27, 1994, 3:26:54 PM12/27/94

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From pione...@aol.com (PioneerTom)

ic...@rb.unisys.com (stan crist) Wrote:

"James Dusek (du...@cadsun.corp.mot.com) wrote:

: ...why haven't they made a phalanx-type point defence for tanks?

It's a bit more complex of a situation than for naval warfare.
On the ocean, the radar basically only has to distinguish the
incoming missile from sea and sky, and the missile can be acquired
several miles out. Anti-tank missiles must be sorted from all the
"clutter" of vehicles, buildings, trees, etc, and may be fired from
as little as a few hundred meters away, which gives very little time
to react."

Inspite of these very real problems I read in an October or November
Aviation Week that ARPA has let a contract for just such a system.
The illustration with the article showed the system as a small add-on
cupola to the turret roof! They may be real good, but I want to
definitely
see this work under a lot of circumstances before they do a big buy!

Tom Billings
pione...@aol.com

Paul L. Suh

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Dec 27, 1994, 3:26:56 PM12/27/94

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From pl...@econ.sas.upenn.edu (Paul L. Suh)

In article <D183q...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, bjo...@pixar.com (Kevin
Bjorke) wrote:

> Personally, I see the MBT in steady decline. Too slow, too valuable
> a target for, say, a Copperhead round. As the in-theatre CCC capabilities
> continue to be enhanced, the problems inherent in having large numbers
> of independant vehicles are reduced, and the attractiveness of having
> large targets in forward areas declines.

I don't understand your point. What are tanks if they are not independent
vehicles right where the problems of C^3 are toughest, in contact with the
enemy? Inproved C^3 will make tanks more viable, not less. Look at the
effects of the IVIS system in the M-1A2. This is being introduced a
decade later than the TACFIRE system for the redlegs.

> I expect that the target acquistion role will be increasingly
> important, with the forward "tank" feeding information to rear-line
> artillery, MLRS-style missile batteries, and aircraft. The other
> always-present role is the personel carrier, because as we all know,
> it's not enough to bomb a place -- you need to eventually stand on it.

If the tank's role is solely as a target designator, then a special ops
team or a helicopter will do the job just as well, if not better. The
special ops team has a lower signature and a lower logistic requirement.
The helicopter has a lower signature and much better tactical mobility.
Both have much greater strategic mobility, and both are used for precisely
this role, calling down the big guns in the rear. A tank does something
else entirely.

Missiles/arty + infantry are great for defensive situations, but they are
not as good for offense. A successful conventional offensive action
requires (among other things) mass, to create the breach in the enemy
line, and maneuver, to exploit the breach. Infantry relies in large part
on dispersion for protection. Furthermore, leg infantry has very little
tactical mobility. Infantry would need to give up dispersion to gain
mass, but then would be cut to pieces by MGs and arty. If you manage to
force a breach anyway using massed artillery or air strikes, leg infantry
still cannot advance quickly enough and with enough mass to force a
decisive action. Look at what happened on the Western front in WW I.

APCs help the situation somewhat, but the number of weapons systems that
can hurt an APC is still an order of magnitude greater than the number
that can hurt a real tank. An infantry company has lots of LAWs or RPGs,
each of which can kill any APC, but which are unlikely to do much to a
tank except under special circumstances. OTOH, they have only a few
man-portable ATGMs. The APCs will still be vulnerable to the enemy's long
range missiles as well.

Only a formation of tanks (with proper supporting arms) can provide the
concentration of force in a small section of the battle line and the
subsequent maneuver that give a reasonable chance of success on the
offensive.

> Of course, tanks are sometimes used against non-mechanized forces;
> rioting crowds, mountain militias, and so forth. The big questions
> there will be measured by advances in small-arms, such as, say, projectiles
> that might be able to deliberately fly right up the exhaust pipe, etc.
> And by politics.

Since the fall of the USSR, it is more likely that tanks will be used in
their original role, infantry support, especially in peacekeeping ops or
low-intensity conflicts. In such cases, their ability to shrug off most
RPG rounds while putting highly accurate direct fire on targets is in
valuable. Arty is too indiscriminate for these situations.

So much for responding. Now for my own $0.02 :-)

One aspect that has been ignored in this thread is the training process
for tank crews. A tanker starts as a loader, then becomes a driver, a
gunner, and finally a commander. In the process, he learns about tanks
and how to do each job. If we take away some of the positions, how does
this affect the process? Taking out the loader probably doesn't change
things too much, but taking out the gunner, so that crewmen advance
directly from driver to TC, may make for less-experienced, and thus less
effective, TCs.

The Soviet/Russian experience with smaller crews is different and not very
promising. Enlisted specialists such as TCs were/are(?) given six months
extra training and sent straight into their slots. By accounts such as
"Suvorov's" [sp?], this is much less effective than Western methods.

I see the tank crew staying at four, but with a different composition.
The proliferation of millimeter-wave radars, laser designators, and point
defense systems will create the position of Defensive Systems Operator
(DSO). He would be responsible for deception jamming of enemy radar,
kicking out smoke or using a counter-laser for defense against
laser-guided missiles in response to a laser warning, and designating
targets for the air defense system, both incoming missiles and hostile
aircraft.

The TC does some of this today, but in the future more possible threats
and countermeasures will saturate his ability to both handle the defense
and command the tank. The crew advancement process would look like:
driver, gunner, DSO, TC. The larger crew size helps with maintenance &
standing watch as well.

Comments, questions, horse laughs? ;-)

Colin Campbell

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Dec 28, 1994, 2:02:28 PM12/28/94

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From col...@ix.netcom.com (Colin Campbell)

In <D1HKs...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> pl...@econ.sas.upenn.edu (Paul
L. Suh) writes:

>The TC does some of this today, but in the future more possible threats
>and countermeasures will saturate his ability to both handle the
defense
>and command the tank. The crew advancement process would look like:
>driver, gunner, DSO, TC. The larger crew size helps with maintenance &
>standing watch as well.

This is an intresting idea. I have a real concern as to the various
duties of a TC overloading them in combat. On command tanks this is to
the point where they can find themselves losing situational awareness on
the battlefield.

IMO, (once the automatic loader is perfected enough to satisfy me) the
DSO job will probably be automated.

Colin Campbell

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Dec 28, 1994, 2:02:30 PM12/28/94

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From col...@ix.netcom.com (Colin Campbell)

In <D1HKs...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)
writes:

>So are you claiming that the tank is dead, i.e. do you agree with the
>NI's assessment? If so, what about A.) the capability to defend
>against preceision guided munitions via active defense, better armor,
>and destruction of enemy delivery platforms and B.) if not the tank,
>then what will be used as a form of hardened offenseive unit with good
>loiter characteristics? Capable of holding and taking ground?

FYI, a 120mm antihelicoper round has been type-classified by the US
army for use on the M1A1 and M1A2 tanks.

David A. Terhune

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Dec 28, 1994, 2:02:32 PM12/28/94

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From dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David A. Terhune)

Paul L. Suh (pl...@econ.sas.upenn.edu) wrote:

: One aspect that has been ignored in this thread is the training process

: for tank crews. A tanker starts as a loader, then becomes a driver, a
: gunner, and finally a commander. In the process, he learns about tanks
: and how to do each job. If we take away some of the positions, how does
: this affect the process? Taking out the loader probably doesn't change
: things too much, but taking out the gunner, so that crewmen advance
: directly from driver to TC, may make for less-experienced, and thus less
: effective, TCs.

I'd forgotten about the training process completely. I always
wondered what the exact order of positions was. This does change the
picture somewhat, although you're probably right about the loader not
being that important.

: The Soviet/Russian experience with smaller crews is different and not very

: promising. Enlisted specialists such as TCs were/are(?) given six months
: extra training and sent straight into their slots. By accounts such as
: "Suvorov's" [sp?], this is much less effective than Western methods.

I always did think Soviet training/organization to be a little
bit silly. ( How can you tell which Russian tank is the platoon
leader's? His is the one with more than 1 antenna. "Gunner... Tank...
Sabot" )

: I see the tank crew staying at four, but with a different composition.

: The proliferation of millimeter-wave radars, laser designators, and point
: defense systems will create the position of Defensive Systems Operator
: (DSO). He would be responsible for deception jamming of enemy radar,
: kicking out smoke or using a counter-laser for defense against
: laser-guided missiles in response to a laser warning, and designating
: targets for the air defense system, both incoming missiles and hostile
: aircraft.

: The TC does some of this today, but in the future more possible threats
: and countermeasures will saturate his ability to both handle the defense
: and command the tank. The crew advancement process would look like:
: driver, gunner, DSO, TC. The larger crew size helps with maintenance &
: standing watch as well.

: Comments, questions, horse laughs? ;-)

IMO this is the best suggestion for crew positions on near future
tanks. It has all the benefits of the larger crew with respect to
maintenance, and is more efficient as well. Thumbs up.

James Dusek

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Dec 28, 1994, 2:02:36 PM12/28/94

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From du...@cadsun.corp.mot.com (James Dusek)

In article <D1HKs...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, b...@netcom.com (Brian

Hook) wrote:
> From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)
> In article <D0rFx...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> pjh...@cs.sunysb.edu (P.
Joseph Hong) writes:
> > guided munitions, especially those delivered by air assets. Examples are
> > Hellfire laser-guided missiles from attack helicopters and ground-attack
> > planes (i.e., A-10).
> So are you claiming that the tank is dead, i.e. do you agree with the
> NI's assessment? If so, what about A.) the capability to defend
> against preceision guided munitions via active defense, better armor,
> and destruction of enemy delivery platforms and B.) if not the tank,
> then what will be used as a form of hardened offenseive unit with good
> loiter characteristics? Capable of holding and taking ground?

You also forgot, What happens when you don't have controll of the air?
All of your airborn weapons are useless. Also, what do you do when a thousand
tanks come rolling down at you with combined air support and anti-air defences
on the ground? You still need tanks to combat that threat. Just because we
nailed the Iraqi army, doesn't mean it gonna happen all the time, with 100%
air cover.

> I didn't think BattleMechs will be viable in the medium future or
> the FAR future. The concept of the anthropomorphic fighting vehicle
> is, to be honest, ludicrous. The fastest machines on land don't have
> legs, the fastest land animals have more than two legs. BattleMechs

But just think of the stride of this thing!

> are the antithesis of good tank design -- they are extremely tall,
> GIGANTIC profile that is nearly vertical, bad mobility, lack
> a 180 fof, too easy to trip, etc. etc.

Easy to trip? Just think of giant battleship mounting 16 inch
cannon walking over the countryside, stomping on little tanks! Your
right, its pure SCI-FI, they didn't think about armor protection,
weapon mmounts, recoil, ect, ect. Although it seems like a pretty
neat concpet.

btw. The Mech would have greater mobility than a tank, not many tanks
can climb. :)

Richard E Parker

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Dec 28, 1994, 2:02:37 PM12/28/94

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From rpa...@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Richard E Parker)

In article <D1HKs...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> jo...@aol.com (Johpa) writes:
>
>From jo...@aol.com (Johpa)
>
>I am amazed that people would speculate that in 40 years a MBT would have
>a crew. Future assaults will be inceasingly fought by microchip, guided
>munitions, drones, etc. There will be few reasons to have any personnel
>on a primary assault platform. One may want the occassional single

In actuality, Maintenance and support of armor is a very
important part of the crew's responsibility. They are not asked to
repair the vehicle in the heat of combat. However, in cases where the
bloody thing throws a tread, no computer is going to fix it. And if
your electronic marvel is out in the middle of no-where, you won't
find many non-combat arms willing to go out there to it and fix it
when the enemy is who-knows where. Thus you have wasted a
multi-million dollar piece of equipment when a couple of guys with a
torque-wrench could have solved the problem. (And god knows you only
have to pay them a few K a year to do all that work.)
Electronics can work wonders in increasing situational
awareness and making it unlikely that a tanker will be taken by
surprise. At the very least, then, he will be able to shoot back.
However unmanned vehicles have this bad habit of getting into messes
they can't extricate themselves from. (See the Robot Dante which
wound up sitting at the bottom of a crater with a broken leg.) The
last great work-saving, man-saving device, the D-21 drones for the
SR-71, had this knack for suffering inexplicable problems and just
crashing or having to be destroyed so they wouldn't fall into enemy
hands. We can't afford to hand technology to our enemies, whoever
they are, or will be. Nor can we afford to blow up 4-5million dollar
tanks because we couldn't fix them because they strayed too far away.
This says nothing of the technical challenges of the UAV.
Unless you can duplicate Star-Trek Tachyon pulse beams (snicker) in
the next 40 years, you'll either still be remote controlling them with
radio (Jammable) or they'll be automatics. Personally, I don't relish
the idea of a mechanical marvel with a 7.62 and a 120mm wandering
around the country-side. What happens if you hurt it, but don't kill
it? We'll have a man-eating tank wandering around firing at will.

>
>The time of the great manned tank battles is over, probably ended in 1973
>when the casualty rates in those last great armour battles in the Sinai
>were unsustainable by either side. The manned MBT will still have
>specific functions in more limited theatres of action just as the
>infantryman is used for specific situations but certainly not for major
>frontal assaults. Those manned machines will be more similar to the
>Merchava which is capable of carrying some ground forces along with it.

You cannot compare the Sinai realistically to something in 40
years. In Desert Storm, advances in technology made it possible for
us to deliver a victory without losing a single M-1 destroyed by enemy
fire. Advances in composite armor have nullified many of the weapons
that were so hideously effective in 1973. No-one would believe now
that an AT-4 or AT-3 is a credible weapon against any modern MBT. 40
years from now, there will be newer weapons and even newer armors to
defeat them. The technology of war ebbs and flows. Weapons are made
to defeat armor, armor is made to defeat weapons. The two go hand in
hand. Fire-and-forget weapons may well find their match in advanced
counter-measures.

>
Much stuff about stealth-tanks and VTOLS deleted.

Smart weapons are wonderful. Smart weapons are nice.
However, the one fundamental problem with a smart weapon is they often
outsmart themselves. The author of the previous post mentioned a
smart-weapon that would home on vehicle noise. How about a
white-noise jammer mounted in some location near the source of the
problem? How about a noise-maker attached to a small rocket (like the
flares for spoofing heat-seekers)? Which noise is the correct noise?
Hmm? Can our smart weapon tell? Well, since it is only an electronic ear
attached to a missile and not a set of eyes, ears, and fingers, it
cannot tell the difference. It ignores the tank for the decoy. The
firer of the smart weapon swears a blue-streak and tries again.

>
>So, how many tankers can you put in a Volkswagen?

Depends. If it were an M-1A1, not too many. If you were
talking about the drivers of those bloody useless disasters in the
Iraqi or former WarPac armies, quite a few (ashes that is).

>And I drove through the desert in a tank without name......
>

In conclusion, the ebb and flow of technology does not negate
the need for several fundamental things:
An army must, by its nature, take, and hold the ground.
Choppers cannot do this. Aircraft cannot do this. They are forever
too short on endurance. They must go home and land, refuel, re-arm,
etc.
An army must be able to endure in the face of determined
attack. Only infantry in a fox-hole can do this. They can do this
with only their hands and a knife if they have to. Electronics
cannot. Once the power dies, the machine follows.
An army must be able to mount a sustained offensive drive
against the enemy, occupying his territory and threatening his
economy.
Tanks can do this. Choppers are too expensive, too fickle to
do this. It takes a machine that is rugged and expected to take
damage to do this job. That machine must be field-repairable in the
most deplorable conditions. (Note that the Army's new Armored Gun
System can have its power-pack removed by the three-man crew in only a
half-hour of effort without special equipment.)

Paladin

Your pardon for the essay, however, I felt compelled to speak.

Colin Campbell

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Dec 30, 1994, 12:40:57 PM12/30/94

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From col...@ix.netcom.com (Colin Campbell)

In <D1JBK...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> rpa...@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Richard
E Parker) writes:

>years. In Desert Storm, advances in technology made it possible for
>us to deliver a victory without losing a single M-1 destroyed by enemy
>fire.

Actually we did lose M1's to enemy fire (in fact 1 t-72 killed two
m1's). In an overenthuastic attempt to identify every instance of
fratricide, we counted vehicles that were actually destroyed by enemy
fire.

Please note that the above is not the official consensus of opinion
within the US army. I am a member of a minority (but a loud minority)
on this arguement.

JOHN MCFARLIN

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Dec 30, 1994, 12:41:03 PM12/30/94

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From mcfa...@nevada.edu (JOHN MCFARLIN)

Brian Hook (b...@netcom.com) wrote:

: From b...@netcom.com (Brian Hook)

: In article <D0rFx...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> pjh...@cs.sunysb.edu (P. Joseph Hong) writes:

: > A recent article in Proceedings of the Naval Institute (around
: > Oct or Nov) claimed that "The Tank is Dead!" Why? Because of precision-
: > guided munitions, especially those delivered by air assets. Examples are
: > Hellfire laser-guided missiles from attack helicopters and ground-attack
: > planes (i.e., A-10).

: So are you claiming that the tank is dead, i.e. do you agree with the
: NI's assessment? If so, what about A.) the capability to defend
: against preceision guided munitions via active defense, better armor,
: and destruction of enemy delivery platforms and B.) if not the tank,
: then what will be used as a form of hardened offenseive unit with good
: loiter characteristics? Capable of holding and taking ground?

One must look at the source. The services always seem willing to take
shots at one another. It's easy for the Navy to knock tanks; they're a
bi*ch to load onto their boats, and they don't have much to do with
traditional Naval missions, which to me seem to be "sit out on the water
and shoot munitions onto land targets 'cause we're the baddest mf'ers on
the lake."

: > So I think FIRE-AND-FORGET missiles and rounds will be developed.

: Agreed.

Also agreed. The M1A1 is excellent protection against even its own
ammunition (several were fired upon when they were mired in mud and were
notoriously difficult to destroy. One even had its ammo pod detonated by
a penetrating round and then was pulled out of the mud still
operational), but the only thing M1 proponents pull their collars at is
TOWs and Hellfires...big penetration, there.

: > WILD PREDICTIONS: One Gun, NOT in a turret but buried in hull,

: > firing a variety of rounds, including the Copperhead guided stuff;
: > Missile Launcher, one or two racks, on a small turret behind main gun,
: > firing self-guided missiles (F&F). Tracking and designating electronics
: > galore, including track-breaking and jamming gear.

: What is the gun going to provide that the turreted missile system won't?

About the "missile tank." It's awfully expensive. Plus, the guns we have
on our tanks (the M1a1 and M1a2) crack opfor armor quite well. Now, if we
had to fight the brits of germans, then things might get hairy. But for
the regional conflicts we're finding ourselves getting involved in, the
gun is still a plenty good way to go.

: > No, Brian. I don't think BattleMechs will be viable in the

: > medium future. Tracked or wheeled is still the way to go.

Tracks are the way...

CPL John McFarlin, Jr., USARNG
122d CML Co.
Las Vegas, Nv.

21012d

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Dec 30, 1994, 12:40:54 PM12/30/94

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From deg...@netcom.com (21012d)

"Eternal vigilance" and no time off for the showers are merits
to fully automated systems,.. not a sound basis for expecting
larger crews. The fictional stories of Bolo tanks seems as
likly. Computer support with crew, reduce crewing , crew space
left as an option, no crew at all.
...
IMHO however, there will be a long cycle where more offence
is worth more than defence, and thus a reduction in armor.

On the exotic experiments side, there may be "boring/acid"
attack machines which in situations were only armor can
survive will take several minutes to penetrate a hull or
the "adhesive spray "

PioneerTom

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Dec 30, 1994, 12:40:55 PM12/30/94

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From pione...@aol.com (PioneerTom)

r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore) writes:

"The SSTO technologies which are being discussed today are supposed to
reduce the cost of bringing mass into low earth orbit from the current
thousands of dollars per pound to a "mere" $100/lb. That means that your
70 ton (140000 lb) M1 will cost only $14 million to take into orbit
(without re-entry vehicle, extra fuel, replacement ammo, etc.),
or several times its manufacturing cost. I think that orbital delivery
will have to wait for _much_ cheaper space transport (maybe $1/lb or less)
before it becomes significant.

Raj
Master of Meaningless Trivia"

While the earstwhile Master is correct in his orbital cost data, the
results he draws are truly trivial. You see, I did note that you would
have
to actually develop the capacity to MANUFACTURE the vehicles out of
in-space astroidal materials to make this an effective solution to
strategic problems. No one, including your gentle respondent, would want
to send more than a very few into LEO at the quoted prices. Even those
few might be used for "Operation-Thunderbolt"-type hostage rescues, but
that would have only transitory effect on the strategic situation.

Tom Billings
Pione...@aol.com

Roger Moore

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Dec 30, 1994, 12:41:01 PM12/30/94

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From r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)

dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam) writes:

>The Point Defense system is being worked on in Russia. It is the most advanced
>system of its type so far. It consists of a downward looking radar which is
>capable of constantly scanning the forward 180 degrees of the tank. When an
>incoming missile (maximum velocity it can handle is about the speed of a
>hellfire) passes through the acquisition zone the system starts. It calculates
>the speed of the projectile and when it has gotten closer to the vehicle an
>explosive charge, either just a blast or a type of shotgun shell (this is
>still unknown) goes of and detonates the hollow charge of the warhead.
>Personally I think its a really nifty idea, and hope the West will come up
>with something comparable.

There is a big problem with these guys, though. As soon as you turn on your
radar, you are also turning on a giant beacon to any enemy within a reasonable
range saying "here I am, come and get me." This gives you a choice- leave it
on all the time and let everyone and their dogs know where you are, or leave
it off and risk having your first sign that you need it be your last. It
also puts one more thing on your tank which can break (increasing maintennance
requirements) and will probably increase your profile, making you an easier
target even without the radar on. On ships, which already have radar and are
really big, the tradeoff is not so bad, but on a tank, it doesn't sound so
good.

Colin Campbell

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Dec 30, 1994, 12:40:59 PM12/30/94

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From col...@ix.netcom.com (Colin Campbell)

In <D1JBK...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David
A. Terhune) writes:

>
> I always did think Soviet training/organization to be a little
>bit silly. ( How can you tell which Russian tank is the platoon
>leader's? His is the one with more than 1 antenna. "Gunner... Tank...
>Sabot" )

I hate to say this but this rule applies to westren tanks as well. :)

The number of radio antennas has more to do with the number of radio
nets which must be monitored. A platoon leader must monitor his platoon
net as well as the company net, thus two antennas.

JOHN MCFARLIN

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Dec 30, 1994, 12:41:04 PM12/30/94

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From mcfa...@nevada.edu (JOHN MCFARLIN)

: : ...why haven't they made a phalanx-type point defence for tanks?

: It's a bit more complex of a situation than for naval warfare.

deletia summarized: tank warfare is too close for reactive fire.

: Inspite of these very real problems I read in an October or November

: Aviation Week that ARPA has let a contract for just such a system.
: The illustration with the article showed the system as a small add-on
: cupola to the turret roof! They may be real good, but I want to
: definitely
: see this work under a lot of circumstances before they do a big buy!

That system better be friggin QUICK, and fire a very small calibre round
to get much use. What's it gonna be? a 5.56 minigun firing aphe type
rounds? I'd wanna see this thing, too...

Urban Fredriksson

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Jan 2, 1995, 1:22:09 PM1/2/95

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From Urban_Fr...@icl.se (Urban Fredriksson)

col...@ix.netcom.com (Colin Campbell) writes:

>In <D1JBK...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> dter...@sprint.uccs.edu (David
>A. Terhune) writes:

>>
>> I always did think Soviet training/organization to be a little
>>bit silly. ( How can you tell which Russian tank is the platoon
>>leader's? His is the one with more than 1 antenna. "Gunner... Tank...
>>Sabot" )

> I hate to say this but this rule applies to westren tanks as well. :)

Considering the effort some people put into disguising
which vehicle is so full of radios/other equipment by
giving it a dummy barrel, this is surprising. A dummy
antenna would be even cheaper.
--
Urban Fredriksson u...@icl.se
"I have a very high threshold of tolerance for bad sf films."
-- Arthur C Clarke

Evert-Jan_Duindam

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Jan 2, 1995, 1:22:14 PM1/2/95

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From dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam)

>From r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)

>dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam) writes:

I'm afraid the Russians are not completely dim, they do know this and have
taken it into consideration. The scanning area of the radar is, according to
Jane's and a Dutch military publication (I will leave this unnamed) set at a
downward angle. It is ofcourse a very low power radar and the downward angle
means that the signal is, according to the Russians not detectable beyond a
very, very limited range.

Evert-Jan C. Duindam (dra...@euronet.nl), Weapons Freak
'When in doubt, use violence, if it doesn't work, you haven't used enough.'

Evert-Jan_Duindam

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Jan 2, 1995, 1:22:18 PM1/2/95

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From dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam)

In article <D1JBK...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> rpa...@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Richard E Parker) writes:

Lots of good stuff deleted

In Desert Storm, advances in technology made it possible for
>us to deliver a victory without losing a single M-1 destroyed by enemy
>fire.

Lots of good Stuff deleted
>Paladin
I beg to differ. I have a photgraph of something which is (if barely)
recognizable as an M1 tank. It certainly didn't malfunction because it ran out
of gas. The photograph is from Jane's Intelligence Review, part of an
interview with a former Soviet Advisor to Iraq. As far as I know Jane's is
VERY reliable. The M1 was pretty damn dead. Unless it was a tank hit by
friendly fire that somehow strayed into Iraqi hands for awhile (seems
unlikely) it got wasted by the other fellow. Just thought I should metion that.

PaulSuh

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Jan 2, 1995, 1:22:16 PM1/2/95

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From pau...@aol.com (PaulSuh)

mcfa...@nevada.edu (JOHN MCFARLIN) wrote:

"but the only thing M1 proponents pull their collars at is
TOWs and Hellfires...big penetration, there."

This goes against just about everything I've read. The composite armor on
the latest generation of MBTs is especially resistant to HEAT warheads.
Notice that the only US tanks to use reactive armor are the older M-60s in
use by the Marines. The M-1A1 (HA) crews worry more about kinetic energy
rounds than chemical energy rounds.

--Paul

Please send all replies to my UPenn account, pl...@econ.sas.upenn.edu.
I'm using this horrid AOL account because I'm on the road.

Paul L. Suh

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Jan 2, 1995, 1:22:19 PM1/2/95

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From pl...@econ.sas.upenn.edu (Paul L. Suh)

In article <D1Mx4...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, deg...@netcom.com
(21012d) wrote:

> "Eternal vigilance" and no time off for the showers are merits
> to fully automated systems,.. not a sound basis for expecting
> larger crews. The fictional stories of Bolo tanks seems as
> likly. Computer support with crew, reduce crewing , crew space
> left as an option, no crew at all.

Please, all of you advocates of crewless wonders, tell us what happens
when the darn thing hits a bog? Or throws a track on a narrow road on the
way to the front, thus blocking the passage of supplies and fresh troops?

Furthermore, a tank needs constant resupply of ammo and fuel, unless you
give it an all energy weapon armament and a fusion powerplant. Who's
going to replenish the vehicles? The trucks that bring the ammo and fuel
forward do not have enough men to handle the task.

How are you going to perform routine maintenance on the beasts? Bringing
mechanics forward from the rear adds to the logistics load that the roads
(probably already overburdened by other traffic) must bear. Sending the
tanks back to the rear adds an even heavier load, plus removes them from
the line for some time, turning them into ersatz helicopters.

Only a live human crew (or humanoid robots ;-) can deal with all of the
things that can go wrong, and deal with routine maintenance economically.

stan crist

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Jan 2, 1995, 1:22:21 PM1/2/95

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From ic...@rb.unisys.com (stan crist)

James Dusek (du...@cadsun.corp.mot.com) wrote:

: What happens when you don't have controll of the air?

Are you speaking generically, or of the US military specifically?
I can't imagine any likely opponent in the foreseeable future over
whom US forces would not have air superiority.

: Also, what do you do when a thousand tanks come rolling down

: at you with combined air support and anti-air defences
: on the ground? You still need tanks to combat that threat.

Think so? Ask any Iraqi tank commander how much good tanks are
without air superiority. Without control of the air, your tanks
are nothing more than nice, fat, juicy targets for enemy CAS!

Regards,

Stan

stan crist

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Jan 2, 1995, 1:22:23 PM1/2/95

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From ic...@rb.unisys.com (stan crist)

Richard E Parker (rpa...@bigwpi.WPI.EDU) wrote:

: In Desert Storm, advances in technology made it possible for us to

: deliver a victory without losing a single M-1 destroyed by enemy fire.

A couple of admittedly minor points here:

2. It's been awhile since I've done any reading on DESERT STORM, but
as I recall, there was at least one Abrams that was knocked out
by a T-72 putting a round through the turret ring.

1. Yes, our technology was much superior to that of Iraq, but
our incredibly lop-sided victory was due more to their ineptness
at warfighting than to our magnificent weapon systems.

Regards,

Stan

stan crist

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Jan 3, 1995, 12:17:13 PM1/3/95

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From ic...@rb.unisys.com (stan crist)

JOHN MCFARLIN (mcfa...@nevada.edu) wrote:

(Re: Proceedings article/"The Tank is Dead!"/precision guided munitions)

: One must look at the source. The services always seem willing to take
: shots at one another. It's easy for the Navy to knock tanks...

Well, it isn't quite fair to blame the Navy in this instance,
as Proceedings was merely quoting an article that appeared in
ARMOR Magazine at the beginning of '94 (for which I am partially
responsible, as I co-authored the ARMOR article).

I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent on tanks, and I consider
myself pro-armor, all the way...however, I also believe that the
Main Battle Tank *has been* obsoleted, primarily by PGMs.

But, just as the old Cavalry generals kept the horse cavalry in
existence for several decades after it was rendered obsolete by
the machine gun, today's Armor officers refuse to see that PGMs
have delivered the same fate to the MBT.

Stan Crist
former tank commander
3-185th Armor

Isaac Ji Kuo

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Jan 3, 1995, 12:17:30 PM1/3/95

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From isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Isaac Ji Kuo)

Wow, take a leave of the USEnet for a couple weeks, and even a moderate
bandwidth groups like this one can become too much to read. Anyway,
I just wanted to mention a couple points:

First, about fuel cells. By any measure, today's fuel cells just
don't cut it. However, we're talking about 40 years in the future.
That gives maybe 3 decades of technology improvement for what will
appear in those vehicles. My bet is that in that time distributed
low temperature fuel cells using liquid petroleum fuels which are
space/weight competitive with ICEs will be developed and perhaps
be commonplace.

Second, about tracks vs. wheels. The caterpillar's big advantage
over wheels is the reduced ground pressure. IMO, the mobility
advantage that gives (really, a weight advantage) will remain
critically important in many terrains. However, use of electric
transmission (which could of course be powered directly by fuel
cells) will allow each roadwheel to be powered. This will allow
track tension to be electronically adjusted to slightly reduce
the chance of throwing a track, but more importantly will allow
the roadwheels to function even if a track is thrown, rather like
the Christie transmission. The greatly increased ground pressure
means that this will only be effective while on hard terrain, of
course, but it's better than nothing.

Third, about vertical launch hypervelocity missiles. The way in
which I conceived of them was as a complement to a main armament
of a (relatively) lightweight mortar/gun capable of firing
guided top attack mortar bombs. As a complement, the (very)
small number of them need not be applicable to all targets, and
so they don't necessarily need to be the huge HVMs currently
being researched for penetrating the frontal armor of today's
main battle tank (which doesn't spend enough weight on top armor
to stop any anti-vehicular top attack munitions).

Fourth, about counterbattery fire outmoding top attack munitions.
I don't think that will happen. A top attack mortar bomb will
obviously be guided in order to get a direct hit, so unlike dumb
artillery rounds it's incoming trajectory will be a poor
indication of where the firing gun was. It will at best give
an approximate idea of where the firing gun was unless the
projectile was detected near the time of launch--which implies
very powerful radar (a powerful beacon) and/or extremely advanced
automatic passive detection systems--far more advanced than
40 years from now, IMO. Furthermore, even if such technology
existed, such sensors should have no problem automatically detecting
a tank turret and it should be trivial to automatically detect the
signature of firing a long barreled cannon firing or the exhaust of
a missile.

In 40 years, I can easily imagine automated detection of the
firing signatures of large calibre long barreled cannon--the
secondary flash is incredible--and this would be much more likely
to outmode direct fire as a tactic than top attack (indirect) fire.

The big advantage of the mortar/gun over the traditional anti-tank
gun is the weight and space savings, which I expect will prove
critical in that more armor will then be possible. Existing
self-guided anti-tank mortar bombs such as the Merlin and Strix
already provide infantry a countermeasure resistant fire-and-forget
weapon capable of knocking out any existing MBT! The practical
possibility of a lightweight weapon capable of defeating all
previous generations of AFVs is too irresistible _not_ to pursue
in a world where so many potential military enemies use older
equipment out of necessity.
--
_____ Isaac Kuo (isaa...@OCF.berkeley.edu)
__|_>o<_|__ As the world looked on ... Earth's fate hung in balance ...
/___________\ The fight for survival ... now begins! ... FINAL BATTLE IN ...
\=\>-----</=/ TOMOBIKI-CHO!

Roger Moore

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Jan 3, 1995, 12:17:36 PM1/3/95

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From r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)

dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam) writes:

>>There is a big problem with these guys, though. As soon as you turn on your
>>radar, you are also turning on a giant beacon to any enemy within a reasonable
>>range saying "here I am, come and get me." This gives you a choice- leave it
>>on all the time and let everyone and their dogs know where you are, or leave
>>it off and risk having your first sign that you need it be your last. It
>>also puts one more thing on your tank which can break (increasing maintennance
>>requirements) and will probably increase your profile, making you an easier
>>target even without the radar on. On ships, which already have radar and are
>>really big, the tradeoff is not so bad, but on a tank, it doesn't sound so
>>good.

>>Raj
>>Master of Meaningless Trivia

>I'm afraid the Russians are not completely dim, they do know this and have
>taken it into consideration. The scanning area of the radar is, according to
>Jane's and a Dutch military publication (I will leave this unnamed) set at a
>downward angle. It is ofcourse a very low power radar and the downward angle
>means that the signal is, according to the Russians not detectable beyond a
>very, very limited range.

The problem is that if you want defense from a particular direction, you must
irradiate in that direction. If you point your radar downward, you can't
defend agaist to attack munitions, like those launched from aircraft and some
of the new generation of infantry munitions. So you can't defend yourself
agaist airplanes and modern infantry (and by the time the system is fully
developed, top attack infantry weapons should be fairly common) because it
will give you away. Likewise, you can't protect yourself from the best tank
rounds because they move too fast for your short range. It sounds like it
will be expensive and not very useful to me.

Evert-Jan_Duindam

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Jan 4, 1995, 8:01:33 PM1/4/95

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From dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam)

>From r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)

>dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam) writes:

>The problem is that if you want defense from a particular direction, you must

>irradiate in that direction. If you point your radar downward, you can't
>defend agaist to attack munitions, like those launched from aircraft and some
>of the new generation of infantry munitions. So you can't defend yourself
>agaist airplanes and modern infantry (and by the time the system is fully
>developed, top attack infantry weapons should be fairly common) because it
>will give you away. Likewise, you can't protect yourself from the best tank
>rounds because they move too fast for your short range. It sounds like it
>will be expensive and not very useful to me.

>Raj
>Master of Meaningless Trivia
Look a radar which detects out to 100 miles can be detected out to about 500
miles if I understand it correctly. (The only technical info I've got to go on
is something from Red Storm Rising by Clancy). So say you need to detect your
incoming projectiles about 20m from the tank in order for the system to have
time to react. That means you could detect the system out to all of 100m, less
since it's down angled. It seems to me that if you havn't detected an enemy
Tank by audio or visual by the time its 100m away you have a very big problem
anyhow. As for its usefulness against big time tank ammos eg APFSDS and HEAT
and HESH. It doesn't work against them, but think what it does work against!
The infantryman with his portable anti-tank weapon is useless, as is
hellfire, TOW, Dragon (didn't work too well anyway). The amount of things that
are capable of harming the MBT is drastically reduced which is what armoring
is all about. (Active defense IS a form of armor). As for one more thing to
get broken, if it increases the battlefield survival chances as much as a even
a 25% effective version of this system would be worthwile. Its always a
tradeoff and this beats the scale on which I would judge these things. Once
again its not meant to stop shots from tank guns- its meant to deal with the
other stuff and if it works the way the Russians say it does it should do that
admirably, and increase the survival chance on the battlefield that much more,
which is what its all about.

Evert-Jan C. Duindam (dra...@euronet.nl), Weapons Freak.

W. Blair Haworth Jr.

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Jan 4, 1995, 8:01:36 PM1/4/95

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From bhaw...@acpub.duke.edu (W. Blair Haworth Jr.)

In article <D183q...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> dter...@sprint.uccs.edu
(David A. Terhune) writes:
>Graydon (saun...@qlink.queensu.ca) wrote:
>: Gary Coffman (ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us) wrote:
>
>: : If anything, as tanks become more complex, a larger crew would be
>: : welcome to keep them able to fight. Three or four men is about the
>: : minimum to do the job.
[...]
>: My guess for the solution to this is doctrinal, rather than technical -
>: pair an APC and a tank; put three or four such pairs into a 'platoon'.
[...]
>: APC is used above in an extremely generic sense; ideally, the tank and
>: the APC, IFV, ATT, whatever, are using the same chassis, suspension,
>: engines, transmissions, and tracks. Simplifies maintenance. :]

> This is probably the best idea so far as to reducing crew size
>without reducing efficiency. However, there is one problem with it. How
>are you going to cram 8-10 people into an APC built on the same hull as a
>tank that only holds 2? Or are you planning on having about 6 APCs that
>only hold 4?

That's the more likely way things are going. The IFV has pretty steadily
gone from a squad carrier to a fire team carrier (the Bradley is the
classic example here) as it's gained protection and secondary missions.
CV90 and Warrior are exceptions, but exceptions that prove the rule.

> You can't use the same hull for the APC/IFV as you do for the
>2-man tank; you just can't fit enough grunts into it. You can get
>maintenance benefits without using identical vehicles, however. You can
>keep the tracks & suspension (the APC *will* be lighter than the tank),
>and probaly even the same engine/transmission. The chassis/hull will
>*have* to be different to enable you to cram grunts into it, though.

Not as different as all that. All this presupposes three things: a
front-engine layout, heavier tank main armament (thus ammo) and a smaller
dismounting element - the more so if you consider the amount of gear a
4-6 man team can dispense with if it's going to be directly supported by
a tank and an IFV. Eventually, the ammo loadout and the dismount team
converge in size, if not mass, and the forward two-thirds or so of the
hull is already pretty much common. At any rate, if you're using common
electronics, powerpack, and running gear, you've covered maybe
three-quarters of the cost of the system; a big economy of scale.

The most thorough treatment of all this can be found in the late Richard
Simpkin's series of books - _Tank Warfare_,_Mechanized Infantry_, and
_Antitank_ - from the early 'eighties. Protection aside, the BMP-3 -
the closest thing now going to Crist's "combined arms tank" could almost
have been designed from these books.

--Blair

Evert-Jan_Duindam

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Jan 4, 1995, 8:01:38 PM1/4/95

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From dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam)

In article <D1uAo...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> ic...@rb.unisys.com (stan crist) writes:

>From ic...@rb.unisys.com (stan crist)

>JOHN MCFARLIN (mcfa...@nevada.edu) wrote:

>(Re: Proceedings article/"The Tank is Dead!"/precision guided munitions)

>: One must look at the source. The services always seem willing to take
>: shots at one another. It's easy for the Navy to knock tanks...

>I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent on tanks, and I consider
>myself pro-armor, all the way...however, I also believe that the
>Main Battle Tank *has been* obsoleted, primarily by PGMs.

>But, just as the old Cavalry generals kept the horse cavalry in
>existence for several decades after it was rendered obsolete by
>the machine gun, today's Armor officers refuse to see that PGMs
>have delivered the same fate to the MBT.

>Stan Crist
>former tank commander
>3-185th Armor

I'm afraid that even if you are a former tank commander I cannot agree with
your point of view. I think the advances in technology will consolidate the
Tank's place on the modern battlefield rather than make it obsolete. I think
that the much vaunted attack helicopter is in for a tougher time than one
might expect. Modern Technology like active defense systems, gun launched
missiles and gun fire control computers capable of hitting helicopters as well
as hundreds of guys with portable SAMs will make the helicopter's position
over an actual modern battlefield almost untennable. The active defense
systems are getting to the point where anything lacking the velocity of
something actually fired by a tank gun (most obviously APFSDS and perhaps HEAT
and perahps HESH) does not have a high chance of getting through the tank's
defenses. The Gun launched missiles, fire control computers and dudes with
SAMs will threaten the Helos themselves. Compared to a fast-mover helicopters
always stay slow and comparitively vulnerable. Also, modern armies tend to be
used against obsolete armies (gulf) rather than against other modern armies
(the losses are more acceptable). Just my humble opinion (and that of a good
friend of mine).

Evert-jan C. Duindam (dra...@euronet.nl), Weapons Freak (with the help of
Adrian Baston).

Colin Campbell

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Jan 6, 1995, 12:37:21 PM1/6/95

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From col...@ix.netcom.com (Colin Campbell)

In <D1wqu...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> bhaw...@acpub.duke.edu (W.
Blair Haworth Jr.) writes:

>Simpkin's series of books - _Tank Warfare_,_Mechanized Infantry_, and
>_Antitank_ - from the early 'eighties. Protection aside, the BMP-3 -
>the closest thing now going to Crist's "combined arms tank" could
almost
>have been designed from these books.

And purpose-built tanks will kill these things easily. When the tanks
are prowling the PC's hide, and call for thier big brothers to save
them.

Colin Campbell

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Jan 6, 1995, 12:37:22 PM1/6/95

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From col...@ix.netcom.com (Colin Campbell)

In <D1wqu...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> dra...@euronet.nl
(Evert-Jan_Duindam) writes:

>might expect. Modern Technology like active defense systems, gun
launched
>missiles and gun fire control computers capable of hitting helicopters
as well

Last spring a antihelicopter round was type-classified (accepted for
service use) for the M1A1 series tank.

Charlie Stross

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Jan 6, 1995, 12:37:24 PM1/6/95

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From Charlie Stross <char...@sco.com>

In article <D1wqu...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>,
Evert-Jan_Duindam <dra...@euronet.nl> wrote:

>>From ic...@rb.unisys.com (stan crist)

>
>>I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent on tanks, and I consider
>>myself pro-armor, all the way...however, I also believe that the
>>Main Battle Tank *has been* obsoleted, primarily by PGMs.

>I'm afraid that even if you are a former tank commander I cannot agree with

>your point of view. I think the advances in technology will consolidate the
>Tank's place on the modern battlefield rather than make it obsolete.

On the contrary. Not only is the tank within a decade or so of
obsolescence; so are the helicopter gunship, the guided missile,
and just about anything else recognizable today as a weapon.

The future battlefield belongs to insects.

Pause for a moment; discard your preconceptions, and think about what
is driving the spiralling lethality of modern munitions. Accuracy is
greatly increased: why? Could it be something to do with distributed
intelligence, C^3I, precision guidance ... processing power? Perhaps.

Moore's law, coined by Gordon More of Intel, states that processing
power doubles every eighteen months (in the world of the
microprocessor). This is a function of size; if you decrease the
length of a circuit made out of some material of known resistivity,
its resistance decreases -- so its power dissipation goes down, it can
switch faster, and so on. Smaller means better in microelectronics,
and the generational cycle of modern electronics -- at about 18-36
months -- is less than a fifth the generational cycle of a new weapons
system.

The Rapier II SAM launcher (deployed by the British Army in the
1980's) used something like 90 Intel 286 cpus, if memory serves me
correctly. But that's pathetic compared to what's coming down the
creek. The Tornado interdictor aircraft has something like 28Kb of
hand-coded assembly language instructions to help run its on-board
systems. That's a 1970's design. The EFA is due (according to a report
I read a couple of years ago) to up that to 4Mb of ROMs. The machine
is dynamically unstable; only the correct and continuous operation of
a bunch of cooperating computers serves to keep it in the air at all.

Now let's extrapolate, and add a dose of Gilder's law. George Gilder,
an economist specializing in bandwidth and comms markets, is of the
opinion that the available comms bandwidth will double every twelve
months for the next couple of decades -- an even steeper exponential
upslope than that dictated by Moore's law.

What can we expect on a battlefields of an age when the average guy in
the street carries several thousand MIPs of computing power and a
comms set-up with several hundred MHz of bandwidth around in his
pocket?

Firstly, intelligence within an army in the field will be distributed,
not centralized. Take Robert Steele's model of a National Intelligence
Agency and apply it to military commands; rather than following a
rigid hierarchical information flow, expect inputs to come from
wherever information becomes available, and to get wherever it's
needed surprisingly fast. (Wasn't IP the outcome of a research project
into networks capable of surviving disruptions like a preemptive
nuclear strike? What's been going on in the military networking field
in the 25 years since ARPAnet?)

Secondly, expect the inter-unit bandwidth on a battlefield to be
virtually science-fictional by today's standards. We've already seen
a remote foretaste of this with the US army's test and demonstration
of a fully networked division, but this is nothing compared to what
will be available even to civilians or lightly-armed irregulars in
the early years of the next century. Consider the military implications
of satellite networks like Irridium or Teledesic. Now roll in the full
functionality of a GPS system with the military (encrypted) location
signals they put out. Add megaherz-range IP bandwidth to anywhere on
the planet, however remote. And remember: this technology is fundamentally
based on small cells and low power transmitters. It's hard to find the
enemy emitters, and you can only shoot down so many satellites
-- Teledesic is due to have >900 comsats on orbit before 2005, and
how many ASATs can you spare? Rather than a battlefield being largely
radio-quiet, expect the whole place to be a-twitter with very low
power frequency-agile communications, to the point where the background
noise makes it virtually impossible to single out an individual target
on the basis of radiation.

Thirdly: expect the smart weapons to turn slow, plentiful, and
autonomous. Someone earlier in this thread raised the spectre of a
cyber-tank, out of control in the countryside. Someone else mentioned
the rather cumbersome Dante II, stuck in a volcanic crater with a
broken leg. Neither of these is a likely model for a battlefield
robot! A much more promising platform would be Genghis, a small 'bot
from MIT.

Genghis weighs about ten kilograms and runs on six legs, like a
cockroach. A product of research into robots that mimic insects, it
coordinates its legs using a neural net rather than brute-force number
crunching; it has many of the characteristics of an insect. Add a
stealth shell, video cameras with the ability to squirt a packet back
to headquarters, and a claymore mine. Now drop ten thousand of these
things in the path of an advancing armoured column. If a robot sees
something that looks like a target it sends a picture back to base for
verification; a human being or a smarter computer agrees that there's
something to be gained by taking it out -- and the $1000 robot
sacrifices itself in an attempt to take out a $5,000,000 tank. Cheap
at the cost, isn't it? Remember: it's slow, small, stealthy, and
smart. And when it can't figure something out for itself, it can ask
head office for advice.

But that's a fairly conservative robot weapon. It's big, it relies on
current-day technology (plus, say fifteen years for an implementation),
and it's ... inefficient.

A rifle bullet expends on the order of 500 joules of energy on its target.
It masses maybe ten to fifty grams. That's ... inefficient.

Back in the 1960's, SF writer Eric Frank Russell pointed out that just
a single hornet or wasp can disable an MBT and kill its crew. A wasp
is a precision-guided munition; it carries an offensive single-shot
warhead, is murderously difficult to guard against, and is highly
energy efficient. Imagine a wasp loaded with tetrodotoxin -- enough to
kill anyone it stings in a matter of seconds, rather than merely hurt
them. Imagine a wasp with stealth camouflage. Imagine a wasp with an
encrypted IP link back to the hive. Now imagine a hundred million of
these things scattered in the face of an enemy mechanised advance. It
would be like facing a hundred million homing missiles, targetted on
the crews of the invading tanks and APCs. You want to occupy territory
that's been seeded with _that_?

Improbable? I don't think so. However science-fictional nanotechnology
may seem to be today, microtechnology is another matter. We already
have electrostatic motors a twentieth of a millimetre in diameter. We
already have microcircuits with a circuit size on the order of a third
of a micrometre. Small is not only efficient; it's cheap to produce.
Add bandwidth, and you can control a huge number of small, semi-
autonomous low-energy drones. Cockroach-sized robots used as
battlefield IP routers with a signal radius of twenty metres -- better
not step on it, it can detonate a five gram charge under your foot.
Satellites the size of trashcans -- thousands of them -- relaying a
constant buzz of comms overhead; so much bandwidth, switched so fast
that you can't tell a phone call in Kathmandu from an order to torch
off a smart landmine in Zaire.

It's going to be an age of area denial weapons that button
invading forces up in their vehicles while leaving local civilian
populations unhindered. Slow, stealthy, smart weapons that are much
harder than a sessile, dumb landmine to find and disable. Even today,
over a decade later, landmines cause casualties in Kampuchea and
Afghanistan. What if the landmines could crawl around and knew how
to tell friend from foe? Don't rely on directed EMP weapons to save
you -- EMP out an area and the mines will just crawl right back into
it.

Of course, it's not just a one-sided defensive system. Offensive
swarms of smart weapons are equally possible. Such weapons would make
clearing a built-up area much easier than it is today; simply release
a few swarms of anti-personnel drones, then let it be known that
you're going to switch them on tomorrow, and anyone who's still there
will be considered fair game. The effect would be similar to using
gas against a city -- only the threat of use would be much more
visible and meaningful, once people noticed that these things were
already lurking on the rafters. Want to deal with an agressive low-
tech opponent with too many gunships and tanks? Ignore them: just
send in a few dozen cruise missiles carrying soft, slow, smart
payloads. Helicopter gunships don't work too well once a few
hundred wasps with TNT-lined abdomens take up residence in their
combustion chambers. Jet fighters don't fly too well when the
ground crew are too terrified to come out of their barracks and
arm them, for fear of being bitten by something unseen lying in
the grass.

Expect the battlefield of the future to be very silent -- to human
ears -- and infinitely more lethal than anything we've ever seen
before.

And expect all this to come to pass within thirty years.

-- Charlie "polemics'r'us" Stross
--
char...@sco.com, cha...@antipope.demon.co.uk, cha...@tardis.ed.ac.uk
http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~charlie/
"The first thing the communists do when they take over a country is to
outlaw cockfighting" -- OK state senator John Monks

Isaac Ji Kuo

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Jan 6, 1995, 12:37:26 PM1/6/95

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From isaa...@OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Isaac Ji Kuo)

Evert-Jan_Duindam <dra...@euronet.nl> wrote:
>r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore) writes:

>>The problem is that if you want defense from a particular direction, you must
>>irradiate in that direction. If you point your radar downward, you can't

[...]

>>rounds because they move too fast for your short range. It sounds like it
>>will be expensive and not very useful to me.

>Look a radar which detects out to 100 miles can be detected out to about 500

>miles if I understand it correctly. (The only technical info I've got to go on
>is something from Red Storm Rising by Clancy). So say you need to detect your
>incoming projectiles about 20m from the tank in order for the system to have
>time to react. That means you could detect the system out to all of 100m, less
>since it's down angled. It seems to me that if you havn't detected an enemy

Let's say you need more than 20m! Unless the incoming projectile is a
satchel charge being hauled by a fanatic soldier, it _will_ hit you if
it's intact and less than 20m away. A wire guided anti-tank missile
(a weapon slow enough that the best defense for the tanker is to see
it coming from far away enough to hide behind cover/throw up smoke)
is less than 1/10 second from impact when it's 20m away. Future warheads
using explosively formed projectiles will detonate and send its kinetic
kill projectile at the tank from maybe as far as 20m away.

And of course, no top munitions will be detected at all by downward angled
radar no matter how visible.

Even horizontally attacking weapons will be a challenge to detect. Many
anti-tank missiles already fly above the firer's line of sight (it can't
fly exactly along the line of sight or it would disturb aiming).

Now that I think about it, even that crazed soldier with the satchel
charge would make it past this active defense system, since it would
be set to ignore such targets to prevent friendly fire.

Colin Campbell

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Jan 6, 1995, 12:37:29 PM1/6/95

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From col...@ix.netcom.com (Colin Campbell)

In <D1wqu...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> dra...@euronet.nl
(Evert-Jan_Duindam) writes:

>is something from Red Storm Rising by Clancy). So say you need to
detect your
>incoming projectiles about 20m from the tank in order for the system to
have
>time to react. That means you could detect the system out to all of
100m, less

A _slow_ missile travels at 100m/sec. This would give your system
1/5th of a secont to detect, evaluate and react against the threat.

This tank crewman dosen't regard that as quite enough time for his
comfort.

Another concern is that missiles generally dive down onto the tank. A
downward looking radar would be inneffective against any "top attack" or
air launched missiles.

Besides, any active signal you put out on a battlefield will be
detected. This sort of system (IMO) would only be used after a missile
launch is detected, and then I'd use a high powered radar beceause they
allready know I'm there.

Matthew L. Ward

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Jan 11, 1995, 12:30:43 PM1/11/95

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From war...@picard.cig.mot.com (Matthew L. Ward)

> Under development is a system similar to reactive armor, which will
>blow a thick metal plate into the path of an incoming missile,
>detonation it about 10-20 feet away from the tank.

It would be a better idea to use arrays of "claymore" like mines, better
coverage, easy to replace, and modualar.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew Ward, Motorola Personal Digitial Cellular, APPLE ][ FOREVER !
Arlington Heights, IL. USA - My words are not Motorola's
_______________________________________________________________________________
For a good time call: The Capitol Hill Switchboard: 1-800-768-2221
and ask for the office of your Senator or Representative
(don't think of it a toll-free call, you already paid dearly for it)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Evert-Jan_Duindam

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Jan 12, 1995, 9:24:39 PM1/12/95

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From dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam)

In article <D279J...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> saun...@qlink.queensu.ca (Graydon) writes:
>From saun...@qlink.queensu.ca (Graydon)

>Evert-Jan_Duindam (dra...@euronet.nl) wrote:
>: > Last spring a antihelicopter round was type-classified (accepted for

>: >service use) for the M1A1 series tank.

>: It will, however never be able to fly as far as a gun launched missile, so
>: that's still neccesary.

>ohgodsno.

>Missiles are _long_ suckers. So either you need a really long breach, or
>a mechanism to gently stuff this thing up a _hot_ barrel (hey, you just
>tossed off eight rounds of APFSDS in a hundred seconds, that barrel's
>*hot*) and some sort of gas venting for the missile firing or a missile
>that copes with being bounced out the barrel with a light charge and all
>the crud in the barrel from the last missile's rocket motor backwash...

>GMLs are a nice idea, but a *complete* annoyance in practical terms. If
>you're going to put a big gun on the thing anyway, you have two options;
>one is to leave air defence to a specialized asset _except_ for shots in
>gun range. The other is to recognize that if it's outside gun range,
>you've got enough time for a vertically launched missile to turn, so you
>can do things like put the vertical launch tubes in the turret bustle or
>between the exhasts or some such.

>--
>Graydon Saunders |"Who shall look from Alfred's hood
>saun...@qucdn.queensu.ca | Or breathe his breath alive?"
> @qlink.queensu.ca | -- The Ballad of the White Horse, G.K Chesterton

It doesn't exist yet so that will just give the designers something extra to
think about, Just something for the men in white coats. Discussing that is
completely academic and I therefore don't intend to get into it. To me it
seems highly likely that its technologically possible, I never said easy. The
problems can be overcome, and if it is effective enough someone will do it
sooner or later.

Evert-Jan C. Duindam (dra...@euronet.nl)

Trip

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Jan 12, 1995, 9:24:41 PM1/12/95

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From tr...@cco.caltech.edu (Trip)

>Charlie Stross <char...@sco.com> writes:
>>
>>[original article deleted]

>>
>>On the contrary. Not only is the tank within a decade or so of
>>obsolescence; so are the helicopter gunship, the guided missile,
>>and just about anything else recognizable today as a weapon.
>>
>>The future battlefield belongs to insects.
>>

>>[etc, etc; you read it already]

A lot of other people write:
>[No, because electronics are vulnerable to EMP, because you can button
>up a tank, because they're too expensive, because they'd be made by
>Intel and thus completely useless, etc, etc.]

Without necessarily throwing my support behind Stross (and my apologies
if I've mangled the quoting and misattributed everything), I would like
to point out:

In 1935, the slide rule was obviously the only practical way for a
single person to perform complicated arithmetical operations. Flights to
the Moon a hundred years hence would still be worked out by men with
slide rules.

In 1955, some crackpots may have talked about 'pocket computers', but it
was obviously impossible to fit enough transistors into a reasonable
space, not to mention the power supply and the failure rate and the need
for trained operators.

In 1975, you could buy a calculator that performed all the basic
arithmetic functions including exponentiation, taking of roots and
logarithms, and trigonometric functions.

Just because there are reasons why something is done the way it is now,
even numerous good and sound reasons that you can't see any realistic
way around, doesn't mean the future isn't going to slap you upside the
head.

On the other hand, in 1935 people travelled on asphalt roads in cars
that burned gasoline in internal combustion engines. In 1995, people
are still travelling on asphalt roads in cars that burn gasoline in
very similar internal combustion engines. So you can't assume that
everything in sight is going to be utterly transformed by the time you
have grandkids.

I guess what this boils down to is: "Prediction is very difficult,
especially of the future." But you knew that.

Trip
----
NetCruiser Users Don't Feel Pain The Way We Do.

Richard E Parker

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Jan 12, 1995, 9:24:44 PM1/12/95

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From rpa...@bigwpi.WPI.EDU (Richard E Parker)

Once again, I am constrained to point out that all of these
ideas on future weapons (tank-killing robots, etc.) require that no
counter-measures are ever developed. A simple means to counter the
robot that asks permission to kill is to jam communications. Sure its
a pain in the backside, but it can be done. The US military and the
fomer Soviet military have made it proven technology.
Insects that sting and kill? Why bother? We already have
more than enough chemical and bio-weapons. They all have one problem:
MOPPS IV gear.
Unless your wasp can sting through multiple layers of kevlar
and rubber, he can't do much to a soldier in MOPPS IV gear. (Annoying
stuff, eh?) In fact, chemical and bio-weapons are the only thing that
you can guarantee that a soldier can defeat 100% of the time by
wearing his protective gear. And this is to say nothing of the
stupidity of leaving poisonous bugs like that wandering around loose.
You are threatening your own population if you do. Bugs have this
exasperating habit of going places where you don't want or need them.
(Witness the African Killer Bees that emigrated to the Americas and
ran amok.)
As you develop giga-bytes of killer computer power, the other
guy develops more giga-bytes. So you develop more giga-bytes, so he
develops more. It's a never-ending cycle. The only way to end it, is
to take human beings out of the loop and let computers invent weapons.
Computers don't have creativity. They don't improvise.
On cockroach robots: I'd wager that any tank devised around
the time where practical robots exist could have its own defenses for
such pesky little things. Mines that crawl around? The point of
mines is to lay them en-masse to deter the enemy's approach. They are
good at little else. Blowing up random guys and random vehicles is a
relatively minor annoyance. Unless you have many, many of these little
critters, they aren't likely to even do much against a committed enemy.
Given that they are going to be EXPENSIVE compared to more traditional
mines, you aren't going to get too many of them. Armies have this
problem. They like to spend money on things that will get the biggest
bang. (Robot mines don't do this.) They spend little money on things
that don't get much bang. The Copperhead artillery round promised to
revolutionize tube-artillery. The government decided that it already
had enough tanks to do the job. Further, when they beat up on the
enemy tanks, they could hold onto what they'd fought for.
Copperhead's were drastically more expensive than the other
rounds--which they also had tons of stock for. The end result was:
"why bother?" Good enough is good enough. We're still waiting for
the Tube-Arty Revolution.
One final point before I go:
Cheap is good. However, computers have NEVER proven to be
cheap. Computers that are cheap have this disconcerting habit of not
performing as advertised. Bio and chemical weapons have this bad
habit of being a duel-edged sword. They have this bad habit of coming
back to get you. And they also invite MASSIVE retaliation--by other
powers than the two involved.

Paladin

Colin Campbell

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Jan 12, 1995, 9:24:46 PM1/12/95

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From col...@ix.netcom.com (Colin Campbell)

In <D294M...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> cat...@inforamp.net writes:

>My educated rough guessis that this is a fragmentation round
>with some limited intelligence
>to micro-steer its self to the target after being fired at the
>target by the FCC of the Abrams.

Is is basicilly a HEAT round modified with an proximity fuze. The
loader sets a switch before loading to set the round either for contact
(ground targets) or proximity (aircraft).

>you mean pop-smoke, turn left real hard and hit the
>accelerator!

And duck behind trees or a hill. Anything that breaks line of sight
will prevent the missile from guiding to my tank.

Steve Wall

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Jan 12, 1995, 9:24:48 PM1/12/95

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From Steve Wall <smw...@pica.army.mil>

In article <D279K...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, Chris Sandvick
<Chris.S...@asu.edu> wrote:

> From Chris Sandvick <Chris.S...@asu.edu>
>
> dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam) wrote:
>
> > Nice try, but there may be afew angles you havn't yet considered. Mainly
> > that you don't need electricity in tanks so why not EMP your own land and
> > the signals will never get to your headquarters because they've been
jammed,
> > the fact that your trashcan sattelites are happily being wrecked by
> > anti-sattelite sattelites, and perhaps a touch of reality might come in
> > handy, too.....
> > Evert-Jan C. Duindam (dra...@euronet.nl)
> >
>
> You can get around the EMP using rod-logic computers, where sliding
> molecule sized rods replace the electronic circuits. Slow, you say?
> Not so, at this scale nearly everything is very fast. A rod-logic
> nanocomputer would be considerably faster than the fastest
> supercomputers and would be fairly immune to EMP.

Oh come now, EMP isn't that hard to overcome. In fact, the heavy armor
of a tracked vehicle does a pretty good job. Add to that double
shielded data cables and some fairly simple design standards for
current overloads and you've got an EMP proof system. EMP is much
overrated as a battlefield weapon. A high altitude EMP shot will
do some drastic things to the commercial/civilian infrastructure,
but don't expect any tanks to go belly up.

--
Steve Wall

Gary Coffman

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Jan 16, 1995, 8:56:20 PM1/16/95

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From ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary Coffman)

In article <D2Bo1...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> tr...@cco.caltech.edu (Trip) writes:
>>Charlie Stross <char...@sco.com> writes:
>>>[original article deleted]
>>>On the contrary. Not only is the tank within a decade or so of
>>>obsolescence; so are the helicopter gunship, the guided missile,
>>>and just about anything else recognizable today as a weapon.
>>>The future battlefield belongs to insects.
>

>A lot of other people write:
>>[No, because electronics are vulnerable to EMP, because you can button
>>up a tank, because they're too expensive, because they'd be made by
>>Intel and thus completely useless, etc, etc.]
>
>Without necessarily throwing my support behind Stross (and my apologies
>if I've mangled the quoting and misattributed everything), I would like
>to point out:
>
>In 1935, the slide rule was obviously the only practical way for a
>single person to perform complicated arithmetical operations. Flights to
>the Moon a hundred years hence would still be worked out by men with
>slide rules.

[progression of pocket computers elided, you already read it]

>Just because there are reasons why something is done the way it is now,
>even numerous good and sound reasons that you can't see any realistic
>way around, doesn't mean the future isn't going to slap you upside the
>head.

True, though there are theoretical limits even to the packing density
of microelectronics. We're already at the point where X-ray lithography
is needed to lay down the circuits. And if we make them much smaller,
we'll have to use voltages so low to prevent internal arcing that we
won't be able to distinguish the signal from the noise. Now IBM has
a memory element that consists of a single atom, but it has to be
kept so incredibly close to absolute zero to avoid corrupting the
bit it stores that it's unlikely to ever be field portable. The
cooling equipment is the size of a house, and takes many kilowatts
to run. That's OK for a computer in a fixed location, economy of
scale comes to the rescue as billions and billions of elements are
cooled by the same large power hungry machinery, but in a micromachine
or, God forbid, a nanomachine, the square cube relation makes the scaling
work against you.

In any event, if these roaches want to communicate by radio, they're
going to have to deal with voltage and power levels higher than ultimate
packing density electronics can handle. Remember, just because the
CPU is denser doesn't mean the desktop computer is any smaller today
than in 1981. The *peripherals*, mechanical and electronic things that
interface with the outside world, still have to be a certain size.
Keyboards, mice, screens, drives, etc can be smaller, but not so
small they can't be effectively manipulated. On the roach, the mechanical
effectors, and the radio and sensor platforms have to be a certain
size and power to be effective, explosives have to be big enough to
do damage, etc, no matter how small and dense the CPU. And today's CPU,
unlike those in 1981, needs a big mechanical fan to keep it cool.

>On the other hand, in 1935 people travelled on asphalt roads in cars
>that burned gasoline in internal combustion engines. In 1995, people
>are still travelling on asphalt roads in cars that burn gasoline in
>very similar internal combustion engines. So you can't assume that
>everything in sight is going to be utterly transformed by the time you
>have grandkids.

Absolutely, and the latter factor, propulsion and fuel supply, are
the real stumbling blocks for microtech autonomous weapons. Sure,
we can build micro-motors, but their torque is so incredibly tiny
as to be useless to move something the size of a roach, much less
to fly like a wasp. And the primary energy supply is a real stumper.
Batteries aren't nearly good enough, and show little promise of
improving enough. After all, batteries are a fairly mature technology.
Even combustion engines don't scale well in the downward direction.
The laws of thermodynamics and scale factors conspire to make it
much more efficient to do prime movers big than small. The square
cube law is on the side of more cubic inches.

Nature's tiny creatures spend most of their time eating because
their fuel requirements vis their size is enormously larger than
for bigger creatures. The same is true for micromachines. Their
need for energy will very quickly outstrip their on-board storage
capabilities. Forget microelectronic density, look at energy
storage density to find the limits to the size of tiny autonomous
machines.

cat...@inforamp.net

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Jan 16, 1995, 8:56:22 PM1/16/95

to

From cat...@inforamp.net

col...@ix.netcom.com (Colin Campbell) wrote:

>
>
>From col...@ix.netcom.com (Colin Campbell)
>
>In <D294M...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>
>cat...@inforamp.net writes:
>
>>My educated rough guessis that this is a fragmentation
>round
>>with some limited intelligence
>>to micro-steer its self to the target after being
>fired at the
>>target by the FCC of the Abrams.
>
> Is is basicilly a HEAT round modified with an
>proximity fuze. The loader sets a switch before
>loading to set the round either for contact (ground
>targets) or proximity (aircraft).

gee, someone's been thinking and taking lessons from the
Navy...

>>you mean pop-smoke, turn left real hard and hit the
>>accelerator!
>
> And duck behind trees or a hill. Anything that
>breaks line of sight will prevent the missile from
>guiding to my tank.

that's it.... exactly...

and don't forget supressive fire made the IDF better able to
cope with sagger after 1973...

______________________________________

How could I tell that this Ghost Was a Devil
Wrapped in the guise of my friend...

______________________________________

Evert-Jan_Duindam

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Jan 16, 1995, 8:56:23 PM1/16/95

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From dra...@euronet.nl (Evert-Jan_Duindam)

>--
>Steve Wall

Yes but will the infantryman with a rifle be able to wreck this thing that
keeps getting more expensive by the article? Who said anything about tanks
going belly up by the way? Alot of military communications are just done by
fax etc. they should be rather bothered by EMP don't you think? In answer to
the first posting, the bugs will be very impractical for a long time yet, and
probably afterwards, too...

Evert-Jan C. Duindam (dra...@euronet.nl)

Roger Moore

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Jan 19, 1995, 8:48:19 PM1/19/95

to

From r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore)

ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary Coffman) writes:

>True, though there are theoretical limits even to the packing density
>of microelectronics. We're already at the point where X-ray lithography
>is needed to lay down the circuits. And if we make them much smaller,
>we'll have to use voltages so low to prevent internal arcing that we
>won't be able to distinguish the signal from the noise. Now IBM has
>a memory element that consists of a single atom, but it has to be
>kept so incredibly close to absolute zero to avoid corrupting the
>bit it stores that it's unlikely to ever be field portable. The
>cooling equipment is the size of a house, and takes many kilowatts
>to run. That's OK for a computer in a fixed location, economy of
>scale comes to the rescue as billions and billions of elements are
>cooled by the same large power hungry machinery, but in a micromachine
>or, God forbid, a nanomachine, the square cube relation makes the scaling
>work against you.

Note, though, that alternative methods of computing (like the moving rod
computers that the original poster mentioned) may not be subject to exactly
the same problems. There is reasonable hope that our computers will be able
to go much faster in the future, even if it does mean adopting completely
different methods.

>Absolutely, and the latter factor, propulsion and fuel supply, are
>the real stumbling blocks for microtech autonomous weapons. Sure,
>we can build micro-motors, but their torque is so incredibly tiny
>as to be useless to move something the size of a roach, much less
>to fly like a wasp. And the primary energy supply is a real stumper.
>Batteries aren't nearly good enough, and show little promise of
>improving enough. After all, batteries are a fairly mature technology.
>Even combustion engines don't scale well in the downward direction.
>The laws of thermodynamics and scale factors conspire to make it
>much more efficient to do prime movers big than small. The square
>cube law is on the side of more cubic inches.

>Nature's tiny creatures spend most of their time eating because
>their fuel requirements vis their size is enormously larger than
>for bigger creatures. The same is true for micromachines. Their
>need for energy will very quickly outstrip their on-board storage
>capabilities. Forget microelectronic density, look at energy
>storage density to find the limits to the size of tiny autonomous
>machines.

There are other neat ways of powering devices than chemical means. It is, for
example, possible to make something akin to a "radioacitve battery." Imagine
a small lump of, say, beta-emmiting radioactive material. Surround it with
a flourescent material which converts its betas into visible light, and then
surround that with photoelectics. You then have a very compact device which
can put out reasonable power for much longer than a conventional battery. By
choosing an appropriate beta-emitter, you can get either high power, short
(comparatively) power sources or lower power, longer lived ones. I'm not
saying that these will definitely solve the fundamental problems of small
robots, but they sure would be a big help.

Chris Sandvick

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Jan 19, 1995, 8:48:21 PM1/19/95

to

From Chris.S...@asu.edu (Chris Sandvick)

In article <D2J1D...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary

Coffman) wrote:
> True, though there are theoretical limits even to the packing density
> of microelectronics. We're already at the point where X-ray lithography
> is needed to lay down the circuits. And if we make them much smaller,
> we'll have to use voltages so low to prevent internal arcing that we
> won't be able to distinguish the signal from the noise. Now IBM has
> a memory element that consists of a single atom, but it has to be
> kept so incredibly close to absolute zero to avoid corrupting the
> bit it stores that it's unlikely to ever be field portable. The
> cooling equipment is the size of a house, and takes many kilowatts
> to run. That's OK for a computer in a fixed location, economy of
> scale comes to the rescue as billions and billions of elements are
> cooled by the same large power hungry machinery, but in a micromachine
> or, God forbid, a nanomachine, the square cube relation makes the scaling
> work against you.

In the case of nanotechnology this seems to be either licked or a
non-problem.
Drexler and others in the field indicate that very small, VERY fast,
computers
are possible with such small robots. Drexler's sliding rod logic design
had
a performance something like 10e6mips/watt performance in a cm cubed. He
indicates small bots that could fit in the bloodstream of a human would
could have enough computational ability to distinguish cells and decide
courses of actions ("smart" cells).

> Nature's tiny creatures spend most of their time eating because
> their fuel requirements vis their size is enormously larger than
> for bigger creatures. The same is true for micromachines. Their
> need for energy will very quickly outstrip their on-board storage
> capabilities. Forget microelectronic density, look at energy
> storage density to find the limits to the size of tiny autonomous
> machines.

Think of tiny killer robots as more an ammunition; short lived and
disposable.
As an example of what such a system could do against say a M1A1. Start
with
a cockroach sized bot that is designed to work to be work from something
fairly high up in the air, say in a tree or on the side of a building.
Because
its cheap you seed them in the area by the thousands. They look for heat
sources
or feel vibration. They leap or drop down at the approach of something
heavy
or hot, like a tank or truck (or maybe someguy carying a torch but you
don't
care as they are cheap). Ones that find a surface to cling to clamber
around looking for someway to get inside. They hit a charcoal filter of
the
NBC system, their little computer brain tells them this is the likely way
into the crew compartement. It eats its way through the filter system into
the crew compartment. Using the lining of the turret or the NBC system, it
becomes a little factory, using disassemblers and assemblers to add to its
size, making itself into something nasty that can kill the crew. I can
think
of a dozen counters to such a weapon off the top of my head but I can think
of
different approaches of attack as well. The point is nanotech will add a
whole new dimension to an arms race. Why bother with a killer cockroach?
Its specific in its targeting (don't want to hit friendlies? Place
chemical
markers on your tanks that the bot will recognize). Its cheap and can
be deployed on a truly massive scale. And it will have a short life time
so
that it won't be annoying motorists after the war.

--
Chris Sandvick, Chris.S...@asu.edu
Information Technology, Arizona State University
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Chris Sandvick

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Jan 22, 1995, 9:26:46 PM1/22/95

to

From Chris.S...@asu.edu (Chris Sandvick)

In article <D2oL0...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, Chris.S...@asu.edu
(Chris Sandvick) wrote:

> Drexler's sliding rod logic design
> had
> a performance something like 10e6mips/watt performance in a cm cubed.

I looking over my notes from a presentation from Eric Drexler I realized
I understated the performance of the computer, it should be 10e10mips/watt.

*My apologies to the moderator if this appears twice, my news client
crashed
while posting*

--
Chris Sandvick, Chris.S...@asu.edu
Information Technology, Arizona State University

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Gary Coffman

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Jan 22, 1995, 9:26:48 PM1/22/95

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From ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary Coffman)

In article <D2oL0...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> r...@alumni.caltech.edu (Roger Moore) writes:
>
>Note, though, that alternative methods of computing (like the moving rod
>computers that the original poster mentioned) may not be subject to exactly
>the same problems. There is reasonable hope that our computers will be able
>to go much faster in the future, even if it does mean adopting completely
>different methods.

Ah, *mechanical* computers faster than electronic computers? The
relativistic increase in mass from mechanical rods approaching the
speed of light would seem to nip this in the bud. The amount of
energy required to shove them at even a fraction of lightspeed
would dwarf the power consumed by an electronic computer to send
electrical impulses at lightspeed through it's wires.

(Note: I'll grant that *analog* mechanical computers may indeed be
faster than electronic digital computers for certain special cases,
where data input is the majority of the time consumed, and as long as
very limited precision is required. I recall vividly the races between
slide rule wielders and pocket calculator wielders in the early days
of calculators. The slide rule wielders sometimes won when the problem
only had a couple of significant digits. An accountant racing a
complex electronic spreadsheet through a typical taxabble depreciation
schedule with an abacus though... no contest.)

>>Nature's tiny creatures spend most of their time eating because
>>their fuel requirements vis their size is enormously larger than
>>for bigger creatures. The same is true for micromachines. Their
>>need for energy will very quickly outstrip their on-board storage
>>capabilities. Forget microelectronic density, look at energy
>>storage density to find the limits to the size of tiny autonomous
>>machines.
>
>There are other neat ways of powering devices than chemical means. It is, for
>example, possible to make something akin to a "radioacitve battery." Imagine
>a small lump of, say, beta-emmiting radioactive material. Surround it with
>a flourescent material which converts its betas into visible light, and then
>surround that with photoelectics. You then have a very compact device which
>can put out reasonable power for much longer than a conventional battery. By
>choosing an appropriate beta-emitter, you can get either high power, short
>(comparatively) power sources or lower power, longer lived ones. I'm not
>saying that these will definitely solve the fundamental problems of small
>robots, but they sure would be a big help.

I don't need to imagine nuclear batteries, they exist. Their power to
weight ratio is appalling. You need 6e18 disintegrations per second
to deliver one ampere assuming 100% conversion efficiency with your
scheme. However, conversion efficiency is more on the order of 1% in
the above scheme. Americium 243 decays by beta emission, so it's a
candidate. However, it has a halflife of 8.8e3 years. You need one
milligram of Am243 to disintegrate per second to deliver one ampere.
That means you need about 17.6 kilograms of it to get a yield of
one ampere of current when it's fresh, and that's assuming you can
capture 100% of the betas with your phosphors. Now that doesn't even
include the mass of the phosphors or photocells, or of any shielding.
Note: one ampere at 0.6 volt (silicon photocell) is only 0.6 watt,
or a power to weight of 48,117 lb/watt.

Thermoelectric nuclear batteries are much better, at about 1 kg per
watt (neglecting shielding) for Pu batteries, but that's still 40 times
worse than a plain old lead-acid automobile battery. Their only
advantage is that they don't run down very quickly, thus their use
on long duration space probes to the outer solar system.

Now suppose we neglect shielding, perhaps the rod computer won't
mind, though certainly an electronic one would. That gives us
a power to weight ratio for the Pu alone of 0.0006 horsepower per
pound, or expressed more familiarly, 1640.54 pounds per horsepower.
Now conventional combustion engines run from about .5 lb/hp to
about 3 lb/hp for a typical diesel. So our nuclear nanomachine
is going to be grossly underpowered. It might be able to move
itself, slowly, on a perfectly level nearly frictionless surface,
but the slightest hill will stall it. And to it, a blade of grass
would be an unscalable cliff.

Graydon

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Jan 22, 1995, 9:26:50 PM1/22/95

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From saun...@qlink.queensu.ca (Graydon)

Chris Sandvick (Chris.S...@asu.edu) wrote:
: The point is nanotech will add a

: whole new dimension to an arms race. Why bother with a killer cockroach?
: Its specific in its targeting (don't want to hit friendlies? Place
: chemical
: markers on your tanks that the bot will recognize). Its cheap and can
: be deployed on a truly massive scale. And it will have a short life time
: so
: that it won't be annoying motorists after the war.

Loki on a jumping jack.

You're not talking about a machine, you're talking about life. These
things can *learn*, and are self modifying. Can you say 'Lamarkian
evolution goes faster than the Darwinian kind by orders of magnitude'?
If you drop thousands and thousands of these things into combat
conditions with programing suitably loose to be effective, the damn
things will mutate.

Mines at least just sit there and wait to blow you up. Variable
geomertry cockroaches are too hideous to contemplate.

Steve Bult

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Jan 23, 1995, 6:58:10 PM1/23/95

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From "Steve Bult" <bult...@maroon.tc.umn.edu>

On Tue, 17 Jan 1995 01:56:20 GMT,
Gary Coffman <ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us> wrote:
>
>From ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary Coffman)
>

>In article <D2Bo1...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> tr...@cco.caltech.edu (Trip) writes:
>>>Charlie Stross <char...@sco.com> writes:
>>>>[original article deleted]
>>>>On the contrary. Not only is the tank within a decade or so of
>>>>obsolescence; so are the helicopter gunship, the guided missile,
>>>>and just about anything else recognizable today as a weapon.
>>>>The future battlefield belongs to insects.
>>
>>A lot of other people write:
>>>[No, because electronics are vulnerable to EMP, because you can button
>>>up a tank, because they're too expensive, because they'd be made by
>>>Intel and thus completely useless, etc, etc.]

>>apologies if I've mangled the quoting and misattributed everything),

(me too)
>>I would like to point out: >(points out wonders of slide rules)

>
>[progression of pocket computers elided, you already read it]
>
>>Just because there are reasons why something is done the way it is now,
>>even numerous good and sound reasons that you can't see any realistic
>>way around, doesn't mean the future isn't going to slap you upside the
>>head.
>

>True, though there are theoretical limits even to the packing density
>of microelectronics.

At one time we were at the theoretical limits for the packing density
of vacuum tubes. Look what happened.

My point here is not to discuss the merits of insects as a weapon, area
denial or otherwise, but rather to assert that there will come a time when
we _can_ manipulate objects that are this size and this powerful. That
functional objects this size can be designed and built cannot be the
issue because we can see these objects currently functioning as organisms.

"Someone else" has already figured out how to do this. ("Someone else"
would be the deity of your choice if you were religious, if not, well that
probably belongs in some other usenet group) We are figuring out how "they"
did it and are in the process of learning how to do it too.
...A bunch of stuff deleted...

>Now IBM has a memory element that consists of a single atom, but
>it has to be
>kept so incredibly close to absolute zero to avoid corrupting the
>bit it stores that it's unlikely to ever be field portable. The
>cooling equipment is the size of a house, and takes many kilowatts

>to run. That's OK for a computer in a fixed location...

Sounds kind of like ENIAC to me. About the time ENIAC was built,
Thomas Watson SR., the founder of IBM, predicted the world market
for computers was five. He couldn't see past his theoretical packing
limit either. Someone else had to do that, but once they did, Mr
Watson (and everyone else) recovered quite nicely.
(snip)

>
>In any event, if these roaches want to communicate by radio, they're
>going to have to deal with voltage and power levels higher than ultimate
>packing density electronics can handle.

How about if we use a modified thread, like with spinnerets? Maybe even
make it optical or "nerve-like".

>Remember, just because the
>CPU is denser doesn't mean the desktop computer is any smaller today
>than in 1981. The *peripherals*, mechanical and electronic things that
>interface with the outside world, still have to be a certain size.

As large as they currently are on a roach for example. Optical programming
via the eyes (seen Timex's Data Lynx (sp?) - a watch that reads optical
bars off your PC screen to download your schedule which the watch then
reminds you of)

>And today's CPU,unlike those in 1981, needs a big mechanical fan to
>keep it cool.

Not all do, only the latest ones because our current highest density IC's
generate more heat than we can dissipate _today_ without relying on a heat
sink with moving parts. The CPU one currently finds in a roach has no fan
as well as the CPU one finds in a scientific calculator. Twenty years ago
the human designed CPU equivalent of that calculator required a fan, if not
a controlled environment including air temperature and moisture
conditioning.

(the story of cars deleted)

>
>Absolutely, and the latter factor, propulsion and fuel supply, are
>the real stumbling blocks for microtech autonomous weapons. Sure,
>we can build micro-motors, but their torque is so incredibly tiny
>as to be useless to move something the size of a roach, much less
>to fly like a wasp. And the primary energy supply is a real stumper.
>Batteries aren't nearly good enough, and show little promise of
>improving enough. After all, batteries are a fairly mature technology.
>Even combustion engines don't scale well in the downward direction.
>The laws of thermodynamics and scale factors conspire to make it
>much more efficient to do prime movers big than small. The square
>cube law is on the side of more cubic inches.
>

>Nature's tiny creatures spend most of their time eating because
>their fuel requirements vis their size is enormously larger than
>for bigger creatures. The same is true for micromachines. Their
>need for energy will very quickly outstrip their on-board storage
>capabilities. Forget microelectronic density, look at energy
>storage density to find the limits to the size of tiny autonomous
>machines.

Many larger creatures also spend the majority of their time eating to
support their large mass. The issue is can the organism find and use
high energy food sources. A plastic eating organism could probably exist
for a long time as long as it could break down polycarbom molecules.

To sum up, we could (and most likely will) continuing the defense/offense
debate. I can think of many countermeasures to the organisms I've
described. We will be able to build organisms/devices at this scale
sometime soon. If you doubt this, may I respectfully suggest that you go
lurk in sci.nanotech for a while.

Semper Fi
I will insert a disclaimer here as soon as Steve Bult
my company gets hooked up to the 'net

Trip

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Jan 23, 1995, 6:58:11 PM1/23/95

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From tr...@cco.caltech.edu (Trip)

ga...@ke4zv.atl.ga.us (Gary Coffman) writes:
>In article <D2Bo1...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com> tr...@cco.caltech.edu (Trip) writes:
>>>Charlie Stross <char...@sco.com> writes:
>>>>The future battlefield belongs to insects.
>>

>>Without necessarily throwing my support behind Stross (and my apologies
>>if I've mangled the quoting and misattributed everything), I would like
>>to point out:
>>

>>In 1935, the slide rule was obviously the only practical way for a
>>single person to perform complicated arithmetical operations.
>

>[progression of pocket computers elided, you already read it]
>
>>Just because there are reasons why something is done the way it is now,
>>even numerous good and sound reasons that you can't see any realistic
>>way around, doesn't mean the future isn't going to slap you upside the
>>head.
>
>True, though there are theoretical limits even to the packing density

>of microelectronics. [... elided for the usual reasons]
>
>>On the other hand, [cars haven't changed much since 1935]. So you

>>can't assume that everything in sight is going to be utterly
>>transformed by the time you have grandkids.
>

>Absolutely, and the latter factor, propulsion and fuel supply, are

>the real stumbling blocks for microtech autonomous weapons. [....]

>The laws of thermodynamics and scale factors conspire to make it
>much more efficient to do prime movers big than small. The square
>cube law is on the side of more cubic inches.

I'm sorry; it looks like I wasn't clear enough. I was trying to comment
not on the development or lack thereof in specific fields, but on
technological progress as a whole. Your arguments thus map to:

"We'll never see a pocket computer because [insert learned exposition
on the physical and engineering shortcomings of vacuum tubes]."

And of course you're perfectly correct unless someone invents the
transistor and jumps to a completely new curve of computron density vs
time, which may or may not ever happen.

My point is that innovation is innately unpredictable: you can't be
sure that it will happen to give you some particular capability within
some particular time, nor can you be sure that no one will ever find a
clever way to get around some particular stumbling block. This may seem
obvious, but there have been enough people in this thread saying "there
is no way we can fail to have technologies A, B, and C in the next
twenty years" or "technologies B, C, and D are already pushing the
physical limits so we will never be able to do those jobs any better
than we do now" that I feel it needed to be said.

I hope I've explained a bit better this time.

PS: My apologies for the butchery of the quoted text: Our Moderator
takes the 50% New Text rule pretty seriously, it seems.

Trip
--
"Imminent Death of Usenet predicted. GIFS at 11." -- Carl Rigney

Joe Student (from a remote site)

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Jan 25, 1995, 8:40:08 PM1/25/95

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From AD...@asuvm.inre.asu.edu (Joe Student (from a remote site))

In article <D2u6s...@ranger.daytonoh.ncr.com>, saun...@qlink.queensu.ca
(Graydon) wrote:

> Chris Sandvick (Chris.S...@asu.edu) wrote:
> : The point is nanotech will add a
> : whole new dimension to an arms race. Why bother with a killer cockroach?
> : Its specific in its targeting (don't want to hit friendlies? Place
> : chemical
> : markers on your tanks that the bot will recognize). Its cheap and can
> : be deployed on a truly massive scale. And it will have a short life time
> : so
> : that it won't be annoying motorists after the war.
>
> Loki on a jumping jack.
>
> You're not talking about a machine, you're talking about life. These
> things can *learn*, and are self modifying.
> Can you say 'Lamarkian
> evolution goes faster than the Darwinian kind by orders of magnitude'?
> If you drop thousands and thousands of these things into combat
> conditions with programing suitably loose to be effective, the damn
> things will mutate.
> Mines at least just sit there and wait to blow you up. Variable
> geomertry cockroaches are too hideous to contemplate.

Indeed, if nanotech is never used for weapons I'll be very happy. In fact,
I debated whether or not I should even bring up the military potential of
the technology. But there are a number of things that make this more
likely
to be used than say bio-weapons. The sort of bots I mentioned are robots,
not a life form. They wouldn't evolve as the programing would be
constrained to jump, scamper, sniff until it found the right materials to
assemble itself into an actually combat unit. It would be
deprived of the instructions to build a copy of itself and would be very
constrained in what it can use as fuel and building materials. Combat
effectiveness would come from the sheer numbers deployed. After general
assembers become technologically feasable somebody WILL try this. There is
a debate going on in sci.nanotech right now involving to what degree would
a designer want to use evolution (of the sort used by artificial life
researchers). Clearly, a machine that could use dirt as a fuel and
resource
to make copies of itself is a danger to life on earth. If it has a "death
timer", what happens if that is damaged? Does the bot continue to make
copies of itself until it runs out of dirt? The answer has been that you
would have to DESIGN the bot in this manner and it doesn't make any sense
to do so. The example Drexler uses is a car that can convert its own fuel
and make copies of itself. For what you need, a car, it doesn't make any
sense.

What worries me is that military requirements tend to push in the opposite
direction: greater autonomy, flexibility, redundancy, etc. than would be
in the case of commercial applications. Somebody just may deploy a killer
bot that has a tremendous amount of "brain power", the ability learn and
adapt (not only mentally but physically transform), eat for fuel, and
reproduce.

Fortunately, molecular manufacturing is years away from fruition. There is
time to discuss what should and should not be done with it.
--
Chris Sandvick

Information Technology, Arizona State University

Chris.S...@asu.edu
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