ZTQ-15 and PRC Light Tanks

ZeEa5KPul said:

No, not necessarily. A carousel autoloader can still be in an armoured compartment with a blowout panel at the bottom of the tank.

Click to expand...

The point of the bustle is to isolate that ammunition. Even if the bustle is exposed the chances of a round penetration of both the bustle and the blast door are lower. Not impossible but significantly lower. The chases of a penetration from the front or sides then penetrating the blast doors are astronomical.
So at least part of your crew survives.

The Carousel tries to rely on the Turret and hull armor to protect the ammunition. With the crew being sandwiched between. Soviet and Russian tanks which other than Chinese are the most common to use a carousel often are trying to be as light as possible trading additional protection for weight so penetration by the sides top or back is more common. The results are that the event that will cook off the ammo cooks the crew along the way. The Turret pop is going to happen as whatever made it to the ammo above the belly plate has gone through the turret floor to do so and the pressure already has a point of escape into the turret.
The dramatic Jack in the box pop is just the Coup de grâce ending whatever life the crew had.
This is why T14 in theory is considered a major step up in survival vs the latest T90. Although it would likely still turret pop vs Javelin, NLAW, Spike or any other really modern ATGM. The Crew isn’t sitting between the Carousel and the ammunition. Between the penetration event and the inexorable conflagration. The only was I see the blow out carousel working is unmanned turret or if what set off the cook off started below the carousel IE a mine or very low hit.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

The point of the bustle is to isolate that ammunition. Even if the bustle is exposed the chances of a round penetration of both the bustle and the blast door are lower. Not impossible but significantly lower. The chases of a penetration from the front or sides then penetrating the blast doors are astronomical.
So at least part of your crew survives.

The Carousel tries to rely on the Turret and hull armor to protect the ammunition. With the crew being sandwiched between. Soviet and Russian tanks which other than Chinese are the most common to use a carousel often are trying to be as light as possible trading additional protection for weight so penetration by the sides top or back is more common. The results are that the event that will cook off the ammo cooks the crew along the way. The Turret pop is going to happen as whatever made it to the ammo above the belly plate has gone through the turret floor to do so and the pressure already has a point of escape into the turret.
The dramatic Jack in the box pop is just the Coup de grâce ending whatever life the crew had.
This is why T14 in theory is considered a major step up in survival vs the latest T90. Although it would likely still turret pop vs Javelin, NLAW, Spike or any other really modern ATGM. The Crew isn’t sitting between the Carousel and the ammunition. Between the penetration event and the inexorable conflagration. The only was I see the blow out carousel working is unmanned turret or if what set off the cook off started below the carousel IE a mine or very low hit.

Click to expand...

I'm not getting your point. If a top attack munition hits the carousel then the crew have already been spalled to death, the cook-off is just adding insult to injury - even then the cooked off ammunition would vent through the bottom panel. What saves the crew's life is in the event of a side hit to the carousel it would vent downward instead of blowing up the turret and the crew with it.

My beef with carousel autoloaders isn't their safety, it's the limitations they impose on ammunition size. The necessity of having two piece rounds is holding back Chinese darts from being all they could be.

On the subject of light tanks, I'm getting the idea that if advancements to tank guns like China's magnetized plasma gizmo and ETCs pan out, it will mean the end of the MBT and the light tank will be what ends it. If a 105mm gun can shoot darts at 2km/s, that's a wrap on 70+ ton tanks. All that extra armour isn't worth anything, if an MBT gets hit by a ZTQ-15 with a souped-up gun that's gg. At that point advantages of light tanks in mobility, and more importantly deployability, shine through. The weaker armour becomes meaningless when smaller calibre guns can punch through anything.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Because it’s not for the Stryker BCT.. When Stryker Was introduced the biggest weapons the Interim Armored Vehicle were the 105mm On the MSG, 120mm Mortar in the mortar carrier, Tow missiles on the ATGM, Mk19, M2 machine guns.
the MSG was supposed to offer the firepower to make up for the light weight of the SBCT until FCS BCT rolled out. It was even supposed to take positions in 82nd airborne units. Yet it never really Qualified to air drop.
When FCS was trash binned Stryker began receiving major design changes. These changes Increasingly Divided the OG Strykers from newer versions to the point where they are completely different things. Of the family three versions of Stryker didn’t get the major overhaul to the V hulls the MSG, Recon and NBC recon.
A new version of Stryker then Was developed combining a 30mm unmanned turret On a double V hulled ICV. An improved version later added a javelin launcher. This basically rendered the MSG in SBCT Obsolete.
So where does MPF go? IBCTs. Infantry Brigade Combat teams.

edit:: note to moderator, this post plus the two previous ones seem better suited to US defense thread.

Click to expand...

Temstar said:

I can understand (sort of) wanting a light tank in IBCT because it's sorely lacking in direct firepower when it runs into enemy armour, but if MPF actually replaces M1128 it's going to be a logistic shitshow just like those Russian BTGs with mixed tracked/wheeled combat vehicles. Why not just put a light tank turret on a Stryker base for SBCT?

Click to expand...

Yes. It is not like a parallel substitution for M1128, since establishment of troops is quite different.
I was mistaken here since I remembered wrongly that some Stryker brigades will be designated under Light Divisions. It turns out that they will actually still be placed under Heavy Divisions in the 2028 plan.
Eventually MPF will not even be included in an IBCT under current definition. It will appear in an individual battalion under a Joint Forcible Entry Division or a Light Division in the 2028 plan, and may be transfer to a light brigade under such divisions (LBCT/MBCT that evolved from current IBCT) on the field.
Neverthless my point here is generally unchanged: GDLS MPF is still too heavy for a whole division that is supposed to be "light". Logistic wise, it requirs some MBT-level field support when deployed: heavy trucks like M1070 to transport and M88A1 ARRV to recover. And indeed a "light" battle group will be mixed with tracked tanks and wheeled infantry vehicles in this way. Also it sounds pretty lacking that 3*14-tank companies have to support 3 infantry brigades under the same division.

ZeEa5KPul said:

I'm not getting your point. If a top attack munition hits the carousel then the crew have already been spalled to death, the cook-off is just adding insult to injury - even then the cooked off ammunition would vent through the bottom panel. What saves the crew's life is in the event of a side hit to the carousel it would vent downward instead of blowing up the turret and the crew with it.

My beef with carousel autoloaders isn't their safety, it's the limitations they impose on ammunition size. The necessity of having two piece rounds is holding back Chinese darts from being all they could be.

On the subject of light tanks, I'm getting the idea that if advancements to tank guns like China's magnetized plasma gizmo and ETCs pan out, it will mean the end of the MBT and the light tank will be what ends it. If a 105mm gun can shoot darts at 2km/s, that's a wrap on 70+ ton tanks. All that extra armour isn't worth anything, if an MBT gets hit by a ZTQ-15 with a souped-up gun that's gg. At that point advantages of light tanks in mobility, and more importantly deployability, shine through. The weaker armour becomes meaningless when smaller calibre guns can punch through anything.

Click to expand...

Still doesn’t solve the issue as again the ammo is around the turret. The main trouble point is the propellant. In T64 and T80 it’s around the turret in T72, T90 and Chinese tanks is below the turret floor. The System was designed to try and focus all the ammo in one spot and then armor around it. Which is basically how you make a pipe bomb. A blow out panel in this case isn’t enough if the ammo isn’t isolated.

Actually the US has designed about three carousel loaders for Tanks using unitary ammunition types. The MRAAS was a CTA 105mm tank gun that had a carousel, the Abrams TTB and XM1202 FCS manned vehicle both had virtually identical loader carousels. The difference is how the gun was loaded. The Soviets use an Elbow system where the case and shell are stowed in an arm with the arm folded that arm then extends and the rammer pushes the two parts onto the breach.
The system the US looked at stowed the rounds in a carousel with the tip down. Because the turret is unmanned no worries about crew space. The round is then drawn by a grabber raised and then rotated 90* and loaded into the breach. The TTB system stowed 44 rounds 120mm. So it can be done. Supposedly the T14 uses a system with vertical stowage but still two piece ammo so it’s more of a Russian army thing than a Carousel thing.

I respectfully insist on disagreement. I do so as everyone is working on that and yet none of it is ready. The power required alone boggles the mind. Farther again you assume that armor can’t be developed to counter or that it. Or that penetrating a Tanks armor is a game changer and Would just render MBT obsolete. It also I think falls into the trap of assuming that MBT only duel MBT. Which isn’t the case. The MBT duel is very rare. More often MBT are just blowing away fortified positions and light vehicles. Which is also the job of Light tanks. It’s just MBT work with armored centric units. Light tanks work with infantry centric units.
MBT isn’t about being a huge monster tank it’s about the application in doctrine. Tanks can kill other tanks the armor at the front helps reduce that chance.
Truth is Modern MBT can are would be easily killed from any number of means.
That doesn’t make them obsolete. What makes a military equipment obsolete is when another set of technology or concept of operation emerge that allow similar if not far superior outcomes with less risk or resources invested.
So your super gun being used to hunt MBT just makes it the new TD or even MBT. But what is the trade offs? If your talking a hyper velocity gun then it’s probably not able to offer fire support to infantry like a light tank or MBT can. So the MBT stays the LT has to shift to another vehicle. Because the HE shells do most of the missions of Tanks.

ZeEa5KPul said:

I'm not getting your point. If a top attack munition hits the carousel then the crew have already been spalled to death, the cook-off is just adding insult to injury - even then the cooked off ammunition would vent through the bottom panel. What saves the crew's life is in the event of a side hit to the carousel it would vent downward instead of blowing up the turret and the crew with it.

My beef with carousel autoloaders isn't their safety, it's the limitations they impose on ammunition size. The necessity of having two piece rounds is holding back Chinese darts from being all they could be.

On the subject of light tanks, I'm getting the idea that if advancements to tank guns like China's magnetized plasma gizmo and ETCs pan out, it will mean the end of the MBT and the light tank will be what ends it. If a 105mm gun can shoot darts at 2km/s, that's a wrap on 70+ ton tanks. All that extra armour isn't worth anything, if an MBT gets hit by a ZTQ-15 with a souped-up gun that's gg. At that point advantages of light tanks in mobility, and more importantly deployability, shine through. The weaker armour becomes meaningless when smaller calibre guns can punch through anything.

Click to expand...

It is hard to predict the future. For now, none of the ‘new concept guns’ like the electromagnetic or electrothermal chemical thing can outperform the good old guns with propellant powder.

dawn_strike said:

It is hard to predict the future. For now, none of the ‘new concept guns’ like the electromagnetic or electrothermal chemical thing can outperform the good old guns with propellant powder.

Click to expand...

I actually think it's pretty safe to assume that we actually get some 'new concept gun' sometime in the future (like within the next 20 years).

What's more, I would not be surprised if China actually pushed out a new light tank with something like an ETC gun in the next 5-10 years, and I would say there's already various hints at the fact that they are quite deep in the development research of it.

A side-by-side visual comparison of the two variants.

by78 said:

A side-by-side visual comparison of the two variants.

Click to expand...

As if this is not enough - they often appear with additional armoured "barrel" over commanders' sight(or a 3rd type of his sight?).
Frankly speaking, i still can't understand - are those different modular protection levels, or just two subtypes.

Gloire_bb said:

As if this is not enough - they often appear with additional armoured "barrel" over commanders' sight(or a 3rd type of his sight?).
Frankly speaking, i still can't understand - are those different modular protection levels, or just two subtypes.

Click to expand...

I think/hope the barrel cover is just factory packaging so the sight doesn’t get ding’d while in transit to units.

plawolf said:

I think/hope the barrel cover is just factory packaging so the sight doesn’t get ding’d while in transit to units.

Click to expand...

At least when i checked abt a year or two ago, it was more frequently seen with "ERA" protection level(but not necessarily).
So it may be actually a proper armored hood for commanders' FLIR in heavy configuration.

ZTQ-15 is a really interesting tank.