TL9 Heavy Tank

[Balor Patch]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Perhaps a gun-launcher combo. They haven't been particularly impressive at our TL, but UT makes guidance much better at TL9+, and missiles offer a few tricks that guns can't do.

But even without missiles, I think a SEFOP in top attack mode can probably get around frontal armor. Which brings us to active protection systems, which is a whole bunch of worms.

The point of a tank is to carry a heavy direct fire weapon on a mobile platform that can survive in a direct fire environment. That weapon isn't needed to launch missiles and firing them (and guided shells generally) doesn't need to be done in that environment. At least not in TL9.

The SEFOP idea is a good one and shouldn't require homing any more than current multi-mode HE rounds do.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Gun-launched missiles were a feature of Soviet tank armament. The US attempt went poorly, but clearly it's feasible ..

The Soviet attempt at gun launched missiles seems to have been another case of them thinking that since the West was doing it they had to do it too. They appear to have had more institutional inertia than Western agencies once a project got started and they kept going even after the West wrote something off.

See the Blackjack bomber v. the US' original supersonic B1A bomber. The Blackjack came in significantly larger and 15 years later but they stuck with it.

I'm not aware of the Soviets or even their clients and/or proxies who got involved in armored combat doing anything significant with gun/launchers so we can't take their theoretical deployment by the Soviets as a great endorsement.

As to taking up the back deck you need to remember that we're only talking about a 100mm missile. That's only a 4 inch tube holding a 25 lb missile. It probably wouldn't need even a full foot of the back deck.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The Soviet attempt at gun launched missiles seems to have been another case of them thinking that since the West was doing it they had to do it too. They appear to have had more institutional inertia than Western agencies once a project got started and they kept going even after the West wrote something off.

See the Blackjack bomber v. the US' original supersonic B1A bomber. The Blackjack came in significantly larger and 15 years later but they stuck with it.

I'm not aware of the Soviets or even their clients and/or proxies who got involved in armored combat doing anything significant with gun/launchers so we can't take their theoretical deployment by the Soviets as a great endorsement.

I don't know whether they're actually killing things with the gun-launched missiles, but they have been making them (including China making a copy for their own tanks), selling them, and shipping them to forward positions.

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

As to taking up the back deck you need to remember that we're only talking about a 100mm missile. That's only a 4 inch tube holding a 25 lb missile. It probably wouldn't need even a full foot of the back deck.

10 tubes, which need to be clear of any turret overhang...

If you're willing to stick the tubes right along outer edges of the chassis I could see it not crowding too much, I guess.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

The Soviet attempt at gun launched missiles seems to have been another case of them thinking that since the West was doing it they had to do it too. They appear to have had more institutional inertia than Western agencies once a project got started and they kept going even after the West wrote something off.

See the Blackjack bomber v. the US' original supersonic B1A bomber. The Blackjack came in significantly larger and 15 years later but they stuck with it.

I'm not aware of the Soviets or even their clients and/or proxies who got involved in armored combat doing anything significant with gun/launchers so we can't take their theoretical deployment by the Soviets as a great endorsement.

As to taking up the back deck you need to remember that we're only talking about a 100mm missile. That's only a 4 inch tube holding a 25 lb missile. It probably wouldn't need even a full foot of the back deck.

Not just the Soviets, though they apparently had a better system than the Shillielgh. The Israelis also make the Lahat, which the US is considering buying. Guided missiles have several advantages over regular tank shells, including indirect fire, much greater first hit probability, and the potential of top attack, or targeting low flying, slow aircraft like helicopters.

Also, a rocket/missile typically has a 10 to 20 ratio. the Javelin, for example, is 43" long and weighs 35lbs. So that's fairly sizeable volume for those missiles.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Guided missiles have several advantages over regular tank shells, including indirect fire, much greater first hit probability, and the potential of top attack, or targeting low flying, slow aircraft like helicopters.

Yes, but they have those same advantages when not fired from a tank's gun mount.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Yes, but they have those same advantages when not fired from a tank's gun mount.

The general advantage of guns over missiles is that it takes a lot less propellant to reach any given velocity, particularly at low velocities; a gun-launched missile lets you get the efficiency of a gun for the initial launch, and then gain the advantage of a missile after launch.

The drawbacks are that the launcher becomes much heavier, and you need to design the missile to survive the launch process. I would note you can have a more or less arbitrarily weak gun component, a cold-launch VLS system is technically a compressed gas gun that fires a missile.

[Polydamas]

Shells have the advantage that they are cheap and light so you can carry more of them.

Originally Posted by Balor Patch

The point of a tank is to carry a heavy direct fire weapon on a mobile platform that can survive in a direct fire environment. That weapon isn't needed to launch missiles and firing them (and guided shells generally) doesn't need to be done in that environment. At least not in TL9.

The SEFOP idea is a good one and shouldn't require homing any more than current multi-mode HE rounds do.

The one good thing about missiles is that they are cool and high-tech. Giving a sci-fi tank a much bigger chemical-propellant gun just feels like someone's imagination stopped expanding with stories about WW II and drawing at slow moments in sixth grade. To me personally, it does not feel science-fictioney or something that grows out of the world as we know it today.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Shells have the advantage that they are cheap and light so you can carry more of them.


The one good thing about missiles is that they are cool and high-tech. Giving a sci-fi tank a much bigger chemical-propellant gun just feels like someone's imagination stopped expanding with stories about WW II and drawing at slow moments in sixth grade. To me personally, it does not feel science-fictioney or something that grows out of the world as we know it today.

Would it help to swap out the MA for some kind of variable output coilgun? That way you can fire anything from high velocity kinetic rounds to self propelled munitions.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

The one good thing about missiles is that they are cool and high-tech.

Urr... honestly, both cannons and missiles are TL 4. The distinct thing about higher tech is mostly smart munitions, and those exist for both cannons and rockets.

Fundamentally, the tradeoff between rocket and cannon is that the launchers for rockets are lighter and cheaper, the ammunition for cannons is lighter and cheaper.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Would it help to swap out the MA for some kind of variable output coilgun? That way you can fire anything from high velocity kinetic rounds to self propelled munitions.

I believe coilguns use something akin to an EMP to propel their payload, so any electronics on the shell (like any sensors and the robot “brain” controlling it) would need to be shielded against such, which may call for a lot of mass at the size of a tank-cannon-fired missile, reducing effective payload (or maybe it’s negligible at TL9).