[RayChuang88]

I don't know why the Russians still have a love for an automatic loading system for tank shells, given the notorious history of unreliability of such systems on the T-64 and T-80.

[lacrew]

I saw a cartoon from the 1930’s once. It envisioned one policeman controlling several tank like vehicles with a radio.

I think the Soviets liked this type of idea, and took it seriously. If you think about it, most of the M1 could be done easily by remote control - and since the early 1980’s, the UCOFT and SIMNET have practically demonstrated how easy this would be. But UCOFT has no provision for loading and SIMNET has the loader press a button. We can’t actually load a round by remote control. The Russians can. So I think they still dream of a time in which a tank company commander sends out 50-60 ‘tank drones’, completely un-manned, into battle.

The pentagon has similar dreams. Their dreams are based on only the projectile being autoloaded, and the propellant being introduced into the chamber as an injected liquid.

Both bad ideas, IMHO.

[pierrem15]

Another issue with an autoloader: What if you want to switch rounds when you have a live round in the breech, say from HEAT to APFSDS? Can it extract a live round and swap it with another one?

[archy]

I don't know why the Russians still have a love for an automatic loading system for tank shells, given the notorious history of unreliability of such systems on the T-64 and T-80.

They were also just all-out fascinated with the old Swedish turretless S-Tank, which also had a gas turbine, and an automatic loader, easier to pull off reliably when you have a fixed barrel that doesn't have to rotate/elevate in a turret. We had four of the things for evaluation at Knox too, with a lot of interest paid until the Swedes got some T-72s and their antitank ammo from Finland and did some live fire testing of the things. Front, sides, rear: it didn't matter: either kinetic or HEAT rounds would punch right through like the armour was a plywood gunnery target.

I always thought that a fixed gun tank destroyer based on a German Marder or Bradley chassis might have some applications. But I'd really hate to crew in one up against a tank crew that really knows how to shoot...and modern electro-optical equipment and gunnery computers take a lot of the required skill out of the picture. And we're getting close to the possible of a remotely operated or autonomous AT vehicle, too.

Oh well, all we really need is wheelies that can be hauled around by C130s....