Posted on 03/02/2017 3:16:53 PM PST by Brad from Tennessee
The Army is now performing concept modeling and early design work for a new mobile, lethal, high-tech future lightweight tank platform able to detect and destroy a wider range of targets from farther distances, cross bridges, incinerate drones with lasers and destroy incoming enemy artillery fire – all for the 2030s and beyond.
The new vehicle, now emerging purely in the concept phase, is based upon the reality that the current M1A2 SEP Abrams main battle tank can only be upgraded to a certain limited extent, senior Army officials explained.
The Army’s Tank Automotive Research, Development and Engineering Center, or TARDEC, is now immersed in the development of design concepts for various super high-tech tank platforms, Maj. Gen. David Bassett, Program Executive Officer, Ground Combat Systems, told Scout Warrior in an exclusive interview.
Bassett emphasized the extensive conceptual work, simulation and design modeling will be needed before there is any opportunity to “bend metal” and produce a new tank.
“We’ve used concept modeling. What are the limits of what you can do? What does a built from the ground up vehicle look like? We are assuming, if we are going to evolve it, it is because there is something we can't do in the current vehicle,” Basset explained. . .
(Excerpt) Read more at scout.com ...
Is the army still looking for a light tank from existing designs as was reported a while back?
A fifty year service life. Right there with BUFF’s.
By 2030 we’ll have Terminators
Hover Tank ?
lol Yeah, or the tank in Tron.
Imperial Walkers!
The future of armor is unmanned, fully networked platforms that have autonomous abilities.
If they try to leave men in the tanks, the design will be obsolete before the first one gets muddy.
What we really need is a tank with an effective anti missile system. From watching the Syrian civil war tanks are pretty much garbage against modern missiles.
I thought that's what an A-10 was.
Protection: Here’s where the light tank will benefit the most from technological innovation. Active protection systems such as the Israeli Trophy and Russian Arena, which use radar antennas to track enemy rockets and missiles and shoot them down with shotgun-like blasts, can protect a small tank just as well as a large one. That means that a modern U.S. light tank could dispense with much of its armor—perhaps keeping just enough to stop 12.7-millimeter heavy machine gun bullets. For larger projectiles, an active protection system would keep the tank crew safe.
http://www.popularmechanics.com/military/weapons/a22337/us-army-new-light-tank/
But active protection won’t protect from, say, a 37mm antitank gun of 1940, with solid steel shot.
The book “Tank Lords” from David Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers is available at Amazon for free:
Anti-tank mines would continue to be a problem.
Guess someone needs to get on that force field thingy or a hovertank like Dana Sterling used in the Southern Cross era of Robotech or better both. I’d to think of the power requirements.
Tanks are missile targets. The bigger the tank, the bigger the target. This isn’t 1941 anymore. The “Panzer Brigade” has been overcome by missile and remote sensor (drone) technology.
Put the hot plate back in and get rid of the turbine.
The Russians and Israelis have them and they work well. The Syrian tanks are old export models that did not have any of the Russian anti-missile systems or provisions for them.
The Obama DOD trialed the Israeli Trophy system on US tanks and other vehicles, but didn’t want to buy anything from Israel no matter how well it worked. They decided to wait and acquire a vapor ware system from Raytheon that we still don’t have deployed yet.
Hovertank with a Hellbore main gun.
David Drake’s Hammers Slammers used Iridium-armored nuclear powered hovertanks.
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