Tank development

[RogueSnake79]

I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. Try this in Steel Beasts with a human gunner. The cal .50 is not stabilized, so you can't use it on the move. And you can't use it while the gunner is scanning for targets, or tracking a moving target. And if the gunner needs to hold still the turret to allow the commander to fire his cal .50 with precision (and the lack of a laser range finder), I bet you that in 99.9% of all engagements it would be quicker to let the gunner engage both targets instead of engaging the two targets by the two different crew members.

Were do you think I got the idea? Its not easy for sure. But it happens in SteelBeasts.

You don't think it was a good idea, ok, got that. And you also think that American tank designers are clearly morons for doing such a thing, ok, got that. Maybe you should design a tank, and we could buy it from you. Since your such a rocket scientist.

So what, if there is no realistic scenario available where it actually is useful? It could very well be capable of brewing coffee and toasting slices of bread too, and still I wouldn't want it on my tank if I had to expose myself down to the hip to fire it, especially not if I couldn't fire it against a bad guy on a balcony or rooftop beyound the elevation limit of the gun.

You can't think of any scenario? Well, I guess thats all we will need then. You should fax that to Chrysler. That way next time they don't waste any time on a CWS.

Listen, I don't want to fight about this. I was just saying why I thought Chrysler put the CWS on the original M1 abrams.

[Volcano]

Sure, it may have made sense in 1980, but those war scenarios are of the past. The contemporary operational environment calls for use in urban combat zones, and you have conveniently failed to address any of the other objections that I had here - slow traverse, limited elevation, massive overpenetration with the resulting hazards for noncombatants behind the target. The M1A1's cal .50 may be used under armor, but again it is a tank model of the 1980s and the later iterarions of the M1 keep the HMG but force the commander to expose himself down to the waist...

Exposed from the waist up to use the FLEX cal .50? Sure, if you were standing in the hatch like John Wayne with a cigar in your mouth. The FLEX .50 can be fired at name tag defilade and you can walk the tracers into the target if you need aiming assistance since your aiming ability would be slightly impaired.

But what all the smart people do not realize is that the RWS was removed for a reason; With the addition of the CITV, they had to remove 90% of the possibility of blowing the thing off the turret so they raised the weapon and removed the RWS system (and before someone says otherwise, there have been cases of an inexperienced TC blowing off the bore evacuator with the cal .50 RWS, so it is certainly possible). Additional non CITV variants took the same approach sine there are most obstructions on the turret with the addition of things like the loader's M240 ballistic shield. But the fact is, from a US Army doctrine point of view, having some sort of weapon available is better than having none at all (although I am sure someone will say a very European reason otherwise) and the addition of the CITV more than covers the loss in lethality from removing the CWS mount.

But we can sit here all day and talk about how useful / useless a certain design feature is but the reality is, beyond our scientific forum analyzing, *if* the FLEX cal .50 was useless then the TCs would not mount the weapon on the tank. It is as simple as that. It is simply a tool that can be very useful at times.

Edited August 10, 2008 by Volcano
clarification

[dejawolf]

why they didn't just slave the MG to the CITV, boggles the mind.

[Hedgehog]

Because for one very good reason Deja,

That would be simple.

[ShotMagnet]

...there have been cases of an inexperienced TC blowing off the bore evacuator with the cal .50 RWS...

Why isn't the BE armored?

If nothing else attach say a C-shaped scab-plate that will protect the top and sides and will prevent rifle and MG bullets from mission-killing a tank.

Shot

[Ssnake]

... you also think that American tank designers are clearly morons for doing such a thing, ok, got that.

You're not reading what I wrote. I explicitly said that in 1980 it may still have made sense since we expected a high target saturation with emphasis on APFSDS rounds in the loadout, which would eventually mean that there was too little HEAT ammo available to fight the numerous lightly armored IFVs. I can understand that a cal .50 can receive preference over a clear field of view for the commander. Personally I still wouldn't choose this option, but I'm not debating the rationality of the decision makers back then.

Today however, in the contemporary operational environment, I find little reason to justify the cal .50 save for traditions/army inertia. It is neither particularly useful in urban environments due to available ammo (overpenetration hazard), limited elevation, slow traverse, nor are we currently being confronted with combat situations where massed IFVs occur (and even if it did, since the fighters in Iraq have no access to MBTs we can load 40 rounds HEAT per tank which is more than adequate to deal with any IFV threat).

So, if secondary armament is a concern - and yes, in urban environments that may very well be an important point - a stabilized remote weapon station with thermal imager which also offers a much wider range of lethal and non-lethal ammunition types like what we have for the 40mm Mk 19 AGL is the much better choice. That's all I'm saying here. And I think that the loader is the better crew member to handle this while the TC's task is to maintain situational awareness and to coordinate his crew's actions with the actions of the surrounding infantry units.

[Volcano]

Why isn't the BE armored?

If nothing else attach say a C-shaped scab-plate that will protect the top and sides and will prevent rifle and MG bullets from mission-killing a tank.

Well, if I am not mistaken the bore evacuator does have a sort of kevlar type lining to protect it from small arms. The amount of armor you would need to protect it from a 12.7mm round at point blank range would be a little extreme, and it is by no means a regular occurance. But besides that, if the bore evacuator is damaged it would certainly not "mission kill" the tank, it would just simply make life harder for the crew in the turret and the crew would need to open the hatches and use the turret exhaust fan to extract the fumes from the breech opening. I have fired on the range before with a clogged bore evacuator and it was not fun, but it was not impossible either.

Going back to the TC's cal .50 and the reason for it being there (RWS or FLEX mount), I just remembered, it was an older and wiser tanker that explained to me at the time: the caliber .50 is simply another tool in the tool box that can be indespensible at times and not much use at other times. I just don't see any logic if anyone wants to convince themselves that it is a completely useless weapon or marginalize its effectiveness (not that anyone is).

[Mogwa]

I think when the United States builds a tank it actually pictures itself having to use it in combat sometime during its service life. Since it cannot envision the conflict it may be involved in, it puts as many capabilities that it can afford as possible in each vehicle. It may be an urban enviornment today, but it may be an armor heavy foe in 5 or 10 years. America has built some 5000 M-1 series tanks over the years. By comparison Germany operated around 2100 Leo 2a4 series of which only around 700 were new built, the rest were rebuilds. Tanks are expensive. Sometimes the neatest gizmos dont (initially) make it into each vehicle. What are you going to do ? You build the best you can afford. Its foolish in my mind to replace a potent weapon from a war machine. Even poorly aimed .50 cal rounds whistling by will make troops duck for cover.

I feel a .50 is a good choice for a TC weapon or even as a coax. It was considered for a coax weapon for the M-1 at 1 time. The space alloted for an ammo box could hold a lot of .50 cal rounds. A Mk-19 would make a decent weapon for the loader. Hell, so would an M-134(unlikely as that would be). I said that when I was a loader and I say it now. The mount should at least be interchangeable between the two. Keep the gun shield for the loader and get one for the TC. Gun shields fell out of favor in the 2nd half of the 20th century in the US as real armored warfare became a distant memory. I was told that they made the vehicle look cluttered (or something similar, i forget the exact phrasing.). Unbelievable.

Mog