Does America need a new main battle tank?

i seen what happens to the Abrams tanks. lost or damage to the point that they need to be ship back to the states. the new urban combat kit design to upgrade or modified the Abrams tank to deal with urban or guerilla warfare is good idea but to me i dink its temporarily so i was thinkin maybe we should have combination for the Abrams capabilities with the Merkava 4 tank. combination of speed and armor protection for crew as well as carry crew either 4 or 6. a new tank may be needed because we cant just keep upgrading a tank of the old design with limitations on it.

Yea, we need something like this










double cannons tanks are cool!!!

Ulshadow, nice pics.

Is that an actual prototype being developed somewhere?

I'd be interested if the US army has any plans to replace the Abrams.

With the war on terror it seems that the US is focusing on faster, lighter vehicles like the Stryker.

Aren't those tanks from Red Alert 1? Because the soviets in Red Alert 1 had giant tanks like that with two guns, those monsters were the strongest in the game.

I think it's from a Real Time Strategy Game ttytt, might even be from Command & Conquer series or Empire Earth. Dunno why I think that but it's looks REALLY familiar.

The US is makeing a new one I believe, also those are "mamoth" tanks from C+C Tiberian dawn and red alert.

I really dont think a new tank needs to be developed, especialyl with the end of the cold war and anti-terroisum being the norm The Bradly is the "light" version the US uses.

The tank is from the game C&C Renegade and it's called a Mammoth Tank

and Jehosephat is right, the US is looking for lighter tanks and such but you will never know when you need them, in these days anything can happen so it's better to be perpare than sorry when a major war starts out of no where.

[edit on 2-5-2005 by ulshadow]

That's the X-66 (sic, should be XM-66 and the 66 designator is unlikely for a new MBT) Mammoth Tank (echo?), it seems that 2 barreled tanks are a fantasy of the Designers however, 2 barrels is not necesarilly a good thing, also such a hulk is too large to move through urban area's

The US will replace their MBT's with the Armored Gun componment of the FCS project...to be precise Mounted Combat System.


[edit on 2/5/2005 by GrOuNd_ZeRo]

No, not at all. The Abrams is good enough for any future conflict the US will see.

Well i think the Abrams can last for a lil while longer but it isnt really suitable for urban combat. I wonder when we will start too see urban combat tanks. Highly manuverable and amour spread evenly around the whole tank.

well, like someone said before the Stryker is for urban combat but i heard the stryker don't work very well.

The Abrams is an AMAZING tank. Its just being used in a way it was never supposed to be used. There was a great post on these board a few months back (cant find it) showing a new upgrade they were rolling out that uses lessons learned in Iraq that makes the Abrams about the best tank on the planet.

An Abrams in a situation that it was designed for, i.e. a full frontal attack, is nearly unstoppable. But in streets where it cant even turn around with RPG's being fired from just a few feet away from the sides, top, and rear it doesnt do well. NO TANK does well in that enviroment.

Originally posted by ulshadow
well, like someone said before the Stryker is for urban combat but i heard the stryker don't work very well.

Any armoured vehicle is a sitting target and extremely vulnerable in an urban environment. This isn't going to change for the forseeable future unless there is a quantum leap in armour technology.

It shouldnt be called Main Battle Tank, I dont think traditional weapons would be ideal for urban warfare, I think we need a kind of

"urban warfare vehicle"

In my opinion it should be able to withstand hand-rocket launchers and other small stuff (no need for protection against heavy stuff on vehicles, as those are all already destroyed in the big battles or by the airforce/cruise missiles, it should be able to carry several infantrists, should be wheeled, as this is faster tracks arent needed on town-streets, it should be able to fight any unarmoured vehicle (cars, trucks..), command posts, and other things you can think of in an urban environment, so it needs a 30mm machine cannon (with at best Air Burst Ammonation) (which should be remote controlled, so no soldier from the interor is at higher risk by using it)

so:

--- Protection against ap-mines, at-mines, rifles up to 12mm, hand carried anti-tank weapons
--- capable of carrying infantrymen
--- Wheeled
--- armed with a remote controlled 30mm ABM Machine Cannon

this is more like a mixure of APC and IFV, than a MBT, I dont se why there is a need for MBTs in urban environments...

Originally posted by Wodan
It shouldnt be called Main Battle Tank, I dont think traditional weapons would be ideal for urban warfare, I think we need a kind of

"urban warfare vehicle"

In my opinion it should be able to withstand hand-rocket launchers and other small stuff (no need for protection against heavy stuff on vehicles, as those are all already destroyed in the big battles or by the airforce/cruise missiles, it should be able to carry several infantrists, should be wheeled, as this is faster tracks arent needed on town-streets, it should be able to fight any unarmoured vehicle (cars, trucks..), command posts, and other things you can think of in an urban environment, so it needs a 30mm machine cannon (with at best Air Burst Ammonation) (which should be remote controlled, so no soldier from the interor is at higher risk by using it)

so:

--- Protection against ap-mines, at-mines, rifles up to 12mm, hand carried anti-tank weapons
--- capable of carrying infantrymen
--- Wheeled
--- armed with a remote controlled 30mm ABM Machine Cannon

this is more like a mixure of APC and IFV, than a MBT, I dont se why there is a need for MBTs in urban environments...

Well, there is one use for MBT for unban combat, to make the enemy think twice to attack. since the hugh size can give the enemy a little to be scared of. they will be like "S*** thats a hugh tank, my crappy ak's not gonna do jack to it" hehe

and yea we already got a really good unban combat weapon already







[edit on 3-5-2005 by ulshadow]

Originally posted by ulshadow

Originally posted by Wodan
It shouldnt be called Main Battle Tank, I dont think traditional weapons would be ideal for urban warfare, I think we need a kind of

"urban warfare vehicle"

In my opinion it should be able to withstand hand-rocket launchers and other small stuff (no need for protection against heavy stuff on vehicles, as those are all already destroyed in the big battles or by the airforce/cruise missiles, it should be able to carry several infantrists, should be wheeled, as this is faster tracks arent needed on town-streets, it should be able to fight any unarmoured vehicle (cars, trucks..), command posts, and other things you can think of in an urban environment, so it needs a 30mm machine cannon (with at best Air Burst Ammonation) (which should be remote controlled, so no soldier from the interor is at higher risk by using it)

so:

--- Protection against ap-mines, at-mines, rifles up to 12mm, hand carried anti-tank weapons
--- capable of carrying infantrymen
--- Wheeled
--- armed with a remote controlled 30mm ABM Machine Cannon

this is more like a mixure of APC and IFV, than a MBT, I dont se why there is a need for MBTs in urban environments...

Well, there is one use for MBT for unban combat, to make the enemy think twice to attack. since the hugh size can give the enemy a little to be scared of. they will be like "S*** thats a hugh tank, my crappy ak's not gonna do jack to it" hehe

and yea we already got a really good unban combat weapon already

[edit on 3-5-2005 by ulshadow]

needs armor on it.

deltaboy, meh, it's speed and small ness that make it hard to hit. bullets won't kill it and rpg won't work too well cause it is small and fast unlike those sitting duck tanks to rpg fire.

Hm... the infantry carrying capability is low I think..

I would say build a updated mini or pocket tank.

model it after the Bradley but make it much smaller 2 man crew 1 man drives and can run a light weapon while the gunner/commander operates the main weapon.

Just think of a hummer that's a tank with major armor and weapons. Make it dedicated for city fighting only.

power make it fuel cell powered with a refiner so it can use gas, diesel, ethanol, more or less anything that a normal car can run on. And because of the make up of fuel cells they can be made large and flat or thick and small. So you could make the hole floor of the tank out of a fuel cell 3-6 layers think make the walls of the fuel cell out of armor plate and you have armor and power production on demand. integrate electric motors into the wheel hubs on all of the suspension system so that even if it blows the tread it would still be able to move.

armor - I would go with a blend of several systems first line would be the arena system or something similar to take out anti tank rockets and damage the new ultra high speed missiles.

second I would also use the electron armor because its fuel cell powered it would be able to divert as much power as needed to the armor so repeated attacks would have little effect.

Then I would use a composite armor similar to the M1A2 except for the fact that I would also use diamond in the composite. They have made great strides in using Co2 lasers to build up to .5 inch thick layers of diamond on the surface area of a dinner plate. It was planned to be used for micro processors but would work really well here also.

It would not be designed to take on tanks its designed to weed out terrorists and insurgents.

Weapons would use a 50 cal fire from inside weapons system for the driver or the commander to use. For the main weapon I would say a 30mm chain gun with ap rounds. I would also have 2 rocket launching pods on the side of the turret like the Bradley that can fire tows or have a package that could use the old 5 inch rocket pods 4-9 round ones. Loaded with either anti personnel rockets that shoot out thousands of flashets or artillery type high explosive for use against buildings.

Looking at a weight of around 10-20 tons its designed to take a pounding from everything but tanks........


If the do make a new MBT I would go with the arena system along with electron armor. Would also make them fuel cell powered also I think that a tank with independent targeting and tracking would be very handy. Target 8 tanks from a hidden location.... it fires its 8 high speed kinetic penetrater missiles that track on there own targets. Then gun system takes over and it fires the main gun on any tanks/units that seem to still be working. If you could get a auto loader to work faster then a man I would also use that. If you could integrate the targeting system into spotter UAV just think of 30 New MBT coming up on 150 older Russian tanks. The new missiles have a range of around 2 miles and old Russian tanks only have a range of about 1.5 miles so each tank with the help of the spotter UAV targets a there own set of 8 enemy tanks and fires them then commences to hit the rest with there main guns. while all still outside the enemies engagement range. Could just see a swarm of 240 High speed missiles firing at once streaking across the sky slamming into the enemy forces obliterating all in there path then getting mopped up with the main guns. Talk about a moral killer. watching all your fellow tankers getting turned flaming wreckage.

Also anything powered by a fuel cell would be able to use high energy weapons if and when the become viable on the battle field.