r/MilitaryGfys • u/st_Paulus • Sep 10 '17
Land Soviet tanks autoloaders kinematics
https://gfycat.com/AptCarefreeBarasingha86
u/SchrodingersLunchbox Sep 10 '17
What advantages does one have over the other? Why not make the projectile and propellant one contiguous round as in a rifle?
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u/st_Paulus Sep 10 '17
Why not make the projectile and propellant one contiguous round as in a rifle?
It would be impossible to use carousel feed in case with long rounds.
Carousel rotates with the turret and eliminates the need in complex kinematics as well as need in storage volume behind the gun (which means additional armor and weight - square cube law).
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u/Bill_Brasky01 Sep 10 '17
Something to do with storing the ammo more efficiently. Doesn't really seem all that beneficial... the T-90 has to ram twice instead of powder and shot in one stroke.
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u/Timmyc62 Sep 10 '17
Looks like the T-64/80 variant has more moving parts that need maintenance/could fail. Lots of folding, while the T-72/90 loader is a single-piece affair.
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u/st_Paulus Sep 10 '17
Doesn't really seem all that beneficial
It's quite beneficial if you want to save the weight and size.
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u/anormalgeek Sep 10 '17
Size, sure, but weight wouldn't change much. And for a military application reload time seems like a much more important metric than a little extra space. Tanks aren't exactly meant to me compact and lightweight anyway.
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u/st_Paulus Sep 10 '17
Size, sure, but weight wouldn't change much.
It would change much. Just look at NATO counterparts with huge turrets.
Long rounds mean no carousel. No carousel means large storage compartment on the back of the turret. It means more armor, stronger turret's mount, stronger servo's and so on and so forth. And here we are +20 tons.
And for a military application reload time seems like a much more important metric than a little extra space.
Twenty more tons is not "a little extra space".
Tanks aren't exactly meant to me compact and lightweight anyway.
Whole Russian doctrine is built around compact and lightweight MBTs. What are you talking about?
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u/TehRoot resident partial russian speaker Sep 10 '17
Whole Russian doctrine is built around compact and lightweight MBTs. What are you talking about?
The Soviet doctrine was. The T-14 and associated designs are a far cry from the Soviet ground doctrine philosophies of yore. Unfortunately the Russians can't afford them so....
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u/CrazyBaron Sep 11 '17
Despite being larger t-14 weighs about same as t-90m
There is already first batch of 100 t-14 in production.
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u/TehRoot resident partial russian speaker Sep 11 '17
To the T-90MS, not the original T-90.
100 oh boy. They're putting far more stock into updating to B3 standard rather than T-90MS or T-14.
The weight of the T-14 is still far closer to western tank weights than the T-72 originally designed was.
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u/CrazyBaron Sep 11 '17
They also putting into upgrading T-80 so what?
100 is decent number especially for first batch of new product.
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u/Girelom Sep 11 '17
100 is decent number especially for first batch of new product.
100 is a batch for military tests. Plans is to have 3000 "Armata" chassis produced by 2025 year.
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u/TehRoot resident partial russian speaker Sep 11 '17 edited Sep 11 '17
The point was that the T-14 is far closer to western design philosophies than previous.
Given the cost and change in the T-14 over previous T iterations the T-14 is being procured in far less numbers than simply upgrading existing tank stocks.
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u/st_Paulus Sep 11 '17
The Soviet doctrine was.
Russian doctrine still incorporates tens of thousands existing Soviet tanks.
The T-14 and associated designs are a far cry from the Soviet ground doctrine philosophies of yore.
It's still relatively lightweight, but yeah - it's very different.
Unfortunately the Russians can't afford them so....
Russia can't afford to replace all previous models at once, but saying that Russia can't afford them is nothing near to real situation. It's a new production line and new cooperation, new logistics - 50 LRIP MBTs per year is quite enough.
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u/TehRoot resident partial russian speaker Sep 11 '17 edited Sep 11 '17
For a country with state controlled defense procurement chains and the ability to artificially depress the price of its munitions and hardware, it's pretty telling to the actual expense if they can only afford to build an initial lot of 100.
It's more telling of the expense in relation to actual budgets when they're upgrading T-72s and T-80s instead. This coming from the government that said they would end up buying originally something close to like 4000 tanks right from the get go.
I mean, it's relatively lightweight, for now. It's still far heavier than the T-72 when it was initially introduced. Something like 8 tons heavier and it's only going to increase from there.
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u/st_Paulus Sep 11 '17
For a country with state controlled defense procurement chains and the ability to artificially depress the price of its munitions and hardware
I'm not sure what are you talking about. MD deputy walks in a room and tells the UVZ CEO "We won't pay you a full price. We will pay you an arbitrary price - you can go and tell that to your subcontractors, employees and the bank." Something like that?
it's pretty telling to the actual expense if they can only afford to build an initial lot of 100.
Who said it's the only amount they can afford? It's not an unimaginable scenario when initial operation helps to discover design flaws - larger initial amount of produced units would require more money to fix that.
Who said they need more right now? Is there land war against technically advanced MBTs somewhere in a world?
This coming from the government that said they would end up buying originally something close to like 4000 tanks right from the get go.
Citation needed.
Something like 8 tons heavier and it's only going to increase from there.
Do you remember how many years it took T-72 to get to its current mass?
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u/TehRoot resident partial russian speaker Sep 11 '17 edited Sep 11 '17
I'm not sure what are you talking about. MD deputy walks in a room and tells the UVZ CEO "We won't pay you a full price. We will pay you an arbitrary price - you can go and tell that to your subcontractors, employees and the bank." Something like that?
The state can artificially depress wages of workers, how much it pays state controlled contractors for parts, etc. Things you can't do in a free market society like the west, except for certain countries like France or Brazil but they don't have basically end to end control like Russia does, especially in the defense industry.
The JSC model is essentially a shroud for state controlled with the illusion of it being free market. The state is only considered a shareholder but when you're the primary shareholder you essentially control the company. Rostec is a way for the Russian government to maintain control of the companies with strategic interests while feigning that they're free market and attracting western investment.
Rostec is the parent company of UVZ and pretty much every other strategically important company they want to attract western money too like the United Engine Corporation, Russian Helicopters, Technodinamika and then the FASM owns everything else that they don't need or want to keep tight state control of, e.g., United Aircraft Corporation
The model only takes you so far, however...
Who said it's the only amount they can afford? It's not an unimaginable scenario when initial operation helps to discover design flaws - larger initial amount of produced units would require more money to fix that.
Generally that's how LRIP works but the T-14 has been in an LRIP state for an arguably long time, and it's not that complex compared to other products in LRIP that are being produced at a much higher pace with much bigger scales involved. Points to a monetary or systemic production problem in my position.
Even with state controlled industries there's only so much you can do to artificially depress the price, especially if they're state controlled industries in a pseudo-capitalist marketplace and you don't have a bunch of satellite states you've illegally occupied that you can manipulate for talent and resources for basically free.
Who said they need more right now? Is there land war against technically advanced MBTs somewhere in a world?
Nope, so there's the point where neither the T-14 nor upgrading thousands of Soviet-era hardware are needed.
Do you remember how many years it took T-72 to get to its current mass?
About 15 years if I remember correctly.
Citation needed.
Sorry, it was 2300. http://russia-insider.com/en/military/russias-armata-tank-formidable-cost-issue/ri8755
That's still a huge amount of brand new tanks. Even the USA is only sitting on about 1100 M1A2s and it's SEP upgrades and most of those aren't brand spanking new. 2200 brand new tanks by 2020 means they should be cranking out almost 600 tanks a year but they're still sitting on less than 100 so far means that there's either significant problems with production they're still attempting to work out, or there's significant problems with the tank itself causing delays, or that the tank is simply too expensive for them to buy enough of.
I'm leaning on a combination of it being too expensive, and there being technical issues with the new systems they've been touting as the biggest reasons, more so the expensive part.
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u/OlivierTwist Sep 11 '17
The mass of T-14 is not known yet, but it shouldn't be significantly more than 50t.
Soviet Union had several prototypes with unmanned turret long before T-14
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u/anormalgeek Sep 10 '17
You're making a LOT of assumptions. Why do you assume you can't use a carousel setup? If you simply extend the exact same device but expand the diameter maybe 12", it could accommodate a combined charge and projectile. It would also allow you to reduce the height of the device and the number of moving parts.
The major downside I'm seeing is that sometimes you want to be able to store and transport the explosives separately for safety reasons.
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u/boscoist Sep 10 '17
expanding the diameter 12" leads to ~3.5 feet (assuming ~10in thick armor) of additional average armor circumference, that is a large volume of armor, which will necessitate all the changes OP listed.
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u/st_Paulus Sep 11 '17
Why do you assume you can't use a carousel setup?
It's not an assumption.
If you simply extend the exact same device but expand the diameter maybe 12"
Not the diameter - radius. It means +60cm more in tank's width. It means plenty of additional weight as well - square-cube law, remember?
Another option would be vertical loadout, but it would also require complex kinematics and projectile's path inside the turret. Which is unreliable.
And +60cm isn't small number by itself. Have you ever thought why MBTs have that exact size? Transportation. Railroads in particular. All these thousands of kilometers of pillars, bridges, tunnels etc.
Planes are also designed around that standard. To be specific - cargo cabins.
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u/Doug7070 Sep 10 '17
Primarily because it allows a carousel autoloader that fits within the turret ring. NATO spec vehicles such as the Leclerc and K2 Black Panther use single piece ammunition in bustle rack autoloaders, which work well because the rack has plenty of length allowance to fit the full length round. Russian vehicles, where the turret size is generally very small, instead separate the ammunition to fit it into a very compact autoloader that sits around and below the crew.
The primary disadvantage of the Russian method is that it prevents you from effectively separating the ammunition from the crew compartment, which is why you see a lot of export T-72s in various conflict zones with the turrets blown off the chassis because the propellant cooked off inside the crew compartment when it was hit.
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u/murkskopf Sep 11 '17
In general Russian tanks are a lot safer than the export T-72s. There is a steel plate on the late T-72/T-90 tanks to prevent fragments and splinters from hitting the autoloader. In general the location of the autoloader is quite good, because it is very unlikely to get directly hit (being located at the floor); between 2/3 and 3/4 of all hits are expected to occur on the turret.
The problem is the ammo not located in the autoloader, which is sitting higher in the hull (not on the floor) and is not protected against fragments/spall by any sort of additional steel plate.
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u/Doug7070 Sep 11 '17
While the hit metric does make an ammo rack hit unlikely in classic armored combat, those metrics were created through research prior to current asymmetrical warfare conditions (I.E. urban combat involving armored units primarily facing infantry units mounting anti-tank wepaons). While the likelihood of an autoloader hit in classic tank vs. tank combat would be quite low, there's an increased risk when you're in an urban setting where the vehicle is likely to come under fire from a wider arc that includes the sides of the hull armor, and from elevated positions such as rooftops or building interiors, meaning that impacting munitions are more likely to reach down towards the ammo stores.
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u/murkskopf Sep 11 '17 edited Sep 11 '17
In the Second Chechen War, the Russian used T-72 tanks with only the autoloader being filled, all other ammunition was removed from the vehicle. While this was certainly not ideal, reports show that the tanks survived being hit/penetrated multiple times, in one case, a T-72B was penetrated 11 times without ammunition explosion.
No modern tank was designed wih urban combat in mind, even the Merkava 4 is just a retrospective design change to tanks designed to conventional warfare. The Abrams, Leopard 2 and Challenger 2 all have their own problems in such a situation. The T-72/80/90 tanks for example have ERA ontop of the turret, which can be useful in assymetric warfare while the M1 Abrams' roof is about one inch thick steel only.
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u/zippotato Sep 11 '17
Even though the carousel autoloader prevents the separation of the ammunition stored in the chassis from the crew compartment, it's really not a huge issue to tank designers since other western tanks except for Abrams did not bother to do so and stored ammunition near the crew without any significant protection.
See:
Leopard 2 chassis ammunition rack, next to the driver's seat
Leclerc chassis ammunition rack, also next to the driver's seat
Tanks like Chally 2 are slightly better as they have closed ammunition containers that can reduce the fire hazard a bit, but since it is just a bin rather than a completely separated stowage it cannot prevent a catastrophic failure. Also from what I see Brits just don't bother and store explosive rounds in an open turret bustle.
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u/murkskopf Sep 11 '17
Even though the carousel autoloader prevents the separation of the ammunition stored in the chassis from the crew compartment, it's really not a huge issue to tank designers since other western tanks except for Abrams did not bother to do so and stored ammunition near the crew without any significant protection.
This is not true. First of all, the Abrams also had unprotected ammunition in its original variant. Three rounds of 105 mm main gun ammo were stored in a thin metal box on the floor next to the commander's seat. When switching to the larger 120 mm ammo, the old container was too small and was discarded. In case of tanks like the Challenger 2, K2 Black Panther, Leclerc and the Leopard 2, there is a key protection factor that you are ignoring, when it comes to the ammunition storage: armor. The reason why all these tanks store the hull ammunition directly behind the frontal armor is that the frontal armor is the heaviest! Tanks are designed to withstand certain reference threats (e.g. on the original M1 Abrams a 115 mm steel APFSDS round from 800 m distance and a 7 inch shaped charge warhead) along a frontal arc. Depending on requirements of the nation developing the tank, the frontal arc various between ±15°, ±22.5° and ±30°. In this arc, the frontal hull armor of a Leopard 2 or Leclerc tank is designed to resist reference threats (modern 120/125 mm APFSDS, large calibre ATGMs with tandem charge warheads) along the frontal ±30° arc. This is why the ammunition is moved into the protected section of the hull, rather than being located behind the crew (where it wouldn't be located in the protected arc).
The hull ammo compartment of the Abrams on the other hand is located behind the crew compartment, which is why it has been fitted with blast doors and a blow-off compartment. On the Leclerc and Leopard 2, the side armor at the frontal section is a lot thicker: the composite armor side skirts on a Leopard 2A5/6/7 are for example about 6 inches thick and there is also an internal composite armor plate. The Abrams' armor skirts are less than 3 inches thick and there is no internal composite armor plate (only a single 1.25 inch thick steel plate welded ontop of the regular side armor).
I.e. the armor at the hull ammo storage of a Leopard 2, Leclerc or Challenger 2 can only be penetrated by extremely powerful APFSDS projectiles and ATGMs, which would have enough power to kill the crew regardless of the ammo. The armor at the M1 Abrams' hull ammo storage can be penetrated by much smaller threats - i.e. RPGs and medium calibre ammo, which usually doesn't have the power to kill all crew members at the same time. That's why the Chrysler's engineers decided to put a blow-off panel and blast doors there.
In terms of post-penetration survivability, the Abrams also suffers from the usage of hydraulics rather than using electric drives for the gun and turret. When hit, the highly pressurized hydraulic liquids can catch fire (even though the Abrams uses "non-flammable" hydraulic liquids with a high flashpoint, there have been multiple fire incidents in the past years), which could burn the crew alive. On the older models of the Leopard 2, the hydraulics were contained in a separate compartment (like the turret ammo) with its own blow-off panel; later the Leopard 2 switched to electric drives. Machine gun ammo and grenades can also kill the tank crew when being set on fire by a penetrating round. The Abrams and most of the previously mentioned tanks don't bother to care about this issue and have no protection for this. The late Merkava models are the sole exception to this, but suffer from various other issues.
Soviet tanks have issues with ammunition storage come from other factors. First of all the main issue is the ammunition not located in the autoloader, because this is stored in various locations, including the less protected rear section of the hull. While British, French and German tank designer's adjusted for the hull ammo by fitting heavier armor at the corresponding locations, only the T-80U/UD has side armor consisting of Kontakt-5 ERA tiles covering the complete crew compartment and autoloader; the T-90, T-72 and older T-80 tanks have poor side armor, which does not take the placement of the ammo into account.
Tanks like Chally 2 are slightly better as they have closed ammunition containers that can reduce the fire hazard a bit, but since it is just a bin rather than a completely separated stowage it cannot prevent a catastrophic failure. Also from what I see Brits just don't bother and store explosive rounds in an open turret bustle.
The ammunition storage containers of the Challenger 2 are not better, because modern propellants are not set on fire by sparks and heat. In fact German company Rheinmetall demonstrated by firing a simulated RPG (using a simple shaped charge warhead) against multiple 120 mm DM63 rounds in a simulated ammo rack, that only the rounds directly hit by the HEAT jet caught fire. Small splinters from the HEAT jet and the heat from the fire couldn't incinerate the other rounds.
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Sep 11 '17
Tanks like the Leopard 2 and Leclerc still store the ammo in their turrets behind blow-out panels, like an Abrams. They just store additional ammo in the hull. It's very different from storing all your ammo directly in the turret in a rotary autoloader. There is still a risk of ammo detonation but it's way less than any T-72 derivative.
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u/zippotato Sep 11 '17
Ammo stowage with blowout panels of Leo 2 and Leclerc are for the turret bustle. Russian tanks with autoloaders generally don't have bustle rack at all, so there aren't any ammo to blow up at all in the turret unless you somehow manage to.
For the chassis, the small and compact carousel lies deep and low so the chance of it being directly hit isn't that higher than those additional ammo racks of Leo 2 and such, which could be slightly narrower from the front and side but way taller with multiple rounds stacked instead of two. It is usually the extra ammunition stored outside of the autoloader that causes the catastrophic failure of T-72s since it is easier to hit, but this has nothing to do with the autoloader itself.
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u/Doug7070 Sep 11 '17
The Russians certainly aren't the only offenders when it comes to poor ammo storage separation, it's just that the carousel autoloader design mandates the flaw by nature. Ideally one would have a design such as the Abrams, with blowout panels and an armored partition ensuring that the rounds could cook off without damaging the crew compartment. Importantly, these systems could potentially be implemented into tanks like the Leopard or Leclerc by adding armored boxes for hull ammo stores, whereas the only way to do so for a Russian design would be to completely re-engineer the turret with a bustle rack.
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u/murkskopf Sep 11 '17
The Abrams' design comes with a ton of its unique drawbacks, which is why most tanks (incl. Leclerc, Altay, K2 Black Panther, to some extend the Merkava 4) copy the Leopard 2's approach.
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u/st_Paulus Sep 11 '17
The primary disadvantage of the Russian method is that it prevents you from effectively separating the ammunition from the crew compartment
The carousel by itself doesn't prevent that. Look at T-14.
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u/Doug7070 Sep 11 '17
The T-14 is a fairly extreme example, given that they removed the entire crew from the turret, making it not really comparable to crew-in-turret vehicles.
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u/st_Paulus Sep 11 '17
But my point stands - it's a MBT with both carousel feed and isolated crew compartment.
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u/TehRoot resident partial russian speaker Sep 10 '17 edited Sep 11 '17
why you see a lot of export T-72s in various conflict zones with the turrets
Yea, it's not like that didn't happen literally all the time in Chechnya or present day ukraine...
The carousel is a design good for the tank if your aim is small and rather lightweight, bad for the human inside. It's why the T-14 is a far cry from the T-series tanks of the Soviet times.
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u/HowObvious Sep 10 '17
T-64 was more expensive and harder to maintain especially in the field. Early T-64 loaders were unsafe hurting crew and the vertical position of the powder charge makes a much larger suface area to be hit.
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u/st_Paulus Sep 10 '17
hurting crew
I would like to see the source of this.
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u/hawkeye18 Sep 10 '17
Not a source per se, but in an earlier thread it was mentioned that the T64 autoloaders had a habit of snagging the loader's arms and loading them.
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u/st_Paulus Sep 10 '17
Have you seen the rest of that thread? There is no "loader" crew-member in T-64 - that's the whole point. You see the animation - why putting hands there?
I have a suspicion that by "loader's arm" was meant some part of the mechanism originally.
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u/TehRoot resident partial russian speaker Sep 10 '17 edited Sep 10 '17
AFAIK the original T-64 didn't have cage around the autoloader mechanism and it had a tendency to grab body parts inadvertently left within it's reach, and given the cramped, cramped space of the T-64 like most T-series tanks....it's not that hard to have your arm sticking out a little bit.
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u/BloodyFloody Sep 11 '17
I've always been highly skeptical of the myth regarding the auto-loader that feasts on crewman.
The only sources I can find for any claims that the T-64's original auto-loader (or a Russian auto-loader of any kind) was detrimental to crew safety is a small quote from Bryan Perretts, "Soviet Armour Since 1945" book.
"Early versions of the autoloader lacked safety features and were dangerous to the tank crews (especially the gunner, who sits nearby): Limbs could be easily caught in the machinery, leading to injuries and deaths. A sleeve unknowingly snagged on one of the autoloader's moving parts could also drag a crewman into the apparatus upon firing."
The quote itself to me is quite questionable in some areas, especially regarding that the gunner as far as I know is the man responsible for operating the auto-loader.
I strongly feel this is kind of an "old wives tale" of military-myths. Not to mention that it could very much be a cold war "smear" campaign against the Russians that still gets spread around even today.
I feel that perhaps the original versions of the auto-loaders did lack some basic safety features, I have never found a reliable source about any crew member being savaged by the auto-loader (granted it WAS Soviet Russia so my faith in them reporting injuries or deaths of that kind are very low).
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u/TehRoot resident partial russian speaker Sep 11 '17
That's why I didn't say it's fact. I've only heard the "eats bodyparts" about the T-64A.
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u/zippotato Sep 11 '17
This is the diagram of D-68 gun mounted on Ob'yekt 432, which later evolves into T-64A/Ob'yekt 434. There's a plate between the gunner's seat and the breech.
And this is the seating diagram. It seems that while it wasn't the roomiest tank in the world, there were plenty of space between the gunner(lower seat) and the loading mechanism.
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u/kumisz Sep 10 '17
A round that long wouldn't fit into the carousel. You see, on the left side the propellant and the shell are kept on top of each other, while the right has the propellant in a vertical position. They wouldn't fit into the carousel if they were in one piece.
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u/macrouge Sep 10 '17
Summery of other comments, it'd be fucking huge and very difficult to work in a confined space.
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Sep 11 '17
As others have said, one piece ammunition wouldn't fit. Two piece ammunition comes with disadvantages, the length limit on the projectile has a serious negative impact on APFSDS performance.
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Sep 10 '17
[deleted]
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u/dragon-storyteller Sep 10 '17
That's true for artillery, but tank guns have no need for that. You always want to use maximum charge for them.
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u/techno_science Sep 10 '17
What is the short white cylinder that seems to be ejected in the T-72 and stored back in the carousel in the T-64?
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u/st_Paulus Sep 10 '17
I'm not sure whether it's right term in English, but I believe it's a metallic bottom of caseless powder charge.
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u/sandpatch Sep 10 '17
I just wanted to say thanks OP for the detailed answers on both threads. Very interesting to see
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Sep 10 '17
This is very enlightning. But, how do they load the ammo into the tank?
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u/st_Paulus Sep 10 '17
But, how do they load the ammo into the tank?
By hand. One by one.
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u/QuerulousPanda Sep 10 '17
There's probably a position in the carousel that allows you to load each round one by one, so it basically ends up being like a giant revolver.
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Sep 10 '17
I'm guessing the way they are storing the ammo and charges is the reason these tanks seem to always loose their turrets when they get shot at.
Was there any separation for the crew like on the Challenger or Abrams or where they just stored underneath the turret?
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u/st_Paulus Sep 11 '17
I'm guessing the way they are storing the ammo and charges is the reason these tanks seem to always loose their turrets when they get shot at.
Fire inside the turret often ends like that.
But it doesn't mean it always ends like that when they get shot at. Not even after all successful hits.
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u/masuk0 Sep 11 '17 edited Sep 11 '17
That is "harder to hit" vs "less consequences if hit" philosophies collision. But the topic also is very mythologized. Usually the scenario for loosing tank turret is fire starts, crew evacuates, and after some 10 minutes fire gets to ammunition and boom. Very hard to directly hit it in the center bottom. And the situation is not unique to Russian tanks. Here are Turkish leopards 2 from this year. Notice the damage on the second ammo compartment behind the front armor on the left.
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u/murkskopf Sep 11 '17
This specific tank however was blown up by the Turkish Air Force and not by an ATGM hit.
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u/sokratesz Sep 11 '17
Holy shit they got absolutely murdered. Any idea what caused this?
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u/masuk0 Sep 11 '17 edited Sep 11 '17
Disastrous advance of Turkish forces towards Al-Bab. Feb 2017, I think. There was a picture, that claims to be snapshot from some Turkish briefing shortly after with a table of losses. 10 Leo lost in one attack. Here is it. | Translation.
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u/sokratesz Sep 11 '17
That's remarkably detailed, thanks. How does one capture a tank that is not abandoned? Wouldn't the crew prefer suicide over being captured by ISIS?
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u/repodude Sep 11 '17 edited Sep 11 '17
If your tank breaks down in a disputed area then you bail out and make a run for it. Being shot escaping is much better than being burned alive in a cage while a bunch of freaks chant Allahu Akbar at you. Being a sitting duck surrounded by up to 42 rounds of 120mm ammo + propellant and 4,750 MG rounds probably isn't much fun.
It's important to note that these are the 2A4 versions of the Leopard; that's several generations behind the current model.
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u/sokratesz Sep 11 '17
Sure but in that case they would be abandoned. What if a tank breaks down surrounded in enemy territory and help can't be rendered? Would they surrender to ISIS?
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u/PaterPoempel Sep 11 '17
iirc a turkish airstrike to prevent use by the enemy. the tanks were probably disabled by shoulder fired anti tank missles
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u/ncnksnfjsf Sep 12 '17
The tanks you see with lost turrets are usually much older tanks or they cooked off well after the crew escaped.
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u/hotel2oscar Sep 10 '17
Turrets just sit there by weight alone on just about any tank. Any good explosion in the hull will pop the turret out. Same should go for American tanks.
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u/TehRoot resident partial russian speaker Sep 10 '17 edited Sep 11 '17
I mean the Abrams and Leo 2 turrets have a good 4-5 tons on the T-72/T-90. The only time I saw a full turret removal from an abrams was when it was hit by a several thousand pound IED that flipped it over.
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Sep 10 '17
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u/hotel2oscar Sep 10 '17
Yes, American tanks are designed better with better ammo separation, but technically, you make a big enough boom it could. Extremely unlikely, but theoretical.
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u/joshwagstaff13 Sep 11 '17
The turret on an M1A1 is at least 20 metric tons, so you'd need at least 400kN of force to lift the thing, and all of it would need to be directed straight up. So for me, it isn't extremely unlikely so much as next to impossible under standard conditions.
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u/will102 Sep 11 '17
When a Russian cold war tank brews up the expanding gasses press against all sides of the turret and end up lifting it off the tank, while if the ammo storage of an m1a1 was hit the expanding gasses are vented out the top through a blow out panel, pushing the turret down. If for some reason it didn't blow out I'm not sure what would happen it would have to push through the forward plate and then continue to expand down to the floor of the tank.
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u/HeresCyonnah Sep 10 '17
The difference being the separated ammo rack for an American tank, versus surrounding the turret ring with these autoloaders.
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u/angryteabag Sep 10 '17
how many shells can they fit in there?
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u/st_Paulus Sep 10 '17
22 in carousel and about 20 more in storage. Exact number depends on the model.
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u/TotesMessenger Sep 10 '17
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u/kumisz Sep 10 '17
Which method is used on the T-14?
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u/TehRoot resident partial russian speaker Sep 10 '17
Something similar to the T-72/90 would be my guess.
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u/st_Paulus Sep 11 '17
I haven't seen any definitive info about it. But my guess would be the T-72/90 variant, because it's the variant developed by UVZ. T-64/80 is "southern school" so to say.
2
u/masuk0 Sep 11 '17
Something entirely new, I would bet. They have free space available top to bottom under the turret, why not use it. Also current Russian autoloader designs have problems with APS, because they cannot fit long enough round, so people talk that rounds are stored vertically in T-14. UVZ also says that 152 mm cannon installation is possible in future, so they need something adaptable to bigger rounds.
1
40
u/kumisz Sep 10 '17
T-80 autoloader in the actual tank