Laughed out loud.Cool
...damn and blast yer googly eyed 47mm guns Sah!
Alterntive History Armoured Fighting Vehicles
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Delta Force
Banned
The T95 Medium Tank does have something of a 1950s MBT70 feeling to it. What about a simplification of the design with the features that worked well?
Delta Force
Banned
Was there any thought given to tanks with all or nothing style armor, either in terms of specific areas or simply not carrying any armor if incapable of standing up to the most powerful guns?
NothingNow
Banned
It doesn't really make any sense from a manufacturing or engineering standpoint.
I mean that's a lot of extra work that has to go in to designing and building a scheme which if anything only makes the vehicle harder to produce, since there isn't much benefit to be had from such a protection scheme given how compact tanks actually are.
Yeah, the problem is, it's going to draw all sorts of fire, and that means even an open gun needs some level of protection for the crew, especially since a vehicle like that still isn't going to be fast enough to evade enemy fire, and well, concealment doesn't always mean cover.
This is why most light AFVs are armored to protect against at least 12.7x99mm and 14.5×114mm rounds on all sides, and autocannon cartridges in the frontal arc.
Delta Force
Banned
That might be more useful on larger and more modern tanks. I was thinking more in terms of armoring the crew compartments and turret on heavier tanks, leaving other areas unarmored. Some tanks, such as the Israeli Merkava, even have front mounted engines to provide additional crew protection.
That's more what I meant. An armored vehicle that can't at the very least survive large rifle caliber rounds isn't of much use.
The M56 Scorpion had no armor whatsoever. That's about all that comes to mind.
I'm not sure the engine is going stop any rounds that make it through the front armor, armored fuel tanks, and diesel fuel. Engines aren't made from materials that make them withstand hits, they're made to be as light as possible to maximize efficiency and keep them relatively small. Sure, it's going to help, but I don't see the engine as mattering a whole lot.
NothingNow
Banned
Most modern heavy armored cars (like the Maneuver Combat Vehicle, Centauro and Rooikat) and light tanks (really just the 2S25 Sprut-SD at the moment) fit that criteria.
Indeed, the whole concept of the light tank is abandoning protection for firepower and speed, while the Heavy armored car also ads absurd strategic mobility, since you can road march them a thousand miles in a week and expect them to fight effectively on the other side without much more logistical support than a few tanker trucks. (Tracked vehicles need dedicated transporters to have that sort of mobility, given that tracks need to be repaired and replaced very frequently.)
Also, all that really does is make mobility killing a tank that much easier, and well, an immobile tank is a dead tank.
I mean an engine does provide more protection from HEAT munitions, and can help break up kinetic penetrators, but a setup like the Merkava is mostly useful in that it allows better separation of crew and mechanical spaces, while also allowing the crew to safely reload under armor, as well as providing flexibility in evacuations and rescues of other personnel.
Really, you want as many essential systems as possible under armor, with additional protection for the crew that doesn't interfere with them doing their duties.
The crux of this discussion, is really what do you want your AFV to do and where it is going to do it? That will dictate what balance of armour, firepower and mobility you design into it.
So for example, the M56 Scorpion was a heli-transportable/air droppable AT gun system - essentially a field gun with tracks - minimum weight for transportability and minimal protection for the crew as its modus operandi was much the same as a standard towed field gun. A light recce vehicle is designed to carry out a recce function (covertly) and not to engage directly in combat - hence it is balanced in favour of high mobility at the expense of armour and firepower. A MBT is designed to slug it out with other MBTs and therefore is either equally balanced in firepower, armour and mobility or skewed to heavier firepower and armour at the expense of mobility.
To put it bluntly, a MBT with no armour that is mobility killed with the first round is doctrinally unsound even if the crew survive in some form of armoured pod. As for the Merkava it was/is a very local answer to a local situation the IDF found itself confronting. The front-engined layout gave them the answer they were after but that does not make the Merkava a balanced design for all battlefied conditions.
So, as I said, first work out what it is you want your AFV to do as that will dictate (or certainly point you in the right direction) as to where its design will take you.
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Ok I'm back to designing AFVs for one of my TLs again. Have two armored car designs that I want to look at.
The first is a modified BA-3 design. The turret is changed over to that of a T-28 Medium Tank with the main gun being a M116 75mm Pack Howitzer. Varients of this design would also have a flamethrower.
The second is the Panhard 178B mod. This one has three different main armaments. These are either a 20mm Oerlikon, 37mm Bofors AT Gun, or a duel M2 50 cal mount. The first two have a commander hatch GP MG as well.
Both designs are all welded, so no rivets.
Have two armored car designs that I want to look at. The first is a modified BA-3 design. The turret is changed over to that of a T-28 Medium Tank with the main gun being a M116 75mm Pack Howitzer. Varients of this design would also have a flamethrower.
The second is the Panhard 178B mod. This one has three different main armaments. These are either a 20mm Oerlikon, 37mm Bofors AT Gun, or a duel M2 50 cal mount. The first two have a commander hatch GP MG as well.
Both designs are all welded, so no rivets.
Do you mean one of the T-28's smaller turrets? Because I don't think the main turret would fit or are you talking about another T-28 tank I'm not familiar with because I don't think your talking about the US T28TD.Ok I'm back to designing AFVs for one of my TLs again.
The first is a modified BA-3 design. The turret is changed over to that of a T-28 Medium Tank with the main gun being a M116 75mm Pack Howitzer. Varients of this design would also have a flamethrower.
The second is the Panhard 178B mod. This one has three different main armaments. These are either a 20mm Oerlikon, 37mm Bofors AT Gun, or a duel M2 50 cal mount. The first two have a commander hatch GP MG as well.
Both designs are all welded, so no rivets.
I'm talking about the main turret off the Soviet T-28 Medium Tank. Also remember these are ground up designs not patch jobs so they are designed to fit from the get go instead of trying to shoehorn a turret onto something else.
Edit: All my design request unless otherwise stated for the foreseeable future should be thought of as ground up designs not patch jobs trying to shoehorn something into something else.
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Ok I'm back to designing AFVs for one of my TLs again.
The first is a modified BA-3 design. The turret is changed over to that of a T-28 Medium Tank with the main gun being a M116 75mm Pack Howitzer. Varients of this design would also have a flamethrower.
The second is the Panhard 178B mod. This one has three different main armaments. These are either a 20mm Oerlikon, 37mm Bofors AT Gun, or a duel M2 50 cal mount. The first two have a commander hatch GP MG as well.
Both designs are all welded, so no rivets.
I'll have a try tomorrow...
Couldn't find a decent BA-3 pic so I used a BA-6 instead.Ok I'm back to designing AFVs for one of my TLs again.
The first is a modified BA-3 design. The turret is changed over to that of a T-28 Medium Tank with the main gun being a M116 75mm Pack Howitzer. Varients of this design would also have a flamethrower.
The second is the Panhard 178B mod. This one has three different main armaments. These are either a 20mm Oerlikon, 37mm Bofors AT Gun, or a duel M2 50 cal mount. The first two have a commander hatch GP MG as well.
Both designs are all welded, so no rivets.
Forget about that back machine gun in the T-28 turret. That's something that isn't in the final design ITL. Also the commander needs a machine gun. But that's about what I had in mind for this little beast.
Ok I'm back to designing AFVs for one of my TLs again.
The first is a modified BA-3 design. The turret is changed over to that of a T-28 Medium Tank with the main gun being a M116 75mm Pack Howitzer. Varients of this design would also have a flamethrower.
The second is the Panhard 178B mod. This one has three different main armaments. These are either a 20mm Oerlikon, 37mm Bofors AT Gun, or a duel M2 50 cal mount. The first two have a commander hatch GP MG as well.
Both designs are all welded, so no rivets.
OK so here we go for your first request - a modified BA-3/6 armoured car. The BA-3/6 was a pretty hefty machine and I have included an OTL drawing for comparison. The first thing that you wanted was for it to mount a T-28 turret - unfortunately that is not possible as the T-28 turret is way too big (see middle drawing). However, you wanted the modified BA-3/6 to mount a M116 75mm howitzer - this is actually quite a small artillery piece and would, IMHO, fit into the existing BA-6 turret (with some modifications to allow it a high angle of fire). See the right hand drawing for my BA-6 mounting the 75mm Pack Howitzer.
Edit: I went back and removed the rivets, as per your original request.
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Ok I'm back to designing AFVs for one of my TLs again.
The first is a modified BA-3 design. The turret is changed over to that of a T-28 Medium Tank with the main gun being a M116 75mm Pack Howitzer. Varients of this design would also have a flamethrower.
The second is the Panhard 178B mod. This one has three different main armaments. These are either a 20mm Oerlikon, 37mm Bofors AT Gun, or a duel M2 50 cal mount. The first two have a commander hatch GP MG as well.
Both designs are all welded, so no rivets.
...and the second series based on the Panhard 178...
50 mm L/60 KwK 39/1 but I wonder if a BK-5 semi-auto cannon would fit?
The Sdkfz 234/2 had a turret that was purpose built to mount the 5cm KwK 39 L/60 gun and would have been unlikely to take anything larger (I'm sure if it could have done successfully the Germans would have tried). The Sdkfz 234/3 and Sdkfz 234/4 mounted the 7.5 cm K51 L/24 and 7.5 cm PaK 40 L/46 respectively but, of course, both were in turretless open mounts.
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