Tanks and other Armoured Vehicles Image thread.

[Carrot of Truth]

-snip-

My knowledge of Battletech is fairly limited, I know about some of the fluff but most of my knowledge came from the old Mech Assault games where you were fighting "The word of Blake" which is a pretty cool name for a cult IMO. Oh also from what I recall about their tanks is that they are totally not Israeli Merkava's in space.

 

[Aaron Fox]

My knowledge of Battletech is fairly limited, I know about some of the fluff but most of my knowledge came from the old Mech Assault games where you were fighting "The word of Blake" which is a pretty cool name for a cult IMO. Oh also from what I recall about their tanks is that they are totally not Israeli Merkava's in space.

Oh boy, then that's a doozy for you. Mech Assault was a 'gaiden' game that a lot of people have a love/hate relationship with at best in the fandom. Word of Blake is the fanatics of ComStar, which is basically a Telecom company mixed with the Catholic Church. There is a Merkava series of tanks, but those kind of went by the wayside after the Age of War.

In Battletech, there is one thing that you've got to understand: if you fight a tank in a 'mech, NEVER fall into hubris for it will be the last thing you'll ever do. Tanks can (and will) kill you if you don't fight smart. Some of them are absolute monsters (there are reasons why tanks like the Demolisher series tend to be given a wide berth) who will ruin your day.

 

[Carrot of Truth]

Oh boy, then that's a doozy for you. Mech Assault was a 'gaiden' game that a lot of people have a love/hate relationship with at best in the fandom. Word of Blake is the fanatics of ComStar, which is basically a Telecom company mixed with the Catholic Church. There is a Merkava series of tanks, but those kind of went by the wayside after the Age of War.

In Battletech, there is one thing that you've got to understand: if you fight a tank in a 'mech, NEVER fall into hubris for it will be the last thing you'll ever do. Tanks can (and will) kill you if you don't fight smart. Some of them are absolute monsters (there are reasons why tanks like the Demolisher series tend to be given a wide berth) who will ruin your day.

I actually like the Mech Assault games back in the day, I was somewhat sad to learn that the Ragnarok is a non cannon mech though.

 

[Aaron Fox]

I actually like the Mech Assault games back in the day, I was somewhat sad to learn that the Ragnarok is a non cannon mech though.

While Battletech isn't as bad as some fandoms in what is and isn't cannon (*cough*Front Mission and its unending mission to eliminate all gaiden games outside of Alternative from its canon roster*cough*), there are things that even they consider way out there.

Like the cartoon series that got canonized as a propaganda cartoon in-universe.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

While Battletech isn't as bad as some fandoms in what is and isn't cannon (*cough*Front Mission and its unending mission to eliminate all gaiden games outside of Alternative from its canon roster*cough*), there are things that even they consider way out there.

Like the cartoon series that got canonized as a propaganda cartoon in-universe.

Which was a great way to handle it!

 

[JagerIV]

It's not that retarded even in IRL uses (see: AA vehicles needing insane RoF to hit fast aircraft, pre cold war warships having plenty of ammo). Which points to a simple rule - if low rate of fire or heat limit of rate of fire is a bigger issue than ammo reserve, multiple guns make sense. And in most game mechanics, it does make sense, even if it's not realistic.
For the typical game that runs on health points, not simulating system damage, advanced accuracy, ammo, crew stunning and so on, the IRL effect of first shot advantage is lost, while being able to pump out lots of dakka is rewarded.
Meanwhile in modern tanks , the tank has something around 40 main gun rounds and can fire them off in around 4-6 minutes depending on the specific tank and loader without needing an additional gun. Obviously tanks like this hardly ever get much use of their maximum rate of fire IRL as that would mean spending waaaay more time reloading than fighting.
So, why squeeze another gun into the turret to get more peak RoF that's hardly ever used anyway? Better get 10 more rounds for the first gun.
Note that around early WW2, when tanks used relatively small ammo for 37mm and low velocity 75mm guns, sometimes they had one of each and loads of ammo for each, but once high velocity 75mm+ guns became common that went away and ammo capacity went down to 2 digits despite that due to the big powder capacity shells needed for high velocity, large caliber guns.

Yeah, you have the mixture of "you want to be as small as possible", since lower footprint, lower cost, excetera. However, on the other hand you have "return to scale" issues, where the larger you go, a lot of things make more sense.

IRL the general desire is for the lightest gun you can get away with, to allow the lightest tank you can get away with. Some people for example give the 88 on the Tiger tanks as a bit of bad tank design, because it was generally overkill, which forces a bigger tank, increasing weight, lowering life of the track.

So, modern tanks are generally the smallest vehicle that can practically carry a large enough gun: A T-90 vs a Abrams tank is only about a 40% weight difference, despite a T-90 being a much leaner, more cramped vehicle. If we had some bit of modern tech that made a 105 mm an adequate gun again, more compact gun and ammo would suggest using this to make a smaller and more compact tank, rather than adding more firepower. Since you can't really use much of it anways.

Boats as you suggest had different limits: a viable warship that can cross the Atlantic for example puts lower limits on scale: so, even if theoretically taking a battleship's 9 guns and spreading it across 9 ships would theoretically be more survivable than one ship, the lower limit of a naval platform that can support a 16 inch gun is probably higher than 5,000 tons, the weight of an Iowa (46,000t) divided by 9. And of course a Battleship has more weapons than the 16 inchers, counting the wiki in 1943 th Iowa had 157 barrels (mostly AA). 300 tons per gun. Not practical ship size.

I could see some plausible reasons it may be more advantageous to pile more weapons on one platform vs spreading across. Fusion vs ICE engines may suggest once your in a vehicle big enough to make Fusion practical in Battletech it makes more sense to make a bigger vehicle than a second fusion engine if that's the main price driver.

Different conditions can drive different trade offs too: A Timber Wolf has 7 primary weapons. Each one separately would need a 40-60 ton vehicle to carry on modern terms. This would probably be more effective per weapon, but would also weigh 300-400 tons, vs 75 tons on the Timber Wolf. In the basically airborne roll a Timber Wolf operates, if your Dropship can carry 300 tons, you can drop 4 Timber wolves, or 4 vehicles with as much firepower as 1 Timberwolf.

4 Timber wolves now might be worth a whole lot more than 16 vehicles delivered over the course of the day, even if its less efficient per weapon. A jack of all trades that can muddle through most any situation it stumbles across may be better than lean perfected specialists that will destroy the enemy utterly, as long as the combined arms all stay in their perfect dance.

I've had similar musing on the Leman Russ. The sponsons are stupid in the anti armor roll: has big bits sticking out from the main hull armor for giant weak points that other tanks can engage from the front. Its profile is terrible compared to a modern tank. However, that very optimized frontal engagement modern tanks can design around are dependent upon good combined arms that can in some way limit flanking shots and rely on the presense of competent infantry.

If however your in a situation where flanking fire is going to be more common/harder to prevent, and effective infantry support is much less guarenteed, I wonder if trading off optimal tank fighting design for "organic" flank cover might not result in a net better survival.

Like, on the Russian advance, if the infantry just was not up to snuff, either in skill or quantity to protect the tanks, and coordination was as poor as it seemed: would a tank with 3 25 mm guns to give 270 degree view, and a large 120 mm+ large HE round, so accuracy is less critical. A more self contained vehicle less dependent on good communication or other people doing their jobs well.

May be completely wrong, but interesting thought non the less.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

So, modern tanks are generally the smallest vehicle that can practically carry a large enough gun: A T-90 vs a Abrams tank is only about a 40% weight difference, despite a T-90 being a much leaner, more cramped vehicle. If we had some bit of modern tech that made a 105 mm an adequate gun again, more compact gun and ammo would suggest using this to make a smaller and more compact tank, rather than adding more firepower. Since you can't really use much of it anways.

This is also why so much money has continued to be poured into improved 120mm penetrator ammunition as opposed to going to the larger 140mm caliber. They really, really do not want the bulk and weight penalty of the larger gun unless it's the only possible way to deliver sufficient penetration against next generation armor.

Boats as you suggest had different limits: a viable warship that can cross the Atlantic for example puts lower limits on scale: so, even if theoretically taking a battleship's 9 guns and spreading it across 9 ships would theoretically be more survivable than one ship, the lower limit of a naval platform that can support a 16 inch gun is probably higher than 5,000 tons, the weight of an Iowa (46,000t) divided by 9. And of course a Battleship has more weapons than the 16 inchers, counting the wiki in 1943 th Iowa had 157 barrels (mostly AA). 300 tons per gun. Not practical ship size.

With WWII warships, you also had the fact that they're firing ballistic artillery over extended ranges as opposed to a tank cannon being a direct fire weapon, and such ballistic fire has always worked best in massed volleys. Since it's not really practical to operate formations of single-cannon gunboats, dreadnought battleships and their lesser cousins have always been sized to carry a sufficient battery of main guns to do effective salvo ranging.

 

[Aaron Fox]

Which was a great way to handle it!

Battletech does a lot of things better when it comes to 'handling' things that the fandom doesn't like. I mean the fandom doesn't like Jihad and post-Jihad era, but they don't go out of their way to excommunicate anyone that likes those eras like how the Front Mission fandom does for basically any spinoff title outside of Alternative (most of which are generally 'the only way to keep the IP going without the IP owner pulling a 'burn the place down' IP suicide).

Yeah, you have the mixture of "you want to be as small as possible", since lower footprint, lower cost, excetera. However, on the other hand you have "return to scale" issues, where the larger you go, a lot of things make more sense.

IRL the general desire is for the lightest gun you can get away with, to allow the lightest tank you can get away with. Some people for example give the 88 on the Tiger tanks as a bit of bad tank design, because it was generally overkill, which forces a bigger tank, increasing weight, lowering life of the track.

The reason that the 88mm was fitted wasn't because overkill, but it's the best gun for all the majority of the tanks the Tigers faced (88mm guns were one of the few weapons that could penetrate the T-34 and Russian heavies with reliability, outside of 10.5cm howitzers firing HEAT rounds). A lot of the volume that the Tiger had was crew comforts and other crew-enhancing attributes.

So, modern tanks are generally the smallest vehicle that can practically carry a large enough gun: A T-90 vs a Abrams tank is only about a 40% weight difference, despite a T-90 being a much leaner, more cramped vehicle. If we had some bit of modern tech that made a 105 mm an adequate gun again, more compact gun and ammo would suggest using this to make a smaller and more compact tank, rather than adding more firepower. Since you can't really use much of it anways.

That has this tiny tiny problem of physics being a harsh mistress. What makes APFSDS rounds so effective is also a great limiter. Unlike full-bore AP, the effectiveness is determined on how long and how large the projectile is alongside its velocity. There are other things like material (DU is extremely dense, but has an 'optimal' velocity range around 1.55km/s where it is the most effective for example) but that largely determines final characteristics.

At our technological capabilities, the only way to get better penetration characteristics after maximizing the W:L ratio is making the dart bigger. Given that propellant tech had been sitting on its ass while material science improved armor immeasurably over the decades (especially in the last three or so), the only way we can improve penetration is making the rounds bigger.

If things went differently, we would probably be using ETC cannons for our vehicles by now, powered by a combination of capacitors and batteries in the anti-blast compartment and a high-powered engine (likely a turbine-HP diesel APU combo like on the Abrams, because getting a hybrid-electric diesel engine of the required wattage to power all the equipment is... suboptimal) and armor is far less important again (because at 2km/s, DU and tungsten are basically identical in terms of final penetration characteristics).

This is also why so much money has continued to be poured into improved 120mm penetrator ammunition as opposed to going to the larger 140mm caliber. They really, really do not want the bulk and weight penalty of the larger gun unless it's the only possible way to deliver sufficient penetration against next generation armor.

It should be noted that with our current propellant technology, we can't improve the 120mm APFSDS rounds all that much. Armor, funnily enough, caught up. It is likely that NATO and friends will be forced to go 140mm whether they want to or not.

 

[Jormungandr]

Battletech's impressive metallurgy is to blame in this case. Its capabilities tend to be 'you need to wear it down because penetrating it is practically impossible' for the armor at BAR 9/10 grade (armor of the present day is considered BAR 5/6, which means a small laser goes right through it like a hot knife through butter).
[...]

People tend to forget this and technological development in their lines of thinking when looking at vehicles and technology in franchises. They look at it through a real-life lens, not considering what happened in-universe.

I mean, in C&C you have people criticizing Nod and GDI vehicles, not realizing that in every game which shows each era depicted in the (tiberium) timeline, technology and metallurgy have leapfrogged ahead.

In Red Alert, you had Cold War and late WW2-era vehicles in 1947. Yes, they were slightly archaic compared to the modern versions in reality, such as the Abrams only having a 90mm cannon and steel armour like with WW2 tanks, but that was still goddamn impressive for 1947.

Tiberian Dawn, set in the mid-late 90's and early 00's, was the most realistic, but even then you had bases constructing vehicles in-field, sophisticated technology and metallurgy behind it all, and new and modified weapons being constantly developed and thrown into the fray pretty much every month.

Seriously, they're like thirty, forty years ahead of us in the real-world.

By the time Renegade comes around, set in 2002/2003, you have an Abrams derivative which is thinner, lighter, can resist goddamn directed energy weapons and primitive railguns, and were equipped with 120mm cannons which can fire a hell of a lot faster than their realistic counterparts (seriously, I'm talking about a round every three, four seconds), can be run by a single driver which also acts as the gunner... all the while being linked up to a sophisticated, world-wide computer network for C3I purposes.

And twenty years after that, you had walking mechs armed with miniguns and goddamn walking tanks (the Titans). Hell, even Nod's lighter vehicles, such as their Buggies and Attack Bikes, had armour, metallurgy, and transparent cockpits which could resist repeated 120mm APDS strikes.

But, nope: because these vehicles still use plain ol' fashion armour and metal, not being blown up like they're made of paper mache means it's all unrealistic, right? smh

 

[Carrot of Truth]

I've had similar musing on the Leman Russ. The sponsons are stupid in the anti armor roll: has big bits sticking out from the main hull armor for giant weak points that other tanks can engage from the front. Its profile is terrible compared to a modern tank. However, that very optimized frontal engagement modern tanks can design around are dependent upon good combined arms that can in some way limit flanking shots and rely on the presense of competent infantry.

If however your in a situation where flanking fire is going to be more common/harder to prevent, and effective infantry support is much less guarenteed, I wonder if trading off optimal tank fighting design for "organic" flank cover might not result in a net better survival.

To be fair the Leman Russ is just a modified farming tractor that is presumably far easier for the ad mec to mass produce. Although the ad mec builds everything in the most idiotic way imaginable.

 

[Marduk]

Yeah, you have the mixture of "you want to be as small as possible", since lower footprint, lower cost, excetera. However, on the other hand you have "return to scale" issues, where the larger you go, a lot of things make more sense.

IRL the general desire is for the lightest gun you can get away with, to allow the lightest tank you can get away with. Some people for example give the 88 on the Tiger tanks as a bit of bad tank design, because it was generally overkill, which forces a bigger tank, increasing weight, lowering life of the track.

It's less about the gun strictly, more the ammo, and especially ammo volume - as the storage volume under a tank's armor is a precious and rare commodity.
And no, the 88 was not a major reason for Tiger to be so big and heavy, it was armor. You can fit a surprisingly big gun on a surprisingly small chassis if you really want to.
At the same time Americans have put a 90mm on a turreted tank destroyer that was almost 30 tons.
Though in WW2 bigger guns also meant getting closer to the 75-130mm golden zone for HE rounds, so there was also that factor, and 88 and similar guns were not bad in that.
Low caliber very high velocity guns were, like the Soviet 57 had the real problems there. Like wise it is a challenge with ammo engineering for tank guns, though modern ones cheat by using subcaliber projectiles for anti armor.

So, modern tanks are generally the smallest vehicle that can practically carry a large enough gun: A T-90 vs a Abrams tank is only about a 40% weight difference, despite a T-90 being a much leaner, more cramped vehicle. If we had some bit of modern tech that made a 105 mm an adequate gun again, more compact gun and ammo would suggest using this to make a smaller and more compact tank, rather than adding more firepower. Since you can't really use much of it anways.

Just ammo, a gun is little weight and volume on the scale of a modern tank. You can comfortably stick a MBT gun on a 30 ton chassis if you want to. It's ammo storage and its availability that's more concerning, and there are more variables for that - if you're using light armor, then getting more volume is not so expensive in weight (see: SPGs). It's the heavily armored tanks that have to use their heavily armored storage volume judiciously, as armoring more volume to that standard adds a lot of weight.

Boats as you suggest had different limits: a viable warship that can cross the Atlantic for example puts lower limits on scale: so, even if theoretically taking a battleship's 9 guns and spreading it across 9 ships would theoretically be more survivable than one ship, the lower limit of a naval platform that can support a 16 inch gun is probably higher than 5,000 tons, the weight of an Iowa (46,000t) divided by 9. And of course a Battleship has more weapons than the 16 inchers, counting the wiki in 1943 th Iowa had 157 barrels (mostly AA). 300 tons per gun. Not practical ship size.

There's also armor, fire direction combining for all the guns and so on.
One ship needs only one radar set, fire director, quality officers to use them and so on, with 9 ships you need 9 times as much.

I could see some plausible reasons it may be more advantageous to pile more weapons on one platform vs spreading across. Fusion vs ICE engines may suggest once your in a vehicle big enough to make Fusion practical in Battletech it makes more sense to make a bigger vehicle than a second fusion engine if that's the main price driver.

But then it would not apply to the relatively cheap ICE vehicles. The main reason it works in BT is that you usually need to pour a whole bunch of cannon shots into something to destroy it, which makes it in one way closer to naval than tank warfare. A battleship would be expected to take a bunch of hits from another battleship and keep fighting, while most of shots would be misses.
Peer matched tanks on the other hand would expect to kill or at least severely degrade the opponent with first hit at optimal range, on first or second shot, and neutralize with second or third hit at worst.
In BT even an average medium mech can be expected to take a few hits from something as hefty as a gauss rifle before it goes down, nevermind more mundane weapons like LL, AC5 or AC10. One shotting generally takes insane luck and skill, or light mech targets.

Different conditions can drive different trade offs too: A Timber Wolf has 7 primary weapons. Each one separately would need a 40-60 ton vehicle to carry on modern terms. This would probably be more effective per weapon, but would also weigh 300-400 tons, vs 75 tons on the Timber Wolf. In the basically airborne roll a Timber Wolf operates, if your Dropship can carry 300 tons, you can drop 4 Timber wolves, or 4 vehicles with as much firepower as 1 Timberwolf.

>can carry
Some modern vehicles "could carry" so much dakka too, it's just generally not considered worthwhile to have this specific kind and amount of weapons. If we convert lasers to modern equivalent you would just get the BMPT Terminator. Also putting MRLS on tanks stopped being cool in WW2, and even then it wasn't light yet full range MRLS, that just makes no sense.

I've had similar musing on the Leman Russ. The sponsons are stupid in the anti armor roll: has big bits sticking out from the main hull armor for giant weak points that other tanks can engage from the front. Its profile is terrible compared to a modern tank. However, that very optimized frontal engagement modern tanks can design around are dependent upon good combined arms that can in some way limit flanking shots and rely on the presense of competent infantry.

40k has the excuse of several major enemy factions loving their spam tactics, so squeezing in extra weapons against those makes sense. Also caring about a tank's profile stopped making much sense around late 70's, when computerized fire control and guns got good enough to reliably hit even the most compact tanks from their effective range (T-72 got really screwed by that, it had a lot of design compromises to get its small profile).

Like, on the Russian advance, if the infantry just was not up to snuff, either in skill or quantity to protect the tanks, and coordination was as poor as it seemed: would a tank with 3 25 mm guns to give 270 degree view, and a large 120 mm+ large HE round, so accuracy is less critical. A more self contained vehicle less dependent on good communication or other people doing their jobs well.

BMPT was supposed to do that, but it's poorly designed and its support equipment is lacking, not giving it the situational awareness to get much use of the dakka it has.

 

[Aaron Fox]

To be fair the Leman Russ is just a modified farming tractor that is presumably far easier for the ad mec to mass produce. Although the ad mec builds everything in the most idiotic way imaginable.

Nope, there are reasons for that and it stems from the universe they're in. Basically, shapes and icons have meaning in the WH40k universe. To give an example, if you make a certain shape in the circuitry, then it'll be screaming for the blood god and possibly opening a demon portal (up to and including demon primarch level portals) as a worst case scenario. A canonical example of this is of an assault pod, where the shapes of circuits met in just the right way to make things harder for the Imperium during the Great Crusade, then when the Heresy kicked off the Imperial stocks of this assault pod killed everyone inside them while the heretical ones had absolutely no troubles with theirs.

Then there is the problem of getting the STCs for the good stuff (and the STCs to have the tooling for that good stuff). Pre-Strife humanity had technology so advanced that they had to create a system of templates to ensure everyone could build the tech without understanding them, and when a certain reality cancer was born and kicked off the rebellion of the Men of Iron (i.e. AGIs), the STCs got scattered to the winds. Some of the tech here is insane, like a certain ship who manipulated time because it didn't like the Eldar ship escaping its wrath...

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

A canonical example of this is of an assault pod, where the shapes of circuits met in just the right way to make things harder for the Imperium during the Great Crusade, then when the Heresy kicked off the Imperial stocks of this assault pod killed everyone inside them while the heretical ones had absolutely no troubles with theirs.

If you mean the Dreadclaw Pod, these things's machine spirits were always dangerously murderous towards non-chaos people. No one could figure out what the flaw was, they just were like that.

 

[JagerIV]

This is also why so much money has continued to be poured into improved 120mm penetrator ammunition as opposed to going to the larger 140mm caliber. They really, really do not want the bulk and weight penalty of the larger gun unless it's the only possible way to deliver sufficient penetration against next generation armor.



With WWII warships, you also had the fact that they're firing ballistic artillery over extended ranges as opposed to a tank cannon being a direct fire weapon, and such ballistic fire has always worked best in massed volleys. Since it's not really practical to operate formations of single-cannon gunboats, dreadnought battleships and their lesser cousins have always been sized to carry a sufficient battery of main guns to do effective salvo ranging.

Yeah, BattleTech is more or less modeled as a barrage combat, which adds to the multiple weapons. You have 3 PPC's so that hopefully 1 hits. Or if your luckly all three hits and you actually kill the target.

To be fair the Leman Russ is just a modified farming tractor that is presumably far easier for the ad mec to mass produce. Although the ad mec builds everything in the most idiotic way imaginable.

Eh, its a bit more than that. Though reliability is another big thing too of course. I vaguely recall some study of tank losses in 1945 was roughly 50% guns (including AT and artillery, so not just other tanks), 20% mines, 10% Infantry weapons, and 20% mechanical failure. Extreme mechanical reliability would be desirable, especially over the extremely long supply lines imperial might operate on.

It's less about the gun strictly, more the ammo, and especially ammo volume - as the storage volume under a tank's armor is a precious and rare commodity.
And no, the 88 was not a major reason for Tiger to be so big and heavy, it was armor. You can fit a surprisingly big gun on a surprisingly small chassis if you really want to.
At the same time Americans have put a 90mm on a turreted tank destroyer that was almost 30 tons.
Though in WW2 bigger guns also meant getting closer to the 75-130mm golden zone for HE rounds, so there was also that factor, and 88 and similar guns were not bad in that.
Low caliber very high velocity guns were, like the Soviet 57. Like wise it is a challenge with ammo engineering for tank guns, though modern ones cheat by using subcaliber projectiles for anti armor.

Just ammo, a gun is little weight and volume on the scale of a modern tank. You can comfortably stick a MBT gun on a 30 ton chassis if you want to. It's ammo storage and its availability that's more concerning, and there are more variables for that - if you're using light armor, then getting more volume is not so expensive in weight (see: SPGs). It's the heavily armored tanks that have to use their heavily armored storage volume judiciously, as armoring more volume to that standard adds a lot of weight.

Eh, ammo is part of the overall weapon system, including space for loading, which is a big issue for tanks: its why the Heavy tanks did two part ammunition in the cold war: with conventional charges at 1950s-60s tech one peice ammo is overly bulky to load. That puts a lot of lower limits on practical scale, such as minimum turret ring. Guns also tend to place lower limits on weight for recoil concerns.

You also I think your partially underestimating how much tech is mattering here too. The Soviet 125 mm gun apparently weighs about 2 tons as a weapon system, while the WWII 122 gun was roughly 5-7 tons.



There's also armor, fire direction combining for all the guns and so on.
One ship needs only one radar set, fire director, quality officers to use them and so on, with 9 ships you need 9 times as much.

But then it would not apply to the relatively cheap ICE vehicles. The main reason it works in BT is that you usually need to pour a whole bunch of cannon shots into something to destroy it, which makes it in one way closer to naval than tank warfare. A battleship would be expected to take a bunch of hits from another battleship and keep fighting, while most of shots would be misses.
Peer matched tanks on the other hand would expect to kill or at least severely degrade the opponent with first hit at optimal range, on first or second shot, and neutralize with second or third hit at worst.
In BT even an average medium mech can be expected to take a few hits from something as hefty as a gauss rifle before it goes down, nevermind more mundane weapons like LL, AC5 or AC10. One shotting generally takes insane luck and skill, or light mech targets.


>can carry
Some modern vehicles "could carry" so much dakka too, it's just generally not considered worthwhile to have this specific kind and amount of weapons. If we convert lasers to modern equivalent you would just get the BMPT Terminator. Also putting MRLS on tanks stopped being cool in WW2, and even then it wasn't light yet full range MRLS, that just makes no sense.

Eh.

40k has the excuse of several major enemy factions loving their spam tactics, so squeezing in extra weapons against those makes sense. Also caring about a tank's profile stopped making much sense around late 70's, when computerized fire control and guns got good enough to reliably hit even the most compact tanks from their effective range (T-72 got really screwed by that, it had a lot of design compromises to get its small profile).


BMPT was supposed to do that, but it's poorly designed and its support equipment is lacking, not giving it the situational awareness to get much use of the dakka it has.

Eh, profile is still extremely important for efficiency of armor layout. Though, a box like the Leman Russ should be more efficient for overall volume under armor, if you don't need the extremes of modern tank design to maximize chance of surviving shots from other tank guns.

BMPT is also combined arms: you need the tank and 1-2 such vehicles working in close coordination. your 4 vehicles to get all round looking.

With a fully manned Leman Russ, You have 270 view by the three sponson crewmembers, plus the commander up top hopefully looking all round. Compared to a traditional tank which might have 1 person who can really look around (drivers assumedly focused on driving, not scanning the horizon, gunner may or may not be able to look well), A leman Russ on the march has 4-6 crew able to do surveillance.

You also have a 7-8 man crew, but that also potentially adds to self sufficiency of the vehicle. 2-3 man crews seem to have an issue where the tank is extra dependent upon support crew in another vehicle to perform basic tasks. Depends on what practically is the limiting factor on operations.

I remember someone showing RAND design here for a future 2 man tank, which maximumly optimizes for surviving battle, but also requires the tank to have a fighter like deployment for fairly short intensity fighting and then either withdrawal or having back up crews for rotation.

If the tank needs to be able to maintain week long road marches and holding lines for weeks or months, 8 crewmembers allow for 8 hour 2 man shifts, even with 1-2 casualties, allowing sustainable deployment.

 

[Marduk]

Yeah, BattleTech is more or less modeled as a barrage combat, which adds to the multiple weapons. You have 3 PPC's so that hopefully 1 hits. Or if your luckly all three hits and you actually kill the target.

Even then, if they don't all hit in the same location they won't even kill most mediums.

Eh, its a bit more than that. Though reliability is another big thing too of course. I vaguely recall some study of tank losses in 1945 was roughly 50% guns (including AT and artillery, so not just other tanks), 20% mines, 10% Infantry weapons, and 20% mechanical failure. Extreme mechanical reliability would be desirable, especially over the extremely long supply lines imperial might operate on.

That's a technological quirk of WW2 and wartime production tanks. Back then it was normal for tanks to need a major repairs after few hundreds of kilometers of driving, and factory level overhaul after few thousands. Now the manufacturing and material technologies have advanced enough that these expectations have gained a zero at the end.
I'd say it has more to do with the cheapness and relatively low tech of the design rather than a focus choice - after all, if they need to, they can make Baneblades and the like, and these more expensive vehicles are famous for serving as long, if not longer than the common Leman Russ, rather than falling apart at slightest excuse. However, many planets in the Imperium currently are lucky to be able to mass produce even simpler versions of Leman Russ and the Imperial Guard can never get enough of them.

Eh, ammo is part of the overall weapon system, including space for loading, which is a big issue for tanks: its why the Heavy tanks did two part ammunition in the cold war: with conventional charges at 1950s-60s tech one peice ammo is overly bulky to load. That puts a lot of lower limits on practical scale, such as minimum turret ring. Guns also tend to place lower limits on weight for recoil concerns.

Used to, not anymore with more advanced recoil mitigation. Now you have Russians sticking full power 125's on a less than 30 ton tank destroyer, check out Sprut-SD, or Italian Centauro 120.
Also Russian 125's still use two piece ammo.

You also I think your partially underestimating how much tech is mattering here too. The Soviet 125 mm gun apparently weighs about 2 tons as a weapon system, while the WWII 122 gun was roughly 5-7 tons.

I think you have mistakenly added a wheeled field gun mount to that weight figure from the wiki.

155 mm gun T7 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mass	2,384 kg (5,256 lb)

That's even a bloody 155, not 120 or so, from 1945.

Eh, profile is still extremely important for efficiency of armor layout. Though, a box like the Leman Russ should be more efficient for overall volume under armor, if you don't need the extremes of modern tank design to maximize chance of surviving shots from other tank guns.

Many modern tanks are boxes too thanks to composite armor. Look at Abrams, and especially Leopard 2A4, they would have rather poor sloping if they had basic steel armor.

BMPT is also combined arms: you need the tank and 1-2 such vehicles working in close coordination. your 4 vehicles to get all round looking.

With a fully manned Leman Russ, You have 270 view by the three sponson crewmembers, plus the commander up top hopefully looking all round. Compared to a traditional tank which might have 1 person who can really look around (drivers assumedly focused on driving, not scanning the horizon, gunner may or may not be able to look well), A leman Russ on the march has 4-6 crew able to do surveillance.

You also have a 7-8 man crew, but that also potentially adds to self sufficiency of the vehicle. 2-3 man crews seem to have an issue where the tank is extra dependent upon support crew in another vehicle to perform basic tasks. Depends on what practically is the limiting factor on operations.

Modern "gold plated" tanks have the commander at minimum, and ideally also driver and gunner, enjoy 360 degree view through a wide selection of optics, thermals and sometimes even more exotic sensors, ideally with some computer assistance, it's not WW1 anymore.

Tanks are not meant to operate alone for long either way. If support vehicles aren't there, that means supplies aren't there either, and a tank can't last long without supplies.

I remember someone showing RAND design here for a future 2 man tank, which maximumly optimizes for surviving battle, but also requires the tank to have a fighter like deployment for fairly short intensity fighting and then either withdrawal or having back up crews for rotation.

That's where things are already at - any modernish tank needs resupply after about few hours of intense fighting anyway because ammo and fuel will run low, and may be outright mission killed if it takes some light damage because some vital sensors got blown up or the gun no longer shoots straight.

If the tank needs to be able to maintain week long road marches and holding lines for weeks or months, 8 crewmembers allow for 8 hour 2 man shifts, even with 1-2 casualties, allowing sustainable deployment.

That's a stretch even for a Baneblade. This is Titan or at least Land Raider territory.
In fact Imperium does have its own spin on the "RAND design" with 1 pilot Imperial Knight mechs, which are armed roughly around the same level as a tank.

 

[Carrot of Truth]

Nope, there are reasons for that and it stems from the universe they're in. Basically, shapes and icons have meaning in the WH40k universe. To give an example, if you make a certain shape in the circuitry, then it'll be screaming for the blood god and possibly opening a demon portal (up to and including demon primarch level portals) as a worst case scenario. A canonical example of this is of an assault pod, where the shapes of circuits met in just the right way to make things harder for the Imperium during the Great Crusade, then when the Heresy kicked off the Imperial stocks of this assault pod killed everyone inside them while the heretical ones had absolutely no troubles with theirs.

Then there is the problem of getting the STCs for the good stuff (and the STCs to have the tooling for that good stuff). Pre-Strife humanity had technology so advanced that they had to create a system of templates to ensure everyone could build the tech without understanding them, and when a certain reality cancer was born and kicked off the rebellion of the Men of Iron (i.e. AGIs), the STCs got scattered to the winds. Some of the tech here is insane, like a certain ship who manipulated time because it didn't like the Eldar ship escaping its wrath...

Its actually unclear on all of that weather or not the "Machine Spirit" in some cases is an actual AI or just a fancy word for basic maintenance or more likely a bit of both. Anyways I get what you are saying about the also chaos infection thing but what I meant by idiotic is how the Ad Mec gets all into fitting all of their shit with loads of fancy ornate iconography and whatnot which is what they actually spend most of their time doing on new machines.

EDIT: Also golden age of technology humanity had weapons that outright destroyed the warp to where it just no longer exists in a certain area so they were definitely familiar with warp entities to some degree.

 

[JagerIV]

Even then, if they don't all hit in the same location they won't even kill most mediums.



That's a technological quirk of WW2 and wartime production tanks. Back then it was normal for tanks to need a major repairs after few hundreds of kilometers of driving, and factory level overhaul after few thousands. Now the manufacturing and material technologies have advanced enough that these expectations have gained a zero at the end.
I'd say it has more to do with the cheapness and relatively low tech of the design rather than a focus choice - after all, if they need to, they can make Baneblades and the like, and these more expensive vehicles are famous for serving as long, if not longer than the common Leman Russ, rather than falling apart at slightest excuse. However, many planets in the Imperium currently are lucky to be able to mass produce even simpler versions of Leman Russ and the Imperial Guard can never get enough of them.


Used to, not anymore with more advanced recoil mitigation. Now you have Russians sticking full power 125's on a less than 30 ton tank destroyer, check out Sprut-SD, or Italian Centauro 120.
Also Russian 125's still use two piece ammo.


I think you have mistakenly added a wheeled field gun mount to that weight figure from the wiki.

155 mm gun T7 - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Mass	2,384 kg (5,256 lb)

That's even a bloody 155, not 120 or so, from 1945.

Yes, technology advances. You really do have this very annoying habit of phrasing apparent agreement as a disagreement.

Many modern tanks are boxes too thanks to composite armor. Look at Abrams, and especially Leopard 2A4, they would have rather poor sloping if they had basic steel armor.

They're less slopped, in some places, but still very much shaped to minimize frontal arc. An Abrams and a Tiger I for example are roughly equally wide (3.5 vs 3.6 m) but the Abrams have a longer hull (7.9 vs 6.3 m) and shorter (2.4 v 3 m). So, Abrams diverges further from an ideal box than a Tiger, an addmittedly very boxey tank.

Modern "gold plated" tanks have the commander at minimum, and ideally also driver and gunner, enjoy 360 degree view through a wide selection of optics, thermals and sometimes even more exotic sensors, ideally with some computer assistance, it's not WW1 anymore.

I'm not talking about how much a theoretical view one has, but the number of actual observes. A driver, especially on the drive, is probably not super great on broader situational awareness. Obviously modern tech hopefully makes those observers more effective.

Tanks are not meant to operate alone for long either way. If support vehicles aren't there, that means supplies aren't there either, and a tank can't last long without supplies.

That's where things are already at - any modernish tank needs resupply after about few hours of intense fighting anyway because ammo and fuel will run low, and may be outright mission killed if it takes some light damage because some vital sensors got blown up or the gun no longer shoots straight.

Were talking about crew endurance though, not supply. It certainly may make sense to prioratize for 10 minutes of combat than days of operation, but I can see the other argument. Its all marginal questions.

That's a stretch even for a Baneblade. This is Titan or at least Land Raider territory.
In fact Imperium does have its own spin on the "RAND design" with 1 pilot Imperial Knight mechs, which are armed roughly around the same level as a tank.

Its crazy that a tank might be on garrison duty or have to do a long march? Suggesting the current war going on is impossible seems.. strange. Or that a situation like Iraq war might occur. A tank may have to deploy forward, and stay deployed for an extended time.

 

[Aaron Fox]

If you mean the Dreadclaw Pod, these things's machine spirits were always dangerously murderous towards non-chaos people. No one could figure out what the flaw was, they just were like that.

One of the theories is that some circuits aligned to a chaos deity, mind you.

Its actually unclear on all of that weather or not the "Machine Spirit" in some cases is an actual AI or just a fancy word for basic maintenance or more likely a bit of both. Anyways I get what you are saying about the also chaos infection thing but what I meant by idiotic is how the Ad Mec gets all into fitting all of their shit with loads of fancy ornate iconography and whatnot which is what they actually spend most of their time doing on new machines.

EDIT: Also golden age of technology humanity had weapons that outright destroyed the warp to where it just no longer exists in a certain area so they were definitely familiar with warp entities to some degree.

That iconography is really freaking important, for it helps ward off Chaos to a degree. Warhammer's 'narrative physics' work both ways. Some shapes and icons bring Chaos into the picture while others increase Chaos Resistance.

 

[Marduk]

They're less slopped, in some places, but still very much shaped to minimize frontal arc. An Abrams and a Tiger I for example are roughly equally wide (3.5 vs 3.6 m) but the Abrams have a longer hull (7.9 vs 6.3 m) and shorter (2.4 v 3 m). So, Abrams diverges further from an ideal box than a Tiger, an addmittedly very boxey tank.

And look at their turrets in comparison to earlier tanks...
Tank width is already maxed out around that 3.5m figure due to the logistical limits of bridges, roads and railroads, Abrams could only have lower profile due to more advanced suspension and gearbox requiring less height for the hull.
Ironically T-14 of all modern tanks exceed these 3 meters in height.

I'm not talking about how much a theoretical view one has, but the number of actual observes. A driver, especially on the drive, is probably not super great on broader situational awareness. Obviously modern tech hopefully makes those observers more effective.

That's the idea, especially with modern advanced driving system allowing him to spend less attention on driving compared to old tanks. Also the benefit of multiple observers is dimnished with the need to coordinate them and share information between them, and that's assuming you give them quality observation instruments - without those, the observation capability of people in tanks is notoriously shitty, no matter how many there are.

Were talking about crew endurance though, not supply. It certainly may make sense to prioratize for 10 minutes of combat than days of operation, but I can see the other argument. Its all marginal questions.

That's the trick, why worry about crew endurance, when you know that it exceeds supply endurance several times over for any scenarios where peak performance is needed. When push comes to shove the optimal solution for such intense scenarios is to have secondary crews in the support detachment.

Its crazy that a tank might be on garrison duty or have to do a long march? Suggesting the current war going on is impossible seems.. strange. Or that a situation like Iraq war might occur. A tank may have to deploy forward, and stay deployed for an extended time.

Surprisingly enough, yes. Doing long marches with tanks is considered a fair way to exhaust the tank's technical readiness without any enemy action involved. For long marches you put them on heavy truck trailers if nothing else.
As for garrison duty, ask Israel - easier to switch crews than move tanks out of position, nevermind specially design tanks and crews for it. And that's one of rather few countries using tanks for it.
As for fast offensives, the crews rest as the tanks resupply and/or supply elements catch up, as a typical tank moving at cruise speed with occasional small engagement will need a refuel few times inside mere 24h, caffeine or other stims in rare cases such stops aren't enough.

 

[Carrot of Truth]

One of the theories is that some circuits aligned to a chaos deity, mind you.

That iconography is really freaking important, for it helps ward off Chaos to a degree. Warhammer's 'narrative physics' work both ways. Some shapes and icons bring Chaos into the picture while others increase Chaos Resistance.

Only the seals do that the rest is just bling.