well, actually the swedish army was interested in a 4-legged walking tank with 3 cannons, 16 missiles, a huge minigun-like thing, and some dual laser thingy in the rear section. trouble is, that its not currently up to spec,
and seems to lack room for ammunition fuel, an engine,
and general storage of equipment.
current guess of ammunition count:
16 missiles, 500 rounds for the minigun,
15 rounds for the roof cannons, 150 rounds for the rear mounted guns. rear section gun mount looks awfully unprotected. having armour plates instead of rails would be better. how is the roof guns loaded?
how is the missile launchers reloaded?
sorry, can't help it. been working far too long creating 3d models of military-themed vehicles to simply be able to overlook blatant tactical misconstructs in fantasy vehicles with a semi-realistic feel to them.
This thing looks cool. I can already imagine it rolling around, taking out baddies with its legs alone!
Couple of thoughts though...
The mini cannon looking thing doesn't seem very practical. It's at ground level and doesn't look like it has any way of rotating around. Makes for limited use.
I also agree that the stairs look out of place. If you just HAVE to keep them, have you thought of closing them up? Make them more like armor plates that double as stairs?
where do the troops sleep during the long hauls to the frontline? theres no space for attaching sleeping bags or tents. where do they put their consoles, magazines, beer, stuff to eat, more beer, clothes, ammunition etc?
here are the specs
-main engine delivers 500flippawatts to subsiduary magnetic tracts, that provide roughly 1000 (shire horse)BHP per wheel and really quite alot of torque in the joints.
- main artillary guns- stores ammunition for 30 volleys (space saving new technology that requires no explosive)
- chain gun- fires anti-matter tipped bullets, as such they are much smaller than the aperture, running along anti-magnetic (just a code name) drag strips that provide propulsion to the ammunition.
- missiles, now these are in short supply, and should be used wisely 20x antiair missiles 12x long range ground to ground missiles.
- rear bum gun (or known as the "laser shitter" amoungst the troops) is powered via the main powersource, and therefore has infinite ammo. not powerfull against most machines (unless particular weak spots are found) but cuts through flesh quite well)
here are the specs
>>-main engine delivers 500flippawatts to subsiduary
>>magnetic tracts, that provide roughly 1000 (shire horse)
>>BHP per wheel and really quite alot of torque in the
>>joints.
the main engine delivers around 500 flippawatts?
the highest unit of power i could find was yottawatt, which is 10^24 watts.
i'll assume a flippawatt is 1 unit above, 10^27 watts. now considering the suns illumination is 386 yottawatts, the energy output of the engine is approximately that of a supernova.
basically it'd be more effective to simply drive/walk this vehicle whithin 10^100 miles of the enemy base, and cause the engine to overload, thereby wiping out the whole planet, and the rest of the solar system.
i'd say 28 yottahp to each wheel and joint is a pretty realistic figure, and there's still enough energy to blow up half the solar system.
>>- main artillary guns- stores ammunition for 30 volleys
>>(space saving new technology that requires no explosive)
just say that they're artillery railguns.
>>- chain gun- fires anti-matter tipped bullets, as such they
>>are much smaller than the aperture, running along anti-
>>magnetic (just a code name) drag strips that provide
>>propulsion to the ammunition.
more railguns. i'd be careful with the antimatter. if it touches any normal matter, it would instantly blow up.
so each antimatter tipped bullet would need an antimatter container, increasing the bore diameter.
- missiles, now these are in short supply, and should be used wisely 20x antiair missiles 12x long range ground to ground missiles.
you don't need missiles when you have railguns. way too slow and ineffective. switch them out with a railgun version of metal storm, and give those airheads hell.
>>- rear bum gun (or known as the "laser shitter" amoungst
>>the troops) is powered via the main powersource, and
>>therefore has infinite ammo. not powerfull against most
>>machines (unless particular weak spots are found) but
>>cuts through flesh quite well)
if its powered by the main power source, theres enough energy in the laser shitter to melt earth.
If you'd follow anatomy when doing a realistic future human soldier then you should try to follow mechanical layout when doing a realistic future tank/mobile artillery unit.
no youve got it all wrong, a flippawatt was created as a sensible unit of power. roughly 10x the power of a dolphins mind, or 1/1000th the power of the sun. but the engines are really safe, id even let my baby eat one.
"just say that they're artillery railguns." wheres the mystery in that, cant make it easy for my opposition
these are long range strategic missiles, able to fly down mine shafts and turn on a dime (think bullets in Who framed roger Rabbit) also guided missiles are much better for moving targets and planes
I think you should totally do what deja suggests. In your game, you get tought the basics of movement in boot-camp, then as you're flying in for the first mission your dropship gets decimated. On the screen scrolls :
Mission failure! Your enemy has spider tanks equipped with 386 zetawatts of power, enough to vapourise ground and buildings.
Enter high score:
aaa 0
joe 0
bfg 0
...
considering that the spidertank uses power both for moving and shooting, putting too much power on the guns would result in the vehicle running of out power to move.
so unless you got a battery pack capable of delivering a constant supply of 386 zettawatt, you'd run out pretty quickly. so a logistical trail with power for the spidertanks continous operation would be vital, or dropship soldiers might risk getting too high scores.
dejawolf: Are you serious? I don't think you're helping SHEPEIRO here...
Similarly, Illusions, I don't think that's the case at all. It all depends on what you're trying to do. Sure, if you're making a realistic human, stick to real anatomy.
But if you're designing a futuristic alien thing from the planet Zongulon, you can do whatever the hell you want really, as long as it looks plausible and cool.
Same applies to guns and tanks, whatever. Who knows what crazy kinds of propulsion, materials, weapons and things that will be designed 1000 years from now. There's no point rooting designs like this in modern technology, that's just bogging down the whole thing in an anachronous mess.
SHEPEIRO: I like how this is going, keep it up... lose the stairs though - as mentioned, they don't make much sense, and aren't consistent with the rest of the design either.
Maybe you could have fold-away hyper-lifts or something.
well, about as serious as anyone else on this page.
gunpowder weapons are around 900 years old or older, first taken into usage by the chinese.
i'd still like to see some schematics showing the positioning of different components in the interior of the vehicle, and some basic information of the sensory capabilities.
and some external boxes to store repair utilities, futuristic towing stuff, various nonsense.
then some weapon racks for infantry and bailing crewmembers, extra ammunition boxes in addition to the ready ammunition, camo netting, intervehicle communication devices (future radios) etc.
most of it would make the vehicle more plausible.
what if, in the future, all those things are stored inside the vehicle? or panels which extrude out from the main chassis?
i think it looks plausible enough... and personally i really don't think schematics of interior positioning would be worth making. it's evidently just a model for fun and practise, not absolute scientific and technological accuracy.
At this say I'd say leave well enough alone...
the leclerc already have panels for storing equipment merged into the chassis, and they add some marginal extra protection to the sides.
storing everything inside a vehicle becomes impractical very quickly, as there needs to be room for soldiers to stretch a bit as well, and there's no need to over-engineer something as simple as strap points for equipment.
besides, armour soldiers has an uncanny ability to drag along more than they'd really need during a battle, and once a friendly vehicle is disabled beyond recovery, you'd be scavenging that vehicle for ammunition and equipment before its consumed by flames.
and lots of spare-parts attached everywhere. spare pads for the wheels, spare hydraulic pistons, spares for parts that are likely to break (current vehicles requires tremendous amounts of maintenance)
storage capsules for repair droids would be cool. like R2-D2, to cut down on tedious maintenance time for the crew.
just a way to make a vehicle from heavily armed, fighting machine,
to heavily armed fighting machine that people are living in.
ps Dejawolf, i know where your coming from, my numbers were completely rediculous, i thought you may have got the hint, when i quoted the power of adolphines mind
yes it possibly is implausible, as are most of the best scifi vehicles, try explainging flight of the navigator!
cheers for the input dejawolf, i really like the idea of the storage under the walkways. id been playing with the idea of having a ladder there too.
not sure about the strap down points, will see about how many polys i can do them with (i think twelve tris each), or add them to the normal map. want to avoid using alphas, and have a nice solid mesh.
thinking about it, i might get rid of the stairs and have them seperatly, (like airplane stairs) with a hookon connection at top.
i was also thinking about a ladder up the side of the head, for maintenance access.
I think that the questions dejawolf has asked here are important, even for fantasy/future/whimsy projects. I know I have done my best work when I've taken to time to find reasons for being for everything that's present. An extra dose of practicality never hurts, whether you've got a character or a vehicle or architecture. A lack of practicality is, I think, the weakest link of this particular project so I think dejawolf's criticisms weren't too far off base.
I definately agree a sense of functional use aids believability, but if practicality says you can't have some cool looking missile pods because they'd be a pain to reload etc, I'd be inclined to put on the damn missile pods . My decision might be totally different if it was for a mechwarrior sim-type game, but my impression was the game concept is a bit more action/shootybang.
edit: on weapons, sure the tank might be a better killing machine with railguns but it depends totally on game design.. should the tank have instant-hit death attack or missiles you can shoot down when they come at you?
yeah this has all gotten crazy ass, its a fantasy future tank.. if you can look at it and believe that its a fantasy future tank, then poof mission acomplished, now if you were desiging this as a real thing to be made the worry allyou want atbout yogurtflops and what not.. make it look cool and believable..
i like this i believe in this tank! it can be in my future army anyday
I still agree that those steps coming down past the gun at the front are a really bad design, they don't really fit in with the style of the model, and they look a bit tacked-on and flimsy in the end. I reckon you should remove them and replace with a ladder or some sort of futuristic lifting platform.
The rest looks very cool. Maybe make the big gatling gun at the front even longer?
cheers MoP
ive got rid of the stairs already (this is somit a bit older, i couldnt be botherd to re-render).
in place of the stairs will be sliding armour sheilding thing which im trying to get right at mo. and hooks for detachable stairs (think airport stairs) for troop loading and maintenece purposes.
bit more detailing round the reaer gun, then im gonna do some work to the cocpit entrance and that area.
SHEPEIRO: Thats probably not the best place for a door. Suppose someone needs to get in and the entire turret top is rotating? It would be better placed below the point of rotation, then lead into a vertical shaft that goes between the rotating section and the non rotating section. It could exit out onto a small portion of floor that never rotates, making it easier for someone enter or leave the main control chamber while it's in full operation. This would not only provide an easier point of access for the outside turret gunners in a fight, it would also provide a stable axis to rotate around.
Steakhouse has had some very sensible advice, but not all of it appropriate to factoring into a design of this nature.
the guiding focus for this design (as with most all videogame related designs) is believability, not realism or necessarily making good sense.
once you start applying good and sensible design considerations really thoroughly, then you design the fun right out of existence. Bipedal mechs, for instance, make absolutely not one bit of sense if you're being serious about proper military design. Same goes for this spidertank--it's a lot of fun, and reining in some of the more absurd characteristics will definitely help sell its believability, but if you get too invested in having it all "make sense" then you lose sight of what makes the design attractive.
Or at least in this case, since I think it's clear SHEPEIRO isn't going for a realistic take.
So for the door, I'm also a fan of its current position, since it's got just the right videogamey touch. Steakhouse's argument that it can only egressed in one position cuts both ways! Perhaps it's of tactical advantage to allow it only to be accessed in one position. You can imagine gameplay centered around that--the player character has to fight his way onto the tank, and must get in and take out the gunner/driver/etc... but has to time it properly, waiting for the door to swivel forward so he can open it. Something like that.
All in all, when it comes to this sort of fantasy or sci-fi design, it's very worthwhile to temper and inform it with a certain amount of good sense, but not -too- much
What you say is very true Gauss. Stark realism is often a fun-killer in games. However absurdity grounded in real and sensible design can make even said absurdity seem plausible. Take a look at virtually any mechanical design in Metal Gear, these super machines are woefully impractical in the real world. However enough of that real world has been injected into them, both in visual design and in the fiction trickle fed to the player, to at least make the machine believable within the world that it inhabits. I understand your view Gauss, but for me the more unrealistic a machine is, the more realism you need to inject into it to offset that absurdity, otherwise youll be driving a cartoon.
The design of the tank is awesome. Is this still active? Would love to see this evolve even more. Can other weapon types be mounted on the chassis than the huge cannon?
I don't mean to crap on your bum turret but I think it would be a nice design tie-in to the wheel/feet and make it a ball turret. From an armor standpoint it would make more sense to have it enclosed.
about the door, this "platform" is multipurpose but i dont thnk the pilots would be able to be engaged in close combat while at the same time as using the artillery, so i wouldnt think this was a problem. you dont try entering a tank through the top turret while its rotating, nor would it be advisable to try getting into this while its moving, but it wouldnt be impossible, the angles to which the turret can move vertically (5 degrees down and 25 up) mean it is all possible.
looks nice, although rivets is a sign that armour is thin, or that theres an addon armour array over the standard armour (upgraded vehicle).
heavy armour parts are always welded.
oh btw, like the guncloth for the mortars
an example:
american stryker (based on LAV-III, which is based on piranha III)
you might find this somewhat interesting for those tiny machineguns or whatever they are on the front of the spider:
notice gunports along the sides.
heres a view from the inside:
in these brackets, you can put an AK-47, and fire from inside the vehicle. although the side armour of this vehicle is so thin that a machine gun bullet can go through.
Those rivets are actually large carriage bolts, They hold the outter armor on and make it easy to replace damaged sections. This extra armor was added after they found out most of the mortar/road side bombs in Iraq punch thru the regular stryker armor. So the bolts aren't really by design its just a half ass way of trying to make them more survivable.
hmm, from what i know, a cats whiskers is used to sense around in the dark, or pressure changes in the air.
on real vehicles, the sights that are likely to stick out are the main sights, auxillary sight, wind sensor, radio antennas and periscopes.
more recent vehicles usually has Active protection systems, which consists of a scanner radar that detects incoming threats, and intercept boxes, which can be mobile, who shoots out rounds in the incoming rounds direction, then splits, creating a metal fan spray that discrupts the warhead cone, making missiles and RPG's inert before they crash into the main armour.
thanks for the links but erm yeah but i preffer the look of my wiskers,
as you say they help to see/sense in the dark
these contain - heat, and magnetic sensors (for detecting large metal objects, other similar tanks (legs kick out signal)) infra red, and something very similar to smell (for poisen gas attacks)
Replies
(looks sweet by the way, keep it up!)
and seems to lack room for ammunition fuel, an engine,
and general storage of equipment.
current guess of ammunition count:
16 missiles, 500 rounds for the minigun,
15 rounds for the roof cannons, 150 rounds for the rear mounted guns. rear section gun mount looks awfully unprotected. having armour plates instead of rails would be better. how is the roof guns loaded?
how is the missile launchers reloaded?
keep explorin with this thing man... been interesting to watch the process. This model wip is evolving/changing a lot more than most do. LOOKIN SHARP
besides, he mentioned hydraulic pistons....
Couple of thoughts though...
The mini cannon looking thing doesn't seem very practical. It's at ground level and doesn't look like it has any way of rotating around. Makes for limited use.
I also agree that the stairs look out of place. If you just HAVE to keep them, have you thought of closing them up? Make them more like armor plates that double as stairs?
in answer to your Qs
here are the specs
-main engine delivers 500flippawatts to subsiduary magnetic tracts, that provide roughly 1000 (shire horse)BHP per wheel and really quite alot of torque in the joints.
- main artillary guns- stores ammunition for 30 volleys (space saving new technology that requires no explosive)
- chain gun- fires anti-matter tipped bullets, as such they are much smaller than the aperture, running along anti-magnetic (just a code name) drag strips that provide propulsion to the ammunition.
- missiles, now these are in short supply, and should be used wisely 20x antiair missiles 12x long range ground to ground missiles.
- rear bum gun (or known as the "laser shitter" amoungst the troops) is powered via the main powersource, and therefore has infinite ammo. not powerfull against most machines (unless particular weak spots are found) but cuts through flesh quite well)
hope that helps
after taking you comments into consideration, i went back to the drawing board and vame up with this
hope you like
didnt get much work done on this this weekend, due to having to finish off a bit of work for Project reality MOD
>>-main engine delivers 500flippawatts to subsiduary
>>magnetic tracts, that provide roughly 1000 (shire horse)
>>BHP per wheel and really quite alot of torque in the
>>joints.
the main engine delivers around 500 flippawatts?
the highest unit of power i could find was yottawatt, which is 10^24 watts.
i'll assume a flippawatt is 1 unit above, 10^27 watts. now considering the suns illumination is 386 yottawatts, the energy output of the engine is approximately that of a supernova.
basically it'd be more effective to simply drive/walk this vehicle whithin 10^100 miles of the enemy base, and cause the engine to overload, thereby wiping out the whole planet, and the rest of the solar system.
i'd say 28 yottahp to each wheel and joint is a pretty realistic figure, and there's still enough energy to blow up half the solar system.
>>- main artillary guns- stores ammunition for 30 volleys
>>(space saving new technology that requires no explosive)
just say that they're artillery railguns.
>>- chain gun- fires anti-matter tipped bullets, as such they
>>are much smaller than the aperture, running along anti-
>>magnetic (just a code name) drag strips that provide
>>propulsion to the ammunition.
more railguns. i'd be careful with the antimatter. if it touches any normal matter, it would instantly blow up.
so each antimatter tipped bullet would need an antimatter container, increasing the bore diameter.
- missiles, now these are in short supply, and should be used wisely 20x antiair missiles 12x long range ground to ground missiles.
you don't need missiles when you have railguns. way too slow and ineffective. switch them out with a railgun version of metal storm, and give those airheads hell.
>>- rear bum gun (or known as the "laser shitter" amoungst
>>the troops) is powered via the main powersource, and
>>therefore has infinite ammo. not powerfull against most
>>machines (unless particular weak spots are found) but
>>cuts through flesh quite well)
if its powered by the main power source, theres enough energy in the laser shitter to melt earth.
"just say that they're artillery railguns." wheres the mystery in that, cant make it easy for my opposition
these are long range strategic missiles, able to fly down mine shafts and turn on a dime (think bullets in Who framed roger Rabbit) also guided missiles are much better for moving targets and planes
Illusions - gimme a break im trying boo hoo hooo
Mission failure! Your enemy has spider tanks equipped with 386 zetawatts of power, enough to vapourise ground and buildings.
Enter high score:
aaa 0
joe 0
bfg 0
...
so unless you got a battery pack capable of delivering a constant supply of 386 zettawatt, you'd run out pretty quickly. so a logistical trail with power for the spidertanks continous operation would be vital, or dropship soldiers might risk getting too high scores.
Mission failure! Your enemy has spider tanks equipped with 386 zetawatts of power, enough to vapourise ground and buildings.
[/ QUOTE ]
That's an awful idea, that wouldn't be fun at all.
Try 'You have scored 0 out of 101 points' instead.
Similarly, Illusions, I don't think that's the case at all. It all depends on what you're trying to do. Sure, if you're making a realistic human, stick to real anatomy.
But if you're designing a futuristic alien thing from the planet Zongulon, you can do whatever the hell you want really, as long as it looks plausible and cool.
Same applies to guns and tanks, whatever. Who knows what crazy kinds of propulsion, materials, weapons and things that will be designed 1000 years from now. There's no point rooting designs like this in modern technology, that's just bogging down the whole thing in an anachronous mess.
SHEPEIRO: I like how this is going, keep it up... lose the stairs though - as mentioned, they don't make much sense, and aren't consistent with the rest of the design either.
Maybe you could have fold-away hyper-lifts or something.
gunpowder weapons are around 900 years old or older, first taken into usage by the chinese.
i'd still like to see some schematics showing the positioning of different components in the interior of the vehicle, and some basic information of the sensory capabilities.
and some external boxes to store repair utilities, futuristic towing stuff, various nonsense.
then some weapon racks for infantry and bailing crewmembers, extra ammunition boxes in addition to the ready ammunition, camo netting, intervehicle communication devices (future radios) etc.
most of it would make the vehicle more plausible.
i think it looks plausible enough... and personally i really don't think schematics of interior positioning would be worth making. it's evidently just a model for fun and practise, not absolute scientific and technological accuracy.
At this say I'd say leave well enough alone...
storing everything inside a vehicle becomes impractical very quickly, as there needs to be room for soldiers to stretch a bit as well, and there's no need to over-engineer something as simple as strap points for equipment.
besides, armour soldiers has an uncanny ability to drag along more than they'd really need during a battle, and once a friendly vehicle is disabled beyond recovery, you'd be scavenging that vehicle for ammunition and equipment before its consumed by flames.
and lots of spare-parts attached everywhere. spare pads for the wheels, spare hydraulic pistons, spares for parts that are likely to break (current vehicles requires tremendous amounts of maintenance)
storage capsules for repair droids would be cool. like R2-D2, to cut down on tedious maintenance time for the crew.
just a way to make a vehicle from heavily armed, fighting machine,
to heavily armed fighting machine that people are living in.
i create military vehicles for a living, for a high-fidelity military simulator.
but back to the model at hand eh....
ps Dejawolf, i know where your coming from, my numbers were completely rediculous, i thought you may have got the hint, when i quoted the power of adolphines mind
yes it possibly is implausible, as are most of the best scifi vehicles, try explainging flight of the navigator!
anyway back in a second with an update
not sure about the strap down points, will see about how many polys i can do them with (i think twelve tris each), or add them to the normal map. want to avoid using alphas, and have a nice solid mesh.
thinking about it, i might get rid of the stairs and have them seperatly, (like airplane stairs) with a hookon connection at top.
i was also thinking about a ladder up the side of the head, for maintenance access.
edit: on weapons, sure the tank might be a better killing machine with railguns but it depends totally on game design.. should the tank have instant-hit death attack or missiles you can shoot down when they come at you?
i like this i believe in this tank! it can be in my future army anyday
little anim for your pleaseure
The rest looks very cool. Maybe make the big gatling gun at the front even longer?
ive got rid of the stairs already (this is somit a bit older, i couldnt be botherd to re-render).
in place of the stairs will be sliding armour sheilding thing which im trying to get right at mo. and hooks for detachable stairs (think airport stairs) for troop loading and maintenece purposes.
bit more detailing round the reaer gun, then im gonna do some work to the cocpit entrance and that area.
make it into a playable vehicle in UT2004
i love it, i think its an awsome concept youve got
the guiding focus for this design (as with most all videogame related designs) is believability, not realism or necessarily making good sense.
once you start applying good and sensible design considerations really thoroughly, then you design the fun right out of existence. Bipedal mechs, for instance, make absolutely not one bit of sense if you're being serious about proper military design. Same goes for this spidertank--it's a lot of fun, and reining in some of the more absurd characteristics will definitely help sell its believability, but if you get too invested in having it all "make sense" then you lose sight of what makes the design attractive.
Or at least in this case, since I think it's clear SHEPEIRO isn't going for a realistic take.
So for the door, I'm also a fan of its current position, since it's got just the right videogamey touch. Steakhouse's argument that it can only egressed in one position cuts both ways! Perhaps it's of tactical advantage to allow it only to be accessed in one position. You can imagine gameplay centered around that--the player character has to fight his way onto the tank, and must get in and take out the gunner/driver/etc... but has to time it properly, waiting for the door to swivel forward so he can open it. Something like that.
All in all, when it comes to this sort of fantasy or sci-fi design, it's very worthwhile to temper and inform it with a certain amount of good sense, but not -too- much
I don't mean to crap on your bum turret but I think it would be a nice design tie-in to the wheel/feet and make it a ball turret. From an armor standpoint it would make more sense to have it enclosed.
about the door, this "platform" is multipurpose but i dont thnk the pilots would be able to be engaged in close combat while at the same time as using the artillery, so i wouldnt think this was a problem. you dont try entering a tank through the top turret while its rotating, nor would it be advisable to try getting into this while its moving, but it wouldnt be impossible, the angles to which the turret can move vertically (5 degrees down and 25 up) mean it is all possible.
update in a bit
heavy armour parts are always welded.
oh btw, like the guncloth for the mortars
an example:
american stryker (based on LAV-III, which is based on piranha III)
danish piranha III
oh and heres a pic of a dual mortar system:
big pic of AMOS
you might find this somewhat interesting for those tiny machineguns or whatever they are on the front of the spider:
notice gunports along the sides.
heres a view from the inside:
in these brackets, you can put an AK-47, and fire from inside the vehicle. although the side armour of this vehicle is so thin that a machine gun bullet can go through.
the things on the front are sensors, like a cats wiskers
i will be adding more panneling all across the outershell, those rivets on the american stryker are cool might use those them
Still looks cool tho =P
eg those "eye" sockets were a bit of a weak point, enforce them
on real vehicles, the sights that are likely to stick out are the main sights, auxillary sight, wind sensor, radio antennas and periscopes.
more recent vehicles usually has Active protection systems, which consists of a scanner radar that detects incoming threats, and intercept boxes, which can be mobile, who shoots out rounds in the incoming rounds direction, then splits, creating a metal fan spray that discrupts the warhead cone, making missiles and RPG's inert before they crash into the main armour.
russian APS:
http://www.armor.kiev.ua/fofanov/Tanks/EQP/arena.html
http://www.armor.kiev.ua/fofanov/Tanks/EQP/drozd.html
western APS:
http://www.defense-update.com/products/t/trophy.htm
as you say they help to see/sense in the dark
these contain - heat, and magnetic sensors (for detecting large metal objects, other similar tanks (legs kick out signal)) infra red, and something very similar to smell (for poisen gas attacks)
not keepoing it real =P