new military vehicles & weapons from around the world
polycounter lvl 18
well, seems like the FCS is getting more US funding, so they put together this mockup.
this whole program has currently cost almost 20 billion...
at least its only half as ugly as the concept:
this whole program has currently cost almost 20 billion...
at least its only half as ugly as the concept:
Replies
Fixed...
Ooh, here you go.
http://www.d-a-s.com/objective_force.html
pure win.
Lucas that looks like halo with all that green and pink.
*Shhh we pocketed 10-Billion who's gonna tell. *
- 40 tons (M1 is 60)
- Front armor is 40 INCHES thick, and is reactive to counteract kinetic and chemical warheads. Side armor is electromagnetic which also deters kinetic energy
- 60mph over country terrain
- 20% more fuel efficient than M1
- High velocity 120mm turret (better than M1) which can be easily upgraded to 140mm by simply swapping out the barrel
- 500% more accurate at firing while moving than the M1 (which was already pretty damn accurate)
- can fire 12 rounds per minute (16 by release), as opposed to the M1's 10 rounds per minute
Pretty damn impressive, if you ask me. So long as it helps the soldiers, I'm all for it.
[ame]
http://www.yojoe.com/vehicles/85/mauler/
And I never thought a plane like this one could fly...but looks like the Russian's figured it out!
I remember playing with this toy and thinking there is NO way a plane like this can fly!
[ame]
[ame]
peace!
B
IEDs are rarely strong enough to destroy or disable our main battle tank, i can't imagine a light improvised bomb would halt something with 40 inch thick armor.
We lose people in jeeps and light vehicles to IEDs, not just heavy tanks. I mean, the specification is broad, theoretically an improvised explosive could be very powerful, but that just seems unlikely at this level.
I actually think it looks alright, too. Boxy and awkward, sure, but it certainly appears as if it was simplemindedly focused on functionality, and that makes it seem like an unusually good fit for military use.
You sure its battle tank? Its too high for that, looks more like mobile artilleri.
Its even protected like one, hit it from the side and its doomed, the cockpits
dont look very well protected either, 10IN armor max.
Also if the turret turns it has sharp edges hanging over the body, making it
very easy to rip off.
Remote controlled tank would keep soldiers even more safe and it would help
with making the profile much lower.
B
Would you rather go into battle with this?
Destroy, yeah probably not...but disable? Tracks are still the weak point of pretty much any tank. A reasonably sized IED would probably have no problem damaging the tracks, thereby immobilizing it. Sure you haven't totally disabled it, but it can't move until someone climbs out to fix it, which is a huge pain and aint gonna happen in a fire fight.
Of course that's not really the kind of situation this vehicle was really built to deal with, as a mobile artillery piece it should be reasonably far away from fire fights and building to building ambushes. Notice it doesn't really have any external small arms mount points...Where as an M1 has a .50 cal and two 7.62mm machine guns in addition to its main gun, allowing it to effectivly engage smaller, closer targets...like the dude sighting up his RPG.
Definitely, that's the weak point in all tanks at the moment. If one is immobilized in a contained area it's very easy to damage it further or force it to be abandoned. Even that doesn't happen very often, though, except with very large IEDs or more modern anti tank rockets/rpgs.
However, from what information i can dig up online, it looks like this FCS system is hoping to move away from using heavy tanks like that in general? I can't quite tell, but it seems like they want to phase out our main battle tanks for something inbetween a heavy tank and an artillery piece.
But I'm down with pimping the existing vehicles...
When was the last time in history this happened?
I don't know of a major industrial power having their vehicles outmatched since world war two, and even then it wasn't affordable. Just another army of approximately the same things hitting them head on.
There will be an affordable way to harry and hinder them, sure, but a major military power's tank force has never been taken out by a smaller, cheaper resistance.
WW2...
The Sherman vs the Tiger.
The tiger was more heavily armored, more maneuverable, had a bigger gun and sat lower to the ground. It was also a hell of a lot more expensive than the sherman... I think there were 3 shermans for every tiger... and by the time the tiger could destroy 2 of the shermans, one had got behind it to hit the weak spot in the ass.
Fuzzy dice and a flame job is all it needed, the "Fear This" sticker was really way too much there, notman. :poly131:
Interesting factoid, HUMVEE's are designed to have the doors blow off so the pressure wave from an IED / RPG doesn't kill the occupants.... didn't know that 'til my buddy came back from Afghanistan with that as first-hand knowledge.
Twenty billion isn't the cost to manufacture this vehicle, it's the budget for the entire program which is developing about a dozen different systems (various manned and unmanned vehicles, launch systems, weapons systems, etc). This just happens to be one of the things they are developing. Not that it's money well spent, just saying $20 billion isn't the cost of one vehicle.
only if when tha tank stop, dem wheelz still spinnin'
I wouldn't be caught dead in that.
That's what she said.
i wouldn't be caught dead in you
The M1 tank has been in service for thirty years. What's another two decades, right? I mean, we see so many people crusing around in 1958 Fords, clearly the military has no need to actually upgrade their equipment.
America, defend yourself!!
Seriously... who the hell is the military stockpiling against? Canada?
You didn't know? We legalize our weed, that way we can get Americans high so they spend 20 billion to design a steel box with tank treads. Ha Ha.
I knew someone was going to say that :P
And way to go to design something the high flat sides, might as well paint a bloody bullseye on there with "kiss my barrel" written underneath *rolleyes*
Your modern technology is obsolete. You have been warned.
A lot of you still seem to be under that mistaken impression... it's like assuming a Civic costs $500 million because Honda spent that much on research and development for their ENTIRE fleet of vehicles. The program's budget (which includes dozens of vehicles and systems being developed) is $20 billion... that's not the unit cost of this particular vehicle.
i have prooven information that only the artist who designed this ugly thing got 20$ billion as compensation to leave and go home
so imagine how much only one tank must cost.... billions of billions.. omg...
better by some hondas for this price
hm you can get.. 8 .. or so
Sorry, but this is how I roll.
It's not just one prototype, or even close. It's an entire program intended to completely re-arm and restructure our army by 2030. https://www.fcs.army.mil/systems/index.html
USA already has over 4000 abrams tanks, the most expensive version (M1A2) costing 6 million apiece.
this thing will probably cost around 7-8 million, what with all the techy stuff stuffed into it.
here's what the germans bought:
its a PZH 2000. it outranges the FCS vehicle by at least 10km.
as for the protection...
thats maximum about 2 inches of armour.
but the FCS is supposed to field a new protection system, similar to trophy, but developed by raytheon.
it makes the vehicle virtually impenetrable to most rocket-based systems, at least for 20-30 shots,
but still very vulnerable to high speed APFSDS shots, or in the future, railguns.
and thats primarily how they cut the weight.
they plan to make the hull an universal platform for all the vehicles.
as for the abrams, its got an RHAe of 700mm vs AP, and nearly 1200mm RHAe vs HEAT for the front turret and hull, and around 300mm RHAe vs ap for the side turret.
side hull is a lot more vulnerable though, only about 100mm RHAe at the most.
and rear top and bottom is about as vulnerable, the roof is about 5cm thick.
there's a new more fuel-efficient turbine engine being developed, which will cut down its fuel usage by around 25%, and also cut down on maintenance costs.
the closest thing to a tank in the FCS arsenal is the MCS.
which is still lightly armoured, with its main protection being the raytheon APS.
another aspect of FCS that is important to keep in mind, is that its primary objective is to be a rapid-insertion force. the first objectives were completely unrealistic, C-130 transportability, which would incur an 18 ton weight limit. this was later changed to C-5 transportability.
i'd say its a completely idiotic concept however, since when you move into a theater, you'll probably be staying there for a while. there's many who say that the program is going to just fall apart, and that mockup vehicle
was made to give brass the impression that FCS is moving forward.
its still not expected to be fielded until at least 2020.
and japan is making a new tank to fend off godzilla:
[ame]http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ffNiosiPlxY[/ame]
picture of marder: