15Xmm Canon on MBT

Is it possible to integrate a 15X mm canon on a Main Battle Tank ? What are the challenges that need to be overcome for this integration ?

Absolutely, the CATTB M1 had a 140mm gun. Rheinmetall also stuck a 140mm gun on the leopard 2.

On the eastern side, we have Object 195, which had a 15Xmm gun. 195 is probably the most mature large-gun MBT anywhere. There is also Object 292, which was a modified T-80 with a 152mm gun. The soviets developed quite a few MBT prototypes with large guns.

The problems that come with using a large gun mainly have to do with ammo handling and storage. An autoloader is essential. Tanks also are penalized in ammo count by using larger rounds.

The most important thing about tank main guns is that they only have to be large enough to kill the heaviest armored tank the enemy has to offer. Right now, no tank can achieve reliable protection against the 2A46M 125mm smoothbore gun. The 125mm gun also has room to improve, better rounds and smarter GLATGM's can be developed. Although a 15Xmm gun has a real wow factor, it isn't necessary yet.

Zivo wrote:Absolutely, the CATTB M1 had a 140mm gun. Rheinmetall also stuck a 140mm gun on the leopard 2.

On the eastern side, we have Object 195, which had a 15Xmm gun. 195 is probably the most mature large-gun MBT anywhere. There is also Object 292, which was a modified T-80 with a 152mm gun. The soviets developed quite a few MBT prototypes with large guns.

The problems that come with using a large gun mainly have to do with ammo handling and storage. An autoloader is essential. Tanks also are penalized in ammo count by using larger rounds.

The most important thing about tank main guns is that they only have to be large enough to kill the heaviest armored tank the enemy has to offer. Right now, no tank can achieve reliable protection against the 2A46M 125mm smoothbore gun. The 125mm gun also has room to improve, better rounds and smarter GLATGM's can be developed. Although a 15Xmm gun has a real wow factor, it isn't necessary yet.

Hmm?

The latest armor developments from East and West are pretty good at providing immunity from 125mm and 120mm guns over the frontal arc, if we don't count weakened zones.

Biggest problem of replacing 120mm gun with the 152mm gun is how to distribute force of recoil caused by the bigger gun/charge/shoot on the turret.

TR1 wrote:

Zivo wrote:Absolutely, the CATTB M1 had a 140mm gun. Rheinmetall also stuck a 140mm gun on the leopard 2.

On the eastern side, we have Object 195, which had a 15Xmm gun. 195 is probably the most mature large-gun MBT anywhere. There is also Object 292, which was a modified T-80 with a 152mm gun. The soviets developed quite a few MBT prototypes with large guns.

The problems that come with using a large gun mainly have to do with ammo handling and storage. An autoloader is essential. Tanks also are penalized in ammo count by using larger rounds.

The most important thing about tank main guns is that they only have to be large enough to kill the heaviest armored tank the enemy has to offer. Right now, no tank can achieve reliable protection against the 2A46M 125mm smoothbore gun. The 125mm gun also has room to improve, better rounds and smarter GLATGM's can be developed. Although a 15Xmm gun has a real wow factor, it isn't necessary yet.

Hmm?

The latest armor developments from East and West are pretty good at providing immunity from 125mm and 120mm guns over the frontal arc, if we don't count weakened zones.

That's why I said "reliable" protection.

Zivo wrote:

TR1 wrote:

Zivo wrote:Absolutely, the CATTB M1 had a 140mm gun. Rheinmetall also stuck a 140mm gun on the leopard 2.

On the eastern side, we have Object 195, which had a 15Xmm gun. 195 is probably the most mature large-gun MBT anywhere. There is also Object 292, which was a modified T-80 with a 152mm gun. The soviets developed quite a few MBT prototypes with large guns.

The problems that come with using a large gun mainly have to do with ammo handling and storage. An autoloader is essential. Tanks also are penalized in ammo count by using larger rounds.

The most important thing about tank main guns is that they only have to be large enough to kill the heaviest armored tank the enemy has to offer. Right now, no tank can achieve reliable protection against the 2A46M 125mm smoothbore gun. The 125mm gun also has room to improve, better rounds and smarter GLATGM's can be developed. Although a 15Xmm gun has a real wow factor, it isn't necessary yet.

Hmm?

The latest armor developments from East and West are pretty good at providing immunity from 125mm and 120mm guns over the frontal arc, if we don't count weakened zones.

That's why I said "reliable" protection.

Well you will almost always have weakened zones- gun embrasure, sights, driver hatch, etc.
But the majority of the frontal array is very much immune to most shellfire.

If thats what you meant and I completely misunderstood you, apologies.
Sounded like you were saying 2A46M would be an adequate weapon for a modern tank today, when it really is not.

Is it possible to integrate a 155 mm canon on a Main Battle Tank ? What are the challenges that need to be overcome for this integration ?

Do you mean an existing 155mm cannon... as in standard Artillery weapon of NATO 155mm, or are you talking about a new anti tank gun like the 152mm gun the Soviets and Russians developed for the T-95 program?

The MSTA is evidence that a tank can carry a 152/155mm gun turret and the 152mm coalition model of armata will also have a 152mm gun on a MBT chassis.

155/152mm artillery guns are optimised for full bore rounds with a relatively high velocity for maximum range rather than penetration. Because it is a full bore round it will have a rifled barrel for projectile accuracy.

The 152mm MBT gun the Soviets/Russians developed will be a smoothbore to maximise muzzle velocity and will use a combination of sub calibre penetrators (which can't be stabilised through spin and therefore will use fins for stabilisation in flight) and also large calibre HEAT rounds which also have degraded performance if spun rapidly and are better suited to fin stabilisation.

The only anti armour round that benefits from spin stabilisation is the HESH, and the other full bore ammo that benefits in terms of accuracy is the HE FRAG rounds which are generally secondary rounds for a MBT but primary rounds for an artillery weapon.

For this reason most MBT guns are smoothbore and artillery guns are rifled.

There's also the following(some aren't 155 mm only but I put them down anyway.)

China:
-ZTZ Type99A2 has an option to a 140 mm Cannon
-CSU-152 Heavy Combat Vehicle "Project 9958" it has a 152 mm Smoothbore Cannon.
-ZTZ Type99KM with a 155 mm Smoothbore Cannon

France:
-AMX-30 142 mm Cannon ACRA with a 142 mm Cannon

Germany:
-140 mm Electro-Thermal-Chemical Cannon that was on the New Armor Platform/NGP MBT

India:
-140mm Cannon for the Arjun Mk III
-KARAN Future Main Battle Tank supposed to have a 152 mm Cannon

Russia:
-T-80UM-2 Black Eagle has a 152 mm Smoothbore Cannon
-T-95 would of had 152mm 2A81 Smoothbore gun, not the same as the Soviets

South Korea:
-XK2 Black Panther had a 140 mm Cannon

Spain:
-Leopard 2E has a 155 mm Smoothbore Cannon(Locally built)

Ukraine:
-T-84 Oplot-M has the option for a 140 mm Cannon

U.S.S.R.:
-Object 195 had the 152 MM 2A83 Smoothbore Cannon
-152 MM 2A83 Smoothbore Cannon was/could be also put on the following MBT's, Object 477, Object 230, Object 299, Vepr/Boar.
-Object 292 had a 152.4 Rifled Cannon

U.S.A.:
-M551A1 TTS Sheridan Light Tank had a M81E1 Rifled 152 mm Gun
-M60A2 had the 152 MM M162 Smoothbore Cannon
-CATTB/M1 Abrams ATAC has the 140 MM XM291 Cannon

Some of the literature about the Koalition suggest it uses EM to boost performance... I would rather suspect using such technology on 125mm calibre weapons might also be worth trying before shifting to a new calibre.

Changing calibres is expensive and time consuming so adapting a new gun to be more effective with existing and new ammo actually makes a lot of economic sense.

Needless to say if the T-34 actually faced rather larger numbers of heavy tanks then it would have made rather more sense to equip it with a more dedicated anti armour main gun like the 75mm gun of the Panther.

The reality is that the vast majority of the targets the T-34 was engaging were soft targets with heavy German armour representing only a very small percentage of the targets engaged so a medium velocity 76.2mm main gun was perfectly adequate for the early period of the war.

If the T-34 had been a dedicated tank killer then a more suitable weapon would have been the 57mm high velocity gun they had already developed. The fact was that it lacked HE punch for most other targets so the more effective if lower penetrating 76.2mm gun was used.

Equally near the end of the war many western experts wondered why the Soviets didn't bother to develop their own Bazooka or Panzershrek... the simple reason was that they didn't need them. It was the Germans that had to have infantry weapons to deal with enemy armour... the Soviets had plenty of armour to deal with enemy infantry and enemy armour so the lend lease Bazooka and of course captured German anti armour weapons were more than they needed.

What's the advantage of having such a monstrous cannon mounted on a tank? The only one I see is having better HEAT rounds which aren't main weapon of tanks against other tanks anyway.

Wouldn't be better to have a longer barrel 125mm gun instead?

As Sa'iqa wrote:What's the advantage of having such a monstrous cannon mounted on a tank? The only one I see is having better HEAT rounds which aren't main weapon of tanks against other tanks anyway.

Wouldn't be better to have a longer barrel 125mm gun instead?

Some of them fire further, they can be used like a Howitzer cannon, more powerful ammo, fire Surfaced-to-Missile's, and more destructive force that destroys buildings or Composites and Explosive Reactive Armor protections on tanks.

What's the advantage of having such a monstrous cannon mounted on a tank? The only one I see is having better HEAT rounds which aren't main weapon of tanks against other tanks anyway.

Wouldn't be better to have a longer barrel 125mm gun instead?

Making the barrel longer will only increase velocity so much.

If your main ammo is not penetrating the enemy tanks frontal armour from useful ranges (ie 2km) then a larger calibre is probably the best option.

The larger the tube the more energy you can push down it, which means both heavier and faster projectiles which equals better penetration.

A 152mm main gun also has the advantage that the larger the calibre of a HEAT round the better its penetration, plus the size of the missile you could fit in a 152mm tube means fire and forget diving top attack weapons become very realistic propositions which means bypassing the heavy frontal armour of most vehicles... enabling very long range engagements.

But the energy of a projectile depends mostly on velocity not mass. As I remember from my physics lessons in 8th grade - the equation for kinetic energy is E=m*v^2 which means that kinetic energy is equal to mass multiplied by velocity squared.

I still think that it'snbetter to have a longer barrel 125mm gun and maybe Kornet or Khrizantema mounted on the top

But the energy of a projectile depends mostly on velocity not mass.

That is very true, but you need to ask yourself if that is the case why on earth are they wasting their time with enormous heavy 125mm calibre guns.

Surely a 20mm calibre gun with the shell case and propellent charge of a 125mm gun would offer much higher velocities and better penetration.

Let me give you an example... when protecting satellites from space debris that can be very very small but can also be travelling very fast (ie 20km/s or faster) the first attempts at shielding involved sheets of aluminium several inches thick... even though it was aluminium it was too heavy to use and they found even a small rock will penetrate it anyway.

The final solution was space... a 5mm thick sheet of aluminium isn't too heavy and when placed about 50cm from another sheet of aluminium 5mm thick it protected from the dangerous particles that were too small to detect by radar early enough to avoid but fast enough and heavy enough to do damage.

When the small particle hit the first plate it was vapourised so that the material that hit the second plate was still travelling very fast but had no mass and therefore did not penetrate.

If velocity was everything then the light from a flame or a torch would be devastating. Fortunately it lacks mass to do damage or penetrate.

To penetrate through thick layered armour you need mass to maintain penetration energy as it moves through the target.

As I said above changing calibres is enormously expensive... they will likely keep the 125mm calibre for quite some time.

Rather than lengthening the barrel they will likely increase the pressure and lengthen the penetrator to improve performance in the short term.

Deep Throat wrote:Is it possible to integrate a 155 mm canon on a Main Battle Tank ? What are the challenges that need to be overcome for this integration ?

I am sorry I could NOT capture what you said . Are you talking about designing a MBT from scratch with a 155mm canon or are you talking about retro fitting an existing MBT with a 155mm canon ?

The former is possible . The latter though not impossible comes with it's share of challenges including ( and not limited to) Weight balancing & recoil absorption for one.

That’s why it is preferable to increase barrel length (calibre) of existing 120mm & 125mm barrels, followed by larger diameter barrels like 140mm.

Saddam up gunned some T-55s and chinese built T-59s by swapping out the 100mm and installing Rapira 3- 125mm guns.To offset the weight discrepancies counterweights had to added which adversely affected turret traverse time(he also increased glacis armour which didnt help the strained 580 hp engine as well).These prooved to be great failures given that his stock of 125mm ammo was grossy outdated.

After dealing with fortifications in Finland the Soviets replaced their 76.2mm guns in the KV-1 with a 152mm gun and called it the KV-2.

Problems included greatly increased weight... enormous turret, and problems with turning the turret except on level ground.

The gun itself was very effective at taking out concrete fortifications, but for the first part of the war there was little need for that... it was more of a defensive war so it was not very effective.

Later in the war it might have been useful but the ISU-152 pretty much performed the same role of heavy direct fire support.

In hind sight a fixed superstructure for the KV might have been better suited and cheaper.

Of course the purpose of the 152mm gun in this case was not to defeat heavy enemy armour at extended ranges... it was to provide a heavier HE shell to take on enemy fortifications and hard points... which is was very well suited to do.

I hope the 2a82 gun is has plasma propulsion elements, imagine 2.5km/s APFSDS rounds that will cleanly penetrate an abrams turret armor and set off the turret bustle brhind, or even 1.7km/s APHE rounds that would penetrate anything less than heavy armor and go boom inside. Also, a 14.5 mm coax would be nice, as well as a 30mm anti aircraft gun slaved to the panoramic sight. 

collegeboy16 wrote:I hope the 2a82 gun is has plasma propulsion elements, imagine 2.5km/s APFSDS rounds that will cleanly penetrate an abrams turret armor and set off the turret bustle brhind, or even 1.7km/s APHE rounds that would penetrate anything less than heavy armor and go boom inside. Also, a 14.5 mm coax would be nice, as well as a 30mm anti aircraft gun slaved to the panoramic sight. 

Well Electrothermochemical gun like that might end up more complex and expensive than simply design a bustle autoloader to accommodate longer penetrator or build new gun launched ATGM's.

Well Electrothermochemical gun like that might end up more complex and expensive than simply design a bustle autoloader to accommodate longer penetrator or build new gun launched ATGM's.[/quote]
It might be complex and expensive, but nobody can deny that it will provide a comfortable performance margin against nex-gen armors. It also has a lot more perspective than a155mm gun, hell, i hope they skip 155mm gun , electronics miniaturize anyway and you dont nedd 155 mm Heat to penetrate the roofs of vehicles.
You can also design the gun to fire conventional ammo w/ normal propellant or special propellant. Ie Mango rounds with 2.5km/s muzzle velocity could match m829 a3 in raw rhae performance, even more with grifel and its huge propellant stub(w/c could be etc capable)

There are a few technologies they might apply to further improve performance... from liquid propellents to plasma and EM guns as well.

In fact a combination of plasma and EM could be used where the propellent creates a superheated plasma that is ionised and therefore has an electric charge so powerful magnets can push it down a tube and accelerate its speed.

There are pretty much three areas of ballistics... internal, exterior, and terminal.

Upgrading an existing 125mm gun with liquid propellent that generates a plasma that is assisted by EM coils down the barrel is all related to internal ballistics. Exterior ballistics includes projectile shape and aerodynamics, plus also features like a scramjet engine on an APFSDS round so that at 5km range the projectile could actually be travelling faster than it was at the muzzle of the gun.
Terminal ballistics relate to the impact of the projectile to maximise penetration performance.

Improvements in all areas would be best because while each will not be revolutionary each will add performance and a growth area that can further improve all round performance... ie improved liquid propellents... more powerful, safer to handle by making them binary propellents that are separated into two components that are not dangerous separate but highly explosive when combined in the chamber of the gun. Improved magnets around the gun to further improve performance. Improved scramjet design with increased fuel levels to extend range or increase acceleration in flight to much higher speeds.


The potential for guidance systems to increase lethality.

GarryB wrote:There are a few technologies they might apply to further improve performance... from liquid propellents to plasma and EM guns as well.

In fact a combination of plasma and EM could be used where the propellent creates a superheated plasma that is ionised and therefore has an electric charge so powerful magnets can push it down a tube and accelerate its speed.

There are pretty much three areas of ballistics... internal, exterior, and terminal.

Upgrading an existing 125mm gun with liquid propellent that generates a plasma that is assisted by EM coils down the barrel is all related to internal ballistics. Exterior ballistics includes projectile shape and aerodynamics, plus also features like a scramjet engine on an APFSDS round so that at 5km range the projectile could actually be travelling faster than it was at the muzzle of the gun.
Terminal ballistics relate to the impact of the projectile to maximise penetration performance.

Improvements in all areas would be best because while each will not be revolutionary each will add performance and a growth area that can further improve all round performance... ie improved liquid propellents... more powerful, safer to handle by making them binary propellents that are separated into two components that are not dangerous separate but highly explosive when combined in the chamber of the gun. Improved magnets around the gun to further improve performance. Improved scramjet design with increased fuel levels to extend range or increase acceleration in flight to much higher speeds.


The potential for guidance systems to increase lethality.

Sh!t i meant to like the post but my stupid finger thought otherwise , f@ck this wouldnt happen if i had a pc & mouse instead of this stupid phone arghhhhhh!
@GarryB is there anyway Ican reverse the vote?

I don't know actually... I will ask Vlad.

No harm done anyway...  

It seems like everyone has prepared an option to upgrade to bigger guns but nobody wants to spoil the fun first...
Anyway as was already said, putting a bigger gun on a tank poses not just technological problems, but logistical ones as well.
Methods and devices to clean the bigger gun would need to be developed, bigger garages would need to be made?
Lets not forget that many tanks are transported to their battlefields by air and in airplane cargohold every square meter counts.

Besides a pretty talk is here ongoing about alternative ways how to deal with armour.
I personally think that the rail gun development is very promising and emp weapons are not bad as well.
I see a huge distinction between approaches that Russians and Americans are taking to develop a railgun technology.
Americans took it big and they are testing on a big scale, while Russian approach is to test on small scale and have a weapon ready for infantry.
I've seen the Russians made a magnetic generator of a small scale (if i remember correctly it looked like a 125 mm shell round) - i was personally very impressed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycRDMYaWgAA

With the introduction of railguns i believe the tanks and their armor as we know it today will become heavilly obsolete, perhaps then the realisation of tesla dome will not sound as fairytale.

Introducing a new calibre is expensive... new ammo production, new training aides, new support equipment, new autoloader designs, new or upgraded sights and support equipment, new ammo handlers.

I've seen the Russians made a magnetic generator of a small scale (if i remember correctly it looked like a 125 mm shell round) - i was personally very impressed.

The video you posted answers the question... at point blank range the impact of the penetrator is defeated by three plates spaced apart a few tens of cms.

The great problem with such guns is that to get very high speed you need a very light projectile which tends to vapourise at very high speed in the impact so multiple layers will stop it.

Development needs to progress to heavier projectiles and speeds of 2-3km/s or so. 10km/s is not effective if the penetrator is very light... once you get above about 3km/s adding mass to the penetrator increases penetration more than increasing speed even though increasing speed greatly increases the energy of the projectile it just translates into destroying the projectile more on impact.

it is a bit like water... increasing the velocity of a bullet hitting the water just makes it more likely that the bullet will break up and if it does break up it will not travel through the water very far at all.

Mythbusters had a program showing bullets being fired into a swimming pool... the most powerful.... a 50 cal... just shattered into little pieces and was not effective at all.

Firing AP or solid rounds rather than jacketed rounds probably would have made a huge difference of course.