U.S' next Generation tank?
- Thread starter hotrod44
- Start date
That appears to be self-propelled artillery, not a tank.
Yes and no. From that site:
The MCS will provide both direct and Beyond-Line-of-Sight (BLOS) offensive firepower capability, allowing for in-depth destruction of point targets up to 8 km (5 mi) away.
So its not designed as a direct replacement for the Abrams, more an airportable indirect and direct fire vehicle - part replacement perhaps of the M-8 Stingray (? wasn't that the 80's proposal to replace the Sheridan?)
Correct, some are designed as the new SP 155mm artillery and others as lightweight tanks (with 120mm turrets) as well as troop carriers and other versions.
The latest issue of Armada magazine: www.armada.ch actually has a supplement where 10-30 ton vehicles are reviewed. There is one section about the FCS program, and it mentions that the 120mm version will replace the M1....eventually.
-----JT-----
The latest issue of Armada magazine: www.armada.ch actually has a supplement where 10-30 ton vehicles are reviewed. There is one section about the FCS program, and it mentions that the 120mm version will replace the M1....eventually.
-----JT-----
Nope the XM1202 MCS will replace M1 tanks in those heavy brigade combined arms battalions that convert to FCS. Despite its much lower gross vehicle weight the XM1202 will actually have 'thicker' or more capable passive armour and active defence not to mention much higher SA and target acquisition capability. Current block 1 add on armour for the XM1202 is as capable as the Abrams armour but the in service vehicles (~2015) are programmed to have block 3 armour.
US Army modeling shows that the FCS brigade will suffer 1/3 to 1/4 less casualties than a heavy brigade despite having twice as many infantry dismounts.
And will this tank be 100% American unlike the Abrams that uses a German main gun and British armour?
Yes it will in both categories, ie: firepower and protection.
wtsimpson7
New Member
An October 2005 report by the Pentagon recommended "further delaying the Army's Future Combat Systems program." This probably means that the XM1202 Future Combat Systems Mounted Combat System (M.C.S) will not see service for some time though. So the M1 Abrams might be around for awhile.
The MCS program is designed to eventually replace M1 series tanks but I have my doubts on this happening anytime soon, the big roll out for the program is 2015 but the M1A2 SEP has been going thru a upgrade process to keep it around until at least the year 2025. It will be a pity if the entire program gets scrapped due to the amount of research and big dollars spent on the program but this just may likely happen especially if the U.S Army announces further delays due to glitches in the system or budget increases.
Yes, the Stingray was offered to the 82nd Airborne but by the time it rolled out the technology and armor protection was already obsolete, Textron did find a buyer though, that country is Thailand who still operates it. We also tested another vehicle that was more capable over the stingray, this vehicle was called the AGS but by the time it rolled out it to was found to be obsolete in armor protection and firepower.
I remember stumbling upon a video on Youtube where they had a tank competition between countries in NATO in which the US crew came in first and the Germans in 2nd, but I can't remember what the rest of the order was. Do they have skill competition between NATO countries often? Does anyone have any links with results?
You are referring to the CAT tank gunnery shoot off between NATO countries, this has pretty much gone away.
I thought they gave up on approaching Abrams-level passive protection for FCS and are relying nearly completely on active defenses and improved SA for high-end threats, with passive armor only stopping medium caliber autocannon and RPGs.
A lot of people thought that, I don't know why but... The XM1200 will be an aluminum hulled vehicle with 12.7mm armour resistance if its lucky. But the armour concept is like that of the Leclerc and Merkava Mk 3 and Mk 4. Add on armour arrays will be bolted on around the vehicle. The ammount of armour will depend on the mission as it will of course add weight. With the high torque electrical drive and field replaceable suspension there really isn't much of a weight upper limit.
Anyway the real armour levels:
Buzz A Rare Glimpse Inside FCS Armor
By Colin Clark Friday, January 23rd, 2009 5:44 pm Posted in Land
http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/01/23/rare-glimpse-inside-fcs-armor/ DOD
The vulnerabilities, components and processes used to make armor are rarely discussed with reporters, or the general public. Keeping those things secret saves soldiers lives. So when the Army’s testing community rolled out the service’s top armor scientists and allowed us glimpses of the facilities used to make armor as part of our FCS tour at Aberdeen Proving Ground they sent a very clear message of the importance they attach to this enormous program.
After a briefing by two top Army materiel scientists, the group of reporters trudged in to a large room that looked like a cross between a package wrapping station for a small mail-order company (big rolls of flat and bubbly plastics) and an enormous art studio, with several giant presses and kilns dominating the structure. Everyone’s heard of ceramic armor and Kevlar, but few have seen the seemingly ordinary stuff that helps make armor really effective. The two scientists had laid out on a big metal table more than a dozen samples of various armor components. One mat roughly the size of a dinner table mat looked like woven glass fibers. There was a roll of something that felt and looked remarkably like magnetic tape. Of course, there was a ceramic substance that had been shattered in some sort of ballistic test. Next to it was a big thick wad (maybe three inches thick) of surprisingly light aluminum.
Ernie Chin, from the Army Research Laboratory, told us that some armor variants involve ceramics or other materials bonded to metal matrices (of which there were several examples including one that looked a lot like a honeycomb), perhaps with layers of glass, plastics or other more exotic materials. “The whole point is, how do we put all this together,” he said.
All these materials had apparently been used in the search to create the “B” armor for FCS. They are using what is called B-1 armor now and plan to come up with two more variants, using B-3 as the main armor once the FCS vehicles make it to LRIP in fiscal 2013.B-1 provides, a very careful public affairs officer told me, protection roughly equivalent to the Chobham armor on the Abrams tanks. The next variants should be much lighter and provide even greater protection.
After peering knowingly at all this stuff, we headed out by bus to the real world, where we saw battered evidence of the progression the scientists have marched along with the testing community. Past a guarded (and very tall) gate, out past very uninhabited portions of Maryland wetlands and forests we rolled past a few battered-looking MRAPs to a very large set of armored targets for ballistic projectiles.
These included early versions of the FCS armor that were bolted on to an aluminum inner hull, a fact that Col. Gregory Martin, chief of the Army’s J-8 director’s initiative group, told us was “revolutionary” because it would allow armor to be swapped on vehicles as the armor is improved instead of the current state of the art which only allows so-called appliqué armor to be put on top of the existing stuff. The scientists talking us through these test targets said all the armors and the improvements made to them had performed well or extremely well. Of course, we couldn’t expect them to share the exact vulnerabilities and performance characteristics of the armor, though several of us tried…
One of the wow moments during the initial armor briefing came when the Army’s top armor researcher, Chris Hoppel, told us that the modeling they do on exactly how and why armor performs during a test would occupy a personal computer for about one year. Using various government supercomputers, the Army can get the job done “overnight.”
ReAl PrOeLiTeZ
New Member
us next generation tank.
lighter, mobile, less armour, more countermeasures, smaller.
lighter, mobile, less armour, more countermeasures, smaller.
Wrong!
F-15 Eagle
New Member
I doubt that this new tank will enter service soon. FCS will likely face big cuts and IMO it would be better to put the funding into buying newer M1 tanks, M2/M3 Bradly APCs, M109 155mms and new infantry weapons than wasting billions into unproven technology that is way over budget and behind schedule.
It will be a sad day if this ends up being the case with our FCS program, some of the technology advances that we have made is nothing short of outstanding, including armor protection values. We have gained alot of useful information from this program that will help us in vehicle designs for at least a few decades to come.