Large-Calibre 'Super Tank' Being Developed in China

[makdaddy03]

Ah Heck!!! Just drop a MOAB on it or next to it.

 

[QuarterBoreGunner]

Good Lord Tamara! What do you do all day!?!? Sift through the internet and print media for esoteric bits of trivia regarding different nationalities weapons systems?

All that and an entertaining read as well. Have you a publisher yet?

 

[Lord Grey Boots]

Isn't this just a another Self Propelled gun?

 

[Fudgie Ghost]

Quater-Bore: Yeah, isn't she something! I still think she was/is a weapons analyst for some gov agency. I also think those pictures of her that she's posted are phony. I think she's really a 50-something pot-bellied, balding guy with back hair.

Come on Tamara 'fess up! Not that a woman couldn't be so well versed in such things--please don't pin that on me. It's just, --well, to quote Cindy Lauper's debut album--"She's So Unusual".

What I find hard to believe is that she hasn't read "Misfire"--or is she just ignoring my pleas for her opinion on this book?

What am I? Chopped Liver?!

 

[Sean Smith]

I could have told you everything Tamara did, but chose not to.

ANYway, is this topic a revival of the Fear-Mongering of (No Longer Quite) Communist Contries' Weapons of Doom that used to go on at TFL?

 

[MeekandMild]

How many shots from an Airborne Ranger on foot with an 84 mm Carl Gustav would it take to blow one of these suckers?

 

[Marko Kloos]

...and why does the AT-8 "Songster"/AT-11 "Sniper" exist?

Go one step further and ask yourself why the Russkies are using bore-launched ATGMs at all, despite their slow load times and barrel-wrecking tendencies. ("Oooh, the Russian supertanks can shoot missiles from the cannon barrel!")

They do that because the 125mm smoothbore on the T-72/T-80 series is seriously outranged by both the 120mm Rheinmetall smoothbore and the British rifled 120mm. They needed something that could reach an enemy tank past 1800m, which has shown to be the practical limit for the 125/50.

There hasn't been a bore-launched ATGM on Western tanks since the Shillelagh, and for good reason. Our tank guns outrange theirs by a good margin; we don't need to wreck our bores with missiles.

As for autoloaders: we abandoned the idea sometime in the 1970s after the cancellation of the MBT70 project, for all the reasons Tamara already described. Western tank designers came to realize that nothing beats an 18-year-old with a strong right arm when it comes to fast and effective loading of a tank main gun. The Russians only like it because it cuts down on the crew complement and keeps the tank smaller.

 

[Gary H]

Sounds like the Chinese are up to their next encounter with college students wanting some degree of freedom. You have to love em.

 

[Tamara]

lendringser,

As for autoloaders: we abandoned the idea sometime in the 1970s after the cancellation of the MBT70 project, for all the reasons Tamara already described. Western tank designers came to realize that nothing beats an 18-year-old with a strong right arm when it comes to fast and effective loading of a tank main gun.

Don't forget that a panzer is a maintenance-intensive piece of gear. Even if the autoloader didn't have a speed disadvantage over an NTC- or Grafenwoehr-trained loader, that fourth crewmember is an incalculable advantage when it comes to all those non-sexy parts of armoured warfare like erecting snorkels or re-mounting thrown tracks...