Due to the enormous QUANTITATIVE advantage held by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, US policy shifted to maximizing the QUALITATIVE advantages of Western technology when it came to weapon systems. And so the US Army built what was unquestionable the best tank in the world: The M1A1 Abrams, also known as The Beast due to its battlefield dominance. But that was 1980. So what now?
Meet the M1E3. And baby, The Beast is Back!
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Just a thought: In modern warefare, tanks are simply mobile targets. 1st aircraft that I worked on was A-10 w/30 mm gun. Against any tank, it is bruttal. Not to mention the plethora of new/old tank weapons such as the Fire-and-forget Javelin Missile, NLAW (Next Generation Light Anti-tank Weapon), PIAT (Projector, Infantry, Anti-Tank), RPG-29 Vampir, RPG-7, Bazooka, TOW missile, StuG III and M10 tank destroyers w/high-velocity guns. My opinion? Network is neat/required, but ZERO crew makes more sense. Think drone M1RPV w/full electronic EMP shielding. No people = More ordinance = less volume & weight = smaller silhouette = more survivable = no risk… Read more »
OK. I was thinking almost the same thing about no crew and all the things that can take out a tank .
I’m not sure whether “Great (engineering) minds think alike.” or one or both of use should be scared of what the other thinks.
Aw, the heck with it. Engineering minds. Let others beware!😁😏
LOL, careful Harry … When you’re a hammer every problem looks like a nail. When you’re an engineer every problem looks like it has an engineering solution. Down that road there be dragons. I’m a certified systems engineer but I wouldn’t claim to have an “engineering mind”. Too much world experience outside that sphere I’m afraid. Too many times I’ve seen one problem solved just to expose an even worse problem the previous was masking. Higher order effects increase in chaos and sometimes exponentially. I’m not saying engineering doesn’t have it’s place, it most certainly does. I’m just pointing out… Read more »
Feature – not a bug. 😉
Engineering Observation: The glass is not half empty nor is it half full but rather it is twice as large as it needs to be. 🙂
I like to say the glass is at the halfway point.
But I have used yours too.
LOL …
How do you know when you’re talking to an extroverted engineer?
He stares at your shoes during the conversation.
I’m more than just an engineer as I am sure you well know. I just tend to start there as proceed to other things. And yes, solving one problem often creates more, sometimes the solution brings up things worse than the original probkem And boy, do humans foul up things. Including engineers. Some of us forget we are Human too. Not me, I know my many faults way too well. You have to take human foibles into account when you make things.We can pretty much always use things other than intended. Either for good and bad….and often both. Machines can’t… Read more »
From an engineering standpoint the piece that jumped out to me was that the engineers realized they needed to go smaller so that they could use existing bridges and roadways. I am trying to fix an issue right now because the engineers who designed packaging didn’t take into account the interior of a standard truck or container. Shipping air is expensive. And as is typical it is much more time consuming and costly to fix something than to do it right the first time. Heaven forbid they ask someone with nearly 4 decades of Manufacturing for input to their “perfect”… Read more »
Well … Except for the fact that anything controlled by digital radio transmissions is susceptible to eventually being hacked that is. Either the signal may be interfered with making the controlled device useless or worse it may be overridden, seized and used against its owners.
The solution to that is autonomous AI controlling the device so that it can operate independently and …
Do we really want to go there?
We are ‘there’ whether we wanted to go there or not. BTW there are other means of communication that have been studied (e.g. laser, microwave, and proprietary) that are on order magnitude more difficult to jam/block. Couple these with limited AI (to execute, as opposed to ‘think’) …
Yeah, we’re “there”, sort of. Software can be programmed for object recognition to identify enemy threats but that’s not the same thing as making a “decision”. Following an “if this then that” flow chart tree isn’t really autonomous AI. I shoot things, mostly varmints of one sort or another* and inanimate targets when the varmints are scarce, nearly every day the weather is tolerable and the “shoot/don’t shoot” decision making process is a lot more involved than just a “Is that a legitimate target or not?” sort of thing. As far as I’m aware there is no software that can… Read more »
If you look at human ingenuity, you’ll see the ultimate “whatever” that we build, eventually there be something better and/or to stop it. Then something better and/or to stop that. That especially applies to war. When your life is on the line, you tend to get creative, or die.
Shame it often requires war to come up with some good things. Humans are flawed.
Tanks
ur welcome!
I’m curious, how would this tank survive a significant EMP? Is that just a science fiction thing or should it be a real concern. I have no doubt that there are tactical nukes out there.
EMP is a real thing not solely confined to science fiction. Look up “Faraday cage” to answer your question regarding “how”. EMP isn’t something that cannot be protected against and is definitely a consideration for combat systems now and into the future.
Somehow I knew you’d know about ‘Faraday cages”.
And you beat me to it😏
There’s also the fact that when it comes to EMPs all nukes are not created equal but … I was just trying to answer John’s question. A tactical nuke does generate some EMP but to do the serious electromagnetic spectrum electronic/electrical infrastructure destroying devastating EMPs you need to detonate the nuke in the upper atmosphere. Where it short circuits the Earth’s magnetic field from space to the surface. If this were not so then every nuke test ever fired would have destroyed civilization over a significant radius from ground zero. The Tsar Bomba would have fried Russia back to the… Read more »
Sometime in the early 90s, when I was on the FD, we were dispatched to General Dynamics LS HQ. They had an Abrams and the wheel base was coated in mud. They needed a high pressure water flow to clean it up. Took us about half an hour to do the job. Glad to accommodate Uncle Sam once again.
Well, now we know how PDJT knew he could take Greenland – he had this prototype. Nothing more needed.
Six years early to this stage I read.