From: S.J. Van Sickle (steve@dsl.telocity.com)
Date: Sun Jun 25 2000 - 13:33:25 MDT
On Sun, 25 Jun 2000 GBurch1@aol.com wrote:
> Like the aircraft carrier, the death of the tank has been prophesied for
some
> time. I do think the big lumbering giant M-1 is the last in that line; a
> real dinosaur. I see the armored vehicle of 2025 as very light, very fast
> and very smart. And maybe on legs instead of tracks.
You do the M-1 an injustice by calling it 'lumbering': it is *fast*, the
fastest thing on tracks. Its acceleration kicks ass as well. It is smart
as hell, too, with the new electronic upgrades. Even without them, back
in '85 it was standard on the range to travel over medium rough terrain at
+30 mph and identify, engage, and hit *3* pop-up targets in 15 seconds.
The only major disadvantage to its size is that it takes an entire C5-A to
air transport one. Well, and if you wanted to deploy them in a city, but
that was always a stupid thing to do with a tank.
You are right, though, that the future is probably smaller. I think they
are starting to have enough confidence in autoloading guns to do away with
the loader (bringing it down to a 3 man crew), which will make it much
easier eliminate the manned turret (a major weight problem). Also, with
modern computers and heads-up type displays, perhaps a dedicated gunner is
no longer needed. So you can have something with the speed, armor, and
firepower of an M-1, with an autoloading main gun on a small swivel
turret, 2 man crew, and about 1/3 the weight.
steve van sickle
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