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SCUBA Tank
Fill the fighting compartment with water | |
It has been brought to my attention that there is a battle
between the people who design things to destroy tanks,
and the people who design tanks to be less blowuppable.
Now, there are plenty of ways of blowing tanks up, many
of them involve hurling dense material at the tank, in the
hope
that it will penetrate the armour and fill the interior
with super fast-moving hot metal.
Now, why don't we fill the tank with water*? The crew can
swim about inside secure in the knowledge that any super
fast moving particles break up in a few mm of water in
addition, should the tank be shaken about violently, the
crew won't rattle around inside quite so much.
Furthermore, an impact on the surface of the armour will
be backed by multiple metres of non compressible
material. The crew can be supplied by a regular
compressed air supply topped off by the engine during
normal operation. The compressed air supply and water
will provide enhanced NBC protection. Shockwaves may
propagate through water better to kill crew in some
scenarios, I'm not sure if they wouldn't have died anyway.
The tank crew may keep pet fish, although they will be
prohibited from repeating any "two fish in a tank, one says
to the other" jokes.
*or possibly diesel
.50 cal in water
https://www.youtube...watch?v=yvSTuLIjRm8
[bs0u0155, Mar 25 2015]
Ripsaw unmanned tank
https://en.wikipedi...ipsaw_%28vehicle%29
has been in development for 15 years now [notexactly, Mar 26 2015]
https://www.youtube...watch?v=hBkHKOijlys
russian remote combat vehicles - totally excellent [xenzag, Mar 27 2015]
[link]
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It is my understanding that water is very good at carrying
impact/shock waves. That would be as fatal as if molten
metal was spraying about the tank interior. |
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But dehydration isn't a danger... |
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" You man the guns, I'll drive. " |
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I'm sorry I completed that bad fish joke - I feel gill-ty now. |
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A better option might be to fill the tank with ping-
pong balls. |
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Much like how you can fill a safe with water then blow it up with a firecracker, I suspect filling a tank with water would not make it tougher. |
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I suspect even a moderate concussive blast outside the armour would kill everyone inside, if not blow the doors and/or turret off. |
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Fill the tank with a vacuum. |
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<obligatory reference> Custard </obligatory reference> |
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Everyone has it right. The last thing you want is to
make a tank interior better at transmitting shock.
The most common killer inside the tank is not the
round itself, it's spalling of the interior layer of
armor. If instead of throwing splinters, that's
producing overpressure, you're going to have dead
crew from relatively minor hits. |
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//sitting on a sofa somewhere in Idaho// |
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Actually that's a good point. Given that tanks are
relatively slow, tend to have limited vision and
seldom experience things like negative G, why are
they not all remotely operated? |
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//given that tanks are relatively slow, tend to have
limited vision and seldom experience things like negative
G, why are they not all remotely operated?// |
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Flying's quite easy, especially the sort of flying UAV's do.
They're never going to fly in contested airspace, because
they're easy to jam and easier to shoot down. Tanks are
on the ground* where they like hiding. They're going to be
hiding from enemy aircraft and their own satellite system
simultaneously. There are guns that load themselves, but
I'm not sure how they handle swapping the type of
ammunition on the fly. Also, there's no known automated
way of drinking tea, which is essential for proper tank
function. |
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//why are they not all remotely operated?// |
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Well, because remote operation doesn't really make sense for a combat ground vehicle. |
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The development of modern tanks has until recently been centered around the concept of massed armoured warfare (namely in eastern Europe). In that scope, remotely operated tanks (or anything else) would be useless, because the first thing to go in the battle would be comms as both parties would jam the shit out of all channels. In fact anything radiating more EM than a rock would probaby get zapped by antiradiation missiles within the first few minutes. |
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Secondly, UAVs are not required to rapidly respond to anything - they loiter, observe, and eventually fire semi-active or fully active ordnance at targets some distance away. It all happens in slow motion. None of this requires split second timing or rapid responses. |
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A tank on the ground, being much closer to the action, couldn't cope with the 1/2 second or whatever it is lapse in comms. Imagine trying to operate a turret firing at enemy troops running around - but with a 1/2 or 1 second delay between what's on the screen, and your control input reaching the machine. It would be impossible. |
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...However, in asymetrical warfare - against an enemy who can't jam comms, maybe there would be scope to remotely operate an armoured ground vehicle. |
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A low earth orbit single satellite bounce would be
about a 2.7 millisecond delay. That's not going to
interfere with activity on the ground. A double
satellite bounce, and including the (dedicated)
satellite relay channel would still be less than a
hundred milliseconds, slightly more, but not
significant. |
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As far as communication jamming, if you make
multiply redundant links across a wide band range,
including laser relay if there is not overhead cover,
it's not so easy to jam. With regards to anti-
radiation missiles, even in all out warfare, neither
side is going to be able to target every single
source broadcasting in certain common bands,
especially with spread spectrum communications
and active frequency hopping. |
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If you really want to make it secure, you have a
series of laser communications drones that are
purely autonomous that relay from the sheltered
attack vehicle to a satellite. No broadcast
radiation further than say a bluetooth or wifi link,
and the attack drone can do whatever as long as
one or more of the nodes is in range. |
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I would put a strong estimate that we will see
remote (operator in theatre) ground based drones
within the next decade, two at the outside. |
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However, that being said, I expect them to be
smaller, much more lightly armored, and much
more single purpose (and as a result, cheaper)
than current tanks. The first generation will
probably be essentially mobile mines, or slightly
more robust and tactically versatile versions of
current bomb clearance robots. |
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Your 2.7 milisecond delay has no processing time in it, doesn't take into account compression/encryption etc. In real terms the delay will be significantly longer. At least a couple hundred ms. |
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Anyhow, your drone tank can't do basic tasks like refuelling, simple repairs, or dragging shit out if it's path. |
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I too suspect we'll see remote controlled or semi-autonomous ground vehicles soon. They won't be tanks, and they most likely wouldn't be very useful for active combat. Patrols in occupied territory, peacekeeping or scouting, EOD or just plain keeping point for a manned patrol? Yep sure. |
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We've had those for years. See PackBot. Also see my
link. |
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I like the idea of a wire guided tank. If it works for rockets it should be even better for tanks. You could hunker down in the shrubbery a ways away and steer your tank around via a long wire. Then you would be safely outside the tank but close enough not to worry about EM. |
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You could even have your own fake head (but with sideburns) poking out the top (of the tank, not the shrubbery). When your opponent shot that fake head and it just spun around and scowled they would be terrified of your ferocity. |
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//Anyhow, your drone tank can't do basic tasks like
refuelling, simple repairs, or dragging shit out if it's
path.// |
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Neither can an human crewed tank in combat. At least
at first the operator is going to be within kilometers at
most, and fully able to catch up with the vehicle as long
as it's not actively in combat. |
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As far as the processing lag, in case you hadn't noticed,
Abrams tanks do an awful lot of processing before a shell
is fired already. On a dedicated link, with care in the
design, the processing time will also be in the
milliseconds. Certainly less than a tenth of a second
cumulative. |
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Finally, the critical factor is cost. If you can field ten of
these for the cost of one tank, you rotate them out for
refueling or repair, and clear brush by having one
be a dedicated bulldozer. The same crew can operate all
of them in rotation without nearly as much risk to
themselves. |
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See last link.... don't mess with the Russians if they really do have these... very well made little 3D combat animation - well worth watching all of it of you like fighting vehicles destroying everything in sight. |
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That's a little more capable than I expect to see
anytime soon. Their target detection and
acquisition systems were remarkably fast and
effective compared to their opponents. Not to
mention of the traverse speed of those turrets and
missile launchers in units that are apparently
armored to stand up to assault rifles, to say
nothing of the armored car's cannon. |
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Plus the whole low ground clearance works well on
smooth paved roads, not quite so sure how they
managed to break through walls and keep going. |
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Still, that's the concept, and I don't think it's that
impractical. |
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Target acquisition speed speaks to at least two operators per vehicle plus a networked eye-in-the-sky. |
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After some serious consideration of this idea, I have come
to the conclusion it is rediculous. Water is non compressible
and everyone knows the insides of tanks are supposed to be
compressible. Thus...this is a thoroughly absurd idea. |
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However, if you filled the inside of the tank with canary
feathers...Now that's an Idea! |
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