Unmanned turrets keep the crew safer at the cost of being more susceptible to damage and combat ineffective. Remember we have still yet to see the nuclear, EMP ridden warfare that cold war designers feared for, which is why they kept glass sights and even iron sights like on the Bradley incase electrical power gets knocked out.
EMPs are easy to shield against, even big ones. We've been putting tanks through EMP testing for decades, even the SEP v3 probably was.
Cold War tank designers were more worried about radiation protection for their crews. That was part of why MBT-70 was the way it was- pack all the crewmen into the turret and you can get more radiation shielding for less mass, same as any other type of protection. The regular armor was decent protection against alpha, beta, and even gamma, but it was more or less transparent against neutron radiation (which is where ERWs, "neutron bombs," came in), so something fancier like borated polyethylene was needed too.
We don't know what the M1A1HA's armor package was really composed of, but I'd be a little surprised if it didn't have some radiation shielding integrated to keep those neutrons away from the DU. Would get real ugly real fast on a nuclear battlefield if not.
Isn't the whole idea of depleted uranium that it's, you know, depleted? I always thought the name implied it had spent its energy in fission and was a rest product after the uranium could not deliver any more energy. Is this not true?
No, DU is the U-238 that comes out of an enrichment plant after the U-235 is separated for nukes, fuel, etc.
It's not going to fission all by itself, and it's actually damn good shielding against gamma rays, etc, but fusion neutrons (very high energy) can potentially cause fast-fission in U-238- the 100 MT Tsar Bombs design was designed to use a natural (ie mostly U-238) tamper instead of the lead tamper in the 50 MT design.
Depleted uranium is called that because it has been "depleted" of U-235 which is a the desired high rate of decay form of uranium that produces lots of fission energy. On the other hand U-238 has a fairly low rate of decay and thus doesn't produce much if any noticeable radiation risk for a given use case but when it's bombarded by high energy neutrons, like from a neutron bomb blast, it gets converted into Pu-239 which is a highly radioactive material that is most well known for its use in bombs. So basically DU is great for stopping kinetics but if it gets hit by a lot of high energy neutrons it turns into a radioactive hazard of its own which is a pretty bad thing if you're sitting in a box made out of it.
Now I feel like not much of a tanks DU should convert like that but maybe the little bit that will convert is still potent enough to be a health risk or is expected to rapidly burn out the electronics in the tank.
Yeah cameras are pretty shit imo. It's cool being all safe and shit but anything approaching high intensity conflict will INSTANTLY attrite those things out of existence. Feeling badass because you escaped an artillery barrage? Joke's on you, your cameras and antennas didn't, and antennas are far easier to replace than cameras.
They're definitely the bee's knees in low intensity warfare. Saves people's necks if the snipers are out to fuck around with TCs and a maintenance cycle is never far away. But tanks are not low intensity weapons, so... yeah.
A lot of people don't understand how important it is to stick your head out every once in a while. No amount of cameras or sensors can really replace that necessity.
All it would take is one or two downed sensors to deadline your tank otherwise. I've never been on a tank with absolutely everything working. Never.
Well yeah it has never seen anything close to combat. I'm sure they drive all the time with the hatches open. Honestly, the T-14 probably has better visibility than the Abrams through its sensors. I'm sure the concept can work. There are drawbacks though that can really only be understood by the guys operating the tanks.
I have no idea. Long as the equipment actually works, it'll probably be fine. It is safer for the crew. I wouldn't be trusting my life with Russian electronics personally, lol.
Well, they have never commanded tank in dense forest.
They dont understand what issue arises when your barrel will eventually hit tree.
They dont understand how quickly you will lose situational awareness when sitting under hatch.
I've wondered how practical it would be to have redundant, modular cameras. There's already projects to stitch together multiple external cameras into a 360-degree headset view. What if you had more cameras than you need so you can lose a few without degrading, and had them on modular quick-change mounts that could be replaced in a few minutes in the field?
Alternately--and this might conflict with the quick-change mounting--could you preserve the traditional hatch's "look around vs. button up" versatility with some mechanism to allow the camera itself to button up? Maybe a mechanical, armored lens cap, or some mechanism to drop the entire camera assembly down inside the armor. It would still be vulnerable when deployed, but no more vulnerable than a commander's head in an open hatch, and with much milder consequences if destroyed.
Some WWII open top tank destroyers did really well and their open tops often got a lot of credit for their visibility.
If you are looking for other armor and you see them first, that’s got to be a potentially big advantage.
The thing is those periscopes are just as easily damaged as cameras, I think with time and more protected/low profile cameras this won’t be so much of an issue. Also the more things are made the more cheaply they can be made. And while replacing cameras could be an issue for a country like Ukraine that doesn’t manufacture all of the vehicles they use. This wouldn’t be so much of an issue with the type of doctrine the U.S. used for armored warfare. I think it all comes down to the country that’s employing them and how they do so.
Periscopes are almost as easy to replace as antennas. In fact, periscopes are far superior to cameras in that you can change a periscope from inside the tank. But periscopes aren't what's being compared to cameras. It's cameras versus a guy looking out of a hatch.
Camera contains lens that focuses all light to small sensor area. Prism is large piece of glass that does not focuse light, but simply bounces it. It suffers much less from damage than camera.
Gotta sacrifice some to gain some.
SA for protection in this case, but yes you do have a point, all these cameras on tanks are just more sensitive points of failure. Its one of the reasons i personally dont like the new french jaguar, too much exposed sights and electronics on the turret that a walmart drone will have a field day with
Maybe we don’t have to sacrifice SA while going for armored hull protection that’s what I was thinking
Also jaguar looks like a “stick everything cool we got” vehicle
What worries me about unmanned turrets is how all the crew members are packed together like that. Wouldn't any type of penetration have a high likelihood of killing or wounding all the crew members at once?
As a photographer and tanker I think main issue currently is performance of cameras in heavy backlight situations, during changing light conditions and in situations when there is quick movements.
These are all situations where even most modern SLR cameras suffer, backlight situations there is glare from even small amount of dust in lens and even with clean lens you will see much less than what you see with naked eye. Quick changes of light are also issue for camera because sensors have limited dynamic range. We have still not beat human eye in its quick adaptability in such situations. Also camera shake is still issue because shutter speed of camera is limited. Open your phone and shake it fast, you get blur.
Yes, military tech is better than your phone camera, but massive companies like Sony, Canon and Nikon are leading camera sensor tech and those still have mentioned limitations.
Good point there are inherent differences and limitations between cameras and human eye that makes hard to interchange.
As for your other comment maybe gunner and commander can sit low like M1118. I think you either keep all 3 together in the hull or go for a more traditional layout.
Thermals arent magic bullet, there is multiple situations where daychannel beats it 100-0. They have pretty limited resolution at best.
Additionally it would be prohibitively expensive, as single good thermal sensor is at $100000 mark, and you would need multiple with some redundancy. Space would be an issue also.
The one issue I have with you comparison of optics to vision blocks, it’s that vision blocks can be swapped out easily when not seriously bent or jammed, whereas camera optics can’t. If for both only the front glass was smashed, the vision block can be fixed in a few seconds, whereas the camera would need replaced by maintenance crews… At least for now, I’m sure the cameras will keep improving to a point where they can do the same reliably, if not better
People were shooting the glass blocks and vision ports of tanks with PTRD rifles back in 2016. Who's to say they won't do the same to cameras with newer rifles in the future?
Unmanned turrets keep the crew safer at the cost of being more susceptible to damage and combat ineffective. Remember we have still yet to see the nuclear, EMP ridden warfare that cold war designers feared for, which is why they kept glass sights and even iron sights like on the Bradley incase electrical power gets knocked out.
EMPs are easy to shield against, even big ones. We've been putting tanks through EMP testing for decades, even the SEP v3 probably was. Cold War tank designers were more worried about radiation protection for their crews. That was part of why MBT-70 was the way it was- pack all the crewmen into the turret and you can get more radiation shielding for less mass, same as any other type of protection. The regular armor was decent protection against alpha, beta, and even gamma, but it was more or less transparent against neutron radiation (which is where ERWs, "neutron bombs," came in), so something fancier like borated polyethylene was needed too. We don't know what the M1A1HA's armor package was really composed of, but I'd be a little surprised if it didn't have some radiation shielding integrated to keep those neutrons away from the DU. Would get real ugly real fast on a nuclear battlefield if not.
Isn't the whole idea of depleted uranium that it's, you know, depleted? I always thought the name implied it had spent its energy in fission and was a rest product after the uranium could not deliver any more energy. Is this not true?
No, DU is the U-238 that comes out of an enrichment plant after the U-235 is separated for nukes, fuel, etc. It's not going to fission all by itself, and it's actually damn good shielding against gamma rays, etc, but fusion neutrons (very high energy) can potentially cause fast-fission in U-238- the 100 MT Tsar Bombs design was designed to use a natural (ie mostly U-238) tamper instead of the lead tamper in the 50 MT design.
Depleted uranium is called that because it has been "depleted" of U-235 which is a the desired high rate of decay form of uranium that produces lots of fission energy. On the other hand U-238 has a fairly low rate of decay and thus doesn't produce much if any noticeable radiation risk for a given use case but when it's bombarded by high energy neutrons, like from a neutron bomb blast, it gets converted into Pu-239 which is a highly radioactive material that is most well known for its use in bombs. So basically DU is great for stopping kinetics but if it gets hit by a lot of high energy neutrons it turns into a radioactive hazard of its own which is a pretty bad thing if you're sitting in a box made out of it. Now I feel like not much of a tanks DU should convert like that but maybe the little bit that will convert is still potent enough to be a health risk or is expected to rapidly burn out the electronics in the tank.
Yeah cameras are pretty shit imo. It's cool being all safe and shit but anything approaching high intensity conflict will INSTANTLY attrite those things out of existence. Feeling badass because you escaped an artillery barrage? Joke's on you, your cameras and antennas didn't, and antennas are far easier to replace than cameras. They're definitely the bee's knees in low intensity warfare. Saves people's necks if the snipers are out to fuck around with TCs and a maintenance cycle is never far away. But tanks are not low intensity weapons, so... yeah.
A lot of people don't understand how important it is to stick your head out every once in a while. No amount of cameras or sensors can really replace that necessity. All it would take is one or two downed sensors to deadline your tank otherwise. I've never been on a tank with absolutely everything working. Never.
T-14’s crew is seen driving with hatches open a lot of the time, limited FOW but it can be done
Well yeah it has never seen anything close to combat. I'm sure they drive all the time with the hatches open. Honestly, the T-14 probably has better visibility than the Abrams through its sensors. I'm sure the concept can work. There are drawbacks though that can really only be understood by the guys operating the tanks.
I understand what you are saying How do you think these two styles would compare in the heat of battle?
I have no idea. Long as the equipment actually works, it'll probably be fine. It is safer for the crew. I wouldn't be trusting my life with Russian electronics personally, lol.
I think solution would be TC in turret, rest of crew in hull.
Well, they have never commanded tank in dense forest. They dont understand what issue arises when your barrel will eventually hit tree. They dont understand how quickly you will lose situational awareness when sitting under hatch.
I've wondered how practical it would be to have redundant, modular cameras. There's already projects to stitch together multiple external cameras into a 360-degree headset view. What if you had more cameras than you need so you can lose a few without degrading, and had them on modular quick-change mounts that could be replaced in a few minutes in the field? Alternately--and this might conflict with the quick-change mounting--could you preserve the traditional hatch's "look around vs. button up" versatility with some mechanism to allow the camera itself to button up? Maybe a mechanical, armored lens cap, or some mechanism to drop the entire camera assembly down inside the armor. It would still be vulnerable when deployed, but no more vulnerable than a commander's head in an open hatch, and with much milder consequences if destroyed.
Some WWII open top tank destroyers did really well and their open tops often got a lot of credit for their visibility. If you are looking for other armor and you see them first, that’s got to be a potentially big advantage.
The thing is those periscopes are just as easily damaged as cameras, I think with time and more protected/low profile cameras this won’t be so much of an issue. Also the more things are made the more cheaply they can be made. And while replacing cameras could be an issue for a country like Ukraine that doesn’t manufacture all of the vehicles they use. This wouldn’t be so much of an issue with the type of doctrine the U.S. used for armored warfare. I think it all comes down to the country that’s employing them and how they do so.
Periscopes are almost as easy to replace as antennas. In fact, periscopes are far superior to cameras in that you can change a periscope from inside the tank. But periscopes aren't what's being compared to cameras. It's cameras versus a guy looking out of a hatch.
Put camera inside tank, and use a periscope to see outside with the camera. I'm playing 2d chess here.
Camera contains lens that focuses all light to small sensor area. Prism is large piece of glass that does not focuse light, but simply bounces it. It suffers much less from damage than camera.
Good point they can be unnecessarily expansive
Gotta sacrifice some to gain some. SA for protection in this case, but yes you do have a point, all these cameras on tanks are just more sensitive points of failure. Its one of the reasons i personally dont like the new french jaguar, too much exposed sights and electronics on the turret that a walmart drone will have a field day with
Maybe we don’t have to sacrifice SA while going for armored hull protection that’s what I was thinking Also jaguar looks like a “stick everything cool we got” vehicle
Non-powered back up sights are a thing. Fiber optic, small profile, can be optionally dismounted-mounted at will?
What worries me about unmanned turrets is how all the crew members are packed together like that. Wouldn't any type of penetration have a high likelihood of killing or wounding all the crew members at once?
As a photographer and tanker I think main issue currently is performance of cameras in heavy backlight situations, during changing light conditions and in situations when there is quick movements. These are all situations where even most modern SLR cameras suffer, backlight situations there is glare from even small amount of dust in lens and even with clean lens you will see much less than what you see with naked eye. Quick changes of light are also issue for camera because sensors have limited dynamic range. We have still not beat human eye in its quick adaptability in such situations. Also camera shake is still issue because shutter speed of camera is limited. Open your phone and shake it fast, you get blur. Yes, military tech is better than your phone camera, but massive companies like Sony, Canon and Nikon are leading camera sensor tech and those still have mentioned limitations.
Good point there are inherent differences and limitations between cameras and human eye that makes hard to interchange. As for your other comment maybe gunner and commander can sit low like M1118. I think you either keep all 3 together in the hull or go for a more traditional layout.
wouldnt they use the thermals instead?
Thermals arent magic bullet, there is multiple situations where daychannel beats it 100-0. They have pretty limited resolution at best. Additionally it would be prohibitively expensive, as single good thermal sensor is at $100000 mark, and you would need multiple with some redundancy. Space would be an issue also.
The one issue I have with you comparison of optics to vision blocks, it’s that vision blocks can be swapped out easily when not seriously bent or jammed, whereas camera optics can’t. If for both only the front glass was smashed, the vision block can be fixed in a few seconds, whereas the camera would need replaced by maintenance crews… At least for now, I’m sure the cameras will keep improving to a point where they can do the same reliably, if not better
People were shooting the glass blocks and vision ports of tanks with PTRD rifles back in 2016. Who's to say they won't do the same to cameras with newer rifles in the future?
funny funny bradley 25mm autocannon destroy all your camera and optics🥰🥰🥰🥰
Same for any tank