The tank is a universal combat vehicle of the battlefield and is designed to conduct both independent actions to develop breakthroughs in enemy defense, operations for operational and strategic encirclement and defeat of enemy military groupings and actions in its rear, and for use as a means of fire support for infantry, destruction of objects military infrastructure, suppression of tanks, armored targets, anti-tank weapons and enemy defense units. The fight against tanks and well-fortified long-term strongholds of the enemy is assigned not to tanks, but to anti-tank artillery, MLRS and aviation.
The set of targets for the tank is very wide and to defeat them, a cannon with a wide range of ammunition is used as the main armament, which basically determines the firepower of the tank. The main characteristics of a tank are firepower, protection and mobility, and when creating a vehicle, this is always a search for a compromise between them, since strengthening some, as a rule, leads to a decrease in others.
With the development of technology, technology and experience in the use of tanks in real military conflicts at the present stage, it is no longer enough to characterize a tank with only firepower, security and mobility. One of the significant characteristics is the controllability of the tank as part of the corresponding level of command and control.
The tank as an independent combat unit, except in exceptional cases, is practically not used. As a combat unit, it is used in a tactical echelon group (platoon, company, battalion) or at higher levels of command and control, in which the commander of the corresponding tactical echelon must be integrated. That is, the tank must be able to perform the assigned task as part of the forces taking part in a specific operation not as a separate unit, but as part of the combat assets of the battlefield, interconnected into a single whole.
Let's consider what combination of the main characteristics of the tank can be most acceptable.
Firepower
A cannon is used as the main armament of the tank. For Soviet and Russian tanks, this is a 125mm cannon, for most Western tanks, a 120mm. Of course, the natural desire to have a gun with a higher caliber on the tank was carried out in this direction, and work is underway to install 152-mm guns in the tank. How justified is this and how important is it for a tank to increase its firepower due to a more powerful gun caliber?
For a tank gun, four types of ammunition are used: BPS, OFS, KMS and TURS. At the same time, the requirements for each type of ammunition are fundamentally different. For BPS, the maximum initial velocity of the projectile is required, for OFS, KMS and TURS, the mass of the active substance and the damaging elements in the projectile, that is, the caliber of the gun, is more significant.
The kinetic energy of the projectile is determined by its mass (caliber) and initial velocity, while the second parameter is much more significant, it is calculated based on the square of the velocity. That is, to achieve greater efficiency, it is advisable to increase not so much the mass (caliber) as to increase the speed of the projectile.
Of course, the caliber also affects the speed (more charge mass), but for this there are other more effective ways to increase the speed (the quality and composition of the powder, the design of the gun and the projectile, other physical principles of accelerating the projectile in the cannon bore), which can significantly increase the speed BPS without reducing other main characteristics of the tank. In addition, armor penetration can also be increased due to the use of more advanced materials for the BPS core.
Therefore, depending on the tasks that are assigned to the tank to destroy armored or non-armored targets, it is necessary to look for a compromise on ways to increase the firepower of the tank. Today, all types of ammunition for a 125-mm tank gun are quite capable of destroying targets on the battlefield. In addition, the characteristics of ammunition are constantly improving, the gun is being improved and its muzzle energy is growing and the firepower of the tank is growing with the existing caliber of the gun.
Of course, a 152-mm cannon is more effective than a 125-mm one, but an increase in firepower in this way leads to a significant increase in the reserved volume, tank mass, complication of the design of the automatic loader and a decrease in its reliability, and an increase in loads on the power plant and chassis. All this leads to a decrease in the mobility of the tank, one of its main characteristics.
For example, during the development of the last Soviet tank "Boxer", the installation of a 152-mm cannon led to the complication of the design of the automatic loader and a decrease in its reliability, as well as to a serious increase in the mass of the tank. It began to exceed 50 tons, and titanium had to be used in the design of the chassis and protection, which complicated the production process of the tank.
In this regard, an increase in the firepower of a tank due to the installation of a 152-mm cannon is far from always justified. It is advisable to consider other methods of increasing firepower. For example, in the mid-80s, at the Instrument Design Bureau, Shipunov showed us the results of work on the Veer R&D project, within the framework of which a ground-based anti-tank missile system was developed based on a laser-guided missile and an armor-piercing core, accelerated to hypersonic speed. The rocket was a "scrap" with a diameter of about 40 mm and a length of about 1.5 meters. A powerful engine was installed in the tail of the rocket, which accelerated it to hypersonic speed. This complex did not reach the army at that time, but technologies are intensively developing and at the present level it is possible to implement ideas that then could not be brought to an end.
It should also be noted that in terms of armor penetration, the TURS is almost equal to the BPS, and they are not so critical to the caliber of the gun. Moreover, they are developing a ROWS with a seeker, operating on the "fire-and-forget" principle, which are much more effective than the BPS in terms of the set of parameters.
Security
The increase in the tank's protection due to armor protection is also approaching its saturation, while other methods of protection are being intensively developed, such as dynamic, active, optical-electronic and electronic countermeasures, which do not require a serious increase in the tank's mass. Also, the development of new ceramic and polymer materials close to armor in terms of resistance.
The development of systems for electromagnetic and electrodynamic protection of a tank using an electric pulse to protect against a cumulative jet and the core of the BPS, which were started at VNII Steel in the early 80s, but then were not brought to practical implementation due to the lack of energy storage units of acceptable dimensions … The rapid development of technologies for these elements, most likely, will allow in the near future to implement these types of protection on tanks.
Increasing the security of the tank through the use of classic armor is hardly justified, since it leads to an exorbitant increase in the mass of the tank and the inability to use it not only in combat conditions, but also during transportation due to the lack of necessary transport communications, bridges and overpasses, as well as difficulties during transportation by rail.
Apparently, the mass of the tank should be about 50 tons, which makes it possible to ensure a sufficiently high level of its basic characteristics.
Mobility
The mobility of the tank, determined by the power plant and the tracked propeller, does not undergo fundamental changes on the new generation of tanks. Nothing new and realizable has been proposed. The power plant based on a diesel engine or GTE remains unchanged. Their power is increasing and the elements of the tracked undercarriage are being improved, which provide good mobility to the tank. Any exotic propellers (walking, crawling, wheeled, etc.) on the tank did not take root.
Nevertheless, one should probably consider a possible combination of caterpillar and auger propellers, the latter was used in the "Blue Bird" search engine for astronauts, developed back in 1966 and providing the vehicle with very high cross-country ability over rough and difficult terrain. As a result of such experiments, new approaches can be proposed in the design of the chassis, increasing the mobility of the tank on difficult terrain.
Tank handling
Within the framework of the modern concept of "network-centric warfare" and network-centric warfare, the tank must be integrated into a single battle control system, which ensures that all types of troops participating in a particular operation are linked into a single whole. The system should provide coordination and control of motorized rifle, tank, artillery units, helicopters and fire support aviation, UAVs, air defense systems, support and repair and evacuation forces. To include a tank in a network-centric system, it must be equipped with the necessary systems.
All combat units taking part in the operation, including tanks, must automatically determine and display cartographic information about their location in real time, about targets detected and received from higher commanders, exchange information on the location of combat units via closed communication channels, the technical condition and ammunition supply, the state of the enemy to the operational depth, detected independently or according to the received intelligence data of ground and air targets and enemy defense units, determine their coordinates and transfer them to the appropriate control level, as well as form commands for subordinate control objects. The commanders must be able to control the fire and maneuver of the subunit in real time, carry out target designation and target distribution in subordinate subunits and adjust their fire.
All this can be realized with the help of a digital information and control system that unites all the devices and systems of the tank into a single integrated system of the tank and all combat units into a single battle control system. Such a network-centric control system makes it possible to optimize combat operations and in real time to observe, assess the situation and control the implementation of the assigned task for each commander of the corresponding control level. Tanks within the framework of this system receive a fundamentally new quality of control and their efficiency increases dramatically.
In this system, each tank is already equipped with all the necessary elements for remote control and firing from the tank, as well as using it as a remotely controlled robotic tank.
In modern conditions, without the introduction of network-centric systems, the successful conduct of hostilities will be very problematic. Such systems have been developed and implemented for a long time. On the tanks of NATO countries, such as "Abrams" and "Leclerc", the second generation of TIUS is already being installed, on Russian tanks individual elements of TIUS are used only on the Armata tank.
It is possible to equip the existing generation of Russian tanks with a tank information and control system, but at the same time, only the hull and tower, the power plant and weapons will remain of the tank. All equipment, sighting systems and control systems are subject to replacement and installation of a new generation of devices and systems. The units and assemblies of the tank are subject to modification for the possibility of remote control using electronic systems. In fact, these will already be new tanks that can be integrated into a network-centric battle control system.
In this regard, re-equipping the entire army with a new generation of Armata tanks is impractical and unrealistic. There should be a program of deep modernization of the existing generation of tanks that can fit into the network-centric system on an equal footing with the new generation of tanks and ensure their joint effective use in a combat situation.
When evaluating tanks according to their main characteristics (firepower, protection and mobility) in modern conditions of network-centric warfare, it is necessary to evaluate tanks also from the point of view of their controllability within a single battle control system and the ability to integrate into such a system.
