The Best That Never Was 2 (Prototypes)

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by unkated

I post these under the best that never was: the initial tanks available (for the original nations) in the on line game World of Tanks. I know there are some players out there.

They fall under this topic because (except for the French FT-17), known of these faced actual combat.

The file includes...

• T7 Combat Car (US)
• T1 Light Tank (US)
• LT-31 (Germany)
• FT-17 (France)
• NC-27 (Japan)
• NC-31 (China)
• MS-1/T-18 (USSR)
• Vickers Medium Mk I (GB)

For each one, there is a T2K style vehicle sheet and a description of the vehicle, its development, and how reality differed from it depiction in WoT.

I did these as an exercise for the fun of it (compare these vs T2K light AFVs). Admittedly, they have little direct use in T2K...

Uncle Ted

Very cool, thank you. One minor nitpick the stats for the T7 Combat Car I think list the ammo amount for the A2E1 Vickers Medium Mk IA, as it is the same.

[Legbreaker]

They were TERRIBLE even compared to what came a decade or so later!
Still, I suppose they had to be made didn't they? Got to develop somehow.

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

They were TERRIBLE even compared to what came a decade or so later!
Still, I suppose they had to be made didn't they? Got to develop somehow.

And look what we have today, more or less 100 years later. How long did it take to lose the Sail?

[Legbreaker]

And we can only imagine what we'll have in another hundred+ years!
Give it another thousand and warfare may not even look like anyone's even fighting to our "primitive" minds.

[unkated]

Part of the fun of the exercise is that they were terrible. Another part is that I like teh research.

The other part is that most of these were not built to fight other tanks - but that's how they are used in WoT. Shown here, they are even more worthless vehicle vs vehicle...

They are useful vs infantry armed only with small arms...

Uncle Ted

[Legbreaker]

The armour values seem a bit high on some of them though if they were only ever supposed to protect against small arms and shrapnel. There's modern IFVs with less (mainly Soviet).
How'd you arrive at those values?

[ArmySGT.]

XM800T with Chrysler ITV turret.




XM800T with conventional Hispano Suiza 20mm and M60D

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

And we can only imagine what we'll have in another hundred+ years!
Give it another thousand and warfare may not even look like anyone's even fighting to our "primitive" minds.

I get the idea that in 100 years that armored vehicles will be UGVs, aircraft will be UCAVs with a single controlling station or stations aboard JSTARS-type aircraft, and that infantry will be cyborgs.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

XM800T with Chrysler ITV turret.

Demands to be statted! Already doing the research.

[Rockwolf66]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Demands to be statted! Already doing the research.

Not much to be found unfortunatly.

Crew: 3 (Commander, Driver, Gunner)

Armor: unknown, Possibly similar to an Early M2 Bradley,

Weapons Systems:
Main Turret
Hispano Suiza 20mm with Unknown amount of ammo
M60D with Unknown amount of ammo

Alternate Turret
twin TOW launchers.

Mobility level was similar to the M113.


Video of third surviving prototype

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

I get the idea that in 100 years that armored vehicles will be UGVs, aircraft will be UCAVs with a single controlling station or stations aboard JSTARS-type aircraft, and that infantry will be cyborgs.

Then there is the Hammer Slammer version where nothing that flies survives.

[ArmySGT.]

Rapid Infantry Transport

[rcaf_777]

http://www.hisstank.com/forum/g-i-jo...-gi-joe-3.html

[pmulcahy11b]

I have that on my site, courtesy of Antenna.

[unkated]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

The armour values seem a bit high on some of them though if they were only ever supposed to protect against small arms and shrapnel. There's modern IFVs with less (mainly Soviet).
How'd you arrive at those values?

Fair question. I will explain below.

1. Thank you for making me take another look. You made me spot an error. I have a table of co-efficients used for adding an effect for different armor types (explained below). I had added a entry to the table, but had not udpated the table's definition to include an additional row; "Steel Riveted" stopped being within the defined table; Steel riveted (less effective plates of steel riveted together) was being picked up as the stronger "Steel" (basic steel armor, 1940 to 1955)

After correcting the table, a soem of the armor values changed; 5s becoming 4s, some 4s becoming 3s.

2. How does Uncle Ted make armor sausage?

I built a spreadsheet (of course). The armor section works like this. I had collected a raft of data for WW2 and post-WW2 military vehicles for Advanced Tobruk, including armor (detailed to facings and slope of armor). Using that analysis, i compared those sheets to some of the existing older vehicles in the T2K cannon (which is, not surprisingly, inconsistent, even with specific time periods)

What I came up with was that for steel armor:
for WW2 steel armor (1940 - 1955ish) = an armor point for every 7mm;
for more modern steel armors, one for every 5mm

Modern armor/5
Older armor/7

This is complicated by average slope of the given armor face, which may drive increase the value of by up to a factor of 2.

This is complicated by the armor type. For vehicles in the period of steel armor (basically, every tank before 1975, and several since), this breaks down into solid or welded armor and bolted (bolted includes most armored vehicles built before 1940).

Remember that coefficient I mentioned above? This is where armor type gets factored in. These vehicles are mostly all endowed with bolted armor plates.
(exceptions: VK-31 & A2E1 Medium Mk I have steel)

Now, T2K uses one armor scale for vehicle vs Vehicle and personnel combat, which leads to a few peculiarities at the bottom o f the scale. Using the scale outlined above, many of these early tanks would have an armor factor of 2, which would not keep out contemporary small arms (Lee-Enfield rifle, 8mm Mauser, Lebel etc).

So I include a check to provide "design for effect" - if I have armor values and the process above gives an armor value of less than 3.6, it adds 1. This ensures that these early vehicles can shake off small arms.

Modern MBTs (and some recent IFVs), where they seldom mention armor thickness directly, and their armor type is not steel are handled differently.

Corrected version attached

And now I have some other files I need to correct.....

Uncle Ted

[Legbreaker]

With the early tanks, the crew would often be injured from spalling when rifle and machinegun bullets hit the armour near them - the reason spall liners are basically standard equipment in AFVs today.
Have you modelled that somehow?

[ArmySGT.]

Standard Manufacturing Excalibur 20mm Vulcan SHORAD

[ArmySGT.]

Standard Manufacturing Rough Terrain variable height transporter.

[unkated]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

With the early tanks, the crew would often be injured from spalling when rifle and machinegun bullets hit the armour near them - the reason spall liners are basically standard equipment in AFVs today.
Have you modelled that somehow?

Nope. None of the versions of T2K have it modeled in vehicle combat, and T2K includes HEAT which creates spalling.

I wanted to have vehicles to compare to existing ones in T2K, not re-invent the combat system, particularly where at the moment I don't contemplate actually using these designs in a game. But i'll bear that in mind for if an when I consider using these vehicles.

Uncle Ted

[Legbreaker]

Pretty much any projectile which hits has the potential to cause spalling - the thicker the armour, the larger the impact or explosion needs to be though. For more modern vehicles spalling is not much of an issue as they're almost invariably fitted with spall liners.
For early AFVs (up to the late 1930's and into the 40's I believe) spall liners where not standard and from what I can find were really only developed in response to the introduction of HESH rounds by the British in the 1940's.
In WWI, AFV crews had to wear armoured masks similar to the one pictured to protect the face and especially eyes from flying shrapnel spalled off the inside of their vehicles armour. Even just the impact of ordinary rifle bullets could be enough to blind a crewman close to the point of impact (a gunner for example looking for targets).

While this is not an issue for T2K era vehicles, probably not even the left over WWII ones (which were likely retrofitted with liners) it is probably something which should be kept in mind if an earlier vehicle was used.

Attachment 3711

[Draq]

Ok, so there have been plenty of vehicles designed and tested over the years, and the best is not always chosen, for various reasons. What vehicles do you guys think should have been adopted instead of the ones the military picked?

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by Draq

Ok, so there have been plenty of vehicles designed and tested over the years, and the best is not always chosen, for various reasons. What vehicles do you guys think should have been adopted instead of the ones the military picked?

I would have liked to see the prototype Abrams with 25mm coax. Once you up-gunned to the 120mm having a coax that can take out the light armor would have been nice.

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by CDAT

I would have liked to see the prototype Abrams with 25mm coax. Once you up-gunned to the 120mm having a coax that can take out the light armor would have been nice.

You mean like the 20mm secondary anti-soft-skin gun the MBT-70 had?

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by WallShadow

You mean like the 20mm secondary anti-soft-skin gun the MBT-70 had?

Very close, I remember way back when I was at Knox (93') and stopped by the Patton Museum they had one of the XM1's and it had a 25mm (same as the Bradley) as its coax, before it went to production they had swapped it with the M240 of today as the ammo carried was not enough they thought (I think it was something like a 1000rds for the coax, but do not remember for sure.)

[mark w]

Hi there
it's a pleasure to have found this board.

I'd like to contribute

The Iron Cow

from The Zone by James Rouch.


FV499 Hover armoured personnel carrier (HAPC).

Crew: commander, driver, gunner, radio/radar operator, plus eight infantry.

Armament: 30mm Rarden cannon, 7.62mm AA machine-gun.

Armour: classified, believed to be composite hull, Chobham turret.

Combat weight: 15.4 tons.

Engines: late production models fitted with twin Allison turbofans developing 2,480 hp max speed; classified.

Systems fitted include NBC, night vision, automatic fire-suppression, ECM, decoy and smoke generation, passive and active locators.

A planned production of 300 was cut to 60 due to shortage of engines. Issue is limited to Armoured Reconnaissance and Special Anti-tank units. In both roles they have proved highly popular with users, exceptional speed and cross-country performance giving them a survival rate three times that of any other NATO combat vehicle. A major drawback of the type is the difficulty of recovery if battle damage results in total loss of power. Plans for a special transporter were shelved when production was curtailed.

* * * * * * *

that's the backstory printed in the 1st book, it needs tweaking to fit into the T2K universe

my attempt at stating it is below

* * * * * * *


Price: $155,000 (---/—)
Armament: 30mm RADEN autocannon, GPMG (c)
Ammo:200x30mm. 500x7.62N
Fuel Type: D, A
Load: 400 kg
Veh Wt: 15.4 tonnes
Crew: 4+8
Mnt: 30
night vision: head lights, image intensifier, ground surveillance radar

also equipped with aircraft style chaff, flare and radar jammer pods
(from the nautical/ aviation handbook)

Tr Mov: 240/195
Com Mov: 55/45
Fuel Cap: 250
Fuel Cons: 50

Combat Statistics Config: Shielded
HF: 6-sp Susp: P(8)
HS: 6-sp
HR: 4-sp
TF: 6
TS: 4
TR: 2

* * * * *

DESIGN NOTES
I've ignored the description of a Chobham turret as that does seem to make much sense for an APC.
The hull armour matches that of the level 2 protection for M8 AGS listed in the BYB.
This weighs 6 tonnes and is the difference in weight between the details listed for the Iron Cow & the SK 25 from T2K

regards

mark

[unkated]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

XM800T with conventional Hispano Suiza 20mm and M60D

In the bottom picture of the XM800T (see above), is that an IR Spotlight on the right of the turret?

Uncle Ted

[StainlessSteelCynic]

The XM800 project was developed for the reconnaissance role but from what little info I could find specifically about the XM800T, it also had the ability to designate targets for other vehicles/aircraft so I think it's probably the surveillance/target designator sight.

[unkated]

Originally Posted by StainlessSteelCynic

The XM800 project was developed for the reconnaissance role but from what little info I could find specifically about the XM800T, it also had the ability to designate targets for other vehicles/aircraft so I think it's probably the surveillance/target designator sight.

Hmm I though that was developed in the late 80s; the XM800T was developed in the mid-1970s. Did we have that capability then?

Uncle Ted

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by unkated

In the bottom picture of the XM800T (see above), is that an IR Spotlight on the right of the turret?

Uncle Ted

I don't really know... From the appearance I can only guess......

Appears to me to be either a thermal imager or a low light tv system.

[dragoon500ly]

Supposed to have been a low light tv...