The Best That Never Was 2 (Prototypes)

[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