Thanks to Battle Order for their immense contributions to this episode and to Spookston for dropping by to give us his thoughts on the Tumbril Nova. Check out their channels below for more Tank action! And if you want to see the Templin Institute commanding our own T-72 in Eastern Europe, check out our recent special investigation on the Templin Archives! Battle Order | ua-cam.com/channels/n6_Kza6erL9GCAhOpQLfBg.html Spookston | ua-cam.com/users/Vicroist Templin Archives | ua-cam.com/video/GKKBQsyjZlg/v-deo.html
Three main problems of ground forces in sci-fi: 1)they somehow get more focus then fleet in orbit as if they can fight back against it(if they deploy with ICBM launchers, maybe they can); 2)their relative impotence compared to modern day tech. We have SPGs that can shoot at 40-60km(rocket assisted or just MLRS) with enough precision to guide warhead into a hatch of a vehicle over that distance. And said warhead would be a nuke in 10ton-10kiloton range. Nothing stops said SPG from having autoloader and shooting over a dozen shells before first one reaches the target. We can arm a two man team with ATGM with similar capabilities(range would be around 10-12 km though plus no extra shots). Meanwhile sci-fi can't do much better then WWII armies:( 3)Geneva Convention restrictions somehow protect aliens, mutants and zombies. No WMDs, no poisoned ammo, no toxic flamethrower fuel, no laser to the eyes, no needle shrapnel, no dirty bombs on civilian targets, nothing!
actually most SPGs have the same type of cannon as their regular counter parts, for example the dual barreled 120mm motar system, abrams has 120mm, the difference is they sacrifice a bit of protection for gun traverse so it can be used as artillery. otherwise all tanks are spgs
@@tymekka3031 The grav-tank is heavily armored and armed. The TX-130 Saber Tank was a fast, heavily armed tank used for lightning fast assault by the Republic. The CIS had the AAT, which is slow but heavily armored with missiles and a heavy battle cannon for breaking through entrenched positions. The existence of the walkers in the Galactic Empire I can only chalk up to the OT being made in the 70s and everything else after realizing how stupid war walkers are.
@@tymekka3031 Here are some TX-130 Saber Class Fighter Tank S-1 FireHawke Heavy Repulsortank HAVw A6 Juggernaut Armored Assault Tank Imperial Repulsortank 1-H Were some of the better ones employed by the empire.
I don't normally recommend double cannons, but there are reasons you might have them: - Heat dispersion during rapid fire - Supply chain provides rounds of slightly insufficient stopping power per single unit - Autoloaders can't keep up with super heavy ammunition - One barrel is always primed with an autoloader, the other is for special munitions, but response time is critical - The enemy aliens each have two large members and the supply General has envy issues
If i remember it right, heat dispersion/rate of fire is incredibly important for anti aircraft guns. Nothing says „screw your helicopter” like a 6000 rounds per minute stream of medium calibre projectiles
An example of how 2 barrels might work due to heat dispersion for other than rapid fire, is using energy weapons as a main gun. In Battletech having a twin barrel turret with Particle Projector Cannon's makes perfect sense for alternating fire for more rapid staggered fire, or a powerful double punch.
As a former US Marine Corps tanker, having crewed both the M60A1 in the 1st Gulf War as well as afterwards the M1A1 Common, and as the son of a US Marine Corps tanker who crewed the M48A3 in Vietnam, I approve this message. Mount Up!
@@peterchiu1769 Hell, _everything_ is different. My M60 was a direct evolution of my father's M48, but the M1 was a completely new design. When we handed in our M60s and got the new M1s, the tanks were so different from each other that we had to spend a month retraining. The new tank was so different that the Marine Corps changed our MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) from 1811 to 1812 to distinguish the difference. So some of the differences off the top of my head: The M60 had homogeneous steel armor and the M1 has a layered composite. The M60 is powered by a 750hp AVDS 1790-2C twelve cylinder dual turbo charged diesel and the M1 has a 1500hp gas turbine engine. The M60 can do about 35 mph on the hardball and has a range of around 360 miles on 380 gallons of fuel. The M1 can do 42.5 mph on the hardball and has a range of about 300 miles on 500 gallons of fuel. The M60 is armed with an M68 (British L7) 105mm rifled gun, a coaxial mounted M60E2 7.62mm machinegun, and an M85 .50 cal in the tank commander's cupola. The M1 is armed with a German designed M256 120mm smooth bore main gun, an M240 7.62mm coax machinegun, a second M240 at the loader's position, and an M2HB .50 cal at the TC's position. The M60 has a coincidence range finder that uses parallax to determine range whereas the M1 has a laser range finder. The M60's night vision sights are the passive light amplification type and the M1 has thermal sights instead. The M60's ballistic computer was a mechanical device that used gears and cams to calculate superelevation based on range and ammunition type. The M1's ballistic computer is an actual digital computer that does the same thing, but also factors in barometric pressure, ammunition temperature, cross wind, vehicle cant (i.e. the tank is sideways on the side of a hill) and also calculates how fast you are traversing the turret and automatically applies lead. I thought the M1 was slicker than snail snot... for a few months. I slowly began to realize that it also has some short comings. For example, while the fire control system was supposedly accurate as hell, I found myself not shooting any better with it than the 60. Now granted, I was one of the better gunners in the battalion, but this fire control system isn't designed for me. It's designed to be able to have an inexperienced gunner be able to hit targets. But with all of the hoops you have to jump through to do that, it severely limits "instinctual" shooting. But, what's worse is that the M1 broke down more than our 60s did and they were harder to repair. A computer runs the engine and it take 6 _gallons_ of fuel just to start the damn thing. And if at any time that computer sees anything it doesn't like, it will abort the start and dump (I'm sorry, "purge") that 6 gallons of diesel fuel on the ground under the tank. Now that soil is contaminated, so while the mechanics are trying to figure out why the tank won't start, the crewmen are digging a hole 6 feet in diameter and 6 feet deep and putting all of that contaminated soil in barrels. The M1 is a good tank when it works, but I would never be a great M1 tanker. After about 6 months, I was longing for my good old trusty M60 back. I knew that tank, even went to TC school for that tank not because I wanted to be a TC, but to learn some tips and tricks of advanced gunnery, knowledge that was completely useless with the M1. So it's easier to say what they've got in common. They both have a 4 man crew. They both have a turret mounted high velocity main gun. They both roll on tracks... Yeah, that's about it. If you've got anything specific you'd like to ask about, feel free to fire away.
Im sad that we lost our tanks they hold our history very well and the fact that it probably saved our brothers in arms life more often than not due to its a marine tank which is more bad to the bone
"Not much chance an M1 Abrams [could fit through a stargate]" It'd be a tight squeeze but it could make it since an Abrams is about 12ft wide and 8ft tall, and the actual wormhole is only about 16ft or so with some estimates. The tricky part is getting it down into the gateroom. The *really* tricky part is getting the Army or Marines to let the Air Force use one of their tanks And then the *really really* tricky part is making sure O'Neill doesn't try and run over a parked Death Glider and say "Ooh, sorry, we don't normally drive these in the Air Force...."
@@Del_S If Stargates work logically and don't start spasmsming or materialize the tank in some weard positions like some sort of bugged videogame, which they could do, it could be fixed by putting a ramp on the other side at an equal height. Of course, that does require all Stargate-bound forces to storm gates with mass infantry, since ramps would have to be built later. But the Tau'Ri just don't have the manpower for what is basically a long term occupation project, so the planets where it would be worth it to bring a tank are limited
To be entirely fair to the Imperium of Man...The Baneblade is only classed as Superheavy in 40k. In 30k it's only a light scout tank. Yes, there are MUCH larger tanks available to the Imperium of the 30k Horus Heresy.
I'd argue that a superheavy tank COULD be functional if you regressed to the initial tank concept of landship, but in space. A superheavy tank capable of entering and leaving a planet's atmosphere on it's own would have better strategic mobility, and while it's true you could deploy several heavy tanks for one superheavy, a superheavy tank is just BIG enough to potentially platform something that would be an operational or strategic asset, like a mobile planetary shield to prevent the invasion force from being erased if you lose the battle in orbit.
@@NikkiTheOtter this is a logical fault, the daot tech seems to be organised towards nanotech and macro tech, meaning that it was not scaled up, but more accurately the spread of scales was expanded
In german, the word 'Panzer' simply means 'armor'. In medieval times it was used synonymous with 'Rüstung'. Therefore, any armored vehicle is a 'Panzer'. An infantry fighting vehicle is a 'Schützenpanzer' and a self-propelled howitzer is a 'Panzerhaubitze'. Self propelled anti-air is a 'Luftabwehrpanzer' and on wheels an armored vehicle is a 'Radpanzer'.
@@horsem.d.7979 From what I have gathered, I think Flak specifically denotes Anti Air Auto-cannons, while Luftabwehrpanzer is a more general term that means “Plane-Hunting Tank”. Not a native speaker though, so take that with a grain of salt.
This is totally unrelated to what you've said here, I'm just taking advantage of your comment being highly placed so that more people can potentially see this large block of text I've put a little bit of effort into concocting. I also posted this just straight up as a comment, but due to my late coming to this video, likely no one will see it. So essentially, I'm trying to pirate off of your success here. ;) Anyway, feel free to enjoy... So, as to the super-heavy tank and all its impracticalities, I think it is correct to say that they would essentially fill the role of a moving fortress. However, in technologically advanced societies, I think many of the negative aspects of the super-heavy would be cancelled out by putting it on legs. For example, with a little modification, the dreaded AT - AT could be transformed into a mobile fortress in the sky, perhaps by adding a few legs for stability and providing a 360 degree weapons coverage area. Already, the AT - AT essentially acts as a mobile artillery platform, with numerous design flaws, granted, but it has the makings of a fortress. Downscaling a little bit, the AT - OT, while also having numerous design flaws in the role of a troop transport, most notable of them being the open roof in a universe where attacks from above are common, could also be viewed as a mobile firing platform for infantry, similar to ancient siege towers. But back to my point, the advantages of legs are that the size of the 'tank' does not affect its mobility. Fortresses on wheels are halted by anything they cannot run over; buildings and trees (as they could damage the tank) for example, whilst hills would comprise an insurmountable obstacle. With legs, the fortress itself is literally above all of that. It could walk through rivers and over forests with ease, climb up mountains while remaining level, and all the while have the advantage of firing down on the enemy from above, perhaps even over fortifications if the walker is large enough. Now, because of the mobility afforded by legs, there is technically no limit to how many guns you can put on the platform. There are practical concerns, of course, such as how much weight your technologically advanced legs would hold, maintenance and repairs, and most importantly, how many proverbial eggs you want to put in one basket; while legs would support quite a bit of firepower, they still have the vulnerability of gravity, and taking out enough legs would inevitably topple the platform and render it useless. And of course, the more the platform is upscaled, the more there is to lose if the enemy just takes out a few legs. However, if the mobile fortress is necessary, or the firepower needed to penetrate city shields, for example, is so great that the weapons have to be absolutely massive, I feel that the fortress on legs is the only practical way to go. On smaller craft, the use of legs is mostly useless, because whatever marginal bonus to maneuverability gained is certainly not worth the speed given up. Speed lost on a fortress, however, is most likely not a huge concern. (Edit:) After a bit more consideration, I've thought of two potential issues with this. One, when the platform gets upscaled to a certain point, interplanetary mobility takes a serious dive, as the transports would have to be large enough to accommodate a fortress. This leads directly into the second issue, in that when adding more and more weapons to a mobile platform, it would be more economical in most cases to simply add these weapons to a starship and pound your targets from orbit, thereby retaining interplanetary, and interstellar mobility. However, as with everything, there are exceptions to these issues. For example, orbital bombardment may be impractical, depending on the weapons being used, or perhaps illegal, and the interplanetary corporations of the universe use massive weapons platforms to retain starship firepower while circumventing galactic law. Or of course, simply make the platforms small enough to be transported by starships; perhaps around the size of the AT - AT (but much better designed!), trading off massive firepower and capacity for numerical superiority. Or perhaps, your starships are just large enough to accommodate a weapons platform the size of a small town. Good luck landing that, though! Furthermore, a mobile fortress also has a few advantages a starship lacks; primarily that it is on the ground. While at first glance, this may just seem like a disadvantage in mobility, a physical presence on the ground allows for, one, a garrison to be quickly deployed from the relative safety of a fortress. Granted, a starship can technically deploy troops to anywhere on a planet, whether landing itself or deploying troop transports. However, nothing says a fortress on legs can't also hangar a few transports, and a little more realistically, the troops on a mobile fortress can also be deployed quickly, and maintain operations in an area around the fortress, which leads me into my next point, and perhaps the most important here, in that a mobile fortress can be used to secure key areas on the ground, something a starship cannot do effectively. A starship has to rely on either sensors, or data sent up from boots on the ground, and then open fire on whatever targets have been highlighted. A presence on the ground, however, can detect targets on its own using either visual acquisition or whatever sensor data it is equipped with, while also being able to rely on data relayed by infantry the fortress itself can house. Anyway, if you got through all that, I commend you! Let me know what you think of my analysis here; I will mention that most of my arguments here are made thinking that there is essentially no limit to how big you could make a weapons platform, which isn't all that realistic, considering that gravity exists, but I claim artistic liberty on this particular point ;) Anything else, feel free to point out.
Looks like you reached beyond surface-level pop history and military scholarship. Keep it up, hope that the team continues to grow and learn and Templin becomes a real resource for aspiring writers to make their worlds and stories richer.
Which means that the tank nerds will soon descend upon this comment section in droves to nitpick every conceivable detail of this video in insufferable fashion.
Now, all we need is a “building your interstellar Amry” and we have a full world-building tutorial from the Templin Institute! (if you aren't aware, they made a “building your interstellar nation”, “building your interstellar navy.” and this one!)
@@miloskaluznik48 Hard agree. Atmospheric combat is *quite* different from space/lower planetary orbit combat, and probably equally important in planetary defense/warfare. Aquatic naval ships, meanwhile make excellent weapon platforms
The Leman Russ literally defies the entire layers of the Onion Chart of Tank defense - Avoid encounter: Loud engines, relatively slow, stupidly high profile and the sheer unsubtle nature of guard deployment -Avoid detection: other than smoke launchers the russ has nothing, and are usually fielded in larger formations, easy to spot -Avoid aquisition: well, high profile, gives of plenty of heat and again, no ECM and only smoke launchers -Avoid Hit: with the speed and stupid proportions of a russ, hitting it is relatively easy -Avoid penetration: no special armor and tons of Flat panels with no good anglesm, making side hits devastating and the front and back also have little well angled surfaces -Avoid Kill: the russ and its crew usually are xpendable, with not side sponsons it has 3 escape hatches, with sides on it has one hatch in the Turret and thats it. and they burst into flames easily too 40k, please never change, i love you
To be fair, the armor that a standard, expendable imperial guardsmen in any unit wears can stop a modern .50 cal AP round from an M2. So armor, and weapons in 40 K is on a whole different level than any other universe. Sure: the Russ isn’t amazing by 40 k standards, but could drive through the Entire German, American, and Russian tank force so fast the crew could have breakfast and then 2nd breakfast.
@@bkane573 Plus the standard 40k antitank weapon that humanity faces is a Lascannon that burns through armor and ignores things like sloped armor or shot traps. You also have melta guns that can vaporise whole chunks of tanks. The flat sides and whatnot don't really matter.
I think the Guard's response to this line of argument would be something like the following: - Avoid encounter: We have Basilisks, Deathstrikes, etc. to prevent most encounters from happening. - Avoid detection: Let the enemies of the Emperor hear us coming and tremble! - Avoid acquisition: The more tanks we deploy, the lower the probability of any given tank being acquired as a target. Therefore we shall deploy ALL THE TANKS. - Avoid hit: The more tanks we deploy, the more likely it is that one will hit the enemy before they hit us. See above. - Avoid penetration: If we make the tank a big hollow metal box, penetrating hits will just go in one side and out the other without hitting anything vital. - Avoid kill: We have reserves.
The best tank is, of course, that time in 40K 6 Orks stacked together and went "I'm a tank I'm a tank I'm a tank I'm a tank" because they were a perfect and near instantaneous counter to an extremely precise threat.
Honestly the Ork are low key the scariest race in all of sci fi...well at least they would be if they had even human level intellect. A single spore and an entire planet would be overwhelmed with essentially magic wielding super strong blood crazed warriors
Recoil is something people tend to forget to factor into when doing hovertanks. A good part of what keeps a tank from toppling over when firing its main gun is its weight. A hovertank would need some way to mitigate that recoil, unless it's something that ends up having to stop and "land" to fire.
Three possible solutions would be to use a recoilless rifle design, use inertia dampers, or as I've noticed in The Expanse, counter the recoil with a brief pulse of forward thrust.
I managed to make that grunt survive on legendary, and I can’t help but imagine him going home and telling his kids the war story of how he fought on the Ark right next to Master-goddamn-Chief. God Bless him.
Yooo I just played that level in halo 3 for the first time and I started laughing uncontrollably after I heard that. Halo 3 marines have the best flavor dialogue
@@joshuabonesteel2303 You must be Kawaii Anime girls to gain plot armor. Though be careful to not be the token dead teammates....Or a Harem Protagonist of the none-grimderp type...
@@joshuabonesteel2303 It is said that only the best writers know how to use it well without the enemy screaming "Bullshit! That never should've happened!"
Regarding the hovertank trope, the Honor Harrington series notes that the problem with hover tanks is that they're inherently unstable as combat platforms. The kind of primary armorment the tanks in that setting carry would force a tank backward from the recoil if it were hovering, and getting hit with kinetic rounds would cause it to spin and flip under the impact of the force those rounds would be fired with. So even though anti-gravity technology is ubiquitous in that setting, tanks remain ground vehicles. But that doesn't mean that those tanks aren't without hover-like abilities. They incorporate that same anti-gravity technology I just mentioned to reduce a tank's effective weight. They engage this while going up to cruising speed to give those tanks more strategic mobility, allowing them to cross terrain rapidly when they don't anticipate being directly engaged and allowing them to do things like ford rivers without having to break much of the surface. When they engage the enemy though they reduce power to the anti-gravity system, trading the mobility off for the increased stability their weight brings them.
See my post above. In the 1980s I met the people who developed the PACV and LCAC. The “Unstable Firing Platform” is the least of the problems (as the Col, and later Lt. Gen. On the project explained: Try making a tank with an Air-Hockey Puck). Also, Honor Harrington doesn’t mention that the firing of a Gun on a moving ACV or GEV causes it to crash. The Overpressure from the gun equalizes skirt pressure, or wing-pressure for a WIGE/GEV, resulting in Instant grounding, which for a GEV moving at around 200mph in WIGE… Fatally. The ACV has the problem of attempting to re-inflate its skirts, and re-floating. The ACV/GEV remain SOLELY in the realm of Logistics and Landing Craft. Now… As for Anti-Gravity. This depends upon the Metaphysics, and thus Emergent Physics of the Sci-Fi World/Universe, OR the as-yet discovered mechanisms of Gravity in our Universe. If the “Anti-Gravity” just nullifies “Mass” or “”Weight,” then you have an even worse platform than an Air-Hockey Puck, even though firing a weapon doesn’t cause your to crash. BUT… If the Anti-Gravity is via a manipulation of the Higgs Field, which allows the Vehicle to “Re-Direct Gravity,” then that technology can produce an even more stable platform than a ground tank given enough energy. The Manipulation of the Higgs Field would allow you to “Lock” a “Grav-Vehicle” either in a specific relationship to another Mass, which can be either Stationary with respect to the Center-of-Masses, or it can be a Vector related to the Center-of-Masses. That would be the ONLY “Grav-Tank” that would be viable AS a “Tank” or “Armored Vehicle.” Also, the people who claim “Put a Laser on it…” This isn’t broadly telegraphed by the world’s militaries, but Laser Weapons are doomed to oblivion by the end of this decade. Due to the development of newer hardened Aerogels (originally as heat-shields for Re-Entry Vehicles), and other similar technologies, Laser Weapons are going to be useless against any of the Developed nation’s Militaries, and out own Military’s “commitment” to them (principally in the Navy) remains solely for small-vehicle interdiction, against Navies like Iran, Pirates, or other similar threats. The work on “ICBM interception” with Lasers has pretty-much run into this reality, where if Russia and China begin hardening their Reentry Vehicles with even a ¼” of Carbon Aerogel, then no number of Lasers are going to be able to destroy or disable said reentry vehicles. And this doesn’t even include the other technologies that have to do with what are called “Super-Reflecting and Super-Refractive Meta-Materials.” These are materials where the optical properties don’t come from the “Shape” of the “Lens” or “Refracting Surface,” nor with a Polished Surface of a “Reflective Mirror-Like optic.” The Optical Properties come from the arrangement of the Molecules and Atoms in the structure of the materials. Thus, scratches, paint, dust, breaking… None of these affect the optical properties of the Meta-Materials. These are currently in Labs, but by the 2030s they will begin appearing in all manner of Military Applications. Oh! And they make Laser Rangefinders, and Laser Targeting impossible as well. And there are means to make these Meta-Materials effective against the entire EM Spectrum. So that’s going to present some problems for things like “Radar” as well. And… Other “Directed Energy Weapons.” They produce an ENORMOUS “Recoil.”
Hmm, I can see hover tanks being a little more viable if they acted more like chopper gunships but can still go low to the ground act as a pseudo ground vehicle when needed.
@@johndane9754 The problem with that is that by that point, why use a tank that acts like a gunship when you can just... use a gunship? (Though ideally you'd have tanks on the ground with gunships providing CAS.)
@@FearlessSon It's more of it being able to behave as either or, when the situation calls for it. It may not always beable to act like a gunship due to circumstances of the terrain, hostile anti-air, battlefield, or other factors. Just as there would be ample amount of it to be able to act like a gunship. Without factoring in the strategic and tactical flexibility of a pseudo-flying tank, it's only a little more viable than a traditional, ground pounding tank.
I love the idea behind how the Templin Institute operates, the whole premise that these worlds could potentially exist and documenting them and the things that happen in them in a proper documentary style is something I enjoy greatly.
A note about Titanfall as a "tank-free" setting in the background examples: it's not. There are IMC tanks shown in dev artwork, and there's even one with a name as a piece of terrain in a multiplayer map. They're just not really shown in gameplay or story because it's a game about mechs.
Indeed. Also, in most of the maps, a tank would be pretty damn terrible. Lot of Narrow corridors with elevated positions of heavy cover. And also ticks. I image ticks would do nasty things to tanks. Literally just mobile anti tank mines.
I believe in Titanfall Titans were originally used for logistics and civilian use(Fancy forklift) but were converted into military vehicles after everyone run out of tanks
@@tymekka3031 thats because they did run out of tanks and also because the militia fought the war guerilla style, think of them as the vietcong but in space
If I recall correctly, the first recorded use of a Titan in warfare was an Atlas ripping a 40 mm from a dropship and using it against infantry. Then the Titan Wars started.
A problem with tanks in sci-fi is weight. Many planets have different gravity, a 70 ton tank may way 30 tons on one planet but 100 tons on a different planet, potentially making it unoperable because it was not designed to handle that much weight or other such shenanigans. So designing tanks that can oppereate in high and low gravity as well as a wide variety of planetary environments is super important.
This is true but I think most planets that would support life like humans or where humans would be able to fight on probably wouldn’t have that much of a difference in its gravitational pull.
Hovertanks are a thing. Star wars armies have different examples of them and anyone who has played the star wars eaw mods or the original battlefront games has seen them. Hav8ng sone sort of armored vehicle for fire support or else to aid your troops is always worth the effort of developing it. There's only so much infantry men can do alone.
There is some leaway to what suspension can handle in a tank, or whatever else you are using for travel. If were going to planets where gravity is 2x higher or lower than we arent really fighting human-useful planets and we would be better doing kinetic bombardment instead.
@@deadeyecpt.7765 To be fair, Star Wars armies make no sense because they were never intended to - Lucas said they were just a plot device and he intentionally made the army badly designed to work with what he wanted. SW is very bad if you want to apply principles to realistic fictional world.
-- From my knowledge, in the Terran Dominion, the Siege tank was built from the ground up as a siege tank, and once the siege mode was perfected, the engineers basically took a look at what they had and programmed some software in to allow it to function; albeit at a reduced capacity, while not in siege mode. Hence, it doesn't sacrifice any effectiveness in its intended siege role, as the mobile firing mode was a deliberate afterthought.
But modern military brass is already saying "please no more Abrams's, congress! we don't want them!" and MBTs are likely obsolete. Aircraft have gotten to the point where they are more effective and efficient for supporting infantry, and for killing enemy tanks in the conditions MBTs want (wide open space or long open corridor). And infantry AT weapons > infantry AA weapons. Missile platform, drone platform, point defense platform, and gun platform, and more missile platform, LAVs / 'trucks' with some basic ability to serve as small arms cover in a pinch, are probably more than sufficient in the future. Similar concept to firing two amraams at 40 NM at someone else's plane dedicated to post-merge tight turning and getting fighter cannon kills. He dies one to two minutes before he would have started fighting.
@@OdinBarenjagerschlos the problem with aircraft is also many, they are heavy dependent on the weather conditions and need to get near to have a clear shot when the allies are near a zone making them powerfull but restrictive in use, The tanks on the other hand make near support to the infantry and are less dependant on weather, but more in terrain.
@@blecao Not sure the weather is going to match up to the notion of a near-peer's hellfire equivalent mounted on a drone, (or something much smaller giving a 1m gps target or the dreaded data link lock) and bad weather slows down infantry anyway limiting the use of infantry-embedded tanks. (As does the noise and visibility and struggle-bussing on certain corners and terrain... against an enemy with a qrf that includes good anti-tank, I'd rather not be given away. In a hugely one sided war welcoming a direct slug out sure MBTs are nice to have, but in my experience they're collecting dust back at a big base, as operating costs and maintenance being more difficult keeps the Army too afraid to break a few parts on IEDs [yeah really].) Closeness comes on a spectrum too, fixed wings meant for under the radar flight exist, there are expendable eagle-eyed drones, and helicopters can really push the envelope, even under fire with a hill to pop up over (not really an uneven restriction, it's just like tankers prefer a mound to go turret defilade behind). And of course point defense and whatever the next TOW missile is, on basically tough utility vehicles would fit the embedded and convoy needs anyway. And the extra resources for more long range AT missile platforms waiting for target data. S tier tanks and incredibly huge carriers are badass and all, but I think prior to current planned obsolescence we'd have to lead with and build much smaller stealthier competitors if we wound up in a near-peer fight. And since missiles clearly aren't stopping their advancement even in bizarre future hypotheticals, bet on those two joining the battleship long term.
Zhukov: “Nyet, use tanks to achieve breakthrough with the support of artillery and air power, then send in the mechanized forces to keep pushing the breakthrough”
another part of why they don't want more is they have a stockpile and Congress insists on buying more each year so they have to budget for them, when they want to buy xyz instead
Another thing to take note for designing your tank is how modular it is. To quote the words of Spookston, "You may have the best tank today but in 10 years it could be the worst" You would not want to have all of those resources and time that was put into developing your tank only for it to be obsolete in at least the near future so you also gotta make sure that your tank can still remain relevant for multiple decades if not forever.
It could also reduce costs and simplify logistics. For example, in WW2, most assault guns and tank destroyers (and theses days most self-propelled guns) were just modified regular tanks (especially outdated/captured vehicles). So, a modular tank could share most or/all of its main components with those, while reducing the number of production lines. You could also make infantry/cruiser variants of your vehicles too.
Yeah basically. I mean, if you've gone to the bother of making it light enough to hover, you already made it light enough to fly, so why not have it fly ;)
No, they are not. Not even close. Attack Helicopters are NOT deployed as Recon assets, there are specialised Helicopters, aircraft, drones and ground vehicles for that task far better suited to the role. Neither are they replacements for tanks as they lack the long loiter time on the battlefield tanks have, and due to the lack of armour lack the tanks survivability. And yes, tanks ARE survivable. Can anti tank missiles kill them, yes, but, when looking at the ATGM vs tank equation too many people just assume that for some idiot reason the tank is on its own. Well guess what, tanks DO NOT OPERATE ALONE. They are part of a combined arms force that includes infantry, artillery, air assets and so on. Yes, and attack helicopter can ruin a Tank platoons day... but you know what ruins an attack helicopters day? An Air Superiority fighter vectored in on the AH by AWACS. Know what ruins the day of that soldier with the RPG 12? The tanks infantry support. Know what ruins the day of the light TOW armed anti tank platforms? The Drones that spot them and drop and artillery bombardment on them. You CANNOT assess a tanks capabilities on the battlefield WITHOUT factoring in the normal support it has, or the support role it plays to the Infantry. Attack Helicopters are fucking great if you have air superiority, or even better air supremacy, but in contested airspace, or heaven forbid if your enemy has air superiority, they are so much fucking dogmeat for the AS fighters with AMRAAMS that they will not even SEE before they are dead.....
The only thing worse (ignoring anything related to pilots and only focusing on machinery) about helicopters is they have less reliability, require more fuel per minute (most will be cheaper per kilometre tho), and have abysmal audio stealth (i can hear a black hawk when it's out of sight behind a hill and behind some trees) and i guess less crew survivability considering you're up in the air flying not driving
On landmine immunity for hover tanks: Some modern landmines have had magnetic activation for some time, so even if the track or whatever misses it, it'll explode. Reckon in the future they'd be even more effective.
An additional point is that modern hovercraft have been shown to not trigger pressure sensitive mines (even when those mines were set to trigger at their lowest detectable pressure). But faired little better than normal vehicles when the mines were remotely detonated.
Yea, probably the wrong picture to illustrate the point... However, it should be noted that there was a second important reason for turretless designs: Using the same chassis, you can cram a larger gun in a casemate than in a turret.
So, random tidbits on tanks. The reason they’re called tanks is because that was the code name used to develop them. The brits decided to call the land ships tanks to confuse German spies. Also, it was called a land ship because the project was headed by either the navy or someone in the navy.
@@davidfinch7407 "Panzer" is just German for armor. I'm no expert but I think "Panzer" in short for "Panzerkampfwagen" which essentially translates to "armored fighting vehicle".
@@commandere2475 you are correct, ofcaurse not all german tanks/panzers are panzerkampfwagens, some are panzerspahwagens (armored recon vehicles) such as the panzer II C luchs
The British tendancy to name MBTs words beginning with C comes from the fact they evolved from the Cruiser tank in british thinking, and so the naming convention of Cruiser tanks carried over
We also love aggressive, confrontational names for our hardware, "Stormer", "Scimitar", "Typhoon", "Challenger", "Chieftan" to name a few (It brings a proud tear to my eye)
A tank is a encased gun platform and it will always be useful. They will become more expensive and rarer overall but they will never be completely useless. Open ground, choke points etc always handy to have a rank.
I would add that self-propelled artillery could probably serve the additional role of supporting anti-air systems against low-flying starships, such as someone attempting an Adama Maneuver.
@@oliverwalters9533 it only makes more orcs if blood remains, as it’s there blood that makes more orcs and orbital bombardment would pulverized any soft target into oblivion.
Tiny problem with that: You shoot down a ship performing an Adama Maneuver, the wreckage and debris is still falling on top of you with lethal velocity. And if the Galactica hadn't jumped out and hit the ground instead the impact would have resembled a nuke going off. The shockwave alone would have killed everyone on the ground.
*"Im really scared when the tanks go over hill and make the bwmbwmbwmbem noise"* -A partisan fighter in the Serbian book "Eagles fly early" discussing tanks.
It would seem to me that if you had antigravity and you had antigravity tanks, you can combine the battlefield roll of helicopters and tanks fairly easily. Which might mean you need to come up with a whole new tactical and operational doctrine. A sort of heavy air cav doctrine something like that...
Basically the Tau Empire from Warhammer 40k where "Hammerhead Gunships" can fulfil the role of attack helicopters and main battle tanks depending on the situation.
@@angryakita3870 Sort of but keep in mind it would be carrying tank armor and a tank cannon so it would be more survivable than a helo and have more striking power. Although you could add missile pods like on attack helos to make a real nightmare. You could even make Trooper Carrier versions, I imagine those would be good for strikes against targets behind enemy lines.
@@KillerOrca Who needs to hear anything during a shelling anyway? They order you to start the shelling. You start the shelling. As long as new shells are delivered to your position you fire them.
@@KillerOrca Kriegsman Ax44333998 here. What is this "thinking" stuff? Sounds heretical to me. Maybe you should see your regimental chaplain to talk this nonsense trough. Or just keep shelling! Sacrifice! For the emperor!!!
One thing I might mention about your tangent on the SPHAs - You only considered one type of SPHA, the SPHA-T (the T stands for "turbolaser"). You're right, SPHA-Ts are designed as ground-to-orbit artillery, but there are multiple other types of SPHAs, such as the SPHA-K (kinetic), the SPHA-P (parabolic), and the SPHA-B (thermobaric) just to name a few.
22:01 The clone army walkers are a good example of multiple turrets increasing the effectiveness of the tank without the additional ammo taking up space inside.
@@SkilledNub You will need a larger power source to maintain effectiveness with multiple energy based weapons. Which means you will also need more fuel. This might be a smaller tradeoff than needing more ammunition capacity, it still demands significantly increased space. Which will often not be worth it if one can make a single armament perform most necessary functions.
@@meeshermans297 they could have used kyber crystals, kyber crystals in the Star Wars universe acts like an amplifier or a storage for energy in fact it was a large Kyber Crystal that powered the laser of the Death Star
For reference: In Perry Rhodan, they had dual-barrel weapons because shields could be optimized against either bullets or laser fire. So the dual barrel gun was introduced which would fire the laser in the precise moment the bullet hits the shield, making one type of attack pass through. The tight coupling made the two barrels into a single weapon.
IRL when attacking tanks with reactive armour, the projectile contains two warheads, a smaller one at the front to pre-detonate the reaction armour, and the larger one slightly behind to penetrate the main armour. Perhaps a similar hybrid warhead design can also be used to bypass the shield? The front of the shell shoots a powerful chemically pumped laser, followed by a tungsten kinetic penetrator?
@@kerbodynamicx472 Just to add what you said, in the real world, those are called tandem charges, and i agree, something like that would still make sense in such a situation
@@TheArrowedKnee Also kinetic penetrators (sub-caliber rods) are used against heavy armor. Due composite and reactive armor being more effective to shaped charges. Although they do have an equivalent tandem-charges. That being false (often steel) tips to counter the reactive armor and preventing the shattering of the real tip.
This reminds me of phasers in Star Trek. Shields can be bypassed if the energy weapon is the correct frequency or modulation. Seems like just modulating the shield frequency 10,000 times a second would fix this problem but hey, it's Star Trek.
@@jmr2008jan if more correctly in one of the expanded universal Star Trek video games they actually came up with a gun the bypass is exactly what you said. Do specifically designed for more cracking to be the perfect counter weapon before since it's constantly modulating and it's never the exact same frequency the board can't sustain enough damage from it the modulate their Shields to be immune to it because it requires constant repetitive hits before can identify and copy the frequency.
Since this is a bit outside the realm of mechanized fighting equipment, I'll take it upon myself to do a more rudimentary examination of infantry armor and equipment. The most important part of the infantry is the standard weapons they are armed with, as they determine the primary capabilities of your entire fighting force. Melee weapons stand at the lowest possible ranges, but have their place. They do not need reloading, and are relatively easy to replace compared to the more complex ballistic and energy weapons. The type of melee weapons used, however, is entirely dependent on technological capabilities and how easy it is to close a distance. If the infantry is exceptionally mobile, then it is reasonable to justify a sword or a spear; but if the infantry has around the same maneuverability as the enemy or less, then knives become the only reasonable option. For the sake of simplicity in the rest of this comment, I will refer to both energy weapons and ballistic weapons as guns. Higher up on the range ladder are short range guns. Whether this be plasma flamethrowers, shotguns, or some variant of SMG, these ranged weapons are capable of delivering damage at ranges beyond that of melee, but are typically weak due to either the guns themselves being optimized for CQB, or because the gun in question is too cheap to be capable of anything noteworthy. PDWs stand one half step above this section, being capable of noteworthy demonstrations of marksmanship but having limitations due to CQB optimizations. The next step up are intermediate or "Assault" guns. These guns are optimized to be able of operating in CQB, but with the added benefit of an extended range to slightly farther than the eye can see without assistance, though definitely capable of piercing ranges beyond that when methods of seeing farther and aiming more accurately are applied. The next step up are full or "Battle" guns. These guns typically are limited by the eyesight of the user, making non-magnified usage only useful to less technologically advanced militaries. With magnified usage, however, their ranged far exceed that of their intermediate counterparts, at the cost of being near unusable in CQB due to size, weight, and recoil. At the second to last step up are marksman/anti-vehicle guns. These are typically optimized for accuracy, power, range, or some combination of the three and are typically reserved for specialized roles. Whether it be long range sniping to vehicular disablement, the only justification for arming the standard infantry with this class of gun is when skirmishes occur only at incredibly far ranges. However, at those ranges are typically when mechanized forces like tanks, artillery, and missiles shine the highest, which takes me to the final step. Portable Heavy Armaments. This class of gun is reserved for man-portable heavy weapons, reserved solely for dealing large amounts of damage to either designated areas or vehicles. Mortars, rocket launchers, and recoilless rifles all fall under this category. Due note that this next section, armor, will augment the definition of these classes of gun. For example, if the infantry pilots some variant of mech walker by default, then what defines range becomes what sort of targeting systems are available. At the lowest and most common you have unaugmented and unarmored infantry. These members of infantry have little to no protection and are relatively easy to be killed, but are cheaper to arm. This is the favored strategy of nations where soldiers are plentiful, but resources are not. The next step up is unaugmented armored infantry. This step is similar to the last, but with the addition of armor best suited to whatever the most common type of weapon the nation has faced. Next up is augmented infantry, where the standard infantry is given some form of mechanical or chemical enhancement to enhance their abilities, or enhanced training to bolster their skill. Finally we have mechanized infantry, where the infantry comprises solely of some variant of mechanized battle units. Whether it be power armor, tanks, or walkers. Also screw YT mobile for lagging when a comment reaches a certain length. I know my phone has more than enough RAM for this.
The biggest reason for melee weapons though is their simplicity. In games guns always work but in reality guns are complicated devices with a lot of moving parts. In the militairy gun maintenance is taken extremely seriously and is one of the biggest aspects of discipline. If your main weapon is dirty you will get punished harshly. Short-range weapons and melee weapons though are two very different things. Melee weapons often serve as back-up weapons while short-range weapons usually are used by specialists. "battle" guns as you put them actually are not used much and are quite niche. Most armies use assault rifles as the standard weapon. Infantry almost never fights on open battlefield. On an open battlefield tanks, helicopters, artillery and other heavy weapons matter. The main job of infantry is to take objective and protect the more expensive assets. Battle rifles were very prominant in WW1 and to a lesser extent WW2. However eventually generals wised up to the fact that actually hitting a moving target at more than 150 meters really won't happen unless you are sniping. So post WW2 most nations discarded their battle weapons since in practice they are used at close range 90% of the time in which assault rifles outclass them. That last 10% higher range though can just be solved by adding a light machine gun and/or sniper to the squad. With modern weapons unaugmented unarmoured infantry really are not very useful. After all numbers mean nothing if a machine gun can kill several thousand people in a few minutes. You need trained soldiers that can take cover and take objectives without constant oversight. Also you need them to stand strong when it get's tough rather than flee. Fleeing usually get's them killed while fighting keeps them alive but untrained soldiers don't understand this.
@@arsmariastarlight3567 Who is absolutely, definitely the Emperor (yes, absolutely, definitely, totally, stop looking at me that way, I'm being entirely serious, for all official purposes, the Omnissiah is the Emperor). ... ...unofficially though...
@@DrTssha "We recieve freedom of religion, a monopoly on crucial STCs, all necessary resources, military protection and legal right to persecute your citizens and military personnel for offenses to our religion. You recieve Baneblade." "A small price to pay for Baneblade."
@@DrTssha the main reason the Ecliesiarchy doesn't like the Cult Mechanicus is because they believe the Omnisiah (who is arguably the same as the Emperor) as a mere prophet of their god, like their robot Jesus, while the Imperial Cult says that the Emperor is a true God.
"You have the right to be afraid BEFORE you join my beloved Corps, but to guide you back to the true path I brought this motivational device, our big green style CANNOT be defeated!!!" Avery J. Johnson.
"When I joined the corps, We didn't have any fancy Shmancy tanks. We had sticks. Two sticks, and a rock for a whole platoon! And we had to SHARE the rock!" - Avery J. Johnson
The Chief is gonna jump in this tank, roll across the bridge, and blow up any inhuman son-of-a-bitch dumb enough to get between him and the Prophet of Regret! Pull yourself together, 'cause you're goin with him! Avery J. Johnson.
I've served 10yrs in the army and been in three combat tours, I was an airborne ranger and can say without a doubt that tanks are an indispensable part of armed forces. The ability to bring heavy weapons with high armor and mobility will always prove invaluable for most modern warfare. The only a reason not to bring mobile armor is mainly terrain. A tank is a poor choice to use in swamps, for example, and God forbid in a city (too many buildings blocking lines of sight and possible civilian population in area).
IS-7 gang disliked this comment /\ Although seriously, what is the point of extra layers of composite armour if it's only more weight which you could use for more mobility and not getting shot in the first place, tank vs tank combat is not something we want to happen anymore, now we want tank vs infantry comabt where the tank is invulnerable and the light infantry weapons do nothing
I'm under the impression that modern IFVs are better at urban combat than traditional tanks. Autocannons capable of high rates of fire and high elevation fire are more usable in urban environments. Some vehicles even have tank level armor protection such as the Russian Terminator IFVs and the Israli Namer.
Super Heavy Tanks: If no easy loophole can be found, make one. AA keeps intercepting your missiles, Planetary Shields prevent orbital bombardment, and they have a sizeable and capable armored force may call for the use of Line Breakers. They could be sacrificial as they probably can't be reliably be repaired once the battle is over but they survived enough hits to deal real damage and allowed the rest of your armoured forces to slip into a now scattered and open battlefield. I understand that these should never become a main battle tank or be mass produced, but a few on standby in case the battle escalates in intensity or hits a stalemate can be where they finally shine in their intended, albeit limited and rare, role.
You also have the problem that orbital bombardment is an area-denial weapon -- you can destroy large swathes of the planet, but more precise and limited applications of schrecklichkeit would be impossible. Additionally, you have the problem of sensor discrimination -- it's a lot easier to spot and identify targets that are in proximity to your platform than ones that are thousands of miles away from your spacecraft in orbit.
As the old joke goes: "The most important thing in a tank is not to fart in it" So proper inside/outside ventilation should be taken into consideration.
I think when it comes to war and the future we'll have to chose - whether we keep it like it is now, a search for superior firepower to scare or utterly dominate - so wars of eradication of the enemy, and for that it will probably be fought with automated weapons including drone flyers and automated tanks... Or, the act to lay down one's life for the whole is what is important, and war will become a ritual fought between solemn and dedicated warriors, in which case they can be fought not with nukes and super weapons - as in the far future we will have access to more and more powerful technologies, able to easily devastate an entire planet ( an interstellar drive is sure to be able to devastate a planet or plain crack it) but they can be fought with ritual weapons, swords and lances. That way you have a battle of honor between parties and no mass genocide.
Regarding tracks vs wheels: Tracks reduce the ground pressure by spreading the weight over a larger area so they're more useful, or possibly essential, depending on how heavy the vehicle is.
In the Spanish civil war the pre-T-34s communist Spain used were outfitted so that on a road the tracks would be off and the tank would drive on its wheels as to increase speed I imagine, then when going off road the crew would install the tracks as to increase traction.
Tracks also perform poorly on roads, and cause more damage to paved surfaces. Tracks absolutely offer better mobility in rough terrain and offer better ground pressure distribution for heavier vehicles, but wheeled combat vehicles still have their place, especially in urban environments.
@@piotrd.4850 The Rooikat is weird. It actually steers like a tracked vehicle by spinning one set of wheels faster than the other, thus allowing zero point turns.
On naming conventions: I like how Battletech names its mechs in this regard. The Marauder is derived from its official designation the "MAD-3R" The Black Knight is from "BL-6-KNT" or the Wasp from "WSP-1A" It makes a lot of sense, and is probably how slang terms for machines would happen.
In all fairness to the mobile infantry, they actually did have tanks... in the books. In that they *wore* those tanks as giant suits of jetpacking, mini-nuke slinging armor.
@@ethannehring3355 does it even cover the drastic change in tactics (for the better) after the initial slaughter of infantry forces? i don't wanna rewatch
Aren’t these things called battle mechs? Sure they are more a more agile replacement for tanks in a lot of sci-fi, but I assume tanks are cheaper and lower profile than these battle mechs.
@@kerbodynamicx472 There's nothing more low profile than an 8 foot tall steel plated gorilla-man that just jump-jetted past your city block at mach speeds and glassed half the town in an instant. Real world militaries have been toying with the idea of a "powered exoskeleton" for a little while now.
@@thirion1850 wow, I doubt a 8-foot tall (or about 240cm in metric) combat skeleton is capable of glassing half a town in an instant. I think you are talking about gigantic mechs that costs billions, like those used in Pacific Rim.
"while the process of naming a ship is usually very formal, grandiose, and intertwined with politics" HMS Pansy of the Flower Class would like a word with you
I am part of a small group trying to work on what I am allowed to just call a project and this video is part of our studies in planning different groups in our project and as one of the people in charge of AFV/IFV ideas and design this video is really helping and could make things a lot better. Thank you for this video! It is one of many sources crucial to our work! ~Scarlett
On anti-air tanks: An invading force would benefit enormously from a SPAAG/SHORAD system, as the defenders will almost certainly employ aircraft. Defending your forward base, and troops on the move from air strikes, would be critical to success in this case.
@@jameson1239 More ammo, Even that little bit more would prove helpful, that and less recoil so less need for recoil compensators and the main weapon is AA missiles anyways, The twin 20mm is more or less "Hey look enemy Infantry, oh wait there dead now..." That and I thought about stepping it up to 25mm or 30mm but at this point I am more focused on good Combat Armor for Infantry, improving my attack helicopter (X)AH-1a "Bumblebee", or like 10 other thing that are either outdated (in my book anyway) or designed we I knew less about proper Design tactics and what not. But, Yes good question that I don't have a single good answer for why I didn't in the first place... I think I just saw a recording of a 20mm in action and it was good as Infantry support and a low altitude AA gun for you know Helicopters and drones so I thought "1, 20mm is good, but what about 2 of 'em." Since they are at the size that the Flaws of a duel barrel cannon in near nonexistent on the ammo consumption would be an issue but, "better to 99 out of 100 than all 100" a friend of mine said, but again there are AA missiles anyways so... Auto-cannons are the secondary weapon at best
@@jameson1239 Not Everything I do is "Yeah looks awesome might not work but who cares" even though I worked decently hard on the tank (designation (X)MBT-01a)
"For the honor of the regiment!" Ya gotta respect BOLOs, those AI tanks are absolutely insane. Practically battleships that can crush anything on the ground, and still capable of hella speed and flight. They are absurd and I love them for that lol. Awesome video as always and it's super cool to mention them in this list!
Someone mentioned Bolos! I'm only 18 min into the video (as I write this comment anyway) and I've been thinking about them the whole time! My first (and so far only) experience with the Bolos was the novel "Old Soldiers" by David Weber and they quickly became my favorite sci-fi tank\tank equivalent. If I ever have the misfortune of getting into a land\surface war I really want one of those leading the way. In the meantime I often imagine what might happen if I dropped a Bolo into pretty much any other fictional battlefield.
Terrain detemines what ground forces are used: Pandora - too much forest, Starship troopers- to hilly and rocky, SW Hoth - the snowspeeder is a flying tank.
"Starship Troopers" is ridiculously unrealistic, practically self-parody in most ways, including portrayal of warfare. Most SW vehicles is style over substace.
The Starship Troopers' MI are supposed to have light mechs and not fight on foot like some 20th century grunts. And the snowspeeder is a barely weaponized civilian craft.
@@pavelvoynov5408 Starship Troopers (the movie) is satire. Suggesting that it's self-parody seems to miss the point. Starship Troopers (the book) has the Mobile Infantry universally wearing high-mobility jump-jet equipped powered armour, deployed directly from orbit and carrying assorted grenades and missiles including tactical nuclear weapons.
Another issue with tanks in Starship troopers is that the enemy is largely underground and could easily fall to tank traps when the bugs start digging tunnels underneath your routes.
Its worth mentioning on the double cannon thing, that if the cannons are not the same it can work, such as the BMP3 with both an autocannon for engaging light targets and a low pressure 100mm cannon for firing missiles or engaging enemy wuth ordinance.
And even with large-caliber weapons, having a pair of guns still has tactical advantages. The M61A5 Semovente has a crew of two. Ignoring the problems that this causes for field maintenance, there are heat buildup problems associated with a high rate of fire that has, historically, caused problems like ammunition cookoff. Having two main guns allows you to alternate their fire, giving the breech and barrel more time to cool down between shots while maintaining the same rate of fire; with a full autoloading system, keeping the appropriate tube loaded is not an issue.
12:00 Hovering vehicles would absolutely not be immune to mines, there are even currently acoustic and more importantly magnetic influence mines, both of which have been around for a long time. They would probably need to be more sensitive or upgraded to detect tanks hovering further above the ground than the ground clearance of current tanks, but the technology already exists.
ironically, in SW walkers are supposedly used primarily to avoid triggering mines, specifically because repulsorlift vehicles are so common all the AT mines are designed accordingly. It's Rock Paper Scissors, only it's Repulsorlift Treads Legs eh?
@@johnj.spurgin7037 They never really explained to me how they counteracted the Square Cube Law or the issue of Ground Pressure though. The AT AT's on Hoth should have sunk to their bellies, assuming those spindly legs did not simply give way under their weight....
"The SPHA is the only other interstellar SPG I can think of," the Basilisk SPG, whose absence is conspicuous considering how often the Imperium is cited in this video: Am I a joke to you?
The New Essential Guide to Vehicles actually states the SPHA can be equipped with different weapon systems, from conventional artillery systems to MLRS launchers, to the turbolaser we see in the movie.
The Koadiak from Halo Wars 2 and Rhino from the first one are all intents and purposes, SPGs, the Cobras are TDs, Wolcerines are SPAA, and technically the Mantis acts like an IFV, the cyclops act like light tanks, the Scorpions are MBTs, and the Grizzlies technically act more like Heavy Tanks if anything and the Colosus fits that area as well. The lore also has he Mastadon which is a massive APC that the cyclops can ride along.
Hell, the Imperium can fit tanks into every single category here. I'll even only use the guard for this, no need for Astartes, Admech, Sororitas, or Custodes stuff here. MBT: Leman Russ. Its honestly more of a defensive tank than an offensive one: its sponsons, weak points as they are, seem designed explicitly for the need to put maximum possible ordinance in a direction as fast as possible. Something very important when fighting the oceans of bodies and armor that Orks and Tyranids spam at people. Its worth noting that the primary anti-tank weapon in 40k is the Lascannon; the Russ's vulnerability to penetration by kinetic rounds doesn't matter, because there's not much that actually uses those anymore. Light: Scylla, Sigfried, or a few others. Basically, there exist tanks based on the Chimera chassis that are used as both recon, and cheap armor. The Sigfried is literally an armored tractor, but it *is* an Imperial light tank. You could consider Salamander vehicles light tanks, but due to the lack of a turret, I don't really consider them such. Medium: The Russ is pretty much a medium tank by role, doctrine, and definition. Honestly, the role of "medium" often tends to be relative to other tanks in the army, more than anything else. Its heavier than the Chimera chassis armored vehicles, and lighter than a Baneblade, so its a medium. Heavy: I don't actually like how Templin called the Baneblade a heavy. The Macharius is an in-universe tank explicitly called a "heavy", which mostly exists as a stop-gap solution because there aren't enough baneblades. Superheavy: The Baneblade is very fitting as a superheavy. Its a *relatively* slow behemoth that bristles with guns and is enough to lay waste to whole tank battalions on its own. Its pretty much a one tank linebreaker in its vanilla configuration. Cruiser: The Leman Russ again. I don't remember if there was a specific name for it, but there was an under-gunned and lightly armored version of the Russ built around speed. You could also put the Chimera-chassis tanks into this role. Infantry: The Malcador is pretty much a perfect infantry tank, right down to its awful engine and glacial speed. Though, honestly, on the defence the Russ is largely an infantry tank that acts like a mobile pillbox that lays down lots of fire from all its sponson weapons. Tank Destroyer: The Imperium's got a lot of these. The Russ, Malcador, and Macharius all have lascannon/Vanquisher cannon variants that are dedicated tank hunters, but there's also a purpose-built tank destroyer in the Destroyer tank hunter, that's a turretless Russ chassis with a hull-mounted laser destroyer. SP AA: Hydra AA vehicle. The Manticore as a missle carrier could also carry surface to air missiles if it so chose. SP Artillery: Not only do we have the Basilisk self-proppeled howitzer, but we also have the Wyvern rapid-fire-mortar-tank, the Manticore/Deathstrike cruise missle carriers, the Griffon mortar carrier, the Colossus siege mortar, the Medusa siege howitzer, the Minotaur earthshaker cannon carrier, and the Praetor armored missile carrier. Assault Guns: The best for these are the Demolisher cannon carrying vehicles, be they Russ variants, Malcador variants, Macharius variants, or Baneblade variants. You could also make the argument that the Banewolf chem-tank, the Hellhound flamethrower tank, and the Devil Dog melta cannon tank are also assault guns. IFVs: Most of the Chimera chassis vehicles are IFVs, but stuff like the Salamander fits here as well.
12:02 "A hovertank might be immune to land mines." You said it yourself but I'd like to emphasize: influence mines already exist in our reality and they have been in use since WW1 - granted as naval mines at the time. To me that indicates that the second battle that features hovertanks will feature mines that can destroy them. No alternate universe necessary for that one.
@Requiem Pressure mines are the current mine standard, and they are incapable of detecting modern hovercraft vehicles of any kind. As such, any anti-hover mine of the future would have to rely on a different method (such as magnetic, ifr, laser trip wires, or just remote detonation).
"self propelled artillery is rare in interstellar armies" There's me immediately thinking of about eight examples from the 40k Imperium of man alone 😅 Basilisk, Griffon, Bombard, the list goes on.
Many imperial tanks are very cheap and easy to manufacture. And a small troop transport is the size of a star destroyer, so carrying them is no problem. Same for two cannons. Twice the hit, can be manufactured easily. Sure a neutron laser is better than two lascannons, but much harder to make. And 40k has armor that can stand up to a single AP weapon.
At Hoth, the rebels did have whole trench systems and a bunch of turrets and cannons ready to defend their underground bunker. That frontal assault was probably the fastest victory the Empire could hope for.
Also, given how Ozzel dropped Death Squadron out of lightspeed too close to the system, instead of the intended surprise he was looking for, the Rebels flipped them the bird and raised a planetary shield generator. This necessitated a ground assault. Depending on how deep the snow is on Hoth, anything other than a hovertank would be impractical if not outright useless under such conditions. This would, in turn, necessitate a walker.
49:20 actually the SPHA's main weapon can be removed and replaced with a variety of different weapon systems including missile launcher, mass driver, turbolaser, ion cannon and anti-vehicle laser
um actually, fording a tank isn't planned to take place under enemy fire as it takes significant preparation and tanks are effective at range, allowing them to support a beachhead across a river and then cross after it's secure to move forward
In Starship Troopers (I mean the book), the Mobile Infantry is named for its Armor Suit, and is separated from the rest of the infantry forces. PS: armor and exoskeletons in sci fi universes are a good subject for a video ; )
I feel it's worth mentioning, that the halo scorpion, while a bad design, is perhaps one of the best used in regards to deployment. it's a tank, with enough armor to take multiple direct hits before being killed, across most of halo media any how, it's main gun while, honestly speaking very under gunned based on the lore, does it's job and takes care of most threats. But most importantly, aside having standard tank mobility, it's air transportable by the extremely common pelican. A tank which fills most of the roles your traditional MBT does, that can be picked up and dropped off with ease by an extremely common aerial trop transport is an ability that circumnavigates so many fundamental problems of a tank, long range mobility, fuel capacity, river crossing, that in deployment concepts alone it is perhaps the best tank in fiction
The Scorpion tank is an interesting design. It looks cool cause Bungie always had the rule of cool over function, but it actually doesn't function horribly as you'd think. My problem with it is that as a MBT, it's iffy. It's not bad, it's more-so mid to be honest. However, it fits much better as an infantry tank. It's large as hell and has a smaller caliber gun than what people expect, which would make it a pretty good infantry support tank. I will say, the design is bad in some areas, however pretty good in others. People tend to nit pick the tread pods, saying they're not as effective. Personally I think it's generally not much better or worse than having just the two treads like we do today, it's just a minor difference in mobility that people love to target a ton even though it's not the biggest game changer. However why it's actually smart in some ways, is how easy maintained is. If one is destroyed the tank can continue to move better than how most tanks would after a tread shot cause it'd be one outta four that's down. Another huge benefit, it can be replaced quickly with minimal tools and effort by a new tread pod rather than dealing with the agony of how dealing with a de-treaded tank is now. Another design choice that makes up for some drawbacks, is the shape. It's actually sort of genius the armor design. The Scorpion, much like most UNSC vehicles, used both spaced armor, and sloped armor, making penetration from projectiles very hard as most times it'd just bounce off cause of the angle. And those that do penetrate will have to deal with spaced armor, which is another bonus. I always just wished that they used a lighter tank alongside the Scorpion to help fill in whatever drawbacks the Scorpion does have. It'd help in making the UNSC ground forces just that bit more rounded which is always a good thing.
@@spookypepper6900 the issue is also in the engine placement and funky turret design that wouldn't function well (or at all) or carry many cannon rounds. And 1-person-tank carry the risk of overloading the gunner/pilot, but they have AI so whatever. The small cannon calibre is also an issue with most tanks today, having 120, moving from 120 to 130mm because 130mm cannon is something something more efficient. And they still weight less than the scorpion.
@@rpk321The Scorpion is massively under gunned compared to a modern MBT (there are even designs for 140mm and even 150mm guns being concepted/tested). It does somewhat make it up for that through it's highly advanced gun (which also partially reduces the ammunition count issue by using telescoping rounds). The caliber can be excused as it being designed to fight the Innies, who didn't have any armoured forces. And the UNSC just didn't have the time/resources to build an entirely new vehicle (especially when the Scorpion proved more than a match for Wraiths in direct combat) when the Covenant showed up. I assume that the engine is where it is because the fuel tank/batteries (it is diesel-electric, like a train (to learn more about non train d-evs, I highly recommend you check out Edison Motors). I assume that, like current d-e tank/truck concepts/production vehicles, it (unlike a train) has a battery pack (making it a battery diesel-electric) to allow for "silent running"/ improved fuel economy from the engine being able to (more or less) run at a consistent pace (even though this is absolutely not depicted in game, so I suppose it might be a direct diesel-electric, exactly like a train). The
@@hanzzel6086 From what I gathered, it's not an issue of future tech, but an issue of physical impossibility unless they have some space manipulation tech.
The double barrel thing might be useful in a few situations given the various types of ammunition out there. You could have two of the same type of round or any mix given the situation. With automated loading fire rate could increase too in a target rich environment it might be useful.
The T-72 is a good task is that in the middle sweats they have poorly trained crew and crap shell that can’t even go through the older t-64 expect in the hull and most of them didn’t have night visions there was a design flaw where the ammo was store it was everywhere and it didn’t matter where it got hit it will set off a shell cause a domino effect didn’t matter if the ammo in the bottom drum wasn’t hit or well protected in a place where it was unlikely to be hit just a shell put behind then gunner make it pointless also Saudi Arabia lost both M1 Abram and leopard 2 that is as good as the Abrams and both where the 90s version but they were lost to 1970 weapon because they have poorly trained crew expose their tank weak spot and went in with no cover
@@MCAroon09 depends on the franchise. For battletech a mech can take damage that will absolutely decimate a tank. They can also carry more weapons while still being around the weight of most tanks today
As a leader of a semi interstellar armada I can say this has improved my overall military standing and prowess tenfold along with providing substantial entertainment to the engineers of my army. I thank thee and look forward to taking over your planet.
A hovertank would only have an advantage against pressure actuated mines (and that is only if they are not exerting pressure on the ground beneath them). Tilt rods, magnetic influence or tripwires will still wreck their day.
Not even then it wouldn’t. See my main post. Hovertanks aren’t possible. Or, they would require so much power that you could instead develop a Mach 7 to Mach 12 Aircraft or Missile capable of 20G to 30G Maneuvers. Or you could build a “Land Battleship” that was capable of traveling at 80 to 100mph… And in both cases still have “Power to Spare.” Hovertanks would exist if they were physically possible or practical, depending upon the variety (ACVs and GEVs are just an impossibility as a “Tank.” As the guy who was on the team who developed the PACV and LCAC told me in the Early-1980s: “Try building a Tank on an Air-Hockey Puck.”). And he said that was the least of the problems. They tried mounting a 40mm Bofors on the PACV. If they were moving at all, the overpressure from the gun equalized the pressure with the skirts, and the vehicle crashed. The plans to try mounting an even larger gun were abandoned. And a WIGE/GEV trying to do this would crash fatally, given the sleep required to maintain the WIGE. The list of problems with “Hovertanks” he provided was enormous. And it took me a long time to accept the reality given my relationship to a famous Wargame that dealt with Cybertanks and GEVs. The comment about the “Air-Hockey Puck” is what finally drove-home the reality. The first thing he said on the subject was: “If they were possible, we would have them.” Oh! And a Hovercraft exerts the same pressure on the ground when “floated” as it does when “Grounded.” The ONLY difference is that the “Ground Pressure” is spread over the entire area under the skirts when floated, and on the Landing Feet or Wheels when grounded. So if an ACV weighs 2 tons, then it will exert a total pressure of 2 tons on the ground beneath it when floated, and that 2 tons will be focused upon the four landing legs/wheels when grounded. It stands a better chance of not hitting a mine by grounding and moving slowly through a minefield than it would to try to “float” through it.
It actually brought a smile to my face when I heard Spookston's voice. The man is a treasure and really knows his stuff, really glad you guys collaborated.
Tanks and armoured vehicles are only becoming "obsolete" from the standpoint of Western military doctrine that assumes technological superiority and air supremacy. That standpoint is absolutely wrong if the enemy has strong air defence capabilities - especially in a war with clear strategic land ("capture and control") objectives.
The Air Force, for all their strengths, really thinks they are the only thing that matters. Ever since WW2, they think wars can be won by just blowing things up.
Not true darpa is currently helping develop the next generation tank that is to eventually replace the M1 Abrams, and currently the army is working on the M1A3 variant that's supposedly to introduce in the next 5 yrs
At 33:30 I was reminded of Hobart's Funnies, a bunch of Churchill and Sherman M4 tanks all modified in various ways. These included Flamethrowers instead of the machine guns, VERY heavy mortars to replace the main gun, the ability to deploy a small 'bridge' device to span anti-tank ditches.
I will say in defence of the use of mechs on pandora, given that the landscape of pandora is exactly the kind of terrain tanks have a hard time navigating
As Battle Order said, I gotta disagree with you on Assault Guns. In an interstellar force especially, Assault Guns, with lighter guns and built on a standard APC/IFV chassis, would be a way to provide good direct fire support to lighter units which require strategic mobility.
I see super-heavy, dual or even triple barreled tanks being extremely useful as a defensive weapon; a mobile gun casement. One barrel can fire while the other (s) reload and acquire targets. This would reduce the number of tanks needed to provide covering fire
Slightly mobile heavy defensive turret/sentry gun like that only good if your entire military operation went sideways as far as Cadia from 40K, and usually in modern military operation you rather want your assets as spread as possible without compromising your capabilities, concentrate that many firepower into single platform is not only wasteful/inefficient but also dangerous since your enemy will have lower number of target to deal with.
The reasons why super-heavy tanks are not practical and not very survivable is Probably amplified in the Time of where it was made and often after being made and deployed
Your foe is well equipped, well-trained, battle-hardened. He believes his gods are on his side. Let him believe what he will. We have the tanks on ours.
How does the BOLO move? By the principle behind “a powerful enough engine will make a lead brick fly like a hummingbird”. The role of the BOLO, by the period of the Mark XX and later, was Mobile Planetary Defense Fortress. It functions as a target that can shoot starships in orbit, and also irradiates the local area every time it fires its main guns.
The Hellebore did not irradiate the immediate area in which is was fired. It used a heavy duty laser to remove atmosphere along the fire line and caused the projectile to turn to plasma.
Would love a video in the same vein about armies. Discussing light infantry/heavy infantry, mechanized v footslogging v paratroopers, doctrines of land warfare, equipment and uses, specialist units, considerations for species and population etc.
Thanks to Battle Order for their immense contributions to this episode and to Spookston for dropping by to give us his thoughts on the Tumbril Nova. Check out their channels below for more Tank action! And if you want to see the Templin Institute commanding our own T-72 in Eastern Europe, check out our recent special investigation on the Templin Archives!
Battle Order | ua-cam.com/channels/n6_Kza6erL9GCAhOpQLfBg.html
Spookston | ua-cam.com/users/Vicroist
Templin Archives | ua-cam.com/video/GKKBQsyjZlg/v-deo.html
If you like tanks you should definitely check out Spookston his videos are great.
OK now we have to get you to drive tanks Texas
Three main problems of ground forces in sci-fi:
1)they somehow get more focus then fleet in orbit as if they can fight back against it(if they deploy with ICBM launchers, maybe they can);
2)their relative impotence compared to modern day tech. We have SPGs that can shoot at 40-60km(rocket assisted or just MLRS) with enough precision to guide warhead into a hatch of a vehicle over that distance. And said warhead would be a nuke in 10ton-10kiloton range. Nothing stops said SPG from having autoloader and shooting over a dozen shells before first one reaches the target. We can arm a two man team with ATGM with similar capabilities(range would be around 10-12 km though plus no extra shots). Meanwhile sci-fi can't do much better then WWII armies:(
3)Geneva Convention restrictions somehow protect aliens, mutants and zombies. No WMDs, no poisoned ammo, no toxic flamethrower fuel, no laser to the eyes, no needle shrapnel, no dirty bombs on civilian targets, nothing!
actually most SPGs have the same type of cannon as their regular counter parts, for example the dual barreled 120mm motar system, abrams has 120mm, the difference is they sacrifice a bit of protection for gun traverse so it can be used as artillery.
otherwise all tanks are spgs
Since when did you star using MS Gundam IGLOO (or gundam ingeneral) in your videos? Never noticed it before.
Creating a navy: check
Creating an armored division: check
All that's left is air force and infantry
I have some pretty coo ideas for futurist infantry and air forces but im afraid it will get stolen if I just say what it is.
What about organizing said military?
@@jakespacepiratee3740 email it? Everybody's profile has an email. Email for privacy?
And a Planetary navy.
Logistics...where are they?
“-if the imperial army had any tanks-“
But they did.
“-on hoth”
Good save
What about good tanks?
@@tymekka3031 The grav-tank is heavily armored and armed. The TX-130 Saber Tank was a fast, heavily armed tank used for lightning fast assault by the Republic. The CIS had the AAT, which is slow but heavily armored with missiles and a heavy battle cannon for breaking through entrenched positions. The existence of the walkers in the Galactic Empire I can only chalk up to the OT being made in the 70s and everything else after realizing how stupid war walkers are.
@Bryce Pruitt Don't forget the TIE TANK
@@tymekka3031 Here are some
TX-130 Saber Class Fighter Tank
S-1 FireHawke Heavy Repulsortank
HAVw A6 Juggernaut
Armored Assault Tank
Imperial Repulsortank 1-H
Were some of the better ones employed by the empire.
@Bryce Pruitt not to mention, while the Republic AT-TE was a walker-tank - the imperial AT-AT was more of a heavily armoured IFV/APC
Stellar work! Now I know how to conquer my enemies
Love this
What about your air force?
Holy shit! You're here to??!!!
What's up King, I mean general
More like interstellar work, am I right? I'll see myself out.
I don't normally recommend double cannons, but there are reasons you might have them:
- Heat dispersion during rapid fire
- Supply chain provides rounds of slightly insufficient stopping power per single unit
- Autoloaders can't keep up with super heavy ammunition
- One barrel is always primed with an autoloader, the other is for special munitions, but response time is critical
- The enemy aliens each have two large members and the supply General has envy issues
If i remember it right, heat dispersion/rate of fire is incredibly important for anti aircraft guns.
Nothing says „screw your helicopter” like a 6000 rounds per minute stream of medium calibre projectiles
In addition, if the enemy has energy shields, the first round could take it down, and the second round could be a kill shot.
An example of how 2 barrels might work due to heat dispersion for other than rapid fire, is using energy weapons as a main gun. In Battletech having a twin barrel turret with Particle Projector Cannon's makes perfect sense for alternating fire for more rapid staggered fire, or a powerful double punch.
With heat dispersion there is a very simple solution for that: Watercooling.
@@MrMarinus18 simple doesnt particularily equal practical in this case though
As a former US Marine Corps tanker, having crewed both the M60A1 in the 1st Gulf War as well as afterwards the M1A1 Common, and as the son of a US Marine Corps tanker who crewed the M48A3 in Vietnam, I approve this message. Mount Up!
Hey just curious since you have been in both the M60A1 and the M1A1 what is the major difference between the two?
@@peterchiu1769 Hell, _everything_ is different. My M60 was a direct evolution of my father's M48, but the M1 was a completely new design. When we handed in our M60s and got the new M1s, the tanks were so different from each other that we had to spend a month retraining. The new tank was so different that the Marine Corps changed our MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) from 1811 to 1812 to distinguish the difference.
So some of the differences off the top of my head:
The M60 had homogeneous steel armor and the M1 has a layered composite.
The M60 is powered by a 750hp AVDS 1790-2C twelve cylinder dual turbo charged diesel and the M1 has a 1500hp gas turbine engine. The M60 can do about 35 mph on the hardball and has a range of around 360 miles on 380 gallons of fuel. The M1 can do 42.5 mph on the hardball and has a range of about 300 miles on 500 gallons of fuel.
The M60 is armed with an M68 (British L7) 105mm rifled gun, a coaxial mounted M60E2 7.62mm machinegun, and an M85 .50 cal in the tank commander's cupola. The M1 is armed with a German designed M256 120mm smooth bore main gun, an M240 7.62mm coax machinegun, a second M240 at the loader's position, and an M2HB .50 cal at the TC's position.
The M60 has a coincidence range finder that uses parallax to determine range whereas the M1 has a laser range finder.
The M60's night vision sights are the passive light amplification type and the M1 has thermal sights instead.
The M60's ballistic computer was a mechanical device that used gears and cams to calculate superelevation based on range and ammunition type. The M1's ballistic computer is an actual digital computer that does the same thing, but also factors in barometric pressure, ammunition temperature, cross wind, vehicle cant (i.e. the tank is sideways on the side of a hill) and also calculates how fast you are traversing the turret and automatically applies lead.
I thought the M1 was slicker than snail snot... for a few months. I slowly began to realize that it also has some short comings. For example, while the fire control system was supposedly accurate as hell, I found myself not shooting any better with it than the 60. Now granted, I was one of the better gunners in the battalion, but this fire control system isn't designed for me. It's designed to be able to have an inexperienced gunner be able to hit targets. But with all of the hoops you have to jump through to do that, it severely limits "instinctual" shooting.
But, what's worse is that the M1 broke down more than our 60s did and they were harder to repair. A computer runs the engine and it take 6 _gallons_ of fuel just to start the damn thing. And if at any time that computer sees anything it doesn't like, it will abort the start and dump (I'm sorry, "purge") that 6 gallons of diesel fuel on the ground under the tank. Now that soil is contaminated, so while the mechanics are trying to figure out why the tank won't start, the crewmen are digging a hole 6 feet in diameter and 6 feet deep and putting all of that contaminated soil in barrels.
The M1 is a good tank when it works, but I would never be a great M1 tanker. After about 6 months, I was longing for my good old trusty M60 back. I knew that tank, even went to TC school for that tank not because I wanted to be a TC, but to learn some tips and tricks of advanced gunnery, knowledge that was completely useless with the M1.
So it's easier to say what they've got in common. They both have a 4 man crew. They both have a turret mounted high velocity main gun. They both roll on tracks...
Yeah, that's about it.
If you've got anything specific you'd like to ask about, feel free to fire away.
Im sad that we lost our tanks they hold our history very well and the fact that it probably saved our brothers in arms life more often than not due to its a marine tank which is more bad to the bone
@@maingun07 I hope there's no classified info in that *wink* * wink*
(in reference to the recent news)
@@PrograError Ah yes, the War Thunder player that just give secret defense info to make a tank more accurate (Challenger 2)
"Not much chance an M1 Abrams [could fit through a stargate]"
It'd be a tight squeeze but it could make it since an Abrams is about 12ft wide and 8ft tall, and the actual wormhole is only about 16ft or so with some estimates. The tricky part is getting it down into the gateroom. The *really* tricky part is getting the Army or Marines to let the Air Force use one of their tanks
And then the *really really* tricky part is making sure O'Neill doesn't try and run over a parked Death Glider and say "Ooh, sorry, we don't normally drive these in the Air Force...."
They can crane in M1s thru the gateroom surface entrance as they did with the Stargate itself
The tricky part is making sure it doesn't flip over on the other side. Since most gates are like only buried by a few centimetres.
That’s a lot of tricky and trickier parts
@@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870 You, Cato Sicarius, make a good point....
@@Del_S If Stargates work logically and don't start spasmsming or materialize the tank in some weard positions like some sort of bugged videogame, which they could do, it could be fixed by putting a ramp on the other side at an equal height. Of course, that does require all Stargate-bound forces to storm gates with mass infantry, since ramps would have to be built later. But the Tau'Ri just don't have the manpower for what is basically a long term occupation project, so the planets where it would be worth it to bring a tank are limited
"Super Heavy Tank"
Also known as "we lost track in the design process while someone made a typo in how much armor we needed" Tank
To be entirely fair to the Imperium of Man...The Baneblade is only classed as Superheavy in 40k. In 30k it's only a light scout tank. Yes, there are MUCH larger tanks available to the Imperium of the 30k Horus Heresy.
@@NikkiTheOtter 30k was still Super Heavy. It was a light tank in the DAoT/GAoT.
@@sosogo4real Oh right. PRE Heresy. During Macharius' campaign.
I'd argue that a superheavy tank COULD be functional if you regressed to the initial tank concept of landship, but in space. A superheavy tank capable of entering and leaving a planet's atmosphere on it's own would have better strategic mobility, and while it's true you could deploy several heavy tanks for one superheavy, a superheavy tank is just BIG enough to potentially platform something that would be an operational or strategic asset, like a mobile planetary shield to prevent the invasion force from being erased if you lose the battle in orbit.
@@NikkiTheOtter this is a logical fault, the daot tech seems to be organised towards nanotech and macro tech, meaning that it was not scaled up, but more accurately the spread of scales was expanded
In german, the word 'Panzer' simply means 'armor'. In medieval times it was used synonymous with 'Rüstung'. Therefore, any armored vehicle is a 'Panzer'. An infantry fighting vehicle is a 'Schützenpanzer' and a self-propelled howitzer is a 'Panzerhaubitze'. Self propelled anti-air is a 'Luftabwehrpanzer' and on wheels an armored vehicle is a 'Radpanzer'.
Das ist irgendwie verwirrend. Besonders für jemand der studiert die sprache.
always loved how German names are just a sentence describing the thing
Wouldn’t spaa be called a flakpanzer? I’m not German but it’s what they called them in ww2.
@@horsem.d.7979 From what I have gathered, I think Flak specifically denotes Anti Air Auto-cannons, while Luftabwehrpanzer is a more general term that means “Plane-Hunting Tank”. Not a native speaker though, so take that with a grain of salt.
Radpanzer😎
"We probably could have kept going for another fifty minutes."
*DO IT.*
J U S T D O I T
Do it and your destiny will be complete
*Dew it*
*CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!*
This is totally unrelated to what you've said here, I'm just taking advantage of your comment being highly placed so that more people can potentially see this large block of text I've put a little bit of effort into concocting. I also posted this just straight up as a comment, but due to my late coming to this video, likely no one will see it. So essentially, I'm trying to pirate off of your success here. ;)
Anyway, feel free to enjoy...
So, as to the super-heavy tank and all its impracticalities, I think it is correct to say that they would essentially fill the role of a moving fortress. However, in technologically advanced societies, I think many of the negative aspects of the super-heavy would be cancelled out by putting it on legs. For example, with a little modification, the dreaded AT - AT could be transformed into a mobile fortress in the sky, perhaps by adding a few legs for stability and providing a 360 degree weapons coverage area. Already, the AT - AT essentially acts as a mobile artillery platform, with numerous design flaws, granted, but it has the makings of a fortress.
Downscaling a little bit, the AT - OT, while also having numerous design flaws in the role of a troop transport, most notable of them being the open roof in a universe where attacks from above are common, could also be viewed as a mobile firing platform for infantry, similar to ancient siege towers.
But back to my point, the advantages of legs are that the size of the 'tank' does not affect its mobility. Fortresses on wheels are halted by anything they cannot run over; buildings and trees (as they could damage the tank) for example, whilst hills would comprise an insurmountable obstacle. With legs, the fortress itself is literally above all of that. It could walk through rivers and over forests with ease, climb up mountains while remaining level, and all the while have the advantage of firing down on the enemy from above, perhaps even over fortifications if the walker is large enough.
Now, because of the mobility afforded by legs, there is technically no limit to how many guns you can put on the platform. There are practical concerns, of course, such as how much weight your technologically advanced legs would hold, maintenance and repairs, and most importantly, how many proverbial eggs you want to put in one basket; while legs would support quite a bit of firepower, they still have the vulnerability of gravity, and taking out enough legs would inevitably topple the platform and render it useless. And of course, the more the platform is upscaled, the more there is to lose if the enemy just takes out a few legs.
However, if the mobile fortress is necessary, or the firepower needed to penetrate city shields, for example, is so great that the weapons have to be absolutely massive, I feel that the fortress on legs is the only practical way to go. On smaller craft, the use of legs is mostly useless, because whatever marginal bonus to maneuverability gained is certainly not worth the speed given up. Speed lost on a fortress, however, is most likely not a huge concern.
(Edit:) After a bit more consideration, I've thought of two potential issues with this. One, when the platform gets upscaled to a certain point, interplanetary mobility takes a serious dive, as the transports would have to be large enough to accommodate a fortress. This leads directly into the second issue, in that when adding more and more weapons to a mobile platform, it would be more economical in most cases to simply add these weapons to a starship and pound your targets from orbit, thereby retaining interplanetary, and interstellar mobility.
However, as with everything, there are exceptions to these issues. For example, orbital bombardment may be impractical, depending on the weapons being used, or perhaps illegal, and the interplanetary corporations of the universe use massive weapons platforms to retain starship firepower while circumventing galactic law. Or of course, simply make the platforms small enough to be transported by starships; perhaps around the size of the AT - AT (but much better designed!), trading off massive firepower and capacity for numerical superiority. Or perhaps, your starships are just large enough to accommodate a weapons platform the size of a small town. Good luck landing that, though!
Furthermore, a mobile fortress also has a few advantages a starship lacks; primarily that it is on the ground. While at first glance, this may just seem like a disadvantage in mobility, a physical presence on the ground allows for, one, a garrison to be quickly deployed from the relative safety of a fortress. Granted, a starship can technically deploy troops to anywhere on a planet, whether landing itself or deploying troop transports. However, nothing says a fortress on legs can't also hangar a few transports, and a little more realistically, the troops on a mobile fortress can also be deployed quickly, and maintain operations in an area around the fortress, which leads me into my next point, and perhaps the most important here, in that a mobile fortress can be used to secure key areas on the ground, something a starship cannot do effectively. A starship has to rely on either sensors, or data sent up from boots on the ground, and then open fire on whatever targets have been highlighted. A presence on the ground, however, can detect targets on its own using either visual acquisition or whatever sensor data it is equipped with, while also being able to rely on data relayed by infantry the fortress itself can house.
Anyway, if you got through all that, I commend you! Let me know what you think of my analysis here; I will mention that most of my arguments here are made thinking that there is essentially no limit to how big you could make a weapons platform, which isn't all that realistic, considering that gravity exists, but I claim artistic liberty on this particular point ;) Anything else, feel free to point out.
Looks like you reached beyond surface-level pop history and military scholarship. Keep it up, hope that the team continues to grow and learn and Templin becomes a real resource for aspiring writers to make their worlds and stories richer.
Which means that the tank nerds will soon descend upon this comment section in droves to nitpick every conceivable detail of this video in insufferable fashion.
1000% agree.
I dream of a day when I can have the Templin Institute make a video about something I make. Not in Incoming, though.
@@Penguinmanereikel Same. Unfortunately, I’m a writer and they don’t seem to cover books that often, if ever.
Don't forget the aspiring dictators and revolutionaries.
There's no story better than real war.
Now, all we need is a “building your interstellar Amry” and we have a full world-building tutorial from the Templin Institute!
(if you aren't aware, they made a “building your interstellar nation”, “building your interstellar navy.” and this one!)
Don’t forget they made videos on naming and creating flags for your nation
We need air force too! Ok, jokes aside, air force and actual aquatic navy are severely underpresented in sci-fi.
@@miloskaluznik48 Hard agree. Atmospheric combat is *quite* different from space/lower planetary orbit combat, and probably equally important in planetary defense/warfare. Aquatic naval ships, meanwhile make excellent weapon platforms
Maybe an infantry version as well
@@miloskaluznik48 The air forces are generally rolled into the Navy or Army and utilize starfighters in most settings.
The Leman Russ literally defies the entire layers of the Onion Chart of Tank defense
- Avoid encounter: Loud engines, relatively slow, stupidly high profile and the sheer unsubtle nature of guard deployment
-Avoid detection: other than smoke launchers the russ has nothing, and are usually fielded in larger formations, easy to spot
-Avoid aquisition: well, high profile, gives of plenty of heat and again, no ECM and only smoke launchers
-Avoid Hit: with the speed and stupid proportions of a russ, hitting it is relatively easy
-Avoid penetration: no special armor and tons of Flat panels with no good anglesm, making side hits devastating and the front and back also have little well angled surfaces
-Avoid Kill: the russ and its crew usually are xpendable, with not side sponsons it has 3 escape hatches, with sides on it has one hatch in the Turret and thats it. and they burst into flames easily too
40k, please never change, i love you
To be fair, the armor that a standard, expendable imperial guardsmen in any unit wears can stop a modern .50 cal AP round from an M2. So armor, and weapons in 40 K is on a whole different level than any other universe. Sure: the Russ isn’t amazing by 40 k standards, but could drive through the Entire German, American, and Russian tank force so fast the crew could have breakfast and then 2nd breakfast.
Looking at the model, yeah, I agree, however it actually has a fourth hatch in the front. Right next to lascannon.
Hey, atleast it's slanted!
@@bkane573 Plus the standard 40k antitank weapon that humanity faces is a Lascannon that burns through armor and ignores things like sloped armor or shot traps. You also have melta guns that can vaporise whole chunks of tanks. The flat sides and whatnot don't really matter.
So....its just like Russ, eh?
I think the Guard's response to this line of argument would be something like the following:
- Avoid encounter: We have Basilisks, Deathstrikes, etc. to prevent most encounters from happening.
- Avoid detection: Let the enemies of the Emperor hear us coming and tremble!
- Avoid acquisition: The more tanks we deploy, the lower the probability of any given tank being acquired as a target. Therefore we shall deploy ALL THE TANKS.
- Avoid hit: The more tanks we deploy, the more likely it is that one will hit the enemy before they hit us. See above.
- Avoid penetration: If we make the tank a big hollow metal box, penetrating hits will just go in one side and out the other without hitting anything vital.
- Avoid kill: We have reserves.
The best tank is, of course, that time in 40K 6 Orks stacked together and went "I'm a tank I'm a tank I'm a tank I'm a tank" because they were a perfect and near instantaneous counter to an extremely precise threat.
If only they had a megaphone, the Imperial Guard might have had a chance.
Honestly the Ork are low key the scariest race in all of sci fi...well at least they would be if they had even human level intellect. A single spore and an entire planet would be overwhelmed with essentially magic wielding super strong blood crazed warriors
@@jeffreyhill1011 if they did have the intelligence the folk belief wouldn't work
@@jeffreyhill1011 Krorks, the version 1 of the orks, were like that
Blame the old ones.
@@demonikr1 Why Blame? apparently make-believe turned out to be great fall-back :D
"Ah, a video from Templin Institute, a good way to spend the next 10 to 15 minu-"
*sees time stamp*
Oh boy, this is gonna be good.
This is where the fun begins
@@lingalithukingstonmanjolo723 Always
"We could go on for another 50 MINUTES?!"
Don't do that, don't threaten me with a good time.
I had to wait days to find the right time to watch, but this was in my "I'll get to it...no, really, I WILL get to it, I'm not missing this"
-Avoid encounter
-Avoid detection
-Avoid acquisition
-Avoid hit
-Avoid penetration
Sounds pretty much like my plan when my uncle comes to visit.
Usually flat stalinium helps
Got me worried with the penetration part
@@user-pq4by2rq9y Also missed the "avoid kill" part in the defensive onion.
That sounded dirty just saying it. :P
**AVOID KILL**
Include switching sides and you have the Italian doctrine of war 😉
Recoil is something people tend to forget to factor into when doing hovertanks. A good part of what keeps a tank from toppling over when firing its main gun is its weight. A hovertank would need some way to mitigate that recoil, unless it's something that ends up having to stop and "land" to fire.
Three possible solutions would be to use a recoilless rifle design, use inertia dampers, or as I've noticed in The Expanse, counter the recoil with a brief pulse of forward thrust.
@@TheEnergizingbunny Recoiless designs are not particularly practical for larger caliber (40mm+) or automatic weapons.
@@hanzzel6086 then you never heard of rarefaction wave (RAVEN) guns. All the oomph of a full-powered gun, with a fraction of the recoil.
@@TheTrueAdept I have not. They sound very interesting.
@@TheTrueAdept Unfortunately they are quite difficult to get done properly, but in sci fi I suppose that doesnt matter much.
"Tank beats everything!"
-some UNSC marine
Rock, paper, scissors, TANK!!
I managed to make that grunt survive on legendary, and I can’t help but imagine him going home and telling his kids the war story of how he fought on the Ark right next to Master-goddamn-Chief.
God Bless him.
Yooo I just played that level in halo 3 for the first time and I started laughing uncontrollably after I heard that. Halo 3 marines have the best flavor dialogue
AND THEY AIN'T WRONG!
@@imgvillasrc1608 indeed they aren't
On the topic of armor in futuristic tanks, we often see in movies or television that plot armor is clearly the most effective armor to chose from.
If only that armor was easy to craft.
@@joshuabonesteel2303 You must be Kawaii Anime girls to gain plot armor. Though be careful to not be the token dead teammates....Or a Harem Protagonist of the none-grimderp type...
@@joshuabonesteel2303 It is said that only the best writers know how to use it well without the enemy screaming "Bullshit! That never should've happened!"
Looking at you fury
@@joshuabonesteel2303 Bring in the mandalorian.
Regarding the hovertank trope, the Honor Harrington series notes that the problem with hover tanks is that they're inherently unstable as combat platforms. The kind of primary armorment the tanks in that setting carry would force a tank backward from the recoil if it were hovering, and getting hit with kinetic rounds would cause it to spin and flip under the impact of the force those rounds would be fired with. So even though anti-gravity technology is ubiquitous in that setting, tanks remain ground vehicles.
But that doesn't mean that those tanks aren't without hover-like abilities. They incorporate that same anti-gravity technology I just mentioned to reduce a tank's effective weight. They engage this while going up to cruising speed to give those tanks more strategic mobility, allowing them to cross terrain rapidly when they don't anticipate being directly engaged and allowing them to do things like ford rivers without having to break much of the surface. When they engage the enemy though they reduce power to the anti-gravity system, trading the mobility off for the increased stability their weight brings them.
See my post above.
In the 1980s I met the people who developed the PACV and LCAC.
The “Unstable Firing Platform” is the least of the problems (as the Col, and later Lt. Gen. On the project explained: Try making a tank with an Air-Hockey Puck). Also, Honor Harrington doesn’t mention that the firing of a Gun on a moving ACV or GEV causes it to crash.
The Overpressure from the gun equalizes skirt pressure, or wing-pressure for a WIGE/GEV, resulting in Instant grounding, which for a GEV moving at around 200mph in WIGE… Fatally. The ACV has the problem of attempting to re-inflate its skirts, and re-floating.
The ACV/GEV remain SOLELY in the realm of Logistics and Landing Craft.
Now… As for Anti-Gravity.
This depends upon the Metaphysics, and thus Emergent Physics of the Sci-Fi World/Universe, OR the as-yet discovered mechanisms of Gravity in our Universe.
If the “Anti-Gravity” just nullifies “Mass” or “”Weight,” then you have an even worse platform than an Air-Hockey Puck, even though firing a weapon doesn’t cause your to crash.
BUT… If the Anti-Gravity is via a manipulation of the Higgs Field, which allows the Vehicle to “Re-Direct Gravity,” then that technology can produce an even more stable platform than a ground tank given enough energy.
The Manipulation of the Higgs Field would allow you to “Lock” a “Grav-Vehicle” either in a specific relationship to another Mass, which can be either Stationary with respect to the Center-of-Masses, or it can be a Vector related to the Center-of-Masses.
That would be the ONLY “Grav-Tank” that would be viable AS a “Tank” or “Armored Vehicle.”
Also, the people who claim “Put a Laser on it…”
This isn’t broadly telegraphed by the world’s militaries, but Laser Weapons are doomed to oblivion by the end of this decade.
Due to the development of newer hardened Aerogels (originally as heat-shields for Re-Entry Vehicles), and other similar technologies, Laser Weapons are going to be useless against any of the Developed nation’s Militaries, and out own Military’s “commitment” to them (principally in the Navy) remains solely for small-vehicle interdiction, against Navies like Iran, Pirates, or other similar threats. The work on “ICBM interception” with Lasers has pretty-much run into this reality, where if Russia and China begin hardening their Reentry Vehicles with even a ¼” of Carbon Aerogel, then no number of Lasers are going to be able to destroy or disable said reentry vehicles.
And this doesn’t even include the other technologies that have to do with what are called “Super-Reflecting and Super-Refractive Meta-Materials.” These are materials where the optical properties don’t come from the “Shape” of the “Lens” or “Refracting Surface,” nor with a Polished Surface of a “Reflective Mirror-Like optic.”
The Optical Properties come from the arrangement of the Molecules and Atoms in the structure of the materials.
Thus, scratches, paint, dust, breaking… None of these affect the optical properties of the Meta-Materials.
These are currently in Labs, but by the 2030s they will begin appearing in all manner of Military Applications.
Oh! And they make Laser Rangefinders, and Laser Targeting impossible as well. And there are means to make these Meta-Materials effective against the entire EM Spectrum. So that’s going to present some problems for things like “Radar” as well.
And… Other “Directed Energy Weapons.”
They produce an ENORMOUS “Recoil.”
@@MatthewBaileyBeAfraid very informative. Is there anywhere i can find more like this?
Hmm, I can see hover tanks being a little more viable if they acted more like chopper gunships but can still go low to the ground act as a pseudo ground vehicle when needed.
@@johndane9754 The problem with that is that by that point, why use a tank that acts like a gunship when you can just... use a gunship?
(Though ideally you'd have tanks on the ground with gunships providing CAS.)
@@FearlessSon It's more of it being able to behave as either or, when the situation calls for it. It may not always beable to act like a gunship due to circumstances of the terrain, hostile anti-air, battlefield, or other factors. Just as there would be ample amount of it to be able to act like a gunship. Without factoring in the strategic and tactical flexibility of a pseudo-flying tank, it's only a little more viable than a traditional, ground pounding tank.
I love the idea behind how the Templin Institute operates, the whole premise that these worlds could potentially exist and documenting them and the things that happen in them in a proper documentary style is something I enjoy greatly.
Discount SCP foundation
@@TheEventHorizon909 Sort of, except they don't actually do anything to prevent stuff XP
Maybe they are documenting other universes to get Intel for their expansion?
A note about Titanfall as a "tank-free" setting in the background examples: it's not. There are IMC tanks shown in dev artwork, and there's even one with a name as a piece of terrain in a multiplayer map. They're just not really shown in gameplay or story because it's a game about mechs.
Indeed. Also, in most of the maps, a tank would be pretty damn terrible. Lot of Narrow corridors with elevated positions of heavy cover.
And also ticks.
I image ticks would do nasty things to tanks.
Literally just mobile anti tank mines.
I believe in Titanfall Titans were originally used for logistics and civilian use(Fancy forklift) but were converted into military vehicles after everyone run out of tanks
Also probably because the tanks would get wrecked just as easily as the infantry in the game would.
@@tymekka3031 thats because they did run out of tanks and also because the militia fought the war guerilla style, think of them as the vietcong but in space
If I recall correctly, the first recorded use of a Titan in warfare was an Atlas ripping a 40 mm from a dropship and using it against infantry.
Then the Titan Wars started.
Rolling into battle with “Crippling Depression” on your barrel
Daddy's Belt has to take the cake.
"Crippling depression is even more dangerous when armed with an AK"
Soviet Tanks will never have crippling depression because they literally CANT be depressed
Name it "Student loan Debt"
I'm partial to "A Tank" 😂😂😂
A problem with tanks in sci-fi is weight. Many planets have different gravity, a 70 ton tank may way 30 tons on one planet but 100 tons on a different planet, potentially making it unoperable because it was not designed to handle that much weight or other such shenanigans. So designing tanks that can oppereate in high and low gravity as well as a wide variety of planetary environments is super important.
Or tanks with high modularity, allowing for different load outs and equipment specs.
This is true but I think most planets that would support life like humans or where humans would be able to fight on probably wouldn’t have that much of a difference in its gravitational pull.
Hovertanks are a thing. Star wars armies have different examples of them and anyone who has played the star wars eaw mods or the original battlefront games has seen them. Hav8ng sone sort of armored vehicle for fire support or else to aid your troops is always worth the effort of developing it. There's only so much infantry men can do alone.
There is some leaway to what suspension can handle in a tank, or whatever else you are using for travel. If were going to planets where gravity is 2x higher or lower than we arent really fighting human-useful planets and we would be better doing kinetic bombardment instead.
@@deadeyecpt.7765 To be fair, Star Wars armies make no sense because they were never intended to - Lucas said they were just a plot device and he intentionally made the army badly designed to work with what he wanted. SW is very bad if you want to apply principles to realistic fictional world.
-- From my knowledge, in the Terran Dominion, the Siege tank was built from the ground up as a siege tank, and once the siege mode was perfected, the engineers basically took a look at what they had and programmed some software in to allow it to function; albeit at a reduced capacity, while not in siege mode. Hence, it doesn't sacrifice any effectiveness in its intended siege role, as the mobile firing mode was a deliberate afterthought.
"Two barreled tanks are silly and impractical."
Me, a Red Alert veteran: THE INSTRUMENT OF DOOM
Me a halo wars veteran: the fuck they are
IT SOON WILL BE A WASTELAND
Tiberium Wars: Mammoth Advancing.
Chinese Overlord Tank: They are PUNY.
@@MaxwellAerialPhotography Ahh, Grizzlies. Give me 3 of those and you can kiss that Scarab good bye.
Rommel, Patton and Zhukov are shaking they’re heads at the lack of usage of tanks by most factions in Sci Fi
But modern military brass is already saying "please no more Abrams's, congress! we don't want them!" and MBTs are likely obsolete. Aircraft have gotten to the point where they are more effective and efficient for supporting infantry, and for killing enemy tanks in the conditions MBTs want (wide open space or long open corridor). And infantry AT weapons > infantry AA weapons.
Missile platform, drone platform, point defense platform, and gun platform, and more missile platform, LAVs / 'trucks' with some basic ability to serve as small arms cover in a pinch, are probably more than sufficient in the future. Similar concept to firing two amraams at 40 NM at someone else's plane dedicated to post-merge tight turning and getting fighter cannon kills. He dies one to two minutes before he would have started fighting.
@@OdinBarenjagerschlos the problem with aircraft is also many, they are heavy dependent on the weather conditions and need to get near to have a clear shot when the allies are near a zone making them powerfull but restrictive in use,
The tanks on the other hand make near support to the infantry and are less dependant on weather, but more in terrain.
@@blecao Not sure the weather is going to match up to the notion of a near-peer's hellfire equivalent mounted on a drone, (or something much smaller giving a 1m gps target or the dreaded data link lock) and bad weather slows down infantry anyway limiting the use of infantry-embedded tanks. (As does the noise and visibility and struggle-bussing on certain corners and terrain... against an enemy with a qrf that includes good anti-tank, I'd rather not be given away. In a hugely one sided war welcoming a direct slug out sure MBTs are nice to have, but in my experience they're collecting dust back at a big base, as operating costs and maintenance being more difficult keeps the Army too afraid to break a few parts on IEDs [yeah really].) Closeness comes on a spectrum too, fixed wings meant for under the radar flight exist, there are expendable eagle-eyed drones, and helicopters can really push the envelope, even under fire with a hill to pop up over (not really an uneven restriction, it's just like tankers prefer a mound to go turret defilade behind). And of course point defense and whatever the next TOW missile is, on basically tough utility vehicles would fit the embedded and convoy needs anyway. And the extra resources for more long range AT missile platforms waiting for target data.
S tier tanks and incredibly huge carriers are badass and all, but I think prior to current planned obsolescence we'd have to lead with and build much smaller stealthier competitors if we wound up in a near-peer fight. And since missiles clearly aren't stopping their advancement even in bizarre future hypotheticals, bet on those two joining the battleship long term.
Zhukov: “Nyet, use tanks to achieve breakthrough with the support of artillery and air power, then send in the mechanized forces to keep pushing the breakthrough”
another part of why they don't want more is they have a stockpile and Congress insists on buying more each year
so they have to budget for them, when they want to buy xyz instead
AT LAST, THE TEMPLIN INSTITUTE DID A TANK VIDEO
MMMM YESSSS
*happy Joakin noises*
*Happy Yukari noises*
How long's the wait?
Another thing to take note for designing your tank is how modular it is. To quote the words of Spookston, "You may have the best tank today but in 10 years it could be the worst" You would not want to have all of those resources and time that was put into developing your tank only for it to be obsolete in at least the near future so you also gotta make sure that your tank can still remain relevant for multiple decades if not forever.
It could also reduce costs and simplify logistics. For example, in WW2, most assault guns and tank destroyers (and theses days most self-propelled guns) were just modified regular tanks (especially outdated/captured vehicles). So, a modular tank could share most or/all of its main components with those, while reducing the number of production lines. You could also make infantry/cruiser variants of your vehicles too.
@@hanzzel6086though now you have to take account of fuel consumption
@@raiderdare7462 Which is why the non-fromtline variants would have very light armour (and maybe even different drive systems).
That Abrams tank named “Daddy’s Belt” fuckin killed me.
And Cancer Stick is also a great one.
"Crippling depression"
@@tymekka3031 "baby buster"
"School Report"
@@erichvondonitz5325 "unlifeiner 3000"
Where are seeing all of these?
"Nobody's resting their beer on those things."
Somebody has never met a Bavarian woman in a dirndl, apparently...
All I see is a mug of beer ride on a Leopard 2's barrel and no spill on uneven terrain.
The Leclerc is optimised for wine glases
We have hover tanks already, and they're so awesome that they've replaced light & recon tanks in modern doctrine.
They're called Attack Helicopters.
Yeah basically.
I mean, if you've gone to the bother of making it light enough to hover, you already made it light enough to fly, so why not have it fly ;)
@@ShadowFalcon you have no idea how much this blew my mind. this is such a simple progression of logic that i'm ashamed i didn't think of this.
No, they are not. Not even close.
Attack Helicopters are NOT deployed as Recon assets, there are specialised Helicopters, aircraft, drones and ground vehicles for that task far better suited to the role. Neither are they replacements for tanks as they lack the long loiter time on the battlefield tanks have, and due to the lack of armour lack the tanks survivability.
And yes, tanks ARE survivable. Can anti tank missiles kill them, yes, but, when looking at the ATGM vs tank equation too many people just assume that for some idiot reason the tank is on its own. Well guess what, tanks DO NOT OPERATE ALONE. They are part of a combined arms force that includes infantry, artillery, air assets and so on. Yes, and attack helicopter can ruin a Tank platoons day... but you know what ruins an attack helicopters day? An Air Superiority fighter vectored in on the AH by AWACS. Know what ruins the day of that soldier with the RPG 12? The tanks infantry support. Know what ruins the day of the light TOW armed anti tank platforms? The Drones that spot them and drop and artillery bombardment on them. You CANNOT assess a tanks capabilities on the battlefield WITHOUT factoring in the normal support it has, or the support role it plays to the Infantry.
Attack Helicopters are fucking great if you have air superiority, or even better air supremacy, but in contested airspace, or heaven forbid if your enemy has air superiority, they are so much fucking dogmeat for the AS fighters with AMRAAMS that they will not even SEE before they are dead.....
We still have light tanks dude
The only thing worse (ignoring anything related to pilots and only focusing on machinery) about helicopters is they have less reliability, require more fuel per minute (most will be cheaper per kilometre tho), and have abysmal audio stealth (i can hear a black hawk when it's out of sight behind a hill and behind some trees) and i guess less crew survivability considering you're up in the air flying not driving
On landmine immunity for hover tanks:
Some modern landmines have had magnetic activation for some time, so even if the track or whatever misses it, it'll explode. Reckon in the future they'd be even more effective.
An additional point is that modern hovercraft have been shown to not trigger pressure sensitive mines (even when those mines were set to trigger at their lowest detectable pressure). But faired little better than normal vehicles when the mines were remotely detonated.
@@hanzzel6086
There are mines that explode from bending a stick sticking out of it. Hovercraft would trigger that.
@@MrSurrealKarma Absolutely, provided they don't hover far enough off the ground. Laser tripwires, infra-red, and magnetic triggers would also work.
"historic examples of tank destroyers are often turretless to give them lower silhouettes" >shows jagdtiger
LMAO
Yea, probably the wrong picture to illustrate the point...
However, it should be noted that there was a second important reason for turretless designs:
Using the same chassis, you can cram a larger gun in a casemate than in a turret.
HA I thought he said "turret-based" so it made complete sense to me...
@@Bird_Dog00 like they did with the jagdpanzer :P
Ah don't mind me I'm only nit picking :P
Jagdtiger is the bigger gun part.
@@gokbay3057 Man's not wrong. If I wanted to be really nitpicky tho, I'd say the jagdpanther or SU-100 fulfills both :P
So, random tidbits on tanks. The reason they’re called tanks is because that was the code name used to develop them. The brits decided to call the land ships tanks to confuse German spies. Also, it was called a land ship because the project was headed by either the navy or someone in the navy.
Well, yes, but the Germans don't call their tanks "water tanks". So what does "Panzer" mean?
One Winston Churchill, 1st sea lord at the time it was first being considered. Also who doesn't like the idea of the landship comity?
@@davidfinch7407 "Panzer" is just German for armor. I'm no expert but I think "Panzer" in short for "Panzerkampfwagen" which essentially translates to "armored fighting vehicle".
@@commandere2475 you are correct, ofcaurse not all german tanks/panzers are panzerkampfwagens, some are panzerspahwagens (armored recon vehicles) such as the panzer II C luchs
@@matthiuskoenig3378 Yep, that's also why you'd have panzerschiff for armored ship and even the armored knights of old had panzer in their name.
The British tendancy to name MBTs words beginning with C comes from the fact they evolved from the Cruiser tank in british thinking, and so the naming convention of Cruiser tanks carried over
We also love aggressive, confrontational names for our hardware, "Stormer", "Scimitar", "Typhoon", "Challenger", "Chieftan" to name a few (It brings a proud tear to my eye)
@@geoffwilson3483 at least it's better than a Leopard right? right~?
@@PrograError I dunno, germans like their cats with Tigers, leopards, pumas
Not that I'd swap challenger with leopard any day xD
@@geoffwilson3483 HMS Pansy, a flower class corvette.
@@Tomyironmane just you wait until HMS Pansy proves itself a capable and deadly naval combatant xD
A tank is a encased gun platform and it will always be useful. They will become more expensive and rarer overall but they will never be completely useless. Open ground, choke points etc always handy to have a rank.
I would add that self-propelled artillery could probably serve the additional role of supporting anti-air systems against low-flying starships, such as someone attempting an Adama Maneuver.
I don't like he didn't take 40k here, as there is a lot of artillery here, it's kinda the core tactic of the imperial guard.
@@-JustHuman- you ain’t wrong the imperium can’t beat orcs in galaxy at war 40K because orcs spread quickly without the range those rocket batteries
@@unifiedhorizons2663 that and orks being killed makes more orks, so sustained bombardment just makes more orks
@@oliverwalters9533 it only makes more orcs if blood remains, as it’s there blood that makes more orcs and orbital bombardment would pulverized any soft target into oblivion.
Tiny problem with that: You shoot down a ship performing an Adama Maneuver, the wreckage and debris is still falling on top of you with lethal velocity. And if the Galactica hadn't jumped out and hit the ground instead the impact would have resembled a nuke going off. The shockwave alone would have killed everyone on the ground.
Daddy’s belt is just perfect for psychological warfare, especially for enemy forces with daddy issues
So most Astartes??
@@randomkrieger2625 Definitely Ultramarines, at the very least.
*"Im really scared when the tanks go over hill and make the bwmbwmbwmbem noise"*
-A partisan fighter in the Serbian book "Eagles fly early" discussing tanks.
Sauce?
@@phantomaviator1318 ..."eagles fly early"
@@phantomaviator1318 did u mean to say source lol
@@phantomaviator1318 ummm is guitar is a sauce?
@@dddf27 No, Patrick, a guitar is not a sauce.
A cello isn't either
It would seem to me that if you had antigravity and you had antigravity tanks, you can combine the battlefield roll of helicopters and tanks fairly easily. Which might mean you need to come up with a whole new tactical and operational doctrine. A sort of heavy air cav doctrine something like that...
Basically the Tau Empire from Warhammer 40k where "Hammerhead Gunships" can fulfil the role of attack helicopters and main battle tanks depending on the situation.
Battle zone
Never thought about that. A heavy duty block of anti gravity propelled armor and cannons providing close air support 😮💨😮💨 Jesus
So effectively a heavy attack helicopter that has a smaller required landing footprint?
@@angryakita3870 Sort of but keep in mind it would be carrying tank armor and a tank cannon so it would be more survivable than a helo and have more striking power. Although you could add missile pods like on attack helos to make a real nightmare.
You could even make Trooper Carrier versions, I imagine those would be good for strikes against targets behind enemy lines.
"What types of tanks should we deploy?" Krieg officer:"more!"
“If I can hear myself think during a shelling, we need more!”
@@KillerOrca Who needs to hear anything during a shelling anyway? They order you to start the shelling. You start the shelling. As long as new shells are delivered to your position you fire them.
@@KillerOrca Kriegsman Ax44333998 here. What is this "thinking" stuff? Sounds heretical to me. Maybe you should see your regimental chaplain to talk this nonsense trough. Or just keep shelling! Sacrifice! For the emperor!!!
"TANK BEATS EVERYTHING!"
-UNSC marine, Installation 00, 2553
looks at tanks being obsolete in anime, code geass and gundam
@@strike6899 they didn't think to make their tanks big enough
@@strike6899 That because they don't put the mecha tech in other vehicles, if they did that a tank will always win if, it's have the same tech level
This here is 66 tons of straight up, HE-spewing dee-vine intervention! -sgt.Johnson
@@cosmichay74 depends on the environment.
One thing I might mention about your tangent on the SPHAs - You only considered one type of SPHA, the SPHA-T (the T stands for "turbolaser"). You're right, SPHA-Ts are designed as ground-to-orbit artillery, but there are multiple other types of SPHAs, such as the SPHA-K (kinetic), the SPHA-P (parabolic), and the SPHA-B (thermobaric) just to name a few.
>thermobaric.
OUCH.
22:01 The clone army walkers are a good example of multiple turrets increasing the effectiveness of the tank without the additional ammo taking up space inside.
Machine gun turrets don’t rly count they have always been a thing and even modern tanks have remote controlled 50 cal turrets
@@TheEventHorizon909 I'm talking about medium blaster cannons, the batteries are built into the turret, so they don't take up much space
@@SkilledNub You will need a larger power source to maintain effectiveness with multiple energy based weapons. Which means you will also need more fuel. This might be a smaller tradeoff than needing more ammunition capacity, it still demands significantly increased space. Which will often not be worth it if one can make a single armament perform most necessary functions.
@@meeshermans297 Not a problem in the star wars universe
@@meeshermans297 they could have used kyber crystals,
kyber crystals in the Star Wars universe acts like an amplifier or a storage for energy in fact it was a large Kyber Crystal that powered the laser of the Death Star
Was that a T72 tank in the intro? THAT is among the best intros I have seen.
The templin institute has a tank
THE TEMPLIN INSTITUTE HAS A TANK
Okay we can't afford to unsubscribe or else a tank shows up
Now to wait the "The Templin Institute has a Warship"
We must feild glorious Britannia 2 pounders to defeat it's Stalinium plates
@@cedricallman9733I'd donate to that!
For reference: In Perry Rhodan, they had dual-barrel weapons because shields could be optimized against either bullets or laser fire. So the dual barrel gun was introduced which would fire the laser in the precise moment the bullet hits the shield, making one type of attack pass through. The tight coupling made the two barrels into a single weapon.
IRL when attacking tanks with reactive armour, the projectile contains two warheads, a smaller one at the front to pre-detonate the reaction armour, and the larger one slightly behind to penetrate the main armour.
Perhaps a similar hybrid warhead design can also be used to bypass the shield? The front of the shell shoots a powerful chemically pumped laser, followed by a tungsten kinetic penetrator?
@@kerbodynamicx472 Just to add what you said, in the real world, those are called tandem charges, and i agree, something like that would still make sense in such a situation
@@TheArrowedKnee Also kinetic penetrators (sub-caliber rods) are used against heavy armor. Due composite and reactive armor being more effective to shaped charges. Although they do have an equivalent tandem-charges. That being false (often steel) tips to counter the reactive armor and preventing the shattering of the real tip.
This reminds me of phasers in Star Trek. Shields can be bypassed if the energy weapon is the correct frequency or modulation. Seems like just modulating the shield frequency 10,000 times a second would fix this problem but hey, it's Star Trek.
@@jmr2008jan if more correctly in one of the expanded universal Star Trek video games they actually came up with a gun the bypass is exactly what you said. Do specifically designed for more cracking to be the perfect counter weapon before since it's constantly modulating and it's never the exact same frequency the board can't sustain enough damage from it the modulate their Shields to be immune to it because it requires constant repetitive hits before can identify and copy the frequency.
Since this is a bit outside the realm of mechanized fighting equipment, I'll take it upon myself to do a more rudimentary examination of infantry armor and equipment.
The most important part of the infantry is the standard weapons they are armed with, as they determine the primary capabilities of your entire fighting force.
Melee weapons stand at the lowest possible ranges, but have their place. They do not need reloading, and are relatively easy to replace compared to the more complex ballistic and energy weapons. The type of melee weapons used, however, is entirely dependent on technological capabilities and how easy it is to close a distance. If the infantry is exceptionally mobile, then it is reasonable to justify a sword or a spear; but if the infantry has around the same maneuverability as the enemy or less, then knives become the only reasonable option.
For the sake of simplicity in the rest of this comment, I will refer to both energy weapons and ballistic weapons as guns.
Higher up on the range ladder are short range guns. Whether this be plasma flamethrowers, shotguns, or some variant of SMG, these ranged weapons are capable of delivering damage at ranges beyond that of melee, but are typically weak due to either the guns themselves being optimized for CQB, or because the gun in question is too cheap to be capable of anything noteworthy.
PDWs stand one half step above this section, being capable of noteworthy demonstrations of marksmanship but having limitations due to CQB optimizations.
The next step up are intermediate or "Assault" guns. These guns are optimized to be able of operating in CQB, but with the added benefit of an extended range to slightly farther than the eye can see without assistance, though definitely capable of piercing ranges beyond that when methods of seeing farther and aiming more accurately are applied.
The next step up are full or "Battle" guns. These guns typically are limited by the eyesight of the user, making non-magnified usage only useful to less technologically advanced militaries. With magnified usage, however, their ranged far exceed that of their intermediate counterparts, at the cost of being near unusable in CQB due to size, weight, and recoil.
At the second to last step up are marksman/anti-vehicle guns. These are typically optimized for accuracy, power, range, or some combination of the three and are typically reserved for specialized roles. Whether it be long range sniping to vehicular disablement, the only justification for arming the standard infantry with this class of gun is when skirmishes occur only at incredibly far ranges. However, at those ranges are typically when mechanized forces like tanks, artillery, and missiles shine the highest, which takes me to the final step.
Portable Heavy Armaments. This class of gun is reserved for man-portable heavy weapons, reserved solely for dealing large amounts of damage to either designated areas or vehicles. Mortars, rocket launchers, and recoilless rifles all fall under this category.
Due note that this next section, armor, will augment the definition of these classes of gun. For example, if the infantry pilots some variant of mech walker by default, then what defines range becomes what sort of targeting systems are available.
At the lowest and most common you have unaugmented and unarmored infantry. These members of infantry have little to no protection and are relatively easy to be killed, but are cheaper to arm. This is the favored strategy of nations where soldiers are plentiful, but resources are not.
The next step up is unaugmented armored infantry. This step is similar to the last, but with the addition of armor best suited to whatever the most common type of weapon the nation has faced.
Next up is augmented infantry, where the standard infantry is given some form of mechanical or chemical enhancement to enhance their abilities, or enhanced training to bolster their skill.
Finally we have mechanized infantry, where the infantry comprises solely of some variant of mechanized battle units. Whether it be power armor, tanks, or walkers.
Also screw YT mobile for lagging when a comment reaches a certain length. I know my phone has more than enough RAM for this.
The biggest reason for melee weapons though is their simplicity. In games guns always work but in reality guns are complicated devices with a lot of moving parts. In the militairy gun maintenance is taken extremely seriously and is one of the biggest aspects of discipline. If your main weapon is dirty you will get punished harshly.
Short-range weapons and melee weapons though are two very different things. Melee weapons often serve as back-up weapons while short-range weapons usually are used by specialists.
"battle" guns as you put them actually are not used much and are quite niche. Most armies use assault rifles as the standard weapon. Infantry almost never fights on open battlefield. On an open battlefield tanks, helicopters, artillery and other heavy weapons matter. The main job of infantry is to take objective and protect the more expensive assets.
Battle rifles were very prominant in WW1 and to a lesser extent WW2. However eventually generals wised up to the fact that actually hitting a moving target at more than 150 meters really won't happen unless you are sniping.
So post WW2 most nations discarded their battle weapons since in practice they are used at close range 90% of the time in which assault rifles outclass them. That last 10% higher range though can just be solved by adding a light machine gun and/or sniper to the squad.
With modern weapons unaugmented unarmoured infantry really are not very useful. After all numbers mean nothing if a machine gun can kill several thousand people in a few minutes. You need trained soldiers that can take cover and take objectives without constant oversight. Also you need them to stand strong when it get's tough rather than flee. Fleeing usually get's them killed while fighting keeps them alive but untrained soldiers don't understand this.
The Protection Onion says:
PRAY
That is all
Love that part.
When your protection onion is 100% powered by the blessing of Omnissiah
@@arsmariastarlight3567 Who is absolutely, definitely the Emperor (yes, absolutely, definitely, totally, stop looking at me that way, I'm being entirely serious, for all official purposes, the Omnissiah is the Emperor).
...
...unofficially though...
@@DrTssha "We recieve freedom of religion, a monopoly on crucial STCs, all necessary resources, military protection and legal right to persecute your citizens and military personnel for offenses to our religion. You recieve Baneblade."
"A small price to pay for Baneblade."
@@DrTssha the main reason the Ecliesiarchy doesn't like the Cult Mechanicus is because they believe the Omnisiah (who is arguably the same as the Emperor) as a mere prophet of their god, like their robot Jesus, while the Imperial Cult says that the Emperor is a true God.
"This here is 66 tons of straight-up, HE-spewin; dee-vine intervention!" -- AVERY J. JOHNSON
"You have the right to be afraid BEFORE you join my beloved Corps, but to guide you back to the true path I brought this motivational device, our big green style CANNOT be defeated!!!" Avery J. Johnson.
"When I joined the corps, We didn't have any fancy Shmancy tanks. We had sticks. Two sticks, and a rock for a whole platoon! And we had to SHARE the rock!" - Avery J. Johnson
The Chief is gonna jump in this tank, roll across the bridge, and blow up any inhuman son-of-a-bitch dumb enough to get between him and the Prophet of Regret! Pull yourself together, 'cause you're goin with him! Avery J. Johnson.
"I know what the ladies like."
Sargent Johnson deserves his own unit
Heavy artillery squad “smooth jazz”
I've served 10yrs in the army and been in three combat tours, I was an airborne ranger and can say without a doubt that tanks are an indispensable part of armed forces. The ability to bring heavy weapons with high armor and mobility will always prove invaluable for most modern warfare. The only a reason not to bring mobile armor is mainly terrain. A tank is a poor choice to use in swamps, for example, and God forbid in a city (too many buildings blocking lines of sight and possible civilian population in area).
They mostly mean heavy tanks are obsolete. MBT's really are heavy tanks with the speed of medium tanks.
IS-7 gang disliked this comment /\
Although seriously, what is the point of extra layers of composite armour if it's only more weight which you could use for more mobility and not getting shot in the first place, tank vs tank combat is not something we want to happen anymore, now we want tank vs infantry comabt where the tank is invulnerable and the light infantry weapons do nothing
@@bjboss1119 mine or Marinus
Marinus
I'm under the impression that modern IFVs are better at urban combat than traditional tanks. Autocannons capable of high rates of fire and high elevation fire are more usable in urban environments. Some vehicles even have tank level armor protection such as the Russian Terminator IFVs and the Israli Namer.
Super Heavy Tanks: If no easy loophole can be found, make one.
AA keeps intercepting your missiles, Planetary Shields prevent orbital bombardment, and they have a sizeable and capable armored force may call for the use of Line Breakers.
They could be sacrificial as they probably can't be reliably be repaired once the battle is over but they survived enough hits to deal real damage and allowed the rest of your armoured forces to slip into a now scattered and open battlefield.
I understand that these should never become a main battle tank or be mass produced, but a few on standby in case the battle escalates in intensity or hits a stalemate can be where they finally shine in their intended, albeit limited and rare, role.
You also have the problem that orbital bombardment is an area-denial weapon -- you can destroy large swathes of the planet, but more precise and limited applications of schrecklichkeit would be impossible. Additionally, you have the problem of sensor discrimination -- it's a lot easier to spot and identify targets that are in proximity to your platform than ones that are thousands of miles away from your spacecraft in orbit.
Planetary shields would also prevent landings.
As the old joke goes: "The most important thing in a tank is not to fart in it" So proper inside/outside ventilation should be taken into consideration.
But what if you fight in no atmosphere enviroment?
arent MBT have ventilation? like T-90 have aircon
Part of that is also for airborne hazmat and chemical weapons.
A fart may stink, but in the grim darkness of the far future manufactured space ebola and nanomachines (son) aren't your friends
I think when it comes to war and the future we'll have to chose - whether we keep it like it is now, a search for superior firepower to scare or utterly dominate - so wars of eradication of the enemy, and for that it will probably be fought with automated weapons including drone flyers and automated tanks...
Or, the act to lay down one's life for the whole is what is important, and war will become a ritual fought between solemn and dedicated warriors, in which case they can be fought not with nukes and super weapons - as in the far future we will have access to more and more powerful technologies, able to easily devastate an entire planet ( an interstellar drive is sure to be able to devastate a planet or plain crack it) but they can be fought with ritual weapons, swords and lances. That way you have a battle of honor between parties and no mass genocide.
In the grim darkness of the far future, all tanks are Bob Semples.
and its goddamn beautiful
Truly a force to make any zeno tremble
New Zealand gave us 2 weapons of mass destruction to use against xenos
Bob semple and Temuera Morrison
@@comradekenobi6908 *UNLIMITED POWER*
Grim darkness? You mean the perfect world?
Regarding tracks vs wheels: Tracks reduce the ground pressure by spreading the weight over a larger area so they're more useful, or possibly essential, depending on how heavy the vehicle is.
Type 89 RCV:
*Tokyo drift begins playing*
In the Spanish civil war the pre-T-34s communist Spain used were outfitted so that on a road the tracks would be off and the tank would drive on its wheels as to increase speed I imagine, then when going off road the crew would install the tracks as to increase traction.
Tracks also perform poorly on roads, and cause more damage to paved surfaces. Tracks absolutely offer better mobility in rough terrain and offer better ground pressure distribution for heavier vehicles, but wheeled combat vehicles still have their place, especially in urban environments.
South Africa had a lot of success with guns on wheels like Rooikat.
@@piotrd.4850 The Rooikat is weird. It actually steers like a tracked vehicle by spinning one set of wheels faster than the other, thus allowing zero point turns.
On naming conventions: I like how Battletech names its mechs in this regard. The Marauder is derived from its official designation the "MAD-3R" The Black Knight is from "BL-6-KNT" or the Wasp from "WSP-1A" It makes a lot of sense, and is probably how slang terms for machines would happen.
You're right: That's exactly how Humvee happened (HMMWV, "High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle").
In all fairness to the mobile infantry, they actually did have tanks... in the books. In that they *wore* those tanks as giant suits of jetpacking, mini-nuke slinging armor.
thank you. The movie is a whole different universe
@@ethannehring3355 does it even cover the drastic change in tactics (for the better) after the initial slaughter of infantry forces? i don't wanna rewatch
Aren’t these things called battle mechs? Sure they are more a more agile replacement for tanks in a lot of sci-fi, but I assume tanks are cheaper and lower profile than these battle mechs.
@@kerbodynamicx472 There's nothing more low profile than an 8 foot tall steel plated gorilla-man that just jump-jetted past your city block at mach speeds and glassed half the town in an instant. Real world militaries have been toying with the idea of a "powered exoskeleton" for a little while now.
@@thirion1850 wow, I doubt a 8-foot tall (or about 240cm in metric) combat skeleton is capable of glassing half a town in an instant. I think you are talking about gigantic mechs that costs billions, like those used in Pacific Rim.
"while the process of naming a ship is usually very formal, grandiose, and intertwined with politics"
HMS Pansy of the Flower Class would like a word with you
Or the HMS Clown.
HMS By Jove would approve...but can't stop laughing long enough.
@@species3167 Pity for the Brits the ritual of sealing ended and the world learned the truth
Great for all of us, but a pity for them
*HMS churchill*
Ahh, some fellow Drach enthusiasts.
Dammit, who gave Templin their own tank... Now we'll NEVER get holographic displays and space battleships in our empires!
I am part of a small group trying to work on what I am allowed to just call a project and this video is part of our studies in planning different groups in our project and as one of the people in charge of AFV/IFV ideas and design this video is really helping and could make things a lot better. Thank you for this video! It is one of many sources crucial to our work!
~Scarlett
On anti-air tanks: An invading force would benefit enormously from a SPAAG/SHORAD system, as the defenders will almost certainly employ aircraft. Defending your forward base, and troops on the move from air strikes, would be critical to success in this case.
Indeed, Thats why my tank has an SPAA Customization package, swapping the 120mm cannon for Large missile pods and adding a second 20mm auto-cannon
@@Dianasaurthemelonlord7777 only twin 20mm why not go for a 30-35mm
@@jameson1239 More ammo, Even that little bit more would prove helpful, that and less recoil so less need for recoil compensators and the main weapon is AA missiles anyways, The twin 20mm is more or less "Hey look enemy Infantry, oh wait there dead now..." That and I thought about stepping it up to 25mm or 30mm but at this point I am more focused on good Combat Armor for Infantry, improving my attack helicopter (X)AH-1a "Bumblebee", or like 10 other thing that are either outdated (in my book anyway) or designed we I knew less about proper Design tactics and what not.
But, Yes good question that I don't have a single good answer for why I didn't in the first place... I think I just saw a recording of a 20mm in action and it was good as Infantry support and a low altitude AA gun for you know Helicopters and drones so I thought "1, 20mm is good, but what about 2 of 'em." Since they are at the size that the Flaws of a duel barrel cannon in near nonexistent on the ammo consumption would be an issue but, "better to 99 out of 100 than all 100" a friend of mine said, but again there are AA missiles anyways so... Auto-cannons are the secondary weapon at best
@@Dianasaurthemelonlord7777 cool makes sense
@@jameson1239 Not Everything I do is "Yeah looks awesome might not work but who cares" even though I worked decently hard on the tank (designation (X)MBT-01a)
"For the honor of the regiment!"
Ya gotta respect BOLOs, those AI tanks are absolutely insane. Practically battleships that can crush anything on the ground, and still capable of hella speed and flight. They are absurd and I love them for that lol. Awesome video as always and it's super cool to mention them in this list!
Bolos are our benevolent AI overlords. Long may they blow up all the stuff with honor :)
@@archivis
All Hail our overlord's long may they Rule.
"For the Honor of the Regiment"
Someone mentioned Bolos! I'm only 18 min into the video (as I write this comment anyway) and I've been thinking about them the whole time!
My first (and so far only) experience with the Bolos was the novel "Old Soldiers" by David Weber and they quickly became my favorite sci-fi tank\tank equivalent. If I ever have the misfortune of getting into a land\surface war I really want one of those leading the way. In the meantime I often imagine what might happen if I dropped a Bolo into pretty much any other fictional battlefield.
Bolos are basically alpha build Ordinatus, although they favor speed and mobility over firepower (They mount Novacannons on Ordinatii, it’s insane)
@@jmachero5852 you mean Ordinatii are baby Bolos. Bolos measure each main gun in MT/s.
Terrain detemines what ground forces are used: Pandora - too much forest, Starship troopers- to hilly and rocky, SW Hoth - the snowspeeder is a flying tank.
"Starship Troopers" is ridiculously unrealistic, practically self-parody in most ways, including portrayal of warfare. Most SW vehicles is style over substace.
The Starship Troopers' MI are supposed to have light mechs and not fight on foot like some 20th century grunts.
And the snowspeeder is a barely weaponized civilian craft.
@@pavelvoynov5408 That’s the point, sergeant
@@pavelvoynov5408 Starship Troopers (the movie) is satire. Suggesting that it's self-parody seems to miss the point.
Starship Troopers (the book) has the Mobile Infantry universally wearing high-mobility jump-jet equipped powered armour, deployed directly from orbit and carrying assorted grenades and missiles including tactical nuclear weapons.
Another issue with tanks in Starship troopers is that the enemy is largely underground and could easily fall to tank traps when the bugs start digging tunnels underneath your routes.
Its worth mentioning on the double cannon thing, that if the cannons are not the same it can work, such as the BMP3 with both an autocannon for engaging light targets and a low pressure 100mm cannon for firing missiles or engaging enemy wuth ordinance.
And even with large-caliber weapons, having a pair of guns still has tactical advantages. The M61A5 Semovente has a crew of two. Ignoring the problems that this causes for field maintenance, there are heat buildup problems associated with a high rate of fire that has, historically, caused problems like ammunition cookoff. Having two main guns allows you to alternate their fire, giving the breech and barrel more time to cool down between shots while maintaining the same rate of fire; with a full autoloading system, keeping the appropriate tube loaded is not an issue.
12:00 Hovering vehicles would absolutely not be immune to mines, there are even currently acoustic and more importantly magnetic influence mines, both of which have been around for a long time. They would probably need to be more sensitive or upgraded to detect tanks hovering further above the ground than the ground clearance of current tanks, but the technology already exists.
There is plenty anti-tank mines who have push-rod activated detonation mechanisms even now. So hover-tank hovers over and goes boom.
ironically, in SW walkers are supposedly used primarily to avoid triggering mines, specifically because repulsorlift vehicles are so common all the AT mines are designed accordingly. It's Rock Paper Scissors, only it's Repulsorlift Treads Legs eh?
@@johnj.spurgin7037 They never really explained to me how they counteracted the Square Cube Law or the issue of Ground Pressure though. The AT AT's on Hoth should have sunk to their bellies, assuming those spindly legs did not simply give way under their weight....
mines that are essentially HEAT warheads facing upwards: *exists*
Hovercraft: *what is my purpose*
@@bjboss1119 "You float."
"The SPHA is the only other interstellar SPG I can think of,"
the Basilisk SPG, whose absence is conspicuous considering how often the Imperium is cited in this video: Am I a joke to you?
There's also a traditional artilery unit or two from homeworld desert of kharak.
The wraith, which uses a plasma mortar as it's main weapon, which is also mentioned IN THE VIDEO also seems to be an example of an SPG.
The New Essential Guide to Vehicles actually states the SPHA can be equipped with different weapon systems, from conventional artillery systems to MLRS launchers, to the turbolaser we see in the movie.
The Koadiak from Halo Wars 2 and Rhino from the first one are all intents and purposes, SPGs, the Cobras are TDs, Wolcerines are SPAA, and technically the Mantis acts like an IFV, the cyclops act like light tanks, the Scorpions are MBTs, and the Grizzlies technically act more like Heavy Tanks if anything and the Colosus fits that area as well. The lore also has he Mastadon which is a massive APC that the cyclops can ride along.
Hell, the Imperium can fit tanks into every single category here. I'll even only use the guard for this, no need for Astartes, Admech, Sororitas, or Custodes stuff here.
MBT: Leman Russ. Its honestly more of a defensive tank than an offensive one: its sponsons, weak points as they are, seem designed explicitly for the need to put maximum possible ordinance in a direction as fast as possible. Something very important when fighting the oceans of bodies and armor that Orks and Tyranids spam at people.
Its worth noting that the primary anti-tank weapon in 40k is the Lascannon; the Russ's vulnerability to penetration by kinetic rounds doesn't matter, because there's not much that actually uses those anymore.
Light: Scylla, Sigfried, or a few others. Basically, there exist tanks based on the Chimera chassis that are used as both recon, and cheap armor. The Sigfried is literally an armored tractor, but it *is* an Imperial light tank. You could consider Salamander vehicles light tanks, but due to the lack of a turret, I don't really consider them such.
Medium: The Russ is pretty much a medium tank by role, doctrine, and definition. Honestly, the role of "medium" often tends to be relative to other tanks in the army, more than anything else. Its heavier than the Chimera chassis armored vehicles, and lighter than a Baneblade, so its a medium.
Heavy: I don't actually like how Templin called the Baneblade a heavy. The Macharius is an in-universe tank explicitly called a "heavy", which mostly exists as a stop-gap solution because there aren't enough baneblades.
Superheavy: The Baneblade is very fitting as a superheavy. Its a *relatively* slow behemoth that bristles with guns and is enough to lay waste to whole tank battalions on its own. Its pretty much a one tank linebreaker in its vanilla configuration.
Cruiser: The Leman Russ again. I don't remember if there was a specific name for it, but there was an under-gunned and lightly armored version of the Russ built around speed. You could also put the Chimera-chassis tanks into this role.
Infantry: The Malcador is pretty much a perfect infantry tank, right down to its awful engine and glacial speed. Though, honestly, on the defence the Russ is largely an infantry tank that acts like a mobile pillbox that lays down lots of fire from all its sponson weapons.
Tank Destroyer: The Imperium's got a lot of these. The Russ, Malcador, and Macharius all have lascannon/Vanquisher cannon variants that are dedicated tank hunters, but there's also a purpose-built tank destroyer in the Destroyer tank hunter, that's a turretless Russ chassis with a hull-mounted laser destroyer.
SP AA: Hydra AA vehicle. The Manticore as a missle carrier could also carry surface to air missiles if it so chose.
SP Artillery: Not only do we have the Basilisk self-proppeled howitzer, but we also have the Wyvern rapid-fire-mortar-tank, the Manticore/Deathstrike cruise missle carriers, the Griffon mortar carrier, the Colossus siege mortar, the Medusa siege howitzer, the Minotaur earthshaker cannon carrier, and the Praetor armored missile carrier.
Assault Guns: The best for these are the Demolisher cannon carrying vehicles, be they Russ variants, Malcador variants, Macharius variants, or Baneblade variants. You could also make the argument that the Banewolf chem-tank, the Hellhound flamethrower tank, and the Devil Dog melta cannon tank are also assault guns.
IFVs: Most of the Chimera chassis vehicles are IFVs, but stuff like the Salamander fits here as well.
12:02 "A hovertank might be immune to land mines." You said it yourself but I'd like to emphasize: influence mines already exist in our reality and they have been in use since WW1 - granted as naval mines at the time. To me that indicates that the second battle that features hovertanks will feature mines that can destroy them. No alternate universe necessary for that one.
You mean like pressure or magnetic mines?
@Requiem Pressure mines are the current mine standard, and they are incapable of detecting modern hovercraft vehicles of any kind. As such, any anti-hover mine of the future would have to rely on a different method (such as magnetic, ifr, laser trip wires, or just remote detonation).
A wise man once said, “Tank beats everything”
Ha ha airforce go brrrrrr
@@Daniel-wy2kx *Laughs in AA tanks*
@@reclusiarchgrimaldus1269 ha ha speed and flares go brrrrrr
I CAN DO THIS ALL DAY!
"self propelled artillery is rare in interstellar armies"
There's me immediately thinking of about eight examples from the 40k Imperium of man alone 😅
Basilisk, Griffon, Bombard, the list goes on.
"infantry win firefights
tanks win battles
artillery wins wars"
-tactica imperialis
probably didnt want to again go back to the imperium of man, he only had to do it some 4 times already.
To be fair, IoM has all the classic stuff because it's pretty low-tech for a sci Fi setting.
That's what's cool about it
Many imperial tanks are very cheap and easy to manufacture. And a small troop transport is the size of a star destroyer, so carrying them is no problem.
Same for two cannons. Twice the hit, can be manufactured easily. Sure a neutron laser is better than two lascannons, but much harder to make. And 40k has armor that can stand up to a single AP weapon.
And it is beautiful.
"I'll let someone else talk about the nova"
Spookston shows up
Wehraboos: Why do I hear boss music?
spookston's guide to shitting on your favorite german tank
when they mentioned hovertanks, all I could hear is spooky just rolling his eyes thinking of an apache.
At Hoth, the rebels did have whole trench systems and a bunch of turrets and cannons ready to defend their underground bunker. That frontal assault was probably the fastest victory the Empire could hope for.
Also, given how Ozzel dropped Death Squadron out of lightspeed too close to the system, instead of the intended surprise he was looking for, the Rebels flipped them the bird and raised a planetary shield generator. This necessitated a ground assault. Depending on how deep the snow is on Hoth, anything other than a hovertank would be impractical if not outright useless under such conditions. This would, in turn, necessitate a walker.
Imagine being the tank crew of “The Ancient One”.
What "the old farts" would name their tank in Old Man's War XD
At last, a tank worthy of the Tentacult.
49:20 actually the SPHA's main weapon can be removed and replaced with a variety of different weapon systems including missile launcher, mass driver, turbolaser, ion cannon and anti-vehicle laser
5:49, “Nerds like a lot of things but there’s something they love above all else, and that is* correcting people.”
is*
@@samuelleandro2275, All corrections must start with the phrase “Um actually!” No point.
um actually, fording a tank isn't planned to take place under enemy fire as it takes significant preparation and tanks are effective at range, allowing them to support a beachhead across a river and then cross after it's secure to move forward
Well, it's more of a "Challenge Accepted" kinda deal? :P
In Starship Troopers (I mean the book), the Mobile Infantry is named for its Armor Suit, and is separated from the rest of the infantry forces.
PS: armor and exoskeletons in sci fi universes are a good subject for a video ; )
I feel it's worth mentioning, that the halo scorpion, while a bad design, is perhaps one of the best used in regards to deployment. it's a tank, with enough armor to take multiple direct hits before being killed, across most of halo media any how, it's main gun while, honestly speaking very under gunned based on the lore, does it's job and takes care of most threats. But most importantly, aside having standard tank mobility, it's air transportable by the extremely common pelican. A tank which fills most of the roles your traditional MBT does, that can be picked up and dropped off with ease by an extremely common aerial trop transport is an ability that circumnavigates so many fundamental problems of a tank, long range mobility, fuel capacity, river crossing, that in deployment concepts alone it is perhaps the best tank in fiction
Yeah. While Scorpion (and Grizzly) is a horrible design, the way they are used/potrayed is damn nice.
The Scorpion tank is an interesting design. It looks cool cause Bungie always had the rule of cool over function, but it actually doesn't function horribly as you'd think. My problem with it is that as a MBT, it's iffy. It's not bad, it's more-so mid to be honest. However, it fits much better as an infantry tank. It's large as hell and has a smaller caliber gun than what people expect, which would make it a pretty good infantry support tank.
I will say, the design is bad in some areas, however pretty good in others. People tend to nit pick the tread pods, saying they're not as effective. Personally I think it's generally not much better or worse than having just the two treads like we do today, it's just a minor difference in mobility that people love to target a ton even though it's not the biggest game changer. However why it's actually smart in some ways, is how easy maintained is. If one is destroyed the tank can continue to move better than how most tanks would after a tread shot cause it'd be one outta four that's down. Another huge benefit, it can be replaced quickly with minimal tools and effort by a new tread pod rather than dealing with the agony of how dealing with a de-treaded tank is now.
Another design choice that makes up for some drawbacks, is the shape. It's actually sort of genius the armor design. The Scorpion, much like most UNSC vehicles, used both spaced armor, and sloped armor, making penetration from projectiles very hard as most times it'd just bounce off cause of the angle. And those that do penetrate will have to deal with spaced armor, which is another bonus.
I always just wished that they used a lighter tank alongside the Scorpion to help fill in whatever drawbacks the Scorpion does have. It'd help in making the UNSC ground forces just that bit more rounded which is always a good thing.
@@spookypepper6900 the issue is also in the engine placement and funky turret design that wouldn't function well (or at all) or carry many cannon rounds. And 1-person-tank carry the risk of overloading the gunner/pilot, but they have AI so whatever.
The small cannon calibre is also an issue with most tanks today, having 120, moving from 120 to 130mm because 130mm cannon is something something more efficient. And they still weight less than the scorpion.
@@rpk321The Scorpion is massively under gunned compared to a modern MBT (there are even designs for 140mm and even 150mm guns being concepted/tested). It does somewhat make it up for that through it's highly advanced gun (which also partially reduces the ammunition count issue by using telescoping rounds). The caliber can be excused as it being designed to fight the Innies, who didn't have any armoured forces. And the UNSC just didn't have the time/resources to build an entirely new vehicle (especially when the Scorpion proved more than a match for Wraiths in direct combat) when the Covenant showed up.
I assume that the engine is where it is because the fuel tank/batteries (it is diesel-electric, like a train (to learn more about non train d-evs, I highly recommend you check out Edison Motors). I assume that, like current d-e tank/truck concepts/production vehicles, it (unlike a train) has a battery pack (making it a battery diesel-electric) to allow for "silent running"/ improved fuel economy from the engine being able to (more or less) run at a consistent pace (even though this is absolutely not depicted in game, so I suppose it might be a direct diesel-electric, exactly like a train).
The
@@hanzzel6086 From what I gathered, it's not an issue of future tech, but an issue of physical impossibility unless they have some space manipulation tech.
"Daddy's Belt" is the best possible name for a tank; change my mind
That one cracked me up.
Buying GF 10k
Fast, hard-hitting and impossible to strike back against. Perfect.
Personally I like Diplomatic Option, better
US: This tank is named after the greatest general of all time-
Russia: This tank is *monke*
Reject civilization, return to, well, you know.
@@dhwwiiexpert Monke
*_MONKE MODE_* written on the front plate is the last thing you see before a 125mm HEAT round absolutely mulches your entire body
@@jooot_6850 or an ATFSDS
Germans: All our tanks are named after fierce feline predators for their speed and-
Russians: BANANA
The double barrel thing might be useful in a few situations given the various types of ammunition out there. You could have two of the same type of round or any mix given the situation. With automated loading fire rate could increase too in a target rich environment it might be useful.
Space tanks need to be a more common thing. Walkers are cool and all but tanks are better.
Also how did you get a ride on that T-72
See the Templin Archives Channel for this :)
The T-72 is a good task is that in the middle sweats they have poorly trained crew and crap shell that can’t even go through the older t-64 expect in the hull and most of them didn’t have night visions there was a design flaw where the ammo was store it was everywhere and it didn’t matter where it got hit it will set off a shell cause a domino effect didn’t matter if the ammo in the bottom drum wasn’t hit or well protected in a place where it was unlikely to be hit just a shell put behind then gunner make it pointless also Saudi Arabia lost both M1 Abram and leopard 2 that is as good as the Abrams and both where the 90s version but they were lost to 1970 weapon because they have poorly trained crew expose their tank weak spot and went in with no cover
@@USSAnimeNCC- Who asked?
Mammoth tank: "Roll over them!"
@@avsbes98 joe
Stuck between naming my tank "Daddy's Belt" and "Crippling Depression" as the best moniker to show my enemy why I decided to be a war criminal.
How about "Student Loan Debt"?
@@mclatchyt the recruiter told me I'd get to travel the world and I had to pay for college somehow!
@@EmonWBKstudios see the world, meet new people and kill them.
@@grzegorzswist sounds good, let's go. Never really liked people!
/s
The Templin Institute should do an episode on the many types of mechs.
why talk about mech when tanks are way better?
@@MCAroon09 true
@@MCAroon09 because better doesn't mean funnier
@@MCAroon09 depends on the franchise. For battletech a mech can take damage that will absolutely decimate a tank. They can also carry more weapons while still being around the weight of most tanks today
Flying mechs, quadrapeds, hover mechs, we are going to need a lot of mecha research material
As a leader of a semi interstellar armada I can say this has improved my overall military standing and prowess tenfold along with providing substantial entertainment to the engineers of my army.
I thank thee and look forward to taking over your planet.
A hovertank would only have an advantage against pressure actuated mines (and that is only if they are not exerting pressure on the ground beneath them). Tilt rods, magnetic influence or tripwires will still wreck their day.
God point!
It also depends how high off the ground they can hover.
The ancient one would have been a fitting name for some of the Leopard 1’s that the Canadians Army was using in Afghanistan.
Hovertank may also do better in low gravity situations, perhaps even "fly".
Not even then it wouldn’t.
See my main post.
Hovertanks aren’t possible. Or, they would require so much power that you could instead develop a Mach 7 to Mach 12 Aircraft or Missile capable of 20G to 30G Maneuvers. Or you could build a “Land Battleship” that was capable of traveling at 80 to 100mph…
And in both cases still have “Power to Spare.”
Hovertanks would exist if they were physically possible or practical, depending upon the variety (ACVs and GEVs are just an impossibility as a “Tank.” As the guy who was on the team who developed the PACV and LCAC told me in the Early-1980s: “Try building a Tank on an Air-Hockey Puck.”).
And he said that was the least of the problems.
They tried mounting a 40mm Bofors on the PACV. If they were moving at all, the overpressure from the gun equalized the pressure with the skirts, and the vehicle crashed. The plans to try mounting an even larger gun were abandoned. And a WIGE/GEV trying to do this would crash fatally, given the sleep required to maintain the WIGE.
The list of problems with “Hovertanks” he provided was enormous. And it took me a long time to accept the reality given my relationship to a famous Wargame that dealt with Cybertanks and GEVs. The comment about the “Air-Hockey Puck” is what finally drove-home the reality.
The first thing he said on the subject was:
“If they were possible, we would have them.”
Oh!
And a Hovercraft exerts the same pressure on the ground when “floated” as it does when “Grounded.”
The ONLY difference is that the “Ground Pressure” is spread over the entire area under the skirts when floated, and on the Landing Feet or Wheels when grounded.
So if an ACV weighs 2 tons, then it will exert a total pressure of 2 tons on the ground beneath it when floated, and that 2 tons will be focused upon the four landing legs/wheels when grounded.
It stands a better chance of not hitting a mine by grounding and moving slowly through a minefield than it would to try to “float” through it.
It actually brought a smile to my face when I heard Spookston's voice. The man is a treasure and really knows his stuff, really glad you guys collaborated.
Tanks and armoured vehicles are only becoming "obsolete" from the standpoint of Western military doctrine that assumes technological superiority and air supremacy. That standpoint is absolutely wrong if the enemy has strong air defence capabilities - especially in a war with clear strategic land ("capture and control") objectives.
The army that abandons armour gets crushed.
The Air Force, for all their strengths, really thinks they are the only thing that matters. Ever since WW2, they think wars can be won by just blowing things up.
IFVs aren't becoming obsolete any time soon, that's for sure.
Honestly though, fiction overall seems to forget they're a thing.
@@odinlindeberg4624 As long as you need an objective taken, you will need infantry. And that infantry will do well with some heavy firepower.
Not true darpa is currently helping develop the next generation tank that is to eventually replace the M1 Abrams, and currently the army is working on the M1A3 variant that's supposedly to introduce in the next 5 yrs
At 33:30 I was reminded of Hobart's Funnies, a bunch of Churchill and Sherman M4 tanks all modified in various ways. These included Flamethrowers instead of the machine guns, VERY heavy mortars to replace the main gun, the ability to deploy a small 'bridge' device to span anti-tank ditches.
I will say in defence of the use of mechs on pandora, given that the landscape of pandora is exactly the kind of terrain tanks have a hard time navigating
light tanks
@@joshuajoaquin5099 the pandoran jungle is significantly denser and harder to bulldoze than earth jungles
@@McCbobbish thats why light tank exist
@@ariqasadam199 read it again
@@deathrex007 look at guedicanal, its jungle were denser and in vietnam but look, apc and light tanks still worked
Now do "Building an Aerospace Force for your Interstellar Navy"
As Battle Order said, I gotta disagree with you on Assault Guns. In an interstellar force especially, Assault Guns, with lighter guns and built on a standard APC/IFV chassis, would be a way to provide good direct fire support to lighter units which require strategic mobility.
I didn’t choose the StuG life, the StuG life chose me.
I encourage you to look up the M-50 Ontos. It is a glorious little bastard.
"From an undisclosed location in Eastern Europe, I can't stop thinking about tanks" my man was 7months early
I think I speak for the entire comments section when I say,
Tank you for making this video.
I can’t tell if this comment made me happier than I could imagine or made me desire death by tank
This would’ve been a perfect collaboration with The Chieftain
Significant emotional events
"Get a comfy chair and a snac- er, meal"? for a 1hr vid? What is this, Isaac Arthur vid?
EDIT: Whoo, you got Battle Order in the project too?
Yos
I see super-heavy, dual or even triple barreled tanks being extremely useful as a defensive weapon; a mobile gun casement. One barrel can fire while the other (s) reload and acquire targets. This would reduce the number of tanks needed to provide covering fire
Slightly mobile heavy defensive turret/sentry gun like that only good if your entire military operation went sideways as far as Cadia from 40K, and usually in modern military operation you rather want your assets as spread as possible without compromising your capabilities, concentrate that many firepower into single platform is not only wasteful/inefficient but also dangerous since your enemy will have lower number of target to deal with.
The reasons why super-heavy tanks are not practical and not very survivable is Probably amplified in the Time of where it was made and often after being made and deployed
Your foe is well equipped, well-trained, battle-hardened. He believes his gods are on his side. Let him believe what he will. We have the tanks on ours.
"We're Gonna murder those poor dumb bastards and use their guts to grease the treads of our tanks!"
@@weldonwin SCREW THOSE CRUNCHIES!
"But they also have Tanks"
I had to look up where that quote came from. I should've guessed that it was from 40K!
@@bigmekboy175 It also references Eisenhower's D Day speech.
How does the BOLO move? By the principle behind “a powerful enough engine will make a lead brick fly like a hummingbird”. The role of the BOLO, by the period of the Mark XX and later, was Mobile Planetary Defense Fortress. It functions as a target that can shoot starships in orbit, and also irradiates the local area every time it fires its main guns.
good to see an other bolo fan!
For the Honour of the Regiment!
The Hellebore did not irradiate the immediate area in which is was fired. It used a heavy duty laser to remove atmosphere along the fire line and caused the projectile to turn to plasma.
Bolos had many track systems, and the later versions also used antigrav to reduce their effective weight.
As a man who writes and draws future military equipment, I’m gonna using this!
Would love a video in the same vein about armies. Discussing light infantry/heavy infantry, mechanized v footslogging v paratroopers, doctrines of land warfare, equipment and uses, specialist units, considerations for species and population etc.