Being fairly new to NSD, I have made an attempt at fabricating some sort of presentable design for my nation's future MBT. However, I'm sure there's probably a few - if not a lot - problems with my design.


General Information:

• Name: M3 Partisan
• Type: Main Battle Tank
• Crew: 3
• Combat Weight: 56 tonnes
• Length (overall): 9.6 m
• Length (hull): 7.7 m
• Width: 3.8 m
• Height: 2.9 m
• Ground Clearance: 510 mm

Performance:

• Engine: Diesel twin Turbo Flat Engine (approx. 1900 Hp)
• Hydro-kinetic transmission: 4F/3R
• Fuel Capacity: 1892.7 litres
• Range: 482 km
  
• Road Speed: 69 km/h (governed)
• Cross Country Speed: 55 km/h
• Speed on 10% slope: 35 km/h
• Speed on 60% slope: 9 km/h
  
• Fording Depths:
  Unprepared: 1.0m
  Prepared: 2.5m
  w/ snorkel: 4.0m
  
• Trench Crossing: 2.9m
• Vertical wall climb: 1.0m

Protection

• Base armour:
  Exote
  Ti-6Al-4V
  Resilin/rubber composite
  AISI 4140 Alloy Plate
  Resilin/rubber composite
  Ti-6Al-4V
  U-3Ti alloy DU mesh
  M5-Fiber (Anti-spall)
  
• Modules:
  - Active Defense System
  - Multi-Purpose IED, EFP & Mine Protection

Armament

• Main: 125mm Smooth bore gun
  With fully automatic loader and an ammunition storage in the turret bustle, packed with 20 rounds as well as 15 more rounds in an additional storage
• Secondary (coaxial): 7.62mm Armor Machine Gun
• Commander's weapon: .50 caliber machine gun (RWS optional)
  
  The M3 is equipped with Thermal Imaging, Night Vision, Infrared Camera Systems and an eyesafe laser rangefinder, as well as a wide-field-of-view thermal vision enhancer for the driver to allow operation during day and night as well as fire on the move.
  
• Radio: Single channel CNR and EPLRS
• Vetronics: Tactical Combat Information System (TCIS), feeding relevant information in real-time.

Bit on the wide side, them prudes around here seem to vehemontly spit on anything wider than 3.5m because it dosent fit on railways or something, which would seriously hamper strategic mobility. Or you can make your train tracks lolwide and make a 5m tank

tbh the whole feel is very 1970s era soviet. if you're going for that great

turret seems to be set forward, t34 style, if you look at modern tanks the turret is center mounted and goes almost all the way back, because of them ammo bins they put right behind the gun breech.

EDIT oops you done did that. Soz. Forward mounted turret would still mess something up, i dont know what, maybe the tanks center of mass or something, because nowadays everything is center mounted

as for armour you can go old school and go for welded steel (cheap but heavy). Nowadays everything is composites of superhard ceramics, steel and often exotic heavy metals to screw up any AP shots coming your way

active protection systems (APSs) are thinkable too, most of the RL designs use doppler radar to detect when something is shot in the tanks direction and shoots something eg 40mm grenades or buckshot at it to kill whatever is being shot.

all fully honest, noob to noob conversation. hope you dont take the criticism coming real soon too harshly, but keep in mind these guys reaaally know their way around things like this

Welcome to NSD. Let's get to work.

First of all, your design is good and has some potential. There are no glaringly wrong mistakes as far as I can see, but then again, not everything is filled in yet.

The peformance section is a tad confusing. You have mixed Imperial values with Metric values; dimensions and ground clearance are in metric, speed, range, and fuel capacity are in imperial. I suggest you choose just one of them. (Preferably metric, since that's what more then 90% of the world uses.)

The engine description is good. How many cylinders does the engine have?

As for armour, it's a bit of a difficult part. Or in Kyiv's words:

But pretty much what Estucia said. I think someone else around here would be better suited to help you with the armour.

Just a small addition, IR might work fine too I suppose.

As for your armarment, it is somewhat lacking. Tanks usally also have coaxial weapons, that move along with the main gun. This is normally a machine gun or autocannon in a calibre of choice. In addition to that, the commander usally has a machine gun or autocannon too.

In addition to that, you might want to elaborate on what kind of autoloader it uses, the length of your gun, the muzzle velocities of your cartridge, etc.

And that's pretty much it. Other then that, I don't see any problems. A good start.

Thank you for your advice.

I've converted everything to metric, and right now I'm doing some research on both armour and armaments for my tank.

For my engine, I would opt for either 10 or 12 cylinders, although I'm not sure how they would affect it's HP (in what amount)

I could also go for 16, but I believe that would be a bit *too* much.

Here's a bit of advice for you. PDFs from reputable sources can be quite useful. DTIC, for example.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/

Thanks!

Now, for armour, I have been searching around and have come up with this:

Ni-Al2O3 (or Exote, not sure which is better in price/quality)
Aluminium-Titanium alloy
RHA (I wonder if adding a slab of RHA is actually necessary)
Spall liners

Additional Modules:
Active Defense System
Multi-Purpose IED, EFP & Mine Protection


I've also read something about M5 Fiber, but I'm not sure if I should really implement this in my design...

You're welcome.

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Exote is better in price, and likely quality, as well.

If you are going to use a Al-Ti alloy, might I suggest Ti-6Al-4V?
http://asm.matweb.com/search/SpecificMater...?bassnum=MTP641

Potential slot for NxRA here?

A slab of RHA, or Ti-6Al-4V would then go here.

U-3Ti alloy DU mesh goes here

Spall liner here (M5, Kevlar, or Dyneema)

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The above is a suggestion, of course.

Since you're one of the experts here, I will use that suggestion.

As an end result, I came up with this:
Exote
Ti-6Al-4V
PDMS*
AISI 4140 Alloy Plate
PDMS*
Ti-6Al-4V
U-3Ti alloy DU mesh
M5-Fiber (Anti-spall)

*http://autonomic.beckman.illinois.edu/files/nrs062.pdf
I'm not sure, but I thought this 'special' PDMS would be useful for a tank.

Let me see if I grasp the concept of a modular armour:
You have your basic armour, which is everything above.
But, being modular armour, you can 'add' parts to this armour, like add-ons.

Is this correct?

To give you some idea about modular armor, here's a link to an image showing it on a Merkava 3.

http://img381.imageshack.us/img381/8323/1ld1.jpg

You normally do have your "base" armor (which is normally the inner most metal layer (generally RHA or Titanium), to which the other armor components are then bolted (or otherwise attached) to the tank. This allows for variable levels of armored protection on a tank or other AFV.

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I also have to question your use of PDMS in the armor system. You'd be much more likely to get better results from other materials, I feel.

Probably better to stick with some of the armor materials listed here, in addition to the other (non-PDMS) materials that you are using:

http://208.84.116.223/forums/index.php?sho...100#entry675629

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Might I also suggest a BMS system based off of this?

http://www.defense-update.com/products/t/Tiger-c4.htm

Wikipedia (<.<) featured a list on elastomers and I found something called Resilin, one of the most elastic proteins known. Could this be implemented in my design as NxRA?

In order to answer your question, here's a tank armor design that i've already done.

http://wikistates.outwardhosting.com/wiki/Adversus_Armor

I've used Resilin as NxRA. Not everyone on NSD agrees with Resilin use, but no one stopped me from using it.

So it would work? Or would I be better off using rubber instead?

or maybe a mixture would be possible...

EDIT: Updated Design.

Number of cyls in your engine will effect power minimally; power is a product of torque and rpms and torque relates directly to displacement. Some argue that the supposed efficiency of smaller cylinders means they can rev harder and produce more power, but in reality the effect it will have is minimal. Use twelve cylinders instead of ten though because twelve cylinder layouts, particularly flat ones, are naturally balanced. Boxer twelve cylinders are even more so.

for 1900hp, you would be generally looking at around 45-50 litres to get a specific output within the 30-35kw range which seems to be around the ballpark for a piston tank engine.

So, a 12 cylinder boxer engine is acceptable for my design?

I should have known before there was such a website. Thanks Lamoni.

I was wondering if there is a guide somewhere that can help me with lineart designing, as the picture I have now is just a mixture of elements from the Leopard and Leclerc tanks throw in a mixer.

I really want to *make* my own tank, but I have no clue whatsoever what I should put on it. With this I mean the *little* things, like cables attached to the side or rails, ...

EDIT:

This is the Partisan equipped with the multi-purpose Protection module.

Does this look...'okay'?

You're welcome, A&D.

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http://z13.invisionfree.com/LineartInc/index.php?

This is LINC. A sister board of NSD, in some ways. They deal with line-art. If there is a guide to doing better line-art, they'll have it.

Your line-art looks just fine, so far.

This is my final design.

Not bad.

Sorry for my late reply on this. IIRC (anyone correct me if I'm wrong) the number of cylinders does not affect the horsepower of an engine, but it does affect the rpm. Cylinder capacity is more important in increasing power.

16 cylinders is for prop powered aircraft, anything between 8 and 12 works fine for tanks. 6 cylinders might work too. But for some reason 8 cylinder and 12 cylinder are more popular; I guess it's because their number of cylinders is dividable by 4. That should reduce vibrations, as there will always be either 3 or 2 cylinders in the combustion cycle at a time.