What would it take to replace main battle tanks with unmanned variants?
>>65558933Russia already have unmanned MBT in prototype stage.
>>65558940Much obliged, is there somewhere I can find out other info the West is trying to bury?
>>65558933What value are you getting out of making it unmanned? Drones are meant to be cheap and expendable and I don't think either of those things apply to a main battle tank
>>65558933Embracing homosexuality.
>>65559341You can make the tank significantly lighter, smaller and cheaper
>>65559341>Drones are meant to be cheap and expendable and I don't think either of those things apply to a main battle tankA tank designed around not having a crew or life support will be significantly cheaper. Extraordinarily cheaper if it gets blown up as well since you don't have multiple dead human families to pay benefits out to.
>>65558933Time. FPV air and ground craft are just a matter of time, as is the AI version. This shit will eventually be released upon the public aka "terminator" style, but instead of the machines being in charge, it will be the politicians and the industrialists unleashing their bot armies upon the unwashed masses.
>>65559359It's not really a main battle tank then is it?
>>65559415It is if it has thr same offensive and defensive capability.
>>65559341Some crude napkin math indicates an unmanned M1A2 Abrams-equivalent with the same range, weapons, armor, speed etc would weigh less than half the original manned tank and consume at least a third less fuel. Massive logistical benefits, assuming you believe tanks are still relevant of course.
>>65559421Different logistics, not necessarily better.It still needs to be controlled somehow and that introduces new costs and vulnerabilities.
>>65558933It would require AI that doesn't make basic errors and need to be babysat lest it do something bafflingly stupid. Once that "minor" problem is solved, unmanned vehicles suddenly become quite practical, but until that point, the need to have a human sit there and constantly each micromanage unmanned vehicle over a stable communications channel greatly limits the practical uses of unmanned vehicles to a tiny subset of what manned vehicles are used for.
>>65558933>What would it take to replace main battle tanks with unmanned variants?A reason to do it, more than anything else.Ukraine and Russia have both fielded remote-controlled tanks full of explosives, half the west have a drone tank proposal that gets trotted out at MIC fairs.The enabling technologies all exist, most of the problems are either integration or practicalities.>>65559341>What value are you getting out of making it unmanned?Aside from not losing crew, if you replace the crew compartments with something like spaced layered composite armour, you could probably make it way harder to kill than it currently is.Add in those ejectable optics that someone has, move the treads inwards slightly and have a heavy skirt, it would take much more to kill it than present.
>>65559379>Americans need high tech boondoggle wonder waffles to justify not paying money to grieving familiesNGMI
>>65559626You're the one calling a drone tank a wonder waffle. For Americans it would just be another tank.
>>65559651It was a joke about Russian government not paying out to begin with.
>>65559656Apologies.
>>65559656>>65559669I almost replied saying how only Russia would see death benefits as the reason to research uncrewed vehicles.Then I worked out that it was a joke.
>>65558933Any crewed system can be unmanned if you simply redefine what qualifies as human. Westoids are literally decades behind in this field.
>>65558933Reliable and flexible autoloaders.
>>65558933Sensors good enough to replace a set of human eyes inside which don't exist. No, plastering the outside in cameras with no sense of depth and which will be destroyed from regular driving can't replace human eyes and periscopes.And you'd also need to figure out a way to get the vehicle to unstuck itself every time it throws a track. Sure you could have a maintanance crew driving behind in an APC, but that means you nees to rebuild your entire logistical capability to fit and maintain twice as many vehicles.
>>65562945The answer is packing some remote-controlled field maintenance robots into the tank, no?
>>65562945>And you'd also need to figure out a way to get the vehicle to unstuck itself every time it throws a trackWhy not a recovery robot?>Sure you could have a maintanance crew driving behind in an APCJust use a babusia on a bike.
>>65558940The return of the teletank!
>>65562945>which will be destroyed from regular drivingdon't by cheap chinese shit. cameras are practically solid-state, you can make them as rugged as you want, short of the cover glass getting sandblasted.
