DARPA seeks high-tech alternatives to armor

[frigidmagi]

gizmag

As a quick visit to any armored division will make obvious, tanks are big ... really big. A Challenger 2 main battle tank, for example, weighs 62.5 tonnes (68.9 tons) and costs about £4.2 million (US$7 million). And as anti-tank weapons get better, tanks can only get bigger. To avoid armies of tomorrow having to pay for land-going battleships, DARPA’s Ground X-Vehicle Technology (GXV-T) program aims at developing lighter, more agile successors to the tank that protect themselves with more than ever-thicker walls of steel.

Ever since the first tank took to the battlefield during the First World War, there’s been an arms race between gunnery and armor. Some of the first tanks weren't much larger than a modern SUV, yet they produced a revolution in warfare that continues to dominate strategic thinking to this day. Over the years, the guns used to fight tanks became bigger and were then augmented with rockets and missiles, and tank designers responded with thicker armor, composites like Chobham, reactive armor, and even electric countermeasures to detonate warheads before they make contact.

The result of this is a spiral of larger weapons, leading to larger tanks, leading to larger weapons until the mainline tanks of today have become behemoths so large they can only be travel on certain roads and bridges, are very difficult to deploy in a timely manner, and are so expensive to develop, build, and maintain that only fighter planes rival them in cost. If this goes on, tanks could one day become so heavy and costly that they’ll no longer be practical to field. To prevent this, DARPA wants to not just produce a more advanced tank, but one that moves away from relying so heavily on armor for survival.

"GXV-T’s goal is not just to improve or replace one particular vehicle – it’s about breaking the ‘more armor’ paradigm and revolutionizing protection for all armored fighting vehicles," says Kevin Massey, DARPA program manager. "Inspired by how X-plane programs have improved aircraft capabilities over the past 60 years, we plan to pursue groundbreaking fundamental research and development to help make future armored fighting vehicles significantly more mobile, effective, safe and affordable."

GXV-T is intended to pursue technologies that move away from armor with the goal of making tanks 50 percent smaller, needing crews half the present size, able to move at double the present speed, make them capable of operating over 95 percent of the terrain, and make them harder to detect and engage. What this amounts to is finding ways to build tanks that can barrel around the battlefield like off-road rally cars, can dodge incoming fire rather than standing and taking it, reposition its armor to its most effective angle, provide the crews with full situational awareness similar to that afforded fighter pilots, and make them stealthy against both infrared and electromagnetic detection.

To achieve this, DARPA is soliciting blue-sky thinking and new technologies. The agency says that it hopes to see new GVX-T technologies emerge two years after the first contracts, which are slated to be awarded in April next year. These contracts include the development of subsystems in a number of areas, so the new technologies can be fast-tracked into demonstrators.

DARPA tries to kill the tank every couple of years... I'm not sure what the tank did to them.

[Batman]

So how is a vehicle supposed to dodge a projectile coming in at several times the speed of sound?

[Josh]

So how is a vehicle supposed to dodge a projectile coming in at several times the speed of sound?

I'd expect that it's more in dodging the aim rather than the projectile enroute. Being too fast to get a solid bead on.

As for what the tank did to DARPA, it has to do with high school, locker rooms, and wet towels. Very traumatic stuff.

[Batman]

DARPA is just butthurt because nobody went with their forward-swept wing concept.

[LadyTevar]

No, you have to understand. DARPA wants to kill the tanks so they can have their Giant Mecha Fights.

[Josh]

No, you have to understand. DARPA wants to kill the tanks so they can have their Giant Mecha Fights.

Um.

Go DARPA in that case.

[Josh]

DARPA is just butthurt because nobody went with their forward-swept wing concept.

Hey, if the preeminent global counterterrorism task force isn't good enough, then nothing is.



As a kid I wondered why they didn't do a swing-wing version that could run from forward-swept to fully retracted back. As a grownup I learned that swing-wings were such a maintenance nightmare that the military response to the Soviets figuring them out was "Good riddance, have fun with that."

[White Haven]

Which is a shame, because the F-14 was a fucking sweet-looking bird.

[Batman]

I'm...not sure that 'sweet' is the word I would use. Yes, the Turkey had a certain charm, the same way the Rhino did, and the ability to kill enemy aircraft 200km away certainly didn't hurt, but visually, the Tomcat actually didn't look all that hot. The angled engine intakes made it look like the main fuselage was caving in from the front.

[Lys]

The angled engine intakes give the Tomcat a more sinuous bird-like look. If anything it's a selling point not a defect. I mean, look at this beauty, she's gorgeous!

[Josh]

Tomcats were beauts.

My fave is still the opposing angles on the F-4, even though that thing was an ugly brick to fly.



Purty.



Another purty F-4.



When the Navy saw how ugly this F-4 was they recycled the designation to a more aesthetically pleasing bird.

[General Havoc]

I dunno, I'm kinda with Batman on this one. Tomcats are lovely planes, but their lines are simply not that nice, given those enormous damned intakes blocking everything up.

Now, the Falcon on the other hand...

[Lys]

I can't say I'm all that fond of the Viper, but then I never really liked light fighters in general. Fuck Boyd and the Fighter Mafia, twin engine, high speed, high altitude is where it's at. Just take a look at this, it's what total air dominance looks like:




(Though I will note the Viper is a very good fighter, in great part because it's not what the lunatic Boyd actually wanted.)

[Batman]

It's what air dominance looked like thirty years ago.


Much prettier and more performant.


Definitely prettier.


Why is it Germany can't build combat aircraft that are actually attractive anymore?

[Lys]

It's what air dominance looked like thirty years ago.

Nope, it's what it looked like 10 years ago too, it wasn't until the F-22 came into service in 2005 that the Eagle was unseated as the world's premier air superiority fighter. That said, the Flanker and its many variants are sexy, sexy looking planes. I have no problem saying that in terms of aesthetics and acrobatic capabilities it's the superior aircraft to the Eagle. The Rafale though? I like it a lot and I keep giggling at the fact that it seems out outperform the Eurofighter at every turn, but it's not a looker by any means.

[Batman]

The Su-27 was already the Starship's equal when it came out back in the 1980s and the followup models definitely surpassed the F-15. Like hell the Starship was still the premiere air superiority fighter in '04.

And I'm sorry, you have to be delusional to think the F-15 looks better than the Rafale.

[Lys]

In a close-in dogfight Flankers have a definite advantage over Eagles, and the Su-30MKI will just flat out destroy the F-15 in a visual range engagement. The problem is that close-in dogfights are not what win wars these days, by the time you get to that part there will have been heavy attrition from beyond visual range missile fire and the Eagle has the edge there on account of superior missiles and avionics. A visual range engagement is just clean-up after that point. Additionally thanks to its considerably higher flight ceiling and speed advantage the F-15 is generally able to dictate the terms of engagement, which makes it more difficult for the Su-30 to press its advantage.

And Delta wings just don't do it for me man.

[Josh]

And Delta wings just don't do it for me man.

Not even this sweet thing?

[Lys]

The Delta Dart might just be the exception, but I have a huge weak spot for the whole Century Series. What I wouldn't give for an Ace Combat game that actually lets me fly them!

[Josh]

What I love about the Delta Dart is it looks like a fifties concept for a a science fiction jet fighter. All sharp angles.

[Josh]

It's an ugly fucking bird, but I've always had a weird affection for the Scorpion.

Maybe it's because I built a model of one when I was a kid.

[LadyTevar]

SO.. when did this stop being about ARMOR, and turn into a Best Airplane pissing contest?

[Lys]

It was always a Best Fighter Plane pissing contest. The armour discussion was like the Ugly Duckling, merely the thread in its lesser infant stage. You can see it grow into its beautiful true form as the discussion develops.

[rhoenix]

I'm going to get called a heretic for this, and I know this in advance. I also don't care.

The evolution of fighter aircraft over the past few decades is glorious to watch. To this day however, I haven't seen anything really compete with the look of the SR-71 Blackbird. It may have been rolled into surveillance and spycraft work more or less by default due to the technology available at the time, and it may have quite a few other issues with that design, but in my mind, it still holds the title of looking like one of the best aircraft ever designed.

[Lys]

The only reason the A-12 platform wasn't used as a fighter is that SecDef McNamara was a dipshit and refused to release the funding Congress allocated for 93 F-12 interceptors. Then because he was the vindictive sort of dipshit he also had all the associated machinery and tooling destroyed. Technological limitations had nothing to do with it. In fact the YF-12 prototype flew over a year before the SR-71 did. Here's a picture of the original A-12 - which was actually superior to the SR-71 - then one a YF-12 with an AIM-47 Falcon.