I said, such systems (in reference to CROWS), which are remotedly operated and with full stabilisation. Sorry if missunderstood.
Let me explain. Since 80s Soviet tanks (T-80UD, later T-90) had fully stabilised remotedly operated weapons system.
M1A1 machine gun had limited capability and no stabilisation. M1A2's could not be operated from inside at all. Both aquired the capability of T-80, T-90 only recently.
CWS was not stabilized yes, but it was good in what it was designed for. Not to mention that they were actually two generations of CWS in 1980's, the simple and somewhat problematic CWS in M1, and a much more improved and better CWS in M1A1.
As for stabilization, You need to understand the context, Dr. Phillip Lett from the beggining of the M1 program could use many advanced features developed for MBT-70 and XM803. For example CIV for TC with remotely controlled machine gun, something similiar in concept to CITV used in T-90MS. But the congress said no.
Congress demanded to develop tank with as smallest costs as possible, it was a success but designers needed to choose a Block improvement approach. This means that during vehicle production and service, they needed to add each improvement as increment for each new Block. The fact is that original plan said that Block II or M1A1 would be more or less in the same configuration as today M1A2, but in 1985, however there were delays in development of some components like CITV, so the originally planned Block II variant today known as M1A2 appeard not in 1985 but in 1992, 7 years after planned induction.
This is an example how economic reasons and politicians can kill a good program... fortunetly M1 program was not killed but only delayed in progress.
Why are you telling me this ?? Such developements were carried in many countries, difference lies in implementation in service.
Not exactly. The American developments were more or less ready to be inducted in to service, just like autoloaders. However Armed Forces were not sure what they really want, because both human loader and autoloader have their strong and weak sides.
There was a strong change that somewhere in WWII Americans would start to manufacture tank with autoloader, however decision was made to concentrate all efforts on manufacturing as many M4 tanks as possible and after the war pursue new designs. Sad but understandable.
But it is redundancy in systems which makes it more expensive, heavy and vulnerable. There is no need for additional systems when it can be operated by commander from available sight. In modern Leopard there is also ability to operate secondary armament from panoramic sight.
AFAIK FLW series on upgraded Leopard 2 tanks, at least the German ones, cannot be operated by use of PERI. However I might be wrong.
So currently only Russians and Ukrainians use RWS systems directly connected to TC panoramic sight.
They tested only individual systems (for example dummy "missile" to test guidance system). They never actually made a working example.
AFAIK Rytheon was near end of testing the whole system.
Yes AKE = M829A4, AMP = new multipurpose programmable ammunition to replace M830, M830A1, M908 and M1208.
No Akim, this is AMX-50 from 1950's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMX-50
