CTA Cannons - Future Tank Weaponry

cta cans are one of the more interesting weapon types to come out in recent years despite how simple they are unlike other can types that i've covered before they don't have some newfangled type of propulsion with railguns and clg guns being the first things that come to mind no cta cannons don't use plasma injectors liquid hydrogen or magnetic rails just conventional solid propellant in that case what makes them special cta stands for case telescope ammunition meaning that the projectile is either partially or fully encased in the propellant bed while this ammunition type does give a pretty marginal increase in muzzle velocity that isn't what makes it so attractive one of the primary draws for case telescope ammunition is how much space it saves by embedding the projectile in the propellant the shell's overall length is greatly reduced that space still has to go somewhere though so while case telescoped ammunition is shorter it is also wider this is seen as an overall positive since longer rounds are more difficult to store and load that is one of the reasons that historically militaries tend to favor stubbier rounds when longer rounds with more muscle velocity are available possibly the greatest draw for case telescope ammunition is that it facilitates a very specific kind of odd loading mechanism this mechanism is known as a swing breach it's pretty much exactly what it sounds like the breach is essentially just a tube that can pivot along its center when the gunner wants to load around the breech swings open and around is pushed into it the breach then snaps back into line with the barrel and the round is fired the breach then swings back into the load position and a new round is inserted the new round pushes the spent casing from the old round out of the breech not only is this a very simple form of autoloading but it's incredibly fast and reliable this makes cta cans ideal for applications that require high rate of fire and high muzzle velocity such as for ifvs or anti-air defenses a carousel indexing system is typically part of the autoloading system these systems can also be dual feed i said the case telescoped ammunition was something that came out recently but that's not entirely true air force researchers pioneered the concept in 1954. it wasn't until the 70s that the concept was explored in greater detail aries incorporated was contracted to make a weapon system utilizing case telescope ammunition which resulted in the 75 millimeter cannon but this one had a sliding breach mechanism this turned out to be pretty unreliable and generally unsatisfactory so a cannon with the swing breach mechanism was designed to take its place this cannon could fire up to two rounds per second both typically set to fire one round per second for use in test vehicles a few ammo types were developed for the cannon apf sds high explosive multipurpose and a number of training variants the apfs ds round could penetrate about as much armor as the newly produced m774 round which was in service with the 105 m68 in one test the round was able to penetrate 430 millimeters this was not quite up to the standards that had been set though it was thought that with an advanced fire control system and its high rate of fire the cannon could strike the same spot on an armored plate multiple times essentially degrading the armor to the point of failure this was deemed insufficient so a 90 millimeter version began development the 75 mm can was mounted on a decent number of vehicles including the highmag test vehicle the hstvl the rdflt and the lav the british military even thought about mounting the cannon to the chassis of a striker the cannon very nearly went into service but ultimately it was deemed too weak to take on heavy sewed armor two prototypes for a 90 mm version were made but the project didn't go any further so if cta cans are so promising why are they only starting to resurface now well despite their advantages they also have a number of drawbacks i mentioned the case telescope ammunition typically has higher muzzle velocities but that's not because it's more efficient or anything in fact it's actually the opposite not only do case telescope shells offer more volume for propellant but their propellant is more dense as well this means that for case telescoped ammo it usually has around two to three times the propellant weight of a conventional shell all this extra propellant results in at most around a 10 increase in muzzle velocity it also means that the barrel will heat up much faster this excess heat is both short-term and long-term effects it obviously means you can't fire as many rounds back to back you'll need to let the barrel cool down a bit in the long term it means that the barrel is going to need replacing much sooner cta cans are also much more expensive than regular cannons now it should go without saying but an autoloading can is going to be more expensive from the get-go however case telescoping mission is itself more expensive for a few reasons it uses more materials and has a much more complicated manufacturing process the aries program alone cost over 100 million dollars and didn't even end up producing a service gun with all that in mind it begs the question why are cta can starting to resurface now well it's pretty simple they probably fixed the main issues ways to extend the barrel life of cta cans are already being explored 40 years ago and since then the cost of manufacturing has probably gone down substantially the british ajax ifv is set to use a 40 mm cta cannon which was developed by cta international a joint british and french venture case telescope demo has also seen some experimentation in small arms recently but as i always say it's unknown if any of these projects will result in anything that's pretty much all there is to say at the moment so as always i hope you guys enjoyed the video and i'll see you on the next one [Music] you

Channel: Spookston

Views: 88,763

Rating: 4.9682665 out of 5

Keywords: history, video, game, commentary, ww2, mechs, walkers, tanks vs mechs, science fiction tanks, future tanks, tank history, mech vs tank, main battle tank, everything wrong with, if war thunder was historically accurate, spookston, pc, pc gaming, railgun, future tank, future mbt, tank cannon, future weapon, wh40k mechanicus ost, everything wrong with spookston, etc cannon, cta cannon, cased telescoped ammunition, hstv-l war thunder, war thunder 1.101, tank engineering, railgun tank

Id: b1g1Mi101sg

Length: 5min 23sec (323 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 12 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/V43xV1CT15]

We need more vehicle stuff in general. So yes please.

[u/Marxman1313]

Maybe not for PS2 because balance, but with an eventual PS3 I could definitely see it being something the TR might use in a faction specific light tank or something, would add a bit more flare than just another minigun and that's something I've always wanted to see in PS2 with the factions. More faction flavor in the forms of empire specific vehicles using more modern technology that is so advanced it comes off as scifi or futuristic, which seems to be something that would cater well to planetside's sort of hard scifi aesthetic and themes where we're still using a lot of tech resembling cold war moderns with a more industrial scifi aesthetic in terms of vehicles and buildings. Basically between the TR's super conservative nature, the peace time and the brutal war before it our super advanced civilizations aern't so advanced for their time, which while pretty cool you'd think after all the time we've been at war, developing weapons and especially NS developing them for profit with no risk stuff like this might come about.