Tsunami wrote:
Contrary to popular movies like James Bond, XXX (the 2nd one), and Rambo III. Most modern armor have at least a driver, gunner and TC. the Abrams also has a loader, whcih most western (NATO) tanks still do. I think driving, firing and loading is certainly impossible all from one station.
This. Oh, and my favorite goofy tank movie ever was The Beast, with Jason Patric and one of the Baldwin Brothers, I don't remember which one. Somehow, they had
four people inside a T-72, which in real life can barely hold three
SMALL people. Seriously, the Soviet Army had a height limit for tank crewmen.
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I always saw the Mauler as incorporating an autolader feature, as that was popular in "future force" projections/conjectures at the time (mid-80's) as well as the low profile turret, which would give it a crew of three. but, how many hatches does it have?
It looks like three confirmed, and what may be a fourth (top of turrent, right side). there is certainly a TC hatch up top, and a driver hatch in front. One may assume that the other front hull hatch is a gunner station, but why it would not be incorporated in the turret is beyond me. maybe it is the TC hatch up front, and the gunner is in the turret, or there is a crew of 5 jammed down there with three in the turret and two in the forward hull.
Personally I lean toards the crew of three with the TC and driver forward, and the gunner in the turret, with superior optics and situational sensors augmenting the TC to compensate for his static position.
The Mauler is actually much closer in design to the ATGS than the Abrams, and the crew were all seated in the hull, with an auto loader, and the turret controlled from without. The thing that finally sunk the ATGS was an inescapable fact the Russians have known for thirty plus years (but the DoD was going to throw money at until they could make it go away): Autoloaders jam. Period. There is no getting around it. They jam under the best of conditions, much less under field conditions.
