Quote:
Originally Posted by Suhiir
It's rather amusing watching the main guns on western tanks get progressively larger and larger.
37 > 75 > 90 > 105 > 120 > ?
The question is when do we hit the point where armor-mobility-internal ammo supply dictate "stop".
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You forgot the 50mm range (German 5cm guns, British 6-pdr)
It could be argued, that in terms of caliber, not much have happened since the 1950ies. After all, British, German and US tanks all had guns in the 90mm range in 1945 (84mm, 88mm, 90mm) and the Germans were toying with the idea of a 105mm tank gun in 1944/45. IIRC first US projects involving a 105mm tank gun was in 1950, the British about the same time and both the US M103 and the British Conqueror sported 120mm guns in the early 1950ies.
So it could be said that in terms of firepower, the West have just been fiddling for the last 60 years
The Russians have probably shown the way forward, if you want a bigger gun - you need to use the entire turret for gun and ammo and use an autoloader. Which again moves us back 60 years to some of the 1950ies diesel-punk designs sporting unmanned turrets and autoloaders