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Comment by dreen | Hacker News Reader

None of these articles seem to mention WHY the tanks are designed this way (although I admit I just searched for keywords).

As far as I know, it is because the current gen of Russian tanks were designed for how they envisioned WW3 40 years ago [1]. Basically the tanks would follow nuclear strikes, and making humans load the ammunition would make them die a lot quicker from radiation, so they made an autoloader.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Days_to_the_River_Rhine

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The suggestion from this source[1] is that an autoloader makes the tank much smaller (harder to hit). He also claims being smaller makes them cheaper to produce. The intended use case was going to be somewhere in Europe, only 2-3 days from factory to front line. They were designed in an era before smart weapons. No amount of refactoring/refreshing on the current chassis is going to allow you to refactor out such a fundamental design choice.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/86aeL6xY0PQ

I don't know if I buy that, I find it a lot more likely to be because russian tanks are significantly smaller than their western counter parts. I think it's a space saving measure.

How does loading ammunition make humans die quicker from radiation?

Possibly that the higher number of crew & higher average effort means the internal resources can not last as long, and thus the NBC seal has to be broken sooner?

According to the wiki, an autoloader also improves smoke removal, which would also help maintain a safe NBC-isolated interior space.

It doesn't, the autoloader is right in the crew compartment (which is the whole problem with munition cook offs killing the crew and ejecting the turret). The thing that keeps NBC out while the breech is open for loading is positive air pressure inside the tank.

This argument only makes sense if the turret is entirely unmanned.

This argument only makes sense if the entire tank is unmanned..

The article I read it in (in independent Polish press, cannot find it now) said physical exertion makes you more susceptible to radiation, and cited figures around the weight of shells which are apparently quite heavy.

Maybe the turret has less shielding..? Or maybe it was really to enable DU rounds.

The difference seems to be capacity of crew. With an autoloader crew is down to 3, Russians opt to have 4 crew and a cheaper per unit tank. To the Russian Army soldiers have always been expendable.

? Russian tanks are the ones with autoloaders and 3 crew... Of the modern NATO tanks only the French use autoloaders and 3 crew, US and German tanks are 4 crew.

And French tanks have been using autoloaders since before WW2 (back then it was partly to offset demographic problems).

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