Why don’t the tank install two gun barrels so that the firepower is not stronger? I didn't expect the reason behind it is so complicated

【Military and Martial Plane】: Poplar

Why do tanks nowadays do not have double gun barrels?

"Big, thick, many" This is the most fanatical pursuit of weapon appearance by all men. Since the birth of the toy of the tank, men have been pursuing these three magical modifications. For the sake of larger and larger size, the Germans made rat tanks. For the sake of thicker and thicker caliber, the Soviet Union built the 152 God Cult. For more and more turrets, people once wanted to transform the tank into a land cruiser. In order to have more and more artillery, some people wanted to install the multi-unit cannons on the warships.

▲The more barrels the better?

In reality, many dual main gun tanks have also been manufactured, because theoretically the advantage of dual guns is that their instantaneous firepower is twice as powerful as a single gun. There is no saying: "There is nothing that cannot be solved by one shot. If one shot is not enough, then two shots." Just like the multi-turret god sect at the beginning, the multi-barret god sect took a path that was much more reliable than the former.

▲Early type alliance double-barrel self-propelled artillery

The memory of multi-barrel tanks, in addition to Apocalypse and various contemporary self-propelled anti-aircraft guns, the one that impressed Junwu Jun was the most impressive of a double-barrel tank of MTLS-1. Its two automatic guns were simply a shuttle of "beating kindergartens" in the early crispy tanks. The characteristics of the double main guns were fully reflected.

▲ MTLS-1's double-barrel tank

In the 1970s, a test tank called "VT1" appeared, which many domestically misnamed as "Leopard 3". The early VT1-1 model was manually loaded, and later VT1-2 model was replaced with two new 120mm RH120 smoothbore guns of the same model as Leopard 2. The two main guns were each made of a six-round fully automatic loader. However, the biggest difference from the usual double-barrel gun settings is that the two guns do not shoot interlaced or can shoot two targets separately, but shoot the same target at the same time to pursue instantaneous maximization of power.

▲VT1-1 tank is equipped with two 105 guns like a "shocking"

and load it manually, so the two guns take up a lot of space

Some people say that if a shell cannot penetrate the enemy tank armor, then will the two shells be useless? Of course, the Germans will consider this. It is said that the two cannons fire at the same time, and the shells will hit at a distance of 2,000 meters.At the same point, in order to avoid the collision of two shells, a coordinator with the same principle as the aircraft machine gun coordinator was specially installed, so that the two guns could fire the shells one after another with a particularly weak time difference. The first shot first made a hole in the enemy tank armor, and the second shot drilled into the hole to destroy the tank (real German black technology).

▲VT1-2 type, no turret, no human rights, brother!

Of course, this has extremely high technical requirements for the accuracy of on-board computers, fire control systems, artillery ballistics and gun barrel smelting technology (that is, the Germans dare to do this), and it is very expensive and prone to failure. In the end, they chose the Leopard Tank...

▲Leopard 2 main battle tank

Why can't modern main battle tanks be equipped with two gun barrels?

The first reason is that the space of the overall layout of the tank is not allowed to do this.

▲The space in this turret is quite spacious,

But after careful observation, I know that I can't tolerate the second cannon

The interior space of the tank is very precious. In the small size, not only should people be left with space, but it also needs to accommodate observation, aiming, fire extinguishing and explosion suppression equipment, ammunition racks (automatic loaders), pitch and anti-recoil devices, because there is enough recoil distance for the artillery, and there is still a space behind the main gun.

In this way, if you install another cannon, there will be almost no place for people to stay, especially the caliber of modern tanks is getting bigger and bigger, so there is less room for double gun barrels.

The second reason is that the double-barrel cannot substantially enhance the power of the tank.

The attack power of the tank mainly comes from the power of the artillery to ensure its power. First, we must ensure that it hits, and second, we must ensure that we destroy the target after hitting it. In order to ensure the amount of ammunition delivered and increase the strike density, the naval gun was designed as multiple tubes, and a volley was used to ensure hits.

The reason why volleys can ensure hits is because the guns have a long shooting distance, bent ballistics, unstable launch platform, low hit rate for a single shot, and throwing more ammunition can indeed increase the possibility of hits.

▲Tank guns can be so stable

But tanks are different. The tank basically does not shoot curved shots, but only aims straight. It can be regarded as a super-large sniper rifle. The hit accuracy is very high, and one is enough, so there is no need to do multiple tricks.

If it is made into multiple tubes, in order to make the turret stuffed, the caliber can only be reduced. Even if it can improve the hit rate, two small and medium-caliber cannons are not equal to one large-caliber cannon - two 90, can they be compared with one 125? Obviously not, I can't beat it once, and I can't beat it again...

And with the current level of fire control system,The chance of hitting the tank gun in the first shot is close to 90%. It can be said that the first shot can hit the target, so why do you still need to fire the second shot? Nowadays, installing a cannon just to avoid that 10% accident is obviously not cost-effective.

This is the third reason: the cost issue.

The gun body tube has very high requirements for the hardness and toughness of the material. It is the best among mechanical products, and the cost is naturally not low. The body tube of ordinary tow artillery accounts for a high proportion of the total gun cost. Compared with suppressed artillery, the tank gun's index is higher and the price is even more expensive.

▲Tank main gun materials are expensive, difficult to process, and high cost

Take the British L11 artillery as an example. The price in 1990 was US$227,000 (one tube). The entire set of British L118 howitzers during the same period were only US$328,000. The price of the Challenger Type 1 tank was US$1.5 million, which means that the artillery accounted for about 15% of the tank's cost.

▲British L118 Howitzer

Even if two guns like L11 can be found to be stuffed into the tank, it will undoubtedly greatly increase the cost of the bicycle. And once the tank is damaged, the firepower of the two guns will be lost. Rather than that, why not build two cars?

To sum up, it is difficult to successfully realize a double-barrel tank - the interior space must be large, the action and ammunition supply mechanism must be simple and compact, the turret must rotate and pitch quickly, and the country is still rich enough... Only by solving these problems can the double-barrel tank appear.