Next Gen Tank Gun? How about 140mm!

Thanks to John John Slade for the link!

via Janes.

Nexter has fit a 140 mm gun on a Leclerc main battle tank (MBT) to gather data for the Franco-German Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) programme to replace it and the Leopard 2, Jane's learned at the International Armoured Vehicles (IAV) 2019 conference held in London on 21-24 January.

This is understood to be the first time that a 140 mm gun has been successfully integrated onto a 50-tonne MBT and conducted over 200 firings. It is expected to provide a 70% increase in firepower over a NATO standard 120 mm gun.

Nexter has resurrected past efforts to develop a 140 mm main weapon to establish which firepower solutions are best suited to meet the MGCS requirement.

Wow.

I've been waiting for armor development to pick up pace but this is craziness.  The Chinese have supposedly tested a 140mm gun and now Nexter is showing that it can do it too.

Where does this lead us?

I can't help but think that IF 140mm guns become the standard then not only are we gonna see the weight of MBTs increase but the desperation to knock them out. 

Everything will spiral.

I would expect rotary UAVs to proliferate.  Not the small ones but AH-1Z sized.  Could we see an effort at making A-10's unmanned so they could go out and hunt these behemoths before they get in range of friendly forces?

Additionally I think armor will have to increase.  The idea of a tank approaching 100 tons won't be considered insane anymore.  Neither will the idea of an IFV knocking on the door of the "old" MBT weights.  I'm talking about IFVs hitting 70 tons and no one batting an eyelash.

I wonder if there is another way.  Rail guns on MBTs?  From what I understand its about energy generation so that's probably a no go.  Hypervelocity guns like the 60mm that the Israelis once placed on Shermans?  I don't know if anyone has worked on the tech since then.  A rebirth of a modernized LOSAT? Yeah I could see that. But!  We'd have to package it much differently than we did previously.

This should be interesting.

I've been critical of the unmanned vehicle theorists.  The reason is that we've seen that it could work for the longest time but the military never bit.  From the Crusher to the Terramax, if we wanted it we could have had it.

It seems like a future battlefield will be so lethal that we might start off manned and end up unmanned just because of the carnage.

Exciting and a bit concerning.  The future will be a sight to behold.