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The future combat scenario will undergo a sea change as compared to the conventional and un-conventional warfare employed by the traditional armies and non-state actors. In such a scenario, the main battle tank which serves as a game changer during these conflicts has to face the dilemma whether its design should be either evolutionary or revolutionary. To determine the basis of selecting the right type of design based on the above, the broad parameters that define the configuration namely number of crew, weight, armament system, survivability, operating range, transportability, tactical mobility, trafficability, intelligence - surveillance - target acquisition - reconnaissance (ISTAR), system modularity and theatre of operation have been considered. Taking these parameters into account, this study evaluates both the evolutionary and revolutionary design configurations for a generation next main battle tank. Finally, from the outcome of this study it is observed that the revolutionary design approach not only fares better compared to the evolutionary approach, but also possess ease of adaptiveness as an universal combat weapon platform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effectiveness of honeycomb sandwich structure in an MBT hull through a Finite Element Analysis based study. Two hulls, one with steel floor plate and the other with a honeycomb-sandwich floor plate made of aluminium alloy were modelled. Both these hull models were subjected to the same loads and boundary conditions and the resulting stress and deformation results are discussed and compared. It was observed that although the honeycomb sandwich floor plate did undergo higher stress and deformation compared to the steel floor plate, the values were within safe design limits. In addition to this, using these honeycomb structure would result in a substantial mass saving as found from the study. Finally, this paper also covers the practical difficulties associated with incorporating honeycomb structures in MBT hull construction and recommends future courses of investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]