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High Survivability Test Vehicle - Lightweight

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Object  HSTV-L

Description

Fun Fact:
The High Survivability Test Vehicle - Lightweight, shortened to HSTV-L, was a light tank project that was developed in the 1970's and 1980's. It was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and built by the AAI Corporation. The prototype was completed in September 1979 and began field trials soon after. After the field trials the HSTV-L was used for testing of the fire control system (FCS) with different stabilization algorithms tested as well as the hunter-killer sights. The HSTV-L was not chosen for production by the Army or the Marine Corps and was cancelled in 1981. It was later developed into the Rapid Deployment Force Light Tank (RDF/LT).


General:
The HSTV-L design was based around an incredibly low profile hull and turret with very shallow angles on the frontal portion, in order to deflect projectiles fired at it. The HSTV-L had a crew of 3, with the driver and gunner side by side in the hull front and the commander in the left side of the turret, all of whom sat semi-reclined. All 3 crew members had the ability to fire the gun and both the gunner and driver's position could drive the vehicle. The vehicle had a length of 8.528 m with gun forward and the hull had a length of 5.918 m. The height was only 2.414 m including the equipment on the turret roof, being 1.994 m to the top of the turret and 1.422 m to the top of the hull. The width was 2.794 meters. The vehicle had a combat weight of 14.5 tonnes or up to 17.0 tonnes when equipped with an appliqué armor package. During testing the HSTV-L was fitted with additional equipment for data collection and weighed 20.45 tonnes. The HSTV-L could be airlifted, underslung, by a CH-53 Sea Stallion helicopter when at the weight of 14.5 tonnes.


Mobility and Power:
The HSTV-L was propelled by a 650 horsepower (485 kilowatt) Avro-Lycoming gas turbine powerplant and an Allison X-300-4A transmission with four forward and two reverse gears. The transmission had a torque converter. There were five road wheels on each side and the tracks were 450 mm wide. The suspension was built by National Water Lift, being hydropneumatic but not variable; in other words the height could not be adjusted. The ground clearance of the HSTV-L was 0.508 m. The HSTV-L could pivot in place while in neutral gear, and it carried a fuel load of 409 liters giving it a cruising range of 160 km. It could accelerate from 0 to 48 kph in 11.8 seconds and had a maximum speed of 83.68 km/h.

In addition to the main propulsion system there were two 250 ampere generators providing auxiliary power as well as a 60 gpm hydraulic pump. The hydraulic pump was used to power an oil cooler fan mounted in the engine compartment as well as the gun control system and automatic loading system.


Armament and FCS:
The main armament of the HSTV-L was an ARES 75 mm XM274 gun mounted in a rotating turret. 26 rounds of ammunition were provided of both depleted-uranium APFSDS-T and multi-fléchette anti-aircraft rounds. The gun was loaded by an automatic loading system which provided the HSTV-L with a high rate of fire.

Secondary armament was provided by a coaxial 7.62 mm M240 machine gun and a second 7.62 mm M240 machine gun pintle-mounted on the commander's cupola. A total of 3,200 rounds of 7.62 mm ammunition was split between the two machine guns.

The turret could rotate a full 360 degrees at a speed of 57 degrees per second. The gun could elevate 45 degrees but the depression depended on which direction the turret faced; over the front the gun could depress 17 degrees, 30 degrees over the side, and 6 degrees over the rear of the vehicle. Manual backup was provided for turret traverse and gun elevation but the rate at which they moved was much slower when manual than with power. The main gun was two-plane stabilized, with both the stabilization and gun control systems having been produced by Cadillac Gage.

The hunter/killer fire control system (FCS) was designed and built by Texas Instruments. The commander received a stabilized commander's independent thermal viewer (CITV) which could rotate independently of the turret and included both TV and thermal imaging. The gunner also received a stabilized sight, though this one was slaved to the gun, which included thermal and TV imaging as well, along with an eye safe CO2 laser rangefinder built by Raytheon. This hunter/killer system allowed the commander to locate a target with the hunter sight. Once a target was located the gunner would use his killer sight to fire on the target while the commander began to search for the next target. The fire control system (FCS) used the sights, crosswind sensor, muzzle reference system, vertical reference system, and laser rangefinder to automatically determine the firing solution, leaving the gunner only to fire the gun. The fully stabilized main gun along with advanced FCS allowed the HSTV-L a high first hit probability and high accuracy on the move.

The driver and gunner are given a screen that displays the imaging of the hunter sight which allows them to operate independently of a vehicle commander if necessary. Theoretically, the HSTV-L could be controlled entirely by only one crew member from either the driver or gunner's position since both had driving and gunnery controls.


By the mid 1970's, the US military initiated a series of studies which looked into the development of new concepts and designs for tanks which combined good firepower and survivability. The latter of which was to be achieved through a smaller size, rather than heavy armor protection.

As at the time, both the US Army and USMC were looking into possible replacements for their M551 Sheridan and M50 Ontos tanks respectively, the two military branches joined forces in a joint research programme dubbed "ARMVAL" (Advanced Antiarmor Vehicle Evaluation). The vehicles developed under this programme would be used as test beds for various new concepts and ideas in an effort to gain new experiences, which would in turn be used in the development of future tank designs.

One of the later products of this experimental programme was the HSTV-L - a compact, lightweight, highly mobile tank design, fitted with an autoloaded 75mm smoothbore cannon, designed to fire kinetic ammunition in short bursts in order to wear down and ultimately defeat composite armor screens. The HSTV-L was built in 1979 and underwent various trials until 1981.

At the start of the 1980's, the 75mm gun was considered inadequate to deal with the most recent Soviet MBTs by the Army, while the USMC questioned the vehicle's effectiveness in amphibious landing operations. This led to the ultimate discontinuation of the collaborative project in 1981.


SOurce: wiki.warthunder.com/HSTV-L
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