Guardian Tank/profile

## Overview

Guardian Tank（Allies: MBT-X8 'Guardian' Tank / 'Wächter' Panzer）

Designation: Anti-Armor Tank

National Origin: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Designer: General Dynamics/Vickers Company

Manufacturer: General Dynamics/General Motors/Vickers Company

Mass-Produced at: Armor Facility

Key Features:

>>L7A1 105mm rifled gun

>>The second generation Chobham armor (unconstrained ceramics)

>>Complete fire control and observation and aiming equipment (including Digital Fire Control Computer, Up-reflection Image-stable Fire Control System, Panoramic Optical Sight and Infrared Thermal Imaging System,etc)

>>Hard braid-shape antenna with crosswind sensor ×2(using double encryption communication)

>>Large laser target designator with integrated detector (accessed to TADIL war zone digital information chain)

>>A folding toilet and a small electric stove for heating black tea drinks

## Background

For many capitalist countries at the end of the 19th century, the proletarian revolution in Russia was not a earthshaking event compared with the spreading chaos in the central part of the European continent at that time. After all, even the most insightful European strategists didn't expect that the Soviet Russia, which had completed several five-year industrial plans in succession, could become a giant bear for Western Europe, licking its paws and eyeing the old world.

The flourishing Soviet Union had strong hostility to Western European countries and Edenia on the opposite side of the earth. If it is said that the last bastion of liberal capitalism is separated by the Celestial territory on the other side of Siberia and Bering Strait, then the ruling parties in Western Europe are the revisionists who compromise with the bourgeoisie - this is Fontainebleau's prediction of Moscow's attitude. Although this is only the result of the worst case, and in fact, under the guidance of dialectics, the Soviet Union did not intend to level western Europe directly, but only planned to eliminate capitalism, but for the leadership of Western Europe, there was no difference between the two. What's more, no matter what form of hostility the Soviet Union and its allies will take, the mysterious superpower that has been handed down for thousands of years will inevitably step in to seek the best interests, and no one wants to know the consequences.

Just as hundreds of years ago, when the Scourge of God came, the nations of the free world had to unite again, and a brand-new alliance was reborn in such a context: West Germany near the hinterland of Europe, Dominica as far away as the Caribbean, as small as Belgium next to the North Sea, and even the United States on the other side of the ocean, all participated in it - they were allies from all over the world. Their troops are invincible eagles of freedom.

However, of course, many members of the Allies can not and have no reason be absolutely homogenized: the different geographical and development history has created a complex and diverse national political and economic system and military guiding ideology, and thus formed two battalions with different styles - Edenia and Rhin.

The former takes the United States of Edenia (USE) as the core. The absolute dominator of this new continent as the rear of the whole alliance has superior resources and environment conditions and relatively stable environment. At the same time, the United Kingdom (UK), which leads the British Federation, is jointly responsible for the comprehensive deployment and unified management of many scattered forces of the Allied forces and small overseas countries. Thus, most of its troops tend to be scientific, technological and mobile, and have strong points in both air and sea services. Edenia's support to the European countries is all-round support including economy, politics, resources, science and technology, and has always maintained its suppression on the Soviet Union on the other side of the Arctic Ocean. However, in fact, the focus of the United States is not on the European war, and some people at its top even think that frequent communication with "potential Bolsheviks who are superstitious about nationalization" is not a good idea. But, in the final analysis, compared with the name and influence of the "United States of Edenia", the name and influence of the Allied forces, or the "Edenian part of the Allied forces", may make Celestial Empire and the extremely eastern island country that followed its orders slightly converge in the Pacific Ocean. Moreover, this country, which is supported by France and endowed with cultural connotation by Germany, can not see the source of western culture engulfed in red after all.

The latter is called "Entente du Rhin / Rheinentente", which is dominated by Germany and France, namely the "European countries" mentioned many times above that always facing the giant bear of Soviet. The military headquarters of the Entente is located in Fontainebleau. The purpose of its establishment is to curb the possible attacks of the Soviet Union at any time. Therefore, most of its troops need to be composed of units with strong firepower and high protection. The whole system is mainly based on ground defense, supplemented by navy and air force, which is responsible for operational support or hot spot clearance. Compared with other regions, the European continent is obviously not conducive to the stable existence and development of science and technology groups, which also leads to the fact that Rhine's army cannot equip large-scale high-tech equipment that needs precise maintenance and rear support. Fortunately, the Future Technology Company (FTC) branch in Bern, Switzerland, and Ententenweltraum Organization (EWO) / Agency Spatial Entente (ASE) of Aachen, Germany, are still providing essential technical support. Due to the turbulent situation in recent years and the influence of the special existence of Deutsche Sozialistische Republik (DSR), the countries in Rhine region had to consider the working class which was still powerful. Therefore, compared with the capitalist group on the other side of the ocean which ignored peoples, they are more inclined to cooperate with Scandinavian Kingdom, which has a strong aerospace industrial foundation and related scientific research facilities, to build the Allied Orbital Defense System (AODS). However, considering the steady flow of aid loans from Edenia which made good reputation in the minds of some people in Europe, and the fact that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) of Edenia is the only one within the Allies that can stand up to the National Space Administration Sinarum (NSAS) .Rhine and Northern Europe finally agreed that the AODS project should be led by NASA.

In a word, for whatever purpose and consideration, the Allies represented by Rhine and Edenia did stand under the same banner and accept the unified leadership of the Supreme Council of the Allied forces and its subordinate organs. For the original purpose of the alliance, which is to deal with the possible or inevitable "self-defense" operations, the Defense Commission deployed a number of systematic actions in order to gather the strength of the alliance as much as possible, so that the Allied forces from all over the world can realize the standardization and unification of equipment and training. They hope to greatly enhance the cooperative combat ability of the armed forces of various countries, and Finally, the "Allied forces" will be truly integrated, or at least the scattered forces will be gathered under the jurisdiction of a large faction.

This is a difficult task. The Commission's attempts include, but are not limited to, the unification of weapon and equipment models, the common use of combat communication systems, the holding of joint command exercises, and so on. The concept of global combat command system, which was first proposed by Celestial Empire, has helped a lot in this respect. The demand threshold of the combination of mobile construction technology and global combat command systematization gives the Council sufficient reasons to carry out their plans, and at the same time to calm down many specific requirements of various countries. But even so, there is still room for competition among established groups of big powers with seats on the Supreme Council, such as the right to design and manufacture usable units in mobile operations that need to be entered into the global combat command system.

At most, there are no more than half a hundred units, corresponding equipments and their auxiliary equipment groups that can be input into the combat command system and the mobile construction combat system, and ultimately become universal in the world. Excessive redundancy will lead to the significant weakening of the superiority and reliability of this combat system. Being selected can prove the strong strength of its military scientific research and usher in the promotion of international status, and the rush of orders can bring about remarkable economic benefits. Moreover, because the selection means that in the future, it will become the dependence of many mobile construction forces of the allies to fight with the enemy, and there is little room for compromise in the quality and performance of the related project products.

This irreconcilable contradiction in demand eventually led to the emergence of different equipment systems within the Allies, which is most reflected in the famous MBT-X8 "Guardian" project.

Yes, there is no consensus within the Allies on the choice of ground main battle vehicles: Rhine generals generally believe that armored vehicles need to have the ability to face the tide of iron - heavier armor and greater firepower, while mobility seems to be less important in defensive operations, or less important than the first two. However, for the United Kingdom on the other side of the Strait and Edenia on the other side of the ocean, their combat tasks tend to be defensive and counterattack, so they do not need to stick to the heavy armour fort of the front, and high-speed mobile armored vehicles are the inevitable trend of future war.

The M-8 "Grizzly" tank produced by General Motors of the United States is the best embodiment of this kind of combat theory: light armor, high firepower and superior mobility. In contrast, the M-8 was not designed to effectively attack the enemy's heavy tanks - that was the task of the air force. But contrary to Rhine's theory of combat, the European region only has the United Kingdom army, as a hub to maintain the relationship between Edenia and Rhine, to buy and mass equip the "Grizzlies".

This is a typical case of disagreement within the Allied forces. The reason for this is not entirely the difference in operational ideas, but also the difference in interests and demands. In this case, the equipment planning committee is also helpless. After all, they also know that the soldiers in the office can not know better what equipment to use than the soldiers sleeping in the camp tent, so they can only let it go.

However, the difference in the general direction of equipment selection between Rhine and Edenia does not affect their respective adjustment and upgrading of equipment according to intelligence and actual combat situation under the management of the Allied headquarters. After all, no matter what tactics are adopted, if the unit design and manufacturing only focus on the characteristics of the equipment, resulting in the finished products unable to confront the enemy's equipment in active service, that is putting the cart before the horse.

Therefore, when the Soviet Union deployed troops in Siberia, the allied intelligence agencies paid close attention to their specific movements, and even "kindly" reminded the Celestial Empire military department through the embassy. When the conflict between Celestial Empire and the Soviet Union came to an end, the senior allied forces were surprised to find that their technical and equipment advantages, which they had always relied on, seemed to have disappeared. If it was reasonable that Celestial Empire exceeded their expectations, the performance of the Soviet Union this time was really shocking. In addition to all kinds of new tanks and missiles, allied intelligence even suspected that the Soviets had anything more classified than that.

In this case, the Allies had to start the research and development of new equipment in advance. For the Edenia army, they were forced to accept the cold and cruel reality that "Grizzly" could not compete with the Soviet "Hammer", let alone other secret weapons that the Soviet army might have and the new toys that Celestial Empire might appear in a few years' time.

Edenia and the United Kingdom army soon put forward the design requirements of the next generation main battle tank:

1.Standardization and generalization, in order to facilitate each factory mass production, so as to complete the replacement as soon as possible.

2.Good maneuverability: the maximum speed on highway is more than or equal to 40 miles per hour. A single refueling can drive 300 miles continuously.

3.Turret and upper armor that can resist 100 mm armour piercer( at 1000 ft, penetration rate ≤ 90%).

4.Lower production cost: the upper limit of purchase price of single vehicle shall not exceed 140% of grizzly tank.

In view of the difference in demand between the two sides, it is only that the United States Army prefers to use gas turbines rather than traditional diesel engines. In addition, Vickers thinks that it is really impossible for Vickers to come up with a complete design scheme and prototype vehicle in a short 12-month planning time by itself. Therefore, after the cooperation initiative proposed by General Dynamics, Vickers company quickly reached an agreement only for this project with the General Dynamics: the vehicle body and power system of MBT-X8 will be designed by general dynamics, while Vickers will be responsible for the weapon system, electronic equipment, defense equipment and integration of the whole vehicle.

After the comparison of a number of large caliber tank guns from Vickers itself, Danubemetall GmbH (DG) from Germany Kaiserreich, Oto Melara (OM) from Sardinia,  Groupement des Industries de l'Armée de Terre (GIAT) from France and Royal Ordnance (RO) from the United Kingdom, Vickers chose L7A1 105mm rifled gun from Royal Ordnance.

This seemingly mediocre tank gun, oh no, this unique rifled gun was selected as the core of the MBT-X8 project for many reasons: balanced performance, mature design, ready-made production line, high firing accuracy, etc., and the most important production capacity problem - although Rhine's gun technology is recognized as the best in the Allies, if the Allies chooses the European gun, even if the production permission is purchased directly by the Allies, it will take quite a long time for a brand-new production line to enter into full operation. Moreover, Rhine has done its best to fight against the Soviet Union, and had no time to consume its own limited production capacity in order to give back to Edenia. The United Kingdom is well aware of such consequences and risks. Even if the not strong enough relationship between Edenia and Rhine is not taken into account, the situation of "no guns available" due to external trends should never happen.

But in any case, according to reports from several experimental sites, this long barrel tank gun with pure Nelson's blood was undoubtedly the most suitable choice at that time. After comprehensive analysis of the "rich" and even contradictory data sent back by Allied agents from various places, MI6 firmly believes that the equivalent thickness of the front armor of the Soviet Union's newest "Hammer" main battle tank will not exceed 20 inches (500mm); while the APFSDS, which is equipped with L7A1 rifled guns, can penetrate 18 inches (457mm) at 3500 feet (1067m) The penetrate rate of the homogeneous armor plate reaches 96%, which is very close to the worst case predicted by the intelligence department, that is to say, the power of this "English Longbow" is basically enough. In fact, the worst news for the Allies is that many information sources have confirmed that the new Soviet tanks have fully adopted the improved spaced armor, which undoubtedly gives a blow to the high-level Allied forces who originally had great hope for the new type of Armor Piercing Shell and High Explosive Squash Head. Therefore, they decided to immediately develop the next generation of armor piercing projectiles for the 105 mm rifled gun in order to deal with the Soviet Union more effectively Joint armored units.

In addition, since the Edenia army does not favor the autoloader, even though Vickers intends to carry its own self-designed tail cabin autoloader of MBT-X8, it has to cancel the design in consideration of a series of factors including cost, reliability and maintenance convenience.

In terms of defense, Vickers chose the second generation of "Chobham" unconstrained ceramic composite armor, which is very similar to sandwich in structure. Although the cost is quite high, the actual ballistic resistance performance of the special armor is quite excellent. Under the condition of ensuring the reasonable weight of the whole vehicle, the chombam armor can make the MBT-X8 have enough defense capability, especially in the face of a variety of armor piercing projectiles. In the actual test,from individual rocket propelled grenade to HEAT-FS launched by tank gun can not effectively break through the front armor of MBT-X8 under the general battle distance. Even if it is penetrated due to various accidents, multiple fire fighting equipment and automatic fire-extinguishing door can also respond reliably in a very short time, and quickly extinguish the fire caused by it, or protect the crew as much as possible after the ammunition is ignited.

As the introduction of composite armor inevitably takes up part of the space, Vickers has to take the second place in the selection of electronic equipment; although MBT-X8 has a complete range of electronic equipment, it is not the best choice to find: Excpet the fire control computer and tactical communication terminal, the rest of the equipment such as bidirectional stabilizer, vehicle infrared night vision device and optics sight is the product of the previous generation. These old electronic equipment whose production lines have not been shut down not only has more inventory, but also can carry out a new round of mass production at any time, which naturally can greatly reduce the production cost of the whole vehicle.

By contrast, the design by General Dynamics of the United States appears to be stable; in addition to the unique four treads design, the most striking choice is the gas turbine: a "heart" with output power of 1100 horse power, AGT-1100 vehicle gas turbine from Lycoming company. Compared with the traditional four stroke diesel engine, even though the gas turbine has the disadvantages of high fuel consumption and being large heat source, it can not cover up its advantages: excellent acceleration performance, starting up speed in cold environment, using various kinds of fuel in emergency, etc. The Edenia army believes that in Europe, where the temperature is relatively low and the battlefield situation is complex, these advantages may be the key to victory. The MBT-X8, which can be fully started up in just a few minutes while the Soviet armored forces still need 20 minutes to warm up, will undoubtedly give the Allied armored forces in mobile operations more tactical advantages.

In addition, it has to be mentioned that since the Edenia army, which has always paid attention to information warfare and multi service cooperation, is still not satisfied with the information level of the prototype MBT-X8, after the preliminary review, General Dynamics redesigned a large laser designate system and a series of sensors for it. The appearance is the large box on the top of the MBT-X8 turret and two "braids" at the tail of the turret. After switching to the laser designator on the battlefield and designating the target, the MBT-X8 will input a large amount of data, such as temperature, humidity, wind speed, target distance and target speed, into the fire control system for integration operation, and the results of the target digital model will be synchronized to the war zone data link; in this state, the main gun firing will seriously affect the data collection and calculation, so the crew members will strictly abide by the rules: at the cost of losing their own fire ability, assist all friendly units in fire control data correction, so that they can carry out more accurate and lethal attacks on the target with higher efficiency.

After all aspects of the design were determined, the MBT-X8 finished the finalization and final examine of the whole vehicle, and obtained the code name of "Guardian" after mass production, even though its original design was to carry out counterattack operations in the European battlefield after the fall of Rhine, rather than defensive operations. Besides, the cost of the early Guardian Tanks was not low. Although this was contrary to the requirements of the United Kingdom army at the beginning, because of its excellent performance, the United Kingdom "ignored" this defect and approved the bulk procurement and troop deployment of the Guardians.

Of course, there is also a intimate design detail: considering the comfort of the "Guardian" crew and the need to maintain morale in the long-term continuous combat situation, Vickers has designed a small folding toilet in the middle of the car body with the intimate advice of the United Kingdom army. This kind of toilet with negative pressure design can effectively avoid the emission of "odor" Come on, but it's really not easy to use it normally, especially in a small car. In the corner of the tail cabin, the vehicle is also equipped with a small electric stove, which is used to heat drinks and rations such as black tea. This device is much easier to use than the disposable heating bag or folding stove of infantry. Therefore, many times, the Guardian crew will receive "gifts" from the infantries, and the crew are happy to give the permission to use the small electric stove.

Although the Guardian Tank is the first established and mass-produced main battle tank of several major forces in the world, they still played the whole field conscientiously. In all regions on the long front, whether it is the European plains with thousands of miles of fertile fields, the smoky desert of Africa, or the humid and hot Pacific Islands, we can see the "Guardian". It can even be said that it has become one of the symbols of the army of freedom, just like its companion Prism Tanks.

"She may not be the best, but she's absolutely trustworthy, especially when you're huddled in a foxhole to avoid the enemy's damned tanks." This is what a tired looking army corporal said in an interview with a field reporter. Perhaps this also represents the aspirations of countless allied grass-roots soldiers. Compared with mirage tanks and other heavy armored vehicles that need to be deployed at fixed points due to their small amount and special tactics, MBT-X8 is the real one with the longest battle time and the most lives saved guardian.

## Notes from the Field

Battlefield reconnaissance has revealed at least these facts about the Guardian Tank:

**The Armored Backbone** - As early as before the war, mass production of Guardian Tanks began, and many allied factories accumulated enough experience in their production. In addition, with the highly automated assembly line of vehicle factories, the cost of Guardian Tanks has been reduced to a quite low level. As a result, Allied commanders with Heightened Clearance can deploy more guardians under the same conditions.

**English Longbow** - Man loaded Guardian Tanks don't fire fast,but the 105mm rifled gun has extremely high accuracy and fire power, which is very similar to the Longbowman in Britain hundreds of years ago. They can effectively deal with the enemy's light armored groups, but when facing heavy armored targets, the Allied Command generally recommends that they should give priority to fire with concentrated fire, or ask for air support.

**Spotlight** - Although the Guardian Tank is not outstanding in every aspect, it does not mean that it is a mediocre tank. Many careless Soviet and Celestial tank operators suffered from the fire of allied army and air force after hearing the laser warning.Some survivors pointed out the effect of these laser designator. the Soviet Army's action was to require the army to give priority to attacking the guardians who used laser designator; Celestial and Imperial suggested that the designated Qilin tank should evacuate according to the situation, or activate electromagnetic deflection field or nano deflectors to attract fire.

**Beware of Air** - In order to reduce the purchase price of single vehicle, the equipment planning committee, which has full confidence in its own air force, cancelled the equiping of vehicle-mounted anti-air machine guns. However, the actual combat situation is changing rapidly, and even in the areas with air supremacy power, it is difficult to guarantee that there will be no enemy aircraft breaked through. For example, some daring pilots of the Soviet Union's Ilyushin attacker often choose to make ultra-low altitude penetration from the side lobe direction of the Allied radar, and the transforming combat robots from Empire of the Rising Sun are really unpredictable. Both of them have successfully attacked and evacuated many times. Therefore, the Allied front-line commanders have repeatedly stressed that armored forces must cooperate with javelin soldiers and multigunner IFVs; of course, it would be better to have the escort of their own Apollo Fighters.

## Notes

This article is an unofficial translated article.