Real AFV's learn from toy tanks

One of the biggest problems for soldiers riding inside armoured vehicles is that the quality of the ride is far from optimal: it's so physically tiring that two hours of riding can reduce the combat effectiveness of the troops dramatically. This is about to change:

Rattling along in the "washing-machine environment" of an armoured personnel-carrier (APC) on steel tracks can shake the soldiers inside to the point of exhaustion, according to Dan Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a think-tank in Arlington, Virginia. And J.G. Brunbech, an APC expert at the Danish Army Material Command in Oksboel, observes that the crew's limbs are prone to becoming prickly and numb, and their hands get tired, because they must grip the vehicle's safety handles tightly. The vehicle itself suffers, too. The vibrations cause rapid wear and tear — not to mention outright damage, especially to electronics.

In the past, engineers have tried to reduce these vibrations by fixing rubber pads to the treads. The pads wear out quickly, however, and often get torn or even melted. But now tough, new rubbers have come to the rescue. Moreover, these rubbers are not being used just as pads. Instead, they are crafted into enormous rubber bands that replace the steel tracks completely. The Danes are converting their entire APC fleet to rubber tracks. This will increase the amount of time a soldier can safely spend on board from just one and a half hours to ten hours.

Details of how the new super-rubbers are made are still classified, but the results are not, and they are impressive. Rubber tracks weigh less than half as much as their steel counterparts. That, in turn, allows the weight of the suspension system to be reduced by 25%. All this can cut fuel consumption by as much as 30%, says TACOM, the American army's Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command.

There's also a Canadian tie-in:

As a result of all this, Soucy International of Drummondville, Quebec, one of the firms that makes the tracks, reports booming business. The armed forces of both Canada and Norway have converted almost all their APCs to tracks made by Soucy. Those of several other countries, including Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Singapore and Sweden, are following suit or are in the advanced stages of testing the tracks. France plans to start tests next year. And although America has not sent APCs with rubber tracks into action, they form part of Future Combat Systems, the Department of Defence's main modernisation programme.

At the moment, rubber tracks can support only vehicles weighing less than 20 tonnes. They are not strong enough for 50-tonne battle tanks. But this is changing. The MGV, for example, will weigh 30 tonnes, and Canada recently began a trial of rubber tracks on the Mobile Tactical Vehicle Light (MTVL), a 22-tonne APC. If the MTVL passes muster it will join Canada's rubber-tracked 20-tonne M113 APCs in Afghanistan. Soucy, meanwhile, is developing rubber tracks for full-sized tanks. Warfare, it seems, is about to get quieter.